Chapter Nine

The Truth

 

 

“Do you generally pay Ondine for her favours?” Drinkwater asked Imelda during the commercial break from Columbo. He recognized the danger of coming out and accusing his wife’s lover of theft.

Imelda gave his thigh a playful smack. “Heavens no! I’ve never paid for sex and I’m not about to start now.”

“Of course not,” he said, running his fingers through her hair. “Just teasing, dear heart.”

“Besides, Ondine and I share something very special.” Imelda shook his hand from her ringlets as she picked up her teacup from the centre table. “Ours is an intimate bond, not only physically, but emotionally as well. Sometimes I look at her and I can see in her eyes that she knows what I’m thinking.”

Most men would sting with jealousy if their wives went on and on about another lover. Drinkwater only felt sorry for Imelda.

When their program came back on TV, he let the subject drop, but he knew in his heart something was amiss. The next day he asked someone in Personnel, a stout man by the name of Novak, to make a few calls about this girl, Ondine Choquette.

Imelda was besotted with the pretty ballerina right from the start. She let slide the rigorous process generally undertaken when awarding an artist the foundation’s patronage. Not that Drinkwater blamed Imelda, particularly. Ondine gave a convincing performance. Had she not been so blinded by lust, she might have discovered, as Mr Novak did after just one phone call, that the famous ballet mistress Madame Beaudoin never had any student by the name of Ondine.

Although Mr Novak was only assigned the task of checking Ondine’s references, he was a great fan of The Rockford Files and admired private eyes generally. In his spare time, the little man set about finding clues as to the true identity of one Ondine Choquette. He felt he’d watched enough detective programs over the years to put this case to rest and, against all odds, he turned out to be right. His work completed, the amateur sleuth even went so far as to create a case file for Drinkwater to peruse.

By this time, Gavin Junior’s winter break was fast approaching, and his parents eagerly awaited his return. Neither had anticipated the pangs of grief they would experience in walking past his empty bedroom or finding a die-cast car behind the stereo speaker. Over the boy’s three and a half month absence from home, they’d discovered how very dearly they loved their child. Absence made their hearts fondue. They missed their son to the point of cheesy sentimentality.

When Drinkwater suggested Ondine not visit while Gavin Junior was home for Christmas, Imelda agreed wholeheartedly. Sacrifice was the cornerstone of great love. They could spend the winter holiday apart, because Imelda knew she would remain in her pet’s affections.

In truth, as Novak discovered, Ondine had no intentions of returning to Imelda’s bed.

Armed with this knowledge, Drinkwater felt an uncontrollable urge to confront the woman who seemed to think she could break his wife’s heart willy-nilly and get away with it. The fact that she planned to make off with the Drinkwater Foundation’s cash was a secondary concern.

In the days prior to Gavin’s return, Imelda invited Ondine over every afternoon to get her fill. On the morning of the last of these halcyon days, Drinkwater lied to his wife: Ondine had called. She wouldn’t be able to make their rendezvous. Yes it was regrettable, but she wished Imelda a happy reunion with her son and a joyeux noël à toute la famille.

“That’s very odd. We had the whole afternoon planned out,” Imelda said, obviously quite dismayed. He wished she would look away, look at the floor, as she clutched the towel barely concealing her breasts. Why did she have to look him straight in the eye? He hated having to steel his gaze against his wife. “Are you sure she said she wasn’t coming? Maybe I ought to call her.”

“You know very well you can’t do that,” he intervened, stepping between his wife and the phone. “That girl has a husband at home. Do you mean for him to find out about his wife’s affair?”

“Yes!” Imelda blurted. Her voice cracked as she whipped her towel against the floor. “She doesn’t even love him, not the way she loves me! I ought to telephone that daft boy right now and tell him what’s what. She could come here and live with us. Our marriage is strong enough to add a third.”

Turning away from her husband, Imelda stood naked at the window. Drinkwater, not knowing how to console her, picked her towel up off the floor. “No sense ruining the hardwood.”

Imelda turned again to ask, “What shall I do now?”

He recognized she was asking a bigger question than he was prepared to answer, so he merely replied, “Might as well get some banking done, with a free afternoon, and then some Christmas shopping. I’ll bet you haven’t got my gift yet, have you? And you could pick up a little something for Ondine, to show you’re thinking of her.”

Touching the glass over their Dégas sketch, she chuckled, “Oh, her gift I’ve already wrapped.”

Drinkwater smiled to conceal his pity. He threw his arms around her and, squeezing her breasts, teased, “You’ve wrapped her gift and not given mine the slightest thought. Very nice wife I have!”

Imelda kissed him before dressing for the weather. When she was gone, Drinkwater instructed the maid to show Ondine into his bedroom as soon as she arrived. After everything she’d seen over the years, she didn’t even flinch at the request. He then prepared himself a martini, took a seat near the window, and read a James Bond novel until the wicked woman’s arrival.

 

* * * *

 

“Ah, monsieur Drinkwater! Is Imelda not home?” the little whore asked as she entered the bedroom.

Suave, even through gritted teeth forming a phoney smile, he said, “Imelda had a great deal of Christmas shopping to do. It must have taken longer than anticipated. Christmas does creep up one, don’t you find? But I’m sure my wife will be home in no time. Would you like a drink while you wait?”

With a salacious smirk, Ondine slipped inside the bedroom, closing the door behind her. “I have a better idea for how we can pass the time.”

She hopped into Drinkwater’s lap. When he turned away from her, she kissed his neck.

“You took more than a hundred dollars from my wallet.” Drinkwater steeled his body against the seduction. “Do you steal money from my wife as well?”

Ondine’s skin exuded the heady fragrance of French perfume. “Imelda is a kind woman. I would never steal from her.”

Oh, what he would give to suck those crimson lips, to nibble them until they bled!

“She gave me the money from your wallet because I had to take a taxi to my ballet lessons. I am sorry she did not tell you.”

Her green eyes burned with the most vicious of desires. Sitting squarely in his lap, she challenged him to move her, to push her away, tell her to get lost. He couldn’t, of course. Ondine would get her way. Whatever she wanted, she could have. And it was very apparent she wanted him.

She lunged at his lips so forcefully his cock surged to greet her. He detested her, but he wanted her. Her kisses were hot and quick. That viper’s tongue overwhelmed his circuitry as desire coursed through his shaft and out his cockhead in the form of warm pre-cum. God Almighty, he would give anything for a good shag just now.

Running his hands over her tight pants, he dug his fingers into the flesh of her luscious backside. Weak as water, his mother would say. His old mum! Now that image was a sure-fire turn-off if ever there was one.

Drinkwater pulled away from Ondine’s rampant tongue. “This is not what I intended,” he declared without removing his hands from her posterior. “And why exactly are you kissing me when you told my wife you have no desire for men?”

Ondine answered his question with one of her own. “Why exactly are you wearing only a robe if you had no intention of fucking me?”

Yes, it was true. He wore his favourite robe, silk with thick red and blue stripes separated by thin gold lines. Perhaps in the back of his mind, he considered it might be a lark to shag Ondine when Imelda wasn’t around. He knew what a terrible idea it was, but when the girl kissed him, he became a senseless fool. All the information Mr Novak had uncovered about her became lost in a haze of lust. What exactly had she done, and was it really as bad as all that?

“The body does not lie,” Ondine cooed. Slipping her hand between the folds of Drinkwater’s robe, she grabbed hold of his cock. “And your body is saying it wants me. It speaks very loudly, this body of yours.”

The delicate wafting of silk made the hairs on his thighs stand on end as she stroked his shaft. Who could resist such temptation?

He tore her ruffled blouse open. Fully exposed, her nubile breasts glowed with a tinge of blue as winter sunlight filtered in from outside. He licked their pale flesh. Leaning into those small tits, he rejoiced in their softness against his lips. Had he ever encountered such an irresistible woman? Never. In a matter of seconds, she’d succeeded in making him forget why he wanted to talk to her in the first place. He had no power to stop her.

Ondine produced little oh oh oh noises as Drinkwater ravaged her breasts. Her hard nipples were like licorice goodies against his tongue. Encircling her candy-sweet tits with his lips, he kept trying to remember what she’d done that was so bloody terrible.

Slipping out of his lap, she fell to her knees on the Persian carpet. “Let me show you my favourite thing to do to a man.”

Untying his robe, Ondine found his cock hard as steel underneath. She looked up at him with pure lust in her emerald eyes, and licked her lips. She was the picture of evil: dark brown—almost black—hair, pale skin, blood red lips.

With one slender hand grasping the base of his shaft, Ondine took her sweet time encircling his cockhead with her tongue. His cock jumped for joy, eagerly offering itself to her mouth. He had to grasp the seat of his chair to keep his hands from seizing her head and forcing it down the entire length of his shaft.

God, how he wanted to fuck that girl’s throat. But resistance was the gentlemanly thing.

She licked his cock slowly from the base of his balls, gazing up at him as her tongue reached his grateful tip. Her eyes glowed like a cat’s. When she closed her mouth around his cock, Drinkwater felt three times his size. He felt huge. He felt powerful.

He watched her mouth as her lips marked his shaft red. God, was she ever beautiful. The way her eyes gleamed brought him so close he could taste orgasm on the tip of his tongue. But, just as he arrived on the brink, he noticed an antique ruby ring on Ondine’s finger.

“That’s my wife’s ring!” he cried as Novak’s information came flooding back. “I gave it to her on our fifth anniversary. You stole my wife’s ring.”

Ondine looked up, stunned, as Drinkwater covered his erection with his silk robe.

Pleading, she cried, “Non, c’est pas vrai! Imelda gave it to me. She said it was beautiful like I am. She said she loved me and she wanted me to have it.”

“In exchange for what?” He bolted up from his seat and stepped over her, pacing the room.

Ondine’s expression hardened. She spoke with a less pointed accent as she took his abandoned chair, crossing her legs at the knee. “Of what are you accusing me?”

Flipping open the folder he’d left sitting on his dresser, he replied, “I’m accusing you of being exactly what you are, Ondine Leclerc. Yes, I did some checking up on you. You’ve been a very naughty girl indeed. Where to begin? You changed your name, for starters. You’ve been brought up on charges of solicitation…”

“That was not my fault. I worked in a club—you know what kind of club—and the owners refused to pay enough protection money to la police. Maudit chiens, the pigs, they invent these charges against us girls to spite the owners!”

“A likely story,” Drinkwater scoffed. It was a struggle not to believe her lies when she had such a talent for telling them.

Shrugging, she crossed her arms beneath her bare breasts. “Believe what you like. Ça m’en fait. In any case, I am married now. My husband Rejean saved me from all that nasty work. And I did not change my name, as you say. I took my husband’s name. There is nothing more natural.”

“You did more than change your name. Rejean Choquette only moved you from one gutter into the next. Fraud was more his style, it would seem, and now he’s got you participating in his little schemes. Everything you told my wife was a lie, wasn’t it? You are no ballerina and you certainly never studied under the great Madame Beaudoin. Ballet was a backstory your husband invented to get you an interview for the Drinkwater Foundation’s artistic grant. You’re not even from France. You were born in Trois-Rivières.”

Ondine offered a non-committal shrug, but said nothing.

“I knew there was something fishy about you from the moment we met, but I couldn’t quite place it until now. You see, when I was a small boy, my aunt Mavis worked for the ballet in London.”

“Ah, oui?” she said, dismissively.

“It was a great thrill, and a great shock, when auntie brought me backstage during a performance of The Nutcracker. The audience could never hear it over the orchestra, but those pretty little sylphs cursed like sailors on leave. And in the wings, they told the dirtiest jokes I’d ever heard. That’s where you went wrong. You thought, as so many do, that because ballerinas look prim and proper, they must behave that way too. Not so, from what I’ve experienced. Even when you’re shagging, you are far too polite to be a real ballet dancer.”

“Va te le foutre au cul!” Shove it up your ass, old man!

“Yes, your performance could have used a touch more of that,” he replied, stealing the smile she’d all but lost. “Still, I don’t believe your husband masterminded this plot. I suspect Rejean did the research and submitted your application, but when you arrived for that interview with Imelda, you had no idea which cards you’d need to play. Would you be performing the role of the distressed young waif in search of a mother? The seductive dancer in search of a sugar-daddy? The hard-nosed professional in search of a mentor? You had no idea who you’d have to be until you walked into that room and met your interviewer.”

Ondine arched one of her perfectly-pencilled eyebrows, but said nothing.

“I’ll give you this, my girl: you have an uncanny ability to take one look at a person and know exactly what he wants. You certainly knew what I wanted when you walked in this room. And you knew just by looking at Imelda that you could make her fall in love with you. You worked your magic, inventing a tall tale about some lesbian affair, and my wife fell for it. You played your role well. Imelda trusted you.”

He tried to gauge whether Ondine felt any remorse for her actions, but her face wore a blank expression. How could he not find her infuriating?

“My wife blindly awarded you our patronage because she was afraid of losing your love. That’s probably why she gave you her jewellery, too, if indeed you are telling the truth about that. How do you think my poor wife will feel when she finds out the object of her affection is nothing but a liar, a fraud and a cheap whore?”

The girl smirked, leaning back in the chair with one leg strewn carelessly over the armrest. “I am not so cheap. That grant your wife allocated to me is worth a lot of money, you know.”

“And how will my wife feel when she finds out you used her?” Drinkwater repeated, his blood beating against his temples. He clenched his fists, trying desperately to maintain control.

“I think Imelda would feel embarrassed and hurt and very depressed,” Ondine replied, “if you told her the truth. As you say, she is in love with a woman for the first time in her life. Nothing hurts more than losing your first love.” She paused to button her blouse before saying, “Except being lied to. Or discovering a person is using you for your money. There are so many reasons not to tell Imelda who I really am, don’t you agree?”

“Let me guess,” Drinkwater replied. “You and your husband flee the country with the Foundation’s money and we never hear from you again? I hardly think I’m going to allow that.”

Ondine chuckled, “Ah yes, the Foundation grant. How embarrassing for you when the newspapers discover your wife awarded its patronage to a strip club dancer. That is in your folder there, yes? Does it say I am a fraud? Because investors, they dislike that word, fraud. And I understand you have three new hotels in the planning phase right now.”

Drinkwater struggled to maintain his composure. “How could you know a thing like that?”

With a cruel grin, Ondine said, “You were right that my husband is very good at research. When financiers hear your wife gave your company’s money to her lesbian lover, I do not think they will be so happy to invest with the Drinkwater Company. You could end up with three new properties and no funds to build on them.”

How could he allow this young slip of a thing to dance circles around him? She had him at every turn, and her cleverness somehow enhanced her wicked beauty. Drinkwater snapped, “You and your husband defrauded a charitable organization. You’ll go to jail for what you’ve done.”

“That is true,” Ondine said, with calm assurance. “But if we do, this whole affair will come out in the open. Imelda will certainly learn the truth. Even your darling little son will find out. It is lucky for him that all his friends live in England. Although this would be a big news story, and since the Drinkwater Company is of British origin, word would likely travel across the ocean. Remember, it was not only Imelda who was seduced by a cheap whore, as you called me. You were as well. And, in return, you both awarded me funds from your company’s charitable foundation.”

Her self-satisfied grin made him burn, but what good would it do to scream and curse or hurl his empty martini glass to the floor? No pathetic attempt would shake the green-eyed demon. Imelda would die if she knew the truth about her little pet. What reasonable solution was there but Ondine’s? Let the wretched girl and her conniving husband go free. It was the only way to keep them from wounding his family and debilitating his company.

“Very well.” Drinkwater sank onto the bed. “The grant money, along with whatever trinkets my wife gifted to you, buys your silence, and your husband’s, in perpetuity. You will not contact the media or my investors—ever. You will nevermore speak to Imelda and you will not return to me in two years asking for more money. What you have is all you’re getting out of this debacle. Do we have an understanding?”

Ondine rose from her chair and strode to Drinkwater with the grace of a prima ballerina. She certainly looked the part. His wife’s mistake was an easy one. When she shook his hand, her grip was so forcefully he nearly fell into her chest. Their agreement thusly sealed, the little fraud wisped from the bedroom.

As he observed her departure from the top of the staircase, Imelda burst through the front door, glistening with fresh snow.

“Ondine! What a nice surprise. Gavin told me you couldn’t come today.” Imelda handed her parcels to the maid, and then took Ondine’s hands. “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...”

As per her their agreement, Ondine didn’t speak a word to his wife. Pulling her hands from Imelda’s, she kissed her on the cheek and cast a firm gaze in Drinkwater’s direction before fleeing the house. Imelda looked up to the top of the stairs. “Oh, Gavin,” she said in obvious confusion. “What was that all about?”

It occurred to Drinkwater that he should have asked Ondine, the master of deception, for a cover story. How would he explain her disappearance to Imelda? The last thing he wanted was for her to track the girl down, so he told his wife his jealousy had peaked. He could no longer bear her love for Ondine. Their relationship made him sick with woe, and he’d asked her to leave their house and never return.

“That’s preposterous.” Imelda didn’t budge from the bottom of the staircase. “Ondine loves me. She would never leave at your request. What did you do? Did you threaten the poor girl?”

“Yes, that’s precisely what I did. I threatened her.” Drinkwater offered his wife a resolute nod of the head.

In an excessively proper tone, Imelda declared, “I shall leave you. I shall leave and find Ondine. I would rather live my days in poverty with my darling than with a brutish tyrant such as yourself.”

He chuckled, acting the part of the villain in this pathetic melodrama. “Ondine has a husband, dear heart. You can’t live with her. Besides that, you’ll never find the girl. I sent her away to complete her studies.”

It broke his heart to lie to his wife, but he could only imagine her despair if she discovered the truth. They argued for hours. Drinkwater held his ground as Imelda spewed violent vexations at him. Knowing full well her heart was bleeding at Ondine’s departure, he had to keep reminding himself the girl planned to leave either way. None of this was his fault. All he did was confront her.

If only he could salve his wife’s broken heart, but was the lie not better than the harsh truth? Imelda would feel no better knowing she’d been duped. This way was preferable by far, allowing his wife to believe Ondine still loved her.

By midnight, they’d settled their argument by agreeing to a divorce. Love demanded sacrifice, and Drinkwater was willing to sacrifice even their relationship to save his wife from the damaging truth. When he crept to bed, Imelda went up to the attic to retrieve the oil paints that had gone untouched for so many years.

That night, with her soul shattered across the marble foyer, Imelda completed a full seven canvases. Great art poured from her wounds, abstract and heart-wrenchingly beautiful. The blood and tears of her weeping heart made them so.

Within a year, her upscale Imelda Gallery had become the hot spot for all manner of poignant works. Yes, the finest art gallery in the city was built on a foundation of deception and despair, all brought on by a girl called Ondine.