Page 30 of Nothing to You
She laughed, somehow knowing he was kidding.Maybe it was that smirk or the last year of hearing his tone without other cues.His voice betrayed teasing.It told her when he was serious.Angry.Hurt.Annoyed.Playful.
Sitting there, looking at him, the flesh and blood three-dimensional human being, it was difficult to comprehend that he owned the same disembodied voice that had filled her senses night after night.
“More power to any woman who uses you for your money.I believe in a woman’s right to choose.”
“I know you do,” he said, hitting another couple of buttons, all confidence and swagger.“And I believe in a man’s right to choose.”
The debate was one they’d had before.From many different angles.
“It’s the woman’s body,” she said, releasing his beer when he took it.“It’s her choice whether she puts it through the trauma of pregnancy and childbirth.Never mind—”
“A man can raise a child just as easily as a woman.”
“And how often does that happen?”
“This isn’t the kind of thing where generalizations hold up.”
“Yes, it is,” she said.“Because by your reasoning, a man can have an ideological objection, a general objection, with no intention of raising or supporting a child, and still force a woman to go through with a traumatic and life-changing process.”
“Isn’t it life changing to take another life?”
“You ever knock a woman up?”
“Not that I know,” he said, drinking his beer and setting it on the end table.
“See!How does that not prove my point?You could go around impregnating twenty women a day and your life wouldn’t change at all.You think the twenty women’s lives would change?”
“I can afford to start my own sex cult,” he said and tilted his head.“Maybe a project for next year.”
She smiled, but quickly erased it.Not that it mattered.His focus was back on the screens and his tablet.
“You have enough land here for it.”
He shook his head.“Dyce would never go for it… Kinloch, maybe.He has land.”
“Your billionaire bachelor friends?Think you could share power?”
“Kinloch, K2, wouldn’t get in my way.He prefers to be left the hell alone.”
“Says the guy sitting alone in the dark with a hundred people in his house.”He didn’t react, though his brow dropped.Something up ahead caught his intrigued focus.“Why invite them if you didn’t want them here?”
“I throw parties all the time.”Whatever was on the end table, he scooped up some more and tossed it into his mouth.“They’re boring as hell.”
She laughed.“Why throw them?”
“Why not?I can afford it.This isn’t your scene?”
Couldn’t be further from it.“Not exactly.”
“People like parties.Food, music, fancy lights, people are easy to impress and they like schmoozing.”
On an exhale, she looked closer.“You don’t.You’re bored as hell.”
“Yeah, do something interesting.Work a little.Pep me up.”
“Call those pornstars if you want that kind of show.”
“Sex is boring too.”
