The Seduction Of Claudia by Antoinette Chauvet Page A

deny that. For all the other womanly attributes you lack, you are talented in the sack," he'd said with a rueful laugh, "but I'm still going and I won't be back."
    "Mon amour, please don't go," her mother cajoled sweetly, "I love you in ways no one else has... You told me so yourself! You'll never find another woman like me!" As she spoke, her voice gathered in volume and desperation.
    He was fully dressed by then. He flipped open his wallet, selected a wad of bills, crumpled them in his fist and tossed them between her mother's legs where they were splayed on the bed. Her mother stared down at them, stunned.
    "What the hell is this for?"
    "Payment for services rendered. Thanks for the farewell fuck, Marcheline, it was good, as always. Don't try to contact me," he said dismissively and walked toward the door.
    Claudia knew she didn't have time to make it back to her room, so she ducked into the bathroom and hid behind the shower curtain to avoid being seen.
    Marcheline had gotten angry then. She hurled accusations and invective at him as she chased him down the hall. She screamed and cursed at him in a mix of Claudia, Creole and English. When they reached the front door, he turned and said in a well-modulated tone,
    "This is exactly why I won't stay, Marcheline. You're out of control -- much too unpredictable... You knew I was married when we started this affair, but you couldn't be discreet, could you?" he asked, then went on without giving her mother a chance to respond. His face twisted with sarcasm as he said, "Nooo, you just had to call my house, didn't you? It was of the utmost importance that you speak with me in the middle of the night, wasn't it?"
    Marcheline cowered in front of him, visibly recoiling from the words as though she were being physically assaulted.
    He continued his diatribe, his voice still low. He spoke in an intense growl that, coupled with the harsh twist of his mouth and the hardness of the expression in his eyes, made him a greatly menacing presence.
    "And when my wife answered the phone, you didn't just hang up like a normal person would have. You had to talk to her, didn't you? You had the gall to ask her if you could speak to me! What woman calls a man in the middle of the night and asks his wife if she can speak to him?! Are you out of your mind to do something like that? You almost cost me my marriage and that I won't have! I'd never lose my wife for someone like you!" he said through clenched teeth.
    Marcheline was sobbing now, tears streaking her face. Claudia came out of the shower and stood in the shadow of the bathroom door, watching wide-eyed as her mother dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around the man's legs, begging him.
    "Please... Don't! How can you say these things after all we've been to each other?"
    "Marcheline, you've never been anything to me but a hot, wet pussy! A ready and willing piece of ass who'd do things in bed that my wife wouldn't! Women like you are a dime a dozen." he sneered.
    "Please, don't say those things -- I know you can't mean them! I love you, chér... Don't leave me! I'll never call you at home again, I swear. I won't call your office, either. I promise! Please give me another chance!" she begged brokenly. "I can't live without you!"
    "No, Marcheline. It won't happen. And stop groveling, it's excessive and it disgusts me," he said tonelessly. He kicked his legs free of her grasp, knocking her to the floor in the process and was gone.
    Marcheline lay curled naked on the floor of the foyer for a long time, her grief coming in bursts that alternated between pitiable whimpers and gut wrenching sobs. Eventually, she got up and stumbled naked and unseeing into the kitchen and came out with a bottle of earthy Martinican rum. She sat on the big red velvet couch in the living room, taking long gulps of the rum directly from the bottle and crying. She smoked cigarettes one after the other as she talked to herself and drank, gradually working her way up to a