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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.
Their soul.
Claire once asked me, a long time ago, why I don’t just quit.
Claire’s a fucking imbecile.
You don’t just quit when you’re in as deep as I’m in. When you know the things that I know. When you’re in tight with the people I associate with, that my father associated with before me.
My father’s client list makes mine look like a fucking children’s party.
That’s the closest I’ve come to getting out.
I’m a long fucking way from getting out.
There is only this.
This.
More. Of. This.
My case notes blur into nothing. The curtains parting and showing me the bleakness beyond. The pointlessness. The complete and utter pointlessness of my existence.
My heart stutters, my gut twisting as my mind closes down.
Pointlessness.
Everything is meaningless.
Empty.
My life is empty.
Brutus stares at me as I get to my feet.
My steps are light on the stairs, my tie still perfectly knotted as I stare at my haunted face in the bathroom mirror.
I clear my throat as I ease open the cabinet door. A row of bottles, perfectly lined up. Prescription painkillers, easily enough to end it all, all lined up, just waiting for me.
My heart beats quickly. My mouth is dry as a bone.
I draw myself a tumbler of water. Pick up one of those pill bottles and shake its contents.
Empty.
My life is empty.
I picture my boys’ faces as they told me they were going to the game with Terry. Claire’s twisted expression as she screamed You’re just like your filthy fucking father.
I picture my filthy fucking father.
I can feel Bill Catterson’s clammy handshake.
Ronald Robertson’s tabloid sleazy grin as he stares at me.
I picture Vivian Rachel Farr. The hate in her parents’ eyes as they screamed at me outside the courtroom on Lionshall Lane over a decade ago.
I shake that pill bottle.
It’s not that I want to commit suicide. It’s really not that dramatic. There isn’t any wailing, or panic, or crushing sense of misery.
It’s not any of those things that ensure I have a stock of medication on hand to end it all at any time of my choosing.
It’s the nothingness. The pointlessness. The exertion it requires to get through day after pointless day, knowing tomorrow is going to be more of today, and the next day is going to be more of that. On and on and fucking on.
For nothing.
For no one.
Although that’s not strictly true.
I hear Brutus on the tiles. His panting breath. He has such rancid breath.
The thought makes me smile.
I take a breath of my own.
Brutus was the most hopeless, desperate animal they had at the shelter. That’s what I wanted, and that’s why I took him.
Vicious. Untrainable. Unlovable. Haunted. Scarred. Ugly. Miserable.
Hopeless.
And less than twenty-four hours from euthanasia when I loaded him into the Merc and brought him home with me.
We’re a good pair.
Vicious. Haunted. Hopeless.
He grunts at me as if he knows it.
I put those pills back in the cabinet and take a shower.
