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top of her head. “Anyone ever mention that your imagination sucks?”
    “Could be he’s straight out of a Wes Craven horrorfest,” Harry said, making a spooky face. “Girl alone with strange dude equals she’ll like definitely get her throat slit.”
    “It’s so encouraging to have friends like you two losers,” Max said, jumping up and making a running dive into the pool.
    She didn’t care what anyone said—she was going to Big Bear. No doubt about it.

Chapter 7
    For some time Irma Bonar had been thinking about taking a lover. At thirty-two, she’d finally decided to do something about her empty life stuck outside Mexico City in an enormous villa surrounded by servants and bodyguards. This was the place her husband, Anthony, had decided she should live, while he traveled anywhere he wanted doing God knew what.
    Anthony Bonar was a difficult man. Difficult, arrogant, and most of all controlling.
    The fact that he no longer wished to have sex with her did not please Irma at all. Over the years she’d gotten used to her husband’s ferocious style of lovemaking, and now she could not understand why their once-active sex life had ground to a sudden halt.
    Whenever she mentioned it to him, Anthony always managed to come up with a variety of reasons. Reason number one: he had a lesion on his penis and he wasn’t sure what it was.
    Irma had carefully inspected his limp manhood and found nothing.
    “It’s there,” Anthony had insisted, “an’ if you don’t wanna catch nothin’, you’d better listen t’me for once.”
    This frightened her off for a while, until one night he’d shoved his supposedly damaged cock into her mouth for a late-night blow job because he’d had a fight with one of his mistresses and the puttana had sent him home horny.
    After that incident the lesion excuse didn’t work anymore, so he’d announced that his doctor had warned him that his testosterone level was dangerously low, and that he had to lay off sex for a while.
    Gradually Irma had grown to understand that her dear husband did not wish to have sex with her, and galling as she found it, she was forced to settle for the occasional jump in the dark when he felt like it, usually late at night or early in the morning when she was half asleep. Anthony always made sure to pull out before coming. He had no desire to make more babies—two was definitely enough.
    Irma did exactly as Anthony expected of her. She concentrated on their children, making sure Carolina and Eduardo received the best of everything. She also absorbed herself in decorating their various homes, although once each place was finished, Anthony sent her back to Mexico, where he insisted she live. Anthony professed to love their home. If he loves it so much , Irma often thought, why doesn’t he live here permanently? He came and went whenever it suited him, while she was stuck there with no friends and no one to talk to.
    Anthony did not encourage her to make friends, although he certainly entertained an adoring entourage when he deigned to spend time at home. There were several couples he invited over when he was there. One of the women was American, but Anthony had warned Irma not to have any contact with the woman when he wasn’t around.
    “Why not?” she’d wanted to know.
    “ ’Cause I don’t want nobody findin’ out nothin’ ’bout my business,” he’d said. “You’d better keep to yourself, Irma. That’s an order.”
    When the children were old enough, Anthony had decided that they should continue their education in America. This delighted Irma, because she was desperate to move back to the States.
    “ You’re not comin’,” Anthony had said, brooking no argument. “You’ll stay in Mexico—it’s our main home, it’s where you should be.”
    “No,” Irma had protested. “Where I should be is with our children. They’re still young, they need me.”
    “Forget it,” Anthony had answered harshly. “The kids are growin’ up. I’m