Connie was tired, the effort of having to maintain the act in front of Michael's parents having worn her down. They had finally gone in the early evening, and she and Michael had cleared up pretty much in silence. Connie's thoughts were anywhere but where she actually was, and she was highly aware that Michael could sense this. As part of her introspection, Connie's thoughts strayed back to last Christmas, to last Boxing Day to be specific, when she had been fighting for the life of her patient, and Ric had talked her out of the horrific maze of that awful fire. Why did virtually every thought she had today come back to Ric in one way or another? Was this the testament to just how much he had crept under her skin without her realising it? Smiling slightly to herself, she wondered how he was getting on with Jess and Zubin. Having a six-month-old baby in the house wouldn't allow for much sleep, and she could just imagine Ric thinking that he really was getting too old to be woken up by a screaming baby at all hours of the night.
She came back to the present, however, when she realised that Michael was speaking to her. "Do you want a top up?" He asked, waving the bottle of red wine in her direction. "Please," She replied absent mindedly, putting the last plate away in the cupboard. When she sank gratefully down onto the sofa and lit a cigarette, Michael handed her the glass of wine and eyed her critically. "I wish you wouldn't do that," He said, fanning away the smoke. "And I wish you wouldn't drink so much," Connie countered back. "But as it's Christmas, I'm not going to hassle you about it. Besides," She added after taking a drag. "I haven't had one all day. I wouldn't want to give your mother something else to hold against me, now would I." "She's just disappointed about not being a grandmother yet, that's all." "Tough," Connie said succinctly. "It's about time she accepted that we're not that kind of couple." "We could be, if only you'd stop putting your career and every other man in the universe before your marriage," Michael said bitterly. "And the only reason you want me stuck at home raising a couple of kids," Connie responded defiantly. "Is so that you can control my every move. I've also no doubt that becoming a father would probably improve your political career, but you're not doing it at the expense of the thing I do best, which I can assure you, certainly isn't taking care of children." "Oh? So is the thing you do best operating or screwing these days?" Michael asked sarcastically. "Both," Connie told him firmly, blowing a smoke ring up at the high ceiling. "You did both yesterday, didn't you," He said, finally getting his suspicions out into the open. "That's why you came home late, looking like all your Christmases had come at once." "And can you give me one even vaguely sensible reason why I shouldn't?" Connie asked icily. "After all, I should imagine that one or more of your secretaries didn't quite escape unscathed." "It would hardly matter," Michael responded acidly. "If you'd shown the slightest interest in me in the last few months. But oh, no, it's been every excuse in the book, hasn't it, and even when you do see fit to sleep with your husband, you can't even have the decency to enjoy it." "And would you prefer that I faked it?" Connie asked with a laugh. "Because I'm sure it could be arranged, though I wouldn't really want to give you the false satisfaction, of thinking I had enjoyed it. It's hardly my fault that men are so predictable." "Connie, what has Ric Griffin got that I haven't?" Michael asked, now sounding more than a little petulant. "Do you really want to know?" Connie asked with a laugh. "Because it would take me literally hours to tell you." "I doubt it," Michael said dismissively, unwilling to believe what she was saying. "You see," Connie said, taking a swig of her wine. "I might have only spent two hours with Ric yesterday, but he managed to make me feel more alive than I have done since I returned from Ghana. Do you know something? He can arouse me so thoroughly in such a short space of time, that I was practically dripping inside five minutes, something that certainly hasn't happened with you for a very long time. He reminded me what it was like to really feel wanted, not just as a marital standby for when your secretaries are refusing to come up with the goods, not that I blame them. I could have Ric all day every day, and still find everything he does to me the most exhilarating feeling I've had in months." "Do you have any idea just how much of a whore you sound?" He asked her incredulously, not wanting to hear any more of Ric Griffin's particular expertise. "You used to like calling me a whore," Connie said quietly. "Before I became one, that is. But you don't like it now, do you? You used to like the thought of sleeping with a whore, because it was just one of those names that you wanted to call me at the point of orgasm. Yet as soon as I started living up to that epithet, you began wanting me to curb the sexual excesses you married me for. You can't have it both ways, Michael. You can't have any number of paying or non-paying women of your own, and expect me to limit myself to satisfying your every need. We both know that the only reason you agreed to the deal was because you weren't prepared to give up the women, and you knew I would find out about them if you'd said you had. You also lived under the mistaken belief that I couldn't ever find anyone who could give me something better." "Griffin, better?" Michael said in total disbelief. "He's older than me for a start." "Oh, you wouldn't think it," Connie drawled with a low, husky laugh. "He can rise to the occasion whenever required to, and he wouldn't dream of having his pleasure before I'd had mine, at least once. What, don't you like me pointing out just where you've been going wrong?"
"Connie," Michael almost crooned, sitting down on the sofa beside her, and clearly having decided to try another tack. "I don't want to argue with you, not today." "Fine," Connie replied curtly, reaching forward to stub out her cigarette in the ashtray. "You started it, I was just keeping up with you." She stiffened slightly when he put an arm around her, but tried not to flinch away from his touch. "Why not let me show you how good it used to be?" He suggested, his hand slipping down to cup her right breast. "I bet I could make you forget about Ric Griffin in a heartbeat." "When you've sobered up, I might just think about it," Connie told him coldly, removing his hand from her breast. "But not before. I have absolutely no desire to sleep with someone, who will most likely be incapable of lasting longer than five minutes, if you could get there at all, which after the amount you've been putting away, I highly doubt." "There was a time," Michael said icily, his hand tightening on her collar, as though he meant to choke her. "When a man wouldn't have to virtually beg his wife for what she used to give him by choice." "And there was also a time, when this particular wife used to find her husband almost unbearably desirable," Connie countered back, not liking the look of intense anger in his eyes. "But it seems that those days have passed." "Connie, why won't you let me prove to you that I'm a much better lover than Griffin?" "Because I know that you're not," She answered him immediately, inwardly kicking herself because she could see that she was really pushing her luck. "Prove it," He goaded her, clearly determined not to relinquish the argument. "Michael," Connie insisted vehemently. "I'm not sleeping with you today, tomorrow, not ever, if you keep on drinking as much as you have been. It makes you even more bitter and morose than usual." "And can you blame me?" He asked in total disgust. "You barely want me near you any more." "Oh, don't be so pathetic," Connie threw back, now really beginning to lose her cool. "You know something, Michael, you used to be a real man, not the sniveling, pitiful wreck you are today."
When the palm of his hand struck her cheek, she recoiled in shock. Never, not in all their years of rows and making up, had he ever raised his hand to her. "And you think that makes you a real man, do you?" She demanded, her somewhat more moderate alcohol consumption having completely removed her sense of danger. "You used to like it rough," He leered back at her. "Rough perhaps, but I don't usually go in for acquiring bruises," She retorted acidly. "But then I should have known you'd one day resort to something like this, because you just loathe not getting your own way, don't you." "So says the master, or should I say mistress, of manipulation," he countered back furiously. "I haven't ever resorted to violence to achieve my ends," She insisted vehemently. "Well, it appears that I might be able to achieve something over Mr. Griffin after all then, doesn't it. I bet he wouldn't have the guts to put his wife in her place, probably why he lost so many of them." "Don't you ever refer to Ric and yourself in the same breath ever again," Connie almost shouted. "He knows the meaning of that little word respect."
This time, when his fist crashed into her face, she audibly gasped, tasting the blood from where his signet ring had cut her lip. But it seemed that this had been one jibe too many. Holding onto the collar of her blouse with his left hand, Michael used his right one to relentlessly lay into her. She could feel the blood from her nose run down onto her blouse, but while he still had hold of her, she could do nothing to stop it. The second time his fist caught her just under her left eye, she felt sure that she would have trouble seeing out of it in the morning. She tried to detach herself from what he was doing, but this only seemed to enrage him further. But realising that he wasn't about to get bored of what he was doing, she momentarily surprised him by pushing violently at his chest, briefly getting him away from her, allowing her to get up from the sofa, and move almost blindly towards the door. She had no idea where she was headed, except that she needed to get away from this alcohol-enraged monster who appeared to have discovered a new pastime. But she wasn't quick enough for him. Michael was fuelled with a mixture of anger, alcohol and extreme sexual desire for her, a lethal combination that not even Connie could fight. Grabbing her by the shoulder, he whirled her round to face him. "I think it's about time I taut you a lesson," He said, his fist crashing into her ribs. "I think you need reminding just who is boss in this marriage." As she struggled to get away from him, leaning towards the coffee table to grab anything to ward him off, he pushed her to the floor, her outstretched arm catching her half full wineglass, knocking it to the carpet. As she fell, she felt the glass splinter under her weight, the shards being ground into her arm as Michael descended on top of her. When he began roughly tearing at her clothes, she realised just what he had in store for her. "No, you wouldn't, you wouldn't dare," She said almost desperately, unwilling even now to believe that he would go to such lengths just to prove a point. "Seeing as you won't give me what is due to me voluntarily, I don't have much choice, do I," He replied, foregoing the undoing of her blouse, by simply ripping it down the centre, buttons flying in all directions. "A real man wouldn't need to do this," She taunted him, unwilling to give up even at this late stage, receiving a particularly vicious squeeze to her right breast as a result. But she couldn't just let him do this, no way! She struggled with him, lying between the coffee table and sofa as they were, trying with all her might to push him away. But the more she fought, the more his fist connected with her ribs, and the more his weight firmly rested on her unyielding thighs. Seeming to have eventually had quite enough of her struggling, his hands moved up around her throat, slowly squeezing the breath out of her until she was seeing stars. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears as he held her still with one hand, and tried to push her skirt aside with the other. Just before she lost consciousness, Connie spared one, last thought to wonder what Ric would do if he were here now.