Lucien
He sat at his desk, nursing a drink brooding. It was late evening now but he had begun to drink almost immediately after breakfast to deaden the unfamiliar feeling of guilt that seemed to be raising its head within him.
Breakfast had been unusual but Lucien admitted, delicious. The warm Indian pancakes were something that he had been eating for the first time. Ria, who sat at his elbow, kept instructing him on how to eat them, much to his amusement. Soft and fluffy, they seemed to practically melt in his mouth and he relished the taste of the light, exotic curry that accompanied it. He also noticed that his wife seemed to be eating more than she had been doing until then.
He had also given up his habit of having a drink along with his food. His little daughter had put her foot down firmly when he had tried to have a tipple one afternoon at lunch. With a straight face, she had turned importantly to the man who had brought it in.
"Take away,plee.' she commanded, lisping imperiously,' My Pappa don't wan it now."
He had looked up in time to see the mischievous smile on Proserpina's face, but she lowered her head when she caught his look on her. Or his part, he had found himself smiling down fondly at the little Empress who had turned to him with a beguiling smile.
***
He found that he wanted to stay in the large palatial mansion most of the time. The children, particularly Ria, had made it a point to seek him out and give him a wet kiss every morning after she had had her breakfast. The same ritual was repeated at night. His son kept his distance, but he had seen a softening in the way the boy behaved towards him. It tugged at something in him to be loved by a small child, his child. Her affection, her proprietary nature when it came to him made him feel wanted.
***
His wife had given him an arch look when she saw him eating well and had ducked her head and waddled back into the kitchen when he raised his head to look at her quizzically.
The more he spent time with his family, the more he wanted to undo those months that he had spent staying away from them.
What a damn fool he had been, he thought, angry with himself. A blo*dy fool for imagining that he could actually survive like a stranger in the midst of such an affectionate environment.
***
His mother had been a whore on the streets of Hallowford with a huge drug habit. She had never cared for him. He had been an accident she told him once, staring at him with deep dislike through a drug-induced haze. Her utter disregard towards the little girl who had also been born an accident as she had lamented when Lucien was twelve years old, had made him cynical and bitter. Preferring to spend his time on the streets rather than watch his mother service, various seedy-looking men for her fix, he had not been aware of the disgusting treatment being meted out to his little half-sister. When he had surprised his mother's pimp raping the terrified three-year-old child, he had killed the older man, unhesitatingly. After he finally managed to get free of the foster homes he had been sent to by the juvenile court, he found that the little girl, his half-sister, had disappeared. Later he discovered she had been sold. He never saw her again.
Something in him died when he was young.
***
His hatred for his mother had made him a misogynist, he thought, drily.
He had never seen a mother love her children in the way Proserpina cared for the twins. Schwartz had once told him about his own mother, a Scotswoman who had singlehandedly brought up her son, a good woman, he had said with deep affection in his voice. Lucien had not believed him. Good women simply did not exist in his world. But now he thought differently when he watched Proserpina, her protectiveness towards her children, her love and firmness, all rolled in one.
***
Staring into the distance, aware that his family would wait for him for dinner, he mused. The young woman he had picked up that night in front of his club, the one he had shared that amazing night of passion with, had made her way into his heart. At first, he had been intrigued by her innocence. Even amused by her freshness which had been like a gust of rejuvenating air in his dark life. Then he found he desired her, lusted after her, although she was so much younger, a child as compared to him. Somewhere along the way, the desire had become a need, a want. To see her smile, hear her voice. To protect her. Keep her for his very own.
Yes, he accepted dully, she had come to mean a lot more than he would ever admit to himself...
***
But he had turned and tried to put a barrier between them because he was unused to having any weakness for a woman. They were meant to be used, to pleasure him, and then disappear after being paid off. Not Proserpina, he realized with a sickening lurch. She was like a craving, a hunger in his blood. He wanted her, needed her.
Not just as a body to pleasure him; yes, he craved to see the hopeless, abandoned woman who lay beneath him as he pounded her body with his thick manhood. He wanted to hear her pleading for him to bring her to that moment of ecstasy when she would throw her head back, her hips undulating rhythmically under him as she moaned his name, having no control over herself, totally at his mercy...
It was not just the sex that he wanted now. He wanted the entire setup; the family unit, his wife, his children...
He could not imagine life without her now, he thought dully.
***
Proserpina's condition, her broken-hearted words of the night before had touched him on a raw nerve.
The unexpected revelation that she was carrying his child and the knowledge that the child might have been conceived in a moment, no, a long-drawn-out night of anger, bothered him. Her words kept echoing in his head her look of deep sorrow as her beautiful brown eyes swam with tears when she had cried as though her heart was breaking and said:
'...but all I heard was tales of you spending your nights with other women, making love to them while I waited, I longed so much for you to be with me, to hold me. But you never came, you never, ever came, Lucien. Not once."
He knew he had hurt her; that she had adored him was something he was aware of.
But the feeling of having betrayed her that was what was bothering him.
How could he tell her that he, the Boss who was feared by most men, the man who had killed ruthlessly, once with his bare hands too, who had never once looked back with regret, how could he tell her that she was like a drug he craved?
That his attempt to get her out of his system had been the reason for getting women to pleasure him? That it had only made him aware of how much he wanted her?
Because all those women had not been able to kindle any kind of spark in him.
Rubbing a hand tiredly over his unshaven jaw, he reflected, he was growing old. And not the kind of man that the young girl with her innocence and her laughter, her love for her children, deserved.
He gulped down the drink and reached for another.