Guilty Pleasures (54 page)

A week later, he’d regained two pounds and some measure of himself. Still no word. He hadn’t the courage to contact her directly, or Serge. He waited for his life to sort itself out. His resolve was gone.
 

He had no plan.

Millie caught sight of him, standing in the doorway of the building opposite Guilty Pleasures. The rain had plastered down his hair, dark runnels dripping down his forehead, oozing from the dark shadows of his eyes like tears. Will. Lance. Her baby’s father. Her love.

From the Diary of Millicent Deafly:

It’s been three months and he is still messaging me. Serge is completely calm and matter-of-fact about this. I must admit, at some level I’m bitterly disappointed. I imagined I’d have to talk him out of murder.
 

I said as much.

But Serge placed his hand on my belly and said, “Life moves us to where we are meant to be. This, Millie, is your miracle. Luke would be so happy for you. As for Will, well, no punishment could be greater than what he has arranged for himself. He loves you completely. Nothing could hurt him more than losing you.”

Hendricks said the strangest thing today. I told him that Will, or whatever his name is, had come to me under false pretences. He asked, “Yes, but why did he stay? Pretences and beginnings may be false, but his feelings seemed very real. None of us is ever completely honest, you know, even with ourselves. Especially with ourselves.”

How do I feel?

I’m having a child by a man with no name. But how do I feel about him? What do I want? For myself and for my child?

I saw him yesterday, watching me from across the street.

He looks terrible. Like a vagrant, like a man who’s lost everything.

Chapter 45

Now then, I really struggled for a title for this chapter: Moving Violations? Etiquette for On-The-Go Blow Jobs? Sex Manners for Motorists?

It seems to be a universal male fantasy to have someone eagerly working your “clutch” while you manfully put the gearshift through its paces, preferably in a four-wheel drive, or a Ferrari—though any suitable sports model will do, or for the underprivileged, a monster truck.

Thousands of words have been written about men’s lamentable tendency to equate their penises with their cars. Think about this. For centuries men dressed appropriately for sexual display. We wore jewellery, wigs, hose, lace, makeup, and my personal favourite, the codpiece.
We
didn’t
need
cars, we had cocks.

Our instinct links the sex drive to the overdrive.

So what do we do about living out our little fantasy?

Pull over
. That’s right.

Our eyes
close
at orgasm, just as they do when we sneeze.

Don’t come and drive
. This is my advice.

—Sensual Secrets of a Sexual Surrogate

Millie stood in his doorway, just as he’d imagined a million times. Her eyes were calm, devoid of any trace of anger or hate. No resentment marred her serenity. She nodded. “Good morning. I don’t know what to call you.”

“Millie?”

“I have to call you something. So . . . your real name is . . .”

“You can still call me Will. I didn’t lie about that. Not really . . . my name is Willard Lancelot Pecklise. Packhard was a
nom d’amour
, you might say. Just for the job. I really
do
do sex therapy, I really
am
writing a book. I just left out your mother . . .”

“I see.” She looked around the lounge.
 

“I’m sorry to drop in unannounced. I asked Jane for your address. I hope that’s all right? May I sit down? We have a few things to discuss.”

“Of course. Please, Millie . . . I need to explain. You don’t understand—”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I understood everything perfectly. My mother hired you to impregnate me and paid out three million for the job, correct?”

“It wasn’t quite like that—”

“It was
exactly
like that. You had every opportunity to come clean and tell me the truth, yet you opted to lie to me every chance you got. But that’s beside the point now, isn’t it?” She smoothed her skirt over her knees and crossed her ankles. She looked very pretty, blooming in fact. “It seems to me you are reneging on the contract, seeing as you accepted payment in full.”

“I have the cheque here. I want to send it back—”

“Of course you do. But I’m afraid that’s out of the question. I demand you fulfil the terms of the agreement.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh dear! Did you think all you had to do was service me a few times and just get three million pounds of my father’s hard-earned money? I’m afraid it’s not that simple. I want my money’s worth. Every penny.” She smiled. “And I intend to charge you interest, perhaps in pounds of flesh.” She got up. “If you could show me where the bedroom is, you can start on your first instalment.”

Lance stood stock-still. “I can’t do that, Millie.”

“What can’t you do? Fuck me?”

“Stop it! No more . . . please. I’d give anything to be with you, for your forgiveness, for your love, but I won’t cheapen us, Millie, or the love I have for you. If you want to punish me, here I am. There is nothing else left to me. I can’t give that up. Not for anything.”

“Come here, Will.”

Lance found himself stumbling forward towards her, facing her. Her clear eyes gazed up at him as she gripped his hand and brought it to lie against the firm swell of her lower belly.

“Do you feel that? I heard Baby’s heartbeat yesterday. The strangest sound, frantic, so fast, like the tiniest drum, and I longed to have you there, hearing it with me.” She flattened his hand out, fingers outspread. “You made this. This is a part of you, too. In
me
. This is us, both of us. Tell me, Will, tell me some of it was real.”

“It was real. All of it. I sent her retainer back. I told her the deal was off. I wanted you, for you. That was true, that was real. You don’t know how many times I wanted to tell the truth . . . I was just such a coward and so afraid . . .” His voice shook with his sincerity.

“Oh, Will . . .” Gently, she took his shaking hands in hers.

“I fell in love with you. For the first time in twenty years, I fell in love. I wasn’t expecting that. You are right—when she came into my office, waving her money, I didn’t think of you. Not as a real person. Or of how I might hurt you. I needed the money and I just thought I’d accept the assignment and treat it as some sort of interest-free loan. I wasn’t thinking. Even my clients weren’t quite real to me. They were challenges, complicated conundrums in human form. They were equations to be solved.”

Millie nodded her understanding and gripped his hand tightly.

Lance winced, his eyes closed. “I felt nothing, Millie. I reduced everything, and everyone—all the women—to objects I could control by pleasure, at a distance. You were just another challenge. I never thought about what you wanted, what you needed. I was using you for my own affirmation, for my own benefit. I was no better than Caroline.”

“Caroline? Your first lover?”

“My first user, my beloved abuser, Caroline. I have no excuse, Millie, for my selfishness, and my blindness. All I can tell you is that is only how it began. I do love you and I cannot think of what I can say to you to make you believe how true that is.”

She reached up to trace his jaw.
 

Lance felt a tremor running through his body. He caressed the gentle swell where the baby floated peacefully. “When I imagined how it would be to walk away from you and a baby, that was when I realised how much I loved you.”

“You’ve lost weight, Will. Have you been ill?”

Lance closed his eyes, savouring her questing fingertips running over his cheekbones, his temples, gently touching his closed eyelids. “I’ve been . . . not well.”

Her soft mouth laid gentle kisses along his throat, caressed his cheeks with tender, childlike kisses. Hot tears squeezed out from under his tightly closed lids and slid down his face. She held him, cradling him, and Lance slid down to kneel at her feet, hiding his face, his tears against the gentle curve of her belly.
 

“Hush, little Will, don’t cry no tears . . . come here, come home to me. I love you, Will, I love you. I love you so much.”

She loved him; she’d never said that. All this time, she’d never said it. Lance wept as she sank down to him, her mouth sweet on his, pulling him against her, over her, into her.
 

Lance felt himself sinking into her body, her wetness.
 

She burned as if in a fever.
 

Lance called her name, spoke incoherent words of love, desire, regret.
 

Her warm flesh enfolded him, rocking him, drawing him deeper and deeper into ecstasy until he was falling, tumbling breathless into her stillness.

“I love you, Millie, I love you so much. I love who you are. You’ll never have to pretend with me, you won’t have to hide. I’ll be here come hell or high water. I won’t let you down. You will never have reason to doubt me again. You will never be alone again.” He raised himself on his elbows to look down on her face, sated and rosy with love.
 

“Millicent Deafly, will you marry me, and make an honest man of me?”

She giggled mischievously. “Marry you? But this is so sudden, sir. I’ve just come, and really . . . I’m in no state to decide . . . why it just may take the rest of my life!”

From the Diary of Willard Pecklise and Millicent Deafly

Today we got the results of the DNA test for Baby. All is well, and Baby’s just perfect.

Guess what?
 

It’s a
girl!

Of course!

Afterword

We now come to the end of our journey through the convoluted meanderings of female sexuality as I have experienced it. Are you confused?
 

Good. That means you’ve learned something.

The most important thing to realise, of course, is that we know nothing about women at all. That’s right, nothing.
 

Say it with me: I know nothing.