Toxic Bachelors

by Danielle Steel

  “That's sick,” Adam said, shaking his head. “It's bad enough that I do it. The girls you go out with have too much class to want you to buy them tits.” The women Adam went out with needed them to get ahead, as actresses or models. Adam wasn't interested in class. It would have been a handicap for him. Women like the ones Charlie went out with would have been a headache for Adam. He didn't want to stick around. Charlie claimed he did. Gray just let things drift. He had no firm plans, about anything. He just lived life as it came. Adam had a schedule for everything, and a plan.

  “At least it would be an unusual gift. I get so tired of buying them china.” Charlie smiled through his cigar smoke.

  “Just be happy you're not paying them alimony and child support. Believe me, china is a lot cheaper,” Adam said tartly. He had stopped paying Rachel alimony when she remarried, but she had taken half of everything he had, and he was still paying hefty child support, which he didn't begrudge his kids. But he hated what he had given her in the settlement. She had really put it to him ten years before when they divorced, and he had already been a partner in his firm. She got a lot more than he felt she deserved. Her parents had hired her a terrific lawyer. And he still resented it bitterly ten years later. He had never gotten over the damage she'd done, and probably never would. In his mind, buying breast implants was fine, alimony wasn't. Ever again.

  “I think it's too bad you have to buy them anything, along those lines,” Gray commented. “I'd rather just buy a woman something because I want to. Not pay for her lawyer, therapist, or a nose job,” he said innocently. Considering how little he had, whenever he got involved with someone, he wound up getting stuck for a fortune, in proportion to what he earned. But he always wanted to help them. Gray was the Red Cross of dating. Adam was the wheeler and dealer, setting clear limits and making trade-offs. Charlie was the ever polite and romantic Prince Charming. Although Gray said he was romantic too. It was just the women he got involved with who weren't, they were too desperate and needy to pay much attention to romance. But he would have liked to have some in his life, if he ever managed to get mixed up with someone sane, which seemed ever more unlikely. Adam claimed to no longer have a romantic bone in his body, and was proud of it. He said he'd rather have great sex than bad romance.

  “What's wrong with having all of it?” Gray asked, starting on his third glass of the great wine. “Why not sex and romance, and even someone who loves you? And that you love in return.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Charlie agreed. And of course in his case, he wanted blue blood in the mix as well. He admitted readily that when it came to women, he was a snob. Adam always teased him and said he didn't want his bloodlines sullied by some peasant girl. Charlie objected to the way he put it, but they both knew it was true.

  “I think you're both living in fantasyland,” Adam said cynically. “Romance is what screws up everything, everyone gets disappointed and pissed off, and that's when the shit hits the proverbial fan. If everyone knows it's just about sex and some fun, no one gets hurt.”

  “Then how come all your girlfriends get so pissed off on the way out?” Gray asked simply. He had a point.

  “Because women never believe what you tell them. The minute you tell them you'll never get married, you become a challenge, and they start shopping for a wedding dress. But at least I'm honest. If they don't believe me, that's their problem. I say the words. If they don't want to hear them, that's up to them. But God knows I say them.” That was also one of the advantages of dating very young women. Twenty-two-year-olds generally weren't looking for marriage, just a good time. It was only when they started creeping up on thirty that they looked around and got panicked about where things were going. The younger ones wanted to go to clubs and bars, buy a few dresses and charge them to him, and go to concerts and expensive restaurants. If he took them to Las Vegas for a weekend, when he had to see one of his clients, they thought they'd died and gone to Heaven.

  His family, however, had a different attitude. His mother always accused him of dating hookers, especially when she saw him in the tabloids. He always corrected her and said they were actresses and models, which she assured him was the same thing. His sister just looked embarrassed when the subject came up at family dinners. His brother thought it was funny, but for the past few years had told him it was time for him to settle down. Adam could not have cared less what they thought. He thought their lives were painfully boring.

  His wasn't. And he assured himself regularly that they were just jealous, because he was having fun and they weren't. His parents weren't jealous, they just disapproved of him on principle. And predictably, given her disapproval of Adam, or maybe just to annoy him, he thought sometimes, his mother had stayed close to Rachel. She liked her and her new husband, and always reminded Adam that she saw Rachel and stayed close to her because she was her grandchildren's mother. Whatever the issue or argument, Adam's mother always chose to be on the opposite side from him. She couldn't help herself. She had a contrary nature and a need for conflict. He suspected that beneath it all, his mother loved him. But she seemed to feel compelled to criticize him and make his life difficult. She appeared to disapprove of everything he did.

  His mother still blamed him for the divorce, and said he must have done something terrible to her, to make her leave with someone else. She never sympathized with Adam for a moment that his wife had cheated on him, and left him. It had to be his fault. Somewhere, beneath the overt criticism and disapproval, he suspected she was proud of his accomplishments. But his mother never admitted that to him.

  It was after eleven when they left the dinner table and wandered around St. Tropez for a while. The streets were crowded, and people were sitting at sidewalk cafés and at open-air restaurants and bars. Music was blaring from several nightclubs. They stopped for a drink at Chez Nano, and got to Les Caves du Roy at one o'clock in the morning, as it was coming to life. There were women everywhere in halter tops, tight jeans, simple little see-through dresses and shirts, artfully tousled hair, and sexy high-heeled sandals. Adam felt like a kid in a candy store, and even Charlie and Gray enjoyed it. Gray was a lot shyer about picking up women. They usually found him. And Charlie was infinitely more selective, but he loved watching the scene.

  By one-thirty, all three of them were dancing, and they were still relatively sober. The Brazilian girls never reappeared, but Adam didn't care. He danced with at least a dozen others, and then settled on a little German girl who said her parents had a house in Ramatuelle, the neighboring town to St. Tropez. She looked about fourteen, until she started dancing with Adam. Then it became rapidly obvious that she knew what she was doing, and what she wanted, and was considerably older. She wanted Adam. She was practically making love to him on the dance floor. It was after three o'clock by then and Charlie began to yawn. He and Gray went back to the boat a few minutes later. Adam said he'd find his way back on his own, since they were docked at the quay that night, and Charlie had given him a radio in case he needed to call them. Adam nodded and continued dancing with the German girl, who had bright red hair and said her name was Ushi. He winked at Charlie as they walked out, and Charlie smiled. Adam was having fun. A lot of fun.

  “What are we doing tomorrow?” Gray asked as they walked back to the boat. You could hear the music for a long way. But it was peaceful on the boat, once they got inside and closed the doors. Charlie offered Gray a brandy before they went to bed, but Gray said he just couldn't. They stood on deck smoking cigars instead, watching people stroll along the quay, or sit talking on other yachts docked nearby. St. Tropez was the ultimate party town—where people seemed to stay up all night.

  “I was thinking we should head for Portofino, or maybe stop in Monte Carlo,” Charlie answered. After a while, even a few days, the revelry in St. Tropez got old, unless you had friends there, which they didn't. It was fun to eat in the restaurants and go to the nightclubs, but there were a number of other places they wanted to visit in the next month, some of the
m as festive as St. Tropez, and others a little quieter. Monte Carlo was more elegant and sedate, and all three of them enjoyed going to the casino.

  “Adam might want to stick around for another night or two to see this German girl again,” Gray commented, thinking about their friend. He didn't want to spoil his fun, or blow his romance. Charlie knew him better and was more cynical. If he knew Adam, and if past trips were any indication, one night with her was all he wanted.

  It was nearly four in the morning when Charlie and Gray went to their respective cabins. It had been a long but enjoyable night. Charlie fell asleep instantly, and neither of them heard Adam come in at five that morning.

  Charlie and Gray were having breakfast on the aft deck, when Adam and Ushi emerged, smiling. She looked only faintly embarrassed when she saw the two other men.

  “Gut morning,” she said politely, as Charlie thought she looked about sixteen in the bright daylight. She wasn't wearing makeup, but she had a spectacular figure, in the jeans and skin-tight T-shirt she'd been wearing the night before, and carrying a pair of high-heeled gold sandals. Her red hair was full and long, and Adam had an arm around her.

  The stewardess standing by ordered them both breakfast, and Ushi insisted all she wanted was some muesli and coffee. Adam ordered bacon, eggs, and pancakes. He seemed to be in remarkably good spirits, as his two cohorts attempted not to smile at each other.

  The foursome chatted amiably, and as soon as Ushi had finished breakfast, the purser called a cab for her. Adam gave her a tour of the boat before she left, and she had stars in her eyes as he walked her off the boat to the waiting taxi.

  “I'll call you,” he promised vaguely, and kissed her. It had been an unforgettable night, although his two friends knew that he would soon forget her, and a year from now they would have to remind him of her, if they chose to.

  “When? Will you be at the discothèque tonight?” Ushi asked as Adam stood next to the cab.

  “I think we'll probably be leaving,” he said, answering the second question, and not the first one. She had given him her phone number in Ramatuelle and said she would be there for all of August. After that she would go back to Munich with her parents. She had given him her address in Germany, as he said he went there on business occasionally. She had told him she was twenty-two years old, and studying medicine in Frankfurt. “If we stay, I'll come back to the disco. But I doubt it.” He tried to maintain at least a minimum of honesty with the women he slept with, and not get their hopes up unduly. But he knew she couldn't have too many illusions either. She had picked a man up in a discothèque, a total stranger, and spent the night with him, knowing full well it was unlikely she would ever see him again. She had been looking for the same thing he was and, for one night at least, had gotten everything she wanted. And so had Adam. He had enjoyed the night he had spent with her, but in the light of day, there was no hiding from the fact that they were strangers, and unlikely to ever meet again. The rules of the road were clear to both of them.

  Adam kissed her as he put her in the cab, and she clung to him for a moment. “Good-bye … thank you…” she said dreamily, and then he kissed her again.

  “Thank you, Ushi,” he whispered, and then he patted her behind. She got into the cab, waved, and she was gone. Another evening's entertainment. It was one way to pass the time, and definitely enhanced his vacation. Her body had been even better with her clothes off, as Adam had suspected.

  “Well, that was a nice little surprise,” Charlie commented with a wry smile, as Adam joined them again at the breakfast table. “I love entertaining guests for breakfast, and such pretty ones. Do you suppose we should leave town before her parents come after you with a shotgun?”

  “I hope not.” Adam grinned, looking pleased with himself. He enjoyed turning Charlie's yacht into a party boat from time to time. “She's twenty-two years old, and a medical student. And she wasn't a virgin.” Although even Adam had to admit, she looked younger than she was.

  “How disappointing,” Charlie quipped, lighting up a cigar. In summer, on the boat, sometimes he even smoked them after breakfast. The one thing they all liked about their lives was that, however lonely they were at times, they could do anything they wanted. It was one of the great advantages of being single. They could eat at any hour, dress however they chose, drink as much as they liked, even if they got drunk, and spend time with whoever they wanted. There was no one to nag, bitch, complain, compromise with, apologize to, or accommodate. All they had was each other, and for the moment it was all they wanted. For all three of them at this precise moment in time, it was the perfect life. “Maybe at our next stop we can find you a virgin. Around here I think they're hard to find though.”

  “Very funny.” Adam grinned, pleased with himself for his conquest of the night before. “You're just jealous. Where is our next stop, by the way?” Adam loved the way they could move from one place to another, like taking their house or hotel with them. They could live in utter luxury, design their own itinerary, and change it at a moment's notice, while being waited on hand and foot by impeccably trained crew members. As far as all three of them were concerned, this was Heaven. It was exactly what Charlie loved about having a yacht, and why he spent his summers, and several weeks in the winter, on it.

  “Where do you both want to go?” Charlie inquired. “I was thinking about Monaco or Portofino.” After considerable debate, they decided on Monaco, and Portofino the day after. Monte Carlo was just a short hop away, two hours from St. Tropez. Portofino was an eight-hour journey. As Charlie had suspected, Gray said he didn't care and Adam wanted to go to the casino in Monte Carlo.

  They left the dock right after lunch, an excellent seafood buffet. It was nearly three when they departed, after stopping for a swim on the way, and then all three men dozed on the deck as they motored on toward Monaco. They were sound asleep in deck chairs when they arrived, and the captain and crew docked the Blue Moon expertly at the quay, using fenders to keep them from being bumped by other boats. As always, the port at Monte Carlo was filled with yachts as large as they were, or even larger.

  Charlie woke up at six o'clock, saw where they were, and that his two friends were still sleeping. He went to his cabin to shower and change, and Gray and Adam woke up at seven. Adam was understandably exhausted after his revels of the previous night, and Gray wasn't used to the late hours they were keeping. It always took him a few days to adjust to their nightlife when they traveled together. But all three of them felt rested when they went to dinner.

  The purser had arranged a car for them, and had made reservations at Louis XV, where they had a sumptuous dinner, in surroundings far more formal than the restaurant the night before in St. Tropez. All three of them had worn coats and ties. Charlie was wearing a cream-colored linen suit with a matching shirt, and Adam was wearing white jeans and a blazer, with alligator loafers and no socks. Gray was wearing a blue shirt, khaki slacks, and an ancient blazer. With his white hair, he looked like the senior member of the group, but there was something wild and dashing about him. He had worn a red tie, and no matter what he wore, he always looked like an artist. He gesticulated animatedly as he told them stories about his youth during dinner. He was describing a tribe of natives they had lived with briefly on the Amazon. It made for good storytelling now, but was still a nightmarish childhood to have lived through, while other kids his age were going to junior high school, riding bikes, having paper routes, and going to school dances. Instead, he had been wandering among the poor in India, living in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, camping with natives in Brazil, and reading the teachings of the Dalai Lama. He had never really had an opportunity to enjoy being a child.

  “What can I tell you? My parents were nuts. But I suppose at least they weren't boring.” Adam thought his youth had been painfully ordinary and nothing he had seen on Long Island could compare with Gray's stories. Charlie seldom spoke of his childhood. It had been predictable, respectable, and traditional, until his parents died, an
d then it had been heart wrenching until it became even more so when his sister died five years later. He was willing to talk about it with his therapist, but rarely socially. He knew that funny things must have happened before tragedy struck, but he could no longer remember them, only the sad parts. It was easier to keep his mind on the present, except when his therapist insisted that he remember. And even then it was a struggle to conjure up the memories and not feel devastated by them. All the worldly possessions and comforts he had did not make up for the people he had lost, or the family life that had vanished with them. And try as he might, he could not seem to recreate it. The stability and security of family, and someone to form that bond with him, always seemed to elude him. The two men he was traveling with were the closest thing he had to family in his life now, or had had in the past twenty-five years since his sister died. There had never been a lonelier time in his life than that, with the agony of knowing that he was alone in the world, with no one to care about him or love him. Now, at least, he had Adam and Gray. And he knew that, whatever happened, one or both of them would be there for him, as he would be for them. It gave all three of them great comfort. They shared a bond of unseverable trust, love, and friendship, which was priceless.

  They lingered for a long time over coffee, smoking cigars, and talking about their lives, and in Adam and Gray's cases, their childhoods. It was interesting to Charlie to note how differently they processed things. Gray had long since accepted the fact that his adoptive parents had been eccentric and selfish, and as a result inadequate parents. He had never had a sense of safety in his youth, or of a real home. They had drifted from one continent to another, always seeking, searching, and never finding. He compared them to the Israelites lost in the desert for forty years, with no pillar of fire to lead them. And by the time they settled in New Mexico, and adopted Boy, Gray had been long gone. He had seen him on his infrequent visits home, but had resisted getting attached to him. Gray wanted nothing in his life that would tie him to his parents. The last time he had seen Boy was at his parents' funeral, and intentionally lost track of him after that. He felt guilty about it sometimes, but didn't allow himself to dwell on it. He had finally shed the last vestiges of a family that had been nothing but painful for him. To him, the word “family” evoked nothing more than pain. He wondered now and then what had become of Boy since their parents' death. Whatever had happened to him, it could only be better than the life he shared with their irresponsible adoptive parents. Gray had thus far resisted any urge to feel responsible or attached to him. He thought he might try to contact him one day, but that time had not yet come. He doubted it ever would. Boy was better left as a piece of memory from the distant past, a part of his life he had no desire to revisit or touch again, although he remembered Boy as a sweet-natured child.