The Seducer (57 page)

Having taken care of this unpleasant business, Michael's disposition instantly improved. Let's see, he calmly reviewed the situation. His parents and some of his former professors and colleagues would write letters attesting to his good character to the parole board. The prison psychologist was absolutely nuts about him. He had her wrapped around his little finger and, he was obliged to admit, he kind of had the hots for her too, a little bit. If everything goes according to plan, within a month or two I'll be out of this dump, he mused, reclining on the bed again.

Michael stretched out his arms above his head and wiggled his body. He enjoyed the cool smoothness of the sheets against his warm back. It made him feel as if he were already back at home, the king of his castle. He could almost see, with his mind's eye, the two large pine trees in his front yard that shielded him from the prying eyes of neighbors. Michael was overcome by the familiar sense that all was well with the world. His bubble had protected him yet again from the malevolent lies of those two-faced women whom he never loved in the first place. Pretty soon, he'd be enjoying life to the fullest again. Michael looked forward to tracking down Tanya and luring her to sunny Arizona. Or maybe even moving to California, to see if he could rekindle the unfinished romance with Amy, his old flame. A wave of glee passed through him as he thought, “Ladies, fasten your seatbelts cause pretty soon it will be SHOW TIME!” in bold capital letters of a flashing neon sign, like at his favorite strip club,
Foxy Lady
.

Claudia Moscovici is the author of
Velvet Totalitarianism
, a critically acclaimed novel about a Romanian family's survival in an oppressive communist regime due to the strength of their love. This novel was republished in translation in her native country, Romania, under the title
Intre Doua Lumi
(Curtea Veche Publishing, 2011). In 2002, she co-founded with Mexican sculptor Leonardo Pereznieto the international aesthetic movement called “postromanticism” (see
postromanticism.com
), devoted to celebrating beauty, passion and sensuality in contemporary art. She wrote a book on Romanticism and its postromantic survival called
Romanticism and Postromanticism
, (Lexington Books, 2007) and taught philosophy, literature and arts and ideas at Boston University and at the University of Michigan. Most recently, she published a nonfiction book on psychopathic seduction, called
Dangerous Liaisons
(Hamilton Books, 2011).