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If he wanted an expensive whore, there are plenty of places he could have purchased one.
Will he present me with a giant library next and just expect that I’ll fall at his feet in wonder and amazement?
I finish breakfast, get a bowl of fruit, and return to the table. It’s a mix of blueberries, strawberries, mandarin orange slices, and bananas.
I jump when Aidan returns a few minutes later and slams some papers on the table.
“What’s this?”
“I had a vasectomy.”
I look down at the papers. It’s records from different doctor’s visits. The entire history from him making an appointment three years ago, to the checkups that proved the procedure worked and none of his little swimmers are swimming. His last check up was three months ago. This is a man who wants to make sure he can’t reproduce.
“Why?” I say. Immediately I make it about me. I mean he’s been obsessed with me forever. I’m sure he had plans to take me three years ago when he started this process. Did he think I’d be a bad mother?
“I didn’t want to create more monsters like me,” he says. His voice is low and flat, and it sends a shiver down my spine. This guy is a total sociopath. Do sociopaths have the kind of self-awareness to not bring more of their kind into the world?
“But what if I wanted kids?” I’m not sure if I do or not. I never had that urge to nurture anything as a kid. I didn’t play with baby dolls. The only doll I liked was Barbie, and that was for doll fashion shows and grown up things like being a vet and a doctor and a lawyer and an astronaut—not to push around in a stroller like a baby.
I kept thinking some maternal clock would start to tick, and maybe it still will. I’m only twenty-seven, but I’m starting to think maybe motherhood might be a giant scam, and I’d be happier without all the grossness and pain of pregnancy and childbirth. Why does everyone need to do that one thing? I get that if nobody did it humanity would go extinct, but that scenario is very unlikely. I just want to be free, I think, as I sit here, a prisoner in Aidan’s house.
Though, with someone as wealthy as Aidan, motherhood itself might not be too bad. I could have a night nurse and a nanny and…
Aidan interrupts my thought trail. “Do you want to create more monsters like me?”
I can’t say he doesn’t have a point.
“You weren’t a monster when we were six.” He was still just a sweet kid back then even if I didn’t want to be his girlfriend. I still remember the way he looked at me when he gave me that handmade valentine and made sure I knew he was the one responsible for the chocolate cupcakes with the pink icing and sprinkles. I can’t believe I even remember those details.
“No, I was worse,” Aidan says, “I was weird.”
I flinch at the word and the emphasis he placed on it. He’s been carrying this around for a while. I could say that we were six and six year olds say mean things, but I called him weird up until the point he got expelled from our school. I don’t think he’s weird anymore… no, he’s just a dangerous criminal now.
“Aidan…”
He must read something on my face because he says, “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s not you. There are much deeper and darker things that shaped me than you and your rejections.”
“Tell me.” His hand is on the table near mine, and almost unconsciously I place mine on top of his. I don’t know if I’m developing Stockholm Syndrome, if getting him to talk to me is some sort of survival strategy, or if I really care about what made him like he is—apart from Brian. I would love to know that backstory.
He jerks his hand away. “Don’t worry about it.” He straightens his suit and looks down at his watch. It strikes me that instead of pulling out a phone to check the time like everyone our age, he looks at an actual watch on his wrist as though he lives entirely outside of the modern age with all its buzzing, beeping, and whirring technologies. This man doesn’t do interruption or notifications.
“We’ve got to leave in fifteen minutes.”
Sixteen
Aidan
The ride to the church is tense, and I’m immediately regretting trying to push my religion on her. If she doesn’t want to be Catholic, I can’t actually “make her” be Catholic. I can make her attend Mass with me, but that’s likely going to have to be the compromise. If her lack of Catholicism didn’t sway me up until this point, it shouldn’t be factoring in now. It’s not as though her lack of religion is any surprise to me. Not that religion has improved me.
I’m not sure what exactly I thought Madison’s reaction was going to be to all of this. I’d somehow convinced myself that I could simply display my wealth and everything I’d become, and she’d be so impressed and relieved to have money again that she’d fall into my arms.
Honestly, when stated that way, it’s pretty cartoonish. But it seemed so logical in my head at the time.
I’ve cleaned up and toughened up since I was thirteen after all. And I saw the way she responded to me in the car when I drove her home that night—before she knew who I was. How can my actions as such a young kid still have such an impact on how she sees me?
I thought I could just get her drunk on our chemistry and displays of wealth, and gifts, and the grandeur of the wedding and that perfect Dior gown, and the size of my estate, and the size of… other things… and that somewhere in all of that, she’d fall in love with me. It’s the fairy tale right? That Disney Princess shit they all want?
Maybe I should have gotten her a library.