Guilty Pleasures (33 page)

I think I just had the best day ever with Will.
 

He makes me laugh, makes me come, makes me cry; he makes me tell him things I’ve never told anyone. I’ve never felt so at ease, so myself, so accepted. So loved.

I don’t care what happens next. Today was wonderful, and so was yesterday. Tomorrow can take care of itself.

I sent him home to sleep, so I can get some rest. Tomorrow is a work day. When we do start having sex, he’s so going to kill me.

Chapter 25

One of the most difficult things for a woman to do is open her innermost being to a man who, having her very self in his hands, might damage her irreversibly.

So, they sometimes give their bodies, sometimes their hearts.

Only when they truly trust—do
not
confuse trust with love—can they yield themselves utterly.

—Sensual Secrets of a Sexual Surrogate

Millie moved above him, enfolding him, the lamplight gilding her shoulders and her breasts. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, and she moaned softly.
 

She leaned forward, her hair veiling her face, gasping. Her eyelids flickered, and she gazed down at him with misty eyes quickly focusing to horror. Suddenly she was scrambling back on the bed, crying out in fright, grasping at the sheets to cover herself.

“Who are you?
Who?
” Millie desperately asked.

Lance struggled awake at two in the morning. His life had gone from orderly and well-regimented, to utter chaos. An obstacle course of mantraps and pitfalls leading to no reasonably positive outcome that he could foresee. Nor could he now leave this path. He was committed. Heart and soul, he was committed to this woman. He was also trapped by his lie. If he revealed all, he would lose her. Worse, he would cause her unthinkable pain.
 

She had yielded herself so completely after her long, obstinate loneliness, trusted him utterly. Him. He had to extricate her with as little damage as possible. He’d made her a promise that he would never hurt her. He would not fail her. He had to resolve the conundrum his life had become, but how?
 

How could he salvage her heart, tell her the truth
and
stay in her life? He got under a stinging shower; his eyes were wide and blank. He couldn’t stop thinking.
 

Lance knew. He would become Will, or Will must die.
 

A cheerful, garrulous Serge at four in the morning was hard to take in Lance’s present mood. He practically bounced in his seat, twinkling and guffawing at his own puns. He gushed goodwill like a dark, slightly sinister, very short Father Christmas.

“You’re in a good mood, Serge, have a nice weekend?”

“Fab, Willie, my boy, fab. Plus, nothing cheers me up like a good live piss-up. Tonight is going to be fun. An Irish socialite is getting divorced, and so she’s holding a wake! That crazy bitch had a coffin delivered with a portrait of the very-much-alive ex-husband painted on the lid. They’ll be delivering wreaths and condolences all day. She’s having a male stripper do the eulogy—dressed as a priest. We are bringing in gallons of green beer, Irish whiskey, and salted almonds, green pretzels, peanuts, and of course, pistachios. We’ll practically be doing nothing but watching the fun. I’m asking Millie to let us tend the bar.”

“A wake for a dead marriage . . . makes a kind of twisted sense.”

“Lots of lovely boozy sense. Except—this I’m not missing—she asked that the waiters be dressed like leprechauns. Can you imagine? Hendricks jingling around in Irish green and shamrocks? Lovely.”

“I suppose you won’t mind jingling yourself?”

“Nope, been there, and done worse. Plus I turn a good leg in green tights.”

“God have mercy.”

Late afternoon found them preparing great green tubs for icing the beers, setting out platters of aperitifs and numerous trays of delicate and colourful little hors d’œuvres.
 

A large three-tier venom-green cake with a black marzipan electric chair, complete with the condemned prisoner, was delivered.
 

Horseshoe-shaped floral wreaths and coronets came from supposedly close friends and well-wishers. The banners variously read Better luck Next Time, I Told You So, Oops You Did It Again, U Got da Bucks—now Get New Boobs, You’re Too Old For This Shit, Get a Schnauzer Next Time, and worse.

A costume maker delivered a truckload of green leprechaun outfits, complete with pointy shoes and hats. Hendricks arrived with his usual lugubrious expression, quickly followed by Millie in tasteful and sexy black, and a kiss-me-quick little hat with a deliciously flirty black lace veil.

Millie, Lance, and Serge watched fascinated as Hendricks returned shortly in sartorial magnificence, his scarlet face clashing horribly with his very short green tunic and shimmering emerald hose.

“Miss Deafly, I must object most strenuously.”

“Oh, my dear Hendricks . . . it’s astonishing how your innate elegance and dignity can overcome
anything
. I’m in awe of you, my dear, dear man. You are a true professional. An example, my dear Hendricks—a shining example. So much so, I will insist both Mr. Moreno and Mr. Pecklise don similar garb in solidarity, and assist you and your staff at the bar.”

The scarlet receded from Hendricks complexion, being replaced by a girlish wash of pink. “I’m honoured, Miss Deafly. We must show a united front in adversity. Yes, dignity and good breeding must overcome, I always say.” He wandered off happily, then called out to his staff to muster and dress up.

Lance stifled a snort of laughter.

Serge was giggling. “You are shameless, Millie, shameless. The man looks like a bilious morris dancer.”

“Serge, a happy, motivated staff is half the battle won. If I have to bend the truth a little . . . oh, all right, a lot, I will. Now, boys run off and get green.”

At nine thirty, the grieving widow arrived, her broken heart very much in evidence, in a very low-cut black dress. She was a voluptuous true redhead in her well-tended and tucked midforties. She was luscious lipped, with a luminous opalescent skin—flawless except for a dusting of freckles accentuating her generous cleavage.

Hendricks gaped at her. Rather, he gaped at her cleavage in lustful fascination. “Madam, allow me to extend my condolences, but also my felicitations, for a woman of such unique beauty must not be chained. Like a butterfly, she must flutter free, blessing countless flowers with her honeyed kiss.”

Millie choked while Hendricks bowed gravely in his green hose.

The ex-Mrs. O’Donnell simpered at him flirtatiously. Her delicate hands fluttered to her bosoms. “Why, sir, a gentleman would be most cautious of taking advantage of my fragile state, my loneliness . . .”

“Madam, my admiration is most sincere and most respectful.”

“Not too respectful, Mr. Hendricks. We are neither that young, nor the night that long.”

Hendricks leaned forward. “Alas, Madam, I confess myself overcome, for you bear upon your right breast the perfect representation of Cygnus, the Constellation of the Swan.” With truly astonishing dignity, he lifted her hand to his lips, while he visually ventured to boldly go where many men had been before.

Millie gasped as she entered the kitchen. “Good God . . . we have a problem. You two have to keep an eye on Hendricks. He and Mrs. O’Donnell are flirting and simpering at each other. I would never have believed it of him.”

“It’s the hose. See, they cut off the blood flow to your brain,” Serge remarked seriously. “I once knew this dancer, bloody Bolshevik ballet pansy, who couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag. All he did was dance. He had class six hours a day plus performance time; the poor man lived in them hose thingies—so constricting. One day, I peeled them off him, quick like, before he could complain. You wouldn’t believe it. He was so gifted. A genius, I tell you.”

Lance grinned.

Millie eyed him suspiciously. “You two go garb up, and I don’t buy that diminished capacity by dint of constricted blood flow to the penis defence, Serge, so watch it.”

Several hours and many barrels of strong drink later, the salon was awash in “mourners” devotedly drowning their grief.
 

Foremost among them was Mrs. O’Donnell, who availed herself of the comfort of Hendricks’s manly shoulder with distressing frequency. The leprechauns circulated with their trays of food and drink, while Lance and Serge manfully held up the bar and watched the festivities.

Serge served up two stiff drinks and toasted Lance, smirking lasciviously in the general direction of his hose. “Here’s to you, little, or rather not so little, Willie Wanker; here is to hot widows and cold drinks.”

They solemnly toasted each other repeatedly, with a great deal of respect for the dearly departed. By the looks of him, in all the glory of his full-length portrait, the “late” Mr. O’Donnell was a man of good looks, although somewhat florid of complexion. Someone had laid a wreath of garlic in the vicinity of his groin with the caption Lest He Rise Again.
 

Obviously rising to the occasion was Hendricks, unaware of the unabashed stare of several sour-mouthed grass widows.

“And himself not even cold yet, and that hussy’s already hoisting her flag on another mast,” a dear friend of Mrs. O’Donnell said.

“My dear, so would I,” mumbled another, downing a shot of vodka.

“His mast wasn’t that high, and I should know . . .” said a blue-eyed brunette with an impressive chest.