Fantasy So Night Follows Day by TMaskedWriter

[Ramesh_Rocky]

So Night Follows Day Pt. 18

"The drinks flow, people forget.
The big wheel spins, hair thins, people forget.
Forget they're hiding.
The news slows, people forget.
The shares crash, hopes are dashed, people forget.
Forget they're hiding.
Behind an Eminence front. Eminence front.
It's a put on, it's a put-on."
-The Who, "Eminence Front"

The "back from commercial" jingle played, as Sally and Cara, America's favorite contractually-obligated BFFs, pretended to have been involved in an intense conversation and just now noticed that they were back on.

"Welcome back," Cara said to the camera. "To Up Your Morning! With Sally & Cara." She turned back to her co-host; whom she would always silently resent for getting front billing, because 'Cara & Sally' even made fucking sense alphabetically, but noooo! "Well, Sally, like we were discussing during the commercial, lots of big news out of Seattle yesterday!"

"I'll say, Cara." Sally replied, aware of her co-host's resentment, but not giving a fuck, because HER tits would be 'television-worthy' without surgery for two years longer than Cara's, so of course the co-hostess leads the audience to the real one. "First STRANGERS and the protests, and that weird violence on the first day. All of that business with the phones. And then, of course, what happened yesterday, on DAY TWO!"

"Thank you, Sally." Cara said, because that's what the HOSTESS says to the CO-hostess, even if she is only made bearable by the contracts that say that they can drink wine on TV. "Yes, especially the big news about friend of the show, Contessa Helena de San Finzione! Her name's been in the news coming out of Seattle a LOT these past two days! First, that terrorist attack on her hotel Monday, and then what happened YESTERDAY! Can we even show the footage?"

"I'm not certain we can." Sally responded. "It's probably too shocking for our viewers." She perked up for the camera. "But it'll be up on the show's website, at the link at the bottom of the screen! Remember, it's not suitable for the faint-of-heart." She quietly wondered if anyone had ever said "Oh yeah, this is totally for the faint-of-heart. Come check it out, faint-of-heart!"

"That's right, Sally! And speaking of San Finzione, what do you suppose this secret movie project going on there is?"

* * *

While Sally & Cara were three hours into their previous day's episode, Contessa Helena de San Finzione was being offered caviar by a passing server at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center.

"No, thank you." She told him in English, before turning back to the men she'd been talking to and returning to Farsi. "But no, you don't get America to change anything by killing their soldiers. You do it by inconveniencing their soccer moms."

She wore an asymmetrical black dress, with a light-blue collar detail; which Vincenzo's pendant hung down over. Houndstooth heels almost completed the outfit, but there was one more vital accessory that she had to get at the convention: a half-empty champagne glass.

That was as much as she ever drank at these things. From that point, the glass qualified as an accessory. It wasn't that she'd been afraid of being poisoned; everything she drank had been supplied by the San Finzione vineyards and was under Ultimado guard from the vineyard until it was in her hand. She knew she had the genetic pre-disposition to walk over and consume the whole bar if she wanted; but the problem was that she knew she had the genetic pre-disposition to walk over and consume the whole bar if she wanted.

There were better drugs than alcohol, anyway; she'd had them. Everything but heroin and that skin-eating one, that she knew. She'd almost tried heroin once, had the vein tied off and everything, until the thought "Whatever happened to Persephone, this is probably how it started," ran across her mind, so she stopped and never looked back; except to deal with the guy who'd thought he'd get to take advantage of her once she'd shot up and felt 'cheated' somehow. Alcohol held little appeal for Helen for a similar reason. When it started to look obvious that she'd been holding the same glass for a half-hour or so, she'd refresh it and share some with the plants. George Carlin had been right, yet again. If you really want kids to stop drinking with a warning label, try "Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole as your dad."

"Well, it was a bold decision to come today; after yesterday, Contessa." One of the men said to her.

"The only kind I make." She replied with a wink. "Like a few bullets have ever kept me from anything." She lit a cigarette. There was no smoking allowed in the convention center, but hers wasn't the only one burning. Nor was tobacco the only substance she could smell burning, as someone else in the hall had decided to one-up her and others' flaunting of their Diplomatic Immunity.

Cocaine was undoubtedly being snorted close by, as well. She'd never had a problem with it; it was something she'd done for fun, and quitting had been as easy as her husband asking her to. Count Vincenzo Ramon de San Finzione had led men to repel the Nazis from his castle and then his nation at the age of thirteen, saved his country's post-war economy by merging La Familia's business interests with the government; taking a direct hand in both, always with the good of the people foremost in his mind, at twenty. When he died at 79, convincing his fifty-seven years younger second wife to give up smoking was the only fight that he never won. But cocaine had been no problem. Nowadays, on the rare occasion that someone convinced her to do a line, when she came down, she felt a feeling that only Troy could get away with describing as "very Helen Parker of you."