I kept my eyes locked on the girl in the center and didn't turn to see who it was. "I'm feeling pretty good."

"Good for you. Say, do you see anything you like?"

"What?" I asked.

"The girls, do you see any you like?"

"Yes, I like her," I said pointing with an unsteady hand.

"Only one?" the voice whispered in my ear. "Don't be so modest. You're a young man. This party is for you, enjoy yourself."

"Okay." I felt my words begin to slur. "The one on the end is cute too."

"That's the spirit, that's the spirit," said the voice trailing off into the background music.

I watched intently as, one by one, they untied their blouses, letting them fall to the stage. The tempo of the music intensified after the last girl exposed herself, and all reentered the dance at an accelerated pace, spinning and whipping their black hair in wide arcs. I remained focused on the middle one, taking another full wine goblet each time a staff girl passed by. Cheers and groans periodically carried over from the shrinking crowd around the game table.

"Pretty sexy," said a tall, thin, dark-haired man after he'd fallen onto the pillows where Chance had laid. He wore a two-piece suit tailored of black leather.

"How did you do Tobias?" Ramsay asked him, motioning back to the table.

"I lost about 85000."

"That's not as bad as last time," she said.

"True." He grabbed the pipe girl by the ankle as she passed, and then took three long drags in a row off of the braided serpentine hose.

I changed my focus from the girl to the long, leather-clad man. "So what's your slant?" I slurred.

"My slant," he repeated thoughtfully. He rolled over on his side to address me directly. "My slant on this whole thing is that we are creatures inspired by a divinity that desires to question the authority of mankind's contrived Godheads. It is the only thing I've found that explains us. You see, or will eventually see, that slowly, imperceptibly, God and his hierology slips away from you until there is only the self. If there is no God then there can only be the self. Selfishness necessarily supplants itself in the vacuum created by Godlessness, but this realization happens so slowly that the average man will never grasp it during his short earthly tenure. That answers what, but it doesn't answer why. I think that eventually we are supposed to enlighten the whole of humanity to this truth and lead them out of their self-imposed darkness."

"Believe me they will be much happier in their own world," said Ramsay. "You and Poppy need to get those crazy thoughts out of your heads."

"It's more than just she and I," he said, turning toward her.

"You just remember it's a moot point," she said sternly.

He ignored her. "That's my slant," he said to me.