The Seducer
Authors: Claudia Moscovici
HE
S
EDUCER
A Novel
Claudia Moscovici
Hamilton Books
A member of
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
Lanham · Boulder · New York · Toronto · Plymouth, UK
Copyright © 2012 by
Hamilton Books
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All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
British Library Cataloging in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011943256
ISBN: 978-0-7618-5807-2 (paperback : alk. paper)
eISBN: 978-0-7618-5808-9
Cover image:
Timeless
by Edson Campos.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesâPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992
Advance Praise for Claudia Moscovici's
The Seducer
Like the best, most delicious novels, Claudia Moscovici's psychological thriller,
The Seducer
, grips you in its opening pages and holds you in its addictive clutches straight through to its dramatic, remarkable conclusion. This is a fascinating novel, on every page of which Moscovici's intimate understanding of the psychology of psychopaths and their victims gleams with a laser's concentrated brilliance. The result is a narrative that builds with a patient, yet propulsive, force; a narrative whose intensity and suspense, in tandem, leave the reader eager to know, at every step of the way, what happens next? I encourage the reader to start this novel with a full set of nails, because it's a nail biter in the most literal sense.
Steve Becker, MSW, LCSW
LoveFraud.com
feature columnist, Expert/Consultant on Narcissism and Psychopathy
The Seducer
offers a thrilling look at the most dangerous men out there, that every woman is warned about and many encounter: the psychopathic predator. We've seen these men featured in the news for their gruesome crimes. But few would expect them to be the charming, debonair, romantic seducers that love stories are made of. When the heroine of the novel, Ana, met Michael, she was in for the roller-coaster ride of her life. In her exciting second novel,
The Seducer
, Claudia Moscovici depicts with talent and psychological accuracy the spellbinding power of these charming yet dangerous Don Juan's.
D. R. Popa, author of
Lady V and Other Stories
(Spuyten Duyvil, 2007)
What is love in this seductive new novel? Hypnotic attraction or deadly trap? A dream come true or a world filled with obsessions in the absence of genuine feelings?
The Seducer
probes the chilling depths of alienation and selfishness as the heroine, Ana, is caught in the spider's web of her narcissistic lover, Michael. No magic, just cruelty. Claudia Moscovici wrote a powerful novel about an unfortunate reality many women face: the unraveling of their romantic dreams as love turns into a cold and calculated game of chess.
Carmen Firan, author of
Words and Flesh
Claudia Moscovici's new psychological thriller,
The Seducer
, reminds us of classics like
Anna Karenina
and
Madame Bovary
, but with a contemporary twist. The new seducer is a psychopath, a dangerous predator without genuine emotion. And yet, we remain fascinated as he charms two women: one of them utterly dependent, the other seduced but autonomous. The reader's outrage toward the reprehensible Michael may feel neutralized by the author's meticulous studies of the psychopath in action and by what I call “ethical irony,” an often hidden moral perspective. Moscovici's epic of betrayal and self-deception draws the reader into the convoluted mind of sexual predators and their victims. The narrative is bold, vivid and lucid.
Edward K. Kaplan, Kaiserman Professor in the Humanities and Chair of the Program in Religious Studies, Brandeis University
to Jewel, my muse, and to “Dr. Emmert,” an inspiration
Part I
Chapter 1
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way â Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
What if Tolstoy was wrong when he said that all happy families are alike while each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way? Michael mused. Turn that statement on its head and it rings even more true. If there was any way he'd manage to screw up his marriage plans with Karen it would be, let's just say, in the usual manner, he speculated. Oh well,
c'est la vie
! he shrugged. After all, there were plenty of other fish in the sea. Better not focus on negative things on such an awesome, sunny day, he reminded himself. He noticed through the translucent curtains the conic outlines of the two majestic pine trees growing right outside his bedroom window. They shielded him from the prying eyes of neighbors, making him feel like the king of his castle. Michael stretched out his arms above his head and wiggled his body. He enjoyed the cool smoothness of the sheets against his warm back. Every morning he rose with a sense of wellbeing peppered by a restless excitement. He thought to himself, “Ladies, fasten your seatbelts because IT'S SHOW TIME!” in bold capital letters of a flashing neon sign, like at his favorite strip club,
Foxy Lady
. Beep, beep! A loud noise suddenly jolted him. He hit the alarm clock with the flat of his hand.
“Michael, you'll miss your class!” he heard Karen's singsong voice echoing from the bathroom, intermingled with the sound of running water.
“I'm already up,” he announced, but apparently not convincingly enough, since his fiancée emerged out of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand. She wanted to make sure that Michael was telling the truth. “Well it's your class, your job,” she mumbled. Her mouth was still partially filled with a pasty mix of water and toothpaste. Karen often assumed a maternal manner with him, projecting the attitude that she had enough common sense for the both of them. In her heart of hearts, she hoped that no matter what temptations Michael might face with other women, as far as the deeper matters of human existence were concerned, she was indispensable to him.
From time to time, Michael slipped away on vacation or to scholarly conferences without her. Before he left, Karen felt very apprehensive. She'd give him a fidelity lecture, to make him feel that the idea of hooking up with or, worse yet, falling in love with another woman would be sheer frivolity compared to the depth of commitment she had to offer. Sometimes Michael couldn't help but smile. Karen genuinely believed that there was an inverse proportion between libido and depth. Which is perhaps why, for her, daily communication over dinner and in the evenings was obligatory. In her estimation, good communication consisted, first and foremost, of a detailed account of their daily activities. For him, these entailed teaching, taking graduate seminars, eating, screwing around with other women (however, this particular detail he understandably omitted) and returning home. For her, it entailed going over the minutia of her job as administrative manager in a physician's office.
Moreover, about once a month, Karen initiated “us conversations,” or thorough debriefings about the state of their relationship. These conversations usually culminated in Karen melting into a heap of self-doubt that took Michael hours of effort to comfort. He recalled how often he'd seen his fiancée's scrunched up face, the sides of her nose rosy from crying. Karen would wipe her tears away with two quick butterfly wing movements. They started from the inner eye, along the curve of her nose, then brushed her cheeks and vanished into the air, she hoped, unnoticed. But Michael did notice, of course. Most of the time, however, he pretended not to and craftily changed the subject to something more pleasant. His evasive behavior led his fiancée to suspect that something was lacking in their relationship. That something, she hoped, could be compensated by his constant verbal reassurances.
“You don't talk enough about your feelings,” Karen would periodically complain to him. Granted, Michael manifested all the outward signs of romantic sensibility. He bought her flowers on special occasions. He took her to fancy restaurants. He said “I love you” with commendable frequency. He patiently listened to her concerns. Yet there was something flat and mechanical about his emotional reactions. It's as if Michael were rehearsing a role or just going through the motions. Sometimes he'd greet her anxiety with a plastic smile. At others, he'd brush it aside with an inappropriate joke. One minute he'd be gazing lovingly into her eyes, his attention fully absorbed by her. The next minute he'd be whistling, completely distracted, ending their conversation abruptly with a non sequitur.
He's so immature, Karen would tell herself. Although he was twenty-seven, Michael looked and acted younger than his age. His abrupt movements and brief attention span reminded Karen of the children who came in with their parents to the doctor's office: particularly those diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. They wouldn't sit still in their chairs for more than a few seconds. They quickly flipped through the books and magazines on the table, moved around, sat back down, doing everything they could to relieve a perpetual state of restlessness.
Was that what led Michael to moon his parents at the end of their visit last Thanksgiving? Karen wondered. After saying their goodbyes in a more or less civil manner, Michael had suddenly turned around, pulled off his pants and bent over like a drunken frat boy. He peered over his shoulder and burst into laughter at his parents' and fiancée's visibly perplexed reactions. Karen couldn't comprehend such outbursts of puerile behavior coming from a grown man. Yet, at other times, this very same Michael would appear wise beyond his years. He'd listen to her attentively, gazing at her with a reptilian tranquility that she had never encountered in anyone else. He'd tell her calmly his reasoned opinion, in a voice as smooth and soothing as silk. Her insecurities would temporarily melt away in the fusion of her gratitude and his affection, only to resurface later, when the insensitive boyfriend suddenly returned. Through the perplexing oscillations of his mercurial temperament, Michael held his fiancée fascinated and captive, under his spell.