Free INCARNATION by Daniel Easterman

fourteen.
    He’d never recovered, never expected to. In some ways, never needed to. All feelings of tenderness and joy had been swallowed up in him by darker emotions, sometimes visible, mostly well concealed. Out of private tragedy, he’d made himself what he now was. It wasn’t Penelope’s death that disfigured him; he’d never had a chance to grow out of love with her, to experience the disenchantment that allowed hope of something different. He was that rare thing, a man who kept his mistress in the public eye without caring about scandal or notoriety, yet who maintained his wife as a well-hidden secret, a phantom in the truest sense.
    With her long back and sloping buttocks and God knows what other spurs to desire, Elizabeth seemed to think men owed her a living. She was keen on sex, but controlled herself, and knew how to turn it to her advantage.
    Which suited him down to the ground, since he had his own reasons for making her his mistress, which he was sure never to reveal to her or anyone else. 
    ‘He’s going to be a very busy man soon.’ 
    ‘Really?’ Her voice had a bored edge to it. He felt himself go limp again. Bored was dangerous. Bored was tantrums and tears and spending sprees and drinking till well after midnight. She was a child, he thought, an expensive, lustful, angry child. But she could use him as cunningly as he used her, for her own ends, in her own ways.
    ‘Elizabeth, turn round. I can’t talk to the back of your head.’
    She spun to face him, and for a moment he thought he’d angered her, but instead she smiled, a huge, disarming smile that put her beyond any criticism. It was a tactic, of course, he knew that even as he felt relief not to have to cope with another outburst; but it was at least a familiar tactic.
    ‘What I’m saying ...’ He paused, asking himself exactly what it was he was saying. He couldn’t tell her everything, but he wanted to protect her. Not because he loved her, but because she was of more use to him now than ever. ‘I’m saying that you should keep away from him at the moment. He may be tied up. I just don’t think you should be around him, that’s all.’
    ‘I’d no intention to. Why would you think I had?’
    ‘I didn’t mean that. Just that it’s … not entirely safe.’
    ‘It was never safe, Anthony. You know that as well as I do. Nothing’s changed.’
    ‘Then why did you leave him? If nothing’s changed.’
    ‘He was too nice, Tony dear. A poppet. A sweetie-pie. He doted on me, did you know that? He’d have done anything for me. Or Maddie.’
    ‘How is Maddie?’
    ‘I’m not entirely sure, to tell you the truth. There was a bit of a scene after I told her I was leaving her precious father. Bit of an upset. You know how bloody unstable she is.’
    ‘She is your daughter.’
    ‘You don’t have to remind me.’
    ‘I see nothing particularly wrong with her. A bit woolly-headed, bit lefty in her politics.’
    ‘She never got over that awful Chinese boy. But for that she’d be all right.’
    ‘But for that ... Indeed. That’s what undoes us all, isn’t it?’
    He looked frankly at her body. She was right to admire herself, he thought. He’d seen twenty-year-olds who would have envied her firm breasts and flat stomach.
    ‘I’ve got to get back to the office,’ he said. ‘Things are brewing.’
    ‘So I see,’ she said. She stood up gracefully, and poised herself like a cat, and moved towards the bed.
    The phone rang angrily. Farrar swore. The only person who had his number here was his secretary. He rolled over, reached for the phone, and dragged it off the hook.
    ‘Farrar.’
    ‘Sir Anthony, it’s Linda. I’m sorry to disturb you, but it’s somewhat urgent. I have Mrs Laing’s daughter on the other line. She wants to speak with her mother.’
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake, can’t you ask her to wait?’
    Elizabeth was kneeling on the bed now, smiling at him invitingly.
    ‘Not really, sir, no. She’s a little