Life in the Oasis Ch. 20

Author's Note

This is the final chapter in the third book of the Elysium Series. If you haven't yet, I suggest you read Part 1 and Part 2, although you do not need to have read the previous two books to be able to enjoy the sex scenes. Don't let the size of this series intimidate you. You are welcome to start here and go back later or simply read the parts you like. If you like what you read here, there's plenty more in the previous two books!

And that's a wrap! Book 3 of the Elysium Series is in the can! I hope you all enjoy reading this one as much as I enjoyed writing it. We've got a lot of payoffs, lots of plot movement, and I think a solid set up for Book 4. Book 4 will be the rise and fall of Sally Hemingway, and we'll finally tie up all our loose ends and give our favorite characters the appropriate send off as we wrap up the series. I'm not sure when I'm going to get started on Book 4, so stay tuned to my Author Page for updates - this is a good excuse for following me, by the way.

Special warning for this chapter only: There is a scene in this story that references potential self harm, so if that's something that bothers you, skip ahead through that portion of Winston's scene.

And, as always, fair warning - this series includes a variety of adult situations, and I do my best to ensure that the tags are correct and comprehensive for each chapter. These stories touch on a variety of sexual subjects, like male and female bisexuality, gay sex, lots of interracial sex, some incest, oodles of group sex, voyeurism and exhibitionism, all set in a near future universe where sex is far more open than in our world. You'll find a lot of the standard tropes turned on their head here, so don't be surprised to have your assumptions challenged!

If you like what you've read, give us a vote, leave a comment, and a follow. I do my best to respond to every comment! Thanks for reading!

------------------------------

CHAPTER 20

Friday Evening, June 18, 2032

Lucky Seven Cleaners, Naked City, Las Vegas

Elijah stood before the headquarters of the Bloods.

He'd been inside a few times with his brother when he was younger, but never since he'd reached his majority. He summoned all the courage he could muster and stepped towards the entrance. Then he stopped.

What was he going to do? What was he going to say? What if Curtis wasn't even there?

What if he was?

His brain had been a swirl of conflicting loyalties since he'd seen his brother's face on the security video, trashing the Oasis's parking garage. That his brother was engaged in obvious criminal activity didn't surprise him. Curtis had been in the Bloods since he turned fifteen, and he hadn't risen through the ranks of the gang over the last decade without breaking a few laws. More than a few.

So why was this different? Why did it bother him so much?

Because he was doing it to Jack.

Elijah had never met anybody like Jack. In two weeks, the man had completely changed how Elijah viewed himself, given him a job, a place to live, self-confidence and purpose. He was smart, he was funny, and he cared. And the funny thing was Elijah was already looking at him as a father figure, even though they were contemporaries. Jack was only twenty-two, but Elijah couldn't think of him as a peer.

Jack was more than just his friend. Eli felt a stronger bond to his boss than he ever had with Curtis. Curtis had looked out for him when they were growing up and tried to be a father figure after their father had gone to prison, but Curtis was different. There was a hard edge to him. He led with his chin in all things, ready to fight over the drop of a hat.

Elijah had hated how Curtis had used him during their brief foray into sex work. He'd felt taken advantage of and taken for granted at the same time. Even after Curtis seemed to forgive him for ending their partnership and after their trip to the strip club, he still felt the distance that had widened between them. Curtis was following in their father's footsteps.

But Curtis was blood. How was he supposed to choose between them?

Elijah took another step towards the cleaners.

Then he stopped. What did he really think he was going to do here? Confront Curtis? Ask him to stop? Ask him why? Who was paying him? Elijah had gone out of his way to stay out of the Bloods' business over the years. He'd turned down every offer to join. Now he was just going to waltz into their headquarters and demand Curtis stop doing whatever he'd been doing?

Yes, that's exactly what he was going to do.

Elijah took a deep breath. He wasn't just Elijah Wiley anymore. He was Elijah Wiley, with Oasis Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Sinclair Group LLP. He was the assistant to the CEO of a major casino, whose parents were two of the richest people in the state of Nevada. His boss fucked the Vice President of the United States and his wife and shot a commercial of it! He had no reason to be scared by a street gang.

One thing Jack and Elijah had in common was the naivete of youth.

"He's going in," Diego said quietly.

"You called it," Lionel said from the backseat.

"It wasn't exactly rocket science," Gabby scoffed. "You recognized his brother, too."

Hours earlier, in the hallway outside the security room, a bewildered Elijah had asked Diego if he'd recognized the face on the security camera.

"Your brother, yo," Diego told him. "What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know. I need to talk to him," Elijah had said.

"You want me to come with?"

"No. I have to do this myself," Elijah had replied.

Diego had nodded, but there was zero chance he was going to let the boy walk into that nest of vipers by himself. The Bloods were a family, but they were also a street gang, and just because Elijah's father was a legend and his brother was the gang's #2 man didn't mean anything. If they thought he was going to rat them out, they had no compunction in silencing him.

They probably wouldn't kill him. He was Curtis's brother, but the Bloods always treated their gang bond as stronger than any DNA based one, and Diego had no doubt that if forced to choose between the Bloods and his brother, Red Dog would choose the gang.

"You two are taking an awful risk being here, especially you Gabby," Lionel said. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"We can take care of ourselves, babe," Gabby said tersely. "I hope the kid makes the right decision. And if they try to fuck with him, well... that will make his choice easier," she said.

The three were sitting in the parking lot of the 7-11 next to the dry cleaners, down the street from the Naked City Motel. They were in a non-descript Toyota SUV, plenty used and completely unremarkable. One of the Elysium's black Escalades, while roomier, would have stuck out like a sore thumb, and this was technically a surveillance.

The last time the three security staffers had been here, it had been under quite different circumstances.

Gabby had gone undercover with Diego earlier in the year and helped confirm the Chinese involvement in the Anti-Defamation League. They'd gone to DC to lay low and wait for any potential heat from their extraction to blow over. She'd not been back to Naked City since, and she didn't even think anybody would recognize her without the dye job, tattoos and piercings she'd sported as 'Lara Kraft.'

When Elijah told Diego he was going to confront his brother, the first call Diego made was to Gabby.

"What are you going to tell Jack?" Lionel asked. "He does know you're here, right?"

Diego hesitated. "Actually, no. I didn't tell him. I didn't think it would be right for me to narc on Elijah."

"Your job is to protect Jack, Diego. Even from himself. You should have told him," Lionel said sternly.

"I'm protecting him. I'm watching his assistant and making sure he does the right thing. If Elijah does that, I don't need to tell Jack anything. Elijah will. And if he doesn't, I can make sure Elijah is not in a position to harm Jack, the Sinclairs or the companies. Trust me. I've got this," Diego said. "Have you got your eyes on back there?"

Gabby pulled out her laptop. The Bloods had the entire block wired for sound and video. Cameras everywhere, audio in certain places, like their backroom headquarters. That way they could be sure no one was moving on them, especially the police.

They probably thought their shit was airtight and unhackable.

Maybe it was to your average government cybersecurity expert, running a last generation AI. It had taken all of ten minutes for Tiana Deveraux to find her way in and slave a laptop to their internal data feeds. Diego, Gabby and Lionel could watch and hear everything that went on inside the dry cleaners.

"Oh shit," Gabby said as she pulled up the feed. "This was not on my bingo card," she said with a laugh.

"What is it?"

"Diego, you missed out, apparently. Did you know Red Dog's been playing for your team?"

"What?"

"Look," she said, passing the laptop into the front seat.

On the screen, Diego could see, in striking detail, what was going on in the backroom of the dry cleaners, the Bloods' inner sanctuary.

Red Dog and Twitch, the gang leader, were getting their freak on.

"Mmm, that's it," Twitch said, squeezing his eyes shut and enjoying the feeling. Red Dog was an amazing cocksucker. He couldn't believe the man who had long jibed him about being gay, long mocked him behind his back, was now servicing him. "Suck that cock, Dog."

That night at the Emerald Club was an awakening for Red Dog Wiley. He'd never cum without touching his cock and he could rarely recall cumming as hard as he had, just from sucking Brock the Bouncer's dick. He'd gone back the next two nights, to the point he almost got thrown out by the irate head of security. Brock was spending so much time getting his dick sucked by Red Dog, he wasn't out front doing his job.

Red Dog still kept up with his Onyx work -- had a date with another cuck and his wife in an hour -- but in the meantime, he craved cock and he knew Twitch was always willing to help a brother out.

This wasn't their first assignation. Once he'd gotten turned away at the Club, Red Dog had lasted maybe a day before he was cruising for some dick, and Twitch was the obvious next person to approach, being one of the few openly gay men Red Dog knew. He had been pleasantly surprised when Red Dog blurted out his desire to suck cock.

Curtis Wiley didn't understand what had come over him. For most of his life, the idea of being with another man had been anathema to him.

When had he changed? If he had to be honest with himself, it was the first time he'd seen his brother's dick.

He bobbed his head up and down on Twitch's cock, taking it all the way into his throat, his nose tickled by Twitch's short pubes. The smell filled his nostrils and added another layer to his pleasure. There was just something about that musky scent of a man that drove Red Dog wild.

Twitch usually did a good job of keeping his junk clean, but it had been a few days and he was between lovers. If he'd expected Red Dog to stop by, he'd have prepared better.

Red Dog hadn't told Twitch on purpose, just so he wouldn't. He preferred his men real and masculine, not perfumed and sweet smelling from the shower.

With a firm grip on Twitch's asscheeks, Red Dog pulled him even deeper into his throat. Twitch wasn't well hung -- a little on the small side, to be honest -- but Red Dog was so deep in his cock addiction that he'd long since given up caring about what his partners looked like or how hung they were. Brock had been a beast of a man, but Red Dog knew that cocks came in every size and color, and while the big ones were fun to look at, he preferred them smaller. At least while he was just starting out.

Twitch was his second male lover. He'd had three total so far, in the six days since he'd had his epiphany. He had started and stopped three times creating a gay profile on Onyx. He knew later tonight, after his date, he'd finally do it. The lure of cock -- paying cock -- was strong enough to overcome any remaining fear he may have about being outed.

"Lemme get a taste of you, Dog," Twitch said, licking his lips. "You ain't never let me touch you yet, and I got needs too, ese!"

"Naw, we ain't got time for that," Red Dog told him, reluctantly removing Twitch's cock from his mouth. "Just dump your load in me and then I gotta get going. I got some pussy waiting and they're paying good money."

"One of these days you're gonna show me what you're packing, Dog," Twitch said with a grin. "But fine. I'm close anyway. Keep doing what you're doing."

"That is so hot," Gabby said, watching the screen carefully. "Has Eli gone in yet?"

Diego tore his eyes from the screen and looked up. Elijah was hanging around the front of the dry cleaners, apparently still unsure of whether to go in.

"No, not yet," he said.

"Good. Then we've got a little time," Gabby purred. She reached over and rubbed Lionel's crotch. Lionel was mostly straight, she knew, although he'd never turned down a blowjob from anybody, including Jack Fisher. Watching the two thugs play had turned him on. She could feel his fat hog stiff in his pants. With the skill of much practice, she'd unzipped his pants, pulled his cock out and begun to blow him before he knew what she was doing.

"Are you--Oh, all right," Lionel said, with a smile.

"Damn bro, I had no idea you were packing," Diego said with a grin. "I want next," he said wolfishly.

Gabby pulled her face from Lionel's crotch to laugh. "Ain't gonna be no next, D," she told him. "I'm going to suck this bad boy dry."

"Tease," Diego said, laughing. "Make it a quickie, you two. Looks like Elijah's made up his mind."

Diego watched as Elijah stopped loitering and opened the door to the dry cleaners. He paused one last time in the doorway, then stepped in.

Lionel watched the screen as Gabby sucked his cock. It was hard to tell from this angle, but when the Hispanic gangster threw his head back and sighed loudly, it was pretty clear he'd just cum.

A few seconds later, the Black gangbanger was off his knees and the other man was zipping up his pants. There was a knock on the door, and the two men's heads whipped around like they'd been caught in flagrante.

The door pushed open and Eli Wiley stepped in.

"Sheeeeee-it," Twitch said with a lopsided smile. "If it ain't the brains of the operation in the flesh. What up, Boog?"

Twitch crossed the room, leaving Red Dog furiously wiping his face, hoping he hadn't missed any jizz, his back turned towards his brother as he did so.

Elijah and Twitch exchanged bro hugs. "Red Dog tells me you got yourself a prime gig over at one of them casinos? I hope it ain't the Oasis, ha!" Twitch said with a smile, clapping Eli on the back.

"Actually..." Elijah began, sheepishly.

"Oh, shit! Really?" Twitch started laughing. "You better get yourself a new job quick, ese! That place ain't going to be around much longer."

"What do you mean?"

"Twitch, you don't need to be sharing our family bidness with Elijah," Red Dog said, turning around to face his brother now that he was sure any traces of his tryst with Twitch had been removed. "He don't need to know what we're working on."

"Actually, I do," Elijah said to the two men. "They've got you on camera, Curtis."

Twitch and Red Dog sobered up immediately.

Twitch looked at Red Dog, his face hardening. "Contract said no faces, Dog. You were supposed to knock out the cameras before you busted up those cars."

"I did! And I had a mask on, too! Nobody IDing me from that shit, Twitch!" Red Dog scoffed.

"I could tell it was you right away, Curtis. And Diego saw you, too. What are you guys doing? Why are you fucking with the Oasis?"

Red Dog bit down a retort. "Hey Twitch. Let me have a conversation with my brother here for a minute, if you don't mind, okay?"

"Take it outside," Twitch said, the anger in his voice palpable. He was still buzzing from the orgasm Red Dog gave him, but the dopamine hit was fading fast. If somebody had IDed Red Dog, their contract with the Hemingway bitch was in jeopardy. She was a hardass about no traces and ties being left behind. Twitch shouldn't even know she was behind the whole thing, and if she found out, he was in serious trouble.

His boys had trailed the cutout she used to exchange cash for information through two more connections before the trail ended at Finca Vigía. It always amused him how those rich bitch casino owners thought the gangs were full of dumbass kids who didn't know shit about tradecraft. Maybe that was true of other gangs, but the Bloods of Naked City were the best.

"Fine," Red Dog said. He would deal with Twitch later. "Let's take a walk, Boog."

"My name is Elijah, Curtis," Eli said angrily. "Stop calling me that."

"Lighten up, bitch," Red Dog spat. "Get your ass outta here, like the man said. Follow me."

Red Dog burst the door open, scaring the gal behind the counter. He ignored her, pushed through the cleaners and was out the door before Elijah had moved two feet from where he'd been standing in the doorway to the back room.

He chased after his brother, who had slowed down and was now sauntering towards the Naked City Motel, his exaggerated pimp roll looking almost comical in the yellow glow of the sole functioning streetlamp.

"They're on the move," Diego said.

"I'm cumming!" Lionel grunted as he began to spurt. Gabby slurped down as much as he gave her, kissed the tip of Lionel's cock and then zipped him up. "Thanks, baby. That was perfect."

"My pleasure, love," she said. She gave him a quick peck on the lips. Lionel thought he could taste a little of himself, but he couldn't be sure. His head was still swimming.

"Do we need to move?" Gabby asked.

"Not yet. I can see them from here. If they go into a room in the motel, we can move over there. No eyes in there, unfortunately."

"You don't think his brother would hurt him, do you?" Lionel asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Red Dog? That fool is a sociopath," Diego snorted. "He doesn't give two shits about family. I hope Elijah knows what he's doing."

Elijah struggled to keep up with his brother. "Are you gonna answer my question?"

"Shut the fuck up, idiot," Red Dog snarled. "Not out on the fucking street! What's the matter with you? Shut your mouth until we get to my room."

Elijah bit his tongue and followed. By the time they reached the Naked City Motel, he was angrier than he could ever recall being.

The door shut behind them. It was the same motel room, the one Red Dog had pimped him just a few weeks ago. The memories of the repeated humiliations he'd felt in this very spot burned intensely. Elijah fought down a bit of panic and stood his ground.

"Enough stalling, Curtis. Tell me why you're fucking with my job," Elijah demanded.

"Fool, I ain't fucking with your job. We had a contract, yo. Long before you took up with that white boy and his crew. They cooked, you know. Got some big-time enemies," Red Dog said to him flatly.

"We aren't going anywhere. You gotta stop fucking with us, Curtis. Jack is a good dude, and they're trying to do good work. A lot of people's jobs are on the line -- a lot of people from around here, you know," Elijah told him, clenching his fists.

"Damn, that white boy got you open, Eli. I had no idea you were into that shit," Red Dog said, laughing.

"I'm not. But there's nothing wrong with that. I certainly don't care if you're blowing Twitch or anybody else," Elijah said.

Red Dog smirked. "You saw that?"

"I did. Ain't no thang," Elijah said, letting a little street creep back into his vocabulary. "You do who you want to do. I won't judge."

"Yeah, well, sometimes I like a little dick. Got you to thank for that," Red Dog told him.

"What?"

"Since the first time I saw that piece you're rocking, I haven't been able to stop thinking about dick. You turned me gay, little brother," Red Dog said with a laugh.

"You aren't gay, Curtis. You're bi. Hell, I feel like everybody around here is. 'Cept me. But that's not the point. You gotta stop fucking with the Oasis. I'm begging you."

"Begging? Naw, you ain't begging. If you was begging you'd be on your knees, Elijah," Red Dog said, emphasizing his brother's name.

Eli couldn't understand why just calling him by his name was so difficult for Curtis.

"Would that help? Would you actually stop if I begged?"

"Hell naw," Curtis laughed. "They payin' us good. Real good to fuck with your white boy. Money like that, can't turn it down."

"All money ain't good money," Elijah told him.

"That's a lot of bullshit right there," Red Dog said. "All money good money. Spends the same. Sorry little bro, but I can't help you. Now what are you going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know it was me and the boys. Diego won't say nothing, he workin' for us--"

Elijah stiffened. Diego was a spy for the Bloods? Did Jack know? Was there anybody around here he could actually trust?

"--but you... I'd think family was enough cause to keep your mouth shut, but I don't know about you anymore, no cap."

That stung. Elijah's head spun. He knew he had a choice, one made even harder by the knowledge that Diego was a plant for the Bloods. He had to tell Jack, but if he did, that would mean his brother might end up in jail. Or worse. Twitch seemed pretty angry that Curtis had been found out. What would he do?

"If you promise me you'll stop, I won't say anything," Elijah said, trying to find a compromise. "If you don't... I'll do what I gotta do. You understand?"

Red Dog's eyes narrowed. "Trust me. I overstand what you're saying, Eli."

The two men stared at each other. "Please do the right thing, Red Dog," Eli pled, using his brother's street name to emphasize the point.

His brother's eyes softened for a moment, and hope soared in Eli's breast. The moment passed, and the hardness of a youth spent ripping and tearing on the streets of West Las Vegas returned.

He wasn't going to stop. It was foolishness to think he would. Elijah realized he'd made a mistake coming here. He thought he could reason with his brother. He thought he had a choice to make, and the conversation would help him decide whose side he was on.

But there was never a question. Curtis was blood, but Curtis cared about no one but himself. He pantomimed care for others, for Eli, for his mother, for the neighborhood, but in the end, Red Dog was out for one person and one person only. Himself.

Bringing Eli back to this room, the room he'd used for all the sex work he'd guilted Elijah into participating in, was serendipity. If there was any better way to remind Elijah how far he'd come in the last two weeks, it was this room.

With a smooth motion, Red Dog pulled a shiny, bright revolver from the waistband of his pants and pointed it directly at Elijah's face.

"You gonna snitch, bitch?" Red Dog snarled. "Maybe I make it so you can't?"

A preternatural calm came over Elijah. He should have been scared. He should have wet his pants. He'd never seen a gun before in his life. And now he was staring into the gaping wide maw of one being held on him by his own brother. But he wasn't scared.

He simply didn't believe his brother could pull that trigger. Curtis had been his shield for years, since he was a little kid. He'd kept him out of the game, cheered him up, was one of his biggest cheerleaders. How could he kill his own flesh and blood? How could he do that to their mother?

He couldn't. At least, Elijah didn't think so. Not for a minute.

"Put the gun down, Curtis. You aren't going to kill me," Elijah said softly.

"You don't understand nothin', Eli. You never did."

He cocked the gun, the loud click echoing loudly.

Behind the pair, the door suddenly burst open and Diego sprang through. Behind him were Gabby and Lionel, both with weapons drawn.

Red Dog didn't hesitate, swinging the gun towards the door and pulling the trigger. The sound was deafening, and Elijah threw himself to the floor. Diego ducked low as the bullet shattered the window in the front of the room, charged Red Dog, and speared him to the floor. The revolver flew from his hand, landing on the bed.

Elijah rushed over to it and picked it up. It was warm from just having been shot. His ears were still ringing.

Diego's tackle had knocked the wind out of Curtis, who was gasping on the ground as Diego pinned his arms behind his back.

"Get off me motherfucker! What the fuck are you doing Detour, man!?" Red Dog yelled after he recovered his breath. "Get Boog, not me!"

"Fuck you, Curtis," Diego said. "I'm not going to let you kill Elijah. You're fucking loco," he spat.

Lionel and Gabby stepped into the room, swinging their sidearms left and right. Red Dog's eyes fell on Gabby Hart.

"Lara? What the fuck?"

Gabby looked down at Red Dog coolly. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been covered in tattoos and fake track marks, hair dyed and face painted up to look like a crack whore. She didn't look like a strung-out junkie now. The tattoos were gone and her face looked fierce and angry.

"Miss me, Red Dog?" Gabby said, stepping over to him. "You don't understand nothin'," she said, quoting him from just a few moments ago. "You never did."

She punched him in the face.

"What the fuck was that for?!" Red Dog shouted, as blood trickled down his lip.

"I owe you a lot more than that, you prick. Just remember every time you thought you were in charge back when you were fucking me. Not everything is as it seems, Curtis. And here's hoping you'll treat the boys in prison better."

"Fuck you, cunt," Red Dog said, spitting blood at her. "You and Detour are both dead, you know that?"

"Keep talking, asshole," Lionel said, stepping forward. "Make a few more threats. The cops will just love throwing charges on you. But before they get here, maybe you can do us a favor and tell us who hired you to fuck with the Oasis?"

"Eat my ass, bitch," Red Dog snarled. "You get nothing from me."

Lionel and Gabby looked at each other.

Diego pulled Red Dog's cell phone from his back pocket and tossed it to Gabby. Gabby looked at it and smiled.

"We just got something. Thanks, Curtis," she said sweetly.

Elijah stood up. He crossed over and looked down at his brother.

"What you lookin' at, Boog?" Red Dog snarled. "Fucking traitor ass bitch, you and Detour and that cunt Lara. All a bunch of fucking Judases!"

Elijah shook his head, turned and walked out of the motel room.

* * *

Wednesday Evening, January 4, 1984

Chesterfield Estate, Paradise Valley, Nevada

Winston Chesterfield was drunk. He'd been drunk every night since he'd returned to Las Vegas.

They killed her. He killed her. His hands scrabbled for the glass. He tipped the nearly empty bottle of vodka into the filthy shot glass he'd been using for three days and poured another shot. More of it ended up on his desk than made it into the glass.

The attack on Sheba Sinclair on Christmas Eve could have been a fluke. He didn't really believe that, never really believed that, but it was possible. His conscience had found shelter behind the idea that she had truly been the victim of random violence.

It was thin shelter, a tent in a hurricane, but it was better than nothing.

At least he got to say goodbye. He'd gone home from the hospital, drunk himself into a stupor and gone to bed. It wasn't until early next morning that he'd finally connected with the hospital, when they told him she was dead.

An accident, they said. An overdose of painkillers, they said.

It was all bullshit. Romano's pit viper killed her. He'd told them to solve his problem, and they'd solved it. But they got the wrong woman. Nobody knew where Belle Dix was, but his daughter was dead. And her unborn child.

The child welfare people had his grandson, Solomon. He tried to care -- he wanted to care - but he could only summon enough emotion to feel sorry for himself. It was just something else to beat himself up about.

He took the shot and fell back into his chair, gasping for breath. On the table in front of him sat his loaded.45.

Part of him, a big part, wanted to just end it. He was a horrible human being. He had no redeeming qualities. He was a lecher, he'd broken just about every taboo short of the unspeakable, and he'd lied, cheated and stolen from more people than he could count. He fucked his own daughter. He'd probably impregnated his daughter-in-law. That was less heinous, as she'd asked for it, but it was still absurd. He'd had people killed. Even his own daughter and unborn child, now.

There was no path to redemption for him. He was too far gone for that. He was better off dead.

His hand beat a staccato rhythm on the desk. With each slap, his fingers moved closer and closer to the grip of his father's pistol. How many men had this gun killed? What was one more?

The cold steel of the Colt in his hand, he raised the pistol off the desk and brought it up to his face. His hand was shaking. He was so drunk, he was afraid he'd even fuck this up and end up a paraplegic or half-brain dead.

Or was that an excuse? He felt a raw stab of fear in his gut. He'd been raised Catholic. What he was contemplating was a sin. He laughed ruefully at the thought. They didn't call it Sin City for nothing, and God alone knew how many sins were piled upon his head. What was one more?

He lowered the pistol, setting it as gently as he could on the desk, his hand springing off it like it had just scalded him. He couldn't do it. He was too big of a coward. He didn't know if he believed in God anymore, didn't know if he expected a final judgment, but he wasn't ready to meet his maker.

"Mr. Chesterfield?" A voice sounded from the doorway. The Boston accent was clear as day. Bobby O'Dwyer.

"Oh God, Mr. Chesterfield, what are you doing?" O'Dwyer rushed into the room. He scooped the gun off the table with one hand and the nearly empty bottle of vodka with the other.

"Leave me alone, Bobby," Winston slurred. "Go home to your family. Leave me to do what I gotta do."

"What you 'gotta do,' sir is get sober. Vex Romano is back in town and he's been asking to see you."

"That fucking snake!" Chesterfield roared, staggering to his feet. "I don't want to hear that name ever again, Bobby! You fucking hear me! Ever again!"

Chesterfield stumbled a few steps and then collapsed onto the floor.

O'Dwyer stepped into the hallway, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. A patter of footsteps and two burly security guards rushed into the room.

"Help me take him up to bed, boys. Then I want you to search the house and pour every last drop of liquor into the toilet. There better not be a single drop of alcohol in this estate by tomorrow morning or there'll be hell to pay, understand?"

The two men grunted their understanding, each taking an arm and hauling Winston to his feet.

"Mr. Chesterfield, let's get you to bed. You gotta sleep this off," Bobby said.

O'Dwyer kicked himself. He'd checked in with Chesterfield after word of Sheba Sinclair's death, but Winston had ordered him back to the Oasis to handle things in his absence. Winston told him he needed some time alone. He'd given his boss a week before he started calling, but none of his calls were returned.

Romano's people had told him the minute Vex had returned from Italy. Vex wanted to see Winston. O'Dwyer's divided loyalties had kicked in, and while he was still secretly working for Romano, he liked Winston and respected him. It was hard to respect someone his age, like Romano was, no matter how much a prodigy he was supposed to be. O'Dwyer had gone to Yale, too, after all.

But Romano had been insistent, and when O'Dwyer had finally confessed that he'd not seen Winston in a week, the boy had exploded. That had been the catalyst he needed. Finally, tonight, he summoned the courage to barge into Chesterfield's estate looking for Winston.

And he was glad he did. The last thing he wanted was for his boss to end up on the obituary pages. He had big plans and they all required Winston Chesterfield to be alive.

Bobby followed the security guards upstairs, and by the time they'd gotten Winston undressed and into bed, the man was snoring loudly.

Bobby pulled up a chair, grabbed a book from one of the bookcases in Winston's bedroom -- the film of dust made it clear they'd never been read -- and settled in for a long night. He wasn't going to let the man out of his sight until he sobered up.

Winston's dreams were chaotic, fueled by guilt, sex and alcohol. O'Dwyer watched as his boss thrashed in his sleep, whimpered, cried out, and finally lapsed into a fitful, if quiet, oblivion. Bobby read quietly until he, too, succumbed to sleep.

When dawn found them, Bobby was still sitting in the armchair he'd pointed towards Winston's bed. Winston, in his underwear, had torn the covers on and off so many times they were heaped in a pile at his feet. His pillow was covered in sweat.

As the sun crept up into the sky, Bobby woke first. He shook his head at the state of the bed and his boss, then padded downstairs to find a bathroom and get one of the staff to put on a pot of coffee and some breakfast.

"As much grease as you can," he told the cook. "Eggs, bacon, steak if you've got it. He's going to have one hell of a hangover."

By the time he found his way back upstairs, the smell of frying bacon had begun to waft throughout the house. The bed was empty and Bobby could hear the sound of the shower from the other room.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. At the twenty-minute mark, Bobby knocked on the bathroom door. "Mr. Chesterfield? Everything okay in there?"

"Go away, Bobby!" Winston's voice said shakily.

"Sir, I've got breakfast ready for you downstairs. Coffee, steak and eggs, bacon, the works. Should I get some clothes laid out for you?"

"Are you deaf, you dumb mick! I said go away!" The sentence ended in a choked off sob.

Bobby opened the door to the bathroom and stepped in.

Winston's bathroom was a large affair, with a large soaking tub set against the far wall, and a large, walk-in shower across from it. Winston was sitting, still in his underwear, water cascading down on him. He looked like an ancient, drowned rat.

"Oh, sir," Bobby said. "Let me help you," he added softly.

Winston just waved him away.

Half an hour later, Bobby had managed to get Winston out of the shower, dried off and cleaned up, in a clean shirt and pants. He'd poured two cups of coffee into him and a handful of aspirin, then led him gently down the stairs to breakfast.

Bobby had breakfast laid out for them in Winston's office. Winston sat behind his desk and Bobby across from him. There was plenty of room on the desk for both their plates. Chesterfield's cook had kept the food warm, and after the first few bites, Winston's appetite came roaring back and he ate with gusto.

"This is the first solid meal I've had in a week," he said softly. "Thank you, Bobby. You've gone above and beyond."

"Happy to help, sir," O'Dwyer said. He topped off his own coffee and left the pot in front of Winston.

"I don't remember much from the last week. Fill me in."

Bobby went over the last week in the Oasis. It had been a stellar Christmas and New Year's, the hotel had been booked solid, and the casino had done very well. It seemed like people were finally emerging from the '83 doldrums and were ready to spend money again.

"It's morning in America, eh?" Winston said, with a snort.

"Why, I suppose it is," Bobby said. "That'd make a good political slogan."

"Somebody call the White House."

They ate in silence for a few more minutes. Bobby cleared his throat.

"I, uh... don't know if you remember, but last night when I came in... I don't know how else to say this," Bobby stammered. "Vex Romano wants to see you."

"Fuck him," Winston growled. "I have no desire to talk to that man, ever again. Him or his fixer. The two of them can rot in Hell as far as I'm concerned."

"I don't understand," Bobby said, concern etched plainly on his youthful features. "I thought you and Mr. Romano were good friends."

"Were," Winston stressed. "We were. Not anymore."

"What happened?"

Winston looked up. It suddenly struck him. Bobby had no idea. None at all.

Chesterfield felt a sharp stab of grief as he thought of Jennifer Massie, his old assistant. His only friend. The only person who knew everything. She'd have known what to do and she'd have understood immediately why Sheba's death had sent him into such a spiral.

"It's a long story, Bobby. Let's just say that I think Vex and his lapdog had something to do with Sheba's death."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because we thought we were helping," a voice said from the entrance to his office.

Chesterfield closed his eyes and sighed. His head was pounding and hearing that voice, in his house, aggravated the headache into something just shy of a migraine.

Bobby's head whipped around. Standing in the entryway was Victor Romano, with Sal Pacelli a few paces behind him.

"How did you get in here?" Bobby asked, rising to face the two men. Vex and Sal stepped into the office.

"I asked nicely," Vex said with a smile. The smile did not reach his eyes.

"I gave your guards a hundred bucks," Sal said, stiffly. "And told them we had an appointment."

"Bobby, fire the guards and get me new ones," Winston said. "Wait until after Vex and Sal here leave."

"I need to talk to you, Winston," Vex said. "I would appreciate a few minutes of your time."

He looked at Bobby. "Alone, please."

Winston sighed. Telling Romano no was always difficult. And as much as he wanted Bobby in the room, there were things the young man didn't need to know.

"Fine. Bobby, give us fifteen minutes."

"Yes, sir," Bobby said. He brushed past Romano and Pacelli, then closed the double doors of Chesterfield's office.

"You didn't have to kill her," Chesterfield said. He started opening drawers in his desk, looking for a bottle of booze. He usually kept a bottle of Cutty Sark for emergencies.

He couldn't find it. His desk was largely empty, just random papers, his checkbook, and his daddy's.45, which Bobby had replaced in his top drawer where Winston kept it.

"You asked us to solve your problem. We solved it," Sal replied. There wasn't a hint of contrition in his voice.

"You'd already done that. You paid off the blackmailers and got the photos. This issue was resolved, as far as I was concerned. Where is Belle Dix now?"

"Gone. Probably left the city. Her husband is dead," Pacelli answered. Vex just stood there, looking at Winston. His face could have been carved in stone.

"You killed her husband and that rat David Sinclair," Winston snarled, "but you missed the one person responsible for all this? You almost killed Sheba, and then when you realized you hadn't, you went back and finished the job! You're a fucking incompetent asshole, Sal."

"Dix's husband and David Sinclair were the victims of gang crime," Vex explained. "Sheba Sinclair was caught in the crossfire, and died a few days later, thanks to the medical malpractice of a drunk doctor."

Winston laughed out loud. "I trusted you. I asked for help. You told me you'd help. You didn't tell me you were going to leave a trail of bodies at my doorstep. I might as well have asked the fucking Chin for help."

That struck home. Vex winced slightly, the Mob dig finally getting through his emotional armor. "Winston, they were blackmailing you. All of them. They were all in it together. Now they're gone and you're free."

"Free? You killed my..." Winston cut himself off. He wouldn't admit it. Couldn't admit it. The fragment of a thought hung in the air. Winston sighed. "You killed my mistress. I didn't want you to do that. She told me she wasn't involved and I believed her."

It was Pacelli's turn to laugh. "You believed her?"

"Romano, if that piece of shit working for you says one more word, he's going to leave this room minus his head," Winston growled.

Vex looked over at Pacelli and waved him off. Vex turned back to Winston but said nothing. Winston thought he saw a glimmer of emotion in Vex's eyes. It was the most surprising thing he'd seen from Romano in a long, long time.

Until the next words came out of his mouth. They were as shocking as they were unexpected.

"I'm sorry, Winston."

"What?"

Winston couldn't believe what he'd just heard. Vex Romano... apologizing?

"I said I'm sorry, Winston. I know you cared about... Sheba. I remember you being at the hospital when her son was born. That was the first time you and I really spoke, if you remember."

The image of Vex, a different Vex, a happier Vex, almost giddy over the birth of his daughter, sprang into Winston's mind. It felt so long ago, even though it was only half a year. It felt like another lifetime.

What was Vex playing at? Winston's eyes narrowed. His natural paranoia kicked in. He looked over at Pacelli, who stood there silently, his usual lawyer's smirk on his face.

Vex Romano didn't apologize to anybody. People don't change that quickly. Vex may have been in Italy for a month, but he was still Vex Romano. Winston's anger simmered. He refused to be manipulated anymore by these men.

"I remember," Winston said softly. "But if you think for a second that by reminding me of that moment you can tug on my heartstrings with the memory of your dead wife and daughter, you read me completely wrong."

Vex took a step back, reeling as if Winston had slapped him in the face.

Winston didn't stop there. He stood up, opened the desk drawer, and pulled out his father's.45. He pointed it right at Vex's face. Vex and Pacelli stiffened.

"Here's what's going to happen now. You two are going to leave my office. You are going to fuck off back to that rat trap of a hotel you're running into the ground, and you're going to forget you know me. I don't want to see you, I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to hear you talking about me. And if I ever see you again," Winston pointed the gun at Sal Pacelli, "I'm going to fill you so full of lead, you can use your dick for a pencil. Now get the fuck out of my house!"

Vex Romano and Sal Pacelli didn't hesitate. They stepped backwards until they reached the closed doors behind them. Sal turned and opened them, and the pair exited in silence. Winston kept the gun trained on them until he heard the front door open and close.

"Sir?" Bobby O'Dwyer poked his head into the office, just as Winston collapsed into his chair. Winston looked at the.45 and then at Bobby.

"It's not loaded," Bobby said, staring at the gun. "I took all the bullets out. I know it means a lot to you so I put it back in your drawer, but after last night..."

Winston cut him off. "Bobby, where is Sheba's son?"

"Uh... I'm not sure. The last I'd heard the child welfare people--"

"Bobby, that boy is an orphan. I'm the closest thing to family he's got. I... cared for his mother. Find out where he is, and let's make sure we take care of him, okay?"

Bobby nodded. "Absolutely, sir. What happened with Romano?"

"Vex Romano is dead to me. And if I see his lawyer again, I'll tear his heart out with my bare hands. Now go and take care of that baby."

Bobby nodded, pulled the doors to Winston's office shut and left his boss alone. He hesitated briefly, seeing the gun still on the desk, but he didn't believe Winston would do anything without booze.

Winston sat in silence for a while, his hands shaking. He couldn't remember being so angry. Thank God the gun was unloaded. He'd almost pulled the trigger. He wanted to wipe that goddamn smirk off Pacelli's face so badly. His respect for Bobby O'Dwyer rose. The kid was young and that accent was annoying, but he was loyal, and that was important.

He needed loyal people around him. He had work to do.

Sheba was dead. Belle was gone. Baby Solomon was all he had left of Sheba and her mother.

"I can't bring your mother back, kid, but I can at least make sure you get a chance at a real life," he said to himself. "It's the least I can do."

Winston opened the drawer and put his father's gun away. No more self-pity. He was Winston Chesterfield and this was his town. Things would never be the same, he knew, but that didn't matter.

The Oasis and Solomon Sinclair beckoned.

* * *

Sunday Morning, July 11, 2032

Second Baptist Church, Las Vegas

I'd never been in a black church before, and I had to admit, the experience was... interesting. It was a much louder, more raucous service than I was used to, but I enjoyed myself. The music was wonderful. The choir of older church ladies sprinkled with a few younger women -- many of them quite attractive -- sang like angels.

A few of the girls made eye contact with me and smiled, which made me blush. I caught Avery glancing at me after one such incident, and it brought a rare smile to her face.

I never thought I'd use 'rare smile' in describing Avery. Even before we'd started dating, when she was still in her sex avoidant mode, she'd been quick with a smile and a laugh. It was one of the things I remembered about her from watching her interviews on TV. She always looked so professional, so formidable, and then someone would say something amusing. That radiant smile would appear, like the sun after a thunderstorm. It transformed her. The smile washed away the gloom and showed the world the true woman underneath.

Maybe I was the only one who saw it, but I did. Thank God I did.

Pastor Winthrop stood up and began his sermon. I tried to pay attention, but my thoughts kept wandering back to Avery. I was truly worried about her.

She'd lost that quick grin since the attack ads started. They had been relentless. It had been nearly a month since the official campaign kick-off, and the negative ads hadn't stopped. All day, every day, at least one version of the anti-Avery attack ads appeared somewhere. It had been so harsh even the national media had picked up on it, running stories about the Super PAC with so much money to spend in a presidential year on a random special election in Nevada.

I watched Avery out of the side of my eye. This last month had been one of the toughest we'd ever had, and I felt so useless. I couldn't do a damn thing to help. Was this what she'd felt when I was in the hospital after getting shot and again after being poisoned? If so, it was horrible. No wonder she'd gotten so angry at me when I'd jumped in to save Eva. This was the worst feeling in the world. Someone was attacking my girl, and I couldn't prevent it.

Fiona's back of the envelope math estimated that whoever was pulling the strings to attack us had dumped more than $30 million over the last month. In one month! It was unsustainable. No Congressional race had cost even remotely close to that, ever. So the money had to run out at some point.

We didn't just take it, obviously. We had money, too. And a way better ad, if you ask me. Who wouldn't want to watch hot men and women fucking instead of blurry photos and menacing voice overs? Sol put $15 million into a Super PAC of our own and Vex Romano threw in $5 million -- although I'm pretty sure that was all Eva -- and they began running softcore versions of Avery's first campaign ad, as well as a bio piece that Nyla came up with designed to counter the attack version. It played up Avery as the crusading reporter, highlighting her Pulitzer and the fall of Speaker Best through her work at the Trib-Review.

I wish we could have run the full ad on TV. Things had changed a lot in America over the last decade, but hardcore porn on broadcast TV hadn't made the cut - yet. Fortunately, it didn't really matter. Even toned down, the ads were wildly popular. Far more so than the anti-Avery ads had been. The full ad, which was available online, had more than 500 million views.

Eva squeezed my thigh, as if she knew what I was thinking. She'd been as worried about Avery as I had, and she'd refused to leave Avery's side since the attacks started. I had been forced to go back to work, dealing with the Oasis, but she'd made it clear she wouldn't start her CFO duties until after the election. I didn't bother fighting her on it. Avery needed her more than I did. I had Elijah, after all. Elijah kept me on track, just like Claire used to do. He was shaping up well. He'd send Eva summaries of our financials, and each morning she'd send him a campaign update straight from Fiona.

Our polling numbers were through the roof. But so were Best's. The two of them had left all of the other candidates in the dust, and a few had already dropped out. Avery was on pace to win her primary, and Best was the only candidate seeking the nod at the American Traditionalist Party's first convention in August. Essentially, the race was down to the two of them.

I looked around the church. It was packed. Our pew was crowded. Mom and Sol were with us, and Eva sat on one side of me, Avery on the other. Beside her was Elijah's mother, and Elijah with the pastor's wife Cassie on the end.

"Do you think somebody's going to speak in tongues? I've never seen that," Eva whispered in my ear.

"Oh stop," I said, smacking her leg playfully. "I don't think this is that kind of church."

"What about snakes? When do they bring out the snakes?" Eva's nose wrinkled, giving her a mischievous look.

I rolled my eyes at her. She was having a blast apparently. I looked at Avery, who was focused on Pastor Winthrop, doing her best to diligently attend to his sermon. She looked troubled but was putting on a brave face. Only Eva or I could have read her so easily.

This was a closed press event -- there were cameras outside, but we'd asked the media to let us worship with the Winthrops and their church in peace. Even so, Avery was smart enough to know that many, many eyes would be on her and she was on public display.

That hadn't kept her from looking amazingly hot. She'd chosen a flowery sun dress, cut low, that showed off her ample cleavage, the color making a nice contrast with her deeply tanned skin. I knew she wasn't wearing panties underneath -- she never did, as was Elysium tradition -- and the dress ended far above her knees. She had a yellow Hermes scarf tied around her neck and a wide-brimmed hat sitting at a jaunty angle over her hair. She'd piled it up on her head, allowing a few wisps of raven to frame her face. It was just the right balance between Sunday finest and sexual assertiveness that she'd been trying to strike throughout the campaign.

Eva was dressed similarly, favoring a blue sun dress to Avery's white and yellow. Her blonde hair was back in a ponytail, and she reminded me of Olivia Newton John's character in Grease, all innocent and adorable. She had less cleavage to show off than Avery, but she looked just as good. I was in a light gray suit, white shirt, and no tie. I had originally gone with a tie, but Avery took it off.

"We don't want to look too formal, even in church," she told me as we left the Oasis. "You look better without it." She'd then given me a quick kiss and a slap on the cheek. It was playful, but I could tell it was forced. Avery had not been herself since the attacks had started.

Fiona was of two minds on how to deal with it. On the one hand, we could ignore it. There wasn't anything there, after all. Avery wasn't the bad guy in that story, no matter how Best framed it. She'd done what she'd had to do, reported her own father, helped convict him, and her brother had never forgiven her for it. Fiona felt like it was something we could endure for a few months.

On the other hand, Avery wanted to explain it. Sit down, air all the dirty laundry, get it out and over with, then move on to what she wanted to talk about. She even knew which reporter she wanted to do the interview -- the host of CBS's Face the Nation, who she'd known from back in Washington. Avery felt having a woman interview her would be more powerful.

The pair was at a stalemate, and no decision had been made. I'd told Avery no decision effectively meant Fiona got her way, but Avery was hesitant to push. She knew Fiona's political instincts were better than her own, and Avery had a bad habit of second guessing herself. The last few weeks had gone by slowly, with no real response from us. And we were still sitting on the video that contradicted Best and Bentley's accusations about me.

Pastor Winthrop was wrapping up his sermon, and it had been a doozy. He'd spoken forcefully about freedom, about the need for people to make their own decisions, how God had given us free will and the ability to choose -- it was as if he'd taken Avery's talking points and distilled them down into something his congregation would find compelling. He spoke about the election, urged the congregation to register to vote, and cajoled them to do so. He made no references to Avery so far, but the parishioners in the pews couldn't have missed an entire row of celebrities down front.

I looked down our pew. Elijah made eye contact with me and nodded. I saw a flicker of motion and noticed Cassie Winthrop's hand was resting on his crotch. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave me a sheepish grin.

It had been weeks since Diego and Elijah had burst into my rooms at the Oasis, excitedly explaining what had happened with Elijah's brother, Curtis. I still couldn't quite believe that Elijah had marched into Blood territory, confronted his brother and then stood his ground with a gun in his face. I thanked God Diego, Gabby and Lionel had been there. But it was his decision that truly floored me.

"You chose me over your own family?" I'd asked him. He'd looked me straight in the eye and didn't hesitate.

"You're part of my family, Jack. You've been better to me in two weeks than Curtis ever was. He tried to protect me, in his way, but he never really saw me for me and there was always an expectation in return. There never was with you. You believed in me. Curtis never did. Besides, what he did was wrong. Better to send him away now, let him do some time and have a chance at a straight life when he gets out rather than keep going down the path he was going," Elijah explained. "Which was straight into a cell with our pa."

"I can't thank you enough, Eli," I told him, then wrapped him in a big hug. "This means a lot to me."

"You've already thanked me plenty," Elijah said, his eyes moist with unfallen tears.

Tiana had been working long hours trying to hack Red Dog's phone. It had been a lot harder than she'd anticipated -- the phone was heavily altered and sported high end encryption, which told us plenty about where it must have come from. She was confident she could break it, given enough time. I hoped we'd get an update from her about it soon. If there was a concrete connection to Sally Hemingway there, it would help confirm what we already knew and could give us an extra avenue to go after her eventually. Sol was handling that business. The girls and I had more than enough on our collective plates.

I sighed, which earned me a look from Avery. I took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She rested her head carefully on my shoulder, trying not to upset her hat. It felt nice, sitting in church with her and Eva. It didn't hurt that we were surrounded by a whole host of attractive people, men and women. Black men filled the pews, many alone, and all of them were my type. My mind started to drift towards thoughts that had no business in a church, and I wrestled to keep my libido under control.

Pastor Winthrop introduced Avery at the end of the service, and the crowd gave her a round of applause, with more than a few wolf whistles thrown in from the men. Avery ate it up, smiling and waving, putting on a good face for the crowd. It was good to see her feeling a little better. I could tell her pleasure was genuine.

By the time the last note rang out and the last amen was shouted, I felt my stomach growl, and I was looking forward to the post service potluck that Cassie Winthrop had arranged.

We filed out the front of the church as the parishioners lined up to shake Pastor Winthrop's hand. That done, they'd head over to the auxiliary room the church used for large functions, on the other side of the sanctuary. I could smell the barbeque from here.

"Thank you for your hospitality today, Pastor Winthrop," Avery said, giving him her brightest smile. "It's been a pleasure and I'm looking forward to some of your church cooking now!"

"Ms. Locke, you will always have a home here at Second Baptist. I have to say, I'm quite the fan," Pastor Winthrop said, beaming one of his million dollar smiles at her, his white teeth shining. "I am looking forward to sending you to Washington, young lady!"

"We're both big fans," Cassie Winthrop said from beside her husband. "I think I've watched your campaign ad a dozen times," she gushed.

I heard Elijah's mother behind us clicking her tongue and had to bite off a laugh.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it, Mrs. Winthrop," Avery replied, taking Cassie by the hand. "I thoroughly enjoyed making it!"

The two ladies laughed, and Cassie pulled Avery close and whispered in her ear. I saw them glance at me, then Eva and then over at Eli. Avery nodded, and I saw her mouth the words "we'd be happy to," before Cassie smiled at her again and we moved away.

"What was that all about?" Eva asked as we turned towards the luncheon.

"Cassie invited us to a 'post-luncheon discussion' in Pastor Winthrop's office afterwards," Avery said, making air quotes. "I get the feeling there won't be a lot of talking, though."

"Are you up for that?" I asked. Avery had been reticent about sex over the last month, and Eva and I had not been pushing her. I knew she was hurting from the attack ads, and I hoped time and love from the pair of us would help her get through the initial shock, but it hadn't worked. This was the longest she'd gone without sex since we got together with Eva.

"We'll see," Avery said. She had a far away look in her eyes, and I wished there was something I could do to ease her pain. I was doing what I thought she needed -- just being there -- yet that just didn't seem like enough. She was under incredible stress, far more than any other time in our relationship. I knew she could handle it, but Eva and I both wanted her to realize she had a lot of people in her corner, no matter how much was being said about her on TV.

"Did you see the Pastor's wife with Eli?" Eva said, giggling. "I thought she was going to go down on him in the middle of the service!"

"That would have been a sight," I laughed.

"Jack, I'm going to take momma home, then come back for the luncheon. She says she's not feeling well," Elijah told me. His mother was looking at me and the girls with a disapproving air about her.

"I understand. Give her my best, and we'll see you back over here shortly," I told him.

"Thanks," he said. He rolled his eyes and I gave him a tight smile.

Elijah told me his mother would not approve of our lifestyle, and he had been correct. I didn't hold it against her. She was of a different generation, and I knew not everybody had taken to the world's new openness to sex and sexuality the same way. If they had, the AmTrad people wouldn't be doing as well as they'd been. I refused, however, to judge those people the way they were judging us. Maybe someday she'll come around.

"That service brings back a lot of memories," Sol said as he and Mom caught up to us. "My parents brought me up Episcopalian, but I decided to try an African Methodist Episcopal Church when I was at school in New York. It was an experience, let me tell you."

"I bet," Emily told him, clinging on to his arm. She'd dressed as conservatively as her wardrobe would allow for church, but she was still wearing less than Avery or Eva. There was no hiding her massive breasts, no matter what she wore, and even with the toned down makeup, she had turned even more heads than Avery had when we'd walked into the church. Even now there was a crowd of men walking behind us, eyeing up mom from behind. "Did you bring Lena with you?"

Sol barked a laugh. "Only once. Let me tell you, even in the early 2000s, me walking into that church holding hands with a white girl was plenty controversial."

"Couldn't have been worse than us walking in there today," Eva said with a chuckle. "I think we made quite the impression."

"Well, some of the folks in there made quite the impression on me," I told the group. "There were some fine-looking people in that church today."

"Well, you're going to get to meet them now," Avery said with a smirk. "We've got to press the flesh in here. Lots of potential voters!"

Sol's cell phone rang. He paused to take the call, then came over to us. "I hate to do this, but I'm needed back at the hotel. Emily, you're welcome to stay if you want," he said to Mom.

"No, I'll come back with you. I'm in the mood to give you some road head," she said, licking her lips.

"Sorry, Avery," Sol said. "I wish we could join you all. Maybe next time."

"Don't worry about it," Avery told him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. "I appreciate you being here regardless."

Lionel picked the two of them up in one of the Elysium's Escalades as we entered the auxiliary room.

As I expected, the food after church was amazing. Avery ate almost nothing, too busy working the room. She introduced herself to everyone, had her picture taken with what felt like half the congregation, and gave out a ton of bumper stickers and other swag we'd brought along.

Fiona was back at the Elysium, working with Nyla on a new set of campaign ads from footage they'd filmed earlier in the week, so I pulled out my phone and started getting some video of Avery as she handled some good old fashioned retail politics.

She wasn't the only one folks wanted to take photographs with.

"Yo, Mr. Fisher," one of the younger Black guys said, coming up with a couple of his friends. They were all good-looking guys, probably Elijah's age, and they'd come up to him first before they'd approached me. "Can we get a photo and an autograph? You're our favorite star, you know?"

"Really?" I asked. "I'd be happy to."

I was used to getting requests from folks in the Elysium -- it was a common occurrence -- but the audience there tended to trend older and far more affluent. I guess I should have figured my stuff had broader appeal.

"Yeah man, we dig what you're doing. To be so openly bi? And two girlfriends? You're living the dream!"

One of the guys was especially effusive in his praise and wanted a couple of photos of him and me alone together, rather than with the rest of his friends.

"Thanks, Mr. Fisher," he told me as we chatted briefly afterwards. "You don't know what this means to me. I mean, I've struggled with my sexuality my whole life. It wasn't until I saw your movies that I realized that I wasn't that weird. I know being gay or bi isn't a big deal anymore, but my parents were pretty strict with us growing up, and I'm kind of dreading going to college in the fall. Relationships and all that. I don't know what I'm going to do," he told me.

"You just gotta be yourself. I remember what it was like when I was growing up. I felt the same way. At some point, you just have to be true to yourself and do what feels right. As long as you're happy with yourself, it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks."

It struck me that I could be giving this speech to Avery right now. She needed to hear it just as much as this guy, whose name I still didn't know, did.

"Thanks, Mr. Fisher. I'll try to remember that," he told me.

He wasn't a bad looking guy, to be honest. He was youthful, just a tad too thin for my tastes, but there was something compelling about him that I couldn't put my finger on. He was tall, maybe a few inches shorter than me, but he seemed taller because of how stick thin he was. I would have called him a twink, but he had none of the pretty boy softness I associated with the word. Curly black hair, deep brown eyes that betrayed an attractive naivety, and a hairless face that I doubted he often had to shave. He wasn't somebody I would call handsome or gorgeous -- he was on the bubble for being able to get into the Elysium, if I had to guess, but there was something compelling about him anyway.

"Call me Jack. What's your name?"

"Brayden," he said. "Brayden Winters. Pleasure to meet you."

Avery saw the two of us chatting and she stepped over just as he introduced himself to me. "Hi, Brayden! I'm Avery. Nice to meet you!"

Brayden smiled at Avery, but he kept looking back at me. Avery definitely noticed, and she took my hand and gave it a squeeze. He was polite, however, and finally turned his full attention to Avery. "It's nice to meet you, too, Miss Locke. I'm looking forward to voting for you. It's my first election! I just turned eighteen two weeks ago!"

Avery gave me the side eye, and I tried not to smile.

"Well, I certainly appreciate that! Did I overhear you telling Jack that you were a big fan? What's your favorite movie of Jack's?" Avery asked. I looked at her, wondering where that question came from.

Brayden laughed and began talking about a few of the scenes I'd done with some of the bulls from the Elysium's stable. Every scene he mentioned had included me being with another guy. Avery's smile broadened as he spoke, and she gently rubbed one of her fingers across the back of my hand.

I couldn't figure out what she was doing, until it hit me -- months and months ago, before Eva, back when we were in DC and she was finally starting to come out of her shell, we'd joked about needing a code signal if one of us saw someone we wanted to fuck or wanted the other to fuck. Tapping a finger meant she wanted to fuck, rubbing one meant she wanted to watch me fuck. It was the first time I could recall her ever using the code.

This was a very good sign that she was starting to get back to normal.

"Well, Brayden, it seems you really are a big fan," Avery said with a knowing grin. She leaned in to kiss me on the cheek and whispered in my ear. "I like him. Bring him with you to the Pastor's thing, if you want."

I looked at her carefully. For the first time since the attack ads had started, Avery had that mischievous gleam in her eye that had won my heart so many months ago. Between that and the hand signal, I felt like I could burst.

Was my girl back? I had to play it like she was.

I gave her a broad grin and kissed her heartily. This is what I wanted to see. Finally, a glimmer of the old Avery shining through. I had to invite the guy to join us now.

Avery made small talk for a few moments more, before she moved away to introduce herself to more people. I invited Brayden over to sit with Eva and me, while I kept an eye on Avery. So far, everybody who had stayed for the luncheon seemed pleased that we were here. I had expected a few holdouts, like Elijah's mom, but those people all must have decided to skip the luncheon. I did note that there were fewer people here than had been in the service, but that wasn't surprising.

"How did you like my sermon, son?" Pastor Winthrop said, sitting down next to me as I scooped one last bite of potato salad off my plate. I started to answer, when he cut me off.

"How about we go back to my office and talk about it? Bring your friends. Cassie and I would love to get to know you all better," he said, with a knowing look. I started to ask about Brayden, when Winthrop saw him sitting next to me. "Young Brayden Winters! My, my. I see you've met Miss Locke's partner here? Would you care to join us?"

"Boy would I, Pastor Luther!" Brayden was so excited, I could feel his leg bouncing up and down next to me. He was like an overexcited puppy, and it made me smile.

"Great. I'll round up Cassie, and you round up your friends, and we can all meet in five minutes down the hall. Elijah knows where it is," he explained, standing up.

Eva blew me a kiss. She had picked up the vibe, and we both had remembered Elijah's description of Cassie Winthrop. I was itching to see her tattoos, even if she probably wasn't interested in fucking me. I wondered if she was into girls. I also realized Eva and Avery had yet to see Elijah's monster cock in real life, so they were in for a treat, too.

I discreetly pulled Avery away from a discussion of the merits of data centers outside Las Vegas with an elderly Black man -- she didn't have the heart to tell him that issue was settled half a decade ago -- and nodded to Elijah. Eva followed me, and soon our crew, along with Brayden, moved back to the Pastor's office.

I was surprised at how spacious Pastor Winthrop's office was. The hallway leading back from the auxiliary room was just painted cinderblock, with a kitchen, a nursery and a few storage rooms off it, with the Pastor's office at the far end.

There was enough room in his office for a full seating area, with a pair of long, leather couches with a coffee table before them, hymnals and Bibles covering it. The walls were lined with bookcases, and his desk sported a high-tech looking pair of monitors that could be swung on arms to allow them to face the seating area. The desk itself was an enormous monstrosity, and the high-backed leather chair behind it looked forbidding, yet comfortable.

Pastor Winthrop gestured to us to find places around the sitting area, which we did.

Everyone, that is, except his wife. Cassie crossed over to the desk, bent down and suddenly disappeared under it.

I looked at Avery, who looked back at me with her eyebrows raised. There was certainly plenty of room under that desk for someone. A few someones, unless I missed my mark. I smiled back at her and waited.

I had a feeling this was going to be fun.

Pastor Winthrop took a seat behind the desk and looked across at us. In the silence, we all heard the sound of a zipper, and then Pastor Winthrop let out a long sigh.

Eva and Avery sat to my left, Brayden and Elijah on my right.

"Thank you for joining us for services today, Miss Locke," Pastor Winthrop began. "It's not every day we are so blessed to have someone like you join us in worship. I've been doing a lot of research on you and your campaign."

"I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, Pastor Winthrop," Avery began.

He tapped a few buttons on his computer, and the two monitors showed Avery's campaign commercial in all its glory. I grinned when I saw it, and so did Eva. Elijah looked over at me in slight surprise, while the look on Brayden's face hovered between shock and longing.

"Your campaign ad shows you, and your... partners... making love, alongside the Vice President and Jack's parents." Pastor Winthrop gestured to the screen.

The sounds of a loving blowjob filled the air. At first I thought he'd left the audio of the campaign ad on, but then I realized the video feed was muted. That had to be coming from under the desk.

"It does," Avery told him. She sat up, and I could see her nipples thrusting out against the thin fabric of her sun dress. Eva was fidgeting beside her, and I realized that one of Avery's hands had worked its way up Eva's thigh and was questing around between her legs.

"I have to admit, I've never seen this kind of a campaign ad before," he said with a flash of his white teeth. "What's the message?"

"Free love," Avery told him. Eva let a slight moan escape her lips, whipping a hand up to stifle it. I felt myself starting to become aroused, and I noticed that both Brayden and Elijah had started to shift in their seats. "I believe most of the problems facing America can be solved by leading with love, being open to new experiences and embracing our shared humanity."

"I certainly see a lot of embracing," Winthrop said with a smirk. "But I'm not sure if this is the right message we should be sending the youth of America. Brayden, I asked you here because you and Elijah represent that youth. What do you think about this campaign ad?"

Brayden swallowed and then looked over at me. "I loved it," he said huskily. "I loved seeing so many people enjoying themselves. Different ages, colors, genders -- it made me think maybe things aren't as bad as they seem," he said. "And I especially liked..."

"Yes?" Pastor Winthrop steepled his hands together and looked at the young man. I saw him darting his eyes over to Avery and Eva, and I knew he had to see what they were doing. The blowjob noises from under the desk only got louder, and I saw the Pastor bite his lip gently.

"Well... I especially liked that Jack and the Vice President were willing to... make love... on the camera. The VP coming out as bisexual in a campaign ad? Well... it made me think I could do that, too."

Brayden's sentence had started off tentatively, like he was trying to find the right words, not to say something crass in front of his pastor, but his last sentence, where he all but admitted he was bisexual too, came out loud and clear.

It made me happy. I hoped that other men in his position saw what Doug Stone and I had done and that it had emboldened them too.

"The Lord accepts us all, young Brayden, flaws, warts and all. You don't have to be ashamed of who you are. I know you've heard my sermons, but one thing I've learned over the years is I certainly don't know everything," Winthrop said. He looked over at Eva and Avery, then over at me and the two Black guys sharing my couch. "For instance, I don't know what it's like to make love in a group like you all did for this campaign commercial."

"Would you like to find out?" Avery asked him, standing up and pulling Eva to her feet alongside her.

"Why, I do believe I would," Pastor Winthrop said with a broad smile.

Avery turned to Eva and pulled her into a deep, sensual kiss. Eva's hands roamed Avery's body and the pair soon became the center of attention. Avery peeled her hat from her head and tossed it across the room like a frisbee, and Eva pulled her sundress over her head and tossed it on the floor. Avery followed suit and the two women were nude in front of us.

I wanted to see what was happening behind the desk, so I stood up and took a few steps over towards Winthrop. Brayden and Elijah followed my lead and soon the three of us were watching Cassie Winthrop's mouth devouring her husband's cock under the desk.

She was between his legs, her pretty blonde head bouncing up and down on his rod. I couldn't get a good glimpse of what he was packing as she blew him until he pushed back from the desk and stood up.

I licked my lips as his fat cock came into full view, as Cassie pulled his trousers down around his legs, along with his boxer shorts. His cock was enormous, even larger than mine. He saw me staring and shook his head gently. "Not my thing, son. But I don't think you have to worry about that, unless I miss my guess." He nodded in Brayden's direction.

I turned to Brayden, whose eyes were bugging out of his head. Avery and Eva were rubbing their bodies together and kissing passionately, Eva's fingers buried in Avery's crotch, Avery's huge breasts quivering as she shuddered each time Eva found her clit.

Elijah had stepped around the desk and was coming up behind Cassie Winthrop, who had begun to undress. Pastor Winthrop stepped out of his pants, pulled off his tie and started to strip naked.

I looked at Brayden, who was looking at me, anticipation obvious in his face. He wasn't the best looking guy I'd ever seen, but he was almost shaking with desire. I tried to put myself in his place, being here, in his pastor's office, about to take part in an orgy with somebody he idolized.

Me. Damn, it felt weird thinking about it that way. I'd fucked so many people over the last year that they all kind of blended together, but I couldn't remember ever fucking an actual fan that wasn't affiliated with the Elysium in some way.

And that's when it hit me. This would be a first for me, but it was probably an even bigger first for Brayden.

"Have you ever done this before?" I asked him quietly.

The look of anticipation was suddenly replaced by one of embarrassment. "No," he said softly.

"No, as in, 'no, never with a guy' or no, as in 'never at all'?" I asked him with a small grin.

He laughed sheepishly. "Never at all," he said. "Never had the chance. I'm not that comfortable around girls, even though I like them, and with guys... there's never been an opportunity."

"Would you like me to show you?" I knew the answer before the question left my mouth, but I wanted him to feel like he was in control here. Which, honestly, he was. If he would rather just watch, that was okay with me too. I had my girls, after all.

"Yes," he nodded.

I pulled him to me and kissed him on the lips. At first he froze, as if I had startled him, but after a few seconds he closed his eyes, his lips parted and our tongues met. What began softly soon became more fervent, his tongue questing deeply into my mouth. I wrapped my arms around him and he did the same to me, and we were soon locked in a fast embrace, tongues dancing as we tasted each other for the first time.

I could taste the tanginess of the barbeque we'd had for lunch on his lips. His lips were soft, as was the skin of his face. I reached up to caress his cheek as we kissed and was shocked at how smooth he was. I lost myself in the kiss for a few moments, and I felt my cock begin to rise steadily.

By the time we broke off the kiss, I was hard as a rock, and I needed to get out of my pants. I stripped off my suit and shirt, tossing them on the couch. Brayden followed suit, and I noticed by that point that everyone in the room had finally gotten naked except for Cassie Winthrop.

Avery and Eva had crossed over to where Cassie stood, fondling Elijah and her husband's cocks.

"Holy shit!" Avery said, gasping.

"Are you serious?" Eva said with a giggle. She turned to me. "Jack, when were you planning on letting us in on this big secret?!"

Brayden reached down and grabbed my cock and stroked it while his eyes roamed over Elijah and Luther's members.

"I have never seen cocks this size before," he said softly. He looked at me with a hint of sadness. "I'm not even close to that size, Jack." He looked down at his own cock, which was sticking out straight in front of him.

Brayden's penis was maybe half the size of mine, and far smaller than both of the other Black men in the room. I would have guessed it was slightly smaller than average, but on a body as stick thin as Brayden's it fit him perfectly.

"It's perfect," I told him, giving it a squeeze. "You look great to me, B." I punctuated the statement with a kiss. I reached down and grabbed his cock, and we tugged gently on each other.

Avery and Eva undressed Cassie Winthrop. She was beautiful, curvy and luscious, with her breasts and pussy pierced. I was disappointed to see that the tattoos Elijah had told us about were all gone save for a single Queen of Spades tattoo on her ass cheek that looked faded with age. She was not that old a woman, so that tattoo must have been there since she was Brayden's age.

The three women fell to their knees before Elijah and Luther, and they lovingly sucked the two Black men's cocks.

Brayden and I stroked each other as we watched the ladies with the other men.

"Want to try it?" I asked him.

"I don't know what to do," he told me, but he licked his lips. "But I do want to try!"

"Here. Let's get closer."

I walked him over to where Elijah and Luther were standing, their heads thrown back. They had three beautiful mouths on their cocks and were clearly enjoying themselves. I lined Brayden up next to them, and turned him around to face me.

I fell to my knees beside Avery, pulled Brayden in close and took his cock in my mouth. He was small enough that I could take all of him without even trying that hard. I reached up to play with his balls as my tongue worked his shaft in my mouth. He was completely free of hair -- not a single strand below his head, and he smelled of soap and the musky scent of arousal that always turned me on.

"Mmm, I love watching you suck cock, Jack," Eva said, popping the head of Luther's fat cock out of her mouth. "Almost as much as I like watching you fuck Avery!"

Avery had her mouth below Eva's, tonguing Luther's balls. As Eva turned to speak to me, she grabbed Luther's cock and slurped it into her mouth.

"Hey! That's mine!" Eva said, pushing Avery with a giggle.

"Snerze ya lerrzze," Avery tried to say, keeping Luther's cock in her mouth so Eva couldn't steal it back. Eva laughed at her, leaned down and bit her nipple.

"Ow!" Avery yelped, letting go of Luther's cock. Eva quickly shoved it into her mouth and raised her arms in victory.

"Oh, fine. If that's how you're going to play it, I'll just play with Cassie," she said.

Cassie was busy trying to stuff as much of Elijah into her mouth as she could. Avery crawled underneath Cassie and licked her pussy, causing Cassie to moan, which in turn earned an even louder moan from Elijah.

"Oh God, Jack. This is heaven," Brayden told me as I worked his cock in and out of my mouth. After a few more minutes of loving attention, Brayden tapped me on the shoulder.

"Hey... can I try?"

I looked up at him and smiled. I let his cock fall from my mouth, and he gave me a hand up. We switched positions and I stood before him as he gingerly played with my cock. It wasn't fully erect -- I rarely stayed hard while servicing someone -- and he was getting his first good look at it not on a screen. He stroked it gently until I was hard again, which didn't take long.

I looked over and saw that the rest of the group had shifted positions.

I watched as Avery and Eva were now playing with Elijah for the first time, and the two girls were mesmerized by the enormity of my assistant's dick. They were bathing it with their tongues and whispering softly to each other.

Pastor Winthrop had bent his wife over his desk and had begun to fuck her doggystyle, which let both of them turn their heads and watch the girls with Elijah and Brayden with me.

I was so busy watching my girls that Brayden took me by surprise when his mouth finally worked its way around the tip of my cock. He was going very slowly, taking a little at a time, getting comfortable with it, then trying to take more. I knew he wasn't going to be able to get much more than the head in his mouth -- not without a lot more practice -- but I was happy to let him do whatever he felt comfortable with.

"Elijah, I gotta try you," Avery said, standing up. "Bend me over the desk like Cassie and shove that fat cock deep in me," she ordered.

"Yes, ma'am!" Elijah said with a grin. Avery kissed Eva and pulled her over to Winthrop's desk. She pushed Eva up onto the desk and spread her legs, then she reached down between her own legs and dipped a few fingers into her pussy, bringing them to her mouth to taste.

"I'm ready for you," Avery told Elijah, as she turned to look back at him. Elijah stepped up and slowly slid his monster cock into the entrance to Avery's pussy. "Go slow until I'm sure I can take it," she said, grinding her teeth together.

Avery and my mother had been locked in a 'who's the biggest slut in Vegas' contest for months now, and I knew she was aware that Mom and Eli had spent the night together a few weeks back. Mom had taken Elijah's cock in every hole, including her ass, and while I would be shocked if Avery tried to mimic that today, I knew she was going to do whatever she could to make sure she got as much of Eli's cock in her as she could.

Avery bent over and lapped at Eva's pussy while Eli worked his cock inside her. She was clearly of the belief that he was being entirely too gentle with her, so she pushed back into him forcefully, and I saw a significant section of his cock disappear. She screamed with pleasure. "More!"

Elijah did as she asked and pushed as much of his cock into her as he could get. Avery buried her face in Eva's crotch again, and it was Eva's turn to scream.

Pastor Winthrop and Cassie watched in awe as Eli bottomed out in Avery. Even Brayden took a break from my cock to watch the pair as they fucked.

"Wow! I can't believe she took the whole thing," he said to me.

"Me either. Do you think you can take all of me?" I asked with a grin.

"Hell no! You're way too big, Jack. But I love this. I truly do. I want you to feel good. I want to make you cum," he said, then plunged my cock back into his mouth.

I didn't think I was going to last much longer watching Luther fuck his wife and Elijah with Avery, but I tried my best to hold back my orgasm as long as I could.

Avery didn't. It only took a few minutes before she began thrashing her hair, rubbing her clit as Elijah pounded away. Soon she screamed she was cumming. It was very erotic, and the sound of pleasure and passion in her voice thrilled me. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed hearing it.

Once she'd cum, she allowed Elijah to pull out and offered to swap with Eva.

"Oh, no way. I don't think I could handle Eli," she said.

"What about me?" Luther said with that beaming smile of his.

"Oh, I think that can be arranged," she said with a wicked grin. She crooked her finger at Winthrop, who pulled his cock from his wife and moved over to slide his cock into Eva.

Avery turned and got down on her knees beside Brayden. Brayden offered her a taste of my cock, and she accepted gratefully.

"Wow!" Brayden said as Avery swiftly took my entire shaft down her throat. "Man, I hope I can do that someday!"

Avery withdrew my cock and grinned at him. "You will be. It just takes practice. A year ago, I couldn't even get half of him. Now look at me."

Brayden smiled. Avery leaned over and kissed him. Brayden was almost as surprised by the kiss as he'd been when he'd seen Cassie Winthrop duck under the desk. "Have you ever been with a girl?"

Brayden gulped. "No. This is my first time for everything," he told her.

"Brayden, I'd love to be your first," Avery told him. "Your first vote, and your first fuck," she clarified with a mischievous grin.

Brayden laughed loudly and nodded. "That sounds perfect to me!"

Avery got on all fours, still holding onto my cock, and presented her pussy to Brayden.

"I don't know how much you're going to feel this after Elijah..." Brayden said doubtfully.

"I love cock. All kinds. Big, small and everything in between," she told him. "You'll do just fine."

I watched as Brayden slid his penis inside a woman for the first time, earning a loud moan from Avery. She winked at me, and I smiled down at her. She was hamming it up a bit for Brayden's benefit, but I didn't mind that at all.

Luther was fucking away at Eva's pussy, and Cassie Winthrop came over and hugged me from behind. She nibbled on my ear and watched as Avery sucked my cock as Brayden fucked her from behind.

That about did it for me, and I felt my cock begin to pulse.

"I'm cumming!" I growled, as Cassie dipped her tongue into my ear and tweaked my nipples. I felt a half dozen spurts fly as my orgasm crested, Avery swallowing every drop.

At about the same time, Luther grunted and I knew he was dumping his load into Eva.

Avery let my cock fall from her mouth, and I turned to kiss Cassie Winthrop. I reached down between her legs and played with her clit as we kissed. After a few minutes of this I felt her legs begin to tremble, and she mewed in my mouth.

"You're the first white boy I've let touch me in ten years," she said to me.

"I'm honored," I told her with a grin.

"You should be," she said teasingly.

Elijah was stroking his cock, watching the scene. Cassie knelt in front of him and eagerly sucked Avery's juices from it.

Luther, Eva, and I stood back to watch Brayden and Avery as they fucked. Brayden was concentrating, his Black cock working in and out of Avery's dusky pussy, her massive breasts swaying as the two rocked together. Avery's hands were back between her legs again, rubbing her clit for extra stimulation.

Brayden picked up the pace and soon I heard him gasp. I knew he had just shot his first ever load in a woman's pussy. My Avery's. I was proud of him and her.

He kept pumping for a few more moments, and I leaned down and kissed Avery, who looked up at me lovingly, and then I crossed and kissed Brayden. His was the most radiant smile I'd seen in a long time. Finally he withdrew his cock from Avery, and I watched as a long stream of his jizz leaked from her well fucked hole.

Elijah had dumped one of his enormous loads on Cassie's face and I watched as she scooped as much of it as she could into her mouth. A few drops fell from her face onto her breasts. I wanted to lick them off myself, but Eva beat me to it.

Pastor Winthrop went into his bathroom and emerged with two towels. One he tossed to his wife to clean up Eli's cum, and the other he tossed to Avery.

"So have you had your curiosity satisfied, Pastor Winthrop?" Avery asked as we said our goodbyes.

"About quite a few things, Miss Locke," he said.

"Please, call me Avery," she told him. "It's more intimate."

"It certainly was," Cassie Winthrop said with a giggle.

"I'm looking forward to working with you in the future," Avery told the Pastor as we stepped out of his office and walked down the hallway to the exit.

"Likewise, Avery," he said. "And you are always welcome here at Second Baptist. We'll do whatever we can to help."

I exchanged phone numbers with Brayden and told him to come by the Oasis sometime. He grinned at me and promised he would, then began walking home. Diego pulled around with the Escalade and the four of us hopped in for the trip back to the Oasis.

I looked closely at Avery, and for the first time in almost a month, she looked happy. It made my heart soar to see.

She saw me looking at her and stuck her tongue out at me.

"Feeling better?" I asked her gently.

"Much," she said. "Thanks, guys. I really needed that," she told the group. "These last few weeks have been rough. You don't know how much this meant to me."

Eva leaned her head against Avery's and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

Avery turned around and looked me straight in the eye. "And Jack, the next time you hire an assistant with a horse cock and don't give Eva and me the first taste, you're fired!"

* * *

Friday Morning, June 1, 1984

Chesterfield Estate, Paradise Valley, Nevada

"Thanks for agreeing to see me," Winston said to the young couple sitting in front of him. "I know it must have seemed rather strange, getting a random call out of nowhere."

They were sitting in Winston's office at the Chesterfield Estate. There was nothing strange about it, from his perspective. It had taken months to find the couple.

"Thank you so much for the hospitality, Mr. Chesterfield," said Rhonda Sinclair. She was a mousey looking woman, short and plump, with a mop of curly red hair and freckles that dusted her cheeks. She was probably in her early twenties, although she had the kind of face that looked far younger than she was. She could have been as old as thirty. Winston knew he had the exact number somewhere in the pile of files Bobby O'Dwyer had collated for him, but it didn't really matter. "Your hotel is wonderful! Jason and I have had an amazing time!"

"Yes, sir," said Jason Sinclair, nodding politely at his wife. Jason was an older, Black man, definitely older than Rhonda, easily mid-thirties. He was the exact opposite of his wife. Tall, reedy thin, sporting a pair of spectacles that made him look a bit like an owl. He was an assistant professor at a vocational college.

It had taken Bobby O'Dwyer two solid months of scouring the waiting lists for potential adopters to find what Winston had been looking for -- a young couple from outside Nevada, ready to adopt a young child. With a strong preference for the last name 'Sinclair' if possible.

"Happy to do it. Young Solomon's mother was an employee of mine and I knew her mother very well when I was your age. I had promised Solomon's grandmother a long time ago that I would take care of her family, and I'm a man who keeps his promises," Winston said with a smile.

They had found three likely candidates across the country. One in New York, another in Florida, and this couple. All named Sinclair and all hoping to adopt an infant. This was the only mixed-race couple, however, and that had shot them to the top of Winston's list.

"Rhonda and I tried for a child for a long time, Mr. Chesterfield, but we uh..." Sinclair shifted in his seat. From his embarrassment it seemed clear the problem lay with him. "... couldn't conceive. We put our request in with the adoption agency two years ago but hadn't heard a thing. This is like a dream come true."

"Are you sure this is legal?" Rhonda said quietly. "I thought we'd have to do more paperwork and the like."

Winston shook his head. "All you need to do is take Solomon home for six months, then there'll be a final hearing, but that's a formality. All the rest has been taken care of. "

And it had been. A host of judiciously placed bribes at various levels within the child welfare system in Vegas, coupled with a handful of large political donations, and Winston could essentially put Solomon wherever he wished. In the end, he was doing the welfare people a favor. Black children were notoriously hard to place.

"There's one more thing," Winston said. Rhonda's eyes took on a veiled, guarded look, as if she had been waiting for the catch this whole time. Winston saw the look and tried to give her as benign a smile as he could.

"Don't worry, there's nothing sinister here," he reassured them. Neither of them relaxed an inch. Winston realized he wasn't as disarming as he thought he was. No matter. Their business was almost concluded. "I've arranged a trust for Solomon. There's a... not inconsiderable amount of money in it. It's payable to him upon your death, Jason," Winston began.

Jason started to protest, but Winston held up his hand.

"Listen. I want to help. But I want my help to be anonymous. I'll send you all some money from time to time to help out, around birthdays and holidays. But that trust is for Solomon himself, and I want him to believe it was an inheritance from you. He may never need it. But I want to give it to him anyway, and this is the easiest way for me to do so with no strings attached."

"Are you sure? You've already been... most kind," Jason said, cocking his head. "Why not just raise the boy yourself, Mr. Chesterfield, if you care so much for his welfare?"

Winston smiled. "Look at me. I'm a jumped up street hustler," Winston explained. Jason arched his eyebrows. He knew of Winston Chesterfield, and there was much that could be said about him -- and had been -- but he was far more than a street hustler. He was still a Vegas legend. "I've got a family of my own, all grown, and my wife is back east. I wouldn't want the boy growing up exposed to all this nonsense. Plus, given what happened to his parents, I doubt he'd ever want to come back to Las Vegas if he knew. No, it's better to get him away from here. You two will make great parents."

"Thank you again, Mr. Chesterfield," Rhonda said, nudging her husband with her knee. She tried to do it as surreptitiously as possible, but Winston noticed, and had to hide a smile. He liked her immensely. Smart woman, willing to take yes for an answer.

"My pleasure. Come with me and I'll introduce you to your new son," Winston said, rising.

The couple stood up quickly and Bobby O'Dwyer appeared in the doorway to the office, ready to lead them upstairs to one of the guest rooms.

Winston stood watching as Bobby led the couple upstairs. He followed for a few steps, then stopped in the doorway to his office.

He'd done all he could for the boy. He knew in his heart it wasn't enough. He'd promised Thumper he'd take care of her family, and he'd gotten his own daughter killed. But if he could get Solomon in the hands of parents who would love him, make sure he was provided for, he might be able to make some amends for the things he'd done.

"Daddy? Who were those people?"

A voice came from down the hallway, and Winston turned to look. He smiled as he saw Clarabelle, nearly six months pregnant, watching as Bobby led the Sinclair family up the stairs. She looked pretty in a pink sundress, loose enough to be comfortable.

"They're the couple come to adopt that young child I told you about," he told her. She slowly made her way down the hallway. "Where's Carlton?"

"Oh, he went back over to the Oasis. He was in the mood to gamble. You know we don't get to visit you that often, and he wanted to play a bit before this evening," she told him. She crossed the hallway until she was standing close to him. She smelled like baby oil and lavender. Nice clean scents that reminded Winston of happier times.

"I was wondering if you wanted to... play a bit... now that he's gone?" Clarabelle looked up into Winston's face, batting her eyelashes coquettishly.

Winston knew he should probably be upstairs with the Sinclairs as they were introduced to Solomon, but the look on Clarabelle's face coupled with his own desire for the pregnant wife of his son sent a wave of blood towards his cock. The Sinclairs could wait.

"That sounds lovely," Winston said with a leer. He pulled Clarabelle into his office, closed and locked the double doors, and pulled her over to the desk.

With a giggle and a shriek of surprise, Clarabelle hopped up on Winston's desk as he pulled the sundress over her head. She wasn't wearing anything underneath it, and her engorged breasts and full belly shone faintly with a sheen of the oil she'd been using to keep her skin supple.

Winston leaned over and kissed her roughly, then buried his fingers in the unruly mass of hair between her legs. She giggled into his mouth, hungrily kissing him, her fingers fumbling at his belt buckle.

His fingers wet with her juices, Winston took a step back, unbuckled his pants and let them drop to the floor. His cock was already stiff and he knew they didn't have long, so this would have to be a quickie. The brief fingering and the kissing was about as much foreplay as they could expect.

He slid his penis inside her, doing his best to keep his weight off her belly. Clarabelle moaned low, the moan turning into a growl as she felt Winston deep inside her. "Fuck me, Winnie. You don't know how much I need your cock," she told him, her voice low and throaty. "Your son can't keep up with me. Says I'm 'insatiable' these days. It must be the hormones."

"I always enjoy hearing a whore moan," Winston said, slamming his cock deep inside her and causing her to yelp.

She laughed at the pun and spread her legs wider. "Fuck me, Winnie. Give me more of the cum that knocked me up. I want to feel you running down my leg for the rest of the night!"

Winston was afraid to fuck her too roughly, but he kept up a steady pace. Her swollen breasts jiggled lewdly each time he bottomed out in her, and she bit her lip and tried not to scream.

He didn't last much longer, the idea of his pregnant daughter-in-law begging for his cum, fucking him every time his son was out of the house, hit every taboo kink he had. He felt his cock begin to pulse, and then the sweet rush of orgasm as he poured himself into Clarabelle.

"Yes! Give it to me!" Her fingers went to her nipples and she wrung them roughly, making them stand out. He noticed a bead of moisture on the tip of one of her nipples and desperately wanted to taste it, but he heard voices on the stairs outside and knew there wasn't time for anything more.

He pulled out of Clarabelle, his cock wet with her juices and his leavings, pulled up his pants and crossed over to the bar to pour himself a drink. Clarabelle hopped up, dipping a finger between her legs, swiping some of Winston's cum from inside her and bringing it to her lips. She grinned at him, then threw on her sundress and checked the mirror to ensure her hair and makeup hadn't been too marred by their tryst.

Winston hoped the smell of alcohol from the decanter would cover up the scent of sex, then crossed the room and opened the double doors. Clarabelle stood by one of the many bookshelves in the office, trying to look interested in some of the titles.

The Sinclairs were slowly making their way down the steps, Bobby O'Dwyer trailing. In Rhonda's arms was baby Solomon. He was just over a month shy of his first birthday. He was looking at Rhonda with skepticism, his big blue eyes -- so much like his mother's -- full of intelligence.

"I love him, Mr. Chesterfield!" Rhonda gushed. "He's a perfect angel. Thank you so much for everything you've done for us!"

Jason Sinclair stepped over and reached for Winston's hand. Winston quickly rubbed his hand on his pants, and then shook Jason's. "My pleasure," he responded to Rhonda, looking her husband in the eye. "Please let me know how you all are doing. You can always reach me through Bobby here," Winston nodded at O'Dwyer.

"We will! Thank you so much!"

As this happy vignette was playing out at the Chesterfield Estate, an altogether different tale unfolded at Sunrise Hospital, across town.

Sal Pacelli had collapsed the night before at the craps tables at the Key West Hotel. Vex Romano had gotten him rooms in the Hemingway hotel after the Imperial shut down in March. It was due to be imploded here in a few months to make way for Romano's monstrosity of a modern casino resort, which he'd begun calling the 'Empire Luxe.'

Pacelli had always been a thinner man, but the last few months he'd started losing weight without trying. Five, ten, then fifteen pounds had come off, despite him eating and drinking regularly. He was constantly tired, wracked with night sweats and random fevers.

Romano had chalked it up to nervous tension. Sal's job was difficult on the best of days, and Romano had ridden him hard after the screw ups with Chesterfield and the Dix woman. Sal had spent the last few months cleaning the last vestiges of the mob from the Imperial, helping Romano with the leveraged buyout of the Imperial from the holding company Frank Boyd still represented, and trying to find the Dix woman.

He and Chesterfield hadn't spoken since. The only time they'd seen each other was one meeting of the Nevada Association of Resorts and Casinos, and neither man had so much as acknowledged the other's presence. Romano had joined the board in his own right, replacing Boyd now that his company had divested itself of all of its Vegas assets.

Sal had kept up his drinking and whoring, working his way through the lower-class whores that Hemingway allowed to wander the casino floor in the Key West.

Then last month he noticed white patches on his tongue and inside his mouth that hadn't been there before. He'd gotten an antifungal from his doctor, which had seemed to help, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

As he stared out the window of his private room in Sunrise, he thought back to last December, when he'd killed Sheba Sinclair just a few floors above him right now. Life was odd, how it worked in these circles.

He'd felt winded last night as he made his usual rounds, cruising for sex. He'd been in the mood for a man that night and thought he'd found one when he couldn't catch his breath at the craps table. He didn't remember hitting the ground, but he'd woken up here in Sunrise with a headache and another fever. Maybe it was bronchitis, and he knew he hadn't been taking good care of himself. Too many late nights, too much booze, too many cigarettes.

He heard a knock at the door that diverted him from the window. The door opened, and one of the handful of doctors who had been in and out of his room stepped in. One of the nurses joined him.

The doctor pulled a seat up next to the bed, and Sal instantly knew something was wrong. They were being overly solicitous of him. No one had said a word yet.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Pacelli?" The doctor's voice was soft and gentle.

"Like shit, Doc. Hard to breathe, and I don't think it's the altitude," he tried to smile, but ended up in a wracking cough that made his chest hurt.

"We took chest x-rays last night and some labs, and I just got the report back. I believe you've got pneumonia. We have a few more tests to do to confirm it, but it's consistent with everything you've presented."

"Pneumonia? I thought it was just bronchitis?"

"No. And, unless I miss my guess, it's going to come back as a specific kind of pneumonia, Sal. The kind we almost never see in people your age, and never in someone with a functioning immune system."

Sal's blood ran cold. "I don't like where this is going, Doc."

"Your bloodwork shows a severe drop in your immune system. Your T-helper cells are almost non-existent. Taken together, these findings are consistent with a diagnosis of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome."

Sal closed his eyes. AIDS. The bug. His years of living dangerously had finally caught up to him.

"So I've got AIDS? Is that what you're telling me? How long do I have?"

"We won't be sure until we do some more tests, but that's my diagnosis, yes. It's consistent with your symptoms and your personal history. As for how long, we don't know. We can treat the pneumonia, but the underlying disease... we're still trying to figure out how to fight it. I'm sorry."

"Don't be, Doc. Not your fault. It's mine."

The doctor patted Sal on his leg and stood. The nurse in the corner looked like she was about to cry.

"We'll do everything we can, Sal."

"Sure," Pacelli told him.

The pair left him alone to his thoughts. He turned and looked out the window. It was inevitable. He'd been as promiscuous as a person could be, with men and women, and his favorite partners were the ones on the margins. The kind who wouldn't hesitate to share needles or any of the other crap he'd seen on the news about how AIDS was spread. A part of him knew he was at risk, and he did it anyway. It was part of the thrill.

Now it was time to pay the piper.

He laughed at himself, which caused another round of coughing. Chesterfield would be pleased. One fewer person that knew all his secrets. Same with Boyd and probably Romano, although the kid had done right by him, even after he screwed up.

The stories he could tell. He knew where so many bodies had been buried in Vegas, it could fill a book.

A book.

Sal closed his eyes. "Fuck it. I'm dying anyway. What can any of them do to me now?"

There was a pen and a pad of Sunrise Hospital notepaper lying on the nightstand beside the phone next to his bed. He reached over, picked them up and sat, pondering.

Then he began to write.

* * *

Wednesday Evening, August 18, 2032

The Oasis, Las Vegas

"Thank you all for being here," Darren Chamberlain said as he stood up from the table. "If you'll permit me a brief speech, I'd like to introduce you to our honored guest."

The private room in The Luau at the Oasis was dimly lit, tiki torches winking softly from the corners of the room. They cast pleasant shadows across the photographs of the history of the hotel that had captured Jack's imagination months ago when he took over.

Two dozen men and two women sat at a long board room table covered in a white tablecloth and filled with dinnerware, wine and water glasses, and a variety of Hawaiian inspired dishes, all served family style.

"As you all know, Avery Locke successfully earned her party's nomination last week, defeating a primary field of more than half a dozen candidates. Soundly defeating, I might add," Darren said, looking over at Avery and bowing to her.

Avery's face lit up in a bright smile. The table applauded politely, and Avery held her hands up. "We've a long way to go gentlemen," she said, nodding at him to continue.

"The special election is less than a month away, and you all know this is a race that is on everybody's radar. Even the President is paying attention to this race, and we all know she's got her own problems," Darren said with a rueful smirk.

The table tittered politely, and Avery looked down at her plate. The presidential election was in full swing and the President was trying to stave off a challenge from her predecessor's daughter. The race was neck and neck, with each woman trying to one-up the other. But their race was cordial -- almost tame -- compared to the bitter fighting mixed with salacious advertising that was the Las Vegas special election trademark.

"This has become the most expensive Congressional special election in history. In fact, it's the most expensive House race period in history, too. I don't have to tell you all how difficult it is to keep up this pace of spending," Darren explained, taking a step back and walking along the table, looking at the array of donors he'd put together, as he promised Avery last month. "Each of you, by being here, is helping keep Avery in this race--and making me look good," he added with a smile.

The tittering began again.

"I would also like to especially thank Emily Fisher-Sinclair, who is also joining us tonight. The Sinclair Group's support for this event is unmatched, and I am pleased to say that we have raised more than $100,000 this evening alone. This is a drop in the bucket, of course, but every penny counts," he said. He knew he wasn't being entirely candid, but he didn't want to run afoul of any campaign finance laws. Best had spies everywhere.

Emily sat next to Avery. Avery felt Emily's hand on her leg, giving her a gentle squeeze. Avery had Darren to thank for at least half the guests, but the other half were there because of Emily. She also knew that while the event had only raised what was, sadly, a pittance compared to what both her and Speaker Best had already spent, each of the men in the room had committed more than a million dollars to Solomon Sinclair's Super PAC that was attacking Best so Avery wouldn't have to do so directly. So while the $100,000 was in hard campaign dollars, the event itself was worth more than $24 million in total. Not a bad haul for one night.

And, unbeknownst to Avery, Emily intended to make sure every man in the room would never regret his generosity.

Darren finished his introduction and Avery stood up and addressed the crowd.

She was dressed in her signature campaign outfit -- white blouse unbuttoned to show off a generous amount of cleavage and tied under the breasts to show off her toned torso. Her black hair streamed down her back, ending right above the juicy roundness of her ass. The painted on blue jeans hugged her curves, with just a hint of camel toe in the front. On her feet were fire engine red stiletto heels. She looked like sex personified.

Beside her, Emily was the picture of a vampy bimbo. She wore a flimsy silver sequined dress that barely hid her enormous, enhanced breasts, which were now even larger than Avery's natural ones. The dress was backless, ending right below the large Queen of Spades tattoo with the stylized Sinclair "S" in the center. She had on a choker collar of sapphires, and her heavily dyed blonde hair was piled up on her head. Avery looked like she'd come fresh from a rodeo, while Emily looked like she'd walked off a porn shoot.

Together, they were like the sun and the moon, and every male eye in the place struggled not to bounce between them.

Avery finished her brief speech, got a round of enthusiastic applause, and sat down. Emily stood up beside her.

"Darren, I trust the men all deposited their phones with you as I requested before the dinner, right?"

Darren cleared his throat and nodded. "Yes, Emily, I made it clear no photos."

"Good. Enjoy your dinner. When we've finished, I have a special treat for you all for dessert. Compliments of the Sinclair Group," she added with a grin.

Emily sat down. Avery looked at her. There was a gleam in Emily's eye that Avery knew only too well.

"What are you planning, Em?" Avery whispered furiously. "And were you planning on telling me?"

"I just did," Emily winked at her. "Don't worry. You don't have to partake if you don't want to. But I know you pretty well, and I'm sure you'll find it to your liking, dear. Where's my son?"

"Jack is downstairs, with Elijah and Eva," Avery explained. The men around her began tucking into the food, filling their plates and their mouths, as Emily and Avery conspired together. Darren sat next to Avery and directed the wait staff to make sure she had a filled plate in front of her. "Jack's working on the site survey. He's trying to decide if they need to temporarily close the hotel to get the renovations started next January."

"Good. Has Jack told you if Sally has taken the bait?" Emily spooned some food onto her plate and nibbled gingerly at it while she and Avery chatted. The men around the table were waiting politely for the two to finish their conversation, but it seemed clear they all wanted a chance to talk to Avery.

"Not yet. And they still haven't gotten that gangster's phone unlocked. Jack's more interested in getting the hotel reno completed at this point. The rest is out of his hands," Avery told her.

At that, one of the men cut in to ask Avery how the campaign was going, and she launched into another speech she'd given a few hundred times.

Polling was all over the place. Some had her up, some had her down. Fundraising was good but could always be better. She was pleased with how the primary had gone, thankful for the President and Vice President's endorsement, but they were of her party so the bump wasn't as strong as it could have been. Door knocking was going well.

"Any new ads coming?" One of the men asked with a barely disguised leer.

Avery nodded. "A few. I have to admit I'm having fun with them," she said with a wink.

The men laughed.

They'd cut more than a dozen new ads over the last two months, keeping them in a steady rotation. None of them were as overtly sexual as the first, but that would have been hard to top. Instead, they showed Avery off in a variety of ways, often scantily clad, and never boring. The more salacious the ad, the more pop she got, and the more shrill Best's complaints became.

Best had accused her of openly pandering, selling herself to the voters, asking if Las Vegas wanted a "politician or a prostitute" to represent them in Washington. That was the wrong question to ask, because it leaned directly into Avery's message of free love and highlighted her outsider status.

Her campaign had come out with T-shirts emblazoned with "I'm With the Prostitute" that sold out on her website in half an hour. The only T-shirt that sold faster was one that read "Ursula Best is for the dogs" with a paw print covered in pink lipstick kisses.

Still, the race was far closer than she liked, and Best and Bentley had been hammering her harder and harder over the last few weeks. The ad blitz of the first weeks was a distant memory, and the two campaigns were now having to fight each other and the presidential candidates for airtime as the race powered into its last month.

After forty-five minutes worth of politicking, Emily tapped her now almost empty wine glass with her fork, and the room quieted down. She stood up and gave the assembled men one of her dazzling smiles. She waved at one of the servers, and soon a half dozen of them had entered the room, each carrying a plate with a small, red satin bag tied with gold ribbon. Once each guest had a plate in front of him, Emily cleared her throat and spoke.

"Gentlemen, I promised you a treat after dessert, and unlike some politicians we all know, I keep my promises. As you are aware, Avery's campaign has touted her views on sexual liberty, allowing Americans to live and love how they choose. Free love, she's called it. Well, I couldn't agree more," Emily said. "Please, open your bags."

Darren Chamberlain was the first, pulling the gold ribbon until it fell away. He opened the bag and looked in, a puzzled expression on his face that soon resolved into a smile. He dipped his hand in and withdrew a packet of little blue pills and a small, two-ounce bottle of anal glide.

As the men looked at each other and down at their 'dessert,' Emily's dress fell to the floor with a flourish. She stood nude before the two dozen men in attendance. "And that's why, for the next hour, I'm going to put free love into practice. I'm your dessert, boys. I'm free use -- any way you want me -- for the next hour. I'm going to take all comers. And I expect you to all cum," she added with a smirk. "The pills and the lube are to make things a little easier. And harder, of course."

Avery looked at Emily with shock and awe on her face. The campaign had sucked up much of Avery's time, and it had taken her nearly a month to get over the assaults on her past that Best had launched. In that time, she'd shied away from sex. It wasn't until her visit to Second Baptist that she'd gotten her sexual mojo back. Their slut competition had effectively been put on hold.

Emily looked at Avery expectantly, as if daring her to sit idly by while a roomful of men gangbanged her boyfriend's mother while she watched. Now she understood why Emily had wanted no phones at the dinner. Emily had prepared well. Viagra, lube, no cameras, twenty-four men.

But could Avery do this? She hesitated for a brief moment. What would Best and Bentley say if she fucked a roomful of supporters with Jack's mom?

That she even considered what Best and Bentley would say irked her.

Fuck that. I'll fuck whoever I want, whenever I want. And if Jack's mom wants some competition? Let's go.

Avery stood up and looked over at Emily. She said nothing, but started untying her blouse, letting the two loose ends dangle. She looked over the men in the room. Darren's eyes were bulging out of his head. The rest of the men were waiting with anticipation to see what Avery would do.

It was an eclectic crowd. The youngest man in the room was probably in his mid-thirties, the oldest pushing seventy. There were tall men and short men. Black men, white men, Asian men, Hispanic men, among others. Skinny, fat, well-built, some with beards, some balding -- just about every make and model of the male sex in Las Vegas. Some of them could have been Elysium members, but the bulk were on the bubble at best. Some would have been outright rejected.

Two dozen average men, all of whom would have a chance to fuck and be fucked by one of the richest women in Las Vegas and potentially their next Congresswoman. Avery felt her pussy flood with moisture and her mouth watered. Eva had been pushing her to open herself up and not be so selective about her choice of sexual partners. Here was her chance.

Not everybody could be a future king or president, Eva had reminded her. It's too bad Eva wasn't here to see it. Avery was going to be the hottest woman some of these men had ever touched. The thought thrilled her. She realized that a part of her craved this kind of meaningless, dirty sex with strangers. She didn't know half the names of these men, hadn't spoken more than two words to most of them. Yet she was about to let them fuck her in every hole. The thought made every nerve ending in her body tingle.

"I would be a hypocrite if I spent this entire campaign talking about free love and then just watched as you put my policies into practice, Em," Avery said with a grin. "So let's do this. One hour. Free use. Both of us. Give it to me, boys!"

She peeled off her blouse, displaying her breasts, and then shimmied out of her jeans. Around the room men popped pills, while others stood up and began shucking off jackets and ties. Not all of the men immediately jumped at the offer -- more than a few were hesitant, trying to decide if they had the guts to fuck two beautiful women in front of a crowd -- but enough were willing that they hit the quorum needed to get the gangbang started in earnest.

She stepped over and pulled Emily into a tight embrace, kissing her fully on the mouth. Emily's enormous, enhanced breasts mashed up against Avery's sizeable natural ones, the tan of her skin contrasting nicely with Emily's paleness, and the firelight from the tiki torches sent licks of shadow along their bodies that enhanced the scene.

A handful of the men unzipped and tugged on their penises, making no move towards the two women, content to watch -- at least at first. But enough of the men, including Darren Chamberlain, had undressed that a line formed near the women as they continued to make out.

"We've got customers," Emily said to Avery between kisses. "I hope I didn't surprise you too much. I've been so horny these last few days with Sol so focused on the investigation. He's barely had time for me."

"Jack's been busy with the Oasis, and I couldn't keep Eva away from him for so long, so I've been alone, too," Avery said, kissing a line around to Emily's ear, so only Emily could hear her. "So yes, it's a surprise, but it's a pleasant one."

"Let's make sure these guys get a night they won't forget. You'll never have to worry about filling a room at a fundraiser ever again once these guys tell their friends," Emily said with a giggle. "I bet I can get more of these guys off than you."

Avery raised her eyebrows. She took one of Emily's massive tits in her hands, squeezed it roughly, then bent over and bit her nipple until her teeth met the gold in Em's nipple rings. That earned her a squeal. Avery looked up, her teeth still holding one of Emily's rings.

"You're on, bitch!"

The two turned to look at the half dozen men standing around them, cocks in their hands, watching the two women tease the crowd and each other.

"Who wants dark meat? Who wants light? Form a line!" Avery said, laughing. She stepped a few feet away from Emily, who had begun to pull as many of the Black men towards her as she could.

"Make sure the audience can see," Emily ordered, as the first of the men jockied for position in front of her. "We want everybody to enjoy themselves tonight!" she purred, then grabbed the nearest Black cock, fell to her knees and took it into her mouth.

Emily had half a dozen men surrounding her in no time, forming a semi-circle that allowed those who were still sitting at the table to watch. Some of the older men were obviously waiting for their little blue helpers to kick in and had stayed at the table, their arms working furiously out of sight. Most of Emily's men were Black, except for one striking older Hispanic man. His gray hair and beard were perfectly coifed, and his body could have been sculpted from marble, save for the thick covering of hair on his chest and arms. He looked very interesting to Avery, but her interest soon turned to the bevy of cocks in her face.

Avery's side of the room was far more eclectic, color and age-wise. The younger men, mostly White and a few Asians, had chosen Avery over Emily's bimbo sculpted look. She looked at her men and decided to tease them a little. She stayed on her feet and paused to grab the cock of each man who had lined up for her, giving each a small kiss or a nibble on the neck in turn.

"Thanks for choosing me," she whispered between kisses, her hand tugging one cock after another, like she was shaking hands at a rally. "I hope you have fun tonight, and I'm glad to have earned your vote," she murmured, looking into the eyes of one very pretty Asian man. He had the sweetest little cock, uncut, that slipped easily into her hand. He smiled back at her, his eyes lighting up at her attention.

She did this to at least ten men before she pulled back and twisted and twirled her body for them. She dipped her fingers into her pussy, then dragged them up to her nipples, rubbing the juices onto them. With one hand she lifted one of her full breasts to her lips and sucked the nipple into her mouth.

One of the men groaned loudly at the lascivious display and squirted his seed all over his hand. He was one of the older guys. Avery stepped over to him and gave him a long kiss. "Thanks for being my first tonight," she said. A lewd thought hit her, and she dropped to all fours and licked his jizz off the floor.

"Oh shit--" a few of the men said, as they saw her debasing herself, literally licking cum from the floor in front of them. "This is wild!"

Avery pulled herself to her knees, turned to look over at Emily, who had one big, black cock in her mouth and two more in her hands, happily sucking away. "That's one, Em! Try and keep up!"

Emily spat the cock out of her mouth and turned to look at Avery, disdain on her face. "That's a little premature, don't you think?"

"Sounds like loser talk, Mrs. Fisher-Sinclair! If that's your attitude, I've got this thing in the bag!"

Emily scowled at her, then shoved two cocks in her mouth at once, sucking twice as hard as before.

Avery turned back to the men in front of her. Some of the men who had been sitting at the table had stood up and made their way over to her after she'd licked the floor. She had at least twice as many men in her line as Emily did, which made her pussy throb.

Avery recognized one of the cocks in front of her and began there. Darren Chamberlain stepped up, pulled Avery's head towards his crotch roughly and shoved himself in her mouth. She looked up into his eyes and saw his unbridled lust, and she smiled with her eyes as her tongue bathed the head of his penis.

That wasn't good enough, and Darren roughly pulled her head down, forcing more of his cock into her mouth. She liked rough sex -- rarely got enough of it, as Jack was far too loving a partner most of the time, and the other men she'd been with had treated her like a princess. She could feel the juices literally dripping down her leg as Darren treated her roughly.

That's what she wanted tonight. To serve. She wanted this. She needed it. She wanted to forget about the campaign, forget about the stress and the money and the things to do. She wanted to lose herself in the sex, stop being candidate Avery Locke for an hour, one blessed hour, and just be.

She wanted these men to treat her like a cum dumpster. She was a piece of fuck meat tonight, to be used again and again by strange men, to be nothing but three holes and a heartbeat for them. She let herself go, let herself savor every touch, every smell, every taste, the feeling of hands on her body, fingers inside her, every care gone. All she wanted to do was fuck and be fucked, get off and get these men off. That was all she was for the next sixty minutes. A wanton slut.

No overthinking. Just pure, unbridled hedonism.

She stopped sucking Darren's dick. Instead, she opened her mouth wide, thanked her maker for having no gag reflex, and slapped Darren's ass with her hand. He understood what she wanted and started fucking her mouth with quick, urgent strokes. She slid her tongue out of her mouth to give him more room as he roughly shoved his prick down her throat.

She felt hands twist and tug on her nipples, and soon she had cocks in both hands. She stroked them unevenly as Darren slid his cock in and out of her mouth. Her eyes went glassy as she was overwhelmed with sensation. She felt a mouth on one of her nipples, the other being twisted and pulled until it hurt.

There were fingers questing to reach her pussy, others, slippery with lube, that were probing her asshole. Every nerve ending in her body was on fire.

"Two for me, Avery! Who's in the lead now?" she heard Emily crow from across the room.

She snapped out of her reverie as Darren withdrew his cock from her mouth and another man, white this time, stepped over to replace him. He grabbed her chin with his meaty hand, and Avery looked up to see one of the ugliest men in the room. His cock was uncut and stubby, girthy but not long, and it was attached to a man who resembled it more than a man should resemble a penis. He was short, stubby, with a pot belly, more hair on his face than on his head.

She recognized the man. He owned a trucking company that did a lot of business on the route between Vegas and LA/Long Beach. She'd toured his warehouse facility last week, and she'd met him and his wife. He'd been quiet and unassuming -- it was his wife who was the outrageous flirt. There was nothing quiet and unassuming about him now.

"I'm gonna fuck your mouth, Avery," he growled. "I want to dump my load in you. God, I wish the missus was here to see this. She's going to shit that I got to fuck you first," he laughed.

Avery tried to reply, but the guy pulled her face into his crotch, burying her nose in his pubes and she couldn't get a word out.

Across the room, Emily had graduated from blowjobs to rimjobs. She'd lined up the men in a row, all of them Black -- most of the Black men in the room, including Darren who had switched groups after fucking Avery's face -- and bent them over the dinner table so their asses were presented to her. She was working her way down the line, tugging on cocks, bathing their balls and assholes with her tongue.

There was a string of jizz dripping off one of her breasts, and a small puddle was forming on the floor. Two of the men had already cum, as she'd announced, and they were now sitting with drinks in their hands, watching Emily's show.

"Two for me!" Emily heard. She paused, lifting her face from the ass of one of her men to look over at Avery. She had a streamer of jizz hanging from her chin and a smile on her face.

"This isn't soccer, girl! Nobody likes ties!" She buried her face back in the ass cleft in front of her and shoved her fingers inside her burning pussy.

Avery stood up, shaking off the hands that were caressing her and grabbing a chair.

"You," she said, pointing at one of the men still sitting at the dining table. "Where's your lube?"

The man held up his red satin bag and tossed it to Avery. Avery caught it, pulled the lube out and slathered some onto her hand. She crooked a glistening finger at the Hispanic hunk who had been watching Emily's ass eating. "I need your cock," she told him. "Ready for me?"

The man gave her a wry smile and a wink. His cock bounced in front of him as he stepped over to her. She pulled him into a brief kiss, then sat him down on the chair and lubed his penis up with her lube covered hands. She wiped her hands on the cloth arms of the chair, turned around and gingerly lowered herself onto his dick, her asshole widening to accommodate him. She went slowly, her first ass fuck of the evening, then pulled her legs up onto the seat of the chair, giving the men crowding around a view of the cock in her ass and her welcoming pussy.

Avery held her hands out. "Fill me up, boys! I want it in every hole!"

The men didn't have to be asked twice. In next to no time, a line had formed for Avery's pussy, and she had a cock in each hand and two in front of her face. She sucked one and then the other, as the guy in her snatch pumped furiously.

She had never felt so full. Never felt so used and degraded. It was exhilarating.

Every cock had a different taste and texture. Some were cut, some weren't, some were large, others smaller. Darren had the largest cock she'd taken so far, but she knew Emily would have targeted the monsters from the group -- she had some kind of internal big cock radar that let her sense when a man was packing.

"That's five!" She heard Emily shout.

She was falling behind, and she knew she had to pick up the pace. "Fuck me! Dump your loads in me! I want them all, and I don't care where! On my face, in my ass, in my cunt! Give it to me!" she growled at the men. She gritted her teeth as she worked herself up and down on the cock in her asshole, earning a groan from the interesting man she was sitting on.

Her efforts were soon rewarded and two of the cocks she'd been blowing erupted, slathering her with hot jizz. The two men who'd finished stepped back and were replaced by two fresh cocks.

"Four!"

"I'm at six now!"

"Fuck! Give it to me boys, we can't let Emily win!"

She felt the warm gush of cum in her pussy and gave a bright smile to the man between her legs. Another one stepped up to replace him. He spat on his hand and then took advantage of a temporary pause as Avery stroked the new cocks back to full erection to scoop up some of the jizz that was dripping from Avery's face. He slid two jizz and saliva covered fingers into Avery's mouth. Her eyes went wide for a moment, then softened as she sucked gingerly on the guy's fingers, like they were a cock to be sucked.

"Goddamn, you're one nasty slut," he said with a chuckle.

"Remember me on election day," Avery said around his fingers.

He laughed and began to piston his cock into her pussy.

Another grunt from the man below her and she felt her asshole fill with semen. She let the man who'd fingered her face fuck her for a few moments and then pushed him gently away from her so she could stand up.

The Hispanic man who had been in her ass stood up, shaking his cock and smiling broadly. Avery tugged the man who'd just been in her pussy down into the chair and climbed up, sliding his cock into her ass. It was already well lubed and she didn't need more.

The Hispanic man chuckled, clapping one of the men in line for Avery's pussy on the back. "She's the hottest woman I've ever fucked," he told the guy. "Stay thirsty, my friend."

There was a brief pause as the men jockeyed for position, and Avery turned to look at Emily.

Emily was on all fours on top of one of the men, a cock in her mouth, and another fucking her ass from behind. She'd gotten into a rhythm, but because of how she'd positioned herself, she was only able to handle three dicks at once. She was covered in jizz, and her hair had come loose and was dangling down around her breasts.

Avery realized that Emily had been hogging all the Black men all night, and she wasn't about to stand for that. She pushed herself off of the guy she was sitting on and left him there, his wet dick waving at her as she stalked across the room.

"Emily, stop stealing all the biggest cocks!" Avery said heatedly. Some of the guys turned to smile at her, pleased she'd noticed their endowments.

Emily looked up at her, eyes glassy as she continued fucking the two men in her ass and pussy. "I didn't steal... anything, dear. They just... prefer... blondes, is all," she said slowly, between thrusts. She smiled sweetly at Avery.

Avery turned to the crowd she'd left behind. "Boys, get over here. Emily needs some diversity, equity and inclusion, preferably in her mouth," Avery told them.

The men hastened towards the two women.

Avery got down on her hands and knees, pulling one of the Black men with a larger cock down with her and climbing on top of him, sliding his thick rod into her well-fucked pussy.

"Ahhhh... that's the ticket," she said with a grin.

Emily leaned forward and kissed her, as Avery felt another cock begin to worm its way into her ass.

"Don't think... I'm okay with you... stealing my meat!" Emily said between kisses.

Avery reached up to grab Emily's face and held it still, then licked the semen that coated her cheeks and chin. "Sharing is caring, love," she whispered. As soon as she'd gotten a good amount of cum in her mouth, she kissed Emily hard, pushing the load across. "See? I'm sharing."

Emily swallowed, then giggled. "I'm at twelve now," she murmured.

"I lost count," Avery said, honestly. Then she felt the telltale squirt in her ass and smiled. "But add one to whatever my total is," she laughed prettily, her laughing suddenly cut off as one of the men shoved a cock in her mouth.

Avery found she didn't really care how many men she'd serviced. She and Emily began poaching cocks from each other, kissing and swapping spit and jizz as the men showered them with attention and bodily fluids. Avery envied Emily, who was urging her men to rougher and rougher sex, demanding they spit in her face, slap her and smack her ass. Avery wasn't there yet, but she enjoyed how rough the men got with her rival.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, she knew she'd had at least one orgasm, maybe two, but that wasn't her priority. This wasn't about her tonight -- at least, it wasn't solely about her pleasure. She didn't need an orgasm to be enjoying herself, and she was enjoying herself immensely. There was something liberating about just letting yourself go, being as wanton and slutty as you could, providing pleasure to so many people without worrying about yourself. Avery realized this was something she craved, something she'd never had before.

But she knew it was something she wanted to do again.

Her tongue was buried deep in Emily's mouth when the lights came on.

"What the hell is going on here?!" A voice shouted from the entrance to the dining room.

Fiona Bellamy stood with her hands on her hips, letting her laptop bag drop to the floor.

The men all turned to look at her. Emily looked up suddenly, a rare guilty look on her face. Avery's face was so plastered with cum that she could barely see who was in the doorway, and if she hadn't known Fiona's voice so well, she would have been hard pressed to identify the speaker.

"This fundraiser should have been over half an hour ago! You have places to be, Avery Locke!"

Emily withdrew the cocks from her ass and pussy and pulled herself up off the floor. She strolled over to the dining room table where her clutch rested and pulled her phone out. She smiled when she saw the time.

"Gentlemen, we promised you an hour of free use, and you got an hour and a half! Don't let anybody tell you that the women of the Locke for Congress campaign aren't generous with their time!"

Darren came over with a handful of cloth napkins from the table and helped Avery clean as much cum from her face as she could. She was going to need a shower. Her pussy and ass throbbed, but in a good way. She'd be feeling this evening for the rest of the campaign, she knew.

"Guys, I want to thank you all for the support and for tonight," she said with a grin. "I really needed this and I hope you all enjoyed it!"

The room erupted in guttural cheers from the throats of two dozen men who had just had their fantasies fulfilled.

Emily came over and grabbed Avery's arms, raising them up in the V for Victory, and the two nude women, dripping with sweat and semen, smiled broadly as the men cheered even louder.

"So who won?" Avery asked, looking at Emily. She looked as used as Avery felt. Emily smiled at her, letting the cheers of the men wash over her.

"We both did, dear," she said, leaning in and giving Avery a long, sensual kiss on the mouth. "I hope you had fun. I figured we both could use a little stress relief."

"Thanks, Em. I... I really needed this."

Emily pinched one of Avery's nipples and then slapped her on the ass. "Me too. Next time, we need more Black cock, though," she said with a happy sigh.

Fiona shook her head, a small smile creeping onto her face as she listened to Avery and Emily banter.

This was one hell of a way to campaign.

* * *

"I'm telling you, Jack, there's something wrong with these architectural drawings," Elijah said for the third time that night.

I wanted to scream.

"There's nothing wrong with the drawings. It's an old building. They've changed things. They just didn't update the drawings," I explained again. This was getting old. Of course the drawings didn't match -- this building was old as fuck, and they'd obviously made alterations over the years that didn't end up being recorded.

But that's not why we'd gotten the drawings from the archives. We got the drawings so we'd know what the hotel should look like, not what it did look like now, more than half a century later.

"Jack, I think you should listen to Elijah," Eva told me. "This doesn't look right to me either."

"Guys, you're killing me. We KNOW the drawings won't look like the existing building. The point isn't what's here, it's what WAS here. We want the hotel to look like it did when it opened in '69, so we have to figure out what to change! That's why we're doing this!"

"Okay, okay," Eva said, rubbing my back. "We've been at this all day. Are you sure you don't want to take a break?"

I shook my head angrily. "No. We're almost done. We're at the bottom of the hotel. This is the last floor. Let's just finish this and we can go upstairs and get something to eat. Mom and Avery are at their fundraiser for at least another half an hour, so we can grab them when they're done."

If I had known what was going on just a few floors above my head right now, I'd have dropped everything to go participate. But I wouldn't find that out until later that night, when all I got was sloppy twenty-seconds.

I had no idea I was about to stumble across an important piece of the puzzle that was Las Vegas in 2032, right here, under our noses. I'm getting ahead of myself now, though.

We turned into the main room in this subbasement level. We were two floors below the security rooms, one floor above the primary storage facility. This level had been neglected for a long, long time. I looked at the architectural drawings we had gotten from the Clark County public works archive, then tried to compare what I was seeing with what was on the drawings.

I didn't need to be doing this, of course. I'd hired the best architects in the business, men and women skilled in historical renovations. They were the same firm that had renovated the White House after the last president moved out, cleaning it up and restoring it based on the Truman era renovation. They'd also renovated the Greenbriar in West Virginia and the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. I could have easily left all this to them.

But I wanted to see the place with my own eyes, get to know the hotel as well as Winston Chesterfield did. I'd even considered flying out to Virginia to meet with him, to show him what we were planning, but I couldn't get away until after the election.

So for the last week I'd been crawling all over it, in every back room, storage area, every nook and cranny of the parking garage, every broom closet and housekeeping hideaway. The place was far bigger than it looked on paper.

I looked up and then back down at the drawings. "This was the records room on the original plans," I said. I pushed open the door.

Eva found the lights and we flipped them on. I handed the drawings to Elijah and looked around. The room was nearly empty. There were wall to ceiling standing shelves lining the walls, and a large area in the center with a half dozen stainless steel tables bolted to the floor.

Along one of the walls ran a continuous row of filing cabinets. There were small cards taped onto the front of each cabinet. I looked closely, reading the faded ink.

"Financial records, Jan -- June, FY 1970" read the first one. The next had July to December, and so on. I pulled one of the drawers open. Inside was a stack of file folders, dusty with age. I lifted one out.

OASIS HOTEL AND CASINO

GENERAL LEDGER -- CASINO OPERATIONS

JANUARY 1 -15, 1970

VOL. 1 -- FICHE 1 OF 12

Inside were a sheaf of thin pieces of film, each with the image of dozens of pages of paper on them.

"I can't believe all this stuff is still here," I said. "This must be the entire financial history of the hotel."

"At least til 1998," Eva said. She'd wandered down to the far end of the row of filing cabinets. "That's what the last one here says."

"So what's with all the rest of these empty shelves? And the tables?"

"Well, this room probably used to be filled with paper," Eva told me, sidling up to me and looking over my shoulder at the microfiche. "They would have consolidated it down. Then once they switched over to computers, the stuff just stayed down here, forgotten."

"I wonder if they ever digitized the stuff," I mused aloud.

"Why bother? I mean, this is nice to have as a piece of history, but the IRS isn't likely to audit us on our 1986 financial statements," she scoffed.

"Still," I said. "It's history."

"There's useful history and then there's just clutter," Eva told me, rubbing my back. "Don't be a hoarder, babe."

There was a knocking sound behind us and I turned to look at Elijah. He had climbed through one of the empty shelves and was rapping his knuckles against the wall.

"Elijah? Have I been working you too hard? Everything okay?" I asked, shaking my head at him. Eva grinned, walked over and pinched his ass.

"Hey! Ow!" He said, banging his head against the underside of the shelving unit he'd climbed into. "I'm looking for something!"

"I hate to break it to you, kid, but them shelves is empty," I said, giving him my best hillbilly accent.

He turned and glared at me, then started knocking again. "I know that, Jack. But the plans here say this wall shouldn't be here. At least, a portion of it shouldn't. There's supposed to be another room. I'm trying to find where it is."

"Why?"

"Because I'm curious! Because it doesn't make sense? Because I'm bored out of my mind and this will give me something to do while you guys play with the microfiche?" Elijah sounded frustrated. I knew it had been a long day, and I'd been pushing everybody pretty hard.

I looked at my watch. Avery's event should be over soon, so there was no real reason for us to keep pushing. Elijah kept knocking, the dull thud of his fist against the solid wall just barely audible in the silence of the empty records vault.

Bam!

"Whoa," I said, jumping loudly. "What the hell was that?"

Elijah pounded his whole fist against a section of the wall.

Bam! BAM! BAM!

"Uh, this is not solid," he said as he continued to pound. A few more hits and the hollow sound of his fist on metal ended abruptly as his fist found concrete again. "I think... uh... I think there's a door here."

"A door? Where? It looks like a solid wall to me," I said. Eva and I moved closer, and Elijah climbed out of the shelving and dusted himself off.

"Whoever put these shelves up must have placed this section in front of this door. I knew there was a room back here! Let's move this shelving and see if we can open it!"

The shelving was freestanding, built of metal brackets with an inch thick plywood shelf every two feet or so. They had been assembled in sections and placed up against the wall. I pulled on one of the ends and, surprisingly, it pulled away from the wall easily.

"They aren't that heavy with nothing on them," I said. "Here, get the other end," I ordered Elijah.

After a few minutes of tugging and wiggling, we'd pulled an entire section of shelving out. Elijah got out of the way, and I pushed it a few feet aside, making a loud metallic scratching sound that caused Eva to throw her hands over her ears.

"Damn, Jack! Can't you lift it a little instead of destroying my ears?"

"Sorry," I said. I gave her a sheepish shrug and stopped pushing.

Elijah stepped into the space where the shelving had stood and began searching for a way to open the door. "If this is a door, where's the handle?"

I looked carefully but could see nothing. I looked on the floor, hoping to see some kind of tell-tale sign, some scratching on the floor to indicate there was a door that swung out -- I seemed to recall that being what gave away Anne Frank -- but the floor was smooth.

I banged on the door, filling the air with a hollow booming. Elijah joined me, and as we pounded, I saw a seam begin to form along the wall on the side nearest Elijah.

"Look! It's moving!"

We started banging louder, until I felt a hand on my shoulder pulling me. "Guys! Guys! Stop! Enough!"

Eva was shouting in my ear. Elijah and I stopped pounding and I rounded on her. "What? We're trying to get the door open, Eva!"

She looked at me, then looked at Elijah, and then sighed loudly. She moved over to where the crack had appeared, put her hand to the left of it, and pushed firmly.

The door swung open.

"Oh," I said. "That was easy."

"There are times I find it hard to believe you went to college," Eva told us.

"I haven't!" Elijah said. "Yet."

"Hopefully they teach you to think before resorting to brute force, Eli," Eva told him.

There was no light in the room except what spilled in from the outside records room. I went searching for some light switches and found a panel on the wall. It had some old-fashioned push button switches, and I pushed all of them. A handful of lights blazed on. Most of the lights were burned out, but there was enough for us to see what was in the room.

"Great. More records," Eva said with a sigh.

"What did you expect? Buried treasure?" Eli asked, stepping into the room.

"A girl could hope. Hey, maybe there's some vintage porn in here?" she said, looking at the array of filing cabinets and boxes stacked around the room. In the center of the filing area was one banker's box with the lid skewed off, like somebody had been looking in it and then left in a hurry, forgetting to replace it. Beside the box was an ancient looking microfiche reader, covered in dust. The room looked like it hadn't been disturbed in half a century.

"Looks like more financial records," Eva said, as she hauled one of the filing cabinets open. "More microfiche," she noted. "And some more boxes." Eva waved her hand at a stack of banker's boxes that lined the far wall.

For some reason, I was drawn to that partially opened banker's box. I looked at the label. In soft, flowing, feminine cursive, I read "Chesterfield Family Records."

"Hey, check this out," I said to Eva. "This box is labeled 'Chesterfield Family Records.'"

"I wonder if Winston knew this room was here?" Eva asked, coming and digging into the box. She withdrew a stack of paper and some photographs. "You'd think if these were his family records, he would have wanted to take them with him when he went back to Virginia."

"That shelving looks like it's been here for ages," Elijah said. "Maybe he forgot about it."

"Maybe," I said. I started leafing through the paperwork. Some of it was newspaper clippings from the Las Vegas Tribune. Some of it looked like real estate files. And then there was what looked like a birth certificate.

"Check this out. This has gotta be a hundred years old," I said, waving the certificate.

"What is it?"

"Birth certificate. Not a hundred years old," I said, looking at the date. "January 17, 1961. The name on the certificate is 'Bathsheba Frazier'."

"Bathsheba? That's an interesting name," Eva said. "I like it. Very biblical."

"Why would this be in a file box with Chesterfield's family records in it?" Eva asked, taking the document from my hand.

"Hey! I was--"

Eva was squinting to read the handwriting on the document. "Mother's name is... Trina Frazier. Father's name is... Winston Chesterfield."

"I thought Chesterfield's wife was named Maggie Ann," I said to myself. "And he doesn't have any kids named Bathsheba. His son's name is... Clay... Clayton? No... Carl something. Carlton, maybe? And his daughter's name is Elizabeth. I think. They're twins."

"Oh shit," Eva said, looking at me conspiratorially. "Winston done got himself a love child! Maybe that's why he didn't take this stuff back to Virginia with him!" she laughed. "I didn't know the old fart had it in him."

"He wouldn't have been an old fart back in '61. Hell, he was probably barely in his twenties. Guy's pushing mid-nineties now," I murmured.

I started thumbing through the photographs. There were a lot of shots of Winston as a young man, including a smaller version of that iconic photo of him and Elvis Presley that I'd seen upstairs in the Luau. "Hey, check this out," I said, showing Eva and Elijah the photo.

"Who is that?" Eli said. "He looks familiar. Is that Mick Jagger?"

Eva and I turned to look at him and my mouth dropped open. "Are you serious?"

"What?" Eli shrugged. "Sorry, I'm not big into music."

"The Las Vegas public school system has failed another generation of kids," Eva said, shaking her head ruefully.

"Who is it?"

"The King, Eli," I said. "The King."

"William? I didn't think he was that old," he said, staring at the photo.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Eva said, looking at Eli in disgust. "Elvis Presley, Eli. Elvis. The King. Of rock and roll."

"Oh. Right. Like I said, not a big music guy," he said.

"Hey! Are those tits?" Eva said, pulling one of the photos out of my hand.

"They are, but not like you want," I said, laughing. There was a photo of Winston flanked by two dancing girls, one white and the other a strikingly beautiful Black woman. They were showing about as much cleavage as possible without falling completely out of their costumes. "But actually..."

I took the photo from Eva's hand as she started looking through the other photos. I was interested in the outfits the girls were wearing. If we wanted to recreate the old feeling of the Oasis in its prime, the clothing and costumes of the staff would be an important part of that.

I flipped over the photo. In the same neat, feminine handwriting, I saw names and a date.

"Layla 'Bambi' Larsen, WC, and Trina 'Thumper' Frazier, July 1970," I read aloud.

"Did you say Trina Frazier?" Eva said, perking up. "Isn't that the name..."

"Yeah, it is. Oh shit," I said, laughing. "Not only did Winston have a love child, he was banging one of his employees! And she was Black, too! That must have turned some heads back in 1970. Good on him!"

"Who knew he was so progressive? The man's stock just went up a few points with me," Eva said. She took the photo and stared at it. "Damn, Thumper was hot as hell. No wonder ole' Winnie knocked her up."

"There's another photo of her," Eli said, pulling a smaller Polaroid from the stack. "Check this out."

It showed Trina Frazier and a young black girl, maybe ten years old. On the back was penciled "Thumper and Sheba, 1971."

"I guess that was their kid," Eva said, as she looked at the photo Eli was waving at us. "She's cute. If she was born in 61, she might still be alive, right? She'd be what, in her 70s?"

"Something like that," I said, too tired to do the math. "She's got Winston's genes, after all," I added.

There was a wedding photo of a Black couple in the pile. "I wonder what this is?" Eva asked, flipping it over to see if it was labeled. Fortunately, whoever handled Winston's files had been diligent. "Sheba Frazier and David Sinclair, October 1982."

"Did you just say Sinclair?" I asked suddenly. I tore the photo from Eva's hands.

"Yeah, this says David Sinclair. But her name was Frazier, right?"

"I mean, it wouldn't be after they got married," I said.

"Jack, just because you get married that doesn't mean you have to take your husband's name." Eva shook her head at me. "I mean, you don't think I'm taking your name, do you?"

"What?" I asked.

Eva blushed furiously and took the photo out of my hands. "They look happy. I love her dress," she said.

I tried to wipe the little grin off my face. Eva had mentioned marriage! Today was looking up.

"Guys, there's one more photo in here," Eli said, dipping his hands into the banker's box and pulling out another photo. Winston was in this one, much older than the black and white photos from the 70s we'd already pawed through. Eli looked at it, flipped it over, then gave a double take and looked at the image again.

"Jack," he said softly.

I was still smiling at Eva, who was trying to pretend she hadn't said anything. "So... you're thinking about names, huh?" I began, hoping to tease her a little for the slip.

"Jack," Elijah said again, a little louder. I was too busy staring at Eva, who was pointedly ignoring me, pretending to rifle through the paper we'd already looked at.

"You think I should take your name? Jack Romano?" I teased. She looked up at me quickly, her mouth open, ready to retort.

"JACK! You need to see this!" Elijah said, shouting at me.

Eva and I both whipped around to look at Eli, who was holding up the last photo he'd found.

"What is it?"

"Winston and that Sheba woman and her husband from the other photographs," Eli said. "And a baby. But look at the names on the back of the photo," he told me, handing it over.

I looked at the photo. The woman looked happy. Winston was smiling too, but he didn't have his arm around her and there was a slight distance between them. They were dressed like they'd just returned from the tropics. The baby was wrapped in a light blue blanket.

Printed on the back of the photo was a brief sentence, identifying those in the image. It was typed, like in a publicity photo, rather than something personal.

Oasis CEO Winston Chesterfield with the inaugural winners of the Oasis Grand Vacation Sweepstakes, 1983 on their return from the Caribbean, October 1983. Pictured are Sheba and David Sinclair, along with their infant son, Solomon. Sheba and David are Oasis Hotel and Casino employees. PHOTO CREDIT: CHESTERFIELD HOSPITALITY, INC.

My jaw hit the floor.

"Holy shit."

Eva looked at me. "What?"

"Winston Chesterfield. He's Sol's grandfather!"

* * *

Sunday Afternoon, August 29, 2032

Kessler Residence, Paxson, Alaska

Special Agent Sun-Hee Jeong had spent a few hours in the FBI Field Office in Anchorage, visiting with old friends, before climbing in a Bureau Chevy Suburban and heading north to Paxson, Alaska.

She'd flirted with the idea of taking a small plane from Anchorage to Fairbanks and then driving down, but she'd have had to rent a car herself up there, and she didn't want to spend the money.

It was only four and a half hours from the Field Office to Paxson, where her old boss Luke Kessler had built a cabin on the side of the lake in his retirement. It wouldn't have been worth the hassle to fly into Fairbanks. Besides, the weather was good, so she didn't mind the drive.

Leave it to Luke to move to the literal middle of nowhere.

The Suburban ate up the miles as she zoned out, listening to the satellite radio and enjoying the views. It was always pretty this time of year in Alaska, and she was driving through some very picturesque landscapes. She'd looked up Paxson -- even having lived in Alaska for six years, she'd never heard of it -- and was amused to see its population was a whopping 26 people.

Luke would be in his element. His was probably the only Black face in a hundred miles in each direction. That would also suit him just fine.

This trip was a long shot. Luke had been the lead investigator on the Ashbrook investigation back when he was Supervisory Special Agent and Sunny was new to the Bureau. Nobody knew the case better than he did, and she had a handful of new things she wanted to share with him, not the least of which were the continued attempts on Sol and his family and Geno Volkov's claim that he knew who killed Lena and the Senator.

That fact, alone, was worth pursuing, and Sunny had spent the last few months doing everything she could to turn that claim into a lead. Nothing had panned out. She knew this trip was a Hail Mary, but she knew she had to make it.

And she wanted to see Luke again.

Things between her, Lionel and Gabby were going great. She cared deeply about both of them, and they had a lot of fun together. She wasn't sure if she was falling in love or if this was just lust, but she knew that they were rapidly approaching the point where they needed to decide exactly what they were and what they wanted.

This was her first relationship since Luke. They should never have gotten together in the first place, she knew, and they'd broken just about every reg in the manual doing it, but they'd been discreet, and as far as she knew, nobody in the Bureau had ever figured it out. They'd had a good time together, but Luke had a temper and so did she, and in the end, they were fighting more than they were fucking, and that was not what she wanted from life.

Yet a part of her still missed him.

A small part of her felt guilty for using the case as a pretext to go see him, but she knew he wouldn't let her come just to visit. If she hadn't dangled sharing info with him, he would never have agreed to see her in the first place.

She stopped at the last gas station on this stretch of highway and filled the tank and grabbed a coffee, then headed north on Richardson Highway for the last leg of the trip to Kessler's place.

It was early Sunday afternoon when she finally made it to the turnoff that led up to the shore of Lake Paxson and Kessler's place. She was thankful for the Suburban, because the road wasn't paved, and she didn't think a sedan would have made it. The grade was steep with two switchbacks she did not want to take late at night or in the rain.

She pulled up next to a battered blue F-150 and climbed out of the truck, grabbing her backpack off the seat beside her. Inside was a hardcopy of the Ashbrook casefile, her laptop, her personal phone and a Bureau satellite phone. She didn't have a cell signal for the last fifty miles, so she was happy to have the backup.

Luke Kessler was sitting on the porch of the cabin in a beat up blue rocking chair, cleaning a shotgun as she crunched across the gravel. He was wearing flannels and jeans, a toothpick in his mouth. His head was as bald and shiny as she remembered, but instead of the clean-shaven face she'd expected, he'd grown a thick, stone gray beard.

He was still a mountain of a man, even bigger than Lionel. She and Luke had been exact opposites, him the towering Black jock and her the tiny, lithe Asian, but she guessed that was part of the attraction for her. And for him.

He didn't look up at her as she approached.

"Why you slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler! You've got a lot of guts coming here, after what you pulled," Luke growled as she approached.

"Lando Calrissian, Empire," Sunny replied with a smirk. "C'mon. That was way too easy. Give me something from a movie I haven't seen ten thousand times."

"That would be difficult," Luke said, snapping the last piece of the shotgun into place, racking the action open and setting it beside the rocking chair. He stood up, all six foot eight of him and stiffly walked down the front steps to stand in front of Sunny, his hands on his hips. "I quit paying the cable bill and they shut it off. Haven't seen a movie in a couple months."

"Don't bullshit me," Sunny retorted. "I know your internet works. I can see the Starlink on your roof, and you got my email somehow."

"Shit." Luke turned and looked at the top of the cabin. "Can't get nothing past you, Special Agent Jeong, Federal Bureau of Sticking Your Damn Nose In My Business, can I?"

"I don't think that would fit on my business card, Luke," she said with a grin. She cocked her head and looked him up and down. "It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too, Sun," Luke said as a smile broke out on his face.

He pulled her into a bear hug, sweeping her off her feet and twirling her around like she weighed nothing. She whooped and laughed, hugging him back, then kissing his cheek before he set her down on the porch. He climbed back up after her, opened the door and escorted her in.

From the outside, the cabin looked like any of a hundred similar cabins throughout central Alaska. Spare, utilitarian, designed to keep out the cold and serve as a base of operations for hunters and sportsmen.

Once Sunny crossed the threshold, the illusion vanished immediately.

This was the most luxurious cabin she'd ever seen. A massive bear rug sat in front of an equally massive fireplace, surrounded by deep leather furniture. Luke could claim all he wanted that he hadn't watched a movie in months, but Sunny knew he was a cinephile and the 80 inch high-end TV that dominated the room above the fireplace wasn't there for nothing. The living room had a huge cathedral ceiling that went up at least two stories, the vaulted wood a deep mahogany, as were the built-in bookshelves that ran along one of the walls.

The other wall was all glass, affording a splendid view of Paxson Lake and the dirt path that led to the boat house down below the cabin. The lake was clear of ice this time of year, but she knew in winter the view would be magnificent in the snow.

She whistled softly as she took in the view. This was luxury like she'd rarely seen it outside of the Elysium.

"Luke, you've done pretty well by yourself since you left the Bureau, haven't you?"

"I came into some money and since I don't have any vices, I figured I'd set myself up in a nice place to enjoy my retirement. I'm away from everybody, I've got my books and my movies, and I can make a buck or two taking tourists out on the lake fishing if I feel like it," he said, gesturing her to a big armchair before the fire.

In the center of the built-ins was a bar area. Luke selected one of a handful of decanters filled with brown liquid, poured himself a healthy slug, poured another for Sunny, which he delivered, then sat across from her, falling heavily into a twin of the armchair she'd settled into before the fire. It was chilly but not cold, and she knew the fire was more for looks than warmth. The alcohol burned on the way down, a very smooth highland scotch.

"No vices?" She shook her drink at him as she watched him down half of his in one gulp.

"Day drinking is not a vice when you're retired, kid," he said with a sniff. "Besides. Ain't nothing else to do around here."

She laughed and took another sip. This was very good scotch.

"It's good to see you," she said again. "I know we didn't leave things--"

"The only past I'm interested in talking about is the case." He cut her off with a wave of his giant paw. "Your email told me you'd made some progress. Let's hear it."

Sunny took another sip of scotch, set the drink down on the coffee table before her, and dug into her backpack for the case file. She handed it over to him.

"I reorganized it a few years ago, but you know most of what's in there better than I do. But let me fill you in on the latest," she began.

Half an hour later, she'd walked him through the attacks on Sinclair, the attempted assassination of the president that she believed was actually an attempt on Jack and Sol, the murder of Sheldon Weissman, and the tantalizing claim that Geno Volkov had made before his murder that he knew who had killed Senator Ashbrook and Lena Schuyler Sinclair.

"He says he knows who killed them," Luke said, flipping through the pages of the file, which filled a large three-ring binder. "He used that word?"

"Yes. My partner did the translation himself. He said 'killed' and he said it to his lawyer," she confirmed.

"His lawyer? I'm not going to ask how you got that," Luke said, sniffing. "And those idiots let somebody poison him? Convenient." He had never had a lot of faith in local law enforcement.

"Convenient for whoever is behind all this. Not convenient for me."

Luke closed the file. "So what exactly are you here for, Agent Jeong?"

Sunny smiled at the formality. "Nobody knows more about this case than you. Am I barking up the wrong tree?"

"Are you?"

Sunny grimaced. Luke was being Luke and she hated when he got this way. "I can second guess myself all day long. You know that. But this seems like confirmation of what you've always believed -- that the crash was no accident."

"Yeah, but I thought Ashbrook was the target. And you saw how that worked out for me," he said with a sigh. "This reads like you think Sinclair was the target."

"I do. And whoever killed her is after Solomon and his stepson."

"This was always a possibility. The threat Sinclair received after the... accident... we ran that down as much as we could, but it was a dead end," Luke said. He took another gulp of scotch, emptying his glass, then got up to refill it.

Sunny's was still half full. She hadn't touched it since she'd begun talking.

"Maybe we should have tried harder," Sunny said.

Luke rolled his eyes, sitting back down and starting on his second full tumbler of scotch.

"Do I detect a rebuke?"

"Professor Henry Jones, Sr., Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," Sunny said, not missing a beat. "Again, you gotta pick something we didn't watch together a hundred times."

"I'm lobbing you a few softballs. It's been years and I'm sure you're out of practice."

Sunny reached for her sidearm.

"I see your temper hasn't improved with time," Luke said with a laugh.

"I doubt yours has either, old man," she told him. "Yours was always worse than mine, anyway."

"Temper's the one thing you can't get rid of, by losing it," Luke told her.

"Shit. Shit. Goddamn it!" Sunny pounded the arm of the chair. "I know that's a quote! I know it! I can't believe this!"

"We watched this together. At least, we watched parts of it. Some of it I don't remember," he said with a leer. "C'mon, Sunny."

She took a sip of scotch and shook her head. "You got me."

"Dr. Buddy Rydell, Anger Management."

"Are you serious? You went from Empire and Last Crusade to an Adam Sandler film?"

"Hey, Jack Nicholson needs to get paid, too," Luke said. "Hmm, now I wonder what kind of a reward I deserve for stumping you."

Sunny looked at him. He had that gleam in his eye, and she started to feel butterflies in her stomach. She hadn't known what to expect coming up here, but Lionel and Gabby had both given her permission to do whatever she wanted. They both seemed to think this whole trip was just a booty call, and they had teased her relentlessly about it. For her part, she came expecting nothing. But seeing him again, even after all these years, a part of her wanted nothing more than to take him to bed.

"The traditional reward... is still on the table," she said, licking her lips.

"It is?" Luke raised his eyebrows at her. He took a long pull on his drink then set it down. "Well, then. Don't let me stand in the way of tradition."

Luke stood up and planted himself in front of Sunny. She unzipped his pants, reached inside and fished out his cock.

It was just as she remembered. Thick, long and juicy. Without another word, she slipped it into her mouth, running her tongue along the tip.

"Mmmm," Luke sighed. "Girl, you've been practicing."

Sunny looked up at him, her eyes wide, and nodded gently. She popped his dick out of her mouth.

"Got a boyfriend now. Girlfriend, too. It's complicated."

"Nothing complicated about this," Luke said. He grabbed the back of her head and forced it back down on his cock.

Sunny grunted, letting him take the lead. Luke had always been an aggressive lover, and that was something she missed about him. Lionel was different. Gentler and more playful. His cock was thicker than Luke's but not nearly as long. She had trouble getting her mouth around it, but Luke's had always fit just right. She closed her eyes, and it was as if no time at all had passed.

They were back, together, ten years ago, sneaking sex in storerooms and on stakeouts. A quickie hand job in the trailer out back of the Field Office or finding a few minutes in the back of one of the Suburbans. Maybe a bed if they were lucky enough to get a weekend off.

She opened her eyes and looked up at Luke. He had a soft grin on his face. She wasn't used to the facial hair. It made him look older, like an angry Samuel L. Jackson. But it suited him. He'd always had an angry face.

"Fuck me, Luke," Sunny said, looking up at him as spit dripped down her chin. "Lay me down on your bearskin rug and make a woman out of me."

Luke barked a laugh and took a step back. He started pulling off his clothes and Sunny stood up and did the same. Jacket, blouse, belt, badge, gun, slacks and socks fell into a tiny, neat pile on the deep leather armchair. Luke's flannels and jeans ended up in a much larger mass on the floor.

Sunny took a long look at him. He'd kept in shape, but you couldn't outrun age, and she saw the sag around his waistline, the little pouch of fat down below, partially covered by a curly mess of pubic hair. He still looked good, his shoulders wide and hips narrow, and that cock was just as she remembered it.

She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. She was still the petite sexual dynamo she'd always been, small tits, shaved bush and tight ass. Gabby loved to bury her tongue in Sunny's slit, and she was more than happy to let her.

She dropped down to her knees again, then maneuvered onto her back, pulling Luke down on top of her.

With a grunt, he slid his cock deep inside her. She moaned and their mouths met. It was a tentative kiss, almost questioning whether kissing was okay. They hadn't left things on a good note, and she'd already mentioned a boyfriend and a girlfriend.

She knew Luke didn't care about cheating, but she appreciated that he was holding back on the intimacy, not knowing for sure where she stood.

"It's okay. My partners know I'm here and I told them there was a chance we'd end up like this. You don't have to hold back on their account," she whispered.

"You're the first woman I've had in five years," Luke told her. "I almost forgot how to do this."

"Like warm apple pie," Sunny told him with a smile.

"Oz, American Pie. Another easy one."

"Shut up and fuck me, Luke."

Luke grunted, then slammed his cock home. He pounded her hard and fast, like she wanted, like she was used to with him. Their love making had never been the long, languid, drawn out sex of two people with all the time in the world. They went hard, they went fast, getting off as quickly as they could, and this session was no different.

Sunny knew she'd been pampered by Gabby and Lionel, that the chances of her actually cumming were relatively low, but she didn't care. It felt good just being with Luke again. She relaxed and let herself enjoy the sex, basking in the memories of how things used to be. When they were still good.

A few minutes later, she felt Luke stiffen, and then she felt his cum spurting deep inside her. She wrapped her legs around him, as best she could, holding him tight against her as he shuddered, gasping from the pleasure. She held him tight like that for as long as she dared, then let him go.

Luke climbed off Sunny, his thick cock sliding out of her pussy as he stood up. He held out a hand to her, pulling her to her feet. As she stood, she looked out across the lake and noticed a line of dark clouds on the horizon. It was beautiful, but it portended a significant storm.

"Weather's coming in," Luke said, following her eyes. "You're probably going to be stuck here tonight."

Sunny felt the warm wetness of Luke's pleasure slowly running down her thigh. "I can think of worse places to wait out a storm," she said, eyeing him. Damn, he looked fine. Part of her wished Lionel and Gabby were here. She'd love to see what her partners would do to him.

"I could use a shower," she said after a few moments.

"Follow me. There's no guest bedroom, because I don't ever have guests, so you'll have to use mine," he told her.

She followed him as he showed her his bedroom, which was almost as spacious as the rest of the cabin. The bathroom was enormous, with a huge walk-in shower, hot tub and heated floor.

"You want to join me?" She looked at him with an offer for round two plain as day on her face.

"You go. I need to get dinner going. We'll probably lose power and the generator is only good for a few hours. I've been meaning to head into town for gas, but I haven't gotten around to it," he told her.

"Your loss," she said, flipping her hair at him. She turned the shower on and waited for it to warm up. Luke watched her for a few moments, eyeing the tight body he'd just enjoyed for the first time in years, then turned and closed the door.

Sunny stepped into the shower and washed herself clean from the remnants of their love making.

As she scrubbed her hair, she got an unsettling feeling. Something was nagging at her, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She finished the shower, then stepped out, grabbing a towel. The floor was toasty warm.

It was the heated floors that finally connected the dots in her mind.

Luke Kessler had spent his entire career in law enforcement. Twenty years in the Bureau. He'd turned in his badge shortly after the end of the Ashbrook investigation, after concluding the crash was likely an accident. She knew he never really believed that, but there was a lot of pressure on them to make the case go away. A lot of pressure. She'd always thought him retiring was in protest.

Now she wasn't sure.

Where did he get the money to build this place? The level of luxury was beyond the salary of a federal employee. His father had been a cop, his mother a homemaker, and they weren't wealthy. He said he'd 'come into some money' earlier. What did that mean? Unless he'd hit the lottery and hadn't told anyone, there was no way Luke Kessler would have managed this kind of wealth.

Their break-up had been difficult. A lot of yelling and fighting. They were both type-A personalities and it showed. She'd transferred to Miami, leaving him here in Alaska soon after they called it quits. It was as far from him as she could get. Vegas came through a few years later, and they'd lost touch.

Could he have managed to make enough money to buy a place like this in that time? She didn't think so.

She dried herself off, then wandered back into the living room, still nude. She found him in the kitchen, grilling two very large steaks. The sizzle and the smell of roasting meat made her mouth water.

"Caribou. Easier to get up here than beef," he said, gesturing. He was still as naked as she was. She looked at his cock longingly but forced herself to ignore it. They'd had fun. She had questions now.

"I need you to be straight up with me, Kessler," she began.

He turned to look at her with raised eyebrows. Calling him by his last name was something she only did when she was in work-mode. He flipped the steaks over, salted them with a pinch from a yellow salt horn by the stove, and then wiped his hands on a towel.

He turned to look at her. She looked up at him, and for the first time truly realized how much bigger than her he was.

"Let me guess. How did somebody like me afford to build a place like this? What was it that finally caught your eye? The TV? The boat?"

"The heated floors in the bathroom."

He chuckled. "I hate cold tile. It gets pretty damn cold here in the winter."

She heard the wind picking up and she turned to look out at the lake. Rain had started to pelt down, pattering against the glass. It had gotten much darker, even though the sun had not yet set.

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Answer my question."

"How about you get me another drink, we get dressed and we have a nice dinner, instead?"

Luke had already had a quarter of the bottle of scotch. Sunny didn't remember him being this much of a drinker. Alcohol was known to loosen lips, though, and maybe if she got him liquored up he'd be more willing to answer her questions.

"Fine. I'm starving, anyway. Haven't eaten all day."

Sunny went over to the bar, poured him an extra generous slug of whisky from the decanter and brought it to him. He grabbed her ass as she walked away, and she casually swatted his hand away.

She tried to pretend there was no tension between them, that the sex and the booze had kept things light, that her refusal to press him further had avoided what was sure to be a blow up argument, but she knew that was bullshit. She could tell he was tense. His posture had changed the moment she'd asked him to come clean.

A part of her wouldn't feel comfortable now until she had her pistol on her hip again.

She went back into the living room, found her clothes where she'd left them, her sidearm in its holster beside her badge. She got dressed, surreptitiously checked that her weapon was still loaded, then went back into the kitchen.

"Steaks are done. You want to open a bottle of wine while I get dressed?" He handed her the tumbler she'd brought his scotch in. It was empty.

Luke padded off to the bedroom and closed the door. She refilled the scotch -- half the decanter was now gone, and it had been full when she got here -- and found a bottle of red in the wine fridge, along with a corkscrew.

It was a Chateau Margaux 2019. The year struck her. That was the year of the crash, of the investigation, of their torrid love affair. That he'd have a bottle of wine from that year, especially an expensive one, shook her.

The Luke Kessler she'd known, the one she'd dated, had been a beer man at heart. He was more at home with a case of Natty Light than any kind of wine, especially not pricey French shit.

Sunny shook her head. It was like she didn't know him at all.

Luke came out of the bedroom clad in a nice, crisp white shirt and slacks. He looked handsome and she felt a chill come over her. This was the type of thing he wore when they were working together. Memories came flooding back.

"Let's eat," he said, taking the glass of scotch from her and taking a drink. He drained half of it in one go.

She noticed he was slurring his words.

The steak was good, if a bit stringy. She'd never had caribou before, but Luke had always been a pretty good cook, and he preferred game to anything you could buy in a supermarket. At least that hadn't changed about him.

She didn't particularly care for the wine, sipping it gingerly, but Luke drained glass after glass. His eyes had taken on that fevered look she'd seen in drunks before.

"Can't remember the last time I've seen you hit the bottle this hard," she said to him as she brought their dishes into the kitchen.

"I haven't seen you in a decade, Sunny. Lot of things have changed in that time, girl," he said. More words, more slurring.

"Not everything. You still know how to fuck me," she said, with a smile, trying to disarm him.

He gave her a lazy one in return. "Like riding a bicycle," he said slowly. He got up and went over to the bar to pour another drink.

"So what's with the boozing?"

Luke slammed his glass down, hard enough to crack it. Sunny jumped. He was standing with his back to her, and she could see the tension in his shoulders, his muscles straining under the thin white cotton of his shirt.

"Part of the reason I moved up here was to get away from nosy people with their goddamn nosy questions, Jeong," he growled. "I drink because I want to drink. Understand? It's none of your fucking business why."

"I came here for help with the case, Luke," Sunny said quietly. "Then I find you here, drinking yourself to death, in a cabin that would make a billionaire blush. What am I supposed to fucking do? Ignore it? Pretend like I don't see it?"

"Yes! Walk away! The case was closed a decade ago! Stop digging!"

"Who got to you?"

Luke spun to face her, his face a cloud as dark as the storm raging outside.

"What did you say to me?"

Sunny stood up. He was bigger than her, but he was drunk and she was sober, he was unarmed and she wasn't.

"Look around, Kessler! Do you think I'm fucking blind? A fucking idiot? I didn't last this long in the Bureau without being able to see what's in front of my fucking face!"

"Leave it alone, Jeong. I'm begging you. I'll take the couch, you sleep in the bedroom. I'll sleep it off and then you leave in the morning, and you never come back. Make this easy on yourself and on me. Please."

The anger dissipated as fast as it arose. Luke found another tumbler, filled it with scotch and drank it off in a gulp.

"Luke, please. You're scaring me. Let me help. What did you do?"

Luke's shoulders slumped. The glass slipped from his hand and hit the floor with a thud. The bearskin rug kept it from shattering.

"I did what I had to do. They would have killed me. Killed you, too. They basically told me they'd do it. They could kill a Senator, they could kill me and you and anybody else if they wanted to."

"Who is they?" Sunny took a hesitant step towards him.

Luke looked like he was about to fall apart. The bravado was gone, the anger, the temper, all of it had dissolved like a sugar cube in a hurricane. He just looked... old. And tired.

"I didn't want to lie to you, Sunny. I swear to Jesus, I didn't want to," he said. He slid to the floor, his eyes leaking. "I don't--"

Sunny crossed over to him, sat down next to him and wrapped her arms around him.

She felt his shoulders shaking, but he never sobbed. Never made a sound.

"Tell me. You'll feel better once you come clean," she told him, stroking his back like she'd comfort a child.

"What do you want from me, Sunny?"

"I want the truth," she said quietly.

"You can't handle the truth!"

"Colonel Nathan Jessup, A Few Good Men," she said to him gently.

She felt him rock underneath her and realized he had laughed.

"Another easy one," he lamented. "I always tell the truth. Even when I lie," he added.

"Tony Montana, Scarface. You know that's my favorite movie, Luke," she chided.

"Yeah."

She stood up, pulled him to his feet, which was no easy task, a man his size, and led him back into the dining room.

"I guess I owe you an explanation."

"That would be nice," she said.

"Gimme a sec," he said.

He went back into the bedroom. Sunny watched him go with trepidation. She loosened her pistol on her hip, keeping her hand near it. If he came out with a gun, she wanted to be ready.

He came back, a thick folder in his hand. It looked like an old FBI casefile. He tossed it on the dining room table and sat down. She let out a sigh of relief. She couldn't believe she'd been prepared to shoot her mentor, but he was scaring her.

"There. That's everything. The full file. Not the bullshit one I put together, the one you showed me earlier."

Sunny's face scrunched up. "What do you mean?"

"I was paid a very large amount of money to swap the real file for that one," he said, waving drunkenly towards her backpack, still in the living room. "I gave one to them, but I kept this one. Just in case they fucked me. I was supposed to burn whatever copies I'd made. Told them I did."

"Why? What's in here?"

"After Sinclair was threatened, I started looking into his background. Trying to figure out why someone would target him or target his wife. Well, I found a few things."

Sunny waited for him to continue. When he said nothing, she reached for the file.

He slammed his hand down on it just as her fingers reached the cover. "I'm telling you, you don't want to read this. They'll come for you. They'll know."

"How?"

"I don't know. I still don't know how they found out what I'd discovered. I hid that file from them, from everyone. If they know you've got it, they won't hesitate to kill me or kill you. Hell, I'm already dead just showing it to you," he said. "But I can't live with this anymore. I was a good cop, and I cracked this case, and I have lived with the guilt that I let a murderer go free for a decade. A fucking mass murderer."

Sunny looked at the file folder under Luke's hand. She'd been chasing this case for most of her career. It was her white whale, the one that got away. It had ruined her relationship with Luke. She'd vowed to solve it. And she wanted to. She liked Sol Sinclair, liked Jack Fisher, and Lionel and Gabby loved them both. She owed it to them to figure out who killed Sol's wife. She couldn't just walk away.

"I know who Solomon Sinclair really is. I know who Vex Romano really is. I know who killed Lena Sinclair. And if you read this folder, you'll know too. There's a manuscript in there that could blow your little city sky high," Luke said.

He got up abruptly from the table. "I'm going to bed. You can take the couch. This is my fucking house, after all. In the morning, I want you gone."

He stood up, stumbled to the bedroom and slammed the door.

Sunny sat quietly, the file folder in front of her. She counted to ten, then opened it and read.

* * *

Sunday Afternoon, August 29, 2032

Cherry Hill, Halifax County, Virginia

"Why do you insist on inflicting this on me?" Winston Chesterfield groused. "Why don't you make your mother go with us? Why just me?"

"Momma hates the new rector, Granddaddy, you know that. If I brought her, she'd just complain the entire time and nobody wants to listen to Clarabelle Chesterfield complain."

Winston sighed loudly. "Nobody wants to hear Clarabelle complain, but you have no problems hearing me complain? Maybe I should just bitch louder? Those pews hurt my ass!"

"Granddaddy, it's just an hour. People like seeing you in church. You're a celebrity!"

Winston could have put his foot down and not gone to church, but he had a hard time telling his daughter no. Elizabeth Chesterfield was a strikingly elegant woman, just a few years shy of her fiftieth birthday. Winston enjoyed spending time with her. She reminded him quite a bit of her mother.

She called him granddaddy because she didn't know any better. Winston had kept so many secrets over the years, one more meant nothing. She didn't know she was actually his daughter, and he had no intention of ever telling her.

Some secrets he was going to take with him to the grave, and this was one. There were a lot of those. He hoped his grave would be big enough to fit them all.

He'd already picked it out. The family mausoleum on the property had a nice, large plinth for him, right beside Maggie Ann, who had passed a few years earlier. His son Carlton was in there. His twin, another daughter, also named Elizabeth, was in her seventies, with her own family in Pennsylvania.

He'd urged Clarabelle not to call her daughter Elizabeth, had reminded her that he already had a daughter named Elizabeth, but Clarabelle thought the whole thing was incredibly clever. No one would believe Lizzie was his daughter -- he'd never name two daughters the same name, after all.

She was an idiot. A good lay, but dumb as rocks. Winston hadn't bothered fighting with her about it. It had been his son's choice anyway, a way to honor his favorite sister.

When Carlton had died a few years earlier, right around the same time his mother had passed, Clarabelle had moved back to Cherry Hill and she'd brought Elizabeth, her husband and three kids with her. Winston hadn't cared -- he wasn't there anyway, spending most of his time in Las Vegas. But now that he was back at the estate for good, he regretted his generosity.

It's not that he didn't enjoy spending time with Lizzie -- if he'd been a little younger, he might have fallen prey to that old itch that had gotten him into so much trouble when he was younger -- but her mother was a pain in the ass, and her kids were all wastrels.

They were all waiting for him to die. He could see it in their eyes every time he looked at them. The estate was large enough for dozens more immediate family, so he did his best to avoid them, but there were a few standing engagements he couldn't get out of. Church on Sunday with Lizzie was one.

"The Athletics play this afternoon, Granddaddy," Lizzie said, patting him on the thigh. "I know you never miss a game. I'll watch it with you! It'll remind you of all the good times back at the Oasis. Remember when you let Jose Canseco move in there?"

Winston grunted. "One of the smartest things I ever did. I could charge quadruple for the rooms on the top floor from fans who just wanted to say they'd seen him."

"It'll be good for you."

Half an hour later, they'd arrived at Cherry Hill. Lizzie helped Winston out, got him his cane and steadied him as she helped him into the mansion.

They were greeted by Robinson, his butler, who held the door open for them.

"Sir, you have a visitor," Robinson told him in his soft southern lilt.

"Who the fuck wants to see me?" Winston said, crassly. "I wasn't expecting anybody today. Lizzie, you know anything about this?"

"No, Granddaddy, I don't. Robinson, who is it?"

"A Mr. Sinclair, ma'am," Robinson explained. "He's a former employee of Mr. Chesterfield. He's been here before. He's waiting for you in your office, sir."

Winston's heart sank. Solomon Sinclair here, unannounced. He was just thinking about secrets he'd take to the grave, and suddenly one of those secrets manifested itself into his home office.

He looked over at Lizzie. She'd been conceived in that office.

Winston sighed. "Alright, Robinson. Help me to my desk. Lizzie, let me talk to Sol by myself, okay? We've got some business to discuss."

"Of course, Granddaddy. I'll get the kitchen to start on your dinner and we can watch the game in the family room," she said. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and bustled off. Winston watched her ass as she walked away and licked his lips.

"Sir?"

"After you, Robinson," Winston said, waving his cane.

Sol was sitting in front of the fire, a glass of scotch in his hand.

"That'll be all, Robinson," Winston said, dismissing him. "Make sure we're not disturbed."

"Of course, sir."

Winston tapped his way over to the bar, poured himself a drink, and collapsed heavily into the chair next to Sol.

They said nothing for a long time.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Sol's voice was low. The deep bass in it rumbled.

Winston sighed and took a sip of his scotch.

"What was there to tell?"

"The truth."

"What is truth? Why does it matter? Some things are better forgotten."

"Goddamn it, Winston. I've known you for years. I worked for you for years. We've been friends, for years! Don't you think I deserved to know? Don't you think I would have liked to know where I came from? Who my parents were? Who they really were?"

"Your parents. You knew your parents. Jason and Rhonda were good people."

"They weren't my birth parents. I knew that. They told me that. They wouldn't tell me any more than that, and I respected them, loved them enough, to let it go. Now I find out not only who my parents were, but that you -- YOU -- are my grandfather. And you've known this whole time and never told me!"

The anger in Sol's voice was palpable.

"How did you find out?"

"Not even going to deny it?"

"I'm too old to give a shit anymore, Sol. You've no idea how many secrets are stuffed in this head of mine, and I've kept many of them as long as you've been alive. Whatever damage this one could have caused is long in the past. No use denying it. But indulge an old man. How did you find out?"

Sol told him about the records room Jack and his team had discovered in the Oasis. He withdrew the photograph of his parents, him and Winston from his suit jacket pocket and passed it over.

Winston took it, his age gnarled fingers grasping it tightly. Sol saw the photo shake gently as Winston held it up to the light.

"Well I'll be damned," he said with a chuckle. "She kept it. She kept all of it. Jennifer, you bitch," he said laughing. "You sentimental bitch!"

Sol took the photograph back.

"Tell me about her."

"Jennifer? She used to be my assistant. Mob killed her in '83 to fuck with me--"

"Not her. Bathsheba. My mother."

Winston sighed again. He took a sip of scotch. "I loved your mother very much, Sol. And I've never forgiven myself for what happened. She's the reason I've been taking care of you."

"What do you mean?"

"Your father was a college professor. Where do you think he came up with the millions you inherited when he died? C'mon, man," Winston chided. "Hell, who do you think found Jason and Rhonda in the first place?"

Solomon looked at Winston. He had come here with a stack of questions, and each answer he received created new questions.

"Tell me the whole story. Start from the beginning."

Winston looked at him and laughed. "We're going to be here a long time."

"Then start talking now. I know you don't want to miss the ballgame."

* * *

Tuesday Night, September 14, 2032

The Elysium, Las Vegas

Election night.

I couldn't believe it was finally here. The last month had flown by. It was a long month, a frustrating month, filled with ups and downs, highs and lows, but mostly lows, if I had to be honest.

The discovery that Winston Chesterfield was Sol's grandfather had blown my mind. Sol had flown out to Virginia to confront the old man. I'd wanted to go with him, but he told me this was something he had to do himself.

He came back and refused to talk about it. Wouldn't even tell Mom. That led to at least one blow up fight between the two of them, the first time I'd ever seen them fight. Mom didn't speak to him for a week.

You have no idea how relieved I was when I walked in on them fucking in the office like nothing was wrong. Mom could never stay mad with anyone for long, and I knew she loved him. And I knew she was addicted to his cock. That made up for a lot with Mom.

"Nervous?" I asked Avery.

"Fuck you, Jack," she said without heat. I'd asked her that a couple dozen times already today.

"Jack, stop taunting the candidate." Fiona slapped me on the ass as she walked past, a tablet in her hand.

"I'm not taunting the candidate. I'm just asking if she's nervous!"

"You're making me nervous asking," Eva said.

To be honest, I was mainly asking because I was nervous. Terrified, actually. I felt in my pocket for what felt like the thousandth time today. I forced my hands out and in front of me, as I watched Fiona bustle around my apartments.

"When do the polls close?"

"For the hundredth time, Jack, they close in half an hour!"

"Sorry. I'm not good at waiting," I told her.

"What do the exit polls say?" Eva asked Fiona, giving me an exasperated look.

"There are none," Fiona said. "That shit's just for presidential elections and it's always bullshit anyway."

"We have to know something, right?" I asked.

"We'll know something in an hour," she said.

I sighed and sat back on the couch.

Downstairs, the rest of the campaign team was getting the victory party set up. We had the largest ballroom in the hotel set aside for the party, and it was decked out in Locke for Congress signs, American and Nevada flags, and as much bunting as we could find.

The party was as much a reward for the legions of volunteers who'd been campaigning for her the last two months as it was a victory party. At least, we hoped it was going to be a victory party.

The polls had Avery and Ursula Best locked in a dead heat. Best had been leading for a solid chunk of August, thanks to the devastating ad campaign the Super PAC dumping money into the race on her behalf had been running. We'd closed the gap to within ten points by the middle of August.

And then we'd dropped the secret weapon.

I wish I could have seen Bentley's fucking face when she saw it.

Nyla had worked her magic. The campaign ads using the footage from the Elysium that exonerated me from Bentley's bullshit smear had dropped like a bomb into the middle of the race. Bentley was suddenly completely absent from Best's rallies, and Best had been forced to distance herself from the Senator, even going so far as to scrub her endorsement off Best's website.

It was glorious. We shot up in the polls, and now we were neck and neck. Avery had busted her ass, raised a record amount of money -- she'd told me all about the gangbang with Mom and my only regret was that I hadn't got to see it in person -- and the campaign had ended up the most expensive House special election in history.

It all came down to tonight.

And, whether we won or we lost, my life was going to change tonight.

In my pocket were two diamond rings.

"Do we have Best's cell phone number?" Eva asked.

"Why?" Avery spoke up for the first time in a while, looking over at our partner.

"Well, when she calls to concede, you don't want to miss the call, right? Better put it in your phone now," she said with a tight smile.

"Don't jinx it," Avery said to her quietly.

"C'mon babe, you got this," Eva told her. She stepped behind Avery and massaged her shoulders.

My hand went to the two ring boxes in my pocket again.

Listen, I get it. I know what you're going to say. Avery and I had been together not even a year. The three of us, even less. And I know I'm young. I get it.

But when you've figured out who you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start right away. Yeah, I know. I stole that from When Harry Met Sally. Sue me.

I'd been toying with asking them both to marry me for a few months now. The idea really wormed its way into my brain the night we found the records room, when Eva had casually joked about changing her name. I know it was a throwaway comment, but it was the first time any of us had vocalized a future together, and it got me thinking.

The two months I barely saw the girls didn't hurt. These last two months have been two of the longest of my life. Even when I was still in school and Avery was working at the Chronicle, I still saw her every night. And since the three of us got together, we'd been almost inseparable. Two solid months of seeing them every few days, of us being in different places, sleeping in three different hotels, and keeping in touch via text message only impressed upon me more how much I loved them both.

And, if I'm honest, I hated it. I am not built to be by myself. It was easier in the Elysium. Mom, Nyla and Miles, Claire and the rest of the crew were there, and I had friends and colleagues and sex partners galore.

Even in college I had Ben.

It hadn't struck me until I moved to the Oasis how much I'd grown used to living with sex partners who were as horny as I usually was. If I got lonely or bored in the Elysium, all I had to do was take a stroll around the place and I could find someone, male or female, to hook up with. Or I could just ring up one of the sex workers.

I couldn't do that in the Oasis. Elijah was living with me, but he's as straight as an arrow, so there was no help there. And it was a lot different being the boss than it had been just being another employee over at the Elysium.

Nyla had been on me to film a few scenes for Elysium Productions, but I'd begged off, citing the Oasis renovations. We had a ton more prep work to do before we started the renovation in January, and I still wasn't sure if we'd be able to keep the place open while we did it.

Too much work, too little time, and too little time with my ladies.

And then there was the election.

The lights flashed in my room, and I stood up to get the door. The bell chimed a few seconds later. Before I could get the door, it swung open and Mom and Sol came in.

"Are we too late? Is it over?" Mom said, laughing. She had on a tight red cocktail dress that showed off all of her considerable assets. Sol was wearing a white dinner jacket, looking like he'd just stepped off a James Bond set, complete with a pink carnation in his lapel.

"Where are you guys going all dressed up?" Eva asked, stepping over to Sol, giving him a quick peck on the lips and adjusting his tie.

"Here!" Mom said, pulling Eva over to her and giving her a much longer kiss, with considerably more tongue than Eva had just given to Sol. "Jack told us there was going to be a party, so we dressed for a party!"

"Mom, I said it was a victory party, not Monte Carlo night," I laughed. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek and grabbed my ass. I swatted at her hand, but she'd already moved on to Avery, who she gave an even deeper kiss, and groped one of Avery's tits as she did so.

"Oh, Avery. I can tell just from kissing you that you're a nervous wreck. What are you worried about?"

Avery looked at her like she'd just stepped off an alien spacecraft. "What am I worried about? What aren't I worried about? I've spent the last four months running myself ragged across this whole city, trying to beat a woman everybody knows and most have voted for, while raising the most money anybody's ever raised in a House race before and it all comes down to one night! What could I possibly be worried about, Emily?!"

The last sentence ended in an almost shout that turned every head in the room.

Avery took a deep breath, lowered her arms to her side and swallowed.

"I'm sorry. I'm just a little on edge. This race is too close for comfort," she said, more calmly than I knew she felt.

Mom wrapped her in a big hug, and my eyes may have lingered just a little longer than was appropriate on the image of their racks squished together. Avery was in her usual campaign outfit, blouse tied over bare midriff and blue jeans, and both she and Mom enjoyed eyes on their chests and went out of their way to show those chests off.

"Jack, can I speak with you for a moment," Sol asked, pulling me aside.

"Sure," I told him.

He gestured with his head towards the bedroom.

I stepped in and he followed, then closed the door.

"My spies tell me you made a pair of significant purchases from the jewelry store downstairs," he began.

I grimaced. "I should have told you," I began.

He raised his hand. "No, no. I'm not their father. And if I were you I wouldn't have bothered asking Vex's permission either, because I know you were going to do what you wanted regardless of what he said. I wanted to offer my congratulations. And I wanted to apologize," he continued.

"Apologize? What for? And thanks, by the way," I said, with a grin.

"I know I've been distant the last month. And I know I haven't told you all what happened when I confronted Chesterfield about what you found. I'm still... I'm still trying to process everything he told me. Apparently Las Vegas was as messed up back in the 80s as it is today," he said with a shake to his head.

"You don't owe me any explanations, Sol," I told him. "This is your life, after all."

"Yes, but you're a big part of that life now, Jack. Son," he said, resting his hand on my shoulder. "And I don't want there to be secrets between us. Once we get through the election and the rest, I want to do a family trip. Emily, Nyla and Lucy, Miles and Michael, you and Avery and Eva -- the whole family, together. I'll tell you all what Chesterfield told me and we can talk about everything else going on, okay?"

"Of course. And since I've got you here, do you mind if I change the subject?"

"Sure. What's on your mind?"

"What's the latest on Hemingway?"

Sol's face hardened. "Not much. Tiana still hasn't been able to crack the encryption on the cell phone you all got from that gangbanger brother of Elijah's. There have been no outgoing calls to Hemingway's hotels since that night a few months back. I did hear from the FBI a few weeks ago, asking for some records from the Oasis deal, some old financials from the 80s, but other than that, nothing."

"Financials from the 80s? From the Oasis? Nobody told me about it," I said, frowning.

"You've got enough on your plate, Jack, and this wasn't a formal request. Sunny Jeong reached out. Said she was trying to verify some things in their case file. Since Tiana has digitized all the old records, I just sent them over. No need to waste your time on it. I know you're neck deep in renovation plans."

"Still. I don't want to be left out," I told him. I thought the days of my being blindsided about the Oasis were over. The last two months, especially since Mom's new hires came on board, had been far different from how it had begun over there, and I felt like I was in a much better place. Now I find out I was still left in the dark about some things. I would be lying if I said it didn't piss me off.

"I get it. I'm sorry. I won't do that again. Like I said, it just seemed routine. If I get anything else from her, I'll let you know. So... when do you plan on doing it?"

"What?"

I was so focused on the Oasis, I didn't grasp what he was saying for a second.

"Asking Eva and Avery," he said gently. "You're as strung out as Avery is," he said with a smile.

"Oh, later tonight. Maybe at the victory party if the news is good."

"What if it's not?"

I blinked. I honestly hadn't considered that. What would we do if Avery lost? Maybe asking her to marry me -- marry us -- wasn't the best plan tonight.

"Shit. I hadn't thought about that," I said. "Fuck. Maybe this is not such a great idea after all. I just had this image in my head of us being on the stage, she gives a big thank you speech and then I drop to one knee and pop the question in front of the crowd. I thought she and Eva would get a kick out of that."

"Always the showman," Sol said to me with a smile. "Well, I think she's going to win, so maybe plan B isn't necessary, but hey -- if things don't turn out right, maybe this is a way to salvage the evening for you all. Turn a bad memory into a good one, right?"

"Right," I said, giving him a hesitant smile. I don't know whether I believed him, but I hoped it was something I wouldn't have to think about. Avery had to win. She'd worked so hard, and I couldn't believe, for the life of me, that people wanted the Beast over her.

"Avery looks stressed, but you don't look much better, Jack. Is there anything I can do to help?"

He gave me that look. You know that look. There was an offer there, the kind of offer you tended to get in the Elysium. I froze.

We were alone. It had been more than a week since the last time I'd gotten laid. Longer since the last time I'd been with a dude. And far, far, longer since the last time Sol and I had fooled around. Last time was right after the Bentley business, as far as I could recall.

I licked my lips. "What did you have in mind?"

Sol pulled me towards him and wrapped me in a big hug.

A hug? Had I misinterpreted that look? Was I so horny these days that my eyes were seeing things that weren't there?

I realized my cock had started to rise as I pondered what I thought was his offer. As he held me, there was no way he couldn't feel it pressing against him.

I have to admit, the hug did feel good. This was the kind of thing I'd missed, growing up without my Dad.

He laughed as he rubbed my back. "I guess you're happier to see me than I thought."

"Sorry. I've been a little pent up lately," I told him as he let me go.

"Well, we don't want that," he said, looking down at the tent in my pants. "This is the Elysium, after all."

And with that, he sank to his knees, unzipped my fly and freed my stiff cock. Before I could say another word, he'd taken most of it in his mouth.

I groaned softly. There were few things I knew hotter than watching my stepfather suck my dick.

It must have been a while since Sol last went down on a dude, because after the first few seconds, he began working my cock like he'd never get another one. His head bobbed up and down, one hand caressed my balls through my pants as the other tugged and twisted the base of my cock.

Like I said, it had been a while since the last time I'd had any kind of sex, and I was primed to go off, like a grenade ticking before being tossed. It took Sol's expert mouth less than five minutes to have me blowing my load like a firehose into his mouth.

As I started to cum, he grabbed my ass and held me in place, letting my cream pour down his throat. After a few seconds, after the last spurt, he pulled his mouth off my cock, stood up and gave me a long, deep kiss. I could taste the remnants of my jizz on his tongue, and I felt my cock begin to stiffen again.

"I hope that took the edge off. Save the rest of that for your girls," he said with a quick smile. Then he slapped me on the ass. "Get on back out there. Avery needs you."

My legs were a little wobbly as we rejoined the girls. Nyla and Lucy had come in and my apartments were starting to get a little crowded. Elijah, Sol and I were the only guys.

Fiona had set the TV up to monitor all the news stations, and she had the department of elections website up in the center of the screen, which was relaying vote totals in real time.

"How long will it take for us to know?" I asked.

"Glad you both could join us. Getting the party started a little early?" Mom said, coming over and kissing Sol on the mouth. "Yep. I can taste the jizz. You two are incorrigible," she tsked.

I shrugged. Eva looked over at me with a grin, but Avery was too focused on the TVs to notice.

The polls closed, and we waited for the data to start populating.

"What's taking so long?" Mom asked, waiting a whole five minutes from closing before she started with questions.

"Emily, this is an old-fashioned process. Paper ballots, scanners, all the stuff. It's not instantaneous," Fiona explained, sounding so much like an elementary school teacher that I thought Mom was going to lose her shit. Mom just nodded.

Damn. She must be nervous, too.

The first precinct level results came in and it was close. Way too close.

"We're winning!" Mom said, clapping. "Look at that!"

The first precinct to report was in West Las Vegas, and I recognized it as being the area directly around Second Baptist. Avery had won, 55-45%.

"Fuck," Fiona breathed.

"This is not good," Avery repeated.

"What? You won! Why the long faces?" Mom asked, pointing at the screen. "This is great. The first results in and you're already up!"

Fiona shook her head. "That's the heart of Second Baptist's territory, Emily. We should have crushed it there, 60%+. We needed to win that precinct by a larger margin. Because once Henderson and Best's old House district start coming in, we're gonna need those votes to off-set the ones we lose."

"This is a marathon, not a sprint," Avery said.

I went over and took her hand. It was clammy. She squeezed it hard and we spent the next few minutes in silence.

The numbers bounced back and forth over the next two hours. The residential areas around the Strip went big for Avery, as well as Naked City and the northwest section. As expected, the areas in Best's old state House district were bad -- some as bad as 80-20% in favor of Best, but fortunately they had lower turnout than many of Avery's winning precincts. Turnout overall was running at just under 25%, which was far lower than any of us had anticipated.

"Folks aren't turning out," Fiona said. "Even our absentee numbers are lower than I expected."

"It's a special election," I pointed out. "They're always lower in a special, aren't they?"

"Yes, but not this low. I think the massive spending pissed people off."

Avery shook her head. "It was a nasty race. I can understand if we turned a lot of voters off. We went pretty hard negative at Best after she hit me with the low blows."

"That's textbook, though," Fiona told her. "It's too late to second guess the strategy now."

"I didn't want to run this way," Avery said forcefully. "This campaign wasn't supposed to be textbook. We were supposed to be different. I feel like we spent this entire race just reacting to whatever Best and Bentley did. I told you we shouldn't have ignored the attacks on me," Avery began.

"Hold up," Fiona said, raising her hand. "This shit ain't over. Don't start blaming me for a loss when we've barely got half the precincts in."

"I'm not blaming you, Fiona. I just..." Avery squeezed my hand and then dropped it, turning to look at the rest of us in the room. "I just wanted to do things my way. I should have done that interview. I should have explained about Ethan and Dad. I should have stayed positive. This... this wasn't me," she said.

"Babe, you're doing great," Nyla said from the back of the room. "No matter what, you showed all them bitches who you are. Everybody knows your name now, and even if you don't win, you still made a difference."

Eva came up and wrapped Avery in a big hug from behind. She rested her head on Avery's shoulder and kissed her gently on the neck. "You should be proud, Ree Ree. Look at all you've accomplished!"

"It ain't over til it's over," I said, pointing at the screens.

"Okay, Yogi," Mom said, rolling her eyes.

"What? He was right. There's still plenty of votes left to count."

Another hour ticked past, and with 99% of the vote reporting, Avery was trailing by a mere thousand votes.

Fiona was hunched over her tablet, running numbers through AI, trying to determine if there was still a path to victory.

Avery was sitting on the couch, with Mom on one side and Eva on the other. The energy in the room was gone. It felt like a morgue.

"I should have done it my way," Avery said again softly.

Fiona screamed in frustration, then tossed her tablet onto the kitchen table. It clattered across, knocking over a cup of coffee and a bottle of water.

I rushed over to stop the spill, as Fiona began pacing.

"This is bullshit. These numbers don't make any sense. The numbers in West Las Vegas and Naked City do not make any sense. Our turnout models predicted numbers that were consistently far higher than what these turnout and vote totals show. There is nothing in any of the data we have, including past voting patterns and our identified voters roll, that looks like this. We should be winning West Las Vegas in a landslide, not this weak-ass shit! We should be winning right now!"

Elijah looked over at me. "That's Blood territory, Jack," he said softly.

I looked at Sol. He looked back at me. "Tiana needs to get Red Dog's phone unencrypted. Like, stat," I told him.

Avery looked at me. "What?"

"Elijah's brother. He was a lieutenant in the Bloods. He was responsible for a spree of vandalism and attacks at the Oasis. He's sitting in the Clark County Detention Center right now on a raft of charges. Could the Bloods have fucked with the election?"

Elijah nodded. "Wouldn't be the first time. My Dad used to do all that kind of shit before he went to jail. If somebody hired them to fuck with the election, Curtis would know all about it."

"And it would probably be on his phone," I said.

"Let me call Tiana right now," Sol said, stepping into my bedroom.

"What are you saying, Jack?" Avery said, standing up. "Are you saying the election was rigged?"

"You heard Fiona. And I find it hard to believe that given how fond of you the Second Baptist community was," I cleared my throat a bit, recalling our tryst with Pastor Winthrop, "that they wouldn't have blown the roof off the vote totals there for you. This stinks, babe."

"So what do we do?" Eva asked, looking at Fiona.

Fiona looked at Avery. Avery looked at me.

Avery's phone rang.

"Fuck, it's Best," she said, holding her phone up to the group.

"Maybe she's calling to concede," I said.

"Not funny, Jack," Eva said, shooting me a dirty look.

"Sorry."

"Well? Let's see what she has to say," Mom said, gesturing at the phone.

Avery picked up. She put it on Speaker.

"Avery?" Best's voice rang throughout my apartments. I hated her voice. No matter what she said, she always sounded like she was about to demand to speak to the manager.

"Hello, Ursula," Avery said slowly. "I thought I was supposed to be the one calling you," she began.

"Well, you're new to the whole politics business, so I didn't know if you were aware of the courtesies," Best said.

What a condescending cunt.

"My understanding is you call to congratulate an opponent when you're ready to concede," Avery told her. "That's why I hadn't called you."

The statement hung in the air. A few seconds passed. "The numbers are a little too wide for a recount, dear," Best finally said. "Don't make this difficult. No one likes a sore loser. The voters have spoken. Respect their decision."

I could hear the steam escaping from Avery's ears. I raised my hand, but she waved me off angrily.

"Ursula, you know as well as I do that these numbers don't look right. I'm going to get to the bottom of this, and if it turns out--"

"If you're accusing me of rigging the election, you can go fuck yourself, Locke," Best growled. "I won this fair and square, and I won't have you acting like the last president--"

"Cut the bullshit, Ursula. I'm not accusing you of anything. But you have some pretty strange bedfellows in that AmTrad party of yours, and somebody spent a whole lot of money on your behalf that nobody can figure out where it came from. So if you think for a minute I'm going to just roll over and let you proclaim victory when there are legitimate questions about this election, you're delusional."

"I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less from you," Best sneered. "Always the reporter, always chasing a story and making one up if you can't find one good enough for the front page. Fine. Don't concede. It won't matter. I'll still be the Congresswoman, and you'll still be a loser."

Avery's face got hard. Her eyes glinted and I could see the fire in them. She looked fierce and determined, like I'd rarely seen her before.

I have to admit, it turned me on.

"This was the special election, Ursula. The real thing is in November. Enjoy playing Congresswoman for a few months. You'll get maybe one week in DC before they all go home to campaign anyway, so have at it while you can. But come November, cheating or no cheating, I'm going to beat your ass so hard you'll never forget it!"

She hung up the call and turned to Fiona. "Fiona, from this point forward, we do things my way. I want that interview scheduled with Margaret for this weekend. I want all our ads pulled and I want them redone, all positive, no attacks and nothing but what I'm going to do for the people of Las Vegas. And I've got a speech to make," she said.

She marched to the door and paused before it, turning to look at the group. "Well? Are you all coming or not?"

Ten minutes later we were downstairs in the Elysium's main ballroom. Avery's supporters were all still there, watching the TVs announcing the election results. The room's enthusiasm was dampened, and I could imagine the groan that went up when CNN called the race for Best right around midnight.

It was a testament to how much the crowd loved Avery that they were still here. Nobody liked listening to concession speeches, but the room was still packed. We stood behind the stage waiting, as Fiona went out to tell the crowd Avery would be out to address them shortly. The announcement was met by loud applause, which I found heartening.

"They haven't given up on you, babe," Eva said, gesturing. "You're doing the right thing."

"Am I?" Avery asked, looking at me and Eva. The confidence she'd displayed upstairs had faltered a bit. "Or am I just being stubborn? Should I just let this go?"

"No," I said forcefully. "No. If somebody tried to steal this race from you, I'll be damned if we just roll over and let them do it. You're amazing, Avery. You've done so much and come so far. I believe in you. And I love you," I said.

She smiled softly at me. "I love you, too, Jack."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Eva asked, stepping over to us.

"I love you, too, Eva," Avery said with a giggle.

"I love you, both. More than you could ever know," I told them. I kissed Avery, then kissed Eva.

"Now go on out there and tell your people this ain't over," I said. I slapped Avery on the ass and pushed her towards the stairs to the stage.

"Oh, no," Eva said, pulling me by the arm. "We're all going out there. Don't think we're making Ree Ree do this all by herself."

As Avery stepped out onto the stage, the crowd went absolutely bonkers. Wild cheering, applause, wolf whistles and sign waving.

We all went out, waving to the crowd, pointing to people in the audience we recognized. There was a trio of girls in the front row in sorority sweatshirts who were cheering loudly as we stepped out.

"Avery! Hey Avery!" One of them shouted, and then all three lifted up their sweatshirts.

Written across their breasts in bright red lipstick was "WE LOVE LOCKE."

I had to laugh. The cameras zoomed in on them, and the audience got even louder.

Finally, after a few minutes, Avery managed to quiet them down as she stepped up to the microphones.

"I can't believe you all are still here. Isn't it past your bedtimes?"

The crowd roared with laughter and scattered applause. "Thanks, everybody for being here, and for sticking around. I know this was probably as rough on you as it was on me. And a big shoutout to the girls of Sigma Epsilon Chi up front here, for making me laugh after a long night!"

The sorority girls in the front row started whooping again, and the audience gave them a big round of applause.

"Tonight was a tough night. Ursula Best called me a few minutes ago and we had a... brief chat. She wanted me to concede. Told me not to be a sore loser, that the voters had spoken. Do you think the voters have spoken?"

The crowd roared out "NO!"

"Me either! And that's what I told the Beast when she called. This race is NOT OVER!" Avery shouted.

The crowd went insane. Roars of approval, signs waving, the sorority girls in the front row were beside themselves.

"Regardless of what happened tonight, the rest of this election begins right now. Election Day is in two months. And on that day, I am confident that I'll be out here, once again, declaring victory, along with the President and the Vice President. We are going to bring Free Love to Las Vegas and we're going to do it together! Thank you, Las Vegas!"

Avery stepped away from the microphone. The crowd was cheering madly. Avery threw her arms up in the air.

It was now or never, I thought to myself.

I stepped over to the microphone. "That's right, everybody. We're going to do this together. Because that's what all this is all about, isn't it?"

"Jack, what are you doing?" Eva hissed at me. The crowd faltered a bit, trying to figure out why I was speaking. Throughout this campaign, I'd generally been a silent partner. I wasn't out giving speeches, so many of the people in this room had never heard me on the mic at a political rally.

"I think you all know me, but in case you don't, I'm Jack Fisher. Avery and I and Eva have been a thing for a while now. I've gotten to watch Avery throughout this campaign, and before, and let me tell you, folks... there is nobody smarter, harder working, or more compassionate than Avery Locke."

The crowd cheered. Avery was staring at me, trying to figure out where this was going. Eva, too. I turned to look at them as I spoke.

"Except maybe Eva Romano. It's pretty close. And they're both gorgeous, too, aren't they?"

The crowd tittered again, then quieted down. "I know I don't usually give speeches. It's not really my thing. And so, this isn't really a speech. Tonight was a big night, for all of us, and it doesn't matter what the outcome is, because I know that no matter what, Avery is going to keep fighting for what she believes in."

Avery nodded to me, a small smile on her face.

"But she can't do it alone. You all know this. That's why you're still here," I said, looking out at the crowd. The sorority girls in the front row winked at me and started blowing kisses.

"And I know I can't do any of the things I'm working on alone, either. Nobody can. Everybody needs somebody, sometime, as the old song goes," I continued.

"Avery needs all of you. And I know that I need her. And Eva. The two of them... they make me a better man. They give me the strength to keep going, even when things are hard. And, together, I think we can do just about anything."

Eva's eyes grew wide, and I saw a glimmer of understanding in them. Before she could say anything else, I moved away from the mic, got down on one knee and pulled the two ring boxes from my pocket.

"Avery, Eva. You two are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I know things didn't go the way we wanted them to tonight, but I couldn't wait any longer. I want to spend the rest of my life with you both. And I'm not patient enough to wait until the timing is perfect to ask. So I'm doing it now. Avery... Eva... will you both marry me?"

I opened the two ring boxes and held them out to my ladies.

Both were large diamonds, two carats each, set in platinum bands. Avery's diamond was flanked by a pair of onyx stones, the color of her hair. Eva's was flanked by a pair of yellow diamonds, just slightly lighter than the blonde tone of hers.

Eva's hand whipped up to her mouth, and she started to dance in the spot, reaching for the ring.

Avery made eye contact with me, and I saw her eyes fill with tears.

My stomach sank. Was I about to get rejected in front of a crowd of thousands of people?

The tears streamed down Avery's face, but her smile lit up the stage like the Fourth of July. She nodded twice, whispered something I couldn't hear that looked like 'yes' and rushed forward to pull me off my feet and wrap her arms around me.

A wave of relief washed over me as a feeling of unbridled joy the likes of which I had never experienced before hit me, just before Avery did.

She smothered my face in kisses, and the crowd went absolutely insane behind us. The loudspeakers started blaring "I've Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas. Avery kissed me hard on the lips, and soon I felt Eva's arms around us and her tongue in my ear.

I laughed, then turned my head to kiss her. She'd already slipped her ring on her finger and was waving it at the crowd as we kissed. Then she turned to Avery and gave her a long, passionate kiss.

"Am I supposed to ask you now?" Eva shouted to Avery.

"Why do you think I have any idea how this works?" Avery shouted back. "You wanna get married, Evie?"

"Fuck yes, I do! But I wanna get laid first!" Eva said, with a grin. "C'mon you two! Take me to bed or lose me forever!"

The sorority girls in the front row were sobbing their eyes out, hopping up and down, pointing at us and pretending to swoon. The rest of the audience was cheering loudly as Eva, Avery and I made our way off stage.

Fiona stood there waiting for us.

"Okay, boss," she said. "I get it. We do things your way."

Avery cut her off. "There'll be time for that tomorrow. Tonight, I want some alone time with my fiancées."

"Ooo! I like the sound of that," Eva said. "Fiancées! It sounds so formal!"

"Of course. See you tomorrow. I'll take care of things here," Fiona told us.

I wrapped my arms around Avery and Eva's waists, and the three of us rode the elevator up to my apartments in silence.

Avery looked down from time to time at the ring on her finger. My heart was so full I thought it would burst out of my chest.

We made it a few steps into my apartments before the clothes started flying.

By the time we hit the bedroom, we were all nude, except for the two engagement rings on the ladies' fingers.

Avery wrapped her arms around my neck and clamped her mouth firmly on mine. Our tongues danced together as I felt Eva's breath hot on my neck. The smell of Avery's perfume filled my nostrils, and I couldn't hear anything over the pounding of my heart in my ears.

My cock was as hard as I could ever remember it being and I almost jumped when Eva's mouth found it while I was still locked in a passionate kiss with Avery. I ran my hands down her body, massaging her back, then bringing them around before I paused to cup her breasts. I tweaked her nipples gently, then hard, making her squeal into my mouth.

I moaned into hers as Eva's tongue stroked my cock. Her hands began working their way up to my ass crack, tickling my anus with her fingers.

We finally broke the kiss, and Eva withdrew my cock from her mouth. Avery pulled Eva into a kiss like the one she'd just given me, and I fell to my knees, my hands sliding up their legs until I had my fingers deep in their pussies.

Avery was dripping wet, Eva even more so, and I fingered them both as I watched above me as they kissed, lips and tongues feverishly working. Eva was kneading Avery's breasts and Avery had her hands cupping Eva's ass, as their prolonged kiss went on and on.

Finally, the two broke away from each other with a gasp.

"Evie, do you mind if Jack fucks me first? It's been a rough day." Avery gave Eva a lopsided grin.

"Anything for you, love," Eva told her, bopping her on the tip of her nose.

"Don't I get a say?" I asked, looking at the two of them.

"No," they both answered in unison.

"It's like we're already married," I said, throwing my hands up.

"Shut up and fuck me, Jack," Avery said, pulling me towards the bed by my cock.

Avery hopped up on the bed, grabbing a pillow and placing it behind her head. She spread her legs wide, her wet pussy winking at me lewdly, as she pulled me on top of her.

"Evie? I need to taste you," Avery said, grasping her hands at Eva, who climbed up on the bed and spun around, presenting her pussy to Avery's lips while facing me.

My cock slid into Avery with zero resistance, just as my mouth found Eva's and we kissed. I took her breasts in my hands, weighing them gently as we kissed, and I felt Avery begin to push, slowly working my cock. Eva moaned in my mouth and I knew Avery's hands had found her clit.

I started to slowly fuck Avery, pulling my cock out and then gently sliding it back in, a slow rhythm designed to let me fuck her while still being able to kiss Eva without slamming our heads together. We continued on like this for a few minutes until Eva broke off the kiss and yelped loudly.

"More! God, I missed this!" She shouted. I looked down to see Avery had worked a few fingers inside Eva's pussy while her tongue lapped gently at her clit. I could see her chin working overtime and I picked up the pace, fucking her with faster and faster strokes.

A few more moments of this and Eva started to cum, moaning loudly and grinding her pussy into Avery's face. She collapsed beside her on the bed, her chest heaving. She smiled, stretched languidly like a cat that just woke from a nap, and watched as I put the wood to Avery's pussy.

Thank God I'd cleaned the pipes with Sol earlier in the evening, because if I hadn't I would have blown my load by this point. Avery looked so good, tasted so good, and Eva had that look on her face that made my insides tingle.

I couldn't believe I was going to get to spend the rest of my life with these two. Who the hell was I to get so fucking lucky?

"Eva's turn, Jack," Avery said, pulling me out of my reverie. She tapped me on the chest a few times and I climbed off her. "Here, babe. Your turn to taste me."

Avery climbed on top of Eva, positioning herself in a sixty-nine, her pussy over Eva's face. She motioned me over, then took my cock in her hand, gave it a kiss and a gentle suck, just getting the head wet, and then she guided me into her fiancée's pussy.

I sighed deeply as I felt Eva's pussy muscles grip my cock. I went slowly, not wanting to slam my pelvis into Avery's face, as she tongued Eva's clit. Avery's gorgeous ass was completely covering Eva's face, and all I could see were two brown ass cheeks above a wide splay of blonde hair and two hands, one with a white and yellow diamond ring, pushing the cheeks apart.

I grinned at the view and picked up the pace.

We fucked like this for a solid few minutes. I heard Avery moan, her ass cheeks shaking as Eva slapped them and squeezed them a few times, and from the look on Avery's face I was sure she'd just had an orgasm.

I was close myself, but I didn't want this to end. It was too good.

"Go ahead, Jack," Avery said, looking at me. She could see in my face I was holding back. "Cum inside her. Cum inside our fiancée. Don't worry... we've got the rest of our lives together. We can do this as often as you want. The night's not over for us, not by a long shot."

She blew me a kiss then tongued Eva's clit again, and I did as she suggested. I let myself go, and after a few more pumps I felt that telltale feeling welling up from my balls and I felt myself cumming. I let the first few squirts go inside Eva, but then I pulled out and stroked myself furiously. The last few spewed from the head of my cock, hitting Avery in the face and hair, earning a laugh from her and a big smile.

"Yes! Cum for us, Jack!" She urged me on. I managed one last spurt before I collapsed, spent beside them.

Avery climbed off of Eva, moved up and kissed her, letting Eva get a taste of my jizz as it dripped off her cheek.

It had been a long, exhausting day capping off a long, exhausting campaign, capping off a long, exhausting year. I crammed a lot of life into 2032.

And I knew it still wasn't over.

We still didn't know who killed Sol's wife. We still hadn't figured out what to do about Sally Hemingway and her attacks on the Oasis. We had just learned some explosive secrets about Sol's background. And while Best may have won round one, the real election was still two months away.

What would the future hold?

I know the answer, of course. I mean, I'm the one telling you my story, after all. And I hope, after all these words, you're still here reading it and enjoying yourself.

Because there's one more story left to tell.