Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk Read Free Book Online Page B

Closer. She could smell the delicious Veal Prince Orloff on his breath.
    Penny dodged the kiss. The incoming call was impossible to ignore. “Sorry,” she quipped as she retrieved the phone.
    According to the ringtone it was Max.
    It was unfair. As Penny tried to tell people, C. Linus Maxwell was more than an Internet whiz kid. So much more! He ran a multinational group of corporations that led the world in computer networking, satellite communications, and banking. Adamantly, she would describe to Monique how Maxwell’s enterprises employed more than a million people and served hundreds of millions. Every year his charitable foundation alone poured a billion dollars into each of a dozen high-profile causes, fighting hunger, curing disease, promoting women’s rights. As President Hind could attest, gender equality was a dream close to Maxwell’s heart. He ran schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where young girls could strive toward a brighter future. He financed the political campaigns that brought female leaders into the highest positions of every nation.
    That, Penny told everyone, all of that pride and altruism made Maxwell so much more than a wealthy nerd.
    What she told herself was that she enjoyed being with him.
    It was a hard sell. Especially to herself.
    At the office, Monique asked, “Omaha girl, are you wearing a diaphragm?” She gave her head a sassy swivel, making her beaded braids rattle. Without waiting for an answer, she said, “Because if you are—take it out! Burn it! Flush your birth control down the toilet and
let that man knock you up!
”
    It was none of Monique’s business, but after a month of dating, Penny still hadn’t gone to bed with him. Late at night, her parents would call. Penny suspected that they were hoping to catch her in flagrante with Maxwell. Sleepily, she’d answer, “What time is it?”
    On the telephone, long-distance, her mother shouted, “How can you not love him? He’s so rich!”
    On the extension, her father added, “
Pretend to love him!
”
    “Your dad and I have never met Maxwell,” her mother gushed, “but we already think of him as family.”
    Penny hung up. She unplugged the phone and went back to sleep. She didn’t want to be a pushover. She’d seen too many of her sorority sisters walk down the aisle. Too many of those marriages had devolved into a grim lifetime of mandatory “date nights.” Like life sentences in a prison where the conjugal visits were few and far between. Rich or poor, she and Maxwell were still two people who needed the mutual passion to share a lifetime together.
    The fact never left her mind: None of his famous romances had lasted longer than 136 days. That couldn’t be by accident. They had all lasted exactly 136 days.
    And it wasn’t as if Maxwell had pressured her for sex, either. He was so detached, so pleasant, but he was so distant that Penny wondered whether Alouette D’Ambrosia had been lying when she’d claimed he was the greatest lover she had ever known. The French beauty must’ve been with better men, hotly passionate men. Maxwell wasn’t exactly aggressive. He did littlemore than watch and listen and jot notes in his little book. At yachting parties, women whom Penny didn’t even know glared at her. Pencil-thin supermodels sneered at Penny’s normal hips. They wagged their high-cheekboned heads in disbelief. The men leered at her. They assumed she had some erotic skill that bewitched Maxwell. Their lecherous stares suggested the scenes of unbridled sodomy and expert fellatio they envisioned. How funny it would be to tell them all that the world’s richest man had taken her skiing in Bern and to bullfights in Madrid, but he’d never taken her to bed.
    Penny wasn’t a virgin, not when she and Maxwell had first met. She’d had sex with boys in college, a few. But only one at a time.
Only
boys. And
never
from behind! She wasn’t a pervert, and she wasn’t a slut. Her boyfriends were mostly Sigma Chis who