#Free Excerpt (The House of Bacchus) (c) 2018

click here to read

Gadgets and Go

In a big white and blue building filled with the things tech nerds dream about, as well as toys for the novice photo taker, and the family person, this story begins. They have computers, televisions, cameras, and anything else you could think of. They even got CD’s. It’s a busy day. There was a long line of people waiting when the doors opened. Within half an hour the store was packed with people, simply buzzing with activity. On a day like this one would expect the employees to be on their A game. That was not the case for Narcissus. He was being a very bad boy today, an example of the worst workplace behavior imaginable. He looks out at the customers that he’s supposed to be selling gadgets to and feels a mild disgust. He had only taken the job at Gadgets and Go to get his parents off his back. They were tired of bailing him out of scrapes. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a silver flask filled with Tanqueray gin. He puts it to his lips after unscrewing the cap and takes a good long pull. There’s nothing more awesome than drinking on the job. The gin gives him an immediate jolt; he’s ready to face the world; the liquor goes straight to his head and he has a case of the “fuck its!”

Narcissus stands by the PixelBook display. He looks at the shiny new laptop from Google and smiles. A naughty impulse crosses his mind. He touches the pristine capacitive touchscreen of the PixelBook and types in the URL of his favorite porn site. He types in the search box: and gets pages of results. A big dumb grin spreads across his face. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out the Lortab that he had placed there for an emergency, and it was such an emergency he was having. He washes the opiate down with another swallow of gin, loving the juniper aftertaste.  He slips the flask back into his pocket. His mouth waters like Pavlov’s dog looking at the preview images that his search had yielded glow in high resolution. He selects a video and touches the screen; the movie starts streaming courtesy of the store’s wifi. He starts to get that moist, warm, fuzzy feeling in his slacks.

What Narcissus does not realize is that he is being watched by a camera mounted on the ceiling a few feet away from him. The worker whose job it is to monitor the cameras watches in stunned disbelief as Narcissus plays the entire video through, licking his lips as the clip plays in its entirety. The worker zooms in and watches the watcher of the porn, wondering vaguely to himself if this is really happening. This is like something out of an episode of Shameless, but this thing is happening in real life. We all know that fact is stranger than fiction. The man in the control room feels some pity for Narcissus, allowing him to watch several more videos on Google’s latest laptop before calling the store manager and telling him about the incident that is occurring on the showroom floor.