Chapter 4: The Bachelor and the Bride
This is how people trapped in a burning house feel, he thought randomly. The flames waltz like whiplash, but they are just too exquisitely entrancing to try to fight.
And Billy had always been a fighter.
When Velma pinned him against the door, the door of his own bedroom, it was just so much easier not to move. He knew she was passionate; he knew she knew what she was doing. He guessed she liked disposable lovers, the kind whose name she won't remember in the morning.
But he didn't guess that she was even more of fighter than he was.
It was perfectly natural when the clothes peeled off, an unnecessary second skin. It was perfectly natural when she stated simply that she would be on top.
So it began.
It was a power struggle; that he couldn't deny. He could feel her ache bite gasp reach want. For her, it was something she had to prove, something she had to need.
But for him, it was so simple.
It was living.
xxxxx
It had to be a Sunday morning. Mary had to ruin his Sunday morning with those three syllables, clandestinely murmured over the phone.
"I'm pregnant."
Of course, he should have expected it, should have thought of it before he laughed at the lawyers who moonlit as fathers.
So what the hell happens next?
It drifted in his mind for three weeks. She was still mass-producing headlines, but each one seemed more like a slap in the face than a triumph.
She came back to him. She didn't say anything; she just let him take her. A baby never came up again, and it certainly wasn't born nine months later. She left all smiles.
But that didn't explain the tears on her pillow.
xxxxx
"I like you."
Her voice was his wake-up call, and it was certainly more pleasing to the ear than the discords of his alarm clock.
"Nice to know."
She still had a nice smile in the morning.
"Charlie used to snore, snored like the devil. Kicked in his sleep too. At least you're a quiet sleeper."
Billy liked to be awake first. He would get dressed and leave a note: early morning appointment, shoes to shine, fingernails to clean. Never stayed in the same place for long.
But she was all dressed, lipstick like the devil, and he didn't like it. He liked breaking hearts, and he didn't like that she, for an hour or so anyway, had the opportunity to leave him there, defenseless.
Her eyes burned into him as he dressed. Devious bitch. Sneaky, treacherous, loveless little bitch.
Erroneous charges, of course.
"If you're looking for your tie, it's draped over the red chair."
He nodded; she smiled. When he turned around, she was gone.
