Behind The Mask

Chapter 14

Michael’s POV

I look at Lisa earnestly. I try to figure out my next move. I try to guess if she is honest, but with women it’s so hard. They are smart. They hide behind makeup, smiles or tears and the play you like a fiddle. Next thing you know, you’re howling at the moon with despair.

Lisa looks perfectly attired for seduction. She looks ready to pounce on her pray. Her eyes gleam. It’s the sign I’m looking for. It is a game to her…I’m a game to her. Anouk and her blue eyes never gleamed at me. They glared at me, shot arrows at me, laughed at me maybe. But she never considered me a game. And by sheer comparison I see the truth.

“Lisa, I never go back in the past. I never look back, only forward. It’s the kind of man I am and it’s the way I see things. Always forward. I don’t see you when I look ahead at my life. I can’t trust you anymore. Our marriage, our love, our relationship are done and finished. There’s no going back.”

Her eyes are venomous now. That loving look was a game and when I refused to play the mask fell. I see her for who she is: a spoiled brat who can’t believe that her favorite toy is gone. When I look at her and the way Elvis raised her, spoiling her rotten, I see the way I definitely DON’T want to raise my children, when I have them.

There’s no point being here, in this room with her. I can’t pretend that we have anything else to talk about.

“I wish you the best in your life, Lisa. I mean it. I hope you find the man who is right for you. I am not that man. Goodbye.”

I feel a sense of freedom. This was the kind of civilized goodbye that we should have had when we parted ways. Now that we had it, I can truly say I cut off all my ties with her. Leaving me to think…what now…where do I go from now? What do I do with my life?

And yet again my mind returns to Anouk. If I knew what she feels for me! If I was certain there’s a little love there for me! I would probably have a little hope. If she seeks me…if only she comes looking for me! By now the media gave a pretty clear description of my whereabouts. Everyone with a TV and newspaper in their house in South Africa and the rest of the world, in fact, must know that I stay at Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria. I get back to my room and just for curiosity’s sake I turn on the TV. Of course I’m on the news!

“The King of Pop and his former Queen may have found a way to each other’s hearts. Michael Jackson was seen this morning together with Lisa Marie Presley in front of his hotel, where she seemed to have just arrived with her two children. Could she have answered to the call of love? Certainly, this cannot be a coincidence. If we see a new romance and, why not, marriage between the two music royalties, then you can be sure we will be the first to inform you. Reporting live from Pretoria, South Africa…”

Damn! Damn and damn again! What if Anouk sees this??? How will she interpret it? After failing to get into her pants, I called my ex-wife to rub my itch. Gaahhhh! This looks so wrong on the whole! And I did nothing! I’m just the usual innocent stand-by who gets sucked into a whirl of events he has no idea of. What do I do? Do I go back to the Trade Winds Hotel? Do I make a fool of myself explaining things that possibly she doesn’t care about?

I spend another dejected day locked inside my hotel room. When evening arrives I make up my mind: one more try. Okay, I am an idiot. Write my name, the caption “biggest fool ever” and make a big badge which I will wear stuck to my back. But I want to see whether two days of giving her the space she needs were enough. Then I leave. Really, I go straight to the airport and I leave.

I go all the way to the parking lot. Perhaps the fans haven’t identified the exact place where I have my car. No such luck. They must have even the license plate written down and they pass the information from one to another.