7. Sophia
Chapter 7
Sophia
“ H oney, I’m home.” I step into the tiny studio that I share with my bestie and bump right into our bunk bed.
“What’s with the racket?” Abigail mutters grumpily from the top bunk, the “high station” she received by literally drawing a short straw when we first moved into this glorified doll house. “People are trying to sleep.”
I look at the clock on our dingy little microwave, or as I call it, our micro-microwave. “It’s 3:45 in the afternoon.”
“So? I was cramming for Financial Calculus all night,” Abigail retorts. “And now I need the sleep to consolidate my memory.”
“See? This is why philosophy is a much better major,” I say with a grin. “There’s no such thing as Philosophical Calculus and therefore no need for sleepless nights.”
“Sure, if by ‘a much better major,’ you mean the peace of mind that comes with knowing you’re completely unemployable.” She swings her long, perfectly shaped legs off the bunk bed. “Also, isn’t there Ethical Calculus? Felicific Calculus?”
Should I argue that I will be able to find a job? No. Instead, and not for the first time, I marvel at how incredibly smart Abigail is. She’s just schooled me on my own area of study, because yes, those types of calculus do exist. Our school just doesn’t offer them as courses, and if it did, I’d probably avoid them like a carrot would a bunny.
“Let me make you some breakfast.” I step over to the minifridge, pull out a frozen burrito, and pop it into the micro-microwave.
“Thanks.” Abigail climbs down from the bunk bed and walks over to the toilet—yes, the one in the middle of the room. “Don’t turn around,” she warns.
As per our usual protocol, I not only avoid turning but also sing “Let It Go” from Frozen loudly enough to drown out any unladylike sounds that might come out of my roommate.
“Done.” She punctuates the word with a flush. “Oh, and you need to update your repertoire.”
I ignore that. Whenever it’s my turn, she exclusively sings “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash, which makes me think of herpes, chlamydia, and Chipotle.
I move out of her way so she can use our kitchen/bathroom sink, one that serves as an impromptu shower on days when we don’t have time to swing by the locker rooms at our school’s gym.
By the time the micro-microwave beeps, Abigail deems herself presentable, and I agree. Even without makeup and after sleep deprivation, she’s gorgeous: blonde, tall, toned, naturally pouty-lipped, and with fierce blue eyes. Put another way, she strongly resembles Lagertha from Vikings .
“So.” She grabs the burrito and bites off a huge chunk of it. “How did it go?” Her question sounds muffled by half-chewed rice and beans.
I stick another burrito into the micro-microwave—a dessert version that I like, with chocolate, peanut butter, and jelly, that has about the amount of sugar it takes in treats to teach an elephant to ride a unicycle. “I think I’m rich.”
She nearly chokes on her food and then demands all the details. When I tell her all the events of today, she’s disturbingly more interested in the Viking than in my new wealth. Offhandedly, I mention his name. She audibly swallows her food and gasps. “Did you say Mason Tugev?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t realize assholes like him were household names.
“The hockey player?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah. I just told you that.”
“You know he’s a billionaire, right?” she squeals. “And you told him ‘no deal.’”
He is? “I thought professional athletes made millions, not billions.”
“Ah, but this one used the money from his contract to invest in Octothorpe. Early.” She digs out her phone and taps at it a few times. “I just sent you an article from WSJ.”
WSJ? Does that stand for Whippersnapper Scallywag Jamboree? More importantly: “Isn’t Octothorpe the place you’re dying to work at?”
She nods with such enthusiasm she almost pecks the burrito with her nose. “Everything that company touches turns to gold. Oh, and they still give out stock options to their employees.”
“Everything turning to gold didn’t work out so well for King Midas,” I remind her.
She nods sagely. “You’re talking about his troubles jerking off?”
I snort. “Yeah. I think that’s also the backstory behind Goldmember from Austin Powers .”
The micro-microwave dings.
“Read the article,” she says as I fish out my burrito.
I pull out my phone, and as I chew, I find out that a) WSJ stands for The Wall Street Journal and b) Mason Tugev is the best player in the DHL—the Diamond Hockey League, which has zero connection to the shipping company with the same name. Mason first became famous when he refused to leave his team, even when a more famous team tried to poach him. Then his fame grew when he kept playing hockey even after making an obscene amount of money, which leads to the all-important point c) he is indeed a billionaire, thanks to “shrewd investing.”
Hmm.
I look up from my phone. “Do you think he wants the hockey team because he knows it’s about to go up in price?”
Abigail shakes her head. “Sports teams appreciate over the long term. He might want the prestige of owning a team. Or is looking for tax benefits.”
I chew the burrito and ponder the kinds of yummy foods I can now afford. Caviar? Truffles? Godiva chocolates?
“So,” Abigail says as my stomach rumbles. “The most important part: what did he look like?”
I have no idea why, but I blush like a medieval nun upon meeting a half-naked Viking.
She grins. “That hot, huh?”
“He was rude and obnoxious.”
She waves that off. “Does he have any ink?”
Now it’s my turn to grin. When it comes to men, tattoos are Abigail’s Achilles heel… made out of kryptonite. She’d date—and I use that term loosely—any loser with a nice picture on his skin for her to gawk at, even a telemarketer who cold-calls people early in the morning to sell them fidget spinners.
“No tattoos,” I say. “None that were visible anyway.” But damn her, she’s got me wondering what he looks like under that track suit.
“No ink is good,” she says. “Given that he’s yours, and I don’t want the temptation.”
“Can we have a serious talk for a moment?” I ask, my burrito suddenly losing its sweetness.
She cocks her head.
I pull out the papers listing all my inherited stuff. “How can I make sure not to squander all this new money?”
Abigail snatches the papers and reads carefully, forehead furrowing.
A couple of times, she whistles, which must be a good sign.
After a few minutes, she hands me the papers back, eyes shining. “You’re super rich. The kind of rich where it would be a serious challenge to squander it all.”
I sigh. “I don’t want to take on that challenge. Quite the opposite.”
She nods. “I think I can give you a few pointers. Let me have a think.”
“You’re the best.” I grin at her. “Tomorrow at the cafeteria, lunch is on me.”
Abigail tsk-tsks with mock disapproval. “Already squandering money on luxuries, are we?”
“Yeah. I’m also taking a cab to see my new house—and my new turtles.”
My new house isn’t a house.
It’s a mansion, and I don’t use that word lightly. It’s like if the Downton Abbey home impregnated the White House, and then severely overfed the resulting baby. The mansion is surrounded by countless acres of perfectly maintained gardens, a big chunk of which are covered by a see-through dome—making it the biggest greenhouse I’ve ever seen.
“Are you expected?” the cab driver asks when we approach the tall, ornate gate.
“This place is mine,” I say with uncertainty. “But… I don’t know.”
With a confused expression, he pulls up to the intercom that’s right next to the gate and rolls down my window.
I press the button.
“Hello,” a posh female voice says with a British accent. “How can I be of help?”
“Hi. This is Sophia Papa?—”
“Ah, Mistress Papachristodoulopoulou,” the woman says. “Please come inside.”
I gape at the intercom. That was the closest anyone has ever gotten to pronouncing my last name correctly, and the first time anyone has called me a mistress.
“You want to get out here?” the cab driver asks.
Is he joking? The driveway is a mile long. “Please take me to the front door.”
He does so, and as I pay, a woman in her late twenties runs to the cab to get the door for me.
I climb out and try not to gape at her. She’s wearing a lot of black leather, has more piercings than a pincushion, and is covered in so many tattoos that, if she were a dude, she’d have a hall pass into Abigail’s vagina.
“Thanks,” I tell her and examine the mansion, which looks even bigger up close.
“No problem, Mistress Papachristodoulopoulou,” the tattooed chick says in the same British accent I heard at the gate. “Welcome.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Please call me Sophia.”
“But, of course… Mistress Sophia,” she says.
“Just Sophia,” I say and don’t add that, out of the two of us, she’s the one who looks a lot more like a mistress… of the BDSM kind.
“All right.” She wrinkles her nose so hard her nostril piercing clanks against the bull ring. “In that case, call me Euphemia.”
“Euphemia.” Should I tell her that means “well-spoken” in Greek?
“Or Effie,” she says, nose wrinkling again with a louder clank. “If you’d prefer.”
“Nice to meet you… Effie. What do you do here?”
Her spine goes rod straight. “I’m the Butler… Mistress.”
“Call me Sophia.” And did she say butler?
“Pardon me,” she says. “Addressing an employer in a respectful way was drilled into me back at butler school.”
So she actually is the butler. “The word Mistress is respectful?” For me, it brings to mind whips, chains, and homewreckers.
“But of course it is,” she says. “It is, after all, the feminine form of Mister.”
I guess that makes sense. “Did my father like to be so formal?”
She shakes her head. “He made me call him Theo, so you didn’t fall all that far from that apple tree.”
Why does that make me feel warm and fuzzy? “What do you do as a butler?”
My only exposure to her profession is Alfred, Batman’s surrogate father figure.
“I prepare rooms, host guests, tidy up, order goods for the household, make calls for?—”
She goes on for a while, and it sounds more and more like a job interview, or job justification. Is she worried that I’ll bring my own butler? Or—and this would be totally crazy, I know—that I’ll manage without a butler?
“Anyway,” she finally says. “I can give you a more detailed outline of my duties at your leisure. In the meanwhile, I imagine you’d like an introduction to the rest of the staff, along with a tour.”
“A tour would be nice.” As would knowing how many people work at this place. I don’t ask that, though, because it sounds like something I should already know.
As we walk the spacious grounds, there is a definite motif emerging—that of turtles. There are paintings of turtles, statues of turtles, murals depicting turtles, ceramic plates with turtles on them, and realistic photograms of every type of turtle known to man. When we get to “the media room,” which is really a private movie theater, a film about turtles is looping on the giant screen.
“At least it’s all consistent,” I mutter under my breath.
Effie smiles but just with her eyes, which must be a butler thing. “In the library, ninety percent of the books are about tortoises.”
I grin. “Of course. I bet turtle-themed music is playing somewhere in the house as we speak.”
Effie betrays her profession because a genuine smile actually touches her pierced lips. “If it had been up to Theo, ancient Hindus would be correct about Earth being flat and resting on the back of a large turtle.”
My grin widens. “A turtle that stands on an even larger turtle, which stands on top of an even larger turtle—with turtles all the way down.” We talked about this idea in one of my classes as an example of infinite regress.
Effie nods. “If this place had a motto, it would be ‘turtles all the way down.’”
I wonder if my father was this into turtles when he met my mother. She certainly never mentioned it, and it seems like the sort of thing you ought to mention. Maybe turtles were his way to cope with what she put him through? No idea, and at this point, it’s like asking what came first, the turtle or the egg.
“The staff are in the reading room,” Effie says and gestures toward a door, her smile disappearing.
I follow her in, and I meet three older ladies—who surprisingly look nothing like turtles—and I learn that they share the cooking, cleaning, gardening, and other responsibilities with Effie.
The tour continues in that vein, and when we enter the garage, I can’t help but whistle.
The cars my father left me are worth a fortune. There are representatives from Bugatti, Ferrari, Bentley, and—in case I ever wondered if my father had a mid-life crisis—a Porsche. Of course, no car collection would be complete without a green Volkswagen Beetle made to look like a giant turtle.
“This is Richard,” Effie says.
A car-turtle named Richard? No, she’s pointing at a short gentleman who seems to be fixing the car-turtle, or feeding it.
“Hello, Miss Papa-can-you-hear-me-lou,” Richard says to me with a wide grin. “You look just like the late Theo.”
Effie frowns. “I told you. It’s Papachristodoulopoulou.”
“My bad,” he says. “Papa-can-you-find-me-in-the-night-Christ-dual-transmission-Paula-lou.”
Effie looks at me apologetically. “I had everyone practice. I swear.”
I grin. “I’ve heard worse.” I turn to Richard. “Please call me Sophia.”
Adults don’t usually jump up and down in glee, but Richard does. “Nice to meet you, Sophia. Call me Dick.”
Hmm. “All right… Dick.”
“Or Dickie,” he says.
Must I?
“No, call him Richard,” Effie says with a frown that brings her eyebrow piercings perilously close together.
He sighs. “Yeah. Everyone calls me Richard in the household.”
Why is he upset about that fact? If my name were shortened to Pussy and had a diminutive form like Pus, I’d go by the full name, always. Then again, as Shakespeare famously put it, “A rose by any other name is just as sweet,” so even if my name were shortened to Pussy, I’d still smell like?—
“Let’s continue the tour,” Effie says, turning on her stiletto heel.
“Wait.” Richard thrusts a business card into my hand. “Whenever you need a ride, let me know.”
Wow. I have a personal driver? And to think I felt like I was splurging when I took that cab ride over here.
“I’ll be the best driver you’ve ever had,” Richard calls after me as we head toward the exit. “You’ll see!”
Yeah, sure, just like this mansion is the best I’ve ever owned.
“Thanks!” I turn to wave at Richard as we leave the garage. “Where are we going now?” I ask Effie once we’re heading down a large corridor.
“I’ve saved the best for last,” she says.
“Oh?”
She opens a set of French doors that lead into the giant greenhouse I saw earlier. “It’s about time you meet Donatello, April, and Dr. Kelpcon.”
Hold up, there are three turtles now? Also, why name the third one Dr. Kelpcon? That doesn’t sound like a TMNT character. Unless that was one of the minor villains? Actually, it sounds more like a convention for people who like to eat kelp.
My thoughts are interrupted by a weird noise coming from behind the tall shrubs nearby. It sounds like rhythmic moans and thumps. The moans are pained, like how I feel when I wake up hungover, especially if that happens to coincide with my period. Also, there’s a sound of something heavy and hard rubbing against something else heavy and equally hard, like two tanks cuddling.
Effie must hear all this too because she frowns. “Maybe I should show you another part of the estate. The turtles seem to be busy at the moment.”
Nope. I’m morbidly curious now, so I pick up my pace until I clear the shrubs and see the source of the noise… and kind of wish I’d taken Effie’s offer.
A giant turtle is mounting another giant turtle from the back, and it’s as hilarious as it is intimidating. He—I presume—is using an appendage that is more like a tentacle from anime porn than a penis. It’s longer than his very long neck, and he is fully dedicated to the act, thrusting much faster than you’d expect from such a famously slow creature. He must love this too, because his reptilian mouth is open wide, and there’s drool dripping onto the shell of the female—again, I presume the gender.
I stare at them, speechless, and not just because I’m witnessing the literal meaning of “drooling over you.”
“Yes! Just like that,” shouts a woman in a white coat, making me notice her for the first time. “You’re doing an amazing job, Don! You’re almost there. Keep giving it to her. Hard.”
All right, I had my pronouns correct.
Don—which must be short for Donatello—appears encouraged because his moans grow louder and his drool more plentiful.
Effie angrily clears her throat.
The woman in the white coat glares at the butler. “Hush,” she hisses. “Don is about to ejaculate into April.”
Okay, I’m not one to kink-shame but?—
Just then, Don reaches an orgasm—or again, so I assume—with a sound that will forever haunt me. As he slowly moves off April, I find myself worried that she didn’t enjoy the experience. Unlike Don, she was pretty Zen through the whole thing. Also, I wonder if turtles—or any animals—can fall in love, and therefore can be said to have “made love?” For that matter, can they consent to sex, the way humans do? If?—
“Good job,” the woman in the lab coat says boisterously, interrupting my philosophical musings. She turns to Effie. “Now you can speak.”
“I’m here to introduce you to Mistress Papachristodoulopoulou,” Effie says sternly. “You know, the person who now pays for all this.” She gestures around the habitat.
The other woman seems to notice me for the first time. “You’re Theo’s daughter?”
I nod. “You must be Dr. Kelpcon.”
“Call me Acadia.” She extends her rubber-gloved hand.
“I’m Sophia.” I shake the hand cautiously, praying it wasn’t utilized to assist the turtles with the mating in any way.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Acadia says. “And if you’re free at the moment, I’d like to tell you all the reasons you should keep the breeding program going.”
I cock my head. “Breeding program?” Please, pretty please, let this be about turtles and only turtles.
Acadia blinks at me. “You don’t know about the program?”
“Not everyone’s life revolves around the tortoises,” Effie says sternly.
“That’s true,” Acadia says, and it’s clear she means “but it should.” She turns back to me. “Your father made it his personal goal to bring this rare species of tortoise back from the brink of extinction.” She looks lovingly at Romeo—I mean, Donatello—who is now blissfully grazing on the nearby grass. “Don has personally sired two hundred and seventy offspring.”
“That sounds like a lot,” I say.
“It’s a start,” Acadia says. “We need the population to reach over fifteen hundred.”
“That is a lot of turtles doing the beast with two backs,” I say with a grin. “And two carapaces.”
“Tortoises,” Acadia corrects in a professorial tone.
Oh. “What’s the difference?”
“Turtles live in the ocean, while tortoises live exclusively on land. Turtles are usually omnivores, while tortoises are mostly herbivores. The shells of?—”
I tune the rest of it out, as I’ve been doing with other minutia lately, because I’m worried the extra info might push one of the philosophy-related terms from my brain before finals. All I know is, the Ninja Turtles must really be turtles because they eat pizza with chicken and pepperoni, so they’re omnivores all the way.
At some point mid-lecture, Effie butts in to say that we have some important business back at the mansion.
“Ah,” Acadia says. “I guess I’ll go over the basics of testudines another time.”
Testudines? Basics? I feel like I could take what she’s talked about thus far and turn it into a biology dissertation.
When we get back into the mansion, I ask Effie what the important business is.
“Oh, I just wanted to save us from a day-long lecture.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Now if you don’t mind, I want to wander around a bit.”
She bows. “It’s your house.”
And so it is, which is why I examine everything, each nook, cranny, and turtle depiction, feeling increasingly overwhelmed as I do.
Before coming here, I wasn’t sure what to do with my wealth, but now I also don’t know what to do with this mansion. There are people depending on me for their income, so if I mismanage my money, they’ll lose their livelihood. Oh, and a cherry on top of that guilt cake would be a species going extinct, and Donatello becoming a very sad tortoise without all that nookie.
My phone dings.
It’s a text from Abigail:
Lunch at 2?
I reply in the affirmative and hope that she’s ready to set me on a righteous financial path.
Returning to the garage, I make Richard’s day by asking him to give me a ride to school.
“Turtle sex?” Abigail nearly chokes on her California roll.
“ Tortoise sex,” I correct with a smirk. “There’s a huge difference.”
“Right, one longer than his neck.”
“Let’s please not talk about tortoise cock.” I put a piece of my roll into my mouth and resist cringing. I’m not a food snob, by any means, but college cafeteria sushi is to regular sushi what granola bars are to deep-fried Oreos.
“Got it. No tortoise cock,” Abigail says. “Have you heard from Mason again?”
“No. How would I?”
She shrugs. “He seems like a resourceful man.”
I narrow my eyes. “Speaking of being resourceful, have you thought about my dilemma?”
“Changing the topic?” Abigail says with a slight eye roll. “Fine, here’s what you do with the cash sitting and doing nothing in a bank: invest forty percent into index funds, then twenty percent?—”
What follows is much more boring than the earlier turtle/tortoise treatise, and it includes dreaded math, but I force myself to listen and ask what I hope passes for intelligent questions.
When Abigail is finished, I ask, “Do you think I can afford to have some fun?”
She grins. “You can afford to have so much fun it might just kill you.”
“Then I’m taking a Royal Ruskovian cruise,” I announce.
Ever since a frenemy in middle school went and then told me all about it in excruciating detail, I’ve been wanting to go.
“You can afford to rent a private ship,” Abigail says.
“No, I want that whole experience. I want them to seat me at a dinner table with some random people from Iowa. I want a huge crowd at the nightly magic show. I want?—”
“Norovirus? The flu? Covid?”
“I’ll just wash my hands,” I say determinedly. “I take it you don’t want to join?”
She shakes her head. “I already have plans for the break.”
I open my mouth to ask her what said plans are, but someone clears their throat.
A masculine throat.
I turn toward the sound and nearly choke on my sushi roll.
It’s him.
The Viking.
Mason Tugev.
The hockey player billionaire whose looks I’ve been doing my best to forget, but now that said looks are in my face, I can’t help but stare at their fierce beauty.
And then it hits me.
I’m at school.
He’s not a student.
Frowning, I demand, “What the hell are you doing here?”