Divine Fantasy Read Online Free Page B

biography about Santa Claus released by some millionaire who claimed to be an elf, and it had made quite a stir. I’d write under a suitable pen name, of course, so Harold would never know that I had sold out and produced something popular for the masses. Maybe I would begin with Ambrose’s love affair with Amorosa who put condensed milk in her coffee.…

Woman ,
n
. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication…. This species is the most widely distributed of all beasts of prey…. The popular name (wolf-man) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.
    Spooker ,
n
. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially the doing of spooks.
    —Ambrose Bierce,
The Devil’s Dictionary
Chapter Two
    Dinner that night was in turns wonderful, lonely and then fascinating. Wonder came at what the chef could do with tuna and chutney, loneliness developed at watching the other couples cuddle and talk in intimate whispers, and fascination began with the man who called himself Ambrose Bierce.
    Sometimes, if a person is sufficiently interesting at first glance, I like to know things about them—even when it’s none of my business. Especially when it’s none of my business. Ambrose was one of these people. My nascent curiosity would not be thwarted.
    Nobody else called him Ambrose. I questioned the staff and one of the guests, a rather vapid ifexcellently Botoxed creature called Pamela, who had two impressive piles of strategically placed silicone on her chest and a blank look in her eyes. When they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, I don’t think they mean an absence of expression. Of course, she was also wearing expensive cruise couture and seemed happy in a vague way, so I didn’t know if I should feel pity or envy for her. Pamela seemed to be under the impression that his name was Caleb Harris and that he was a multimillionaire property developer who vacationed frequently on the island. He never brought any women along with him, had never made a pass at her, and she thought he might be gay.
    I attempted to subtly question Pamela about Caleb’s other hobbies as she knocked back some pink blended drink, but it didn’t work. My delicately worded questions flew over her head. Or, since this wasn’t a particularly elevated conversation and she had a lot of airspace up there, the observations might have sailed right through. I thought about quizzing her husband—or whatever he was—when he rejoined those gathered for cocktails before dinner, but the man—Greg? Garth? I can’t remember much about him except that he was beef-faced, specifically a medium-rare chateaubriand, which suggested he’d been getting too much sun—seemed intent on nothing except getting his hairy hands inside Pamela’s gold sarong.
    The one other eyesore in the otherwise beautiful setting weighed in at about two hundred and forty pounds and talked all the time, even with hismouth full of prawn cocktail. He wore a sort of poet’s shirt that must have been made of Kevlar and laced with piano wire, as it functioned as a sort of corset. Perhaps he was an opera star. Even braced with this modern marvel of engineering, his growing paunch was evident. I would have forgiven the affectation if I thought he was doing it to please the woman he was with, but I got the feeling that he was more interested in showing off for everyone else. He was also loud. Very loud. He was apparently quite a catch, too, and willing to offer endless anecdotal evidence to support this claim, in case anyone was interested. I had to marvel and even feel a pang of annoyance. Even this boor had a girlfriend who looked at him admiringly. What the hell was wrong with me?
    To add injury to insult, he wore some kind of cologne that crept through the room like a chemical fogger. I prayed that no plants or animals had died to produce such an abominable smell.
    Feeling emotionally