Guilty Pleasures (53 page)

The baby. The memory of the sweet featherweight of S.’s baby in her arms rushed back. A day of pain, a day of hope.

“Millie, listen—”
 

“I’m okay, Serge. I’m going home.”

“Millie—”

Millie raised her hand up, stopping Serge in mid-step. She quickly made her way out the door and headed home.

From the Diary of Millicent Deafly:

I can’t breathe. I never dreamed any pain could be greater than what I had already experienced. I was wrong. I believed no betrayal could be as profound. I was so wrong.

My mother used my father’s work and his money to set me up. She used him yet again. She can still reach into my life and manipulate me like a marionette, take everything from me. My own mother bought a man for me. She had me serviced like a cow, or a bitch in heat. A mare put to stud.

I don’t matter to her at all. She does not love me. Why? Why couldn’t she love me? Why wouldn’t she love me?

And Will. He lied. It was all a lie, the sweetness, the love. I stripped myself bare and it was a lie. He was a lie.
 

I keep having this vision. He is making love to me and his face falls off. Underneath there is nothing, just a blank. Every face is a lie, every face.
 

He has sent me frantic messages reassuring me of his sincerity, and his love. I do not believe it. I cannot believe it, I dare not believe it.

This has surely been the strangest day of my life. A day of pain and a day of joy. I attended a birth. It wasn’t at all what I expected. Masterson opted for a C-section because of S.’s medical history.

I held the baby. She was so incredibly small. Doc said she was a big girl, but she seemed minute to me. I could not believe anything could be so tiny and so strong. She had these huge dark eyes and she stared at me with this suspicious frown.

But when S. held her, and she started crooning to her, she settled down right away. The nurse put her to S.’s one breast, and she tugged at that nipple like a pro.

S. was weeping, and so was Masterson. I was so moved. I could not stop crying. Neither could Hendricks. I held a new life in my arms. I have a new life inside me. I think I realised today what it really means. What becoming a mother is. What I am.
 

So, no matter what happens from now on, no matter what poison and pain life sends me, this life inside me makes it all worthwhile. I have my family: Serge and my baby. I have a wonderful circle of loving friends. I will survive this pain, like I’ve survived before.
 

I will be stronger. I have to be. I will be a Mother.

Chapter 44

How frank
should
you be about previous sexual experiences?

Do you deny everything and look like a geek, or give a boastful list and look like a slut?

Somewhere in the middle lies wisdom. Allow that you’ve had some experience, but hint at being selective in your choices. If you are what is commonly referred to as a man-whore with hundreds of conquests under your belt, you might consider a few medical tests at regular intervals and a change in lifestyle.

If your experiments with your sexuality have been broad in range and uninhibited, be careful about
what
you divulge.

Can she live with it? Will she let you into her bed if she knows?

If your experiments are ongoing,
tell her
.

If, however, they are part of your misspent youth and have had no measurable consequences likely to affect her, barring contagious diseases, sundry children, or odd body ornaments, by all means keep mum.

—Sensual Secrets of a Sexual Surrogate

The courier arrived at eight the next morning with an envelope with the Deafly Industries logo emblazoned on the left-hand corner. He signed for it. There was a cheque and a short note. He didn’t bother reading the note. All he saw was a check written out to him for three million.
 

A wave of nausea overcame him. He would return it. He would go to the post office and have it sent back by registered mail. He would be rid of the poisonous thing.

He sat for hours, his hands frozen on his cell’s screen, trying to think up the magic words that would make it right, that would make it all disappear: the cheque, the guilt, the pain.

For the tenth time that hour, Lance dialled Millie’s number and choked when she finally answered.

“What?”
 

“Um . . . love, please, please forgive me. Please believe me, the day I realised I was falling in love with you, I sent back the money. I told her I was refusing the assignment. The only reason I don’t regret not throwing her out when she walked into my office that first day is that I would never have met you, never have known you, loved you.”

Millie listened in complete silence.
 

“Please, Millie, I love you, I need you. Give me a chance to explain in person. Give me a chance. I know I don’t deserve it. I know I don’t deserve you.”

Millie let out a breath. “How much did she pay you?”
 

Lance replied immediately. “Please, Millie, that doesn’t matter. I’m sending it back.”

“How much? How much did you charge?” Her voice trembled in a mix of anger and sadness.

“Three million.”

“Three million. Yes, that was fair. Keep it.”

The line went dead.
 

Lance lay sleepless. Again. Night after night, sleep eluded him. He kept going back to his cell, longing, hoping for a call or text from her, and even checked his e-mail, too.

Nothing, He kept going back over every moment, every day.

Memories of Millie laughing, Millie frowning crossly, Millie getting her way, Millie in ecstasy, Millie watching him leave. Millie’s unbelieving agony at his betrayal plagued his thoughts.

He tried calling Hendricks and the man disconnected him. He did not dare call Serge. He watched the entrance of Guilty Pleasures from across the street to catch a brief glimpse of her.

He sat in the café overlooking the river for hours on end, waving the woman away when she brought over the usual tray.

He worked ceaselessly on his stupid book, trying to keep his mind off her, obsessing anyway, writing her into every chapter, every phrase. When he wasn’t working, he ran.

He ran himself to exhaustion on his treadmill, and then returned to bed, heart pounding, sleepless once again. He stopped counting the days, stopped answering his clients’ and friends’ calls.
 

He only checked for any word from her, obsessively, ignoring anything else. When his cleaner came, he locked himself in his gym, and worked the machines until his muscles cramped. Day or night, he could barely tell the difference. He kept his drapes closed, and listened to his Neil Diamond albums over and over.
 

One night he wrecked the stereo, heaving a three-pound soap-stone carving of a rhino into it, screaming over and over, until he was hoarse and his throat hurt.

Two policemen came to his door. One of them, a calm polite man, asked if he was all right. “Your neighbour was worried, sir. She says you’re a very quiet young man. Perhaps you’re not feeling well?”

Lance, red-eyed and unshaven, clinging to the door, gaped at him. “I’m sorry. I . . . I dropped something. I’m very sorry. It won’t happen again.”

The second policeman, a burly, snub-nosed man, peeked around Lance at the chaos of the lounge. “Mind if we take a look, sir?”

“Please, of course.” Lance stepped aside reluctantly.

The two looked around carefully, exchanged a knowing look.

“Having some trouble, sir?” Mr. Polite smiled sympathetically. “Not feeling yourself?”

“Please . . . I’m fine! Really . . . there is no problem. I’m sorry I was a bit noisy. It won’t happen again!”

Mr. Burly looked him straight in the eye. “You don’t look fine, sir. You look like shit. Seems to me you’re the kind of man who looks after himself, and by the smell of you . . .” His ridiculously delicate nostrils flared in distaste. “Why, you haven’t bathed in at least a week. Seems to me you’re in a lot of trouble, sir, and far from all right.”

Lance looked down in astonishment at his trembling hands. “You’re right. I’m not all right. I’ll call someone . . .”

“Well, sir, if you will, that would be a load off our minds.” They left a help line number, a final warning, and a very shaken Lance.

He stumbled to his bathroom with its full-length mirror, the measure of his vanity. He hardly recognised the man he’d become. Dark bruise-like shadows hollowed out his eyes. A feverish flush tinted his cheekbones in an otherwise pallid face.
 

His lips were whitish and dry looking, and his hair was an oily, unkempt shag. The beginnings of a scruffy beard sprawled across his cheeks and chin. The policeman was right. He smelled. Not the good honest scent of a hard-earned sweat, but the sour, stale-rotten smell of an unwashed, unhealthy body.

He turned on the shower and stepped in shakily, holding on to the sides for balance like an old man. The hot water battered him, sluicing away the numbness. Slowly, he soaped his body, his hair. He stood under the stinging deluge for hours, the roar of the water soothing him.
 

He stepped out and walked slowly into the kitchen. He opened his fridge. Nothing.

He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten properly. He searched his pantry and found a packet of cornflakes and some condensed milk. He diluted the sticky sweet milk and poured it over the cereal.
 

He ate slowly, almost gagging at the first taste, feeling the food hitting his stomach, awakening his hunger. He paced himself, had a second bowl. He cleaned up the debris littering his usually immaculate lounge, then got dressed and went to the grocery store, leaving his apartment for the first time in two weeks.
 

He slowly brought himself back from the edge. He ate at regular intervals, went out for runs in the park, kept the drapes open, showered and shaved. If he acted normally, he believed he would eventually
feel
normal, and then, who knows,
be
normal.