The Sexopaths (20 page)

He wonders, how many coincidences
before there’s a connection?  If that bouquet on the day of Monique’s
election to the AMIE Board
were
more than a coincidence, it would
explain why she was vague about its origins, why there was no little note of
appreciation.  If her new, coquettish voicemail greeting
were
an
invitation to treat, isn’t that a connection?  In her own words she’d told
him – let slip, really, under duress – that Lucien had sent her an
email casually thanking her for brightening up his day.  At the time he’d
let it pass, he felt he’d made his point already, but this minor revelation had
struck home, like the tiny thorn that gets beneath the flesh and becomes a
festering sore.

And – is this his
imagination, or not – has Monique lately been taking many more texts and
emails on her mobile?  He’s never really paid much heed, but now he can
picture her all about the house, in her study, the corner of the kitchen, their
bedroom – head bent over the handset, her back to him (always that
guarded pose).  Has the formal requirement to engage with fellow AMIE
directors provided a medium for more diverse communication?  What begins
as a legitimate business matter buds a calculated aside here, sprouts a naïve
response there… and soon branches off into a one-on-one exchange, more intimate
than ever could be aired in the pubic forum.

How did she dress today? 
How did she look?  He’d satisfied himself that she’d brought forward her
beautician’s appointment for the purposes of Saturday night, but now, that
event past, he’s drawn again to attribute it to the meeting in Paris.  Of
course – he’d want her to go in style.  But he imagines her at the
boardroom table, smart beside the President, those thick nicotine-stained
fingers unobtrusively stroking her newly trimmed strip of blonde pubic hair
through the taut fabric of her panties.  It sends at once a thrill and a
chill through his body.

Should he be surprised, however,
if something is happening to Monique?  During the past few weeks his own
senses, emotions – values even – have been shaken, heightened, and
now left suspended; he stares wide-eyed into the vertiginous void, awaiting
inevitable freefall, no real comprehension of whether or not safe landing lies
below.  He thinks of Monique in Jurmala, how she’d returned to their
bedroom barely able to contain her jubilation.  Has that experience, that
naked loss of virginity (irrespective of whether – erotically bared and
bathed – she actually had sex with the grinning bastard) served to impel
her, helpless yet empowered, through barriers hitherto perceived as impassable:
sex with a woman, an extramarital tryst?  Within hours of their return
she’d converted a speculative conversation into a real live call girl. 
Has she taken similar bold steps in relation to Lucien?  What was it
Jasmin-Sharon just said about having his hands full, about French blood? 
A passing remark... or something Monique has confided, eager to reciprocate the
escort’s lurid gossip with a juicy titbit of her own?

But surely Monique would not
succumb to an affair?  Every minute she tells him she loves him. 
Right now their sex life is more furious and passionate than ever, if swept
along in the crazy surf of recent events.  And there’s Camille, his
insurance policy – is she not eternally first in Monique’s thoughts, her
well-being evaluated before any selfish act could be contemplated, never mind
committed?

But who knows what happens when
chemistry and instinct and opportunity combine.  What chance stands mere
logic?  Imprisoned within the brittle chrysalis of their marriage, has
Monique’s larval hunger reconstituted itself, burst forth some sunny day and
taken joyfully to the skies where others of her like float inquisitive; they
meet and tumble in their airborne fertility dance, and then move on?

The gradient steepens as Adam
passes the galleries and crosses Mound Place.  Black cobbles glisten, like
giant scarabs laid rank upon rank.  Before him loom the ten-storey stone
skyscrapers that have awed Scots for centuries, home now to holiday lets and
trendy agencies like his.  As he presses the intercom he resolves to
disembark from his unproductive train of thought, a circular line that rattles
with relentless efficiency through those dark quarters where demented graffiti
adorn the damaged architecture of his mind.  In any event, distraction is
promised as soon as he enters the office.  With a sense of relief he
readies himself – they might be based within spitting distance of the
Heart of Midlothian, but it will be last night’s events at Easter Road that
dominate today’s office banter.

***

‘Daddy, you were early today.’

‘That’s good isn’t it?’

‘But we get biscuits at the end
of after-school club.’

‘Sorry.  I can make you
tea-and-a-biscuit when we get back.’

‘
Two
biscuits?’

‘Did you eat all your supper?’

‘It was chicken pasta.  I
ate Kate and Charlotte Greens’, too.’

‘You’ll grow really tall if you
eat all the Greens’.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry – it was just my
joke.’

‘Daddy.  When I grow up I
want to be an elf.’

‘An elf – why?’

‘So I can live forever.’

‘Who told you elves lived
forever?’

‘It’s so they can work forever.’

‘You mean for Santa?’

‘Aha.’

‘Did you see it in a film?’

‘No – I just thought it in
my mind.’

‘It’s a clever idea.’

‘
Do
Santa’s elves live
forever?’

‘Well… a lot of things to do with
Santa are secrets… we don’t always know…’

‘I think his elves live forever.’

‘You could be right – the
legend will live forever.’    

‘Will mummy be at home?’

‘She’s away today – she
went on a plane, remember?  You’ll be in bed when she gets back but she’ll
come in to kiss you night-night.’

‘Aw.’

‘Do you want your songs on?’

‘Aha.’

Adam reaches for the CD button
and the ever-present nursery rhyme collection kicks in with
Pussy’s in the
Well
.  (Ah, well.)  They drive into the autumn dusk, pink-tinged
in the west as if the hinged lid of a great velvet-lined box is slowly
descending to shut in the city for the night.  True to form, rocked by the
motion of the car and cocooned by its warmth, Camille is asleep before the end
of the first track.  He reflects upon the long day for one so small
– breakfast club, day nursery, after-school club – hours most
working folk would strike over.  She’s out of gas, her small form relaxed,
head upon shoulder,
Maman en miniature
.

And will Maman plant that
promised goodnight kiss; make curfew even?  Monique had been vague about
flight times, saying she would have to be flexible in case the meeting ran late
– but that she ought to be home before nine.  She’d sent him a text
around lunchtime – ironically, while he was with Jasmin-Sharon, his phone
on silent – just a few words: arrived okay, tired, meeting dull, see you
later… kiss.  He’d responded, but there had been no further text in return,
the Board having presumably reconvened.  By now she ought to be en
route.  He engages the hands-free and selects her number, silencing the
repetitive chorus of
“Ding, dong, bell”
.  There’s a long delay, but
no ring-tone: the call diverts straight to her voicemail.  Quickly he
hangs up, wishing to avoid her champagne greeting.

Pussy’s bells start to toll
again; now their sombre tone seems to taint his mood, dampening his
spirits.  Ordinarily he’d look forward to a rare evening home-alone
– football on tv, a takeaway of his choice – but tonight’s free
time feels not a boon but a sentence.  He wishes he could bag the
miscreant kittens that are Monique’s maddening foibles and cast them into some
deep well, some disconnected compartment of his brain. 
What the head
doesn’t know, the heart can’t fret about
.  Is that old-fashioned
wisdom, or new-fangled naivety?  On the face of it, he can hardly complain
about Monique’s proclivities, real or imagined.  Yet he bears the weight
of a fundamental imbalance.  If Jasmin-Sharon were to reveal something
about Xara to Monique and other confessions were to follow, maybe she would
forgive his trespasses, deliver him from evil, even.  Hadn’t she once
joked at a dinner party that if you put a guy in a room with a girl’s rear
protruding through the wall, it’s only a matter of time before he’ll fuck
it?  He remembers his surprise at the time: that she recognised the
hypothetical male has no more interest in forming an emotional bond with the
female backside than if it were a girlie magazine.  In similar fashion
Adam finds he can square the Jurmala episode.  Monique didn’t set out to
have sex with someone, nor afterwards show any inclination to strike up a
relationship beyond the steamy confines of the sauna.  In contrast, the connection
– tenuous though it may be – with Lucien feels infinitely more
threatening: he senses his wife is a willing accomplice to her own abduction.

He signals to turn into their
avenue, the sandstone church on the corner extravagantly uplit, its spire puncturing
the black heavens beyond the reach of the arc lights.  But he cancels the
indicator: he’ll get a drive-thru; kill a few more minutes.  He edges back
into the line of traffic trickling through Corstorphine, heading out of
town.  He acknowledges a roadster that lets him in.  In his rear-view
mirror he notices the suffix
XRA
in its registration – Xara? 
They say Edinburgh’s a village.  Her online admirers write of a sporty
little number in which she collects them from the airport, lays them
back.  He wonders what level of patronage it takes to achieve such
Platinum status?  For some reason he has been awarded an alternative rank,
outwith the published hierarchy.  But he doubts if Xara would take kindly
to his reporting upon its bestowal.

As he and Jasmin-Sharon were
preparing to leave the hotel room earlier, her live mobile had trilled again,
this time with a different ring-tone, one that had her scrabbling across the
bed before the call diverted.  The conversation had been curiously
stilted:

‘Hi.’

No introductions.  Clearly
she knew the caller.  It was a nervous, expectant greeting, a tone of
subordination.  So much packed into such a tiny word.  She continued,
replying to a question:

‘Just finishing with a client.’

Who could it be, that she would
so freely refer to her occupation?

‘Yes – I’ve got it. 
I’ll have it ready.  I’ll bring it.’

A pimp?

‘
Only four?
’

A definite note of
disappointment, edged with panic.

‘But you said…’

Then a long pause while she’d
listened obediently.

‘I know – but, can’t you get…?’

At this juncture the other person
had evidently rung off.  Biting her lip, Jasmin-Sharon had briefly glanced
at the screen to confirm the disconnection, and resignedly flipped the phone
into her handbag.  Adam had feigned disinterest in the conversation,
pretending to be engrossed by events on the street below.  They’d parted
with a comradely hug, pledging to carry on ‘as normal’.  He’d tried to
highlight the irony in the wording of their pact, but Jasmin-Sharon, keen to
leave, was clearly still distracted by the tense exchange.

He’d quickly rejected the pimp
hypothesis.  Jasmin-Sharon might be the vulnerable sort, but there’s no
stereotypical whoremonger smoking in the shadows.  Of this he’s certain
– Monique would know otherwise, and would have told him so.  In any
event, the tiny fragments of dialogue that reached him from Jasmin-Sharon’s
handset sounded decidedly female.  Who else could it be, but Xara?

Could Jasmin-Sharon’s
‘same
deal’
– the payment in kind – actually be manifest in white
goods – in cocaine?  The reason it’s
‘worth her while’
to
maintain contact?  On reflection, her suggestion that they were
remunerated in ‘about the same’ currency was ambiguous.  And whilst he
judges her stories as somewhat fanciful, she had little to gain by volunteering
details of the cruel relationship.  And the control she speaks of –
what firmer grip to take than through such dual dependency?  For Xara
– dedicated, wealthy, distinguished – there’s the motive, means and
opportunity; in Jasmin-Sharon, a weak and willing servant.

Curiously, the odd teasing
comment aside, Jasmin-Sharon has not shown the inclination to hand her
misfortune down the line: the abused becomes abuser.  On the contrary, she
was quick to reassure him of her intention to preserve his marriage.  If
only she were more predictable he might relax.  Sure, today she behaved
benignly – but beneath the inscrutable façade multiple personalities seem
constantly to wrestle for pre-eminence.  And thus he fears the emergence
of the character that recognises the power she wields – the power to
subjugate him, while she is free to engage the unsuspecting Monique.

Junk food in the bag, fries
spilled in the footwell, they arrive home.  Camille stirs as he lifts her
but he senses dreams will draw her back into slumber.  He carries her limp
form to the house, behind him the car’s passenger door open and his burger at
the mercy of varmints.  Upstairs he pulls back her quilt and lays her
down, removes what outer garments slip off without resistance, covers her, kisses
her, and watches as she settles into sleep.

He wanders into his and Monique’s
bedroom – Ela has been in today and the bed has been immaculately
restored; though its pristine form only highlights its emptiness. 
Suddenly he realises he can hear Monique’s voice.  For a second he
believes she’s home, maybe speaking on the telephone out in the driveway. 
But his head knows she can’t possibly have got back so soon – as he trots
down the stairs he realises she’s broadcasting into the ether, leaving a
message on their answer-phone.  He breaks into a run.