Free To the Bone by Neil McMahon Page B

like D’Anton’s clinic. He decided not to elaborate.
    â€œJust a figure of speech,” he said.
    â€œHe’s supposed to have a magic touch,” Martine said. “Fountain of youth, you know? But from what I could tell, his results were pretty much the same as any other decent plastic surgeon’s. I think he’s just managed to develop that mystique.”
    Monks drank again. “Why’d she have to get her breasts done anyway?” he growled, suddenly, unreasonably, angry about it. “They looked fine.”
    Martine shot a glance at him, swift and cool. “You must have watched those movies very closely.”
    â€œSorry,” he said. “I mean—you know what I mean.”
    â€œWomen are all wrapped up about beauty, Carroll. All the time and money we spend on hair, skin care, clothes. Look through a Victoria’s Secret catalog some time. That’s a zillion-dollar market, and those aren’t even things that most other people see. It has everything to do with how we think of ourselves. Like me. After my accident, I knew I’d never be beautiful.”
    He slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her close. “You’re a vision,” he said.
    â€œNot like what you think is beautiful when you’re ten. Baywatch babes in bikinis, bouncing down the beach. It was something about myself I never trusted. I never believed any man would really want me.” She shrugged. “Of course, women who are beautiful probably figure that’s the only reason men want them.”
    Monks had never thought of it quite like that. Women were damned either way.
    â€œThere’s an endless supply of pretty girls,” he said. “They’re being born every minute. Delectable fruit on the great tree of life. But youth and beauty fade away and pass on, even as the morning dew evaporateth in the sunlight.”
    She smiled wryly. “Sounds like you didn’t get any sleep.”
    â€œWhat I’m trying to tell you is, you’re not just a knockout. There’s a lot more to you.”
    â€œI know a line when I hear one. You must be wiped out.”
    â€œPretty much,” he admitted.
    â€œDid you eat, at least?”
    â€œCoffee.”
    â€œIdiot. I bought steaks. Start the grill when you’re ready.”
    He nodded, but went into the kitchen first and refilled his glass with vodka. He knew he had to be careful. Tomorrow was going to be bad enough in many ways, without the crippling burden of a hangover. One or two drinks would not hurt.
    The problem was that one or two had never done him any good.
    He got the grill going and the thick steaks cooking. He fed choice bits to the three cats who prowled like thugs demanding tribute—Felicity, the neurotic calico; Cesare Borgia, black, scarred, and streetwise; and Omar, the eighteen-pound blue Persian.
    Cats were like creatures in dreams, operating with a logic that seemed to make perfect sense to them, although it was mostly impenetrable to humans. Monks was convinced that the real reason cats had become domesticated—or more probably, deigned to start hanging out with people—had nothing to do with anything so mundane as food or safety. It was because they had discovered the pleasures of hand and lap. The two males would stalk him, trying to trip him into sitting, then leap on him and pin him down by assuming a gravity of several times their actual weight. The calico would shamelessly offer her belly to be petted, then clasp his hand with her forepaws, licking it and drooling. He speculated that instinct told her it was the butting heads of the kittens she had never had.
    He had brought several women to the house over the years since his divorce. The cats had treated them with a mixture of jealousy and contempt—with Felicity going so far as to burrow between the two humans in bed, trying to literally kick the intruding female out—and had outlasted them all. But they