The Seduction Of Claudia (21 page)

"Peter, it's Andrew Conal. How are you?"

"Fine, Andrew. You?" Peter responded guardedly.

"I've been better. Have you seen Claudia today?"

"No," surprise was evident in his voice. "I haven't seen her since the last gig we played together. Isn't she with you? Is something wrong?"

"She was with me. We had an argument and I left in the middle of it to go for a run. When I got back, she was gone. She won't answer her phone, her cell is turned off and she won't answer her door. I'm sitting in front of her place and, since there are no lights on up there, I'm guessing she's not there," Andrew finished, his tone bleak.

"An argument, huh?" Peter asked, no doubt dying to know what it had been about. "Must have been a doozy for her to run away from you..."

"Look, she didn't 'run away'," You twit, he thought. "I was just wondering if you had heard from her. Since you haven't, I'll let you go."

Peter took pity on him. With a long-suffering sigh, he said, "Oh all right. I'll try her cell and her home phone to see if she'll take my call."

"That would be great, Peter, thanks. Call me if you hear anything. I'm pretty worried about her."

"Yeah, me too. I'll call you back."

Hope grew in Andrew's heart that Claudia would talk to Peter and then he would at least know that she was OK. He'd looked up at her apartment, seen the dark windows and felt desolate thinking that she might be up there, sitting alone in the dark. Aside from him, Fifi and Peter were the closest friends Claudia had. If Peter couldn't reach her, he didn't know what his next step would be.

His phone chirped at him. A text message from Peter.

Called. No answer.

Shit, he thought. Now what? He couldn't sit outside her apartment all night, her neighbors would think he was a stalker. He started the car and headed home.

*****

Claudia's flight was finally called, late, as was the norm at Logan Airport. The controlled chaos of the boarding process began. After being nearly knocked over by an overeager elderly couple who had been dead set on getting to their seats ahead of everyone else, she was finally settled in her seat. She just wanted the plane to take off, there'd be no turning back then and no way Andrew could find her. With an ocean between them, maybe she could start to examine with more clarity how she felt about what had happened and decide what she would do about it. Until then, she could hardly bear to think about it.

She felt so lonely, which was unusual, because she had always been a loner. Growing up, she had preferred her own company to that of others and once she was out on her own, that preference hadn't changed. She had been happy with her own thoughts and playing her flute had provided her with the escape she often craved. She wrote in her journal or read when she didn't feel like playing. She wasn't the type to fall prey to boredom. When she wanted company, she sought it, but those occasions were few and far between. Usually, she could count on Fifi to be up for doing something and more often than not, it was Fifi who insisted that she get out more in order to prevent her from becoming a hermit.

It occurred to her that while she liked being alone, she had never actually beenlonely. Lonely was a whole different thing than being alone. Lonely was when everyone important to you had abandoned you. She had grown accustomed to her mother's absenteeism and no longer thought of it in terms of abandonment. In truth, her mother had never been there for her, so technically she couldn't have been abandoned by Marcheline. And her mother had long ceased to be anything other than an annoyance to her. She didn't even come close to rating on Claudia's list of important people. Andrew, however, was different.

He had become the one person she could rely on. He was steady. Constant. She had trusted him. He had abandoned her, withdrawn from her in disgust when he heard what she had to say. It was her greatest fear come to fruition. She had known better than to let this happen to her. She had safeguarded herself from just this sort of eventuality and the one time she had let her guard down, look what happened.

She hauled her thoughts in, not wanting to travel the road they would lead her down. The plane had just pushed back from the gate. They would be airborne in a few short minutes. Claudia dug around in her bag for the over-the-counter sleeping pills she had bought from an airport kiosk. She wanted to be blissfully unaware of the hours that lay between her and the safe haven waiting for her in Paris. Though the package insert cautioned against drinking alcohol while using the pills, she was tempted to throw caution to the wind and have a glass of wine, too. Wine and the sleeping pill would ensure that she would slide effortlessly into the numbness she craved right now.

*****

Andrew paced restlessly around his apartment. He'd racked his brain and hadn't been able to think of where she might be. He'd come dangerously close to stalking her. He hated himself for that. He wasn't like that normally. He scoffed. He hadn't been anything like normal since resuming his relationship with Claudia. The real him would have walked away from a woman who needed so much. But Claudia had tapped into something somewhere within him that had him wanting to give her everything, absolutely everything, she needed. He didn't know what it was about her. She was always so tightly contained, high-strung and stand-offish.

Initially, he admitted, she had presented a challenge to his masculinity. He'd wanted to figure out the mystery of why she was the way she was. Not to mention that she was gorgeous and unbelievably sexy. At first he'd thought of her as an untouchable ice-mAndrew. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and all of that. But, wow. Sex with her was explosive. No denying that. But it wasn't just the sex that had kept him coming back to her. It had happened gradually. Little by little, he had unraveled her and he'd liked what had been revealed. She was everything he wanted in a life mate. She was strong, loyal, classy and lovable. She would never be easy. He knew all of that and still wanted her.

He had thought they had made a lot of progress the night before. She'd tried to resist him with every fiber of her being, but she hadn't been able to do it – he hadn't let her. He had made love to her roughly, gently and in every other imaginable way, with every imaginable emotion underpinning their couplings. In the end, he thought he had shown her that he was trustworthy and that he'd always put her well-being first, but that he would no longer tolerate her continued resistance to him and to their relationship. He had thought she had finally been able to come to terms with the fact that he was in her life to stay.

Just before dawn – had it only been that very morning? – he had rolled over and taken her in his arms. He had pressed gentle kisses to her lips, waking her slowly. She had been cuddly in her half-awake state, had snuggled into him with a contented murmur. He'd kissed her more insistently and she murmured again, wanting to go back to sleep. He rolled on top of her, spread her legs and sank into her. They had both winced at the penetration, their genitalia having become acutely, almost painfully, sensitive during the many vigorous hours they had spent making love. But he hadn't been inclined to stop and he wasn't giving her a chance to resist or call a halt to the action.

He'd tilted his hips, shifting slowly back and forth inside her. He continued to kiss her, fusing their mouths together with lazy, drugging kisses. She grew wetter and hotter beneath him, accepting him easily. The wet, swollen heat of the walls of her pussy pressed tightly around his cock and he had wanted to stay in her forever. He rolled onto his back and let her ride him. She had taunted him, tantalized him, with the slow undulations of her hips. They had rocked together quietly, unhurriedly – almost casually - as they looked deeply into one another's eyes. In hers, he thought he'd seen a softening, a warmth, a knowing. He had taken what he'd seen there as signs of her acceptance - of her love - for him. The tumblers of his heart had clicked into place. Everything had felt just right, including the long, rippling orgasms that had bubbled up between them and swept gently over their bodies.

He groaned, feeling frustrated just thinking about it. At the time, he had felt fulfilled, had known that everything was going to be OK. He had to wonder now, though, if it was hubris that made him think she had really accepted and understood what he'd told her over and over again, in both word and deed. Wouldn't she be right here by his side if she had?

He had a fizzy, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was desperate with the need to have Claudia by his side and felt a fool because of it. Here he was, a grown man and he couldn't eat, sleep or even think without knowing where she was, what she was thinking and how she was doing. He feared he would turn into 'that guy' - the one who was totally whipped by his woman. Truthfully, though, he couldn't have cared less; Claudia could whip him or do whatever else she wanted to do to him. He had it bad for her and he would stop at nothing to see her back in his arms where she belonged.

Claudia arrived at her cousin's Paris apartment mid-afternoon the following day. She was utterly exhausted after the overnight flight and navigating from Charles de Gaulle Airport to central Paris. She had opted to take the commuter train from the airport in order to economize. Unfortunately, her choice of transport didn't save time. She had then switched over to the Metró once she reached Paris proper and made her way to her cousin's apartment in the 1st Arrondissement. Marie-Josée's apartment was in a perfect location -- easy access to the Bourse, the Claudia stock exchange where she worked, but also near museums, shopping and other attractions. But as far as Claudia was concerned, there simply were no bad locations in Paris.

The day was cold and gray with a little drizzle. The drizzle didn't bother her because it was Paris drizzle and to her mind, that could never be bad. She had walked the few blocks from the Metro station to Marie-Josée's flat in order to get her bearings and capture the feel of Paris. She had washed her sleeping pill down with a glass of wine on the plane the night before and had slept the entire Boston to London leg of the trip. In spite of that, she was exhausted. And she didn't think it was jet lag. More likely, it was stress and anxiety with a little depression thrown in to round out the mix, caused by the knowledge that she had run away from a problem that would still be there when she went home.

Marie-Josée was working that day, but had left a key to her apartment with the building's superintendent as arranged when they had spoken the night before. Claudia greeted the man and told him who she was. He surrendered the key and Claudia used the red-carpeted spiral staircase to access Marie-Josée's third-floor apartment rather than the old-fashioned cage-style elevator. She knew that the old relic took forever to get moving and was in no mood to deal with cranky antique machinery.

She was glad that her cousin was at work. It gave her a chance to collect herself before she had to offer explanations for her out of character behavior in making the sudden trip to France. All she wanted to do was sink into the big old tub that was the only luxury in the small bathroom. Maybe after a long soak, she would feel more in the mood for talking and explaining. And for thinking. She had kept true to her word and not devoted any time or energy into thinking about the situation with Andrew and Gates. She tried to convince herself that the dullness of her thoughts and feelings were attributable to fatigue, not depression. She was only moderately successful.

Marie-Josée had left a 'welcome to Paris' note alongside a big bouquet of flowers whose scent had been detectable the moment Claudia walked into the apartment. She took her bags to the tiny guest-bedroom-cum-office, then went to the equally tiny kitchen to prepare a cup of tea to take with her into the bathtub. As she filled the tub, Claudia stripped down and examined herself in the mirror. She looked awful. Her normally fine-textured complexion was grainy and she had bags underneath bloodshot eyes. Even her hair was dull and lank. She rolled her eyes and shook her head; her appearance mirrored her emotional state.

She scanned the rest of her body, feeling a pang of longing and a fleeting quiver of arousal when she noted the bruises and whisker burn on the most intimate parts of her body. She allowed her fingertips to trace over the faint bruise on her neck, to slide down to the night-beard-abraded curve of her breast. She grazed a still-sensitive, swollen nipple, then followed the curve of her waist and hip to the juncture of her thighs and on to her inner thigh, where Andrew had placed a love bite.

Her hand lingered there as she remembered what it had felt like to be possessed by, consumed by, Andrew. He had been fierce in his lovemaking, forcing her to feel, know, accept and love him with every fiber of her being. She had had no choice but to respond to his demands, could not help but to love him as he loved her. Claudia's bottom lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears as she abruptly turned away from her image.

She sank into the tubful of hot, deliciously scented water. Leaning back against the rim of the tub, she sighed and drew in deep, calming breaths. She willed her body to relax, tried to force the tension she carried to melt away. She took another deep breath and on the exhale, she choked and was surprised when great gut-wrenching sobs erupted from her throat. The grief and despair that had filled her for the past forty-eight hours came pouring out. She grieved the loss of Andrew. She mourned the loss of that glimpse of happiness she had so briefly experienced. Her lip quirked with a bitter smile, How could she have ever dared think she was cut out for the white picket fence life? Married, with 2.5 children and a grinning yellow Labrador? She had always known that that world wasn't for her. But, with Andrew, for one tiny moment, she had thought it was possible. She was such a fool. There was no way things between them could be salvaged. The specter of Patrick Gates would always be between them. Even if they tried to carry on as though things were normal, they would always know, each of them would always remember exactly what set Claudia apart from Andrew. Her history, and his, were facts of life and wouldn't change just because they wished them to.

Seeing Patrick Gates had brought the insecurities she had thought long-buried roaring to the surface of her consciousness. He had treated her with a cruel disdain that was all too familiar. While she knew it was undeserved, it was hurtful nonetheless. As a child, Claudia had wondered what was wrong with her that her father could have abandoned her. Her schoolmates were, for the most part, from intact families and she hadn't understood why she had a mother but not a father. She had once asked her mother why she didn't have a daddy. Marcheline had told her the unvarnished truth: Patrick Gates hadn't loved or wanted her. He had walked away from her without looking back.

Claudia realized many years later exactly how cruel her mother had been to tell her, at the tender age she had been, that her father hadn't wanted her. Learning that her father had thrown her away had confused her, especially when Marcheline had maliciously told her that her father had three children that lived with him and were loved by him. Claudia had been plagued with feelings of inadequacy. Her father's other children must be very special to have earned their father's love. She spent the years of her childhood struggling to discover what defect she possessed, what offense she hadcommitted that was so egregious that her father would abandon her forever. She had never been able to find anything to explain her abandonment and had never been able to make up for any supposed shortcomings. Marcheline was the farthest thing from an attentive mother and Claudia took her mother's indifference and absenteeism as further proof that she was truly unlovable.

Coupled with the utter confusion about her parents' behavior toward her, Claudia was subjected to the viciousness of her classmates. She was the only Black girl in her class and some of the kids were merciless. They picked on her for being a bastard and for being of mixed race. And most confounding of all, they said nasty things about her mother, things she wouldn't be capable of understanding until later, because despite being Marcheline's daughter, Claudia was a naïf.

Claudia coped with these things the only way she could: she withdrew behind a wall, pretended that none of what was said to her or about her penetrated the boundary she'd erected. Eventually, when her tormentors stopped receiving the pay-off -- the tears, the anger - they were looking for, they left her alone. But not before pieces of her had been chipped away. Through those initial encounters with her peers and under the cruel care of her mother, Claudia learned that hiding behind walls, not showing a response, not allowing things or people to mean too much to her was the safest way to exist.

As she grew older, her self-esteem improved. She excelled musically and possessed a rapier-sharp intellect that was manifest in the superior marks she earned in school. She had also become aware that she possessed physical beauty. Teachers and the one or two close friends she had, had pointed out her many positive attributes. Having adopted an affinity for logic and honesty, she could only agree that she did possess them. Nonetheless, the broken little girl remained inside her. Claudia was plagued with self-doubt whenever anything bad happened. If good things happened, she always wondered if she was trying to live someone else's life, someone who deserved to have good things happen to her. Part of her always thought that she wasn't quite good enough.

Sighing, Claudia's thoughts returned to Andrew. Falling in love with him had been a most foolish thing to do. Crazily enough, she thought, I had actually begun to see myself as Andrew saw me and being with him made me feel like a better person, a person deserving of good things. She had shared her most hidden self with him, had told him all the things she was ashamed of and afraid of. He had always told her that none of it mattered anymore, that none of it changed the way he felt about her. That is, until she told him that Gates was her father.

She kept telling herself not to be angry with Andrew, that everyone had their limits. Apparently, she had heaped one too many of her imperfections on him and he had been unwilling to bear the burden. But try as she might to keep it at bay, her sense of indignation would not be denied. She was furious that he would withdraw from her and blame her for her parentage when she had obviously had nothing to do with it. She had thought Andrew's character was such that he would not recoil from this latest unpleasantness. Maybe he wasn't all I'd imagined him to be, she thought, maybe he'd been leading me on throughout our whole relationship.

As wonderful as being with him had felt for a short time, it wasn't worth the pain she felt now. Andrew had rejected her, had chosen loyalty to Gates over loyalty to her. She had been making a groundless jab at Andrew when, during their argument, she had told him he was just like Gates, but in light of the present circumstances, there was almost no distinguishing between Andrew and Gates. Patrick Gates had walked away from the problem her conception and birth had presented. Andrew had essentially done the same thing.

*****

Andrew was up early, determined to find and speak with Claudia as soon as possible. He needed to know what the hell she was thinking that she would secret herself away from him. He had gotten precious little sleep the previous night and he was edgy, wired from the coffee he had drunk in order to jumpstart his brain. He walked to Claudia's apartment, hoping that he would get there early enough that she hadn't left for the day. If she was even there, the grim thought lingered at the back of his mind.

As he neared the front of her building, he saw someone sitting on the stoop, surrounded by a ridiculous amount of luggage. He drew closer and realized the person was a woman, huddled deep in a fur coat and hat to ward off the cold of a late-December morning in Boston. The woman looked at him appraisingly, stood up from her crouched position, smoothing a hand down her sides and straightening her hat.

"Good morning," Andrew said politely, sidling past her to the door.

"Bonjour, cher," the woman said, her voice sexily hoarse.

Recognition and remembrance slammed into Andrew. Claudia's mother, Marcheline Beaumont, was here in the flesh. With all the upheaval, he had forgotten that she was due to arrive. Apparently, Claudia had forgotten as well, seeing as her mother sat on the stoop in the cold rather than inside Claudia's warm apartment. Andrew decided not to identify himself to her just yet.

"Bonjour, comment ca va?" he replied.

"Ah, vous parlez francais," Marcheline purred coquettishly, fluttering her long lashes and darting a fetching gaze up at him.

Wow, this woman is a master, Andrew thought.

"Actually, I don't speak much beyond what I just said," Andrew prevaricated. He spoke enough to get along, but wasn't quite up to parsing words with this woman in a language other than his own.

"Alors, we speak in English. You live here?" she asked.

"Nope, just visiting someone. Why are you sitting in the cold?"

"I visit my daughter. She know I am coming, mais she is no here," Marcheline replied in charmingly broken English, shrugging and gesturing with typical gallicisms. "I know not where she is," she finished, shivering and moving closer to him, seeking warmth and protection from the handsome man who stood before her.

Andrew could immediately understand why she appealed to men. She was tiny and very beautiful, with rich cocoa colored skin and fine features. Claudia had inherited her wonderfully mobile, kissably soft lips from her mother. Marcheline was well preserved: nearing fifty with no wrinkles or lines to mar her face. She had led a cosseted life. She so consummately played the role of damsel in distress that he imagined most men would immediately want to be the knight on a white charger who rescued her. Even knowing what she was all about, he was inclined to help her.

"Well, madame, I'll see if my friend is home and if she is, you can come up and wait with us until your daughter returns."

"Ah, oui. C'est parfait! Merci, cher," she said with an overabundance of gratefulness, laying her leather-glove clad hand on his arm. "J'ai très froid!" she finished, shivering dramatically.

Andrew held the door open for her and they proceeded into the vestibule. He went to the bank of buzzers and pushed the one that rang Claudia's apartment.

"Mais, chér, this is my daughter's apartment," Marcheline exclaimed.

"What a coincidence! Claudia is your daughter?"

"Oh -- that nickname," she tut-tutted, then confirmed. "Oui, Claudia est ma fille. Who are you?"

"A friend," Andrew replied.

Marcheline looked at him, as though hoping to divine his true identity through his appearance. He withstood the scrutiny, not batting an eyelash at the questions he saw in her eyes. He didn't intend to answer any of them. Rather, he hoped to turn this situation to his advantage by having her answer a few questions.

There had been no answer from Claudia's apartment. He rang the buzzer again and they waited in silence for the answer they knew would not be forthcoming. Andrew decided to ring one of Claudia's neighbors, the stereotypical old lady who had lived in the building for decades and made note of everyone's comings and goings.