The Heartbreaker by Susan Howatch

Author:Susan Howatch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307417091
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

XII

Emotional revulsion suddenly met my mindless desire head on. I could almost hear the crash echoing through my skull. Without hesitation I stopped cowering behind the chair, walked right up to him and slapped his face. “You bloody rent boy!” I yelled at him. “How many more times do I have to tell you to get real? How dare you treat me as if I were a slag with no self-respect! And how dare you speak with such contempt of that repulsive client of yours who’s so starved of love that he has to pay scum like you to create the lousiest possible imitation of it! You may think of sex as being no more important than a cup of tea, but people get hurt by what you do, they get torn up and broken—and no, don’t try to deny it, I saw what you did to Moira, she visited me, she was vilely humiliated and unhappy—and I saw what you did to Richard too! You really messed him up, he was on the rack, he was almost crying with the pain of it all. You, a friend of Richard Slaney’s? Don’t make me laugh! A real friend wouldn’t have trashed him like that, and the truth is you abused him just as you abused Moira—but you’re bloody well not going to abuse me! In fact you can be very sure I’m never going to bed with a PROSTITUTE either now or at any other time!”

I stopped speaking. Silence fell. Gavin was no longer looking at me, no longer even rubbing his face where I had hit him. I noticed how his perfect cheekbones seemed more prominent when his skin was pale with shock, but at that moment his looks meant nothing to me. I was too busy watching his vulnerability surface, and the instant I at last stopped worrying about my own vulnerability and focused on his with my eyes wide open, I realised with horror that he was reeling with the pain I had inflicted. I saw then that his destructive behaviour called forth destructive behaviour in others; he was constantly offering himself up for punishment, constantly trashing himself as ruthlessly as he trashed his victims.

I thought: you stupid, stupid little boy, can’t you see you’re right out there on the edge?

And in a flash—in a crackling shift of consciousness which seemed to churn the very centre of my brain—I was up there on the high wire with my damaged younger brother, and my whole being was focused on snatching him back from the abyss.

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