TWENTY-ONE

“Oh, baby. That’s sooooo goooood,” Paulette panted and hissed. Forget Halle; Paulette’s performances were truly Oscar-worthy. “Omigod, omigoooood. That hurts soooooo good. You’ve got the best dick eveeeer,” she lied.

Max had no sexual technique whatsoever, and couldn’t find a clitoris with the help of a global positioning satellite system. The saving grace was that usually the whole bumbling act was over within a few minutes, at which time he’d roll over heavily, as if he’d slain a fire-breathing dragon. But Paulette was so in love that he could have come at her waving a limp noodle, and she’d have happily spread her legs and faked a climax. To Paulette, Max represented social redemption for her and her mother. He was the one who got away—from June, and from Paulette.

He pushed and poked around on top of her, with his head buried deeply in her cavernous cleavage, emitting grunts of effort here and there. For all of the intimacy on his part, Paulette could have been a mail-order blowup doll. After another few minutes of thrashing about, he stiffened like a seizure victim, cocked his head way back, and came. Paulette didn’t remember the last time she’d had an orgasm, and Max never bothered to inquire whether she did or not.

He rolled off her onto his back, his arms splayed at his sides.

“That was wonderful, baby.” Paulette continued lying like a Persian rug.

He patted her thigh in response, the way one might an eager and obedient puppy. The thing he liked best about Paulette was how little effort it took to make her purr like a kitten.

With Lauren he never felt as if she were ever satisfied, in or out of bed. Aside from her looks, his wife’s money and social position were what attracted him to her to begin with, yet they were also the things he resented day to day. Though he and Paulette managed to heist a good deal of the Baines fortune by forging the will, that je ne sais quoi that rich people wore like a cloak couldn’t be confiscated; borrowed, or imitated.

“What are you thinking about?” Paulette asked, snuggling closer to him, clearly craving postcoital intimacy.

He hated when women asked that question of him, especially after sex. It was obvious that they wanted to hear that he was thinking about them, which was rarely the case. In fact, with Paulette, it was never the case.

He sometimes wondered why he had ever even started the affair with her to begin with, though he knew the answer. The psychological explanation involved typical passive-aggressive behavior. By fucking Lauren’s cousin, he could get back at his wife without having to confront her or his own deeply rooted issues with her. He could bring her down a peg or two and make himself feel better—mentally and physically—in the process. So, as much as Paulette despised being Lauren’s cousin, it was really the only thing that she had going for her, as far as he was concerned. And of course, the purely physical reason was that magical thing that she did with her vagina.

She nudged him to get his attention. He was daydreaming, about her, she hoped. “A penny for your thoughts.” She snuggled even closer.

She was so needy, he thought. Max had a barely contained urge to push her away from him, dress in a hurry, and bolt out the door. And it was probably time that he did just that. They’d gotten the money, had a little fun, and now it was time to call it a day. “You wanna know what I’m really thinking?” he asked, summoning up his courage. Enough was enough. It was time to end this before someone got hurt.

She smiled, but it looked more like a pained grimace. “Of course I do.”

He rolled onto his side to face her. “I was thinking about the future.” He was running his it’s-not-you-it’s-me speech through his head.

The prospect that he was thinking about their future increased the show of Paulette’s teeth as her lips spread across her mouth; then she turned to face him, too. “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about,” she interrupted. “We’ve been seeing each other for a while now, and we’re great together.” She rolled over onto her back and gazed toward the ceiling. “And I’ve been thinking: What could possibly make our relationship even better?”

“That’s what I want to talk about, our relationship.” There was no easy way to do this; he just had to say it. “It’s not going anywhere.”

“You’re right, and I want to change that. In fact, I have something to tell you that will.” She sat up in bed, excitement hanging over her like a halo.

The conversation wasn’t going exactly the way Max had hoped. She seemed to cling to some far-fetched fantasy that they’d live happily ever after. It was definitely time to bail out. “Listen, Paulette—”

She couldn’t hold it anymore. “Max, I’m pregnant!”

The muscles in his face went slack, and his mouth hung open like a Venus flytrap.

She badly misread his shocked expression. “I know; I was surprised, too! But isn’t this great?” she shrieked.

Max felt trapped in an underwater bubble. He could see Paulette’s mouth moving, but couldn’t hear the words that were coming out of it. A stream of drool reminded him to close his own mouth. “This can’t be,” he finally managed to say. He wore a rubber religiously; in fact, he kept a stash in her nightstand.

Paulette must have been locked her own bubble, because she seemed to hear nothing he was really saying, only what her fantasy required of him. “I don’t know how it happened,” she lied. “You know we always use protection.” She gestured over to the nightstand, which contained the box of condoms. The problem wasn’t a lack of condoms, but the little pinprick she’d used to “prep” them before he even arrived. Since Paulette always slid the contraceptive on for him after reaching into the nightstand and pretending to tear open a new package, he was never the wiser. After sex she’d gently remove the condom and head into the bathroom to clean up, but not until she locked the door and lay in the tub on her back with her legs up against the wall, where she’d then squeeze the remaining contents into her sex.

The bubble finally burst, propelling Max up. “Paulette, you don’t understand. This can’t happen.”

Paulette shook her head, still ignoring the words that came from his mouth. “Oh, yes, it can. I’m three months pregnant.”

He grabbed her shoulders. “There can be no baby.”

Paulette looked at him as though she’d been physically slapped. “What do you mean, there can be no baby? We are having a baby.”

“First of all, there is no ‘we,’” he said sternly. He could see that kid gloves weren’t going to work here.

Now her face really cracked. Her daydream was shattering into pieces right before her eyes. “What are you talking about? We’re getting married.”

He’d heard enough. Max got up and pulled on his underwear, pants, shirt, and shoes as rapidly as possible. “You’re crazy! I never said that we were getting married, and I certainly never wanted to have a baby.”

“But you did.” Having a baby was all he ever talked about.

“Yeah, but with Lauren!”

“That selfish bitch! Why her? Why does everyone love her?” Paulette sobbed.

She was up, chasing him across the room, clutching at his shirt. He pushed her aside, rushing out of the bedroom. Paulette ran after him. Before he reached the door she slipped to the ground, but continued grabbing at the hem of his pants. On her knees, she begged. “Why Lauren? Why not me?” Tears ran down her face, chin, and neck, and streamed into the crevice between her huge breasts.

When the door slammed shut, Paulette remained crumpled in a sobbing heap on the floor. This was not how she had envisioned the happy scene that would play out when she told Max the blessed news. In her version he held her and praised her for giving him what he wanted most—a child. They were supposed to grow closer, more and more in love every day, but something had gone horribly wrong; he obviously hadn’t read the same script.

Time passed, and she had no idea how long she lay there, wallowing in her sorrow, but sometime later the door opened and she rose to her knees, her arms outstretched. “Max, you’re back. I knew you’d come back.”

But it was Reese, who was supposed to be with Rowe all day, who walked through the door. “What happened to you?” She stared at Paulette as though she’d grown two heads since that morning. “You look like shit!”

Paulette crumbled back to the floor, deflated and emotionally wasted. “He’s gone,” she cried.

Reese knelt beside her. “It’s okay; he’s just a man.” Hell, she had problems too, but you wouldn’t see her bawling just because a man left her—only when he took his money with him.

“It’s easy for you to say. Look at you. You can always get another man. It’s not so easy for someone like me.” She began sobbing uncontrollably. Paulette had never articulated those feelings out loud, so it was devastating to confront the demons that normally lurked quietly within her subconscious. Though Paulette had assumed that money and the power that usually came with it would make her happy, she was beginning to realize that her issues ran much deeper.

That was the saddest thing Reese had ever heard. How must it feel not to be beautiful? she wondered. “Paulette, we’ll get you all fixed up, and you’ll have men lined up at your door,” she lied.

“That’s not all.” Paulette took a deep breath. “I’m pregnant. I’m having Max’s baby.”

Reese raised her brows and stood up. “Now, that’s just plain stupid.” She walked out of the room, leaving Paulette alone.