Guilty Pleasures (28 page)

None of it seemed to fit into the spaces she’d opened up inside him. Raw and bitter disillusionment scraped at his throat. A hoarse cry escaped him. He ran into his shower, stepped uncaring under the cold deluge mere seconds ahead of the scalding tears. He clung to the icy tiles, shudders convulsing him, even after the water finally warmed, eventually burning him. He welcomed the pain, his inner and outer reality in perfect synchronicity. In the whirling kaleidoscope of his mind the narrow letters of the contract morphed into the report Millie’s mother had given him. Contracts. Agreements. Pain.

At four the next morning, sleepless and dry-eyed, Lance picked up Serge. He nodded at his greeting, unable to speak.
 

“Hey there, Willie Wanker. You okay?” Serge’s concern was genuine. “You’re very quiet. I’ve seen corpses more talkative.”

“I’m fine,” Lance said with some difficulty. He forced a smile. “Fine.”

“Don’t want to see you when you’re not . . . come on, son. Let’s go work. The worse I feel, the harder I work. Opiate of the workaholic.”

The morning’s shopping passed in a nebulous rush, and dawn found them at their table, watching the river, waiting for those first rosy rays to tint the low, grey clouds.

Serge ate and chattered away, carefully avoiding any subject that would demand a response from Lance.
 

Back at Guilty Pleasures, Serge patted his back with awkward affection and sent him home. “Rest up, Little Willie. We have a
big
client with a
huge
appetite tonight.”

Lance went home. He set his alarm clock for the usual time in the afternoon and lay there, watching the seconds tick away at the same frantic rhythm as his mind.

Three o’clock that afternoon found him quiet and composed crossing the threshold into the kitchen.

“Willie, are you better, man?” Serge asked. “You looked shell-shocked this morning,”
 

“I’m all right, Serge. There is nothing a man can’t live through, right?”

“Well, now . . . that reminds me, this one pal of mine—Malay sailor, worst kind of pirate—told me a story even
I
had trouble believing! This one huge mother of an orangutan . . .”
 

For once Serge’s joyfully lecherous parables went unheard. Lance’s ears seemed deadened, filtering speech to a distant buzz. He moved like an automaton through his customary duties, every sense focused on the door, waiting on and dreading her arrival.
 

“Good afternoon, boys.” Millie’s breezy tone was belied by the tension around her mouth, her casual gaze avoiding him. “Are we ready for the big production?”

“Millie love, no one is
ever
ready for Fabio Gabiani, the raging Queen of Opera. But I
am
ready with the dinner. Is Hendricks coming in? I don’t want my boy Willie Wanker exposed to that fucking pansy.”
 

Forced to acknowledge him, Millie’s smiled widened.

Lance smiled back tightly.
 

“Of course. Will stays in the kitchen where it is safe . . . Hendricks is coming in. Fabio
lives
for formality and pomp.”

“Good,” Serge replied. “Dinner will be ready at eight thirty, Millie.” Serge happily decorated the delicate fennel salad with radishes, mint, garlic, and boiled quail eggs. He added capers, parsley, lemon juice, and chopped anchovies to the rosy sliced tongue, and marsala to the creamy mushroom soup and steamed open the clams for the
Spaghetti alla Vongole
.

Lance was barely aware of the composition of the dishes. He simply moved as directed, for once indifferent to the symphony of scents and colours flowing out from under Serge’s caressing fingers.

The evening seemed endless, like a bad dream. Even the occasional lyrical outbursts from the salon failed to penetrate Lance’s cocoon of indifference. Thankfully, he saw Hendricks leave. He helped Serge clean up, and ducked swiftly into the locker room for a quick getaway. He stuck his head under the tap, pulled on his T-shirt and jacket, and headed for the back door.

“Will.”

He froze, and turned slowly.
 

She stood hesitantly by the door, her hand nervously tracing some imagined irregularity in the jamb.

“Millie, is there something you need?”

“Please, Will, I want to talk.” She licked her lips nervously. “I don’t think I expressed myself very well last night.”

“You were very clear, very expressive, Millie. I understood you perfectly.”

“Please . . . I’m sorry. Please, Will. Just listen.”

“I did, and I am. Please,
do
explain.”

“I . . . I can’t. I’m trying to stay safe, to protect myself . . . and Serge, too.”

“Serge?”

“Yes, well the business, you see . . .”

“Do you think I want your money? Hell no. It’s worse than that. I want to seduce you. I want to own you, possess you,
fuck
you. I dream about you, I think about you all day. I desire you.”

She stumbled forward a step. She was trembling. She stuck her hands firmly in her pockets. “Oh. I see.”

Lance grinned savagely. “You do? Because I don’t. It’s been a long time since I felt this way about a woman, and that woman used me, Millie. She fucked me and then she organised for my . . .
removal
from her life when I was no longer convenient. Are
you
preparing for the moment when I’m no longer convenient? Is that what that little disclaimer was all about?”

“
No
. You’re not convenient
now!
You’re very inconvenient. You make me want things I gave up on a long time ago. I’m afraid of you.”

“That makes two of us. I signed your bloody paper. Do you feel safer? Now what? We can fuck and it won’t matter? You had better end this, right here, right now. Because I promise you this, I won’t be holding back anymore. Think about
that.
I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning, four sharp. Be there.”

A restless Millie finally got up from her rumpled bed and sat down at her desk in the dim predawn chill.

From the Diary of Millicent Deafly:

I can’t sleep. I’ve never been so frightened in my life or so exhilarated.
 

I don’t think anyone’s ever fought to stay in my life before.
 

What if it doesn’t work and I get hurt again? And what if it does work out? What then?

Chapter 20

When making love, tell her what you want to do to her.

Tell her how what you’re doing makes you feel, and tell her how she tastes.

Speak to her; make her concentrate on you, on herself, on her own sensations.

Often women disassociate themselves at some point during lovemaking. They lose touch with the moment and so, of course, their chances at an orgasm.

—Sensual Secrets of a Sexual Surrogate

At four sharp, Lance idled outside Millie’s house on Regency Square.
 

The passenger door opened and Millie slid in. “Hello there.” She sounded desperately casual, a bright brittle smile straining her face.

“Millie, so tell me, what have you decided? What do you want?”

“No small talk?”

“None.”

Millie sat very still, breathing shallowly. “Will, I want to ask you to promise me—”

“No. No promises. I signed your agreement. That’s all the promises you get from me. You take your chances, just like me.”

“Okay, yes.”

“Yes what? What are you agreeing to here?”