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Nine

SLOWLY and with much care, Enrique opened his eyes.

He felt strange.

It felt like he was seeing the room for the first time.

It was his own room, in a house he owned. It shouldn’t feel this strange.

He stared at the slowly rotating ceiling fan above him, wondering what was different this morning.

Something happened last night. Something beautiful that he couldn't remember.

Was it a dream? Dreams always escaped him as soon as he woke up.

He was lying naked on his bed. But that wasn't new.

He turned and, without thinking, reached for something... someone—an involuntary action before his mind could catch up with him.

Then he frowned.

Well.

No one was there.

Of course, there wasn't anyone. His split with Helene was several weeks ago, and he might not have accepted it yet, but he had stopped doing that.

He'd stopped looking for the warmth of her soft body on his bed a long time ago..

In fact, he'd long ago felt revulsion at the memory of how he had pined for her, while she had been secretly sleeping with another man and planning her future with him, balancing which of them would provide her with more of what she had wanted.

His eyebrows met in a scowl.

His revulsion toward her felt like spoiled food now. He didn't feel as terrible. It was almost like... he didn't care.

Wait a minute, wasn't Helene the reason why he got drunk in the first place?

He remembered getting crushed by the terrible heaviness of her betrayal. He felt so mad. He loathed her like the plaque.

But... she wasn't the one he was trying to remember now.

His body was looking for another body. Of another woman.

Someone whose soft, thick hair smelled of citrus and whose body smelled of... baby powder... underneath whatever heavy perfume was sprayed on her that didn't seem to identify with the sweet response and the soft, sensual moans he'd heard from her.

Definitely a different woman, not just in identity but, he suspected, in everything else from Helene.

Who was she?

He shouldn't have fallen asleep. He still wanted her.

He wanted her again.

His body remembered what it was like to be between her thighs, driving himself into her womanhood that felt like the most exquisite heat he couldn't have imagined before last night... hard... losing himself in their moment.

To not be aware of anything else but her smell and her softness and her erotic sounds.

To only be aware of the sensuous movements of her hips against his thrusts, so in sync with his own body. Losing and forgetting all the poison inside his head.

The madness.

Even hate...

He went home to St. Archangel Gabriel a week ago because he had nowhere else to go.

There was no other place where he could think of escaping.

When he found out Helene was going to marry the man she had cheated him with, it all came crashing down on him.

He was in a rut for that whole week, drinking and wanting to drown himself in it.

But it didn't help any.

He would wake up at what goddamn hour of the night or day, and he would remember.

And he would feel the madness and misery again, playing with his sanity like a cruel doctor butchering his heart with his scalpel.

He called Brad yesterday.

He was his best friend.

He was also Helene's cousin, but they had been friends since childhood, and he had been the only one present in his bad days after the ugly split.

He was the only person who knew of his plans, of how he had fashioned his life into the belief that he would marry the woman he had planned to marry since the day he fell in love with her.

Brad was the only one who'd witnessed his grief upon losing a life he had wished for him and a woman he thought he knew inside and out.

They got drunk, right here in this house.

He was already on it when he arrived. He was dismayed to see his state.

He'd been here and never come out since he arrived. He doubted his father even knew he was on the property.

He knew about the split but he might have thought he'd spent his broken days somewhere else.

Where else? His favorite places to visit had memories of Helene.

She hadn't liked the farm, though. Too dusty, smelly, and remote for her.

She hadn't liked staying there that one visit she'd had with him.

She rather liked the bigger ancestral house where important people from the province visited, even though she acted like they were beneath her.

She had been petty, but he idolized her. He could give her anything.

Or thought he could.

He loved her so much that he accepted her at her worst.

That was why he felt so hurt.

How could she just easily throw that away? How could the woman he loved with all his being treat him like trash that she could just abandon for someone like that man... older and ugly...

But wealthier.

He didn't call his father. He didn't want him to see him like this.

So he and Brad got drunk and argued and planned and argued again.

He didn't remember much of the argument, only that he kept changing his mind. And then his friend lost patience with him.

*"You got to do something to get this off your head, Enrique. Get a woman. Play. Many women out there will agree to an affair without commitment. You can't be like this just because of my cousin. She didn't even care. It's not worth it, my friend."

Pain shot through him.

Worthless. He'd felt so worthless. Like trash to be thrown away, he’d said.

Replaced by an older and richer man.

It was the biggest insult and he just couldn't accept it.

But that didn't mean it wasn't real.

"Women. All of them, they are all worthless!"

"Not everyone. You know it. You just need to get her off your head and look around."

He looked at his friend with bloodshot eyes. "Your mother was a kind woman. She was the only one I know who was worthy of marrying," he'd half-said, half-moaned in slurs.

Brad heard enough words to know what he was talking about. "My mother will turn on her grave," he'd said, mocking shocked, because this wasn't the first time Enrique had said that.

"Yeah... I still cry sometimes thinking about her. My mother is a bitch."

"Sshhh. Hey!"

He laughed a hollow, rough-sounding laugh. "I'll never find a woman just like my beloved Tita Siony!"

"I didn't say that. I said... find a woman you can play with. There'll be plenty-"

"I don't want to play around. How many times do I have to tell you? I don't play games. You know I don't. I don't do that. I don't... cheat... the bastards..." he complained.

Brad sighed heavily. "So? I have a plan. Just agree for now. I will give you a woman as a present tonight – if I can find one tonight. I know of someone who can get me someone. Forget Helene for one night."

"Call girl?" he said with disgust. "Are you kidding me?" He didn't like the idea of touching a woman like that. How many times had he called Helene a whore? And would his friend gift him a professional whore?

"Not an ordinary call girl. I have tested this madam. She knows what I need." With the expression he gave him, Brad laughed out loud. "Not mine, this time. I'll ask her for a woman more up your alley. And I know you. I know what you need."

"It is crazy to agree," he said doubtfully. He even felt crazy thinking about it.

He looked back at him with sympathy. "Well, if you want to go crazy over Helene, it's going to be your choice. She's not worth it. Do this for me, because I'm the one going crazy over your madness. Look at this house. It's filthy. Look at you. Your hair... how long have you visited your barber? Has your father even seen you yet? He's been calling me, and I couldn't let him know you were here or he'd have looked for you. Man, you can't show yourself to him like this, you know that. Shame on you."*

He agreed. He didn't remember how he'd actually said it.

He might have grunted, and Brad took it as a 'yes.'

He wanted him to stop making him feel guilty. He didn't need to touch the woman.

Then, he thought about touching the woman. Using her good. Letting go of Helene through her.

That was when he realized how badly Helene had ruined him. How damaged his self-esteem had become that he would consider having sex with a whore to get back at the whore.

When Brad left, he took a shower.

But he was back to drinking away his resentment again as soon as he put on the robe.

He remembered thinking of driving away the woman as soon as she arrived.

He remembered standing by the window, thinking not to even answer when she arrived and called.

Someone did come.

And he wasn't able to drive her away.

No, no, no.

Instead, he drove himself into her velvety trap as soon as he could manage to get her naked.

He remembered a beautiful face, the kind of beauty he would never forget.

And he knew what was different this morning.

That woman's face had replaced Helene's beauty inside his head.

She'd gotten to him in a way no woman had ever done – not even his ex-fiancée.

That was what was different.

She had freed him from Helene.

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