Pretty much anything from American Psycho should do.

Where's Jane Austen indeed! OK, Kent, I'll try to take this one on. But shouldn't we be angling toward Gatsby instead? It is Long Island, after all.

Channeling Thurston & Lovey!

But short? But why? 5,000 words is average short story length. That's short! You don't have the same excuse NPR has, with it's three-minute fiction contest. I've entered that, and I think they cap it at 600 words. A fun finger exercise, but not a real STORY...

Geoff Apthorp IV checked his Patek Philippe 5070 chronograph, turned to his wife who was saying we're VIP and said, "darling having enough money to own this watch and attend this fundraiser, we can afford to be late!

it was for that very reason that he had chosen Maryann to join him tonight. Her smartly chosen Lilly Pulitzer was exactly the kind of dress his mother would wear. He grinned to himself thinking if only they knew her chosen profession. Looks come with a $20,000 price tag but it was worth the thrill knowing she knew how to please him, and he was secretly hoping that someone might recognize her from the service. He had to quickly strike it from his mind before the buzzing sexuality she excited in him became obvious. His thoughts quickly returned to the task at hand, navigating the traffic up to the gates without bumping the slowly lurching $600,000 Maybach Landaulet directly in front of him. It was going to be an exciting night after all...

As the tide rose and threatened their house the Moneypennys discussed the news that Mitt was coming. Disgustingly Mrs. Moneypenny declared it was an affront for anyone running for public service to come to The Hamptons. But dear he's running for President her husband said. How impressive a civil servant at the top rung of the ladder she retorted.Yes but he has all those billionaires buying him. Humph, I guess if the Koch brothers bought a Mazda you'd have to have one also?

“Charles, I told you we should have left half an hour ago, now look at this line.”

“Vivian, how was I to know all these crazy zuke protesters would be out—did you see that one sign about taxes? Don’t they know it’s our taxes that pay for everything around here?”

“Thank god there are police here, I just hope there are enough, some of these people look extremely low-class. The worst thing about Obama’s election has been how much anger it has caused.”

“Mitt really should create some ads showing Obama leading this country into a civil war. We are the good guys! All those people out there should be cheering us instead of making us feel bad about being successful. Roll down your window and ask if they are serving drinks while we wait.”

I keep envisioning a dog in a crate on each of the Porsches, Bentleys, Mercedes, Ferraris, and Rolls-Royces slowly parading by ...

Anastasia was clearly put out. Though she smiled on cue, and prattled forth the obligatories amidst the swirl of air-kisses, Anastasia was clearly most put out.

"Walter," she said low, but in an unmistakeable tone and in an accent harkening back to her days as a hostess at the Ritz-Carlton, Atlanta, "How long until we cain git the phuque outta here? Not only did I have to wait to be handed a towel in the john, but when I insisted I needed five to properly dry my hands the nasty little B looked at me as if I had horns. Also, this Phuquen' Champagne is flattish, warm and its definitely not Perrier-Jouet."

Walter for his part made no immediate attempt to answer. He merely nearly almost smiled and looked at her rheumy eyed while thanking Mo Aaronberg from the bottom of his heart for insisting he get that pre-nup.

We really must show up those socialists in S.F. and Malibu. Our money is old money, those in California are mere sports people, actors and musicians. Oh dear.

I told you we should have taken the heli-bus, now I've creased my gaberdine.

I do hope the help will have the decency to steam it out and give us a fresh corsage and butonniere.

As soon as the words escaped her lips, a sudden doubt consumed her.

"Are we really VIP?" she pondered. "Well, of course we are VIP, but in this crowd everyone is Very Important. Are we V-VIP? If there is a V-VIP entrance and we were not informed of it, then perhaps we are not."

Her gleaming smile faded. Only the Botox injections kept her from a visible frown.

RUN !!! It's the little people !

Ursula lazed against one of the marble fauns ringing the Moët fountain and broke a finger off one of the ice scupture nymphs to cool herself. Well, if that ice nymph had wanted to keep her finger, she should have paid for bodyguards.

She was restless, Ursula was. Her emotions roiled like the surf just a few hundred yards from the Cayman bank where her “mad money” nestled cosily like one of those bird thingies that everybody moaned about getting so oily. If they knew what she went through for her Belgian skin lipid infusions, those birds would learn to count their blessings.

Ursula ran her nymph finger down her throat to her clavicle and cast a firey glance across the room at Raoul, serving drinks and no doubt taking mental notes for those paintings of his. She wanted him, wanted his touch and his kiss even more than she wanted a Super PAC that could pay a wizard to make Elizabeth Warren disappear.

But would his magnificent paintings really sell one day, really take their place above the chaise longues of the VIP set? Or did he just want to be with her for the health care? …Or a vote? Yes, perhaps Raoul wanted an easier path to using his student ID to vote. And that simply could not happen.

And so, stifling her passion even more firmly than she had stifled her factory’s last attempt to unionize, Ursula tossed the remains of the icy finger to the floor and set her sights on Rodgers Buffington III, currently entertaining the fellows with the amusing story of his last offshoring.

At least the sharp yelp and crash of a waiter slipping on the finger and cracking his ulna on the hardwood dance floor made Ursula feel better. He really should have gone to an ivy league school.

"Mint Throckmorton gunned the engine on her deep blue Lamborghini as she
waited, impatiently, for entry to the Romney fundraiser in the best part of the
Hamptons. She didn't do waiting well, though at least she derived some pleasure
from the idea that her car - and its wastefulness - would drive
environmentalists mad. Nothing made Mint happier than the idea of pissing off
her lessers - which to her mind included environmentalists and just about
everyone else.

It had been a long road to this point. Tossed from the best schools, aimless
in any pursuit, her parents despaired of her. Then an arranged internship at
Bain Capital changed her life. Mindy became Mint, for the ice that flowed
through her veins as she rose to Head of Acquisitional Outsourcing. She was
ruthless in her dealings, utterly callous and stunning in her brutality when it
came to upending the lives of anyone and everyone who dared stand in her way.
The art of the deal was one thing, but if it came with the bonus of crushing
someone else, all the better.

Now she was ready to give back to those who had given her so much. Mint
was among her people. She was home."

"How did he achieve that? Why, among all the children of the town, was he chosen? He guessed. He was the tallest, whitest, of them all. His military style haircut was like no other in town. He had had a personal touch up that Sunday, just like every other week. Only two days before the event. He would have been chosen regardless, of that he was sure. And yet, he was still guessing why. His white teeth, perfectly aligned, shined as the Bentley entered the lot. His broad shoulders were even too large for his tight Italian-like dress. And then he knew, yes, he did: he was the only choice, of all Hampton, the only one fit to be the event usher. He smiled at the old lady in her white dress, and looked at his own hands while opening the door for her. He was the only choice."

By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived. The last swimmers with East Hampton beach permits have come in and are dressing upstairs; the Bentleys, Porsches and Mercedes Benzes from New York are parked 30 deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways and blue chiffon dresses beyond the dreams of Bermuda tax shelters and Swiss bank accounts.

The cars follow valets like a tedious argument of insidious intent, to lead you to an overwhelming question: "Is there a V.I.P. entrance? We are V.I.P." Do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit.

In Ronald O. Perelman's enormous main hall, a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.

The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with name-dropping and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. But they got it. "I don't think the common person is getting it," one said. "I just feel like if you're lower income—-A, you're not one of us—-two, they don't get how it works."

The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with wealthy prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word, "Tell them who's on your yacht this weekend! Tell him!"

In the room women come and go talking of Michelangelo. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath--already there are wanderers, donors who weave here and there among the bundlers, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of the Sobel group and then the Koch party, excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.

Suddenly one of these $75K a head patsies in trembling opal seizes a chocolate mint cupcake out of the air, wolfs it down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone to pose at the additional VIP $25K Photo Reception. The party has begun.

List of daily activities:

8am - Dressage horse petting zoo

8:30am - shave a gay man's head

9:30am - Breakfast - American Bald Eagle eggs and Bengal Tiger steaks

11:00am - Cocktails on the patio

12:30pm - Off-shoring 101 class

1:30pm - Class entitled "Facts - Friend or Foe?"

3:00pm - Free Time / mixer with contributors worth less than 1 billion dollars.

"Let them eat cake but of course that food stamp program needs to be abolished."

The cloistered kitchen and impeccably dressed and personally chosen waitstaff snickered to themselves and could barely contain their mirth. They kept a treasured and long standing secret which they commonly used at these 1%er affairs. But tonight was special. A pot of huge soupy loogies hocked up from the back of each and every employee's throat combined with other unmentionable goop simmered in the back burner of the professional stove, to be added to all the dishes the guests of this event were served, along some extra special ingredients for Mr Romney. Do not ever doubt the power of the 99%. Bon Appetit!

FYI when Mr Perlman built his estate he didn't use local workers but trucked them in from up island. now I don't begrudge the guys from Nassau County the work, but we have some really great local guys that would not have had to drive for an hour and a half just to get to work.

I wonder if the helicopters buzzing over my head we're heading for the fundraiser. Yes the rich don't like the noise of their friends helicopters over their estates so they have been banned from going up the coast (where they are actually heading) and have to come up the center of the Island and make a right just over my head at low altitude. Yes where the normal people live because we actually like the noise of a helicopter.

As the sun rose slowly on the estate, Rudolpho the chauffeur finished buffing the Bentley to a high gloss. It was going to be a busy day and his employer, Montrose St. Bernard Huguenot-Wholmsley, wanted him to be ready at dawn.

Four hours later and the engine was purring. Rudolpho's cell phone buzzed languidly, a voice told him that Mr. Huguenot-Wholmsley was just passing the credenza in the sitting room and would be at the garage shortly.

"Rudolpho, my good man" said Monty, as he was called by those not in his employ, "the Romney fundraiser is not for a few hours but I need some fun."

Off they road in splendid comfort, a small box on his employers lap filled with gravel. Mr. Hueguenot-Wholmsley loved nothing better than to throw tiny bits of rock at the tourists or, as he called them, "the common people".

And as I sat there brooding on the old, undeclared accounts, I thought of Mittsby's wonder when he first picked out the White House at the end of Georgsy's hope. He had come a long way to this red, white and blue stage, and his dad's dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to purchase it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obstinacy beyond the Beltway, where the dark base of the Republicans roiled on under their benightedness.

Mittsby believed in the White House, the fungible future that four-year by four-year receded before him. It eluded dad then, but that's no matter--tomorrow he will spend more, go negative earlier. . . And one fine, January morning-----

So he beat on, brat against the current president, borne back ceaselessly into the lost.

From "The Great Mittsby"

There is something deeply settling about a long stretch of perfectly manicured lawns reaching to the striking blue of the pond beyond. Jackie knew that these memories were etched into her from her childhood spent on Fisher's Island and the trips to Newport. It was deeply satisfying for her to know that her Grandfather's hard work had created a dynasty that now at 58 she was uniquely positioned to run herself. She was behind the men who were about to buy a Presidency. They'd soon know her price, and she was confident that he dynasty would be safe. A small frown came across her nearly perfect complexion that only years of surgery could deliver, If only they would fight harder against the socialists who could threaten her plans. Suddenly she spotted Geoff, what was her son thinking bring HER to the party?

Buffy was beside herself. "What do you mean I can't take Mittens into the event? This is outrageous."

Mittens, a diminutive Yorkshire Terrier, was cradled in Buffy's elbow, looking up at the attendant, eyes big and rocking a pink bow between her ears.

She yapped in support of her owner. "Yeah! You tell him!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Buffy", the attendant said, "we've set aside a canine VIP area for those who have brought their pets. We'd very much appreciate it if Mittens would enjoy the event in the company of other VIP pets such as herself. She'll be fine and well taken care of."

Buffy harumphed and set Mittens on the ground, her leash trailing up to Buffy's wrist.

As if sensing her owners feeling a bit "put out" by the attendants request, Mittens sidled up close the the attendant and peed on his shoe.

Serves him right, Mittens thought.

Mittens yapped her demand:

"We are VIP, you are just the help. I should demand to see you fired. We just won't stand for this nonsense, now, apologize!"

But Mittens, pookie, how will you ever live in that little house? Why, they have to land the helicopter on the lawn, because there isn't even a sufficient heliport.

As the midnight black Mercede S-Class swiftly covered the well-worn path from the polo green to the car elevator, a grimace came upon the face of its owner.
"What's the matter, sir? You've looked all aghast the afternoon--you seemed a step shy of your usual basse danse at the gala and you barely touched your roast pheasant!"
"Oh, Jacques," came a forlorn voice from behind the half-inch tinted glass separating driver and passenger. "You simply couldn't understand."
A long silence came over the Mercedes as Preston Kenswick forlornly surveyed the Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard which he considered the finest of the gifts his father had given him for his 10th birthday.
"You see, therein lies the problem, Jacques. Your father labored in the mines, did he not?"
It was a rhetorical question.
"Until you worked for me, your unrefined palate had never known the small joy of a sip of Cognac Jenssen Arcana on a cool spring evening. Instead of taking you to the Derby your father preferred laying in bed, moaning on and on about the black lung. For God's sake, man, you attended a public school!"
"If you'll forgive me, sir, I don't understand."
"That's the point Jacques; a man like you could simply never understand a man like myself. You, the dockworkers, the gardeners... you're all alike."
And, as a single solitary tear slowly dripped down his thin Victorian nose, he added:
"It's so lonely at the top, Jacques."
Brushing the tear from his now-trembling lip, Preston turned to glance at the place where his driver's face would be reflected in the rear-view mirror, were it not behind a rather impenetrable barrier, and began again:
"This is why the election is so crucial. If our boy can knock off that jive-talking Communist, then perhaps one day there'll be more like me. Not immediately, of course," he noted. "It seems every 'normal' American has been spoiled rotten by poverty. But their children or grandchildren in fourty, fifty years?"
And now, with a shimmer of hope returning to his gaze and a hint of triumph in his slight smile, Preston whispered: "Maybe one day it won't be so lonely, Jacques."