Chapter 33 – Asher
I haven’t seen Madilyn in days.
And even though I want to, I know I can’t.
I’m coming close to falling for her in a way that is much too dangerous.
I can’t believe she lied to me. That she’s still with Jimmy even though she claimed they were over for good. I can’t believe I let myself be taken for such a fool.
So I did what I had to do: I got far, far away.
All the way to the South Pole, in fact.
Nolan, a climbing friend of mine, had been bugging me for months to join him on a yacht based expedition of the Antarctic Peninsula that he’d been planning to take this week.
Initially I’d told him to just borrow my yacht and go without me, because I would be too busy with work. But that was only half true.
Sure, I have a big trial coming up in the Schwartz Capital case, for which I really should be preparing. I hope that Madilyn is as good of an associate as she is a pet, because I’m entrusting her with the case in my absence. She just doesn’t know the specifics or length of my absence, or the level at which I’m entrusting her.
The main reason I’d told Nolan I couldn’t go on this trip was that I was expecting to be grooming my next pet. Madilyn. But everything with her happened much more quickly than I’d anticipated; much more quickly than it usually does. And I didn’t know what to do to slow it down, except to tell Nolan to count me in on his trip.
Now, though, I’m wondering if it was really such a good idea. I’m off my game in every aspect of my life.
Sure, the trip has been great, and the scenery has been breathtaking so far. Nolan and some of his finance buddies and I had boarded in Ushuaia and departed for Drake Passage, sailing Port Williams, Chile. We’d enjoyed a short climb in Port Lockroy and then a longer climb on Mt. Lopez, on Doumer Island.
We’d headed down the Graham Coast, as far as Prospect Point, and we’d just spent two days skiing and climbing, but it didn’t clear my head like it normally does. And I had a scary slip off of a secure hold, which isn’t like me at all.
“Dude, are you alright?” Nolan had asked, as he helped me up.
“Yeah, I’m just not feeling too great,” I’d told him.
He looked at me funny.
“The last time you slipped during a climb—”
“It’s nothing like that,” I’d quickly protested, knowing he was thinking of my divorce.
My ex-wife and I had tried for a long time to make it work, but when we finally called it quits, the break up really fucked with my head.
It’s nothing like that at all, I’d repeated mentally, as if trying to convince myself it was true as much as I was trying to convince Nolan.
“Have you even talked to her lately?” he asked, raising a concerned eyebrow.
“No. No, I haven’t.”
Which was true, although I’d left some details out, that he didn’t need to know about. My ex-wife did call me last week but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.
She likes to call every time the new associates start working because she knows I might be choosing a new pet. She has a ridiculous theory that I’m only using them as substitutes for her, and none of them are good enough so I have to keep “churning and burning through them,” as she puts it. She thinks I purposefully pick pets that aren’t right for me so that I don’t get attached to them.
Even years after our divorce, she still likes to be cruel to me. I know that she’s not correct in her theory.
I know that my pets are my diversion, and that the reason I rotate them rather quickly is so that I don’t get close enough to them to allow any of them to hurt me the way she did. It’s easier and more fun that way and she’s just jealous and angry that I’m no longer available to be her emotional punching bag.
I ignored her call, not wanting to get into it with her. Usually I show myself I’m the bigger person by picking up the phone and telling her to fuck off, but right now I don’t want to deal with her. I have enough on my plate.
I’m sure she’ll continue to call. But I’m too far away to be reached so she can just listen to the phone ring and ring and ring. For the first time since our divorce, I really think I’m fucking over her.
If only it wasn’t because of Madilyn. Madilyn who apparently isn’t over her own ex.
“All right, man,” Nolan had finally relented. “But maybe you need some rest.”
“Yeah, I agree,” I’d said, and come back here to the yacht.
Lounging comfortably on the couch, I take out my iPad and access my secret file of former pets. None of them had hesitated to dress up— or undress— and pose for me. All of them do exactly what I want, when I want them to. All of them, except for Madilyn.
Damn her. I scroll through the leather- and lingerie- clad pets of my past but I don’t feel any of the emotions that looking at them usually evokes. There’s no power. There’s no sense of control. There’s just the desire to see Madilyn rather than any of them.
What the hell am I doing out here in Antarctica, running away from my fucking problems? I need to face them.
But I know that if I go back to the office, I’ll have sex with Madilyn again. And if I have sex with her after knowing how she betrayed me, it’ll be too late to back out. I’ll be a sucker. And I hate being a sucker.
But maybe it’s already too late. Maybe I’m already a sucker.
Because I do something I’ve never done before in my life: I delete the photos of my past pets.
That seems to seal something I already knew deep inside me.
Madilyn is the one for me. As scary as it is, I have to face it.
I power off my iPad and walk out to the deck of the yacht. I squint into the snowy mountains, where Nolan and his friends have nothing on their minds except climbing to the top of the white peaks.
It was a mistake to come on this trip. All I can think of is showing Madilyn the views, teaching her how to climb or ski, if she doesn’t already know how. I’ve never felt this way about another pet. I’ve always been able to separate work, climbing and play.
I know I have to head back and deal with whatever looms in front of me. Just like when I’m climbing.
Our plan for this trip was to eventually work our way back north to Paradise Harbour and be in position to sail back to South America for a ski tour around Danco and Ronge Islands. We’re supposed to sail back to Port Williams and go for an overnight hike in the mountains behind the town before departing for home from Ushuaia.
But I can’t stay for all of that. I need to get back to Madilyn.
I phone my private helicopter to come pick me up once I dock. And I leave a message for Nolan. I know he’ll understand, even though he’ll know that I’ve let a woman fuck with my head.
He’ll just think it’s a different woman— the same one that has been doing it for decades, but for some strange reason my ex-wife no longer seems to have any power over me. Apparently the space that was taken up for years in my mind and heart has been replaced by my new associate, mentee and pet, Madilyn St. Clair.
I just have to give her an ultimatum. Choose Jimmy or me. I’m not sure I can forgive her for lying to me. But maybe if I punish her for doing it, I’ll have some motivation to try.