Behind The Mask

Chapter 3

Michael’s POV

I think I got it…I finally got. THIS has got to work. It really must work. It is perfect. I have devised the perfect plan to get a stubborn girl to sit quietly by my side and listen to me. I know I can get her to open up…if I manage to go past the first 10 minutes of rejection out of principle.

I know she rejected me out of principle. She’s a bouncer. Some fucker hurt her and now she bounces off any guy trying to approach her. Just to be on the safe side. That must be it! So, on with my plan!

“Wayne, you know what you have to do, right?”

“Go to the reception, convince the receptionist to take this envelope to the girl’s room and say that it’s a special incentive courtesy of the hotel for being guest no. 1,000,000 or something like that…”

“Yeah! It’s crucial that she doesn’t suspect this is from me. Here…leave a nice gratuity to the receptionist. But she must say this comes as a reward from the hotel. Okay?”

“Sure, boss.”

Then he shakes his head.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get one of those fan girls instead?”

“Wayne! Jesus, as if you didn’t know me! No, I certainly don’t want that type of girl. I …just do what you’re told, Wayne.”

I sit back and close my eyes. My life is pretty fucked up as it is. Living in a circus….in a permanent live TV show. Everywhere I go, everything I do, the media knows about it, distorts it and publishes a mocking account that rarely is even remotely similar to the real thing. For a while I believed that I’d have a fighting chance to be happy with Lisa. She grew up in the same kind of circus. But she wasn’t really 100% committed to us. It was fun while it was new and exciting. We’d be locked up in our room and make love like crazy from morning till night and then again till morning. We’d goof around preparing breakfast. It was nice….it was normal. I used to look at us, nagging each other over some little things and say – wow, this is so cool, this is what normal couples do!

But the true problem sprang out – she wasn’t ready for a fulltime commitment with me, with children and everything…

Begging the question now why I waste time with a girl who, by all outer signs, doesn’t want me. She’s a challenge, dear people! You must envy me – just crook a finger and 100 girls are coming running, ready to do anything I say. I mean, ANYTHING. You think that’s amazing? Tell me…let me ask you this…imagine you’re being intimate with someone and she says you’re amazing and all that…while in fact she’s faking it and she can’t wait for you to be over and done with it. She just tells you what she thinks you wanna hear. And that extends to regular conversation – you never get her honest opinions, ideas and thoughts. Just a carefully rehearsed script which is supposed to please you. I tell you, people – you’d go insane in a week.

While Anouk…she gave me this huge piece of her mind from the start. Not sugar coating it. Now, that’s what I look for: honesty.

“It’s done!” says Wayne suddenly, entering the car and breaking my train of thoughts. I nod as my mobile phone buzzes. I smile answering:

“Hey, Dunk! What’s up, sis?”

“Hi, Applehead! I have one kind request from you. Please have sex with your ex-wife.”

“Huh? What?”

“Michael, she’s impossible! She’s in my hair, in our mother’s hair, giving her letters for you and asking me to invite you to this and that event or party so she can see you again. So, just give her one goodbye fuck so she’ll leave us alone!”