“Whore.”
“I hate you.”
Stopping to speak to a few others, he made his way slowly over to Luka, who was sitting alone again.
Of course, he was. Luka wanted to live a life in a cabin far from humanity, and Benson couldn’t blame him, though he liked people, generally. Someone who saw the world as being against them, well, Benson had had those thoughts.
He took Monty’s suggestion. He held his hand down to Luka once he got to the sofa, and Luka took it, glancing around them at the others. “Where are we going now?”
“I swear, it sounds terrible, but it’s just to get us away from the crowd.”
“Terrible? Worse than the elevator?”
Benson grinned, “Much.”
“Okay, but I can scream very loudly.”
“Don’t put that thought in my head,” Benson pled with a giggle.
He led him to the bedroom, and after heading through the double doors, Luka stared at the room like he couldn’t believe it was real. Benson quietly closed the doors and said, “It’s lovely,isn’t it? My decorator insisted on adding this room to the fun of the theme.”
The filmy fabrics and soft colors conjured the scent of the ocean near Mykonos. He’d walked along the crescent-shaped Ornos Beach a few years earlier with a wistful sense that he shouldn’t be walking it alone.
He now thought of Luka, Luka’s hand in his hand, barefooted as they walked the crescent in the twilight. The waves would languidly lap the sand, and the breezes would cool the heat of the day into a soft temperature that would send them to a beautiful bed. Like the one where Luka now sat.
“Have you been? To Greece, I mean.”
“I have a couple of times. It’s become one of my favorite destinations. Italy too, especially the Amalfi Coast. I eat a ton of lemon-inspired desserts there.”
“It sounds beautiful. Traveling at all sounds beautiful.”
He sat on the side of the bed, again not touching, but close to Luka. “It’s one thing I dreamed of when I thought about getting rich. I want to see and explore the world. The thing is, to get rich and stay rich, I’ve found leaves little time for exploration.”
“You’re not one of those rich men who build their own rockets to Mars?”
“No, and I won’t. I personally think that’s a terrible extravagance when there are people like us, the way we grew up. I spend my money, a lot of it, on scholarships, charitable events, and I’ve opened seven free clinics in neighborhoods that needed them.”
“And take trips.”
“And take trips, yes. That is my splurge for myself. Seeing things, I truly never thought I’d see. The pyramids in Egypt, of course, but I believe those in Mexico are much more beautiful. Walking through a jungle, only to come out to see this…thismassive mountain of a building, right there in the thick of the trees, it’s something that takes your breath.”
“I’ve watched shows about them. There are hundreds.”
“Thousands, they think. They just need to comb through hundreds of years of jungle growth to find them all.”
Luka grew wistful. “To think, the people who built those didn’t have the things we humans have today. They don’t have…I don’t know, like bulldozers and cranes, even so, they built those things. It gives me hope I can do something grand. Then I remember it takes money to make money, and I lose that hope.”
“Luka, you have gotten this far without a lot of money. I didn’t have a cent, either, and believe me, when I went begging for money from investors, I felt like I might as well be sitting on the side of a road with a cardboard sign. The poorer you are, the harder it is to ask for help.”
“Yeah. I know. I hate it. I think if we could shrug that off and be as entitled as those born with it, we’d probably get further faster.”
“I believe you’re right, but then, we’d be like them. And I swore that no matter how much I had, I’d never be like that.”
Luka smiled at him, and again he was struck. He knew what a gift that was, a smile from the man who wore a perma-frown. So determined and focused as Luka was, he didn’t have the time or thought to smile.
Or the reason too Benson knew. The life he salivated for seemed terribly far away from where he was.
“Luka, I don’t want to buy you, but I would like to help you. I’m not expecting you to ask, so please don’t. I just want to hold your hand and help you up that ladder that is…terribly long, and each rung is slippery.”
