resented any other person saying such things to her. But she knew Michele meant well and wasn’t just being a busybody.
‘I am over Roger,’ Lucille replied, coolly wiping her sugared lips with a serviette. ‘And I have moved on with my life. I have a challenging and satisfying career, a nice place to live, which is wonderfully close to my office, and a great girlfriend I can bitch to when I feel like it. I’d date if I wanted to. But the truth is, Michele, I’m just not interested in the opposite sex any more. I’m quite happy being single and celibate.’
‘What a load of old rubbish! You are not happy being single and celibate. You’re lonely as hell. And you are interested in the opposite sex. Women who aren’t don’t dress like you do. Just take a look at the outfit you’re wearing today.’
Lucille’s eyes blinked with surprise, then dropped to her favourite cream woollen suit. ‘This old thing? You have to be kidding. Okay, so the skirt’s on the short side, but the jacket’s thigh-length and not at all tight. I’d hardly call it a provocative outfit. My boobs are well hidden. I consider this suit on the conservative side of my wardrobe, actually.’ As opposed to the seriously sexy clothes she’d bought when she’d first left Roger and had gone through her wildly defiant stage.
Back then, she’d been determined to go out and paint Sydney red, but she had found when men made passes at her she just went cold all over.
‘Your boobs might be well hidden but your legs sure aren’t,’ Michele argued back. ‘And your legs are just as provocative, attached as they are today to five-inch heels. Haven’t you noticed the looks you’ve been getting from the male passers-by?’
They were sitting at an outdoor café on the main street in North Sydney, whose central business district was beginning to rival Sydney’s city centre across the bridge. Streams of office workers were always on the move at this hour, more than half of them male.
Lucille was used to male attention—the type that tall, voluptuous green-eyed blondes invariably got—so she really hadn’t noticed. Neither did she care.
‘Let them look,’ she said coldly. ‘Because that’s all they’ll ever get to do. Look.’
‘Lord, Lucille, what on earth happened in that marriage of yours to make you so bitter and twisted?’
Lucille stiffened, then shrugged. ‘I could never explain it in a million years. You have to live some things to understand them.’
Michele looked alarmed. ‘Your husband didn’t…abuse you, did he?’
‘Abuse me?’ Lucille considered that concept for a few moments. She’d never thought of her ex’s behaviour as abuse before. But of course that was exactly what it had been. Emotional abuse. That was why it had taken her so long to crawl out from under it. She’d been a type of battered wife for years, with all its accompanying loss of self-esteem and confidence.
But that was in the past now. Lucille saw no point in dragging it up for continual analysis. Her marriage to Roger was best forgotten.
‘No, of course not,’ she told her worried-looking friend. ‘He was just a low-down, cheating scumbag, okay?’
‘Okay. Look, I’m sorry I brought him up. I know you hate talking about him. And I’m sorry I nagged you about dating again. I just want you to be happy.’
‘Happiness doesn’t always come in the shape of a man, Michele,’ Lucille pointed out.
‘Agreed. But misery doesn’t always come in the shape of a man, either. It all depends on the man in question. And I don’t believe you’ve given up all hope in that regard. You yourself described your dream man to me one day a few months ago. If I recall rightly, aside from him being tall, dark and handsome, you said he’d have hot blood running through his veins, not cold beer. He’d genuinely like women and always put you first, even before his mates and his golf and his car.’
Lucille laughed. ‘Did I say that? I must have been day-dreaming. Such a species of male doesn’t exist. Not in Australia, anyway.’
‘Yes, he does. I married one.’
‘Tyler’s tall, fair and handsome.’
‘Don’t split hairs. I’m sure there are some fantastic dark-haired blokes around. But who knows? Maybe your dream man won’t be from Australia. You deal with a lot of foreign men in your job, don’t you?’
‘Well…yes…’
Lucille worked for an agency which specialised in handling the needs of corporate executives transferred to Sydney from overseas. Her title was that of Relocation Consultant.
As for the men she met in the course of her work…
If Lucille had been in the market for dating—or affairs—there were plenty of applicants. Not a week went by when some man didn’t hit on her. The fact that the majority of these men were married didn’t exactly reduce her cynicism about the male sex and their capabilities regarding faithfulness.
Still, best she not mention that little fact to Michele at this moment, either.
‘Unfortunately, Michele,’ she explained, ‘most of the foreign men I handle are family men. They come complete with wives and children. That’s why we’re in business. International companies finally realised that shifting husbands and fathers around the globe willy-nilly with no help was causing premature resignations. You don’t want me dating a married man, do you?’
‘Of course not. But surely some of these corporate execs must be single. Or at least divorced.’
‘True. Some are. And quite a few have already tried to chat me up, believe me,’ she confessed. ‘Several have even been very good-looking.’
‘And?’
‘No spark.’
‘Never?’
‘Never.’
‘I find that hard to believe, Lucille. You’re saying you’re never attracted to a man?’
Lucille decided a little blunt honesty was called for here, or Michele was never going to let this subject drop. ‘I used to think after I left Roger that I’d have no trouble having an affair, just for the sex. I like sex. Or I used to, once upon a time. But not even the most handsome, charming man turns me on any more. That part of me has died, Michele. My marriage killed it.’
‘I don’t believe that. Not for a moment. You’ve just been terribly hurt, that’s all. Your libido will come good one day, Lucille. Your divorce only came through last year, for pity’s sake. It’s just a matter of time.’
Privately, Lucille didn’t think she had enough time left in her life for that miracle to happen.
‘Meanwhile, dating doesn’t have to lead to sex,’ Michele swept on blithely. ‘What’s the harm in just going out with a guy every now and then? You don’t have to go to bed with him if you don’t want to.’
‘I assure you I definitely won’t want to.’
‘Fair enough. So stop looking for that spark before you say yes. The next time a nice guy asks you out, just go. Who
