Читать книгу Once A Liar - A.F. Brady - Страница 23

Claire has been living in my house for eight years, but I still can’t fully acclimate to cohabitating with another human being with her own will and own needs. The last person I lived with was Juliette, and I got used to my solitude in the interim. Claire didn’t need to move in with me. She had made plenty of money on her own, working for a prestigious interior design firm. She wanted to live with me. Yet I still stumble over her things, crash into her when she stands between me and my destination and I can never remember how she takes her coffee.

When we prepare and dress ourselves for an evening out, we holler between rooms; Claire in her boudoir between the master bedroom and the master bath, and me fixated on my own image in my dressing room mirror. Just as we are doing this evening.

“He’s never been to a benefit with his father,” I remind her, “and you’re constantly saying that I need to develop a relationship with him, so why not let him go in your place? It’s not like you enjoy these things.” I tie and untie my silk bow tie, never satisfied with its position.

Claire is already in a full face of makeup, hair held in place with clips and pins while she tools around with a curling iron. She wears a flesh-colored slimming leotard, intended to smooth out any undesirable bulges even though she has none, unless protruding hip bones and delineated vertebrae are no longer in style.

“It’s his first week with us—he hasn’t even unpacked yet. You think he wants to go to a formal affair?” Claire calls across the rooms.

“Why not? He’d love it, famous faces galore.”

“So, I got all dolled up for nothing?” Claire leans out the door to look at me, probes her hair and pouts.

“I didn’t ask you to put all that on.” I walk into her boudoir and position myself behind her as she leans over the vanity and puts on lipstick, teasing me with her ass in the air.

“You never ask me to put things on,” she coos, smiling at me in the mirror.

I hold her waist with my left hand and lean back to look for a way to remove her leotard. There are no clasps, no zippers or buttons for me to undo, so I slip a finger under the elastic on her hip and slide it between her legs. Bending her down farther with my other hand, I glide her legs apart with my knee and pull the crotch of her leotard to the side. I control her movements while I unzip my tuxedo pants.

I can feel Claire’s eyes on me, but I’m staring only at myself in the reflection. No matter with whom I’m having sex, my mind always slips back to that night Marcus and I went to the strip club. Every girl, every soft, slim body I enter, inevitably turns into the stripper at the club who Marcus defiled. If I don’t look at Claire’s eyes, I can pretend that I’m not completely indifferent, that she is special and loved, but in reality, Claire could have been anyone. She’s disposable. Expendable.

Every time we have sex, I feel as though I turn inhuman. I become a robot; not violent, not hurtful, but mechanical, disconnected. My hips thrust back and forth, and I can see myself in the mirror, but I feel nothing. The physical pleasure I’m supposed to experience is buried underneath the idea that I am controlling another human being. That’s where I get the gratification from; it’s not about connection or intimacy, because I don’t care. I can’t care.

Once I finish, I pull out of her and leave her standing there, red handprints rising on her ass. I tuck myself back into my pants, zip up and return my attention to my bow tie.

“I’ll tell Jamie to get ready,” I say, disregarding the intermission in our conversation. Claire readjusts the crotch of her leotard so she isn’t exposed, pulls a silk robe off its hook and wraps it around herself. I walk out of her boudoir to the bedroom and buzz the intercom in Jamie’s room.

“You busy tonight?” I pause and wait for Jamie’s response.

“Um, no?” He asks me more than tells me. “Just homework, I guess.”

“Good, take a quick shower and get a tux on. We’re going out.”

Claire stands in the doorway and looks on as Jamie tells me he’s grown out of his tuxedo.

“Don’t worry,” I respond, “you can borrow one of mine. We’re probably the same size.”

A peculiar look spreads across Claire’s face as she watches me slip my antique cuff links through my French-cuffed shirt. She’s not quite looking at me, more through me, and I tell Jamie I’ll be waiting for him downstairs in fifteen minutes.

“Claire will bring the tuxedo to your room,” I say before hanging up the phone.

Her inquisitive look turns dark. She pulls the tuxedo from my hand to bring to Jamie, and I can just hear her mutter, “Who am I living with?” under her breath as she leaves the room.

I reach into a drawer and pull out several masks to choose from. Claire and I have attended several masquerade balls and costume parties over the years, and we never seem to throw any of the masks away. I study each one, some feminine, silky and feathered, others simple and sleek. I pull out two and move to the mirror to try them on. I’ve worn one of them before, but the other, the white one, I’ve been saving for a special occasion. The smooth white mask covers the top half of my face, and at the forehead, above the small eyeholes, two large golden horns protrude.

I slip the mask over my head and it settles perfectly on my face. I’m reminded of a minotaur as I look myself over. Before I walk down the stairs to meet Jamie, I say loudly to my reflection, “Yes, Claire, who are you living with?”