Two's a Crowd	Back to O	Back to main page

Collected by Djian
updated dec 22 - 2008

Another story by angiquesophie

M/f cons cheat

1 | 2 |

Two's a Crowd
by angiquesophie

angique (at) hotmail.com

He wasn’t supposed to be there. He should have been at the annual reunion of his old college frat house, two states over. But he wasn't. He was here and he saw her. At the same time he couldn't believe it could be her.

Where I wonder if I married two women or only half of one.

Why can't I sleep — again? Hadn't my plan promised me it would all be over by now? After more than two years it should be, shouldn't it? My idea had been fool proof. She would show me what a dirty, cheap whore she really was and that would cure me forever — and her too. Like an insecticide it would kill all the damn germs that still infested my soul. I'd be clean and happy. At long last I would be ready to move on.

And now look at me. Ever since I left that reeking hotel suite I have been walking in a daze. I don't remember the cab that took me back to the airport. I don't remember the plane — it is amazing that I got on the right one home. All I remember is her thick voice calling after me. "Bruce ... don't abandon me again." It had sounded like the most forlorn thing I had ever heard. It made me stop for a heartbeat.

And although I had walked out on her, the words have haunted me ever since. Soft, pathetic me.

My first game of tennis with Erica, since I returned from Houston, lasted only half an hour. Then she told me she hated playing against zombies. I apologized and we quit. When I slumped down in a corner seat of the restaurant, I did not even remember one game we played.

She stared at me over her juice. "Peekaboo time again?" she asked. "Hiding from the world the gross injuries that have been done to you? How long will it take this time, honey?"

My eyes burned. I cursed under my breath the pathetic silliness of it all. "I should see a shrink," I said.

She chuckled. "From where this sudden insight?" she asked.

The wounded flash of my eyes made her apologize. Her hand was on mine. "Oh God, honey. You are serious. I am so sorry. Please tell me what is going on, Bruce. Please, this is Erica, you know? You can tell me. It's the damn whore again, isn't it?"

I shrugged. I had told her about meeting Myriam in Dallas. About her being an escort girl. But I had never told her about my plan and the action I took. I did now.

To my surprise she didn't call it a stupid action. No, that's not true. She said that the whole sick adventure just proved that I would never get over the whore. So it didn't matter if what I did was right or wrong. I thanked her for nothing and she laughed, patting my hand.

"Sorry, Bruce," she said. "You are the sweetest man I know. Even in your stupidity you are utterly lovable. Good God, I am just trying to imagine that afternoon. Why on earth did you have to fall for a slut like her?"

Good question, no answer.

"So she says she is mentally ill?"

"Maybe schizophrenia," I agreed. "Or multi personalities disorder. I talked to a shrink — a friend of a colleague. May have been triggered in her youth. Sexual abuse, usually."

"She never told you?"

"No."

"Can't it be a trick?"

I looked at her. Of course I had considered that. "I don't know, really. Only a psychiatrist can tell. Do you know a good one? The colleague's friend is leaving the country. Said she'd look for a good one."

Erica raised her hand. "Hold it, Bruce. Are you telling me that you plan to help her?"

"Shouldn't I?"

She shook her head, smiling. "You're an utterly lovable idiot, as I said before," she said. "You are a fool, but sometimes I wish I were straight enough to grab you."

Her voice was a mere whisper. "Bruce."

I had called her on her personal number. I had deduced early afternoon would be the best time to reach her. "Myriam." I allowed a pause. Then I said: "I want you to tell me everything."

A new pause.

"Now?" she asked. "On the phone?"

"Of course not. Can you come to New York?"

Another silence.

"When?"

"Soon."

"I have to be in Washington next Tuesday. We might..." She stopped in mid-sentence. Sudden irritation blocked my voice — it made the silence stretch until it was unbearable.

"Sorry," she then said. "I am such a stupid bitch."

"I'll pay for the flight," I offered.

"It is not the money," she said.

"I know."

"I'll be there Monday," she decided. "Your place?"

"No," I answered — too quickly. "Ehm ... pick a hotel."

"Okay."

A last silence fell. My finger hovered over the red button.

"Thank you for this, Bruce ... I love you."

I pushed the button. Little beeps filled my ear.

She had picked The Roosevelt on Madison Avenue. A calm and stylish hotel — so very much like her. Like Myriam, I mean. The Myriam I tried to remember. Her style, her class. Every sweet thing from long ago. I walked under the clock into the spacious lobby. It was getting close to five in the afternoon. The cocktail bar was filling up. I looked around and saw a hand waving.

Myriam was all Myriam. The suit was pearl gray on a white silk blouse. It had one extra open button, but that might have been a necessity caused by her newly acquired cup size. She rose and leaned in — for a kiss, I suppose. Then she pulled back with a blush. I took her cool slim hand. "Hi, Myr," I said. "Good to see you here — how was your flight?"

Things stayed awkward for a while. We spent ten minutes on inane small talk and the careful sipping of our drinks. She never once referred to our last meeting — neither did I, as this woman seemed light years away from the fucked-out slut I had left lying on the soaked hotel bed.

We went over to a low table that had just been vacated. The back of my mind registered a slightly higher hemline as she walked before me — and modestly elevated heels. They looked expensive. She was right — money wasn't the issue.

There was silence as we sat looking around. She hadn't flown across half the country to just sit here taking in the stylish scenery, I guessed.

"You came to explain," I reminded her.

Her eyes returned to mine. There was a puzzled expression in them as if what I asked came as a surprise. "I am so glad to be with you, Bruce," she said. Her voice was almost a whisper. "I've missed you so much."

An uncomfortable heat rose from my collar. "Stop this, Myriam," I said. "I haven't come here to hear bull shit. It was you who forced me to leave, remember?"

Her gaze didn't move an inch. "Did I?" she asked. "I never would have done that."

I rose. "This is getting us nowhere, Myr. You have been fucking around on me for years. Then you turned into a full-time whore the moment I left you — and still you want me to love you? Now, either you explain this crazy nightmare to me or I'm out of here."

Her hand was up. She touched me. I recoiled. "You're right, Bruce," she said. "I'm sorry — please sit down."

I suddenly felt stupid, standing. So I sat down. The leather of the chair sighed under my weight. Did I see a smile on her face? Must have been the light.

"Bruce," she began. "This is very difficult for me, so please be patient. And yes, I understand — who am I to make demands or to complain? It must be much worse for you."

She inhaled deeply. "Bruce, I married you under false pretenses." Her lashes fluttered — she seemed to be surprised by her own candor. "Ehm ... not false, just ... Myriam really never lied to you, Bruce. But she did not tell you all about herself either — not everything about her youth, her ... ehm ... problem." Her fingers demolished the paper napkin in her hands. Her talking in the third person felt eerie.

"You need to know — Myriam has always been honest with you, Bruce. Her love for you was true — profoundly true. It still is. She may be a weak person, but she never cheated on you — not even in her thoughts. Her heart broke when you accused her of cheating and left her. She never stopped loving you, Bruce. These last years have been hell for her — only her hope against all odds kept her going. If you kill that, she'll die. I'll die, Bruce."

I just sat there. I guess the word flabbergasted was invented for occasions like this. The woman in front of me had lost her cool, stylish control. Slow tears ran down her face now.

"I," I began.

"Bruce," she went on. "Telling you this has always been impossible. You see — Estelle never allowed me to tell you. She forbade it — forbids it. She threatens to leave me, if I do. She protects me, I need her. She has always been there for me."

Myriam looked away. "Only when it was too late," she went on in a whisper, "did I discover what she had become — she is like a sick rubber wall around me. No — a cage made of sticky gum. It opens less and less. It gets so tiring to struggle free — even for minutes. Even right now, I don't know how long I'll be able to fend her off."

I stared into the face of the woman who had been my life for almost ten years. The woman I had thought I knew better than myself. And here I was — once more realizing I had never known her at all. I peered into an ever-shifting, surreal haze.

"Myr," I said — which was a huge improvement on my former one-syllabled "I." "What on earth are you talking about? Estelle, you say? Estelle is your hooker name, Myriam. All the escorts use one. It is just a professional alias. You can't blame a name!"

A hidden spark suddenly surfaced in her eyes. Subtle shifts molded her facial expressions — a horribly sweet smile painted her lips. It lasted only a few seconds before it was washed away, but an after-image seemed to hover. Myriam panted. Her body trembled — so did her lips. "Please, Bruce." She struggled to regain control. "Please, just hear me out. Don't interrupt — we may lose precious time. This could be my only chance."

Her fingers had finally shredded the napkin, causing a layer of snow on the table. It fascinated me. It also gave me something else to watch other than her weird, upsetting eyes. "When Myriam was eleven, almost twelve, her stepfather raped her," she went on in her freakish third person way. "Yes, I know — you never knew he wasn't her father. He married her mother after she had gotten pregnant with her. She loved the boy that had made her pregnant, but he was young. Under pressure from his parents he fled from his responsibilities."

She finished her gin and tonic. "My mother is from old money — lots of it. She also had a very strict upbringing, as you know. The pregnancy and the loss of her sweetheart killed all her independency and resistance. She married my stepfather only two months later. His name was Brian Collins. He was 15 years her senior and from good but impoverished stock — the only memory of wealth left in his genes was how to spend it quickly.

"My mother didn't love him. But then again, love wasn't very important in the world she came from. He loved her madly — that is to say, her money. The first years they both kept up the semblance of a good, if rather stiff marriage. I was four when my brother John was born. Half-brother, to be precise. You know him. We were never close.

"Then my grand parents were killed in that damn sports plane my grandfather insisted on flying himself on his 65th birthday. They were on their way to Florida, for a third honeymoon, as they called it. But you know the story. I was eleven, by then."

I nodded. I thought about her stepfather. We had never met. He had died before I was with Myriam. At the rare family gatherings nobody talked about him. As I took him to be her father, I had always wondered about that.

I asked Myriam if she wanted a new drink. "Water," she said. I got up and retrieved it, refreshing my scotch and ice. When I returned, Myriam had risen from her chair.

"Will you hold me, Bruce?" she asked. "I know I disgust you, but please? Just a hug."

I took her in my arms. She let out a long sigh. I felt her tremble in my embrace. Her breasts were very much there. "Shhhhh," I said.

"She fights me, you know — tooth and claw," Myriam said. Her voice was muffled by my shirt and jacket. It took me a second to realize whom she meant. "She had been so good to me," she went on. "I needed her so much. But she threatened to tell everybody what I did."

"Shhhh," I repeated, not knowing what else to say. Then she struggled herself free.

"We must hurry, Bruce! She is close!"

Looking down into her panicked eyes I felt buckets of ice-cubes hurl down my spine. "Myriam," I said. "We really must find you a doctor."

"No, no!" she cried. "No doctor. You are my doctor. She can't get through our love, honey. She never could, as long as you loved me and held me. It pissed her off! It still does!" She giggled insanely. "She can't get out as long as you hold me and love me. Bruce. Bruce, do you love me?" Her face was flushed. As long as I held and loved her, she'd said. Not quite, I mused, thinking back.

We must have been a sight, holding each other tightly in the neatly stuck-up surroundings of the hotel. I felt Myriam fumble against my belly and looked down. She had produced a key-card from her purse. "Please, Bruce. Let's go up to my room — I don't want to be a spectacle. I promise I'll be good, but I need privacy and my bathroom."

She seemed better. Her face was in ruins, but she smiled. I agreed with her plan. I took her hand and we went for the elevator.

My head was in chaos.

So was her room. On and around the bed lay bags of almost every trendy shop in the city. Strewn across them were stacks of clothing — dresses, lingerie and all kinds of shoes, boots, purses and sandals. I saw Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci and any other expensive brand Europe had to offer. The shoes were all staggeringly high-heeled. The lingerie and dresses were made of silk, satin and precious lace. I saw a few leather items too. Money wasn't her problem indeed.

Myriam looked at the floor as I watched the consumer frenzy trail from the bed, across the floor to the bathroom. "She sure had a good time," I heard her mutter.

"Estelle bought this?" I asked.

"She loves to shop."

I couldn't suppress a snicker of disbelief. I picked up a sheer, short negligee. It ran like liquid through my hands. The price tag was still on it. Three hundred thirty-nine dollars, I read.

"There is a small fortune here, Myr."

"Estelle makes a lot of money," she almost whispered. "And she doesn't want me to have it. She spends it as soon as it gets in. Or even before."

I ran my hands through the silks and satins of embroidered bustiers, bra's and skimpy evening gowns.

"All I am allowed to have is this suit, some jeans, underwear and a few blouses and sweaters," she went on. "Now please excuse me. I need to go to the bathroom."

She left the room. I went over to the window, looking down into the canyon formed by the tall buildings. My thoughts were all over the place. Was she telling the truth? Or was it just an elaborate hoax? Was she mentally ill? How could I know? Had I been married to two women? Or only to half of one?

She was raped when she wasn't even twelve, she'd said. The shrink had told me how such profound shocks in early youth could create all kinds of personality disorders. Should I believe her? I remembered the half naked woman I saw with the Argentinean playboy at that fundraiser, years ago. I compared her to the Myriam I married. I remembered the outrageous slut who signed the divorce papers — the boob job. The plastic escort in Dallas and the insatiable whore at the Houston Hilton. Were they and Myriam ever even close to being the same person? Would Myriam have lost herself in an insane shopping spree like this — for blatantly erotic outfits like these?

I walked back to the bed, staring at the colorful mess. Just look at that vinyl tube top. Could I imagine Myriam buying those golden laced up sandals? I remembered how she had ridiculed women wearing stuff like that. "Porn sluts," she had called them.

"Bruce."

I looked up — the black see-through teddy I had just picked up slithered through my fingers. Myriam had returned. She looked fresh and relaxed. The jacket had gone. I guess I'd never get used to those tits. "Feeling better?" I asked. She nodded. Her smile was timid, but it was an original Myriam.

"You really must see a doctor, Myr," I tried again.

Her smile disappeared. "She won't let me," she said, looking away.

"Don't give me that Estelle rubbish again, Myriam," I pleaded.

She looked hurt. "You still don't believe me."

"Would you believe me if I had been the one cheating on you?" I sounded rather bitter.

A semblance of resolution made her stand taller. "Sit down, Bruce," she said with an urgent voice. "Sit down and hear me out before it is too late." I sat down. She didn't.

She went over to the bed and picked up the three hundred-plus dollars see-through nothing. With a flick of her fingers she tore the flimsy fabric in two. Then she started talking while calmly picking up items and destroying them. The beads on a sheer top flew through the room; silvery thong panties were shredded like paper.

"I have come to hate Estelle, Bruce. She took over and she is bad for me. But I can never get rid of her. She is part of me and I owe her. She was there for me after my stepfather raped me. She took the brunt when he abused me over and over in a weekend my mom was away. Afterwards I lay in my bed wishing I'd die. I bled, my body hurt. I felt betrayed and forsaken."

Myriam talked without emotion, but her hands shook as yet another expensive article was reduced to shreds. "From that moment on, whenever the asshole cornered me, Estelle came out and told me to hide. She saved me, Bruce, but when I returned, my entire body was ravaged. My poor pussy and ... and other opening hurt and felt stretched. There were bruises around my nipples and all over my skin."

A torn-up leopard print bikini-top joined the pile at her feet.

"Mom asked me about it when she happened to see a few bruises. Estelle interfered with a plausible explanation — then forbade me to tell anybody "our secret." I asked her why, but she just told me to trust her. I trusted her. Estelle had saved me — I didn't dare lose her. I would be all alone again."

A pair of sexy nylon stockings fell victim to her vicious fingernails.

"Things went on like that for a while. I hardly know what happened, as Estelle kept me away from everything. Until the time I suddenly woke to loud screaming and yelling. I lay in the middle of naked bodies. They were of sweaty, smelly men on soaked and stinking bed sheets. At the foot of the bed was my mom, yelling at my naked stepfather. I felt sticky and sore — even my jaws hurt."

Myriam paused. She swallowed, and went on. "The men around me struggled to get off the bed, but my stepfather told them to stay. He grabbed mom and tore at her dress. She resisted, but he threw her with me on the bed. Then the other men held her down while Brian stuck his hard cock into her. I had never seen that — it was awful, degrading. The bed shook with his violence. Mom's fingernails clawed at his skin, leaving bloody traces. Then she stopped fighting and screaming. I heard her sob — then nothing."

The tearing up of delicate clothing articles was now as violent as her memories. She threw down an expensive Prada sandal and started trampling on it until the stiletto heel broke off. I rose and tried to hold her, but she struggled free.

"No! No, Bruce, please let me. I have to do this." Tears streamed down her face again. But she pushed me away and grabbed another lacy item to lacerate.

"The men on the bed were too busy with mom to mind me. I lay frozen with horror. Then Estelle whispered in my ear. "Get the trophy. Go, get the trophy, Myriam. Wrap the sheet around your hand and get it!" There was a heavy brass trophy on the bed stand. Asshole had been quite a jock at high school. He never got rid of his awards — they were all over the house. One of them was this ugly brass quarterback throwing a ball. "Get it! Grab it at the top and use the heavy pedestal," Estelle urged on. So I wrapped the soaked sheet around my hand, reached for the statuette and looked back at the panting, groaning bunch of naked men. Brian's red, sweaty head bobbed up and down with his exertions.

"Do it!" Estelle urged. "Now!" I backed off, the bronze weapon dangling from my hand. "You do it," I told her. And I slipped away to my safe place."

For a moment Myriam seemed lost. Her eyes turned inward. Then she sat down on the bed. An obscene, high-heeled white platform shoe dropped from her hands. "When I returned, the room was empty," she went on. Her voice sounded dreamy. "All the men had gone. Mom lay next to me, her eyes closed. Then I saw the blood."

In the silence a far away New York siren pierced the soft humming of the air conditioning. Myriam just stared.

"Blood?" I said — just to shake her out of her trance. Or out of mine, for that matter.

"Mom's body was splattered with blood," she whispered, eyes wide. "The bed too. And my hands — my body. I said "Mom?" but she didn't respond. I crawled to the edge of the bed and saw a naked man sprawled head down in a pool of blood. The top of his skull and his shoulders were red. He didn't move. Next to him lay the statuette, broken in two. I guess I fainted."

I came forward and embraced Myriam. This time she let me. We just sat together on the edge of the bed. I rocked her in silence. "How could you never have told me this, Myriam?" I said at last. "It is so awful — it must have haunted you all your life. Why didn't you allow me to help?"

She didn't hear me. She resumed her story with the voice of an automaton. "There were police, of course. An ambulance, I guess. I was in the hospital for a while. A lot of people asked me all kinds of questions. I could not tell much, as I had not seen much. I didn't even know the two other men. They must have fled the house and could not be traced.

"Besides, what little I knew I could not say. Estelle threatened she would expose me — tell them that it was I who had killed my stepfather. I just had to trust her."

Myriam looked up with uncertain eyes. "I had no choice, right?"

I didn't know what to say. She went on. "Mom and I were finally released. We moved to our aunt's town house in Boston. For over two years I was in therapy, sometimes with mom. Estelle helped me answer the doctor's questions whenever I didn't know what to say. She was always there when I needed her.

"In high school Estelle left me alone most of the time — as far as I know. There have been strange lapses in my memory, though — and unexplainable places I found myself in. But those moments were few and far between.

"At school I had some girl friends, but I avoided the boys — at least as Myriam I did. They intimidated, even scared me. I had this urge to dress down as much as I could to be invisible. But I wasn't exactly ugly, so they kept trying. I guess a few were really nice guys, but I always stopped their advances. Mom didn't date either. We were together quite a lot."

She looked up and smiled weakly. "Everybody told me to go to one of the snobby colleges in New England, but I wanted out. I needed a place where nobody knew me. Well — maybe it was not so much what I wanted. I guess it was Estelle who wanted me out and into a new world. I soon discovered why."






Where I have to wonder if my wife ever gave up her jocks.

While Myriam went on destroying every item she could get her hands on (including the bags), she took me straight through college.

It was a story like a Swiss cheese. There were holes in it, which she could not explain. She only had second hand memories for them — things "Estelle" told her afterwards. Or things her body told her.

She also heard stories from people who had obviously been involved — mostly the good-looking jocks who started to approach her in a disturbingly intimate way.

She found clothes and accessories in her closet that she never bought — to be precise, things: that she wouldn't want to be caught dead in. But she didn't dare throw them away. They always returned from the depths of her closet to the front. And they seemed to grow in numbers.

After one of those "lost weekends" that had left its clear imprint on her body, she found four guys at her doorstep. Two of them she vaguely knew from the training field, the others were complete strangers. They knew her name, though, and they seemed to have no intention of leaving. She threatened to call the police when one of them grabbed her and started kissing her. When she pushed him away and grabbed her cell phone, they backed off. They cursed her and called her a fucking cock-tease.

After she had been able to close the door on them, she stood in her hall, shaking. A tiny, silver laughter resounded at the back of her head. "Goddammit, Estelle!" she had cried into the empty little hall. "What have you done this time?"

"Shhhh, lil sis. Have some fun, honey. Don't be a bore."

"Leave me alone!!"

Another laugh. "Look in your purse, sweetheart."

There had been photographs. They were poorly-lit Polaroids of a naked woman sucking two cocks while being fucked by a third. She recognized the guys who had been at her door. She also saw that the woman did not object very much to the disgusting things she did in the photographs.

It was very hard to believe that she was that woman — but she was.

As she looked at a close-up of her sucking a huge, fat cock, she heard Estelle whisper inside her skull: "Mmmmm ... delicious, honeyyyy ... you are soooo good."

She missed classes that day. And the next.

Myriam had completed the destruction of every piece of sexy garment on the bed. A small mountain of tattered silk and lace had piled up against her legs. She started trying to tear up an elegant suede leather purse. I guess she did it mostly to give her trembling hands something to do. The innocent purse stubbornly resisted her best efforts; her hands got frantic and I saw dark blotches of spilled tears spread on the surface. Her body shook. Her voice was thick with emotion.

"Things got worse and worse after that, Bruce. Whole weekends disappeared from my memory. It was usually late on Sunday afternoons that I returned to my thoroughly-fucked body.

"I started hating myself. More and more guys gave me looks and winks. I got felt up in crowded elevators. Totally unknown men bought me drinks. So one night after having almost been raped by two teenagers, I summoned Estelle."

I shook my head. The way she talked about Estelle as a separate person had almost begun to sound natural.

Myriam swallowed. She threw away the abused purse. "I told her that I would kill myself if she did not back off. I showed her the razor blades I had bought. And the bottle of sleeping pills. It was the only weapon I had and she knew it. At first she tried to convince me I wouldn't dare. But we both know each other too well to take a risk."

Myriam smiled weakly. The schizophrenia of her story made me reel — it felt like vertigo. My voice was almost a whisper. "You seriously considered suicide?"

Her eyes focused. "Yes. I felt that my life was being taken away from me. My only weapon was self-destruction. It would rob her of her life too. And I knew she clung to life more than I did, by then. It was a wager, I guess. And she backed off.

"We worked out a compromise — a deal."

I watched her. I really had to check myself. It all sounded so normal — talking with yourself, fighting with yourself, making deals with yourself. Calling part of yourself by a different name.

"A deal," I said.

"Yes, Bruce. It was a few months before we met. I told her she could have her fun once in a while. But I had to have control. She'd have to give me notice and show me who it was she wanted to fuck. I had the veto on time and place and subject, so to say."

She again smiled. It was a wider smile now. A bit of color had returned to her cheeks. Her hands had lost the trembling.

"I rationed her from then on. I gave her Jason Wilson a few times, and Eric Bronski, the basketball player, you know him. I gave her Victor and Ed, the week before graduation. Victor LeBeau, I guess you know him. Ed Mazure was in your fraternity, if I remember correctly."

I knew Ed — had known him since my first year in college. He was at the last reunion. To be sure, there were Charlie, Felix and Gus. Arnie and Ben. Their names made hot jealousy rise up in my chest, grabbing my throat. A thought flashed through my head. She talked about a week before we met, and she had this ... deal.

"Have you ... ehm," I croaked. I did not want to ask, but I had to. "Has Estelle slept with them after we met, Myr? And after we got married?"

Myriam looked away. I went on, feeling nauseated. "The deal never ended, did it, Myr? Ed Mazure? Charlie Fox, Felix Mankievic? Others I know? Friends? Colleagues? Neighbors?"

"I stopped it after we got married," she whispered. Her eyes were wide. "Don't ask, Bruce, please. Don't ask."

I banged my fist on the table where I stood. "Goddammit, Myriam. How can I not ask?"

There was silence again — just the a/c humming, and the street below.

"Honey," she said, her voice broken. "After we married, I have vetoed Estelle time and time again. After a while she harassed me day and night, but I was strong. You made me strong, Bruce. Your love did. Your sweet, sweet wonderful love."

She reached out in my direction. I just could not look at her. I walked over to the window, my back to her. She started sobbing.

"Bruce? Please?" Her voice was distant. I turned around.

"Myr, can't you understand what this does to me? Can you just sit there and expect me to listen to how you took our love and sold it in a deal?"

She raised both hands. "It wasn't at all like that! It was before we met. And it wasn't me. Don't you see I had no choice? I fought for us, Bruce. For you and me, but I had no choice. I had to give in, but only a few times. I had to or I would have lost control. And I would have lost you forever!"

Her voice had gained force. A whine crept into it. Her hands strangled a piece of black garment. I could hardly see her through a haze of emotions. My voice was a mere groan.

"That isn't all, is it, Myriam? How long did you stay faithful after we married?"

She just looked, her eyes spilling tears. She shook her head in denial.

"It wasn't me, Bruce. It wasn't me!"

I cursed in frustration.

"So you did, didn't you? You let her fuck my friends, your colleagues, your clients and God knows how many greedy bastards while you played the prude, prissy wife to your clown of a cuckold husband. You let her dress up like a tart, a half naked whore, to meet with her fuck buddies while you accused me of lewdness when I only suggested a skirt that didn't cover your entire knee. You allowed her to get herself royally fucked in all of her holes while you could barely touch my cock with the outer skin of your sanctimonious tongue! And where? Where did you let her do it? In our bed, Myriam? In the house we built together? On the sheets we bought? Was that your love, Myriam? Was it?"

By the end of my tirade the walls rang with my voice. She covered her ears with her hands and started crying out loud. Most of her words were garbled "no's" and "stops" and "please don'ts."

Then she fell silent. Her hands left her face, her back straightened. She turned her head and looked at me. Through the ruin of her tear-stained make up she hurled the flash of two proud, untamed eyes at me. Her lips stretched in a sneer.

"Who on earth do you think you are, you silly, boring little man? To treat my Myriam like this?"

It was a voice I had never heard before. The woman on the bed rose and walked over to me. She was Myriam but she wasn't. There was a feline quality to her movements. Her eyes blazed. The sharp tip of her fingernail pushed through my shirt into my chest. She was very close.

"Go away, you bore," she hissed. "Go away and leave my sister alone. She doesn't need you, she never has. She has me, boy, and I'll protect her. Do you understand? Go!"

Her finger rammed the words into me. I grabbed her hand and pulled her against me — her face almost into mine. Then a sudden flash of pain tore through my crotch. I bent over gasping, overwhelmed with nausea. She had kneed me mercilessly in the groin and the pain was excruciating.

I fell to the floor. For a second all went black.

After I had stumbled back to my feet, fighting the haze in front of me, I saw that Myriam had already left the room. She had also left the hotel.

For days after our disastrous meeting, I tried to find her, Myriam — or Estelle, to be more precise. The bitch had obviously gone to some length to escape me. The Dallas-based escort lady with the southern drawl who had helped me so smoothly before was very sorry this time — Estelle had terminated her contract and moved to another agency. No, she could not tell me where. And no, she wasn't very optimistic for my finding out, as she no doubt would have changed her alias.

"And just for the record, sir, did she perform satisfactorily the time you booked her?"

By that time my balls were still aching, so it certainly tempered the glow of my feedback concerning her performance.

The doctor told me not to worry. There were bruises, but they would be gone in a week or so. I should maybe postpone any sexual initiatives, though. Well — that one was easy. I couldn't imagine having plans in that direction at all, for a while.

There was however one thing I could do.

Kathleen Collins had never really liked me. I don't think it was a personal thing. I think Kathleen had lost her trust in men in general. And I could well understand why, after what Myriam had told me — if that had been the truth.

Kathleen Collins was Myriam's mother, of course. We met in a restaurant in Boston.

It hadn't been easy to get her to meet me. But when I dropped the name Estelle, her reluctance seemed to evaporate. I tried to imagine why.

The restaurant was rather empty as lunchtime had been over for an hour. There were three elderly ladies sipping tea. And a couple of obvious tourists, very much in love.

Kathleen Collins, née Rutherford was not alone. With her was her older unmarried sister, Agatha. She was the one with the townhouse in Boston where mother and daughter found refuge after the ordeal of the rape.

I had met Agatha on a few family occasions. She was a rather striking impersonation of the older Kathryn Hepburn, sandpaper voice and all. Right now she sat silently, just following our conversation.

Kathleen Collins was about fifty. She looked cute in a petite and brunette way. Myriam must have gotten her Nordic looks from her absent father — or from her aunt, if that was at all a feasible, genetic possibility.

Kathleen smiled and offered me a narrow, white hand. Her sister only nodded.

"No need for small talk," Kathleen said. She never lost her smile. "I don't like you, Bruce, and never have. I had my doubts before you married Myr and dumping her like you did hasn't improved things. So, why this meeting?"

I sat down. Her dislike didn't surprise me, but laying the blame for the divorce with me did. The woman must know why I left her daughter. Then again, she might be the same surrealism-artist Myriam was. From that point of view it couldn't be hard to make me the villain, I guess.

"I need to know where I can find her," I said.

The woman just stared at me.

"Why?" she said. "So you can hurt her even more?"

My chuckle didn't sound very convincing.

"Me hurting her?" I said. "Kathleen, please go on believing whatever you need to believe. Maybe after what the two of you suffered you are allowed an escape or two. But you know very well that the divorce wasn't my fault."

She kept staring. The venom in her dark eyes made the hair on my lower arms rise.

"Who is talking about the divorce here?" she asked. Her voice was husky. There was a touch of Estelle in it.

"I was," I said. "You weren't?"

"No," she answered. "I was referring to the way you pushed her into Estelle's claws — first back in that Dallas hotel, then at the New York Roosevelt. You might as well have killed her."

The silence was interrupted by the waitress. I don't remember what I ordered.

"Tell me about Estelle," I said when the girl left.

"Why?" Kathleen asked. "Does it matter? You don't believe she exists anyway, do you?"

Did I? Maybe not, but I had to know if Kathleen did.

"I don't know," I said. "But I very much want to believe it."

The words took me by surprise. I meant them. And they sounded as if I did, too. Even Agatha lifted her eyebrows. Kathleen's eyes were clouded with suspicion. She turned them towards her sister, who nodded.

"I think the fella does," she boomed in her raw Hepburn voice.

Kathleen pressed her lips together. Her fingers refolded her napkin.

Then she told about the endless chain of visits she and Myriam had paid to shrinks, hospitals and quacks. How she herself had been able to park the whole horrible event into a well-guarded niche of her soul. But how Myriam had become more distant with every visit, every treatment.

"We all wanted her to fight, Bruce. We loved Myriam. We didn't want her to change into this awful whore — this bitch Brian released with his cruel nightmares."

The tiny lady shook with emotion. Her hands strangled the napkin now

.

"But maybe," she went on. "Maybe we were wrong in trying that. After two years I guess we had reached a status quo where Myr was more or less the controlling person. But she wasn't happy, Bruce. She was stressed out and scared and always on guard. She was never happy again."

"She was happy with me," I interrupted. "We were happy! We were in love. They were the best years of our lives!"

An ironic smile lifted the corner of the woman's mouth. "Yes, Bruce. And that is exactly why I didn't like you."

I felt indignant. "What is this? Shouldn't she be happy?"

"Don't be angry with me, Bruce, please," she said. "It wasn't your fault. But I knew it could never last. So did Myriam. Oh, she wanted it. She grabbed at the brass ring and fought to make it happen. But it could not last, Bruce. And it didn't. And when it failed, all the pain and shame and cruelty flooded back in. You did not make my daughter happy."

I sat back. I stared from the one woman to the other — angry and speechless.

"Yes, Bruce," Kathleen went on with a very soft voice. "I do feel sorry for you. You were as much an innocent victim of Estelle as Myriam was. You had no idea. Estelle wasn't just a figment of Myr's personality. Estelle is the creative powerhouse at the very core of my daughter's identity. She eats us all for breakfast. And she is an amazing copy-artist. She can be Myriam if she needs to be — stepping in for her 'protection, ' as she claims."

Kathleen smiled ruefully. "And for her own craving sexual needs too, I'd say. She has taken over on many occasions — even while you were married; even in your very arms. You can't distinguish her from the real thing, Bruce. You can't know.

"The girl we call Myriam may have disappeared altogether. She may have long turned into the Myr that Estelle plays. Why would you believe Myriam was the most important of the two, anyway? Just because she was the girl you fell in love with? Did you ever consider that maybe she wasn't more than just a name?"

Kathleen leaned forward, her eyes intense. "No, Bruce," she said. "By now we must assume that the original Myriam has gone altogether. Estelle has no need of her anymore, she is in the way. By now Estelle can be both the prude and the slut if need be. She has taken over."

I had stopped understanding what she implied. No — I guess I had stopped wanting to understand. I think that about halfway through this idiotic conversation we had arrived at the ultimate edge of sanity. And I had no intentions of crossing it.

"Bruce," the black-eyed woman said, sounding distant. "That afternoon in the Roosevelt you killed what remained of my Myriam. Now go away. Stop looking for her. You won't find her — never again. You killed her, you stupid man. She is gone."

Tears ran down the white face in front of me.






Where Love once more pretends that it may conquer all.

The next tennis evening I told Erica what had happened: first, the evening with Myriam (and Estelle?!) and then the afternoon meeting with her mother and aunt. Erica was silent for a moment. Then she said she had a hard time believing the personality split. I told her there was a lot of literature on that subject. And how the shrink had assured me it might be true.

"But doesn't that make it just too easy, Bruce?" she asked. "Fucking around on a free ticket? No guilt, no blame?"

"Easy?" I pondered. "Well, tearing up a few thousand bucks of lingerie couldn't have been easy on her budget. Quite an investment just to mislead me, don't you think?"

"True," she said — and we went out to play a rather distracted set of tennis. I don't think I convinced her about Myriam.

A month went by. At times I contacted a few escort services around the country. Silly, of course, but I had to do something. The whole thing might be a hoax. Yet deep down I was still convinced that Myriam was not a hoax person. The change in her had been too sudden and too radical to be faked. Sure, my hurting balls said to torch the bitch. But my brain knew I could not take the risk of abandoning the desperate girl she had also been. I had this nagging doubt and it prevented me from just walking away.

Of course there also was my incurable heart.

That's when I went to see the dentist. Erica recommended him. Her flashing teeth convinced me.

Dentists are money machines. They also are the inventors of the Great White American Smile. But there is one other thing they never get enough credit for — they are the reason why many people get in touch with magazines they would otherwise never read. Glossy magazines for interior decorating. National Geographics. And of course — society gossip.

This particular dentist seemed to have stacks of the latter, and not even ancient ones. I took the one on top, opened it and saw Myriam. Not Estelle, no — Myriam. She wore her reserved smile, her tightest bun. And a very conservative Chanel suit.

Her delicate hand was entwined with the rather stubby fingers of a John Enthwistle III, would-be junior Senator for the tiny state of Rhode Island. He smiled proudly at her. He should be proud, if only for selling his bald and pudgy self to this stunning woman.

Myriam stood at least three inches taller.

There were a lot of pictures. The captions told me they had been taken at a garden party near Boston, thrown by a wealthy local tycoon. I didn't know John Enthwistle the Turd, but I understood he was running for Senator. I also understood that the lovely Myriam Collins of Boston was his soon-to-be fiancée.

I groaned. I saw the couple in two other shots. They were not as prominent as in the first picture, but it was clear that John thought the world of her.

I gathered that my pretty wasp had buzzed back to her nest. It was enough information for me to let go of a few romantic notions. Estelle, it seemed, wasn't the only gold digger living inside that body.

By then I was pretty certain that Erica was right. It did not make me a happy man. It made me a numb man who hardly needed anesthesia when his turn with the dentist came up. As the whining drill did its good work, I stared in the bright lights and thought my saddest thoughts.

Had it all been a lie, the whole intricate story? And if so — why? Had Estelle won? Had she taken over control? I hated to even think of Estelle, let alone consider her a person. And if she had won, why wasn't she in the picture? Why Myriam The Prude?

There were other thoughts behind the obvious — they were guilty thoughts. Had my treatment of Myriam driven her into the arms of the ball-breaking bitch? Had I pushed her over the edge? Had I caused the slut to win? If so, again, why was she holding the Turd's hand and not Estelle?

And why was I thinking these crazy things anyway?

Having a tooth filled is not the ideal moment for clear thoughts. So after my last rinse, I walked to Bryant's Park, just to sit and wait 'til the numbness of jaw and brain receded. The jaw won. But my brain cleared up too, after a while — at least a bit.

It cleared enough to let me think a very dark thought: was poor John the next clown? Had I been Myriam's "starter husband"? A poor sucker to discard when something better came along?

It hurt me to even think like that of the woman I still loved. Besides, why would she conjure up such a Machiavellian plot? I mean, she herself came from rich stock. So my thoughts shifted at once to another explanation. Had Estelle used Myriam to catch the Turd? Just to find another stable platform to launch her illicit fuck-fests, as she had once with me? Had Myriam been an innocent pawn after all?

My thoughts were so feverish that I did not even mind that I had just accepted the split personality theory. Or had I? Even if Estelle had used Myriam and did it with poor John the Turd again, Estelle could just as well be the real Myriam, couldn't she? Myriam with a mask. Or Estelle with a mask, rather.

I felt a bout of sickness. After vomiting into a discarded bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, I left the sweet patch of green grass and went home to heave some more into my toilet bowl.

I called in sick and went to bed.

I have friends who have friends of friends.

One of them gave me an invitation card to an official reception at the Enthwistle estate near Providence, Rhode Island. It was held to announce John Enthwistle III's engagement to the lovely Ms. Myriam Collins of well-known Boston stock.

I went there. Don't ask me why. Call me every pathetic name in the Book of Wimps, or just call me stupid — but I went there. And Erica went with me.

It took her two bagel-sessions to discover that she could not talk me out of it. She caved in and bought the most expensive cocktail dress my credit card had ever paid for. Between her daring outfit and my tuxedo we could have ran off a James Bond movie set.

I felt both shaken and stirred when we handed our car keys to the valet and walked into the opulent lair of the infamous Turd. He — or rather his father — had spared no costs. Nor had he overlooked any opportunity to make us feel like crushed ants. From the shining Italian marble right down to the simplest prawn snack, everything smelled of money — and Estelle.

The happy couple was nowhere to be seen.

Mingling with the snobby crowd wasn't easy. Erica's hospitable cleavage and toned legs had quite an inviting effect on a few dozen males, but their spouses felt differently. Zero tolerance today, as far as they were concerned.

We ended up sipping champagne and chatting with two rather nerdy types. Their silk Armani suits must have cost a fortune, but they looked as if they had slept in them. I wondered what drew the Coen brothers to a party like this. But of course they were just two run-of-the-mill IT-billionaires from far away Silicon Valley. And they basked like tickled puppies in Erica's glow.

As the afternoon wore on, the rapidly refreshed champagne loosened up tongues. It even tore down a few walls here and there. Erica had a ball. An evil strain in her gay mind made her flirt with the horny as well as the innocent. She just teased their quickly rising testosterone-levels — then let them down with cruel elegance.

At times I punished her. I refused to bail her out in time when her victims turned predators. There was a certain satisfaction in not rescuing her before she had been groped at least a few times.

But what I really did was scan the area for Myriam.

She arrived around six, shining like the genuine Boston Myriam Collins. Her dress was a symphony of subdued elegance. It flowed and flowed all over her tall body to hide almost every sexy feature. Even her acquired bust was far less prominent than the last time I saw it.

Nevertheless, she looked dazzling.

After having been announced, she and her toad glided off the curved stairway to meet the stunned commoners they had invited. That is to say — Myriam glided. The beaming troll at her side was just a stumbling shadow.

Well — at least in my eyes he was.

I succeeded in hiding myself from the golden couple by using a marble column and a wide shouldered gorilla. My eyes however, followed their every move.

Applause sounded in polite welcome. A gray-haired man showered them with a festive speech. I realized he was the famous John the Second. His shifting gaze went up and down his son's latest acquisition. He almost gobbled her up.

John the elder was a slick speechmaker. In the best of traditions his jolly good fun glossed over his underlying emotions — which were mostly lecherous greed. I saw at one glance that the old goat was more than just a naughty, flirting father-in-law. I realized with shock that he had already seen everything the flowing dress hid from us. To be more achingly precise: John the Elder had already fucked his future daughter in law. He had done so maybe more often than his son and intended to do so for quite a time to come.

It was all in his eyes — and in the language of his body.

It made me wonder about the rest of the audience. I saw smugness, nudging elbows and secretive smiles. And I knew she had entertained some of them as well. The rest — with the eager glow and boyish anticipation — just had to wait, I supposed. For tonight, maybe? Or later — don't be impatient, guys.

I touched Erica's bare shoulder. She turned to me, her face at once concerned.

"Let's go," I whispered. "You were right — this was not a good idea after all."

"What's wrong?" she answered.

"Can't you see? She fucks them all already. She's the fucking house whore."

"Oh, come on, Bruce, surely..."

I cut her off and took her elbow. Then I steered her around the column and down the crowded hall. Cheers and applause sprang up behind us. The old goat had ended his speech with a toast. I looked around and saw the crowd spreading out. The couple had left the stairs to mingle, I guess. We had almost reached the exit, when a clear voice rang over the murmurs.

"Bruce?" it said. "Is that you, Bruce?"

Looking over your shoulder has been a doomed concept for ages.

Ask Orpheus when he came to collect his love from the underworld. Ask the wife of Lot, fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah. The first would never see his wife again, the second changed into a pillar of salt.

So of course I turned and looked back.

What I saw was the Myriam I met at the graduation party — thirteen years ago. Her face was pink with excitement. Her eyes had the wide-open innocence of a new beginning. They easily bridged the stinking quagmire of our recent years and connected with the open wound in my soul.

"Bruce," she said.

I stood and stared — waiting for the dizziness to clear. I didn't even know which name to use. Not long ago I believed that at least Myriam was untainted — or could be. Right now, I remembered her mother's words. This woman I married might not just be an innocent at all, anymore — she might be the deceiving puppet of her other self.

I could see what an asset she must be to the Enthwistle Empire. By day she'd play the clean, high-class beauty to dazzle the world of corporaria. And by night she would become the dirty whoring tigress to close deals after the camera's went home.

Putrid Relations indeed.

"Myriam," I said.

"Such a surprise to see you here," she chimed. "And such a pity to see you leave already."

"Well," I wavered — then I found some safe footing again. "I guess all in all it was a mistake for me to come here and taint the excitement of your new start. Poor taste, really. But, by the way, congratulations and meet my friend Erica. Erica, Myriam — I presume?"

At that last remark a tiny cloud spread in the gray expanse of her eyes. Then she graciously took Erica's fingers and gave them a butterfly handshake.

"Pleased to meet you, Erica."

"Is that you, Myriam?" I asked. She turned back to me with a hurt frown.

"Of course, this is me," she said. "How could you think it's not?"

I grinned. It felt forced.

"How, indeed. I suppose your urge to be someone else has, ehm ... evaporated since our last encounter. Let me wish you all the best, sweetheart. With a little effort, I might even learn to mean it."

At that moment I should have dutifully turned into a pillar of salt. I should have watched her recede into the underworld and be content with it. But I loved her and love didn't make me blind or soft in the head — it made me angry.

She had ripped something out of my heart and I wanted it back. Something had been stolen and tucked away deep behind those incredible, lying eyes.

It was mine — it was me.

I had to have it back.

Which of course was not a plan — or even the primitive bones of a plan. It was just the stubborn, childish reflex of a man not prepared to cut his losses — even after two years. At last I knew why I had never given up on Myriam. She had something that was so very utterly mine that it was effectively me — she had my heart. Who can live on without a heart?

She had taken it away — maybe as Estelle, maybe as Myriam; maybe as a removed personality or as a cheating whore. I didn't care who did it. It was mine. I could not let go of it.

All this happened in the single second needed for her lashes to make one slow sweep over her soul-searching eyes.

"You still love me, Bruce," she whispered. And she smiled. "I have dreamt that you would be here today. I was that friend of the friend who happened to have the invitation. And see — here you are. There can only be one reason for that, Bruce. You love me. I don't care one bit for this man, this Enthwistle — he is Estelle's moneybag. So, just grab my hand and run off with me. Now!"

I felt the breathless presence of Erica behind me. I also felt the numb pain in my chest caused by my holding my breath. Then reality returned — and with it the gushing of fresh air into my lungs. It sobered me up.

"Yes," I said. "I still love you, Myriam — or whoever you choose to be today. But I know that this love hasn't been mine for a long time. You stole it from me. You grabbed it and hid it behind your lying eyes. Myriam — this is no longer about me loving you. It is about you stealing my love and refusing to give it back."

I rambled and I knew it. I also knew that I was right at the core of things. This was about my love, and she had it. She wielded it over me, turning it into a curse. I knew things between us could only be over if she returned it. And set me free.

"Give it back, Myriam," I said. "Set me free."

The eyes before me turned into a battlefield of colors, lights and shadows. It was a disturbing sight. She gasped. Her hand went to her throat. "I," she croaked. "I can't ... I..." Within seconds, the conflicting emotions spread out over her face, playing havoc on her mouth and eyebrows. A slow trickle of sweat crept down her brow. At last she stood shaking and trembling in front of me.

Her hands reached out. Words struggled to get past her lips. There was the word "save" and the word "please." Then her knees buckled and gave.

My hands were a fraction late to catch her as she fainted. She dropped to the front porch, bouncing and shaking in a frenetic seizure. Erica cried out. I fell to my knees, holding her, but not knowing what to do. A man in a tux rushed beside me.

"I am a doctor — please let me..."

In a daze, I retreated, allowing the doctor to do what needed to be done.

Just minutes later, an ambulance arrived. In moments they had put her on a stretcher and into the car. The sirens still rang in my ears when I at last noticed the group of yelling men in front of me.

Their faces were angry, anonymous masks — until I recognized John the Second and his Turd. They seemed to want things from me.

" ... done to her, asshole?" That was the Turd.

"Who the fuck are you anyway, bastard? Who invited you?" That was the father, flecks of foam on his lips.

I rose and wanted to walk away. But the old fucker signaled and one of the guards grabbed me by the shoulder. When I tried to shake him off, a second one came to help. They trudged me into the house and into an office, where they dumped me into a chair.

The Enthwistles sure hated it when someone fooled with their properties, I guess.

The old guy sat on the edge of a desk. "What did you do to her?" he asked.

I just stared until a big fist hit my upper arm. There was a giant at each side of my chair. "Nothing," I said. It got me another push. "We just talked."

"What about?"

There was no need to tell the assholes anything. But the comparison of my slender frame to the rampant growth of muscle all around me made me decide otherwise.

"I am her ex-husband. I came to congratulate her. I was just leaving when she had her seizure."

I saw the wheels turn in the Enthwistle skulls — the father's considerably faster than the son's.

"You crashed this party to gloat?" the father said.

"I was invited," I said. I produced the card, knowing my name wasn't on it. I counted they wouldn't look.

"Why would she invite you — her ex?"

"I don't know," I said — at that instant it was the most brilliant answer I could find. It brought a nice flush of annoyance to dad's face. "Sir," I went on. "My ex-wife never showed any inclination to these kinds of seizures. They looked serious to me and I would be quite concerned if I were you. I really don't understand how you could care about her and still be here."

This seemed at last to force some introspection into the minds of the insensitive assholes. Both father and son rose from their seats and called for their car. Just minutes later I was alone in the office. The gorillas had been left without instructions, I presume. They did not interfere when I rose to leave.

I found Erica at the entrance. She had already retrieved our car. I kissed her and gave her my apologies for dragging her into a farce like this. She was quite serious.

"You have to go see her, Bruce. I never knew how much you really cared for her. She was so intense — it stunned me, the two of you. You really need to know how she is."

The innocent pebbles of the driveway screeched under the onslaught of my tires.

"Yes," I mumbled when the entrance to the posh mansion dropped from my mirror. "I'm stupid, I know, but I must."

The hospital wasn't very impressed by my claim of being Myriam's ex-husband. I guess my chances of seeing her were also diminished by the fact that she lay in a wing donated by the Enthwistle Foundation. So how Erica did it, I shall never know, but she talked us past the nurses' station.

There was no Enthwistle to be seen in the first class ward.

Securing Myriam and isolating her from possible trespassers seemed to be all they were concerned about. I guess they had talked to the doctors. They must have heard she'd be all right. Then they posted a guard at her door and left.

The bodyguard was a smoker. As soon as his masters were gone, he slipped out to have a drag. That was when we slipped in and discovered that all our scheming was for nothing. They had obviously drugged Myriam. She seemed in a deep sleep at the center of a huge and very white bed. I whispered her name and gently shook her — to no avail.

But when we finally turned to leave, there was a moan from the bed. Her eyes were open. "Bruce," she croaked.

I turned and went to my knees beside her — my face close to hers. "I am here," I said — touched by the simplicity of our words.

"I am Myriam, Bruce — your Myriam. Please believe me. I'll die if you stop believing me. I am Myriam and I guard your love. It is hard, very hard to keep it from her. But it is safe ... with me."

Her voice was weak — it was hardly more than breathing.

I softly stroked her hair. It laid spread on the white pillow. I reached forward and kissed her cheek.

"I don't know if I can ever believe you again, Myriam. But please get better," I said. "Get better soon and let me know. I may learn to trust you again. And get you out of your cage."

Her eyes closed. I looked up at Erica. She nodded nervously at the door. I rose. My hand left Myriam's face.

At the door I thought I heard her whisper "I love you" — but maybe it was just a trick of my ears.

As we slipped out, we made it to the corner of the hallway before the nicotine slave returned. Maybe he saw us. Maybe he'd think that reporting us would be too much of a hassle. I guess he probably couldn't care less.

Myriam never called. Nor did she write or let me know through "friends of friends." I once more started feeling like a clown.

Erica told me to be patient.






Where Erica tops my silly plan with an even sillier one.

In the weeks after the surreal adventure in Rhode Island, I had a hard time focusing on my work. But as fate would have it (and won't it always?) there was a huge merger opportunity hitting us right then. The company concerned was not into software at all. They were large-scale brokers — they invested for big clients. Enthwistle was amongst them, I saw.

Onslow had long since tired of getting his money via the indirect way of first producing stuff. He wanted to expand into this first-hand money. He wanted to set up a second leg of the company and this merger was a great way to start.

I didn't object to this strategy. Numbers had always been my game. I was supposed to be the octopus, stretching my tentacles in every conceivable direction to collect data and do my magic with them. I had to ponder their validity — separating the wheat from the chaff.

At first I was too distracted. Since I had to travel a lot to meet the people behind the data, I was often alone. And alone meant brooding — mulling over my frustrations in empty hotel beds or at lonely breakfast tables; or worse — at bars, over slowly melting ice cubes in empty whiskey-glasses.

That is where I met Shireen.

The girl should be called a woman, I guess, but she looked too young for that. She and I seemed to be the last people at the bar when all the others had gone to have dinner.

She was blonde, in a modest, honey-colored way — the hair was cut in a bob style. It left her neck and the lobes of her ears free, while covering her cheeks with sweeping tresses. She had a long and very kissable throat. Her dress made me think of old movies — Audrey Hepburn, maybe.

She had the fragile frame and the huge eyes to go with it.

Her smile was hesitant, almost wounded. It must have been caused by my rather rude attention. I was so deep in thought that I didn't realize I was staring at her. It made her blush.

When I got out of my daze, I saw her embarrassment. I apologized with the rasping sound of an unused voice. Then I asked if she was waiting for someone.

She was, she said. But she feared she had been stood up by her dinner date. I started giving her the obvious compliment about the guy being stupid to miss out on a date with her. Then her cell phone rang. She fished it from her purse and mumbled into it — her face turned away for privacy.

She had a lovely neck.

"That was him," she said, turning back to me with her insecure smile. "He can't make it — business." She started collecting her purse and waving to the bartender.

I cleared my throat. Then I asked her if I could suggest substituting for her absent date — just to add some delightful company to my otherwise barren dinner table. It was a gamble and a silly one, but she never said no.

She extended a narrow, white hand and told me her name was Shireen and, yes, the waiting had made her quite hungry. So I told her my name and minutes later we shared an intimate little booth in the back of the hotel restaurant.

"I never do this," she said, after we had ordered.

"Neither do I," I assured her and we laughed. Her laugh was wonderful. It was held in check by her guarded lips, but her big eyes lit a sparkle that suited the silvery sound of it.

She was married, she said. Only now did I see the modest ring she wore on her left hand. She thoughtfully turned it around on her finger. "My date was not with my husband."

I considered the range of implications. Then I told myself it was none of my business. I smiled. "I assume the date was meant to be as innocent as ours will be?"

She laughed again. The waiter poured our wine. We toasted. "To absent loved ones," I said.

She sipped. "Loved ones?" she asked, emphasizing the s.

"Long story," I said.

"Aren't they always?"

The waiter brought an amuse gueule — it was that kind of restaurant. It was a simple spoon holding a mousse of truffled venison. She lifted hers from the table and brought it to my lips. The intimacy shook me, but I opened my mouth and let her feed me. Then I lifted mine and returned the compliment. She smiled. "Love birds," she said.

I studied her giggle. There was a forced quality to it. "What about your husband?" I asked. She pointedly looked away. When her eyes returned they were darker. "What about your wife, Bruce?" "Ex-wife," I said.

"Ex..." she mused. "You feel married, though." And again she laughed her silver laugh. This time it was real. I joined her. "Look at us," I said. "Jetsam and flotsam."

I raised my glass in a toast.

Shireen was an efficient seducer. She never missed a shortcut during our meal to make the route to her end-goal the quickest possible. That goal was my bed. And her stepping-stones were flirtatious looks, little touches and rather shockingly direct remarks. On top of that there was her incredible laugh.

When we concluded the dinner with espressos and brandies, her body ended up being very close to mine. Her hand had long since disappeared under the exquisite damask tablecloth. The slow caressing of my thigh made my cock swell. She touched it and smiled.

I guess she knew how powerful the contrast was between her naïve, almost childlike appearance and the sluttiness of her conduct. I'm sure I didn't always hide my embarrassed arousal successfully. It amused her. Her laugh got throatier with every sip of wine she took.

Then her lips were on mine, followed by her tongue.

The ride on the elevator didn't interrupt our foreplay. Her tits were small and delicious. I had imagined them exactly like that, before taking them out of the top of her dress. Her mouth sunk over my cock before I even closed the door to my room. I lifted her face off of it to prevent my coming — which would have been much too soon.

Carrying her glowing body to my bed was another step up to heaven. Her mouth sucked mine as one hand slowly stroked my poor defenseless cock. The other kneaded my ass, her fingers running the length of its crack.

After dropping her on the bed, I looked down on her. My hands were on both sides of her face. She stretched her body like a kitten, smiling wickedly. "You have a fine cock, Bruce," she moaned. "Can I have it?"

She could and she did. Not two minutes later my boiling sperm tore its way through my cock to splash against the entrance of her throat. She just swallowed, making tiny, satisfied sounds from deep inside. Her eyes had never left mine during the entire time she blew me. They were dark pools of quicksand sucking me in.

Shireen proved pretty much insatiable. We did it three times that night. She had numerous orgasms. If she faked any one of them, she must have been a great actress. I ate her between erections. She loved it and didn't exactly whisper her appreciation.

When we lay on the bed together — exhausted and at the furry edge of sleep — I turned to her, imitating her voice: "I never do this."

She laughed.

The next morning I heard the shower running. Minutes later she came into the room, wrapped in a towel. She looked as fresh as a croissant, but when I asked her to have breakfast with me, she simply apologized and started dressing.

Ten minutes later she was gone.

The pictures arrived three days later.

I was back at my office when I found them in my e-mail inbox. The sender had used a no-reply address. The message was very simple: "Bruce," it said. "You hurt the sweet thing badly."

There was no name of a sender.

I remember wondering how they made the shots. For some of them the camera must have almost been peeping over my shoulder. There were remarkably clear pictures of my cock entering Shireen's inviting ass. And there was one close up of a man with an embarrassingly smug grin on his red, sweaty face — me.

I assumed Estelle had sent the message. I wondered why she thought this could in any way be used to blackmail me. I was a single man. I'd had several one-night flings since I got divorced — even short affairs. I checked, but there wasn't a wedding ring in any of the pictures. The woman could very well have been an escort or a call girl. My mother might be mildly shocked, certainly, but that would hardly...

Then it struck me — how slow I am. The pictures weren't taken to blackmail me. The one-line message explained their goal. The snapshots were meant for Myriam. It had been a "yah boo, sucks to you" action to hurt her — and I imagine it would be very effective in that regard.

The message also told me it must have been true what Myriam had said — she was, indeed, Estelle's prisoner. She loved me. She was innocent. And I let her down — again.

The pictures would wound her. Maybe they would destroy the last straw she had held onto. I had offered myself up on a plate to the cunning and totally despicable Estelle. I had played the perfect clown. I should have seen the irony after how I set her up at the Houston Hilton. She repaid me in kind, but I could not smile.

My heart sank into depression.

When I told Erica, she didn't nag about me stupidly fucking the woman. She did "tsk, tsk", but then immediately went into a conspirator's mode. I guess she just loves challenges too much. She had to counter the bitch. I suspected she had started loving the cloak and dagger aspects of the whole affair — maybe a bit too much.

"Is she still in the marble castle?" she asked, sipping her juice.

We were at a deli on Seventh Avenue. The lunch hour's rush was all around us. A bunch of outrageously-dressed, Japanese goth-girl tourists filled the frame of my view.

I told Erica that the Enthwistle thing had made me an avid reader of the gossip magazines. There had been pictures of Myr fainting at her engagement party. I was in them too — or rather half of me. After that the magazines hadn't offered information for weeks — until the day before yesterday, when People Magazine ran a short interview with Myriam about such breathtaking subjects as wedding preparations and honeymoon destinations.

There was hardly a quote in the article that reminded me of Myriam. The civilized wording and style rang like her, but the content was vintage Estelle. I could almost hear the giggles and taste the greed.

Towards the end of the interview there was a hint. Close reading suggested that she and the Turd still stayed at the mansion, at least for the time being. It was a convenient base for his campaign. There were hints about going to Washington later on. I didn't know how late "later on" might be, since we had no idea how long the interview had taken to appear in print.

Erica pointed at my briefcase. It contained my laptop. After opening it she went on line and found the site of a local Rhode Island newspaper. I was surprised by her speed and expertise. After only a few minutes her face relaxed. With a wide smile she turned the monitor my way. On the screen was a list of locations and data for Enthwistle Junior's campaign speeches and fundraisers. During the next two weeks they would all be in and around Providence.

"So she'll be at the house — probably," I said. "Neatly tucked away and guarded."

Erica frowned and nodded. "And no doubt meeker than ever, after the well-documented show you treated her on."

I flinched. She laid her hand on mine. "Sorry, honey, that wasn't nice of me," she said. Then her eyebrows rose. "I can see a way to get to her," she said. "You are still working on this merger, right? It's why you were at that damn hotel in Baltimore anyway, weren't you? Where you met the whore?"

The word "whore" startled me. It still felt uneasy thinking of Shireen as a hooker. God, she had been sweet.

"Yes," I said. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Erica said, stretching out the ll's. "Couldn't there be..."

"Of course!" I interrupted her. "I could use my work as an excuse to contact the Turd - or preferably his father. Their business is amongst the clients of the company we are probing for the merger. I guess it was why Estelle knew I was at the hotel to begin with. It would give me a plausible reason to meet him and maybe get to Myr."

"No," Erica said.

"No?"

"No." She squeezed her paper napkin and pitched it effortlessly into a bin about five yards away. "He knows you. He knows you're the ex. He saw you and disliked you. He won't even talk to you."

She was right, of course she was. Damn.

"I'll go," she said. "There is a chance he doesn't remember me."

Now I grinned. "Oh yes," I chuckled. "He is blind, isn't he?"

Erica looked puzzled.

"No man on this side of death will forget you and the dress you wore that day, Erica," I said. "Trust me."

Erica gave her shoulders an irritated shrug. I knew it well and always loved what it did to her tits.

"I can seduce him," she said calmly.

I looked at her — stunned. "You are a lesbian, Erica."

She shrugged once more. "He doesn't know," she said.

"Honey," I sighed, touching her hand. "The old guy is a predator. He won't let you escape when he catches you. He'll fuck you. And if you resist, he'll rape you."

"He won't," she said. I saw a groove between her eyebrows that I had never seen before. Her soft lips disappeared into a thin line.

"Erica," I said. "Why do you want to do this? It is dangerous."

"Am I your friend, Bruce?" she answered. "You love her. She loves you. You should have her back."

I tried to talk her out of it. I tried it that afternoon, that evening and all the next day.

I used every argument I could find. I even told her it was crazy. And it would probably not even work. Maybe Myr wasn't even staying there. She might be out shopping. She might be with the Turd catching votes or raising money.

That was when I discovered a side of Erica I had never seen before. She can be as stubborn as a mule. A most attractive mule, but still a stubborn one. The more arguments I found, the deeper she dug in.

I asked her what Marlene thought.

"She doesn't know."

"I guess I'll have to tell her then, " I said.

"You won't," she answered, tight lipped. "And besides, she is in France and will be there for the next month."

I was at the end of my arguments. I just plainly told her to forget it. Her reaction was not what I expected. She got mad. "Dammit, Bruce! I thought you were a man. The girl fought for you to the point of ending up in the hospital. And what do you do? You fuck a whore. You let them get pictures of it that go straight to Myriam. And now you dump her. You forsake her. Go on like this and you'll kill her!"

She screamed the word "kill" at the top of her voice. I was glad the coffee-shop was almost empty. I had never seen her like this — my always wise and understanding friend yelled at me. More than that — she screamed the most hurtful truths at me.

I just stared at her as she sat across me, trembling. When I reached for her she pushed me away. Her eyes smoldered behind a haze of possible tears.

"So you love her, huh?" she hoarsely whispered. "Such big words. If you love her, why are you here? Why aren't you at her place, breaking down her door and taking her with you? Huh?"

I raised my helpless hands. "You know why," I said. "They'll shoot me."

She just glared at me.

"They'll kill me, Erica. You know that. And what good would I be dead? They won't let me near her. It's no use for me to go there."

"I rest my case," she said. I sighed.

In hindsight the plan of course was stupid and dangerous. If it backfired I would certainly lose my job. But I didn't care. Or, to be more precise, I didn't even consider the possibility of failure.

Was it love that made me blind? I'd like to think so. I especially liked to think I did it for Myriam. But I am quite sure now that it was jealousy. It was Enthwistle. The way he had looked at her that damn day. The way he'd had his dirty fingerprints all over her.

In the end it was just about me. My sense of loss. The blatant injustice of it all. And the way the high and mighty scum thought they could waltz right over my feelings. I bet Freud could tell you what it was. I only know I went through with the plan. My eyes were wide-open shut.

Setting up the plan up worked like a song.

Erica absorbed all she needed to know with amazing ease. She mastered the jargon and seemed very much at home with the numbers and technicalities. We had never talked much about our jobs, but I knew she had graduated from Harvard. I once assumed she probably was a lawyer and she had said "kind of."

She phoned Enthwistle's holding company, saying she was part of an independent taskforce that researched the possible merger of Enthwistle's main investor with a large New York corporation. It might help her mission a lot if she could have a word with their most important clients. Especially the Enthwistles.

Enthwistle's company of course checked up on her to verify her credengtials. I backed her up with all they needed to know — not forgetting to add a very flattering picture of Erica.

I wasn't surprised then when the elder Enthwistle phoned her personally. I also wasn't surprised that she got him to invite her to the mansion for a nice informal lunch. I would have been disappointed with anything less. We took a plane and I drove her down to the house after an hour of dressing and making up at an airport hotel. She looked great. I was sure the old fox would see right through her tight business gear to find the sexy woman within.

Of course it was exactly that which made me worry. But I seemed to be the only one. Erica was all bubbly and talkative during the journey.

She got quieter, though, as we drove up to the mansion.

We stopped before turning into the driveway. I once more briefed her on the official subject of the meeting. Then we went through the rest of our plan. She touched my hand and looked me in the eyes. "Don't worry, Bruce, it will be all right. Trust me, I am a big girl. Now drive."

I donned a red baseball cap and Ray Ban sunglasses. Then I started the car and took her past the security-post at the gate, up the driveway and to the posh entrance of the mansion. A man in uniform came down the steps.

I took her hands in mine. "Just this one last time, Erica," I said. "Don't do it."

She slid her hands out of mine just as the doorman opened her door. I saw a flash of glorious thigh as she got out of the car. It was obvious that the guy noticed it too.

The last I saw of Erica were her long legs climbing the steps. Her tightly packed ass swayed on top of them.

I stepped on the gas and returned to the street.

I parked on a tiny side-road, a path, really. It was a few hundred yards past the entrance to the house. Trees and shrubbery hid me from the main road. And I waited.

Waiting has this way of turning seconds into pizza cheese. In the end they stretch until each one becomes a minute. My eyes started traveling between the digital numbers of the car clock and the very quiet cell phone in my lap. I tried to find some music on the radio. After half an hour of country songs, ads and weather forecasts, I went out of the car to exercise my legs and to pee in the bushes.

I guess there is never a proper moment for feeling a gun poking into your neck. But getting it done while peeing into a bush of dark green holly has a wrongness all of its own. I must admit that I sprayed the tips of my shoes and even the cuffs of my trousers.

"Wrap it up and get in." The coarse voice was close to my ear.

As we walked over to my car, I saw the doorman of the mansion at the wheel. The coarse whisperer pushed me next to the driver, before getting into the back seat himself, the gun reconnecting with my neck as we drove off. We turned back into the driveway of the mansion. I was scared shitless.

Without a word the man with the gun helped me understand where I was supposed to go. The hall was empty. We passed the office where I had been questioned the last time I visited. Then we stopped at a tastefully furnished and rather intimate luncheon room. I saw a dressed table with half empty glasses and burning candles. The old fox had made quite a production out of it.

I also saw Erica. Her jacket had gone: the first two buttons of her silk blouse were undone. The seduction was in progress, I guess. She looked up and the smile left her face.

A hand pushed me, a voice growled. The man across from Erica turned in his chair. His smile lit up, just as Erica's faded. "Please be seated ... It's Bruce, I recall?" the man said. He waved to a third chair beside the small round table. Once more the rough hand encouraged me to oblige.

Erica's eyes begged to know what had happened. I could only shrug.

Enthwistle the Elder dabbed at his lips with an immaculate napkin. He seemed to be enjoying this. He certainly didn't look hurried. "Bruce," he went on. "Or should I say Mr. Pierson? I guess not. My name is John Enthwistle, but I am sure you know that. Ehm ... should I get you a glass of wine too? We are having an excellent Sancerre, aren't we, Ms. Gustavsson — Erica, dear?"

I admired Erica. The worry had left her face as quickly as it had appeared. Her smile was as winning as ever. "It is delicious, John," she said. There was a sexy hoarseness to her voice that I had never heard her use. "I am glad Bruce could make it after all."

Enthwistle's laugh had the distinct resemblance of a billy goat's. Or a hyena? "Nice try, sweetheart," he chuckled. "But we all know better. Let's seduce the old fool, you thought, so we can get in touch with the damsel in distress and maybe abduct her."

His grinning face went from Erica back to me. "And Brucie here was ready to appear with the getaway car. How romantic!"

I had to admit that I disliked his voice more with every new word he uttered. But I could not deny that he had us by the balls. At least me. "Listen, Enthwistle," I said with what I hoped to be a firm voice. "The girl is ill. She has a personality disorder. She needs to see a doctor and get treatment."

"Bull shit!" Enthwistle said. "Myriam is fine. Just because she got tired of playing the nun for you doesn't mean she is sick. What is she to you anyway, man? You dumped her, remember? She is engaged to be married to my son in a month's time. She is family, Pierson, my family. She is my concern, so get the hell out of here. Now!"

I stared at the man. There was white foam in the corner of his mouth. "Myriam comes with me," I said.

Enthwistle gave off another whinnying laugh. There was no humor in it. Then his head got very close to mine. "You listen, Pierson," he growled. "You get the hell out of here now or I'll convince Onslow that he will be better off without you. You may be his precious crown prince, but my money owns his ass. And believe me, boy, Onslow loves his own ass quite a bit more than yours. Now leave!"

My eyes dashed from him to Erica. She just sat, wide eyed. I rose to my feet. I saw her grab her purse to follow me.

"Erica stays," Enthwistle said.

Some people consider authority their birthright. John Enthwistle's notion must have been handed down to him by generations of owners - owners of land, money and people. You could hear it all in his calm, soft voice. He didn't raise it — he didn't even look at her.

"Erica stays." He made it sound matter of fact. He even made it sound quite reasonable. I saw that Erica had sat down again. Her eyes were on the table. Her meekness triggered a wave of indignation in me. I stepped towards the old man. "Like hell she stays!" I yelled. "She comes with me. We leave and we take Myriam with us." My hands were on his jacket.

If I thought this would impress him, I was very mistaken. The only thing I saw in his face, before he turned it away, was a calm annoyance of the disgusted kind. He snapped his fingers. The two men who had brought me there, entered the room. I considered resisting — then I considered running. I was still considering when they had my arm already twisted behind my back.

Enthwistle rose and walked over to me. His face loomed very close. It was a calm face. Mine wasn't. But then again, his arm wasn't painfully twisted behind his back.

"Pierson, you are a stupid idiot," he said. I could not disagree.

"I told you to leave and you didn't. That was a mistake. Now I won't let you leave. You need a lesson. It is a lesson about men and mice in this world, you know? There are mice by the billions, but only very few men. Now let me break some news to you, Pierson — you belong to the billions." He looked at the neanderthal holding me and nodded.

The lights went out.

>> more to come

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