He laughs. "Sure. She's not hardcore enough. So you want fresh meat. I got it." He grabs some papers from his briefcase. "For your perusal, off the books. First choice."
"Like every single thing you do isn't off the books." I take them from him, sit myself on the bed to have a look.
Girls. Five of them. Early twenties, pretty, spread pussies, perfectly filthy smiles. Keen.
Perfect.
All of them perfect.
An array of checked boxes under their pictures. Limits, so many limits.
I drop the pile at my side. "None of them."
"That little Lulabelle is a real treat. She'll be right up your alley, I promise. I can do you a deal. I'll call her in this weekend, on the house, try before you buy."
But I don't want Lulabelle, with her pouty lips and her perfectly perky tits. She looks like she'd be a squealer. She'd probably break glass.
"What's wrong with Lulabelle?" Claude asks again. "She's perfect."
Exactly. I don't say that. I don't want to share any more of my kinks with Claude than absolutely necessary. The slimy cunt already knows enough to turn my stomach.
"I said none of them."
Claude looks nonplussed. "Sure, well, your father showed interest. I guess I'll pass her on to him."
My finger jabs through the air before I can stop it. "Don't mention my fucking father, Claude. You know the fucking rules."
He holds his hands up. "Just saying. I'll pass them on, if you're sure."
"And you also just said this selection was just for me, off the books."
He shrugs. "Me and your old man go back a long way, as you well know."
It makes me cringe, the whole fucking lot of it. Pandering to this seedy little back-alley business for safety, because my own tried and tested methods of scoring hook-ups landed me in the jaws of Ronald fucking Robertson and his fucking shit stain of a newspaper.
I grit my jaw. Breathe slowly. Calmly.
"Find me what I'm looking for, Claude. Send the others to whoever you want, I have no interest."
"You get first refusal, you know that … "
I laugh, because it's like a black comedy, this whole sordid affair. I'm watching my own train wreck unfold, tumbling down my own perverted rabbit hole. "First refusal in an open auction. Sure I do."
"You know what I mean, Henley. First refusal over some of my other clients … "
Clients.
He means my disgusting excuse of a father and his vile little network of associates. The man who bailed me out with company cash and insisted I use his more secure outlets for my needs.
The one condition: we never cross purchases.
Quite frankly I have no fucking interest in touching any woman my father has been within a five-mile radius of. I'd rather hack my dick off with a rusty knife.
I'd rather not be in a five-mile radius of him either for that matter, but I have no such joy keeping the old cunt out of my boardroom.
I wish I didn't know what the grim old bastard gets up to at all, but the memory is emblazoned in my psyche for all time. The wonders of teenage curiosity. I wish I could bleach the knowledge from my brain. Believe me, I've tried. My therapists made these pricey little sexcapades look like small change.
"Get me what I'm looking for, Claude. Something real. Someone with no ticks in the boxes. Someone who'll fucking fit."
He laughs. "Sounds to me like you want a girlfriend, Henley, not a hooker. That isn't my game."
The idea of a girlfriend is laughable. My heart shrivelled up and died a long time ago.
He stands and holds out his hand. "Leave it with me."
I shake it without smiling, then offer him back his paperwork. He doesn't take it.
"Think on them, I have other copies."
I'm sure he fucking does. "I don't need to think on them."
"Humour me, then." His grin is bright and professional, as though he's trying to sell me a fucking timeshare.
I fold the papers and slip them into my inside pocket, to humour the sonofabitch.
"I'll be in touch," he says.
I don't say goodbye on my way out.
Chapter Eight
Alexander
Life wasn't always like this for me.
A sugar-coated veneer of normality once held the power to keep my darker impulses at bay.
Once.
Getting married was easy, I just had to pretend to be everything I wasn't.
Getting divorced was easier, I just had to stop pretending.
I never wanted Claire. I wanted her sister.
We met at a fundraiser for the Para-Olympics. Claire's sister is a double-amputee swimmer, and one of the most vivacious people I've ever met.
She was in an accident. One of those wrong place at the wrong time affairs that dealt her a shitty hand.
She lost both her legs below the knee, chewed up under a Transit van travelling far too fast on a blind bend. People grimace when she tells the story. Give it all the oohs and aahs and you poor, poor soul. But she didn't want any of that. Didn't need their sympathy. Just as the pressure in the earth forms mere rock into the most glorious crystals, her accident transformed her into something incredible, someone who came back stronger and all the more beautiful for her adversity.
I love people like that. Unfortunately, I see very few of them.
Which is why I wanted to propose to Emily Caldwell on the spot. Just like that. In front of a crowd of people at some snooty fundraiser. In front of my grotesque father and my vile excuse for a mother.
Just as well I was introduced to Emily Caldwell's fiancé before I could do anything ridiculous.
I was introduced to Emily Caldwell's sister shortly afterwards.
I think it was the tux that first snared Claire. Then it was the cool million my company donated to some Sports Relief gig as the champagne flowed.
Charity.
I despise the way it brings out the self-righteous in people. Far more effective than the confession box at church, because it involves no self-searching, no confrontation of the terrible things people do to further themselves. Give a million to some poor unfortunates and let the world know about it. Go out and fuck over those same unfortunates for some cold hard profit on your next dividend statement and nobody bats an eyelid. Smile for the media as you hold the cheque and the world tells you how generous you are. How wonderful you are. What a great example you are.
When I give personally to charity – and believe me, I give a lot – I give anonymously. Totally anonymously.
I don't want credit. I don't want salvation. I don't want my pearly whites all over some fundraiser on prime time TV. I don't want to impress some smiling Miss Perfect like Claire on the back of my generosity.
I don't want to impress anyone. I rarely impress myself.
Brutus, at least, is pleased to see me when I get home this evening. He's not a particularly expressive beast, just a meeting of the eyes and a wag of the tail, and we both know he's glad I'm back.
That does me just fine.
I get him his dinner, then pull Claude's shitty offerings from my pocket and dump the paperwork on the side. I grab myself some sushi to get food out of the way, and hit the treadmill downstairs for thirty to raise my serotonin levels.
I take out my case notes, prepare for another crappy day in court, getting my clients a retrospective free pass to do whatever they feel like.
I'm doing just fine when my phone rings.
My other phone.
I don't answer, just stare numbly at the incoming call. It stops flashing, and the ping of a message comes through. I open it.
Lulabelle. I'm taking her.
I reply instantly. I don't fucking want her.
Another ping. Claude says you're turning your nose up at his merchandise. That's bad form, boy. Very bad form.
I don't reply to that one, and another comes through.
We use Claude. No alternatives acceptable.
As if I'm interested in another fucking supplier. I go back to my case notes.
The phone flashes.
He's starting up the auctions again, for brand new merchandise.
I reply. And?
No more first refusal. We bid fair and square. I want my old meat in some fresh young meat.
My reply is instant.
You disgust me.
His comes straight back.
You disgust yourself, boy. I'm just the scapegoat.
Boy. I turned forty-four last spring, and the old prick still insists on calling me boy.
I can hear his voice say it. A hiss and a jab of the finger.
You disgust yourself.
He's right about that.
Not for what I do with women. Not for buying sex as a service because I can't bear the thought of anyone coming close to me ever again. Not for liking to choke off some pretty girl's breath as she squirms around, spluttering as I drive my cock into her tight little asshole.
Not for treating them like I own them.
I do own them.
I've paid generously for the privilege and they know exactly that they're signing up for. Exactly.
I disgust myself because of the things I've done.
The people I've destroyed. The money I've taken. The cunts I've protected from justice.
The people I've destroyed. I've destroyed.
Not Henley Grosvenor in our ivory tower with our poncey graphite and mauve letterheads. Me. Face to face, eye to eye, destroying innocents in the courtroom. Taking away their justice behind the scenes. Taking away their rights, their validation, their fight.