Dark Cotillion

Two

I waited until I could feel the delivery boy dropping off the standard half dozen cake donuts on my doorstep from the bakery below. Once that had been dropped and his energy had moved out of the hall and into an elevator, I climbed from bed. I should have been exhausted, nauseated, and anxious. I wasn't. I was calm. Tonight, I would probably sleep like the dead, with a house full of bodyguards.

As I exited the bedroom, I heard the front door close. Gabriel had fallen into a routine as well, picking up the unhealthy donuts and putting them on the table. He tried to balance it out by adding orange juice, bacon, and eggs to the mix. I stuck with the donuts and a glass of whole milk. If you can't gain or lose weight, you might as well enjoy the food you toss into your gullet. Besides, as a Demonling, I needed about 4,000 calories a day, hard to get that from salad every meal.

"Don't forget, you have an exam after the Maturing," Gabriel reminded me, as he had every morning for the past couple of days.

"I haven't forgotten and I still think it's ridiculous," I quipped.

"Ridiculous or not, now that we do not all live in a small cluster with imaginary creatures, the exam is important. You never know when a dragon or some other beast is going to go rogue, leave the island, and start terrorizing the world."

"Yes, yes," I selected a white cake donut with chocolate icing and crushed peanuts. "Sirens, harpies, dragons, trolls, and chupacabras, are just the tip of the iceberg for things that could cause havoc in the normal world."

"There is no such thing as a chupacabra." Gabriel handed me a plate. I accepted it and set it off to the side. I had a napkin under the donut, no reason to dirty up a perfectly good plate.

At some point during my adult life, my mother had decided I needed a set of fine dining china. She failed to realize that I did not own dinnerware as a general rule. I don't cook. I don't like to cook. I hate to eat what I cook. I have some issues, particularly with meat. If it isn't a bagged salad with the salad dressing included, or microwave popcorn, I'm probably not going to cook it. Cooking is overrated for me. It's hard to keep groceries when I might be called away to a crime at any time, in any part of the world. Food spoils. I keep soda, milk, a few munchies, and popcorn. My freezer is barren; I don't even keep ice cube trays. If I am away for more than three or four days, my mother comes by and tosses out the milk. She'll put a new gallon in there if she knows when I am returning.

Besides, there are lots of facilities to fill my need for food. In New KC, there are places that go to other places, pick up food orders, and deliver them to your house. All you need is a phone or an internet connection. I have both. Some of them even offer reward programs. Hell, there are people who will deliver my groceries and pick up items like toothpaste, cigarettes, and anything else you might desire. The best part is that they are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The need to go to a store has been completely removed. If I'm feeling energetic, I go downstairs and get something from the Subway Sandwich shop, and that way, I can say I walked a few extra steps.

Since I hate to shop almost as much as I hate to cook, I love the age of technology. Most Elders are sort of bothered by it; it takes a while to adjust, but me... I think it's the greatest thing ever to happen. The internet is an amazing place where food comes at the click of a button. Most Elders have to adjust to the light and the constant hum of the world. I didn't have their super-hearing, so I barely noticed it.

Gabriel again tried to feed me a healthy, balanced breakfast, which I managed to ignore. Finishing three donuts and two glasses of whole milk in the time, it took him to eat his bacon, eggs, toast, and orange juice.

I kept waiting for my stomach to sour. It didn't. This meant that either I was in complete denial about the day ahead, or I had accepted my fate without realizing it. Since I wasn't good at acceptance, I was guessing it was denial.