Proserpina
Years later
The phone pinged as a message landed and I picked it up, scanning it as I rode in the comfortable large sedan, on my way back from my doctor.
It could not be Lucien; these days he was not returning my calls, so calling me was out of the question., I thought bitterly.
Could it be one of my children, I thought absently as I opened it and froze.
An image appeared that made me freeze although my palms were sweating.
Lucien.
With a woman. A tall, thin woman with short blonde hair, older than me, closer to his age. Wearing a fire engine red bikini and nothing else.
And she was smiling as she stood, her body pressed to my husband while he was staring at someone across the room, his large hand splayed across her hip. Her hand was on his waistband, a familiar lover-like gesture.
I felt my head begin to pound.
The background was the Town House swimming pool, the place where Lucien was staying at, currently. Lucien was in his formal clothes, but his jacket had been discarded, and the shirt he wore was open to the waist, a habit he had, whenever he was working or relaxing. His hirsute chest with the flat abs and powerful muscles, all of it was revealed clearly.
I felt as though someone had plunged a knife into my stomach and was twisting it slowly. The hurt, the rejection, threatened to make me sick.
Was my husband tiring of me, I thought, my breath coming faster as I felt myself plummeting down in a panic attack.
I was curvaceous, not a size zero like this woman, and short, reaching up to his shoulders. I had to stand on my toes to kiss him. While Lucien swore that my ‘rack’ was the largest and the firmest he had ever seen, I knew that my rounded hips were also not something that was the rage. But then, it was what Nature had gifted me.
The woman in the photograph had a slim, reed-like figure; the kind of woman my husband had had in his bed earlier…before we came together…
Driven by rage and fear, anxiety, and a sense of overwhelming loss, I acted on impulse as I tapped the glass partition and spoke to the bodyguard accompanying me, a heavy-set man named Bosco.
I had not directly informed Lucien of my visit to the doctor; had just sent a message, asking him to allow me to visit the city. These days he never answered my calls. The Head of Security at our estate, Tony Beston had gotten back to me and said that the Boss had agreed to me leaving the grounds.
My littlest kids, all of twelve, were away on a hiking trip and would be back the following week.
I was for all practical purposes, on my own.
Now I said,
“Stop at the Town House, please.’
Bosco looked unnerved and the driver met my eyes in the rearview mirror.
‘Uh.. huh…’ began Bosco but I had had enough. The way he was stalling made me even more determined. And suspicious.
“Just do it, Bosco!’ I snapped and he stiffened. I had never raised my voice at them and it was a first. Silently, he nodded to the driver who changed gears and we were soon speeding up to the house that stood along with similar, imposing-looking houses on a discreet street. When the car drew up, I stepped out quickly and marched over to the door.
A very flustered-looking Latino woman opened the door and made to stop me from entering. She was a new hand with a hard face, and I realized with a shock that she did not know me. Or rather, I did not know who she was.
“I am here to see Lucien Delano,” I snapped through gritted teeth and pushed my way inside, shoving her when she tried to pull me back. I had already seen his car parked outside, along with the vehicles that always accompanied him. My husband was here, alright.
I stepped into the passageway, stopping short at the sound of raised voices. They were loud and carried across into the corridor where I stood, pinned to the spot in astonishment.
‘Listen, Dad, you need to …’ came a young man’s voice, slightly nasal and unfamiliar and I slowed in shock.
Dad?
Had I come to the wrong house? I thought in bewilderment.
Then I heard a familiar gruff voice replying and I almost sagged in shock.
It was Lucien, speaking, in a tired voice, as though he was weary of arguing.
‘Son, you …” he was saying.
Lucien and a young man?
Son?
He never spoke to our sons in this way; Piers and Claude were always ‘Boy’ and as for Louis and Dominique, he only had the barest of conversations with them.
But no, he had never addressed them in this way. Not “son”.
What was going on?
And who was ‘Dad’?
What was going on?
A third voice interrupted him.
‘Darling, …’
A woman. Speaking in a seductive way.
I had had enough.
My insides clenched. But I had come to find out what was happening and I was not going to head back. Life had put me through the toughest tests ever and I had come out a fighter.
Pushing aside the housekeeper who seemed determined to prevent me from stepping forward and was trying to block my way, scowling, I marched ahead.
My Mafia Don had one firm rule among others for me: I was not to visit the Town House unaccompanied. I had assumed that it was because of his various seedy associates whom he put up there over the years. Knowing his fierce jealousy, I stayed away. Besides, I had been busy with my work: I had been elevated to the position of Director of the Center I managed, the Center of Buddhist Studies in Japan. it was an honour for me and a visible appreciation of all my hard work. But with my conferences and work, and with Lucien expanding his arms industry across the world, we had become more of a couple who were spending less and less time with each other.
He was always in some part of the world or the other, while I rarely left my palatial house. Perhaps only on two occasions when I was in the Far East. Of course, he insisted that I should be accompanied by a virtual army of bodyguards on the two occasions I left for Japan where we had Buddhist centres of Learning.
When he was at home, he continued to be busy but his hunger for my body had seemed as insatiable as ever.
With a sharp clenching of my fists, I realised that we had begun to grow away from each other, although our desire for each other had seemed to remain the same.
Or had it?
Despite not being very familiar with the layout of the Town house, for I had only been there on a handful of occasions, I knew where the voices were coming from. I entered the room on the right, the drawing room and stopped short. Lucien was sitting on the sofa, scowling, a bottle of alcohol before him, a tumbler in his hand. The bottle was already half empty though it was only mid-day, I noted, heart sinking. His bodyguards had stepped forward, stopping awkwardly as they saw me.
A blonde woman in a short dress was seated beside him, her hand on his thigh in a familiar manner. But what made me feel as though someone had dealt me a body blow was the sight of the woman standing before him, a woman with her legs casually crossed, puffing at a cigarette. Facing them was a young man with blonde hair in a ponytail, who turned sharply when I entered.
Something about him, his sneering smile and narrow eyes seemed vaguely familiar but I could not remember for I felt as though I had been kicked in the teeth.
“I am sorry, I could not stop her,’ said the housekeeper in a furious voice. She had pushed past me roughly and now appeared beside me as I stood, shell-shocked.
Dimly, I was aware of the woman rising, her red dress tight around her small waist and flat chest. I felt like an elephant in my casual yellow outfit.
“Don’t worry, Maria,’ she said soothingly, addressing the housekeeper and again, I flinched as I felt like an outsider.
Lucien had surged to his feet, his face like thunder, eyes bloodshot, swaying, and glaring at me. He looked as though he wanted to kill me.
All the while the thin, tall blonde remained, smiling slyly, a hand on his arm in a proprietary manner. Her eyes glittered maliciously as she looked at me with pity and scorn.
‘Darling,’ she purred, stroking his chest and I stared at him, bile rising in my mouth,’ Don’t get so stressed…”
And she sent me a look, that was smug and dismissive.
My husband looked fatigued and weary but the anger, the fury was very real. And it was directed at me.
“THE F*CK ARE YOU DOING HERE, WOMAN?’ roared Lucien, his face contorted in a mask of fury, fists clenched.
‘ HAVEN’T I TOLD YOU NEVER TO COME HERE?’
This can’t be happening …No, no…” said a voice inside me as I staggered and leaned against the door, afraid that my shaking legs would not support me.
‘Well, Dad,’ sneered the youth, with an ugly smirk,’ Don’t you think it is time I was introduced to my lovely young stepmother?’
Step Mother?
Had he just called me his Step Mother?
The words seemed to go round and round in my head as I sagged against the wall, staring at him and then my eyes went to Lucien’s.
He was grey-faced, suddenly looking old and haggard as he looked at me, eyes hooded.
“No…” I whispered.
I shook my head, feeling the fierce pain in my chest as though a giant fist had closed around my heart.
Lucien had a son. A youth who was almost as old as Claude. No, older, I thought, frantically.
So he had been unfaithful to me…
All these years, when I had loved him so single-mindedly, he had been keeping the exitance of this son, a secret from me?