The Seducer (32 page)

For Ana, his answer felt like a slap in the face. And a brazen lie at that, since she recalled that Michael had certainly discussed the practical details of their marriage, even telling her how they'd buy a house in the same neighborhood, what a loving husband and stepfather he'd be and what activities they'd do together as a family. She scrutinized his face, attempting to pierce through to the core of his innermost thoughts and feelings. But Michael's expression remained perfectly serene, except for a glimmer in his eyes that struck Ana as more malicious than mischievous. He's enjoying toying with my feelings, she observed. “Not for me. For me, the best relationships are based on mutual trust and commitment. I trusted your offer to marry me and I can't accept having a relationship with you under these changed conditions.”

Michael appeared suspended, like someone in a video right after you press “pause.” Given that, so far, Ana had always given in to his wishes, he hadn't expected such a vehement negative reaction from her. “I guess then I'll just have to go through with my original plan and move to Phoenix. Or maybe even try out California,” he mumbled. During one of Ana's spells of ambivalence about divorce, he had looked up Amy, his first girlfriend, on the internet. He found out that she lived in a small town in California and still looked pretty hot. If things didn't work out with Ana, he had made a quick mental note, he might be tempted to give Amy a second try. And if that wasn't an option anymore, he calculated two moves ahead, then perhaps the combination of Karen and Phoenix might not be so bad after all. Michael mentally congratulated himself for not having burned that bridge just yet.

“What are you talking about?” Ana asked, in a daze.

“I was just thinking out loud about what I'd do if we broke up.”

“At this point, shouldn't you be thinking about how to make our relationship work?”

“Hey, don't try to pin this one on me! I'm not the one backing out on us. You are.”

“That's only because you're backing out of our commitment!” Ana protested. Michael looked away to hide a sardonic smile. “Look at me!” she commanded. “From the very beginning, you pressured me to marry you. You always said
marriage
. You never said anything to me about living together. I'd have never agreed to it,” she tapped the floor with her foot.

She's having a freaking meltdown, Michael noted with irritation. Not willing to give up on Ana right at the moment when he had finally seized her from her husband, however, he felt obliged to back down momentarily. “Baby, chill out, okay? I still want to marry you,” he reassured her. “But I refuse to get myself in the situation Rob's in right now, not sure as to how to divide our property. This house is mine and it will stay mine,” Michael defended his main point, his eyes shining with the possessiveness dogs have towards their food dish when they perceive another dog approaching it.

Ana looked at him with dismay. It's as if she couldn't recognize her lover anymore. She had definitely expected that telling Rob and the kids would be a challenge. But she didn't imagine that Michael himself would suddenly back down from his seemingly rock-solid commitment the very instant when the reality of marriage displaced the fantasy of their affair. He had always told her that he lived in expectation of that reality. But now that they were about to live together, Michael was hedging, protecting himself from her. Erecting a barrier between them. A wall made of qualifications, divided assets and, worst of all, divided interests. Ana couldn't help but smile at one of the sad, self-defeating ironies of human nature. As soon as you finally get what you want in life, you no longer want it.

“What are you smirking about?” Michael asked her.

“It just seems a little strange that you already had a backup plan all lined up in case our plans fell through.”

“Hey, you know me! I always come prepared,” he replied, it occurred to him, in the same way he had to Karen when she made the same charge.

“Would you forget me that easily?” Ana struggled to contain her emotions.

“Of course not,” Michael replied more tenderly. “I was only talking like that in self-defense, because you're pushing me away. But, quite frankly, I feel like if you ever decide to leave me, I'll be spending the rest of my life searching for another you. Let's face it. If we ever make the colossal mistake of breaking up, neither of us will find this kind of passion again. As they say, lightning doesn't strike twice.”

Michael's tone was so warm and his demeanor so gentle that Ana really wanted to believe what he was saying. Even a day earlier she'd have believed him. But on that afternoon, the mood had changed. She couldn't dispel a sense of unease. “I don't know,” she replied, still shaken by the perfunctory manner in which Michael had withdrawn his earlier promises. “It seems to me like you loved me so much more when you didn't have me,” she said with a note of regret. Ana thought about what Michael had told her months earlier; about the protective bubble that surrounded him ever since he was a child. “All of a sudden, I feel like I'm not in your bubble anymore.”

“That's a low blow and you know it!” Michael protested. “I had always envisioned drafting a prenup to protect my assets. I just never mentioned it to you before because I saw no point in it. Our marriage was just an abstraction then. Now it's becoming real. Hey, speaking of reality, do you want to get a new living room set? That nice, bordello red micro fiber sofa and love chair we looked at a few months ago? I wouldn't mind making love on it right there at the store, when nobody's looking, to test it. What do you say?” he added playfully, hoping to lighten her mood.

Ana had a flashback to the early days of their affair, to her own fantasy at the furniture store, of sitting in Michael's lap in the love chair in the same position she occupied a few moments ago on the kitchen chair. Only in her mind they weren't arguing about cohabitation, prenups or money. They were watching movies together and planning fun activities with the kids.

“Is Rob giving you money for your half of the furniture?” Michael interrupted her pleasant reminiscence.

“I don't know. Why?”

“Because we could use it to buy new furniture.”

“I'm glad to see you have your priorities straight,” Ana remarked coldly. It occurred to her that her generous lover was rapidly morphing into Karen's stingy fiancé.

Noticing her defensive attitude, Michael decided it was time to switch gears, back to romantic mode. “I can't wait for us to move in together!” he declared excitedly.

His statement struck Ana as incongruous with their earlier exchange. “Are you sure about that?”

“Of course, Baby. I've been trying to get my paws on you for almost a year now,” Michael said, his hand slipping surreptitiously underneath Ana's shirt and gently fingering her nipple. Inspired by the giving softness of her skin hardening under his touch, he recalled his own vision of their future, which he had turned over and over in his head during the long, frustrating months when they were obliged to live apart. “I'll call you from school at lunch, to let you know ahead of time what I want you to wear when I come home and in what position you should wait for me,” he whispered breathlessly, barely containing his arousal. “On some days, I'll ask you to wear the thigh highs and corset I bought you and wait for me by the door, with your legs open,” he motioned apart her thighs with the tips of his fingers, “while on others, I may want you to wait for me wearing nothing but a pair of black lace gloves, bent over our new red micro fiber sofa,” he added, attempting to remove her shirt.

But Ana resisted, keeping it firmly in place with both hands. “Hold on a sec. You expect me to wait home for you wearing certain clothes and in certain positions?” she repeated with an air of incredulity.

“Hey, it will be my little treat for bringing in the dough for our family,” he crudely articulated what so far had been only an implicit assumption.

Ana was troubled not so much by what her lover was asking her to do as by his peremptory manner. Michael had never behaved this way with her before. It's true that sometimes he bought her lingerie or sexy outfits that he wanted her to wear when they were together. But they were always offered as a gift and accompanied by kisses, caresses and sweet nothings whispered in her ear, which made her happy to wear them, just to please him. “Michael, what did you think I'd become once we lived together? Your kept woman? I'll be your partner, your wife. I hope that you'll continue to treat me with respect.”

At that moment, she realized that, up to now, she'd have done almost anything for this man. Just because of the manner in which he asked her, so cajoling, tender and seductive. Just because of the manner in which she loved him, so completely, with such ardor. She'd have sold her soul to please Michael, since he seemed to love her like she had never been loved before. But now that he was practically giving her orders, treating her as if she had no mind of her own, for the first time in their relationship, Ana felt her will tighten inside of her like a muscle being flexed, resisting overt domination.

“Of course I'll respect you,” Michael moved her chin up with his hand, to look into her eyes again. “Haven't I treated you well?”

“So far you have,” she cautiously admitted. “Let's keep it that way.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked, not pleased with her qualified response.

“You've spoiled me as a girlfriend, that much is true,” she acknowledged. “But it's a whole different story to treat me well as your life partner, once we actually move in together.”

“Just tell me what you want and I'll grant your wishes in an instant,” Michael responded with an air of indulgence, like Santa Claus asking a little girl what she wanted for Christmas.

Ana was encouraged by his receptiveness. “I was thinking that during the weekends when we'll have the kids over at our house, we could have one day in which we cart them around to their lessons. Allen has guitar and Michelle has horseback riding on Saturday mornings. Then we'll drive them to their various play dates with their friends, which are really important to them. We could make Sunday our special family day, you know, go to the zoo or the movies and have fun together. That way the kids can grow to like you and adjust to our situation.”

“Like that will ever happen!” Michael snapped back. He had expected that Ana would share with him her sexual fantasies, not all the freaking errands he was supposed to run for her brats.

“What do you mean? You always told me that you'd do your best be a good stepfather to Michelle and Allen.”

“Sure, I'll try,” Michael said unconvincingly, with a shrug. “But no matter what I do, they'll still hate my guts. Especially Michelle, since she's older and a girl. Girls are more precocious and sensitive than boys. Plus they tend to worship their real dads. So I guess, I'll be shit out of luck with her.”

“Michael, don't be so negative!” Ana protested. “You never used to talk like this before.”

“Yeah, well, before none of this crap was real.”

“But you wanted it to be real. You insisted on making it real,” she reminded him. For her, Michael's attitude towards her children functioned as a litmus test. “If you love me, you'll be good to my kids.”

“Of course, Baby, I'll do my best. It's just that my best may not be good enough. I'm more realistic than you are,” Michael smiled gently and stroked Ana's hip with a circular motion. “I was thinking that the nights we don't have the kids over at our house, we could go out to clubs.”

“To clubs?” she repeated, with obvious disappointment. “I don't get into that modem stuff, rap, hip-hop or whatever they call it. I'm too old for it and even when I wasn't, back in college, I still didn't like it. Earlier, we were talking about taking salsa lessons together, remember? What happened to that idea?”

“Hey, why waste the money on lessons when we can go dancing for free, right?” Michael countered cheerfully.

“That's one way of looking at it.”

Michael realized he had to say something to preempt her withdrawal before they reached the finish line. Her took Ana by the hand and gazed steadily into her eyes. “Listen to me, Baby. After everything we've sacrificed to be together, let's make sure that we're still on the same page. If you agreed to divorce Rob, given your misgivings, it's obviously because you love me more. You told me you want to spend the rest of your life with me. I feel the same way about you. Nobody's more important to me than you are. We may face some difficulties at first in adjusting to our new circumstances. That's only to be expected. Nobody said divorce was going to be easy. But if we stay united, we'll make it. This is our one chance in life to really live out passion in marriage. Let's not blow it, alright?”

“I don't intend to,” she assured him.

Yet as she drove back home, Ana couldn't help but dwell upon Michael's earlier comment, about dancing for free. It sounded analogous to the popular saying, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, which seemed to sum up her lover's reaction to her news. It also reminded her of a scene she witnessed quite often at the beach, where a man sucks in his stomach when a pretty young woman walks by, only to let it go back to its natural beer gut in front of his own good old wife. Before Ana had been the girlfriend to impress. But now she had become the future wife in front of whom Michael could let all his flaws hang out, his flabby selfishness and unbecoming stinginess. Above all, it was the suddenness of his transformation that made her feel uneasy.

Ana recalled how one day, early into their relationship, Michael had described to her his game-like attitude towards one-night stands. Before he scored, he explained, all of his energy was focused on seducing a given woman. But after he had sex with her, he lost all interest and didn't “waste” an ounce of energy on pleasing her anymore. One anecdote stuck out in Ana's mind. Michael had told her about his date with a girl with wavy, auburn hair whom he had picked up at a bar and invited to a movie. It took him more than half the movie to coax her gradually, kiss by kiss and caress by caress, into eliminating the divide between them, crouch unto his lap in the back row of the movie theater and make love, in the blend of semi-obscurity and public display that never failed to arouse him. But as soon as they consummated the act, Michael disconnected. When the girl tried to caress him again, he moved her hand away with the impatience with which one swats off an annoying fly. Once his sexual desire was satisfied, he wanted to watch in peace the rest of the movie. “But how can you switch just like that, from charming and seductive to cold and disinterested, in a matter of seconds?” Ana had asked him. “Because I was done with her,” he replied with a shrug. “And didn't you ever become attached, you know, because of the sexual intimacy, to any of the women you dated?” she pursued. “To those sluts? No freaking way! I just used them and tossed them away like a bunch of dirty condoms. Back then, before we met, it was all about the scoring, Baby!” he boasted with an air of smugness that bordered on cruelty.