Interview with the Bimbo.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: IT ALL COMES TO A HEAD
“So what happened?” asked Annabelle.
“He was waiting for me. Clive had told him that I had finally started asking questions so he was expecting me.”
“And what did he say?”
“The usual things one says when they need to justify themselves. He told me that he did it for me. That he had vowed to himself never to break his promise that he would never try to fuck me and that this was his way of keeping that promise.
“He told me he just wanted to imagine what it would be like to be with me, that he needed to see me in person, touch me, and smell me. He begged me to understand and that everything he did was because he loved me and he missed me.”
“He missed you?” questioned Annabelle. “But you worked for him.”
“By this point it had probably been almost two years since we had last been in the same room and over three since we had had any sort of conversation. The discovery that my state was irreversible had destroyed him. It turned him into a monster who turned girl after girl into shallow copies of me in an attempt to satiate his own crazed desires.
“On some level he still realised what he was doing was wrong. His guilt kept him away from me. The more he tried to compensate with other girls, the guiltier he felt. The guiltier he felt, the more he withdrew contact with me and the more he withdrew contact with me the more he tried to compensate with other girls.
“It was this vicious cycle which led to what happened on November 24th 2007. I had confronted him and he emptied his heart, telling me everything I just told you and more in the hope I might understand. That I could still see that he was a good man who was just confused. He promised me he could change.”
“Did you believe him?”
I wanted to. But the Michael in that room that night was not the Michael I had met in that coffee house all those years ago. He was not the man I loved.”
“So what did you do?”
“I told him what I just told you. That I couldn’t believe him and that I did not love him.”
A tear began to form in the corner of Lulu’s eye.
“He fell to his knees, pleaded with me, and begged me to tell him that I didn’t really mean that. He told me he couldn’t live in a world where I didn’t love him.
“I wanted to believe him. I wanted to fall down to my knees with him and tell him I could still love him but I couldn’t. The Michael I knew was gone.
“I told him I was sorry, I wanted to say something to make things better but before I had the chance I felt a sharp pain in my leg and I blacked out.