by Lissa Bilyk
I could be better, I thought as I changed into my nightclothes and slid into bed. I could be the sex kitten he wanted, the kind of girl he’s used to. Three months of intimate, passionate love making hadn’t kept him from wandering, so now I had to turn the tables.
Now we would just fuck.
The next day during my lunch break I detoured from my normal routine and slipped out of the office under the pretence of getting a hot chocolate. I power-walked to the closest newsagent and bought all the magazines I could find that referenced Cameron’s name on the cover. There were two others that I could find – one was basically a rehash of ‘Cameron Campbell has been seen with three girls.’ They even reused the same images!
The other magazine was more of a shock. It had an actual interview, an opinionated piece from one of his ex-lovers – or so she claimed. There was a picture of her on the cover in a smaller box. She looked like a typical middle-aged plastic-surgery trophy housewife – wide dark eyes, wide red mouth, shiny cheekbones. I waited until I was back at my desk at work to open to the interview.
It started with CAMERON CAMPBELL: SEX GOD in huge letters at the top of the page.
Mallory Armstrong is one of Cameron Campbell’s many lovers, and she details the risqué Aussie hunk’s obsessions and intimacies in this tell-all interview.
I skimmed the interview, uninterested in the woman’s background or her aspirations to be a model or air hostess. When she began talking about Cameron, I started reading again:
He was tender and gentle to start with, but soon he got over that and we’d just have sex whenever we got the chance: in the shower, in a limousine on the way to an event, at the quiet end of a crowded beach.
I took a deep breath. Cameron told me he’d never slept with the same woman twice until he’d met me. He hadn’t needed to: there had been enough girls waiting to hop into his bed that he could pick off whomever he wanted. The article continued: We’d do it at every opportunity and in every place. The bathroom, the kitchen - sometimes we were lucky to make it through the door and would just have sex in the hallway. He was insatiable.
The interview made Cameron out to be some kind of sex addict!
I closed the magazine and shoved it into my bag, and tried to focus on my work. John had a meeting with some producers in a couple of days to negotiate his next theatre production, and he was out of the office directing an episode of a locally-made television show at the moment. I needed to organise his notes and confirm his schedule.
As I clicked around on the computer I had a sudden thought and Googled my name. Victoria Walker wasn’t exactly uncommon: the two words together had over one hundred and forty million hits. In quotes it narrowed down to over one hundred and fifty thousand. I was never going to find myself just like that. Adding Cameron’s name to the mix didn’t help much, but when I clicked on images there he was, smiling at me. I searched the recent news for Cameron – without my name, because I clearly wasn’t on anyone’s radar – and stopped in shock when I saw the same grainy pub photo pop up next to an online article about Cameron’s ‘new women.’
I skimmed the article – it said something about Cameron being a serial cheat – and went straight to the comments.
Most of the comments were about Cameron – several commenters mentioned how hot they thought he was and how they’d happily be his next girl. Others hated him and thought he was overrated and looked like someone had smacked him in the face with a shovel. Then I saw the ones referencing me:
Who da hell is that fat skank lol
Ewww why is he kissing that tub of lard he should come on over to my bed I’ll show him whats what!
Men always do that though don’t they the pigs. They’ll date a perfectly nice girl and cheat on her with a fugly slut.
The sluts are easy cos their so fucgly they fuk anything lol. I’d do him tho!
My face burned in shame and embarrassment. I closed the window and stared at the computer screen, morose. My stomach churned. I pulled my phone out to text Cameron and ask him to come and pick me up because I didn’t feel well, but hesitated. If he really was a love rat like the tabloids said, then maybe I could get home without him knowing and catch him with someone.
I locked up the office and went to catch the train home.
I used the key card to gain entry to Cameron’s apartment complex. He lived on the top floor, the penthouse, and shared the complex with various other high-society London types. I’d found myself caught in the elevator once when a tall thin woman wearing fur and an enormous black broad-rimmed hat made out with a shorter well-groomed man who looked like he spent all his time golfing and smelled like cigarettes. They didn’t even acknowledge me.
I slid past the receptionist desk while Leslie was on the phone. Leslie didn’t like me – when Cameron and I first got together, she’d told an outright lie to Cameron about how I felt about him. I still hadn’t had the courage to ask her what the hell her problem was, just fake-smiled whenever I went past, and ignored her completely when I was with Cameron. I may have deliberately tousled my hair beforehand.
The elevator ride seemed to take forever, but at least I was alone. I unlocked the front door as quietly as I could, listening intently, not even aware if he was home. Maybe I was being crazy – Cameron was mad for me, as the British say. I didn’t even believe that he would cheat on me, not really –not that we’d ever come outright and said we were exclusively seeing each other, it just seemed taken for granted under the circumstances. He’d said he loved me. Now I wondered if maybe we should have had some kind of talk, and that if he was seeing someone else, would it still technically be cheating? He’d asked me to move in, after all.
I slipped inside the apartment and listened intently. No sound, nothing from the kitchen or the living room. I made my way up the short front stairs and poked my head in to the bedroom. The bathroom door had swung open and both rooms were empty. I checked in the living room and was just about to text Cameron to ask where he was when I heard a dull thudding noise beyond the kitchen.
Thudding and grunting.
My heart in my throat, I crept up the stairs to the kitchen and listened again. Definitely thudding, a thumping kind of noise, accompanied by Cameron’s grunts of exertion – and a woman’s, high-pitched and breathless.
You’re overreacting, I said to myself as I strode to the door of Cameron’s private gym. I’d had a go on his equipment once or twice but working out wasn’t my thing, as my fuller figure attested. I burst open the door and a wave of warm air bowled over me. I stood there staring as Cameron, half-naked, wrestled with a tiny blonde woman in yoga pants and a sports bra, on the floor mats of his gym.
Cameron looked up in surprise, but instead of annoyance or outrage that I’d interrupted him, his face broke into a welcoming grin.
“You’re home early!” He sprang apart from the little woman who looked like she had zero body fat on her and trotted towards me, his naked chest glistening with sweat. He pulled me into the gym and shut the door, and I realised it was oppressively hot in there, smelling of sweat and stale air. Then he put his hands on my waist and kissed me, stroking my hair back from my face.
“I hoped you might get home before Hayley had to go. I’ve been dying for you two to meet.”
I blinked. The woman had draped a towel over her neck and patted the sweat from her make-up free but still flawless face. Scattered training equipment lay abandoned on the floor – boxing gloves, skipping ropes, stepping stools. The middle of the room was cleared for sparring. Cameron still wore a boxing wrap around each hand.
He kissed the back of my hand. “Tori, this is Hayley, my personal trainer.”
“I’ve heard so much about you. He won’t shut up,” Hayley said as she came forward, wiping at her face. Even without makeup she was still beautiful, with fine features and large, clear blue eyes.
“What’s wrong, gorgeous girl?” Cameron said, ducking his head to look into my eyes. He hadn’t been cheating on me. The tabloids had
printed lies. I could trust him. I felt the tears welling and before I could stop a fat one rolled down my cheek.
He tucked me into his damp arms. “Princess,” he crooned, stroking my face, his eyes bright with fear or panic or both. “Tell me what the matter is.”
I looked into his fierce blue eyes and said, “People are saying horrible things about me on the internet.”
In the kitchen I pulled out my tablet (a Christmas present from Cameron) and repeated the news search I’d done at work. Up came the grainy, distorted shot of Cameron and me kissing, and I clicked on it to find the article, and the comments. Cameron patted himself off with a towel and slid his arm around me. I leaned back into his chest and breathed in the acidic, sandalwood scent of his sweat.
Hayley sidled up next to me to peer around us. She was about half my size. I could totally take her.
Cameron read some of the comments and I saw him curl his fingers into angry fists, the knuckles whitening.
“I fucking warned that tosser,” he snarled.
“Cameron.” Hayley put her slim, manicured hands on his shoulder and peered into his eyes. “If you’ve got some anger left I can stay a bit later and we can work it out of you, okay?”
Cameron tore away from her and stalked to the big floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, then paced back, running his hands through his damp hair. “It’s on the fucking internet.”
“That’s not all,” I said. I pulled the two magazines I’d bought today out of my bag and flipped to the relevant pages. I realised with a start that Hayley was the blonde girl Cameron was photographed running with – that made sense, as it was her job to keep him fit. The photo must have been an old one they’d been hoarding until they could print an article like this.
I excused myself and raced to the bedroom to retrieve the third glossy magazine I’d hidden under the bed.
“This was in the letterbox yesterday,” I said as I re-entered the kitchen. Cameron pored over the two articles, his face getting redder and redder by the minute. Hayley fetched them both tall glasses of water and encouraged him to drink, her hand on his back – did she have to be touching him again? It seemed so familiar.
I gave the third magazine to Cameron and he read the final article.
He looked up at me, pain crinkling his brow. “Tori, princess, you know this doesn’t mean anything, right?”
“Is any of it true?” I blurted, then wished I could take it back. Hayley turned discreetly away, giving us a moment of privacy.
“No, princess, none of it’s true. I told you what went down months ago when I fell in love with you – no more women for me, not ever. You’re the one for me, princess, you gotta believe me.”
He spun the magazine with the three photos around to face me and jabbed a finger at the brunette. “That’s Miranda – don’t you recognise her hair? We were shopping at Harrods, that’s all.”
Miranda, his manager. “What for?”
His eyes dropped from mine. “We were just sorting out some banking issues.”
I felt like I’d been hit in the heart with a sledgehammer. Cameron may have been a great actor, and he may have been a man who lies for a living, but he’d just lied to me for the first time. I knew what it felt like now. I felt my heart crumpling – he wasn’t cheating on me, but he was hiding something.
“Why was this in the letterbox?” he said, looking at the cover of the magazine.
“I figured Miranda or Paulette sent it to you.” Paulette was his publicist.
“When I get copies they’re usually wrapped in plastic, and also approved content.” He frowned and picked up the magazine again. “Did you open this?”
“No, it was like that last night.”
He looked at me. I felt his piercing gaze shatter deep down to my soul. “Did you read it yesterday?”
I couldn’t lie to him. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come straight to me? And why do you have other magazines here, too?”
“I think I’ll be going now.” Hayley, who had been hovering in the background looking uncomfortable, put her empty glass in the sink. “Cameron, remember to – never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He dismissed her with a backward wave of his hand, his intense eyes never leaving mine. I felt like a prisoner under his gaze, and ever so small. I wasn’t afraid of him – I could never be afraid of him – but he looked at me with a mixture of annoyance and disbelief. And maybe anger.
“Tori, did you buy trashy magazines that had stories about me in them?”
“Yes,” I squeaked.
He slammed the glossies down on the kitchen counter, making me jump. “God fucking damn it, Tori!”
“What?” I said, afraid I’d done something wrong. I ached to touch him, to calm him, but he brimmed with anger.
“You don’t buy tabloids, and you don’t believe the garbage they spout. They’ll do anything for a hit, anything to sell a story. Don’t you see they’re taking advantage of me being under the radar?” He pushed his hands through his hair and dragged them down his face again, calmer now. “Even when I try to stay out of them they keep coming back. They’re like mosquitoes.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I won’t buy them or read them ever again.”
He took several steps towards me and grasped my upper arms. “And don’t Google me either. It’s rubbish and lies, or trolls and haters, or desperately jealous people who want to be me or be with me. It’ll only hurt you – God Tori, can’t you see that’s the last thing I want to happen to you?” He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply. “You are so fucking precious to me. I can’t bear to see you hurt. And I don’t want to lose you.”
“I won’t look,” I promised him. “I tried Googling my name, too, but it’s far too common.”
He leaned down and planted a soft, tender kiss on my lips. “There is nothing common about you, gorgeous girl. You’re one in a million.”
He picked up the three glossies and went to dump them in the rubbish bin, but paused. “Hey princess? You only bought two, didn’t you?”
I breathed easily again. “Yes.”
“So who did the third one come from, the one in the letterbox?”
Chapter Three
Cameron showered, and when he was clean and smelling spicy and delicious again, we both went downstairs to check out his mailbox. The complex had a bunch of them set up like tiny lockers next to each other on the main wall, directly across from reception. You needed a tiny key to open the box, although anyone could put mail in it.
Well, anyone who had access to the complex. Leslie buzzed the mailman in twice a day, and once on Saturdays. I’d been living in London for over six months now and still hadn’t gotten over the beauty of Saturday post.
There was nothing in Cameron’s mailbox, and nothing to indicate where the rogue magazine had come from.
“Leslie?” I heard him call. I followed him over to her big glossy half-moon desk, fluffing my hair. Leslie had a tonne of blonde hair and always wore it pinned up in a scruffy yet elegant ‘just rolled out of bed’ look. She also wore thick black eyeliner and tiny reading glasses. I wondered if she needed them or if she only wore them because she thought it made her look smart. She seemed to spend an awful lot of time peering over them.
“What’s up, love?” she purred, glancing behind him at me for just a second to wink at me, then give Cameron her full attention and a big, wide, white smile.
“Do you remember seeing anyone other than residents and the mailman near the mailboxes yesterday?”
She arranged her face into a thoughtful expression. “Why no, love, I don’t believe I do.”
“Damn. Thanks, anyway.” He started to leave, but she reached out a stroked her index finger along the back of his hand in a move clearly designed to infuriate me.
“Is there some kind of a problem?” She didn’t even acknowledge me, standing there fuming next to him.
“No,” he said, pulling away and taking my hand. “
None that I can’t handle.”
In the elevator I said, “She fancies you.”
He looked me straight in the eye without flinching. “So does half of London.”
I placed my hand on his cheek. “How can you just walk around knowing most straight women want to fuck you, and probably a whole heap of gay men, too?”
He shrugged. “It’s a gift, I guess.”
I snorted. “If you start saying you’re God’s gift I’m going to smack you.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “I wonder who put that magazine in the mailbox. It was clearly done to upset you, Tori.”
“No one knows that I stay here,” I said. “As far as my friends back home are concerned I don’t even have a boyfriend.”
He pulled me closer, nibbled at my ear. “Maybe we should do something about that.”
“What do you propose?” I gasped at his incessant nipping.
“It would be rude if we couldn’t keep this tabloid thing under wraps and our family and friends learned we were dating through the gossip mags. Maybe we should go out somewhere with your friends, and my friends, and make some sort of announcement.”
As we re-entered his apartment I said, “Well, it can’t be at my place because it’s far too small, and would you want a bunch of people coming into your inner sanctum, your private place?
“Our private place.” He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. “What about gathering everyone at Si’s pub for the night?”
I nodded, and ignored the fact that he referred to his apartment as my home, too. “I like that idea.”
Of course, upon reflection, I had no friends of my own in London. Everyone I knew, I’d met through my boss, John – even Cameron. When I explained this to him, he seemed surprised.
“I have heaps of friends by the time I’d been here six months,” he said, sliding his arms around me.
“You moved here when you were eighteen,” I pointed. “And you’ve done heaps of different jobs since landing. I’ve only worked in two offices – one of them being John’s. You know everyone I know.”