‘Oh yes! Yes! Monsieur Dubois’ choir is incredibly well renowned! You’d be absolutely perfect, Jake!’ Penny looked ecstatic, showing off her boyfriend to her parents. ‘Why don’t you come with me for a little audition in between courses?’ Would you like that? To be a part of my choir? To be like these boys you see before you?’ ‘My troupe entertains at dinner parties and banquets all over the world. But there was no light at the end, no escape, it just kept going into the black. The second he looked back at the man’s face, it was like he stared into the darkest of tunnels.
‘Have you given any thought to professional singing, Jake?’ Monsieur Dubois asked. ‘Haha…’ Jake kept playing with the cutlery, wishing he could just disappear. ‘Now who is this new face? Is this the singer?’ ‘It is my pleasure,’ the man said, as he said his welcome to Penny’s parents. ‘Thank you Sir for having us at this wonderful soirée.’ He had piercing eyes and a broad if clear French accent. He wore a long black tailcoat matching the singing butlers but the rest was a tuxedo like the clientele. ‘Did I hear someone say something about a singer?’ a tall man said, almost out of nowhere. ‘Well…,’ the father said, returning to disappointed silence. ‘I just sing the odd rock song in the shower…’ ‘No.,’ Jake said, taking a big swig of wine. ‘Oh really?’ the dad said, peering over his glasses. ‘You know, Jake is a very good singer!’ Penny eagerly told her parents. He had to admit that it was something to see. Their songs, some kind of choral classic stuff he had never heard of, were hypnotic in how well they blended together. Most of them around his age, some younger and some older. Jake couldn’t help but notice the chorus of nine butlers. Two rows of men in tuxedos and women in long dresses, and he was the only one with a neck tie. While Penny begged Jake to wear a bowtie, he refused as he thought he would look dorky. People would rock up in their finest at this old mansion and a choir of butlers would sing and serve the dinner. So that’s why they were here, at the infamous Choral Black And White Banquet. But Penny was a great girl, and stood by him, and promised her parents she would get him to be more refined. After coming to pick her up at her dad’s house on his motorcycle, the parents had tried everything they could to get her to break up with him. He knew his girlfriend came from money, but he had no idea it was like this. He gulped, already sweating nervously in his brand new black suit and tie, and tried to wipe away the evidence he used the wrong knife on the table cloth. ‘It’s the one furthest out, the smaller one,’ she said, trying to smile warmly as her snooty parents glared with judgemental eyes. There were five knives, how in the hell am I supposed to know which one?
Jake looked down, the shining silverware blinding him, confused. ‘Hun, hun,’ Jake’s girlfriend Penny loudly whispered.