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“I told Dad I was too busy for stupid shit like this,” says Erin, trying to affix the fishhook design of the earring to the backing piece. As angry as she is, her aim is affected enough to draw the process out further than necessary. The hooks jingle and sing, knocking bits of decorative metal into each other.
At his spot from the door, Dream watches her self-destruction begin to escalate, inanimate objects now on the receiving end. The room is a mess, with a mesh of work and home on the ground, serving as the collateral damage to this walking disaster.
She tries to calm her hair with a few vicious tugs of the brush, ripping through loose strands that scrape like Velcro as the bristles part them.
“Calm down,” he says, feeling pain in the roots of his scalp just from watching.
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” she snaps back. She throws the brush to the table, the dull sound echoing in the room. The force drives a crack into the handle.
Tamed, Dream keeps his head down, only using his peripherals to view her. He likes his arms and his legs a lot; he won’t risk losing them by intervening when she’s like this.
She smooths down her blouse, flicking a piece of invisible lint from her shoulder. Staring intently in the mirror, she takes a long look at herself. It’s a fitted look, one belonging to a position of success such as hers. As far as venue-appropriate clothing goes, however, it’s missing a string of pearls, a garter, and some lace.
Her lips tug into a frown. Tugging on her suit jacket for the third time makes no difference than it did the first; she can’t make herself look good enough for the occasion.
“Come on, let’s go.” She shoulders past him, walking at a pace so brisk that his long legs can’t catch up without being pushed into a jog first.
Erin doesn’t hold the front door open for him, her sights set on the vehicle that’s pulled up to take them into the facility. The passenger window is tinted so dark that it looks like there’s no driver, just an abandoned black car riding up on the edge of the curb. Pedestrians must walk around it, already knowing from the red on the license plate that it has the right of way.
Dream slides into the backseat, forced to pull his knees up so that they don’t smash into the seat in front of him. Erin, for whatever reason, doesn’t move her seat up to remedy that. Dream is practically scrunched up like a sardine and voicing his complaints does nothing to spur her into action; instead, she checks her nail polish for chips. For good measure, he gives her a good kick. She ignores it.
The windshield wipers brush away some of the sky’s tears, a steady back and forth motion that becomes hypnotic. Dream uses his face to unlock the contents of his phone, clicking on the top banner that takes him to his messages. A long paragraph of text is clipped by the contact information. If he had to guess, it probably goes on long enough to be a thesis dissertation.
“Is it Dad?” Erin asks from the front, turning her head at the last second so that it’s not obvious she was looking.
Dream pretends not to have noticed. “Yeah.”
She thinks for a second, choosing her words carefully. “He’s still not coming, right?”
“Nope, just wanted to know if we were on the road.”
Erin’s arms splay out, gesturing at the road ahead of them. “Well, obviously.”
The driver looks over. For embarrassment’s sake, she stops. Dream turns his attention back down to the screen, where the incoming messages in his inbox flood beyond what’s reasonable for him to get to in a day. The ones that aren’t marked urgent are forwarded or deleted. Twenty minutes later and it’s no better; it’s a pit that for every shovel of dirt he tosses over his shoulder, five more get dumped in.
Erin’s caw is what makes him look up, the car rolling to a stop in front of an intimidating black building with red flags at half-mast out front. The driver comes around to open the door for them both, the initial glare of the sun poking out from the clouds making him shield a hand over his eyes as walks around the back to join his sister’s side. She’s got her small purse fit with a gold clasp in the crook of her arm, clutched close to herself as she walks by the legions of guards stationed out front.
The interior has proper air conditioning, removing them from the humidity that is smothering the city in a thick plume of smog. The glass installations box the room in, with the facilities hiding behind service desks manned by people in form-fitting uniforms that close up around their necks. They type away at their keyboards with their eyes on the monitors, not even sparing them a glance as they pass. It all evokes a sterile feeling, though the smell of bleach is noticeably absent.
The registration is in Erin’s name, so he lets her rattle out the personal details to the person they’re supposed to be meeting as he watches the monitor behind the receptionist show a pre-recorded series of advertisements for the company. It’s something you would see in the waiting room inside of a doctor’s office or a hotel check-in, not an institution. Too much post-production and cheek-hurting smiles from late-night talk show interviews make the promotional material’s trajectory veer into absurdity. Dream can’t look away, he wants to see how ridiculous it gets. Every time the subtitles spell the word luxury out for him, he can’t help but look at the monochrome stripes and marble patterns and think, “here?”
Through white-tiled walkways and ill-lit rooms, they are eventually led deeper into the building’s stomach to where the dorms are. The high-tech begins to thin out into glass barriers that separate them from the people on the other side. They twist and turn through a labyrinthian plan that requires two key cards to navigate through, the likes of which residents wouldn’t have. The further they descend, the more aseptic the place looks. Even mold couldn’t grow through the cracks in the floor here.
Finally, they reach what looks like a hiring office. From the outside, the door looks like any other: blank besides for a number plate, a simple white surface. Inside, there’s a slate desk with two padded desk chairs on either side, the kind that would belong to a home office. Besides for some gold accentuation and a spider plant to the right of the computer, it’s more varying shades of grey.
“Well, this sure is a dreary place,” Dream comments as he seats himself.
Erin joins in with a laugh. “I thought they were growing most of these models in the sun, not a nuclear bunker.”
The attendant that is waiting on them offers champagne, which Erin takes with her outstretched hand. He’s not a word into telling her it’s a bad idea when she takes a generous gulp of it.
“What?” she asks him. “May as well be drunk for this.”
He unsuccessfully tries to take it from her, causing her to spill some of the drink down the side of the chair.
She laughs into her next sip, uncaring for the mess she’s made. “Don’t try to take the fun away from me.” As she releases the rim, a bright red lipstick mark is left behind.
They’re not left alone for long, a suited woman and her entourage of bodyguards with outerwear unable to contain their Kevlar enter the room from behind them. She sits on the other side of the desk in the leather-backed chair, tucking a stray hair behind her ear that’s escaped from the bun so tight that it’s pulling her face back. Before they begin, she nudges a gold-plated nameplate that says Amanda.
“Are we ready to see the first batch?” she asks cooly. Something about her sharpened dentures makes her look carnivorous.
Since Erin doesn’t seem inclined to talk, Dream answers for her. “Send them in.”
From behind the interviewer, some of the vested facility members bring in a younger man wearing a simple white button-up. He holds a hand out for Erin to shake, which she does reluctantly. Clearly, the man is not expecting her to embody proper etiquette as she takes it, holding on until he releases first.
“Erin, this is Noah,” Amanda introduces him.
Noah, soft-spoken, says hello. He can barely be heard over the ventilation unit pumping filtered air through the inlets.
When they said these men were orphans and hand-selected lower-class citizens, he didn’t have high expectations for their options. To his surprise, they all have a skill they have honed and a completed education certified by the government. If they so wanted, they could put them to work and expect an easy income. Erin is impartial to it, asking questions so vague that many of them don’t know how to answer. They default on stories about who they were before they came here, as if that’s not going to make his sister dig her heels in deeper.
Most of them ignore Dream, by now knowing the protocol when it comes to chaperones. Even though he has the power to accept or decline matches on his father’s behalf, there’s a mutual understanding that they’re never going to get that far. He doesn’t want to make their relationship worse than it already is, caused by the forced occupancy of their estate and the lack of hiding spaces inside of it. He’s seen her skeletons.
The sixth man, Luis, is sent out with the others. He turns at the door, about to say something else to them, but is unable to realize it before he’s not-so-subtly pushed out, to the point of nearly tripping over his feet. It would be quite a dramatic performance, if Erin was even looking up to see it.
Dream turns to her. “Nothing?”
“These men are all the same.” She takes a noticeable sip of the champagne, draining the flute quite a bit before she speaks again. “I don’t want some boy-toy or accessory for the house, and I certainly don’t need someone to show me up.”
“Then what are you looking for?”
Her lips stop, wide open. The contradicting statements hit her then. She at least has the decency to shake her head.
“I don’t want any of this,” she says.
“Just make the best of it. You’re hardly going to be at the house anyway, so choose someone that’s nice on the eyes and get it over with.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Champagne sloshes over the flute, onto her fingers.
“We all good in here?” Amanda pokes her head in, about to bring the next man in. Dream holds his tongue, using his teeth to ensure it doesn’t get a mind of its own and curse his sister for being a pain in the ass.
Just like before, Amanda precedes the arrival and dusts the invisible dust from their shoulders. The man is sat beside her, where she can be of support to him.
“This is George,” says Amanda. She nudges him with her elbow to make him look up from his shined shoes.
George has a nice face, rather unlike the few they’ve seen. The ones that came before looked like they were cultivated in a petri dish of similar assets, having a few distinctions on an otherwise copy-paste bone structure. There are parts of him that haven’t been tailored to be in a model catalogue. Those imperfections make him look closer. A few stubborn freckles intersperse on his cheeks, even though Dream is assured that the man hasn’t been outside in months.
Erin uses her flute to point. “How old are you? Seventeen?” The angle the glass tilts at threatens to spill the precious drops of the amber liquid.
“Twenty-four,” George answers, eyes down.
Erin is shocked about the age, blowing air out of her nostrils. Dream is more interested in his pronunciation. It sounds like it could be the start of an accent.
“Twenty-four, that makes you one of the oldest we’ve seen. You must have been here for a while,” says Erin.
“I--yes.” Caught unaware, his face blooms in shades of a red hue.
“Why? What’s wrong with you?”
“Erin,” Dream cautions. She’s too blunt for her own good. The other siblings used to joke that it was the reason why she would never get married. The truth to those words couldn’t come at a worse time.
George, who knows he’s being evaluated, doesn’t say an immediate answer out loud. His tongue prods at the inside of his cheek, creating a tiny swell.
“I wasn’t thinking about marriage until now,” he says. There’s an indiscriminate turn of his head, as if asking for the approval from his superior. Her reaction is subpar, not swayed either way.
“What were you doing before?” Dream asks, if only to move things along.
George looks grateful: his breathing begins to slow. “Computing: my background is in computer science.”
It strikes a familiar chord; finally, something he can talk about with accuracy. “I was originally going to go into it, before my father put me into business.”
“It’s a good career, if you like peace and quiet.”
Dream breathily laughs. “God knows we could all use more of that.” He uncrosses his legs. “So you’re all things computers?”
“I used to work on my father’s old TRS-80 back in the day and that got me into it.”
Dream leans forward in his seat at the sound of the brand. “We had a computer like that once, the one with the big green screen at startup?” He looks to Erin, who offers no help. Figures, she never spent much time on it anyway, already focused on rising up in her career by the time he was learning his first hotkeys.
His response gets their first genuine smile of the day. “Yeah. A microcomputer was all we could afford, but I did work on other machines.”
Before Dream can ask what they are, Erin takes the reins back. “So you had a father. Does that mean you’re not an orphan?”
It’s a contentious topic to switch to; any discomfort lifted by talking to Dream is back, pushing the man’s bony shoulders in. They must be withholding food from him: no person is naturally that skinny. None of the other men looked like that: all were able to fill their clothes and use them to flash a bit of bicep.
“Yeah. I have parents. They brought me here.”
“They sold you?”
George balks, his eyebrows furrowing. “No, I, um, got an offer because I was top of my class.” He tucks his hands into his lap where they can’t be seen. Amanda takes an audible breath.
“So you must be pretty smart,” says Dream.
George nods.
“Do you have any other hobbies?”
His pupils swipe to the right, looking away. There’s an idea on his face, but it’s either too inappropriate or embarrassing to say.
“I liked games,” he says, leaving it at that.
“Dream played a lot of computer games as a kid,” says Erin, intending to embarrass.
“Did you have any home consoles?” asks George.
“A long time ago; I haven’t touched them in a while.” His father made sure of that, disposing of them as soon as it became clear Dream preferred them to making friends. “Did you?”
“Only at friends’ houses.”
“Was your family poor?” It’s only when the words are already said that their inappropriate nature strikes him over the head. No wonder Erin is so sharp, it must run in the family.
“We...didn’t have a lot. We weren’t homeless or anything; my father was a software engineer. My sister was sick so they had to take care of her. I did a lot of odd jobs to help out and that’s how I got better at coding.”
“Do you have your degree?”
He nods.
“Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be out supporting your family?”
“Maybe we should let Erin ask him some more questions,” says Amanda, firm in her tone. She probably doesn’t intend for it to be condescending, but that doesn’t make Dream appreciate it.
“I don’t have much else to ask,” Erin says with a shrug. “George, I could beat around the bush and ask what your favourite colour is and where you come from but I’m not sure if it’d make a difference.”
George pretends to smile. “I understand. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” He looks at Dream, a thought passing over his eyes. The urge to say goodbye must be there, but it’s not acted upon.
“You too,” she says, the first time she’s been cordial that day. Dream mouths the words along with her.
Amanda stands, ready to shepherd George out of the room so he can be replaced with the next clone in the system. Dream leans away from the backrest to watch him for as long as he can. They hadn’t even scratched the surface of how many questions Dream could ask him. George certainly looks the part of a person you’d hire to hang from your arm and nod at every word you say, but he might have been one of the first ones to ask him a question. He’s unique in that regard.
An epiphany hits.
“Can we take a quick break?” Dream asks Amanda. She looks just as relieved as Erin does at the idea. There’s probably only so long she can pretend she doesn’t want to rip her hair out at their indecisiveness.
They don’t go far: they get as far as a few steps into the hall and have to make do. The tiled ceilings bore down on them, lit by tubes of fluorescent light fixtures mounted to the top. No windows means no looking to the outside world, not even to get lost in the lines of traffic congesting the intersections.
Erin sucks a dramatic breath in.
“Thank God, I needed to get out of that room.” She messily rubs a hand through her hair, the gallons of hairspray unable to hold it together.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t have to go back in it eventually.”
She snorts. “Don’t do that, it’s not cute.”
“I’m not trying to be ‘cute.’ I’m trying to prepare you for what’s about to happen, because it seems like it’s not getting into your thick skull.”
“Christ, I know what’s happening. I don’t need you to tell me over and over again like I’m five.”
“So make an effort.”
“I don’t like any of them. I’d sooner kiss a frog.”
“You were the one that wanted to come to an Institution.”
She sticks her finger out at him. “No, Dad threatened to send me here.”
“After you said you’d prefer this to dating one of his rich friends.”
“What difference does it make? I don’t have a say either way.” She crosses her arms, leaning against the wall. Her sleeves ride up, creating poofy shoulder pads.
Dream kicks at an imaginary piece of rubble with his shoe. He shoves his hands into his pockets to hide how much they’re trembling at the thought he’s about to say.
“Want to strike a deal?”
Her eyebrow quirks. “You want to lie to Dad?” She sounds a bit too excited at the prospect, so much that he’s bound to let her down. It won’t be the first disappointment of the day.
“Kinda. Look, there’s no way you’re getting out of a marriage. You burned your bridges with any well-off man that would take you and now you’re at a place tailored to the lonely, the sick, and the desperate. What you just saw,” he points at the door, “is only going to get worse. You’re about to dig your way to the bottom of the barrel.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’re not going to have a love match with any of these men. The whole point of this is to save face; what are they going to say when you openly despise him in public?”
“It’s none of their business how I live my life.”
“You’re a very notorious public figure, of course they’re going to care. This is already going to make headlines.”
“You act like I’m the first person to go to an Institution for a marriage.”
“But, I can at least lie to our parents. I can lie to whoever asks and say you’re doing your...wifely duties, or whatever. It doesn’t matter who you marry; you can go on with your life as normal. You won’t even have to sleep in the same room as him.”
“Why would you do that?”
Dream takes a deep breath in. He waits for it to fill his lungs. “I want to choose the guy.”
“Who? The guy I marry?”
“Yeah.”
A strangled noise rips from her throat. “Sure, why not. You pick the guy, then you pick what job you want for me and take over the family business. After all, you’re the favoured son; Dad’s just doing this to get rid of me.”
He walks up to her, interrupting her pity party. “Can you focus? Is it yes or no? Because we’re about to go back in there and start the process all over again. I have nowhere else to be.”
Erin chokes the circulation in her hands, squeezing her fists together until the fingers bleach white. It’s almost sad to see such a proud creature backed into a corner, but it’s not like there was another feasible option to pick from.
“You’re going to make liars out of us both,” she says, following a long period of silence.
“Is it a deal or not?”
“Fuck you.” She turns the cold shoulder to him. “You better not pick an annoying shit.”
She stands resolutely in place, making Dream dirty his hands (as per the usual). He doesn’t share her lack of enthusiasm, catching Amanda by surprise as she tinkers with the dials on her wristwatch.
“So, are we ready to--”
“We’ve decided: we’re going with George.”
Amanda’s face tightens with worry. “Are you sure? We have a couple more to see. You’re not limited to what we saw.” She talks over his shoulder, where he assumes Erin has reluctantly made her way over.
“Yes, we’re sure,” Dream says, so close on the heels of what Amanda’s said that it just barely misses interrupting her. “When can we expect to take him home?”
“We usually wait until the next day after an application is filled out to give them some time to adjust to the news. But seriously, I have other recommendations--”
“I know this is part of your whole sales pitch, but we’ve made up our minds.”
“We?” Amanda questions with capricious lips. She’s fraying his last nerve.
“Yes,” Erin says, barely louder than a mumble. Finally taking some responsibility, she inserts herself into the stand-off. “It’s a family thing.”
They’re under intense scrutiny for a few seconds, as Amanda’s eyes dart from one sibling to the next, possibly to see who will fold. She doesn’t get the reaction she’s expecting, which ultimately has her admit defeat.
“Okay.” She scribbles chicken scratch onto the top of a stapled piece of paper, ripping it out of the stack and using a paperclip to adhere it to a manilla folder.
“Okay?” Dream asks.
“Yeah. You can follow them to the door.” Over his shoulder, she points him to a few of the escorts that followed them in, now ready to see them out.
She takes both of their signatures before they leave, giving the photographic evidence of it to a person so young that they’re probably fresh out of secondary school. It’s taken away, deep into the gluttonous cavern of the hall where it will be input into computer logs.
“George?” Erin whispers to him through clenched teeth on the way out. “Seriously?”
He fires back. “Why, did you have someone you liked better?”
Judging by her lack of a response, it hits where it needs to.
Outside, the downpour is beginning to do gymnastics, flung around by the wind that winds its way between skyscrapers and city monuments. He looks over his shoulder, up above the flags that risk having their fabric ripped by the storm to the spire. It’s haunting to think that if they were a few digits poorer and wanting to marry back into financial stability that they could send him to a place like this. The socialites like to talk about what goes on beyond those walls with a mischievous look, like someone has tickled the hair of their moustache.
The ride home is a time for reconciliation. One touch of the pen, and their lives changed forever. Erin looks to be grappling with that, looking at her reflection in the side mirror. A mist obscures the face looking back at her. Elbow by the window, she holds her forehead in one hand. It’s a look that ages her a few years. She’s getting older, and so is he.
He has the sense to give her space as they walk back into the family house; she’s probably going to drown her sorrows in the kitchen wine rack, so it’s his cue to go upstairs and get to that growing list of commitments while the opportunity is ripe.
“Wait,” she yanks him from the back of the collar. His windpipe, feeling the noose of cotton tighten against it, spasms.
“What?” he snaps, turning on his heel to face her.
“You’re not telling me something.” She gives him the most disapproving look she can, something their mother would reserve for them when they were acting out of line in public. It’s lost its effectiveness over the years.
“You should be thanking me.”
“For what? I don’t get why you’re so invested in this. If this whole thing is an ego trip to control who I’m spending the rest of my life with, at least be open about it. I don’t need this holier-than-thou act, I get enough of that shit from Dad. For someone who says he doesn’t want to be anything like him, you’re not convincing me.”
“I did you a favour. I know you; you would walk out of there hating everyone, go to three different other facilities to do the same, and before you know it Dad would’ve lost his patience and set you up with some rich guy’s insufferable kid.”
She crosses her arms, looking away. “At least it wouldn’t look like I bent over that easily for a pretty boy.”
“God, could you put your pride aside for one minute? Jesus.”
Erin’s cheeks are puffed up. The red on them travels up to her ears, which are practically crackling with fire at the tips. She slams her purse on the counter, her wallet spilling out and the loose change rattling inside.
Just when he thinks the conversation is over: “Does this have anything to do with that pool boy?” she says, venomous. It’s thrown out for him to trip on.
Dream’s body locks up. He nearly falls over, like a store mannequin that got a push from behind.
“What?”
“You heard me. This wouldn’t be the first time.”
He whirls around, all teeth and what’s about to be a few broken blood vessels. “Don’t talk about that!”
Erin wipes a few drops of saliva that landed on her chin with the back of her hand. “Don’t be disgusting,” she says, the skin on her nose raised in uneven wrinkles. “You can hide that shit from Mom but you can’t hide it from me. What’s really going on?”
“Nothing. It’s none of your business.”
“It is my business when it affects who I’m bringing home! You dragged me into this, so at least give me a straight answer. I have to spend the rest of my life with this man so if you want him for some other reason, I deserve to know.”
Dream shakes his head, refusing her an answer. He starts toward the switchback stairs, almost up at the quarter landing when the tapping of Erin’s heels grows louder.
“You tormented that boy,” she accuses him, glaring at him from the bottom step.
“Who?”
“You know who I’m talking about. Jacque. The one you got fired.” It cracks through the air like a whip, frighteningly precise with its target.
He feigns indifference, rubbing his forehead. “He was a scrounger, he wanted our money! He deserved everything he got.”
“I think you’re downplaying your involvement.”
“Whatever, I’m not talking about this with you. Get the house ready,” he calls down, already up to the second story. He pronounces his steps, hoping that she hears him stomping and takes the hint.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m some Stepford Wife!” She runs up the stairs, catching him before he can close the door on her. She sticks her foot out to ensure it can’t happen.
“Move, Erin.” His voice is the deepest it's ever been, heavy with shame.
“No. Are you doing this because you like George? Your eyes lit up when he was talking.”
“He was interesting, what do you want me to say?”
“He was beautiful, and you and I both know it.”
There’s no sense deterring her now; she’s caught the smell of blood and will chase the scent where it leads. Already, there’s a sense of knowing in her eyes that denial can’t erase.
“Look, I won’t tell anyone.” She trims the sharp corners in her voice. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“You can’t,” he agrees. “Dad would kill me.”
They take a second to deliberate, at an armistice with both rifles up in the air, still loaded but ready to fire at the twitch of their trigger finger.
“You better take care of that boy when I’m not around. I can’t deal with marriage fraud rumours. Not now, not ever,” she says, quietly.
She removes her foot, the nude liner sock ripped up the side. In lieu of words, she lets her eyes do the rest of the talking. Eyelashes clumped with hours-old mascara are the voice of disapproval, the lasting impression as she moves away.
His heart is palpitating when he shuts and then leans against the door to his bedroom, needing it to stay standing on both feet. Something has unzipped him and he can’t hold it together. Thinking his heart is to blame, a hand autonomously rises to his chest. The thumping grows prouder by the moment.
George is unfamiliar with the wealth of the place, bunching his shoulders up to make himself look smaller behind the columns supporting the entryway. His arms stay stuck by his sides, not acting on the curiosity that’s bound to be beneath the surface. Years of old money stares back at him, picking at his scabs.
“I can’t believe they delivered you here so late. How long does someone need to pack?” Erin never misses the opportunity to complain, already pulling at the threads that poke out from his wear.
“They had to process me,” George says, leaving it at that. Dream would never consider his sister to be a scary person, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at George: he shakes when he thinks she isn’t looking.
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll tell the cooks to prepare another plate. For now you can…” she stumbles, not sure what to say next, “I don’t know, just get your bearings. We should only be a minute down here, so wash up quick.”
Once finished, she turns tail and flees. George was about to mouth words to her, now left staring ahead in the place where she’s supposed to be.
Dream grabs him by the shoulder. “Follow me,” he says, staring up to the west wing. “I’ll show you your room.”
It used to be the old guestroom, before some of the cats got in and clawed up the comforter and the curtains after being locked inside. After that, the guests stayed downstairs, the original room no longer being commissioned for use. In what little time they’ve had, the maids have stripped the bed sheets and dusted the tops of the armoire and end tables.
George only gets as far as placing his bag down and taking a seat on the edge of the bed before a voice calls from deep within the inner workings of the house. They return to where they began, the dying sun enticing the glare of golden hour into the foyer. George looks at it with scorn, his eyes screwed up until his lashes screen it through a keratin barrier. Makes sense: he’s like a worm that’s been unearthed from deep below, who probably accepted some time ago that he was not making it to the surface.
The table has already been set, plum tablecloths in place of where their plates will be. A rich smell wafts in from the kitchen, a precursor to what they’re about to gorge themselves on. Since noon, Dream hasn’t been able to eat much more than anything that could fit in the palm of his hand. His stress tolerance was already low; throw in a new face and a change in living situation and it throws the whole circadian rhythm off.
George tries to look to Erin for guidance on where to sit and what routine they follow in the house, but it’s the blind leading the blind. Instead of giving him a gentle learning curve, she walks up her ninety-degree angle and expects him to follow. He sits alone, while she knows the comforts of home.
The main course is brought out all at once: roasted potatoes, green beans, and seasoned baked chicken. The portion sizes are plentiful, with the promise of leftovers for tomorrow. He’s generous with the helpings of gravy he layers on top, passing the ceramic butter dish over to Erin, who’s substituted her potatoes for bread.
George is under situational paralysis, unsure what to take first. He teases a few of the serving platters before deciding on the potatoes, which he takes only a small amount of. He eats them one at a time, savouring each bite.
It’s harder for Dream to see his whole face. Erin is the one sitting opposed to George, and she makes full use of her captive audience.
“I run a pretty tight house, so you just have to be mindful of not getting in my way,” she says, swiping the loaded butterknife over the slice she has in hand. Surprisingly, she doesn’t eat the bread after, moving on to stab at the greens.
Mid-chew, George nods.
“Can you cook? It would help the housemaids a bit if you could prepare dinner for when I get home.”
“I’m, uh, I’ve cooked a bit,” he says with downturned eyes that deny the claim. “But I’m happy to work. I could give you your space.”
Erin swallows her bite, an ugly scrape sounding from the fork as her teeth grate over it. “That’s not necessary; I’m an executive on the advertising branch at Alpite Corporation, if you’re familiar. I don’t need you also working. We’ll…find something for you to do here.”
Around a rinse of water, Dream pulls a face. She kicks him in the shin, doing so under the table while also managing to make it so obvious that she may as well have flashed a big neon sign with arrows pointing to it.
“Ignore him. Just focus on settling in for tonight.” She stabs several ingredients for her last bite, forcing it into her mouth until she nearly chokes on it. “I have work to do anyway.”
“Did you want me to come with you?”
“No. Dream will be here if you have any other questions.” She wipes her mouth with the serviette, leaving it beside her plate for one of the staff to pick up. The empty, but set, seat next to her is taken apart for a square of cloth to wrap her bread in, intended to be taken upstairs with her.
George follows her with his eyes as she leaves, trying to make sense of her tragic character. His food sits in front of him, slowly cooling to lukewarm temperature.
“Don’t mind her, she’s always pissy like this.” Dream saws into his potatoes with the side of his fork, too lazy to dirty the knife also.
Over the sound of cutlery, George sits in deep contemplation. A servant comes to take his empty glass away to be washed and he doesn’t even look up as it passes in front of him.
Dream swallows what’s in his mouth with a loud gulp. “You look a bit different. Did they give you a haircut?”
Unconsciously, George feels the back of his hair. “A small trim, said they wanted me to look my best.”
He’s got a foreign look in his eyes. Dream would bet a “small trim” was not the only thing they did to him. George’s face is so clean-shaven that one would doubt hair ever grew there. That’s at the top of a list with at least ten other bullet points on it. Whatever they did to him, only what’s beneath the pores will know what it was.
“It’s nice,” he lies. He misses the curls spilling down the back of his neck. Without the added length, his hair is straighter.
“Thanks.”
Dream uses his fork to gesture at George’s untouched green beans. “Be sure to finish your plate. You need to start eating more.”
Dream is about two bites away from being finished when George resumes eating, doing so with the same interest as a teenager crawling their way through an old, washed-out hobby. In slow motion, he clears the remaining scraps, the saliva probably doing more work to break down the bites than his teeth are.
Ten minutes later (maybe five, maybe fifteen, Dream isn’t counting) and the dishes get taken away to get the sticky residue sprayed out by the faucet. George is removed from his spot at the table in the same way, to where he will be cleaned and put away to look pretty, someplace where he won’t be smudged by the fingerprints of other people.
Dream dwells on that point, watching the back of George’s head as he climbs to the second story. When he’s behind him, no one’s looking and no one can see. George leaves behind no impression; they bathed him in unscented soap, then they made him wear grey and deprived him until his skin was as ashy as the uniforms they belted around his waist.
Even lost in his own world, George is a marvel to the eye. He navigates around the rectangular slabs of light coming in from the windows, tugging on the curtains until it’s been dimmed. Dream leans against the doorframe, a spectator to those first minutes when George is tripping on carpet threads he’s not used to. He sees him look around, at a room that hasn’t been lived in for so long.
“I don’t get why I’m here,” George says, having finally found the courage now that they’re alone.
Dream cocks his head, knocked outside of his mind. “Hm?”
“If I’m not allowed to work or go out and she doesn’t want to see me, what am I supposed to do?”
“You’ll do what is asked of you.”
George swallows the information down without grimacing. With Dream still in the room, he begins to unpack. Besides for two identical uniforms, two pairs of boxers, and what looks like casual sleepwear, just as muted as the other items, he’s got nothing else. It all fits in the upper drawer with room to spare. George stares at it for a moment before closing it with an audible sigh.
“You’re still here,” George says, not as a question.
Dream doesn’t have to answer him, so he chooses not to. He’s fine watching him for now.
George turns his head, not enough to see him, but at an angle where it’s made clear that he wants Dream to be listening.
“Does it ever get lonely, living in such a big house?” he asks.
“I’ve lived in big houses all my life. It’s normal for me.”
George sucks air in around his teeth. “I haven’t lived in a house for years.”
Dream looks up at the vaulted ceiling. “Yes, well, you could hardly call this a homely place. It’s my father’s; me and Erin just live here ‘cause it’s close to work and so he doesn’t have to pay speculation tax on it. Our younger siblings are off somewhere else, wherever he’s living this week; probably someplace too big for him.”
“At least it’s something. In the Institution, we lived six to a room. They used to cram us in bunk beds before guys started using them to injure themselves,” George prattles on, playing images on the inside of his head.
“What did you do all day?”
“Study, take what they called ‘life classes.’ They taught us how to be ‘good, lawful, and humble people,’ because that was the only way we were getting out of there.” He says it with enough certainty for the words to not be his own.
“When we met you, you said they chose you to go there, but why would they let your talents go to waste? I would’ve thought you would end up working for a company, not be auctioned off to the highest bidder.”
George lets out a tiny, insignificant laugh, as if about to say something funny. He clearly thinks the better of it, as his tone is inconsistent.
“Because that wasn’t the place I went to, not at first. I worked on their servers for years until I asked too many questions. Instead of disappearing me they just moved me around, and that’s where I ended up. Something about not wasting a pretty face.” It’s a lot more vindictive than Dream would expect.
“Disappearing?”
George finally looks at him. “You’re rich, not stupid.”
He’s shocked that George would be so open about it; seems he has looser lips than most. Dream moves his head to the side, both parts of his mouth pressed together. “Should you be talking about this with me?” he asks, more rhetorical than anything.
George takes the hint and shuts up. He stares at the drawer handles, pretending to twist them in his hands. There’s not much in the room for him to manipulate, considering all of his personal possessions can be counted on one hand.
Just because he didn’t want the guy to talk himself into trouble doesn’t mean he wanted him to stop completely. If anything, having George open up, however blasphemous, has given him a taste.
“What other computers have you worked with?” He pulls up the question that he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about.
George isn’t having it. “I don’t really want to talk about that.”
But I do, Dream thinks, frustrated. “Why?”
George doesn’t answer. He meanders over to the bed, flopping onto it. It bounces, which he doesn’t seem to expect. His knees draw up, preparing him in the event he’s launched ten feet in the air. It doesn’t quite happen, but there’s at least a laugh to be had at his expense.
“What did you think would happen?” asks Dream.
George pats at the mattress, like he’s never heard of the concept of springs.
“It’s a nice bed,” he says meekly. He smoothes the covers down, as if apologizing to it for the creases that he’s made.
It’s a nice room, probably nicer than anything he’s had both inside and out of the institutions. The place Dream saw with Erin was unsaturated from the ceiling to the grout beneath the floor tiles. No personality, nothing to distinguish one ward from another. He didn’t see the rooms, but deductive reasoning tells him that they wouldn’t have improved the situation much.
Dream sighs. “I promise we’ll get you some more things. So long as you’re not nailing things into the wall, the room is yours for the rest of your time here.”
George sits up. “I thought I would be sharing a bed with Erin?” He doesn’t sound emotionally invested, reading off by heart what was probably in the program they taught him, how he should be a dedicated husband.
“You two won’t be sleeping together.” He pauses, red rising to his face. “In the literal sense.”
Figuratively too, if Erin can get a word in. She’s lucky this isn’t the fifteenth century and there won’t be bedding ceremonies to check for the consummation of marriage. Though, knowing their parents, their attempts to humiliate her would go that far if they could.
“Maybe after the wedding?”
“Honestly, I don’t see the wedding changing things.”
George's face drops, though disappointed is not the word Dream would use to describe it. Dream justifies the expense of telling him: better he finds out now than later, when he’s become invested in a one-sided relationship.
He’s a pity to look at, more out of place than any of the interior design choices. He’s clutching the bed for a hold, acting like the room is going to chew him up and spit him out for being such an unpalatable flavour in the taste of all their mouths. It’s a world he hasn’t grown up in and is a few sizes too big; he has a queen bed with pillows on a side that will never be used, as cold as the day they were manufactured. Any engagement ring they get him will never be small enough to cling to his finger and promise commitment.
Dream invades the space for a second, wiping his hand down the mantle of a secondary dresser that opposes the bed. His hand comes away without a speck of dust.
“I’ll get you a computer. We’ll bring a desk in here.” He points to the space that the dresser occupies, staring at the wall as the architect inside of his mind imagines it happening.
He turns around, looking for approval.
“That okay? You can work on your own personal projects. You don’t even have to tell Erin.”
George nods, mumbling something to himself.
Sending the invoices for work can wait. The interns can work on the financial statements. He already has ideas about what he’d like to put here. George probably hasn’t touched a modern home computer in years, nothing like the productive machines they peddle underground and the tripping hazard of wires that sprawl out like poisonous jungle vines.
Since George has nothing else to add, Dream takes his leave, closing the door behind him. The last he sees of George is a voyeuristic stripe in the door, showing a silhouette outlined by a shroud of white, veiled by the pattern of the curtains. Dream stares for a moment, taking it in, before he lets the click of the latch tell George that he’s got his privacy, for what’s probably the first time in years.
Dream looks at the lock on the outside, effective when they were using the place as a glorified storage closet. One press of it, and a few tugs on the door would tell their visitor he’s stuck in his trophy cabinet from now on. Then comes clarity, the flash of an iron brand on his conscience, and he abandons the handle.
“So,” Dream whips around, startled at the voice coming from behind him, “are you happy now?”
It’s Erin, her face as blank as it was when George walked in the door. If she’s been there long enough, she knows what he was just thinking of doing.
“Shut up,” he says under his breath, grabbing her by the bicep and pulling her out of hearing range. She smacks at him in an attempt to free herself, but he won’t let go until he feels safe in the distance he’s laid down.
She digs her heels into the ground, impeding his progress. Never one to let things go, she waits for Dream to tire himself out before she asks what she came here for.
“How’s he feeling?” she says, pretending to sound concerned.
Dream doesn’t fall for it. “He doesn’t know what to think, probably because you can’t even bear to look at him.”
“I’m not the reason why he’s here.”
He motions down the hall. “You seriously can’t even share a room with him? He’s gonna know something is up.”
“Don’t act like you want us to share a bed. You’d put him in yours if you could.”
Dream shakes away the images of early Sunday rises, of the blinds casting columns of orange light onto two intertwined bodies. “I’m trying to make sure we don’t get caught.”
“He’s going to find out eventually. I don’t particularly care for guarding his feelings. That’s your job.”
He pinches his nasal ridge, taking in a deep swig of air. “Are you going to be like this when you two are out in public?”
“I’m not taking him out of the house, but if he wants to go out on his own, I don’t care. He’s not a dog.”
“I’m not asking you to walk your soon-to-be husband, I’m saying that he’s a person too.”
Her face pronounces the wrinkles harder, her eyebrows slipping from their arch and falling heavy on her undilated pupils.
“What about me? What about what I want?” She walks forward, backing Dream into the wall. Her finger jabs at her breastbone. “Our parents can’t be proud of me unless I have a husband on my arm. You wouldn’t know about that; they always loved you more.”
“That’s not true.”
“Why do you think they’re going to take your word over mine? You knew from the start that they were doing this to tie me down. I could be president of this country and they wouldn’t care unless I gave them a family first.”
Words surge to his mouth faster than he can speak them. “They had their reasons, don’t pretend it’s parental favouritism. You made your bed, so lie in it.”
“Whatever. I’m not going to bend over backward for this guy; I don’t know him, and I don’t want to. That’s not his fault, it’s just how it is.”
“Well tell him that! Don’t let him go on thinking that this is going to be the engagement he’s expecting.”
“If you want him to know, tell him yourself, since you’re apparently so much more mature than I am. You know what? Tell that to Dad when you come out to him. I’m sure his treatment of you won’t change.”
“Fuck off! The world doesn’t revolve around you.”
She flashes him the finger as she walks away, her pace quickening. He has half a mind to chase her, but the urge to do so is fleeting. She’s got wounds to lick, he’s got work to do.
He finds solace in the spotlight of his desk lamp, a cold and unfeeling colour that spills out on the ribs of his binder collection. His boss has a penchant for the old-fashioned way of paper, so the collection grows ever larger. A few spreadsheets try to escape, hanging from the sides of his desk, needing one gust to send them spiralling down into his wastebasket.
His right hand slams into his forehead, the skin at the crook of his arm pinched. There’s work to be done, he just won’t do it. His vision blurs and misshapes the diagrams he’s supposed to upload to the presentation for their investors. Labelling and heading them becomes a chore. His adulterous eyes look away. There’s a stranger in their home, the likes of which will change their lives forever.
He switches to thinking about the Institution, doing a bit of harmless research on his phone that takes him far from the lines of Calibri text. The search results yield celebrity couples, one member famous and the other produced by the system. They all came saddled with sob stories about having nothing until the invisible hand of the government held itself out and helped them to their feet.
Who wants to go through the trials of dating? Why not choose the safe option, of beautiful people that wear injection face masks with a serum made from antioxidants, who don’t need to be won over by hastily prepared bouquets trying to cram ten types of meanings into one flower arrangement? Their family was wealthy enough to buy into that promise, and all of the returns they saw were their own shade of lovely. People of half their income would maim each other to marry their daughters and sons to those men that were lined up for them, even if they couldn’t add any zeroes to their savings accounts. But it’s not about money--people rich enough to have that privilege aren’t counting--it’s about prestige.
He was naive enough to think there wasn’t something nefarious brimming under the scenes. It’s come into public fashion to be a philanthropist that saves the lives of the unfortunate with a marriage certificate, and that demand had to be met somehow. He didn’t think it would be a punishment. Then there’s George: a political dissident turned marriage stock, trying to redeem himself from a life of imprisonment. Said he’s as good as his body, now not even used for it; Erin won’t even try to pretend that he was ever her choice.
It’s sad, for him to be told his worth is tied to the ring that will slide onto his fingers, the vows said with two fingers crossed behind his wife’s back. They made sure he would be nothing but his looks. Now he’s nothing at all.
A trip downstairs to raid the fridge for something to occupy his mouth with doesn’t yield much. Two slices of dried mango are placed on the surface of his tongue and swallowed down. He massages the lump that water should have washed away, already too far up the stairs to justify going back for a quick sip.
He’s using his phone light to navigate through the darkened halls, the beam watching out for furniture on his behalf. It reaches out to George’s door, wedged into the wall. Seeing it brings on the enticement, snaking coils around his neck and whispering into his ear to get closer.
Dream lets that be his guide, giving it the flimsiest justifications to piece it together. He cuts the light from his phone when he gets to the handle, giving it an experimental turn. Unlocked.
He twists it in incremental motions, trying to reduce the noise as much as possible. Once it stalls, he gives it a gentle push. The creaks and groans it emits make the muscles in his arm tense. If the room’s inhabitant was awake, it would be a dead give-away that an intruder was entering. However, no lights are on inside. With the blinds obfuscating the natural light, the area has nothing to distinguish one ambiguous shape from another. Until his eyes adjust, it’s all painted from the same shade of black.
George is on the bed, sprawled out on top of the covers. One arm curls around his head. Dream walks closer to confirm his eyelids are pulled shut. He’s picturesque: an Ophelia about to float away. The contours on his face aren’t the artful strokes of oil on canvas but in this light, they could pretend they were.
Dream would give in to the temptation and touch them, if it wouldn’t rouse him from sleep. Instead, he wraps a hand around George’s ankle, stroking the skin with his thumb. George doesn’t stir. He massages the joints, unable to work into any of the soft tissues without it being noticeable. It’s an active investigation, tracing the veins that protrude. Some of it turns up bruises, barely visible. Had they been a few weeks earlier, he’s sure he’d find evidence of caning on each sole.
George tries to free his foot, mumbling under his breath. Dream lets it go, making a brief departure to the linen closet in the hall to find a suitable blanket to throw over him. The one he finds belonged to his younger sister, detailing a colourful knit pattern that looks embroidered from a distance. The ribs teeth as his finger as he brushes over them, worn from years of use. A few too many washes in the machine have made the friction draw blood to the surface when it’s rubbed carelessly. He wishes he had a better alternative.
It covers all of George and then some, the fabric’s ears reaching over the sides of the mattress. The only thing Dream leaves unearthed is George’s face, his nose poking out. Dream makes the trim collar George’s neck, brushing a stray curl behind his ear. There are so many imperfections he would fix, if only he had the time. Some he would leave, to show that their systems couldn’t make him the person they wanted; they can’t bloodlet the fight out of a rebel.
Waking on the other side won’t be easy for either of them. George draws the shorter end of the stick, likely to wake up alone in the house with both working members out at their offices by seven. They gave him the wrong impression by having everyone present at the dinner table. George is going to have to be independent from now on. No one is going to hold his hand, not in any context.
If he could, he would. Instead, he’s going to get him that computer, and maybe a few furnishings to touch up his space. They won’t be strangers, not in a house with walls this thin. Dream will be the hand that feeds, and hopefully George is hungry for a taste of freedom.