Chapter 11

“No, not at all.”

“Then you are attractive as well as kind, a lethal combination.”

“What happened next?” she asked, the kindness in her eyes finally beginning to show.

“She referred me to another specialist, a urologist, who diagnosed my condition as possibly a severe case of priapism. He asked me if I had ever had an erection that lasted more than four hours. Feeling slightly uncomfortable, I made a bit of a joke in response.

“Do erections ever last less than four hours, Doctor?” I asked.

“The elderly doctor didn’t really get the joke. He looked at me severely, explaining when some men get aroused, as blood flows into the penis, it becomes painfully engorged and the blood doesn’t drain properly. He told me to return to him when I had an erection lasting more than four hours and he would inject a needle on the side of my penis and drain out the excess blood. Of course, I had my normal four hour erection later that night.”

Bella Lisa blushed.

“Did you return to the physician?” she asked.

“No, Ms. Mauricio. I decided I’d rather deal with a painful erection than get my private parts stabbed with a needle and have all the blood drained out.”

Bella Lisa couldn’t help but smile at the joke.

“He recommended surgery to ‘prevent long-term and permanent damage to the penis’. Cutting open my penis would prevent damage to it? Obviously, I didn’t go back to that specialist…”

Bella Lisa smiled again, biting her lip to stop herself from laughing.

“Ah, it’s good to see you smile, Ms. Mauricio. What do all those woman’s magazines say, ‘The way to a win a woman’s heart is through your sense of humor?’ Anyway, after all the tests and humiliating exams, no one quite knows exactly what’s wrong with me. It comes and goes, sometimes leaving me at peace, other times building in intensity to such a searing pain that it makes me want to scream. It is a curse, Ms. Mauricio, I assure you. Perhaps I was cursed by the Gods for not being generous enough to my fellow man. For not giving shelter from the cold to the old homeless woman who asked for my help one winter’s night many years ago. Do you think 10 million would be enough to buy my release from this? It’s as if this alien creature lives inside me, a beast that seeks a satisfaction and release, a satisfaction and release that… that only you can give, Ms. Mauricio.”

Bella Lisa’s smile disappeared. She instantly stood up and walked over to the elevator doors. Williamson followed her at a distance.

“Now I’ve made you uncomfortable. That should teach me never to be honest with anyone.”

At the elevator, Bella Lisa turned to him.

“I cannot help you with your… condition. I respectfully decline your job offer, Mr. Williamson. I’d like to leave now. Please tell me the code to be able to operate the elevator…”

Williamson turned his palms outward, gesturing to the elevator door.

“Why, you already know the code, Ms. Mauricio.”

“Stop playing games with me, Mr. Williamson.”

“The code is 08,14,2008. The day we met. Four years ago.”

Bella Lisa turned back to the elevator, punched in the numbers in the key pad, pressed the down arrow and the arrow lit up. She spoke to him over her shoulder as she waited for the elevator to arrive.

“Perhaps you are a sex and love addict.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“There are meetings you could go to, so I’ve heard, that are similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Perhaps talking about it to others as you’ve done with me might help your affliction.”

“I suppose you were right, back then.”

“Right about what, Mr. Williamson?”

“About your initial assessment of me, in the dark of the theater, four years ago. The first word you said to me, remember, Ms. Mauricio? Pervert. You called me a pervert.”

“Well. I do apologize if I offended you in any way back then, sir. I am sorry.”

“No need to ever apologize for speaking the truth, Ms. Mauricio. I can’t change what I am. I am a pervert. I know that I am. I had only wished you could help break this curse upon me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You are not cursed.”

The elevator arrived with a ping and swooshed open and before Bella Lisa took her first step into the open door, Williamson spoke out firmly and clearly.

“Your father owes me $350,000…”

Hearing this, Bella Lisa seemed frozen in place. The elevator doors quietly shut.

She turned around to face Williamson.

“About a year after you left for college, something happened that wiped him out financially. I assume he never told you. He held a very large stake in a company called Gaston Pharmaceuticals. I’ve seen this happen before when an individual investor gets taken in by the marketing of one particular company. Rather than diversifying his stock portfolio as I advised him to do, and spreading out the risk between several companies, he put all his money behind this one stock. Gaston was a blowhard research scientist who claimed to have discovered an effective treatment for end-stage liver cancer.”

“His mother died of liver cancer.”

Bella Lisa slowly walked away from the elevator to the glass windows on the other side of the room and stared out, looking down to the sea. Williamson followed her at a comfortable distance behind as he talked.

“Your grandmother. I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Mauricio. Perhaps that’s the reason he was investing so heavily in that one particular company. According to the glossy annual reports, the company’s flagship drug was approved for sale in 22 countries in Asia mostly and was profitable, rare for a start-up drug company, especially one that had just a single drug in their pipeline. The company spent a fortune setting up clinical trials in the US and Europe and had reached Phase 3 to get the drug approved by the FDA. 70-90 percent of drugs that reach this stage get approved. Your father invested every penny of savings, as well as his residual checks on this stock. He even set up a margin account with Fidelity Investments and gambled money he didn’t have on it.”