"Uh, hi," he says uncertainly and looks around, his eyes flickering to me now and then. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"
"You're the Potentate's son," Hannah says although I have no idea how she knows. A rush of gasps and another chorus of murmurs break out as Anton bends his head and his cheeks flare up.
"Shut up," Barooba says and everybody do. Then she turns to Anton. "Get in. It doesn't do you standing on our doorstep."
Anton takes the step inside, his hands deeply buried in his pockets. He only takes one out to push his glasses back up on his nose. And now he has to face the curiosity of a bunch of prostitutes who all found out at the same time as him, that his father beats his mother, and may now have killed her.
"I uhm," Anton says and looks at me, trying hard to ignore everybody else. "I have to talk to you."
"Oh, hot wrut," Alivia says and Quills smacks her on the shoulder.
I open my mouth, not even knowing what is going to come out of it, but Barooba saves me.
"Take him down to the Cave," she barks before turning to the others. "Everybody upstairs until further notice. Now," and suddenly there is a murmuring shuffle as the stairs are being trampled by people who'd rather stay downstairs. "Garmen," Barooba says and Garmen turns to the owner, her face scrunched as if she's been caught red-handed stealing candy. "My office." Garmen takes a breath and walks into Barooba's office. Barooba sends me a lightning stare. "You," she says. "Get your wrut fixed."
I nod and wait until most of my colleagues have gone upstairs. Then I manage to glance at Anton who looks even more like someone who'd be on the cover of Insomnia Weekly than I remember him.
"We can talk downstairs," I say and turn around. I hear him follow me as I descend the stairs and walk through the hallway to the least presumptuous room I can find. It's room 20 which has green sheets and is even lit here in the late afternoon. No wild colours or extra toys to spice things up.
Anton only hesitates for a second before he steps inside. It's weird seeing him in a room I associate with sex. While we were in the White House everything felt illegal, even eating ice cream in the abandoned kitchen seemed dangerous. All we ever did was kiss and talk. There was also the fact that Anton is incredibly inexperienced which is adorable, so anything we did was loaded with electricity and newness and adrenaline. And I will never push him into something he isn't ready for no matter what effect his smile has on me.
Anton looks around at the room as I close the door behind him with a little click.
"It's nice," he says. "I suppose this is where you have your, uh, customers."
I nod, wondering just what he must be seeing. He's always known what I do for a living, but there is a big difference between hearing it and seeing where it happens.
"I honestly though it would be different," Anton says.
"Different how?"
"Dunno," he shrugs. "More dildos or something."
"More dildos?" I say with a smile in my voice.
"Yeah, I know how it sounds," Anton sighs. "But to be fair I've never been to a brothel. Although I might be one of the only ones in the White House who haven't."
"Anton," I say and take a step forward, hating the wall between us.
"I spoke to my mum," he blurts. Air catches in my throat. Before Garmen shouted it in front of everybody, I hadn't even considered the idea that me outing the Potentate would put Hera Thelonious in fatal danger. I thought it might help her, free her. It was incredibly bad thinking on my part.
"She's alive?"
"Yeah," he laughs tiredly. "She's in hiding, but she got away. When that interview aired," he shakes his head. "I went to find her and she had already left. My dad was running around like a madman." He rubs his arm and accidentally pulls up his sleeve. I catch a glimpse of fresh red marks which haven't faded to bruises yet.
"He didn't-" I begin, but Anton pulls down his sleeve when he sees where my gaze has landed and shakes his head.
"Just grabbed me," he says. "He demanded to know where she is, I didn't know. She contacted me half an hour later though, told me she was okay."
I let out a relieved sigh. I didn't kill the first wife, and now she's out of her husband's reach as long as he doesn't find out where.
"I just, I can't help but wonder," Anton continues and look up at me, "How long you've known."
I lean my shoulder against the wall, suddenly lacking all energy to stay standing. And my feet are still throbbing from the walk to and halfway from the farmhouse.
"I found out before we met," I say softly, and then I watch Anton's mouth press into a thin line. This must be how he looks angry. It's something I've never seen on him before, but he almost seems more alive. How strange that anger suits this gentle creature, makes his eyes burn.
"And you just thought you'd keep it a secret from me?" he asks with steel in his voice.
"How was I supposed to tell you," I whisper.
"Through national tv apparently," Anton says and throws out his arms. "Do you know how tragic it is, sitting in your room and suddenly you hear your dad being accused of abuse in front of the whole country and you realize it's somebody you know who is the accuser? And that you now know that he's the one who told the other secrets too?" His voice rises in volume at the last sentences. "What is the point of it all anyway? All the secrets?"
I take a deep breath. "Anton, there's a rebellion brewing."
"A what?" Anton asks, looking as if all the air has been punched out of him.
"People are tired of living in poverty, they're tired of being scared of Pacifiers and of becoming hooders and dying."
"Hooders?" Anton repeats.
"The socioeconomically lowest. They live in the streets and sell their bodies to whoever have a purpose for them, whether that's rape or organ donation or medical experiments."
"What?" Anton says again. "That can't be right. We live in a fair country, we're wealthy."
"No, the rich are wealthy," I say. "All they need to do is enjoy life and their luminaries. The middle class is tired of having no say in anything even though they live a comfortable life, and the population of the lower class is dying left and right. I almost died when I was fourteen because my sister had died, and then Barooba, the owner, she found me on the street trying to muster enough energy to smash in my own skull."
"No, you're just saying this. I've seen cities, I've been to Chicago-"
"Chicago is a representation," I say. "They have the wealthiest middle class, the most avant-garde science. But it's not an accurate depiction. Think about it. On your way here, did the city look particularly wealthy? Nearly every house is a closed and destroyed stores with hooders huddled together because they have nowhere else to go. In every alley, there is a drug dealer or a dead body. We are the dark parts of the entertainment," I say. "If we lived in a perfect world, why would my job even exist? All the stories I've told you about fantasies I fulfill?"
"No," Anton says and sits down on the bed. "It's not, my dad would never-"
"Never what?" I ask. "Allow it? You know a lot of what's going on inside those Government doors. You know about Governor Raze and Minister Jacques and the Ministers Carlina."
"But you knew about my mum!" Anton shouts and suddenly he's on his legs again. "How could you know about her when I didn't?"
I hitch a breath. And now I realize the core of his despair, why he looks about ready to break out into sobs at any given moment. "You grew up there, Anton," I say softly. "The way your mother and father behaved? That was everything you've ever known. The perks of living as one of the most comfortable people in the country is something you've always had, nobody can blame you for not seeing what was hidden from you."
"I should have been there," Anton says and his voice breaks. "I should have protected her."
"Oh, but you did," I say and move forward, thinking back to the Dionysus Festival when the poker player had talked about how the Potentate didn't touch his wife when he thought she was pregnant. "Every time you were in a room with them, he couldn't do anything. You were a walking shield without even knowing it," I say and move closer. Anton is clinging to my every word, his face breaking into a grimace as tears begins rolling down his cheeks. It's all contorted and flaring and his glasses keeps slipping and there are a few new adolescent zits peeking out from between his freckles, and he looks so, so beautiful. "You have protected your mother your whole life."
"No," Anton hiccups, but I smile and take another step closer.
"Yes," I say softly. "You're a good person Anton, you can't help it. If you were aware of anything going on you would have stopped it immediately, there's not a single doubt in my mind about it. And I love you for it," I say, barely noticing how strong and certain my own voice sounds. "I love you, so much."
"Then why did you leave?" Anton whimpers.
"I didn't. I was evicted, told never to come back. They didn't want me to learn any more of their secrets," I joke, but Anton doesn't even pretend to laugh.
"Wait, what?" he says and blinks sluggishly while drying his nose with his sleeve. "I thought, I thought you left."
"No, I didn't, I-" then I suck in a breath. "No. Nonono," I say and distinguish the last distance between us to put a hand behind his neck. His skin is warm right underneath his hairline, warm and smelling just like him. "I never left you Anton!" I say. "I thought they'd tell you if you asked? Please, please tell me you didn't think that all this time."
But Anton only exclaims another choke before it turns into a full-fledged cry, and I put my arms around him, shaking. He immediately hugs me back with a fierceness I hadn't expected after my betrayal, but then his sobs are wetting my jacket and I don't care one bit. For a brief, wonderful moment he is mine again – completely and unaltered mine. I bury my face in the cup of his neck and feel the cool tip of his nose in mine.
"What, what happened with your ear?" He chokes between sobs and I feel his fingertips tracing the outline of my wound.
"Never mind what happened to my ear," I say and take his hand away. "Anton, I told you I loved you a million times, how could you think I would just up and leave?" But Anton just shakes his head into my shoulder, his glasses grating against my ear. I have a glimpse of Anton in his pajamas bottoms at the kitchen table, sitting with two spoons and a container of ice cream for hours, waiting for me like he'd done every night for more than a year. "I'm so sorry," I say and pull him closer. For too short a time we stand there in our own timeless bubble, able to breathe again for the first time in days. And then his mouth is on mine and he's crying and I'm probably crying too, but it doesn't matter because he tastes sweet and loving and his lips are soft and familiar. And then my hands are in his hair and we're stumbling into the wall, kissing so fiercely both of us have to gasp for air at every interval we can get.
"Noah," Anton sighs as I rake my teeth along his jawline and gets the satisfaction of hearing his heart skip a beat. His hands are in my hair and his glasses have been pushed off somewhere. And I'm overcome with this sudden want I've only felt a few times before; the want to be as close to a person as I can possibly get. How have I lived without this for half a year? Without his touch, without his smile? All the times I looked in the mirror and saw a corpse staring back at me makes a lot more sense now. All the times I felt my heart overworking to keep me going was because a giant chunk of it was missing.
"Anton," I say and pull away an inch to look at him. I feel the physical strain of doing so in every cell in my body, but I have to ask him. He makes a protesting sound in the back of his throat but opens his eye which looks so much bigger without glasses on. His cheeks are all flushed and his lips are puffy and when I press my mouth gently to them out of curiosity, I can feel them throbbing with his pulse. "If I said I was leaving," I whisper, his face impossibly close to mine. "And if I said that I had the means to secure a future somewhere far away, and I asked you to come," I continue. "Would you?"
Anton stares at me for a long moment, and then he actually cracks a smile. Oh God, how I've missed that smile.
"Are you asking me to run away together?" he says, and I can't help but grin too.
"I guess I am," I say, but then quickly add, "It might not just be you and me though. Do you remember the friend I've told you about? Garmen?" I've told him about her a few times when we talked about my life in the Cave. We did have over a year together, it was more than enough time to exchange stories about each other too. And of course, I told him about Garmen, and I told him we'd had sex but that she was nothing but an incredible friend. And he had absolutely no trouble believing me.
"She was the one called into that office upstairs, right?" Anton asks. "The rare blonde?" I nod.
"You will love her," I say and trace his collarbone with my fingertips. "She's just as compassionate as you. Although she has a more violent way of showing it."
"Where would we even go?" Anton laughs softly.
"Somewhere far away from Washington," I say. "Somewhere in the middle of nowhere."
"You'd be bored within a day," Anton grins and he's probably right. Besides, my drug supply has to come from somewhere.
I'll begin taking less, I think. If the three of us move somewhere new I'll get clean and I'll make Garmen do too, although she'll probably be the one keeping me to that promise. And Anton will be there to hold me when I'm shivering and hurling from withdrawal symptoms. And then I'll be free. It won't be that easy but God, how wonderful a life it would be.
"Then you can decide," I say and tentatively touch his cheekbone. "Wherever you want. As long as it's with you."
"Noah," he says and his voice is so filled with heaviness I know what's coming before he opens his mouth again. "I can't. I can't leave my mother."
I take a breath and nod, biting my lip so I can keep my emotions from running away from me. And then I think the selfish thought of telling him about his heritage just so he'll come with me. I could easily do it, just a few sentences. He'd believe me too, because he always does. He's never had a reason not to believe me, especially now that he knows the truth about the beatings. But I can't shatter his world like that. He's too kind. Too good to have me destroy him. He's already had too much pain.
Call me spineless, but I wanted you to have a family like I never did – even though that man you believed to be your father was an asshole.
Besides, even if Hera Thelonious isn't his biological mother he loves her as if she was, and I'm certain that she loves him just as much if not more. How could she not? I can never break what they have even if I wanted to, even if I told him.
"She's still my mother no matter how screwed up our family is," he says, mirroring my mental points exactly. "Someone has to protect her, to make sure dad doesn't go crazy. Besides," he draws in a shaking breath. "If it really is as bad as you say in the lower parts of the city, I might be able to make him see sense, to make him do something to stop it."
"Anton," I say, opposed to his mother I have no trouble trying to break up whatever bond he has with his father. "He is the one who keeps the country in this state. If he wanted to change it, don't you think he would have done it by now?"
"So rebellion is better?" Anton asks. "Blood in the streets? Heads rolling?"
"I think this one is more of a targeted rebellion, actually," I say. Anton scrunches his brows.
"Targeted?" he repeats and pulls my hands off him, not letting go of them though. "What do you mean? Like, key persons?"
Crap, I think. When I don't answer, Anton's eyes grow even bigger.
"All the Government secrets you've shared," he says. "How you outed my father publicly. You're going after the politicians, trying to depict my dad as this, this monster with an army of monsters doing his bidding."
"I'm not," I say as Anton lets go of me and bends down to pick up his glasses. "Not personally anyway. I was hired to do a job, not plan a war."
"But they couldn't have known about those secrets unless you decided to tell them. We both know there are other secrets you could have chosen to share, but still it was my dad's who aired on national television," Anton says and puts on his glasses after having cleaned them in his ruffled shirt. "Did you tell them everything so they could choose the dirtiest ones themselves, or did you do the choosing?" There is a second of silence where I keep my mouth firmly shut. Then it is as if Anton's shoulders deflate. "You did, didn't you?"
"It was the only secret I was sure would make you come see me," I say. "I didn't know why you hadn't come before, but that obviously makes sense now with you thinking I was the one who'd left without as much as a goodbye. And your mum is not being beaten anymore. She's safe."
"He would have killed her," Anton says, his voice loud. I notice his hand twitching towards the sleeve which hides red marks on his arm. "You didn't see him. If he'd gotten a hold on her, she would have been dead."
He's staring at me, his face so impossibly sad. And I feel so, so lost. I have no moral high ground here, I know that – no matter how much I try and believe I did it for everybody's good, Anton is right. I was egotistic and in pain and I wanted to see him.
"You're right," I say and can't look him in the eyes. "I was selfish and careless, and it could have gone so wrong. I could have cost you your mother." I take a pause to sigh and close my eyes for a second. Everything is just too overwhelming – the guilt, the anger the love. The fact that I'm a horrible person. I always knew I wasn't an angel, but much worse than I thought. "I can't blame you for hating me."
"Oh please," Anton snorts with a small crook of a smile, and looks more like his old self than he has at any other point today. "You're a very hard person to hate Noah Canner. I would actually like to personally meet anybody who dislikes you. I think it would be an enormous scientific discovery."
I can't help but smile. And I make a mental note to never introduce him to Hannah. She would tear him apart. Anton smiles back and dugs his head down. "What happens now?" he asks softly, and I shrug.
"I still have to leave," I say and my voice cracks on the last syllable. The sooner I'm out of his life the better.
"When?" Anton asks.
"I planned on leaving tonight or tomorrow if you didn't come to see me," I say.
"You know," Anton says with forced humor. "I could have arrived with a whole hoard of Pacifiers. I could have had you arrested. I still can."
"Are you going to?" I ask, but he breaks into a grin, and then brush a hand through his hair.
"God," he says. "When did this get so complicated?"
"I think it always was," I say. "We were just standing on the sideline. Had the nights to ourselves."
Anton grins. "You make it sound so eerie." I smile, but it falls pretty quickly. As does his, and he swallows a lump. "This is, this is goodbye then?" he asks.
"I think so," I say in nothing more than a whisper, trying to control the knots of emotions welling up through my throat.
"Maybe someday," he says, and I try to nod, to keep the thoughts of overdose and suicide in check. Maybe someday is too far away in the future for me. Maybe someday is too unlikely an outcome.
"Yeah," I nod. "Maybe someday."
We stand for a moment just looking at each other. I try to memorize him; the night sky of freckles, the tired eyes that only breaks eye contact except when he's flustered, the way he seems to glow although that might just be me who sees that.
"I should probably get going," Anton finally sighs. "My dad will be wondering where I am. Maybe he'll even send someone to track me down."
"Can't have that," I mumble gruffly although it sounds anything but convincing.
Anton moves past me, sending an air of him my way. I expect to hear the door open and him leaving, but instead I hear his weigh still.
"I," he stammers and I turn around to where he's standing, one of his hands twitching. It's really cute when he does that, his face gets all russet and it's so far from his usual perky self you know it's important to him. "I wanted, I mean you should know," he takes a shaking breath and I can't help but smile. We both know our love is not allowed in this world. I'm too scarred and bruised to hold him like he should be held, I will only ever want from him. He deserves someone whole, not a prostitute with a drug problem who has no idea how to keep the world together, who only ever seems to destroy things. But I will love him anyway, and in this moment I can't help but notice that, standing there in room 20 in the Cave of Dionysus, flustering through a confession of some kind, how very soft and very strong he is. Like a gentle force of nature. Love is not for the weak.
"Anton," I say and he stops twitching and looks at me. "I know."
"Yeah, I know you know, but I should say it," Anton grumbles. "So be quiet please."
"M-kay," I say, shutting my mouth although I can't help the smile creeping higher up on my cheeks.
Anton finally manages to take a deep breath and looking straight at me he says, "Loving you is everything Noah. It is more than I could have ever asked for. And you should know how – how happy you make me. Because you do. I've never felt more alive than when I was with you in the White House, and even the days were better and less boring because I knew I got to see you in the night. And I kept daydreaming about you kissing me against walls, which initially I found weird, but now it seems like the most normal thing in the world. And I still think of you all the time, and I know I'm rambling and that this serves no purpose but making both of us miserable because you're leaving and, and would you just kiss me already so I can stop talking?" he says and I do, surge forward and grab his face and gently press my lips to his. It's calmer this time, less frenzied and wild although it still sets fire to me. His hands are on my back and even through the cloth his touch sends electricity across my skin in a way no one has ever been able to do other than him. And there it is again, that familiar want that always comes when he's in my arms and breathing hard.
Anton gasps for air and I lean my forehead to his as we both find our breath.
"I better go," Anton murmurs and I nod, but neither of us really moves. The air is charged with something dangerous and thrilling. Something I'm in desperate need of. I'm just about to find his lips again with mine when there is a hard knock on the door.
"The heck?" I mutter as the knock intensifies.
"Are you, like, expecting someone?" Anton asks confused and slightly hurt.
"No, I'm not exp-" I groan in the middle of my own sentence and let go of Anton to go open the door.
"What?" Outside, for some unexplainably irritating reason, stands Alle Bronze. She's wearing another one of her usual dark cloaks with Ridder flanking her, looking just as uncomfortable as ever before. "Alle," I say. "What the Hell are you doing here? How did you get in?"
"My friends persuaded Barooba," she says. Her face is heated like she's been hurrying, Ridder's too. They both have droplets in their hair. "You-" then she sees Anton standing behind me. I look back at him – at his tangled hair, lips swollen and glasses askew, and I imagine I must look about just as disheveled. Her brows scrunch together. "Mr. Thelonious?" she says.
"Hello, Miss Bronze," Anton says with a flailing smile and a nod with his head. "Mr. Shawthon. I hear congratulations are in order?"
I can't help but snort. Alle sends me a glance filled with daggers.
"Yes, thank you," she says and Ridder looks just about ready to crawl into a hole. Anton doesn't, for some reason. He doesn't seem ashamed at all. "How's your mother?"
"She's alright for the moment," Anton says incredibly levelly. I've never heard him talking to people except for quickly upstairs, but I suppose it's this sort of politeness and control that's expected from the Potentate's son. It's only with me he shows his wild side, which makes my heart do a sort of flutter in my chest. "Are you by any chance part of this rebellion?"
Alle looks at me. "You told him?" she demands.
"Why are you here," I ask and lean against the doorframe.
"Because I'd like for you to stay alive," Alle says. "The Government found out Mafalda is K. She was murdered ten minutes ago."