Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 19:19:33 -0500
From: reapersharvest@mac.com
Subject: Living the High Life: Chapter 1 (Revised)

DISCLAIMER: This contains sexually explicit scenes; so if that offends you
don't read it.  The author and/or Nifty are not responsible for those under
eighteen (18) years of age reading this.  UNDERWORLD is property of the
author and should not be used without the author's permission.

	Derrick was sitting on his folding chair by the door, his hands
fidgeting, and his thoughts rushing through his head about a mile a minute.
It was the usual pre-party panic.  After almost two years he should be over
it, but it had become a ritual by now, like brushing his teeth.  Carrie
walked over to him and put her hand on his should reassuringly, "It'll be
okay, it always is."
	He just looked up at her, God she knew him well.  Well she should,
they'd known each other since before he first arrived.

********************

	"Derrick!  Come here!"
	When he heard the words he tensed up.  His mother sounded excited,
maybe accusatory, and harsh.  Could she have found out?  Did she hear from
somebody?  Or maybe somehow found the websites on his computer?  A million
questions ran through Derrick's mind as he left his room and headed
downstairs to the kitchen.  These were the same questions that rushed
through his mind every time she called him that way. Had she had found out
what he was never ready to tell her?  On one level he knew that his mother
would always love him no matter what. No, it was more the fear of change
that kept him firmly in the closet.  When he walked into the kitchen,
shaking, he was more than a little surprised to see his mother turn around
wearing one of the biggest grins he had ever seen on the woman.  Derrick's
mother looked quite good for her age of forty years.  His father had left
her with the baby and ran off to his promising business career with a
younger woman. This only motivated Derrick's mother where others would have
collapsed.  He was always proud of her for that.  Her face was well framed
with locks of dark auburn hair, and her blue eyes shined with
happiness. Both were traits he shared and wore quite well.  "You got in!"
	"Wh-where?"
	"Horace Green!"
	"Oh my God!  How?"
	Derrick's anxiousness had turned from panicked to thrilled.  He had
just been accepted on a scholarship to attend one of the most illustrious
private schools in Manhattan.  He had always been academically proficient
and he had taken the test a while ago to see if he was good enough.
Apparently he was.
	"I'm so proud of you!"  She hugged him.  Derrick was still in
shock.  Suddenly it dawned on him.  How could he, a skinny pale kid from a
middle class household in Queens, possibly survive in the competitive,
blue-blooded environment of an Upper East Side private high school?  He
knew only one person who could help him, Carrie.
	When he finally had a minute to himself, he called her cell.
Carrie and Derrick had been best friends for years.  Their mothers had been
best friends before they were born and never lost touch.  Not even when
Carrie's mother divorced and remarried very, very well and Carrie herself
was launched into the land of Bergdorf Blondes and Aristo-brats three years
ago.  Carrie hadn't let it corrupt her, but at the same time learned to
?adapt? to her surroundings quite well.  She was still the crazy, fun,
artistic type he first connected with and the first person he ever came out
to.  Carrie viewed the high society of New York City as a science project
and conducted her research with the vigor of a seasoned PhD.  As a girl who
could list the top 10 private schools in the state, including all the
places the jocks, drunks, and husband-hunters go, who knew the names of all
the prominent New York families, old money and new, as well just where
dropping their names would do the most good. As a girl who's familiarity
with the fashion world gave her an encyclopedic knowledge of all the
Madison Avenue and Soho boutiques, and not to mention, as a girl who was a
Horace Green student herself. She would be his sherpa through this strange
new, martini-soaked wilderness.  She was enthusiastic to hear his voice
again.
	"Hey!  And how is my favorite pet fag today?"
	"You mean there's another?" Derrick accused, with mock pouting.
"Quite well actually.  You're never going to believe this, but..." he
paused for dramatic effect, "I've just been accepted into Horace Green!"
	"Oh my God! You're going to be HG alumnus!" she screamed, Carrie
was eccentric and had the best reactions, "You'll be sporting Ralph Lauren
and guzzling cosmos in no time."  Derrick laughed; yup, she was the perfect
guide.
	"So, of course I'll need the help of someone who knows the school.
Not only the school, but that whole social scene, there's so much
potential."
	"I love how enterprising you are," she teased. "Well, you sure know
who to call.  I've mapped out all the nouveau rich from HG to St. George's,
Choate, and beyond."
	"I know, which is why I believe that between the two of us we can
take them by storm."
	"True, my familiarity with the territory and your tactics are quite
a force to be reckoned with.  So what exactly are you thinking we?ll do?"
	"Well, I'm not sure, actually," he was slightly embarrassed to
admit it.  He'd gotten caught up in the moment.
	"Nice one, so what was it I just said about your tactics?" she
responded sarcastically.
	"Oh, you're so cruel.  Don't worry, once I scope out the situation
I'll begin forming a plan."
	"Until then."
	"Maybe not, are you going to be at the armory antique show this
Wednesday?"
	"Of course, my mother insists."
	"Well I'll be there too with mine, so perhaps we'll be able to
occupy each other."
	"Thank God, I was ready to hang myself."  Derrick's mother still
retained some of the connections from her high society life before her
husband left, the strongest of which being with her best friend, Carrie's
mother.  As a result, she was able to salvage occasional invitations to
these kinds of events.
	This conversation was typical of Derrick.  One wouldn't think that,
inside his tall, lithe form, topped off with dark hair and eyes that
pierced, lived such a calculating mind.  Carrie was his counterpoint, while
Derrick seemed to absorb life, Carrie exuded it.  She was shy in crowds and
had self esteem problems, but when she was around Derrick, her true inner
enthusiasm for life shined through.

	At the armory, the antique show was what one would expect, of
interest only to those truly in love with the art world.  While Derrick was
certainly an enthusiast of art, he couldn't bear these sorts of functions.
Milling about the various booths with Carrie, the two of them prepared for
facing a year of Horace Green together.
	"Well, my mother's already drunk."
	"You're so cruel to her."  Carrie judged amiably.
	"We have a love-hate relationship that you won't find in most
families."
	"Certainly not in mine, my mother would have a heart attack if I
sat on the living room couch."
	Derrick's mother was always one for wine at a social event.  She
was far from an alcoholic, only drunk in that cocktail party sense, that
leads to the accidental vulgar joke to some stiff Park Avenue matriarch, or
in the worst case, tripping on your manolo blahnik.  Derrick had just
noticed his mother laughing hysterically with Carrie's mother and
stepfather.  The woman was crazy and fun like that, as far as mothers go.
She had great stories and her own brand of humor that sometimes bordered on
outrageous, at least for someone in her position.
	The scene now shifts to their first day at Horace Green.  The two
of them walked down the hall in their uniforms, Carrie excited with
Derrick, but at the same time this crowd intimidated her.  No matter how
she studied them like guinea pigs a part of her still looks up to these
sort of people, the ?in? crowd.  Derrick, on the other hand, surveyed the
landscape with a studious eye, absorbing every detail of their motions,
tones of voice.  The Manhattan rich kids all lolled about, but within them
was a competitive flame, fueled by equally competitive parents, who'd been
breeding them for the right preschool, the right high school, and
ultimately the right college, since the day they were born.  The girls
huddled in clumps, their skirts hiked up and their sweaters a size too
small, to show off their assets, glaring viciously at one another.  The
boys were all cocky, walking down the hallway with a strut as though they
were kings of the world, and in the eyes of many, they were.  But in
Derrick's eyes, they were a cash crop waiting to be harvested.  The way
their lives are driven by pride, lust and greed, it was tailor made for
him.  Though he appeared weak, normally the perfect bait for this kind of
people, Derrick could come off as downright demonic, to those who knew him.
Sure, in a school like Horace Green, there were a fair number of academics,
but it was this A-list that interested him.
	As their classes went on, Carrie and Derrick eventually found
themselves sitting outside the school, waiting for Derrick's mother to pick
him up.  Then, as if by magic, Derrick heard the conversation of a bunch of
adolescent clackers, so named for the sounds their $500 heels make on the
tile floors.
	"So, what are we doing for homecoming?"
	"Marissa's throwing something, everyone's gonna be there."
	Eureka!  Parties.  That was what made these people tick, the ideal
hybrid of the myriad of vices in their culture.  Parties were the perfect
tools with which he can use this school to his advantage. He turned to
Carrie with a wicked grin that she immediately recognized as a sign that he
was plotting something.
	"Oh God, what is it?" She asked apprehensively.
	"I know what we're going to do."
	"And?" He'd piqued her interest.
	"Parties.  We'll take it upon ourselves to become the go-to guys
for all the best social events at Horace Green."
	"Oh my God, that's brilliant."
	"Thank you."
	"But how?"
	"Don't worry about it.  First, we need a venue.  We'll rent out
someplace; maybe in a hotel or something, I know there are some industrial
lofts available for these sorts of events.  We spread the word of a party,
loosely tied to a school event, you know, vacations and stuff like that.
We'll need a pull, a theme maybe, like a black and white party.  Spread the
word, create a buzz, add a cover charge and before you know it, we'll be
turning a profit from their own insatiable sinfulness."
	"That's all well and good, but you're leaving out where we're going
to get the money from.  We need to be able to rent out a space, get food
and drinks."
	"Then we'll start small, as party promoters for some other
socialite.  They foot the bill, we promise a profit and create the buzz and
do the planning."
	"PR, of course.  But who?"
	"Well, we'll have to find them.  A candidate who needs our help
just as much as we need theirs."
	"Indeed."

*********************

	"So this is the entire school directory?" Derrick asked Carrie, as
the two of them sat side by side squeezed together on the subway.  They
were active and never able to sit down and complete anything.  So, of
course taking the subway down to Soho and wandering around the neighborhood
of boutiques was ideal for their task.
	"Yup.  The Celebutantes down to the Prepford wives," this sentence
is a perfect example of the language the two have developed between each
other over the years.
	"Now remember what we're looking for.  A young social climber with
resources and drive who wants to create a name for herself by hosting a
truly extravagant affair."  So, armed with highlighters, they began to flip
through the book, attempting to plough through the massive amount of
information, for that one, ideal candidate.  For each potential host or
hostess, Carrie provided the tidbits of info not provided in the
matchbox-sized contact information.  She was a one-woman filing cabinet,
full of dossiers of who did what, where and with whom.
	They highlighted a few and made a list, then they arrived at their
stop on Prince street and Carrie decided to treat them both to a little
something at Balthazar's.  The two of them had an unspoken agreement about
Derrick's financial situation and Carrie was so naturally giving anyway,
that she almost always ended up paying for lunch or even a cab fare on
occasion.  In the restaurant's warm French interior, packed with people as
usual, the two young New Yorkers went through that list and narrowed it
down even more.  The process repeated itself as they enjoyed their lunch at
a small table cramped next to a support beam.  Later, as Derrick tried on a
blazer he couldn't afford at Hugo Boss and Carrie stood by patiently in an
even more expensive coat off the rack, they were down to the final five.
	"Rebecca, Gloria, Joseph, Harriet, or Hugh," she read off to
Derrick.
	"I think Hugh sounds promising," he responded, never tearing his
eyes away from his reflection in the store mirror, "He has the right
mindset.  Desperate, rich, attention craving, right?"
	"Totally.  In fact, I think I know how we can convince him."
	"I'm listening."  Intrigued, Derrick turned around to face Carrie
with a wry grin and returned the blazer to the rack.
	"Well, it appears that our little Romeo has his sights set on Diane
Kuller."
	"Diane?  Empress of HG Diane? Daughter of loaded restaurateur
Harold Kuller Diane?"
	"None other, I see you're getting better at your A-list
vocabulary," she complimented.
	"Well, I've been studying my flash cards."  They laughed and
Derrick brought them back on topic, "But wait a minute, how can Hugh
Greenford be after Diane Kuller when he's some fresh import from Greenwich,
Connecticut with no family ties to New York?"
	"He'll do what my step-father did, he'll buy himself a place in
society," Carrie countered.
	"But of course."  Carrie's stepfather was a truly self-made man.
He came from a middle class German family and became owner of an Investment
Funds company of esteemed reputation.  He was assimilated into the High
Society by throwing hundreds of parties, a habit he still maintained, as
well as joining every club imaginable, the Union Club, the Knickerbocker,
the University Club, and many others.
        "We'll approach Hugh with the offer to help bring him onto the
scene and Diane's radar. After all, it only takes one amazing party in
order to gain a good reputation."
        "Is that all?"