Twisted Love and Money

by Kennedy, Thomas

  “I am not ashamed. I hate you!” Ann-Marie screamed.

  The door buzzed again. This time it was Jeremy. Dorothy ushered him in. He had heard the shouting and when he saw who was there he guessed that it was a family row. He was highly embarrassed.

  “Father, this is my friend Jeremy.”

  Michael shot Jeremy a withering glance and ignored his outstretched hand. He turned to Ann-Marie.

  “Are you coming willingly or do I have to drag you out by the scruff of the neck,” he demanded.

  Ann-Marie felt cornered. She knew her Dad had a fierce temper when he was crossed. Somehow, now that Jeremy had arrived, she felt she had nowhere to hide. Seeing her hesitation, Michael grabbed her by the arm and frog marched her out.

  “I’ll collect the Landover another time. Good evening Jeremy, I am sorry we cannot stay. Excuse us.”

  Michael closed the door behind him with a bang, leaving Jeremy and Dorothy alone.

  They looked at each other and smiled.

  “You are late,” Dorothy said.

  “Does that make me a bold boy?” Jeremy asked, anxious.

  “Yes,” Dorothy said and kissed him. Jeremy put his arms around her waist and kissed her nose.

  “Does this mean the horse whip?” he asked looking solemnly into her eyes.

  “Would you let me?”

  “I would not ask you to. But if you wanted to, if you felt that I deserved it.”

  “No sweet, not tonight. Come on, I have your tea nearly ready.”

  Dorothy sat him at the table. It was already laid out with salads and rolls. She re-heated a steak and kidney pie in the microwave, and she shared it out between them.

  “Tabasco,” Dorothy said as she sat down.

  “Pardon?”

  “Do you know what Tabasco is?” Dorothy asked.

  “Yes. It is a very spicy sauce.”

  “Well Jeremy… Take Tabasco and whips. The horsewhip can be our Tabasco sauce. We can use it now and then. But like everything, what is rare is wonderful. We can have it on the menu but we should explore the full course of sexuality together.”

  Jeremy flushed in embarrassment. “Dorothy sweet, I don’t know if I am able.”

  “Of course you can Jeremy. If you falter I’ll threaten the horsewhip that will get you started. Don’t worry sweet; you just need a little guidance. Let me be your mentor.”

  Jeremy said nothing and tucked into his pie. He felt relaxed with Dorothy, in safe hands.

  Dorothy chatted on about her day and then stopped. There was a moment’s silence. Jeremy realized Dorothy had noticed how worried he was. The weight of the afternoon, the worry of David’s arrival would not go out of his head.

  “Jeremy, what’s up? What is on your mind?”

  “David.”

  “I see,” Dorothy sounded cold.

  “No, not like that. It’s just, He came today.”

  “Yes?”

  “Dorothy, I told him about us.”

  “And?”

  “First he was devastated. Then he seemed to accept.”

  “Have you left him?” Dorothy asked softly, hoping.

  “No.” Jeremy looked at Dorothy with pained eyes, “Dorothy, I have lived my life with David. I can’t just walk out on him. It is not like that. I cannot just crush him.”

  “Tell me what happened?” Dorothy spoke softly, pressing Jeremy’s hand. He held her hand.

  “I told him I had met you. That we were friends. I did not tell him that we have become lovers.”

  “Did you show him your backside?”

  “No I did not.” Jeremy denied, squirming in embarrassment.

  “Where do we go from here Jeremy?” Dorothy asked after another silence.

  The silence grew. Dorothy filled the space by pouring them both a cup of tea.

  “I need time,” Jeremy offered.

  “Time?”

  “Time to tell him. Time to break it”

  “To tell him what Jeremy?”

  “To tell him that we are involved.”

  “Involved?”

  “Yes. Please give me some slack Dorothy. Christ, I have known David for nearly twenty years. You and I have just met. I have to be sure.”

  “Sure of what?” Dorothy demanded.

  “Sure that I will love you Dorothy,” he responded earnestly, squeezing her hand.

  “I think I’ve fallen for you Jeremy. I don’t know why but I feel you are Mr. Right. I’ve been around Jeremy. I know we can fit together like a glove on a hand.”

  “Dorothy,” Jeremy sounded full of sweet surrender.

  “Will you let him make love to you tonight? she asked after a moment.

  “No, of course not. We have to be careful how we behave in Ireland. I told him we shouldn’t.”

  “Shouldn’t?”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I believe you Jeremy.”

  “I have to go soon,” Jeremy said after another silence.

  “Why Jeremy? I had imagined we would spend the Ni... the rest of the evening together.”

  “I told David I had to see an Accountant on a property deal. You remember the people we met?” Jeremy looked abashed at the memory. “I used that as an excuse. I have to go back. There are too many ties that bind Dorothy for me just to quit on David. Think of me and David a married couple, I need time…. Give me time please.”

  “What will you do with David?”

  “We have a lot of business to discuss.”

  “What business? You told me you worked in a dress shop. Then you sprang property deals on me. What do you really do Jeremy?”

  “I own. Or more precisely David and me are partners, we own Jeremy & David’s, the fashion shop chain.”

  “Jeremy & David’s? Jesus I never connected. That’s a huge public company. Why, he, I mean David. He must be loaded. Is he a millionaire?”

  “Yes, he owns about ten percent. He is the designer and front of house. They say he is worth about a hundred million.”

  “Who owns the rest?” Dorothy’s accounting training made her curious.

  “Thirty percent is with mainly the institutions. As you know it is a public company.”

  “A huge public company. And the remaining sixty percent is that with the general public?”

  “No, as a matter of fact about ten percent is held by smallish shareholders and I own the rest.” Jeremy admitted as if he was making a guilty confession.

  “But, if ten percent is a hundred millions worth, then, then Jeremy, you must be worth five hundred million. My god, and I horse whipped you.”

  “To tell the full truth now it’s out. I’m worth a bit more than that. Funny thing is David and I worked our butts off for that business but I, almost accidentally, made more elsewhere.”

  “Oh how, Jeremy?”

  She was looking carefully at Jeremy, realizing there was more to the man she had fallen in love with than she had ever imagined. He seemed to be a businessman out of her league and possibly her father’s.

  “Funny thing is, I’ve been very successful in property. I made tens of millions in the nineteen eighties, and hundreds of millions in the nineteen nineties and so on. I don’t do much property development now, just the odd flutter to keep my hand in. I just keep a conservative portfolio of shares and property.”

  “Jeremy,” Dorothy was speechless. She could sense he was not spinning her a line.

  Jeremy shrugged. “ Everything I touched turned to gold. I don’t know how I do it. Once we bought a racehorse. Cost me ten thousand. David and I wanted an excuse to be fashionable and go to Ascot and so on. Well, it won all before it. I sold the beast for five million.”

  “I don’t, I can’t believe.”

  “Believe me Dorothy, Not only that, I got out of Electronics before the crash, back into property. Lucky, but I followed an instinct. I am always decisive and quick to follow my gut feel, my heart.”

  “I believe you Jeremy.”

  Dorothy held on to his hand. She wa
s scared. Scared she would lose him. And she had thought he was a waif she would have to look after.

  “If I get uppity, take the horse whip to my backside,” Jeremy offered.

  “I will Jeremy, You had better believe it.”

  They both smiled and the eye contact told Dorothy they were still lovers.

  “I’m glad I told you” Jeremy said, “I don’t like to complicate things with too many secrets. I’ll take you through it sometime. My accountant says I am a sterling billionaire, being conservative but taking everything into account.”

  “Jeremy come over to the couch and kiss me.”

  They sat together. Jeremy kissed her and began to stroke her breast. He confidently opened her blouse and put his hand inside her bra. Her nipples rose hard and firm to meet his exploring fingers.

  “Jeremy,” Dorothy sighed. She wanted him inside her now.

  “It’s great to feel horney,” he said. He nearly said, with a woman, but he bit the words off in time.

  “What are you going to do about it?” she asked.

  “Will you touch it?” he replied.

  “No,” Dorothy took her hand away.

  “Will I have to marry you?”

  Dorothy seemed not to notice but the words went to her core. Nobody had said those words to her before. But some instinct told her he was serious. She realized she had to satisfy his value system, nice catholic girls did not tell boys to get on with it and screw the ass off them. The mention of marriage changed the climate. Now they were talking Catholic Church and respect. He said he was decisive when he wanted something. She now was full of hope that he wanted her.

  “In a catholic church?” she asked half-mocking, half-testing his intentions.

  “I’d want to do it right,” he said seriously.

  “Then you had better sort out David” she said, pushing him away and standing up, fixing her clothes.

  “Dorothy,” he said pulling her hand.

  “Watch it,” she said half in jest, “or I will take your pants down and then who will have a sore behind?”

  Jeremy giggled a funny giggle. Dorothy realized she had him. Somehow she was able to turn him on. He wanted to be dominated in sexual areas.

  “Go,” she said

  “Dorothy?”

  “Jeremy you said you had to go. Well go. I can’t stand it. If you touch me again I will rape you. And I want to be treated right. Do you understand?”

  “Yes Dorothy,”

  Jeremy stood up. His eyes were shining. He felt he would burst. He was proud that Dorothy could see the swelling in his pants. But she would decide. She would decide where and when he could have an orgasm. It was hers.

  “It’s yours,” he said.

  “I’ll cut it off if you let David near it.”

  “I won’t. In Ireland I am so guilty.”

  “Stay guilty. I’ll make an honest man of you if you let me.”

  “Please,” Jeremy smiled and then dropped to his knees.

  “Will you marry me Dorothy?”

  Dorothy smiled and considered her response, despite her internal turmoil.

  “Jeremy first you sort out David and then you ask me.”

  “Time, I need a little time. I want to keep the initiative and tell him in my own time.”

  “I understand. Why don’t you come down to meet my parents, properly that is? Dad was very rude tonight.”

  “Of course Dorothy. Let us go easy at this. David and I have a lot to do with the business. I know I have been hiding out in Ireland. But we both really do have to work very hard. There is an American trip soon and we also have to see the institutional investors for a scheduled lunch in London. We cannot have a public rift. It would unhinge our bankers.”

  “I understand more than you know Jeremy. If you like, come down to my parents place for a weekend. I’ll arrange it. You can bring David. I’d like to get a look at him.”

  “Will do,” Jeremy said agreeably clumsily rising to his feet and he kissed Dorothy.

  He stood about on one foot looking awkward and Dorothy knew he had something else to say.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Can we go to visit my mother before the weekend?” he asked.

  Dorothy had an inspiration. Maybe she could keep him away from David.

  “Let’s go now,” she offered. “The evening is young yet. She’ll be delighted if we call unexpectedly.

  Jeremy startled. This was too quick. But he knew he needed to do it suddenly without time to think.

  “Do it,” Dorothy urged.

  “I’d have to ring David and explain,” he stammered.

  “Do it,” Dorothy repeated. This was exactly what she wanted. She did not want him going straight back to David.

  Hesitantly Jeremy rang David. He was there. Dorothy listened to one side of the conversation, wishing she could hear all that was being said. Jeremy explained about the need to visit his mother and then answered David in monosyllables. Then he hung up.

  “Now to ring mother,” Jeremy said. Taking a deep breath he picked up the phone. It was answered.

  Shaking he put down the phone “She said come before half eight, she likes to go to bed early.”

  Chapter eighteen

  When Jeremy told her the address Dorothy decided that she was not risking her car in that neighbourhood. If her car was not stolen it would be demolished was how she put it.

  They parked in the nearest underground car park. Then they went on foot for the last half mile, sticking to the broad well-lit James Street.

  Dorothy held on to Jeremy as they walked. The flats were off James Street deep in the Liberties.

  Faces passed them as they walked. A man with a limp and a pained hurt face. A woman, expressionless, looked like she had been ill or was alcoholic or on drugs. A woman in old clothes with two healthy babies in a double buggy with a third standing on the back of the buggy as she laboured to push them along.

  “This end of town gets a lot of people who cannot cope,” Jeremy remarked, seeing how Dorothy was eyeing the passers by, “But there are also a lot of indigenous people, born and bred in this area, salt of the earth. Hard honest and real.”

  Dorothy wondered if Jeremy thought she was real. And his David? Was he real?

  It was twenty years, but Jeremy felt as if he knew every stone. But he thought it funny how everything seemed smaller, meaner.

  “We are here,” Jeremy said.

  He knocked on the door of a ground floor flat. “We were raised here,” he added.

  A large tough looking unkempt young man came out of the front door of the flat adjacent the one Jeremy had knocked on.

  “Are you one of the O’Reilly’s?” Jeremy asked and the young man looked surprised and suspicious. His face turned dark and threatening.

  “I am Jeremy, Mrs. O’Neill’s son, Jeremy. Are you an O’Reilly? My mother told me about the new neighbours. It is twenty years since I was home.”

  “Jeremy, the lost lamb,” the youth said sarcastically. “She told us about you too. And you’ve come home, and with a fancy woman? About time too… You don’t sound like a Dub. Where did you get the fancy accent?”

  Jeremy smiled. “Do you think she is in?” he asked.

  “Your Ma had an accident. Hurt her arm. Did she tell you?”

  “No we spoke on the phone, nothing about an accident.”

  “I’ll have to let you in. My own Ma is at work.”

  The youth produced a key and opened the door.

  “Visitors Mrs. O’Neill,” he shouted in his deep Dublin accent. He stood back with a smile and let them in. Jeremy closed the door, smiling, leaving him outside.

  She was sitting in a wicker chair at the window. She would have seen them coming and heard the exchange at the door. Her arm was in a bandage.

  “Ma,” Jeremy said and went and kissed her cheek. She held her cheek up to him but otherwise was still.

  “Ma?” she said. “Jeremy I hardly recognize you. You have a cheek coming home
after twenty years.”

  “Ma, this is Dorothy,” Jeremy said, introducing her and simultaneously, almost hiding behind her.

  “Good child bearing hips. Maybe you will give us a boy,” she said.

  “Ma, have manners.”

  “Manners, kiss my arse. I am too old for manners. Fat lot of good it did me teaching you manners.”

  “I’m here Ma,” Jeremy said helplessly.

  She smiled and reached for his hand. “So you are, so you are. I don’t know why you have been so scared to come home. And you with a fine young lady, when did you marry? Do I see a ring? No. Put the kettle on Miss while I look at the cut of him. Fine young man you have grown up to be. Only ever ringing on the phone at and then like a scared rabbit.”

  “Ma.”

  “Shut up and sit down. It’s about time you came home.”

  Chapter nineteen

  “He wants what!” Michael O’Byrne was red in the face and, just astounded.

  Unlike the formal monthly meeting, the weekly board meeting had no set agenda. Dermot O’Rourke had put the proposal to the meeting as they sat around the boardroom table. All attention centred on Dermot and Michael, only James O’Driscoll was absent, as he was in Germany.

  “O’Donoghue wants us to merge the two companies. He wants to be the Chairman of the merged company,” Dermot explained.

  “He’s nuts,” Michael spluttered. “Our turnover is five to six times his.”

  “Turnover doesn’t mean much as we are in the agribusiness where margins are so low,” Dorothy interjected. “Remember Howlett Holdings is a quoted company. This gives its shares a higher value because of marketability.”

  “O.K.” Michael retorted. “We must account for a substantial slice of his turnover. If we decided to give him no more business then he will have to run for the hills. Take us out, leave him with his overheads and his profits are practically gone.”