Sunday, March 1, 2009

Chapter 47: Alexander Is Never So Fortunate

Sun, November 22, 2074 6:10 pm: Goth Manor- Rawling Hills, Pleasantview

471

Alexander stared at the half-empty bottle of cognac perched near the center of the table and imagined what might happen if he threw it against a wall. Perhaps the noise would come first, discordant and shrill. Perhaps the glass-riddled air would glitter in the instant before the shards settled. Perhaps Angela would ask, "What the hell is wrong with you?" Perhaps Enoch would laugh. Perhaps the baby would shriek. Perhaps Lydia would exhale once and blink twice.

Alexander had awoken that morning much the same way he did everyday. In the bathroom, he stopped to look at himself in the mirror and realized not that he disliked what he saw but that there was nothing to see. The room was no more occupied with him in it than it would have been without.

And sometimes, when he noticed the penetrating, accusatory stares that Lydia gave to his eldest son- When her loathing was at its most palpable to no one else but him- Alexander thought that she might be suffering from a similar affliction. The two of them could have been on fire and everyone else would have just gone on eating their dinner.


472

A single chair separated Lydia from Alexander but it might as well have been a continent. Lydia never sat near enough for him to pour her drink or accidentally brush the side of her leg with his own. He was almost certain that she kept her distance intentionally. Even in his fantasies, she would chastise him for fantasizing.

473

"I heard some interesting news today," Horace said, laying his chopsticks down on the table. "The Tellermans are expecting a crop of pinot noir grapes this winter." Rolling her eyes, Angela wiped her mouth with her napkin.

"You must have heard wrong. Pinot noir doesn't grow in November in this climate." Horace tapped his mother on the shoulder.

"That's what makes the news so interesting, isn't it?"

"Since when do the Tellermans grow wine grapes anyway," Enoch snorted. "Some of their fields are damp enough to be rice patties."


474

Alexander ran his fingers around the rim of his bowl, staring directly at Angela but not sparing her a thought. She spoke with her hands as much as she did with her mouth and Alexander found it to be vaguely hypnotic. His wife was a blur of fingers and sleeves. Alexander rested his neck on his palm, accidentally finding his pulse. He fancied that each pair of beats was a warning. Tempus. Fugit. Tempus. Fugit. If only he could be someone else. Anyone else.

Lydia tossed her unkempt hair over her shoulder. Alexander couldn't help but stare at the milky, pristine length of her neck. Tempus. Fugit. Everyone deserved to get what they wanted out of life. But he was a Goth and Goths were never quite so fortunate.


475

August 11, 2049 11:52 pm: Goth Manor- Rawling Hills, Pleasantview (Twenty-Five Years earlier)

476

The door slammed. Alexander climbed atop his father's oak desk and flattened his body against the wall, realizing too late that he should have hidden underneath instead. He was not meant to still be awake at that time of night and in any case, he had a guilty conscience. He was planning to go outside to catch the last fireflies of the season.

477

"The men of your family seem to have a preternatural talent for seducing women of a certain ilk but I refuse to allow my daughter to be taken in by the illiterate half-breed that mows our lawn." It was his mother's voice. Alexander peeked around the corner. She was standing in the foyer with the gardener, her face partially obscured by the brim of her hat.

"We're just friends is all." The gardener cast his eyes to ground as he spoke. Alexander's mother lightly placed her palm at the base of her throat, seeming to choke on the stagnant air between them.

"Friends?Friends? Do you think I'm some kind of simpleton? What could the two of you possibly have in common?" The gardener shook his head slowly.


478

"All due respect Mrs. Goth, if you don't know then you wouldn't understand." Bella folded her arms over her chest, exasperated.

"Whatever the nature of your relationship with Cassandra, it ends now. And you had better pray that her father does not get wind of this."

"Yes ma'am."


479

"I've decided to put Bachelor Manor on the market. You and your men will maintain that property until its sale."

"You're kicking me off my work here?"

"That is correct, Mr. Lothario." The gardener ran his fingers through his slick black hair. Alexander remarked the man's eyes for the first time. They were green like the sludge on the stream banks of Arbormoor Forest.


4710

"That poor girl doesn't have another person in the world to talk to but me and you're gonna take that away from her too?"

"My daughter is not your concern."

"She got her father on one end making her sick to death expect'n too much of her and you on the other end forcing her to be something she's not. Being with me is the only time she's ever allowed to just be a normal kid-"

"She is not a normal kid. She is a Goth. And you would do well to remember it. Goodnight, Mr. Lothario." Alexander knew that tone of voice well. The gardener was on thin ice. He yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind him.


4711

Alexander slid down the wall until he was crouching. In a moment or two, his mother would round the corner and find him sitting there. He expected to be the recipient of her misplaced frustration. He expected her to grab him by the ear and drag him up to his room. As it happened, she looked right at him, blank and unreadable. Then she silently walked away as though he had never been seen.

15 comments:

  1. Aaaaaaand Pen is right back in the swing of things!! Yes, yes...I was stalking your blog!!

    I feel for Alexander there. The poor boy just wanted to catch a few fireflies and instead he sees this. And then to yearn for his wife and not be able to have her in the sense that he wants?! Tragic!

    I like how you painted Don here. Completely different from how he's usually portrayed. I didn't realize it was him until Cassandra said his name. And as I'm not familiar with Maxis sims I have to wonder if her manner was what caused her disappearance.

    Great update! Now I'm going to go look at the preview!

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  2. BTW...is this a new layout? It looks good! Umm...if it's not and it's been here for ages...my bad!:P

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  3. Aww, poor Don! Bella's quite stuck-up; if he did kill her, I don't blame him.

    I had to laugh at Alexander lusting after his daughter-in-law. I'm going to guess that neither Alexander nor Lydia is happily married? Alexander strikes me as the kind of guy that's not getting enough sex--if he was, he probably wouldn't be having all these dirty thoughts about Lydia.

    Heheh, kid Alexander looks like Harry Potter. Must be the glasses.

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  4. *slaps forehead after reading Van's comment and spams Pen's blog some more*

    D'oh! Okay! That's his daughter-in-law! And she seems sorta dressed more causally than everyone else as well.

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  5. Phoenix:

    Great to be back! And this is the same layout with a few small changes. I decided to finally take a good look at my coding and find that weird scrolly line that used to appear under the header and delete it. I had been wanting to do that for months. I also resized my sidebar fonts, replaced the quote with a link to the prologue and added buttons at the bottom for feed subscriptions.

    My Don is so far from the Dons that I usually read about in other people's blogs/legacies... He's not even THAT much of a lothario! I miss my Don. Must- Resist urge- To have loads of Don flashbacks!

    hehe Oh boy Phoenix, are you implying that someone gave Bella the axe because she's a bit unpleasant?

    Alexander isn't really yearning for Angela here. He's yearning for his daughter-in-law, Lydia. I'm sorry if that was unclear. But yeah, he's got a big creepy crush on Horace's wife.


    Van:

    hehehe

    No, Don didn't kill Bella. Not exactly. But as you can see, Mortimer definitely had a type.

    Gosh, I don't even know how long it's been since he and Angela had sex. I doubt that they know either. It might be something as crazy as 6 months to a year since they last bothered.

    And you're right- Neither Lydia nor Alexander is happily married. Neither is Angela for that matter. Horace is very blasé about the whole thing. He married strategically and that's all that matters to him. While Lydia may not have the best birth in the world, she is both a Tellerman and a Caliente. Those families are seriously up-in-coming. It was a match of adjoining bank accounts.

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  6. Phoenix:

    That's the way Lydia always dresses. If she were standing, then you would be able to see that she is also wearing (*gasp*) pants. I don't know if anyone has ever noticed but my sim women very rarely wear pants. I think there was one chapter where Elise was wearing jeans and that was it.

    It's so not proper for women to wear pants in Pleasantview, regardless of social standing.

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  7. I like how Lydia's a little rebel that way. I still hope she has an affair with Ian, but I guess we'll just have to see.

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  8. She hopes that she'll have an affair with Ian too. ;)

    Ian and Adelaide are really growing on each other though.

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  9. Oh and I forgot to mention-

    After I shot the first part of this chapter, I had Alexander and Lydia do a flirt interaction just to see what would happen. As it turns out, they're triple bolters. O_o

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  10. Hmmm, well in that case... I don't know. I was under the impression that those two weren't really ever going to be more than friends.

    Either way, Lydia should dump Horace's ass. Or at least cheat on him.

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  11. TRIPLE BOLTS?!?!?! Heheheheh... maybe they should have an affair then. "Hey honey, guess what? I'm sleeping with your dad!"

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  12. Ian and Adelaide are still looking like a possibility to me. Ian kind of puts her on a pedestal and Adelaide thinks that he's very sweet- Which is something that most of the other people in Adelaide's life are sorely lacking. He also at times reminds her of her father.

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  13. Alex and Lydia would just be SO WRONG!

    teeheehee

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  14. Yay, Pen! I'm glad you're back.

    Life in the upper-crust of Pleasantview is not very much fun, is it?

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  15. Hey... Blogger ate my comment!

    Anyway, as I was saying, the kids seem to have a lot of fun (that is, when they don't have to worry about adults). The Dreamers and the Tellermans have fun too. The Calientes have fun but they also have a lot of unspoken, underlying issues.

    And then, everything was more fun for everyone overall when Don was alive. Don always knew how to make people feel more relaxed. Even Dina.

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