True Love: A Story of Temptation, Seduction, and Other Dramatic Moments in Life

By Terry Pringle

As a successful ghostwriter for the rich and famous, William Montgomery is working with a Richard Chambers, a Texas legend to write his memoirs, but Chambers prefers bashing William for his best-selling novel, "Letters from Emily," a love story that some people believe proves the existence of true love. Chambers hates the book and the illusions it perpetrates, but his granddaughter, Stefanie, loves it. She’s also interested in the author but isn’t sure she trusts him.

Eventually William and Stefanie get their relationship started with a fantasy-like interlude on a small island off the Texas Gulf coast, but Stefanie won’t assume it’s long-term until William proves he can resist Nadia, the French woman who has stolen almost every man who has been attracted to Stefanie.

Nadia is the chief steward on the yacht that will take William and Chambers on a short cruise to Belize. This test of William’s ability to resist Nadia is, Stefanie says, the bounced check theory. She isn’t depositing a check until she knows it’s good. William is fairly certain he can resist the seductive Nadia, although he discovers her physical charms and very playful nature make doing so more difficult than he expected.

The question for William is the same one Chambers keeps demanding that he answer -- does he believe what he wrote in "Letters from Emily," or will he just admit he lied and encouraged others to believe such simple-minded fiction?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry Pringle
• Release date: May 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310534393

Terry Pringle

Terry Pringle was born in Jackson, Mississippi, but has lived in Texas most of his life. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he graduated from Texas A&I University with a degree in English and worked at a variety of “day jobs” while he wrote. For the last 25 years, he has been a copywriter and novelist. He lives in Abilene, Texas, with his wife, Brenda. Their son, Michael, lives in Atlanta.

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True Love

By Terry Pringle

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or to people living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2009 by Terry Pringle

All Rights Reserved

Originally published as Sex with Carla Young

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Chapter 1

Did you have sex with Carla Young?

There had to be a statute of limitations on that question. If not, then at least a need to know restriction, although only one person had actually possessed a need to know, a once calm and lovely woman who had been my wife. A variety of friends had asked, hoping to hear salacious gossip about a popular country singer. Carla Young had even wanted to know once, suffering from a terrible hangover. But Richard Chambers?

He had something else in mind besides an answer to the question. As we did every morning, seven days a week, we were sitting on the patio behind his huge house as part of our standing arrangement. We would sit in a sea of white wrought iron patio furniture that probably had branded curlicues permanently on my back side -- since he sat in the one chair that had padding -- and look out over the plain toward the little town of Portabella on the Texas Gulf Coast. We had yet to start actually working on his memoirs, the purpose of my presence. I was to be his ghostwriter.

The surprising thing about the question was that it followed a compliment, something he rarely dispensed, and it was thoughtful enough to pass for authentic. "Do you remember that section where the Rolling Stone writer was interviewing Carla and she was answering his question and thinking about the argument she’d had with her sister and was also considering everything she needed to do to get her career back on track? That was very impressive, the way you wound all that together. It was almost a reflection of the human mind. You don’t see that very often in a piece of writing."

Thank you, I said. You know, based on our conversations, you have more interest in writing than you do in giving me the information I need to write. Why don’t you write the book yourself? I’ll be your reader and editor if you need one. You might enjoy it.

I thought he was considering the suggestion. He’d been a writer at one time, had published his own magazine years ago. He was going through the pipe-lighting process, doing the same thing he always did, searching for the pouch of tobacco that always seemed to change pockets, getting the bowl properly packed -- all of it.

Then came the question: Did you have sex with Carla Young?

I sat there shaking my head. If there was a final judgment, that would be the only question asked of William Tecumseh Montgomery, once married to Emily and son of a Civil War buff, a writer who had tried changing his name to Billy or Bill or W.T. or Monty but who still answered to William at age 34. The angels would be nudging God and suggesting, Come on, ask him about Carla Young. Make him say.

Emily had asked, although initially she had used more refined language. Are you sleeping with her? I didn’t answer. I couldn’t lie to her but neither could I tell her I’d slept with Carla Young. She asked again and then didn’t wait but a matter of seconds before demanding to know, "Are you fucking her?" It had been unlike her to ask a question that direct or to use the f-word. This time when I didn’t answer, she shouted something unintelligible and heaved a big glass fish through the living room window. It was the first instance of behavior that was completely uncharacteristic of her.

Clearly, you did, Chambers said in that authoritative voice he used when he started a statement with clearly, one of his favorite words. He started poking the air with his forefinger to make all his points. "You were in love, he said, giving the words an implication of twisted behavior. You could do nothing but sing her praises to your wife, and after you showed her how truly entranced you were, she asked you the same question, and you sat there and flubbed it just like you did now. Of course, you had sex with her. You considered it the highlight of your life even though it was probably less than satisfying for both of you. Were you drunk? Stoned? Was it high school-type coupling, where you were humping her leg? Sad stuff, very sad stuff, although it will no doubt make it into your memoirs. Your thesis statement and primary accomplishment in life: I had sex with Carla Young."

He looked at me waiting for a reaction. That was what he was after, a reaction. He probably would have been disappointed if I’d actually answered his question. I knew he didn’t care about the propriety of the matter. There was nothing proper in his background. He had been engaged in questionable activities most of his life, starting with trading crude oil with regimes of low regard. His father had left him filthy rich after developing many of the oil fields in Central America, and the son had reportedly increased his wealth considerably during the oil embargo in the 70s, finding oil for the U.S. at a considerable premium from sources that had supposedly stopped shipping oil to us. He had been thoroughly investigated for violations of the Oil for Food program with Iraq although he had never been indicted. He looked fairly normal for a man who had allegedly greased so many palms, a man in his 80s who dressed plainly and had a head of hair that seemed to be a mass of uncombed thatches.

You couldn’t have written that book as you did without having a very intimate sexual relationship with her, he said.

Are you listening to yourself? I asked. You’re saying I can’t write a book effectively without a sexual relationship? What does that say about us? Is this foreplay?

I kept wondering about my actual purpose here. The man hadn’t been married in the fifty years since his wife died, and I kept wondering if I was here for sexual purposes. My relationship with him seemed to hover at this point, where he wanted to know something I wasn’t going to tell him, and I refused to respond just to make a point. I was often sorry I had signed the contract his lawyer had demanded I sign, a personal services contract that was based on the assumption that I belonged to him, not that I was here for the sole purpose of ghostwriting his memoirs. And the longer we went without working on his book, the more I wondered why I was here.

I suspected that he was interested in another book, not Carla Young’s, but mine, a novel entitled Letters from Emily. He was about to link the two, that was, sex with Carla Young and my novel. He hated my book. I didn’t understand why since it was a love story based mostly on correspondence, and it used email and letters from my former wife, which was why I used her name. The normal reaction to the book was the opposite of Chambers’, and it had ended up on bestseller lists and acquired some hardcore fans.

To divert him from my book, one of his favorite subjects, I said, Are we ever going to get started on your book?

Well, of course we are, although we’re waiting on two things. First, the lawyers. You know how they are. They give you an opinion on what they say you can’t say, and it always seems far too restrictive, and when I ask them to think it through again, they have to start all over. You’re the second hold-up. We can’t move forward until you’ve defended your book. It’s obvious you wrote it as a love letter to your ex-wife. Why else would you have used her name?

I used her name because I used her letters. She wrote them, and Emily happens to be her name. Pretty simple really. So there’s no hold-up on my part.

Why didn’t you put a disclaimer in the book? You should have included something that said, ‘The people in this book who you believe to be in love are now divorced and hate each other. This book is a sham even though I wrote it based on big lies so you’ll think it’s the most wonderful book in the world about true love. Thanks for buying it, sucker.’ Why didn’t you make it clear she had left you and wouldn’t come back? Why didn’t you make it clear that the book was a lie?

This man was the only person in the world bothered by my book, and one airing of his complaints simply wasn’t good enough. We went through this almost every morning, and if we didn’t, it was only because he was old and forgetful.

First of all, I said, it wasn’t a portrayal of Emily and me. And it wasn’t a lie for what it said.

If you encourage people to believe something that isn’t true, it’s a lie. I’m sorry about that. Do we need to go back to Ethics 101?

Not if you’re teaching it.

Well, look at it this way. The man in that book would never have gotten sexually involved with Carla Young.

Any man I know would have gotten sexually involved with Carla Young if they’d been in my place.

Thank you for finally answering the question. He laughed and looked at me with a triumphant smile that let me know he had been confident all along he’d win this match. And it proves my point. The heart throb and the hope of millions of silly women, your spokesman for true love, Mr. Bob Galbraith of fictional fame, does not exist.

Damn! I couldn’t believe he had tricked me into admitting my infidelity. It wasn’t the admission that bothered me since everyone had correctly assumed the facts. It was his little victory smile that bothered me. I was surprised he wasn’t up dancing.

Is there some reason you want me out here every morning? I asked. We don’t do anything but bash my book. When are we going to start working on yours?

You’re complaining? he asked, giving me a look of feigned disbelief. This is the easiest money you’ll ever make. All you do is sit there and say things like, ‘I don’t understand why you hate my book’ and ‘What is your problem with my book?’ You don’t even feel the necessity to contribute to the conversation. Then you leave. The only way the money would be easier is if you were being paid to sleep. He wagged his finger in my direction without looking at me. Actually, you are being paid to sleep.

I was prohibited from working on my own. I couldn’t do any research, at least not officially, since he was inflexible on the day-to-day mechanics of this project. I wasn’t to record a word until he told me to, nor was I to record any words except those he told me to record. For a while I thought the delay revolved around his reluctance to tell his story, but very often I had the distinct impression that he had brought me here not just to harass me about my novel but to prevent me from writing another one.

You know what your book reminds me of? he asked. Those little New Testaments with the metal cover we got in World War II. People carried them in their shirt pocket because they heard some dogface had a bullet that was headed right for his heart, but it was deflected by the metal cover. Your book protects their heart too, just in a different way. Your book is proof of true love in the universe. It offers the hope of finding that true love, and they hold it close to their heart because it protects them from harsh reality.

That’s extreme and you know it.

True. Followers of any kind are extreme.

I guess that makes me one step away from Hitler.

His arm shot out in a Nazi salute.

It was usually at this point that I began calculating the cost of buying my way out of the contract. The problem was I had spent two years trying to write a sequel to my novel but so far I hadn’t succeeded in anything but spending a lot of money, some of it as part of the divorce. I had bought Emily’s interest in our house even though I really didn’t need a house. I was going to have to sell something if I wanted to pay Chambers off. Before I did or said something I regretted, I told him I’d see him tomorrow morning and left.

The strange part of my relationship with Richard Chambers was the fact that he was generally responsible for my ghostwriting career. While still in college, I’d written an article for a magazine that he had read and later called me about. It was a very strange call resulting from an even stranger occurrence when a man had been struck by something that couldn’t have been as significant as he had perceived it to be. He must have also approved of our first conversation because he had then recommended me as a ghostwriter on several occasions, even though I hadn’t been a ghostwriter and was actually offended -- without saying so -- that he considered me one. The people he referred me to, however, were all paying customers and pretty soon, like it or not, I was a ghostwriter. Now when I told someone what I did, I always got the same reaction -- a puzzled look as the person tried to define the term, then attempted to come up with an appropriate response. If the other person was a writer, I always got a look indicative of his pity. A little short on the creative juices, eh, sport? To date, I’d yet to meet anyone who said, "Man, I have always wanted to be a ghostwriter. You lucky bastard!"

In general, I liked the work for the same reason some people liked acting. I got to be another person, slipping into someone else’s skin and living there for a while. I often learned all their secrets because the ghostwriting process allowed them to unload their burdens. Carla Young, for instance, had been very matter of fact about being shot by a psychotic fan on stage during a performance. It was nothing that she worried about and therefore nothing she needed to talk about, even though she had never returned to performing. She didn’t think about it, she said with an unconcerned shrug. Before long, I was learning that she thought of nothing else most of the time, and once she started talking about it, she rarely talked about anything else.

Over the years, as jobs came my way, I kept expecting Chambers to call and demand some outrageous favor for all the work he’d sent my way, a la The Godfather. William, I have a granddaughter with the personality of a butcher knife who wants you to father her baby. Be here Friday night for the festivities. Plan to stay on until the child turns 18. But I hadn’t heard from him until a few months ago when his lawyer had called and told me that Chambers wanted me to ghostwrite his memoirs. He would provide the housing and a salary to be negotiated along with a percentage of the royalties. I was to stay in Portabella as long as we were working on the book.

I liked the house he provided even though it had been a blight on the neighborhood of well-kept older homes when I arrived. Two blocks from the bay, it was overgrown with vines, shrubs and huge flowering plants to the extent that I almost couldn’t determine that a two-story stucco house was on the lot. It wasn’t all that big even with two stories, not much larger than a garage apartment.

The best feature of the house was the balcony outside the upstairs bedroom. It ran the width of the house and had a rattan couch and two matching chairs with an excellent view of the bay. I could watch the sailboats and fishing boats coming and going. The mosquitoes were usually big enough to keep as pets, but they could be banished by bug-repelling candles in the evening when the wind died. Even sleeping was a pleasant experience usually. I slept with the balcony doors opened, and every morning I would lie in intense comfort on cool damp sheets thinking about how good the bed felt.

I’d been looking for lawn care equipment when a pickup truck and a trailer with several lawn mowers and three workers arrived. They went to work mowing, edging and trimming and even hauled off the debris, leaving the house looking like a man fresh from the barber shop. As far as I was concerned, the house had everything I needed, even a working cable modem.

It did have some oddities, some cabinets and closets in odd spots filled with old belongings I was afraid to move. Ancient golf clubs, ledgers from someone’s business, a collection of very large dolls, sitting and strewn over shelves, at least one of which was probably capable of coming to life at 3:00 in the morning. The house creaked at night as though settling into the soft earth along the bay. And the first time I tried to answer a knock at the front door, I discovered I couldn’t open it from the inside.

You want me to open it out here? a voice asked.

It seemed a very strange question but I said, Sure.

The mailman used a key hanging on the porch beside the door to unlock it from the outside, something that couldn’t be done from the inside if the door was locked. He was just checking, he said, to see if I was going to be getting mail there. He already knew my name even though he didn’t have any mail to deliver.

It was good that I liked the house because I spent very little time with Chambers, usually only an hour every morning, even though it seemed much longer. The book-writing project should have been an interesting one, if we ever got started. Chambers’ father had been even more controversial than the son, accused on several occasions of sponsoring revolutions and fomenting violence in various countries to prevent competition in developing oil fields. He seemed to be more in line with the social Darwinians and railroad magnates of the 19th century than businessmen of the 20th century. The man had constructed a careful image of himself, carrying a sword, at least when a photographer was around, and moving around Central America like a swashbuckler. He had acquired some respectability later in life, when his home in Houston had been a center of high society. His parties had been attended by heads of state and celebrities of every stripe, including those he patterned his image on, like Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone.

The son was just as inebriated with the rich and famous. He had a room in his house that was something of a one-room presidential museum, containing relics or souvenirs from every president of the U.S. He had everything from a letter George Washington had written to a variety of memorabilia from the living presidents. He had another one-room museum of celebrity artifacts, gifts and photos of vacations with the rich and famous. My favorite was the famous photo of Marilyn Monroe with her dress blowing up. She had signed it (allegedly):

My precious Dick,

If only you were president!

XXX Marilyn

There was one part of my connection to Richard Chambers that kept me interested and caused me to look around the grounds every time I visited. A woman unknown to me lived in the big house -- or at least used the phone there -- and I talked to her almost every day. She had initially called to find out if I needed anything at the house and if everything was in working condition. She had spoken about the overall state of disrepair in a tone that was both critical and apologetic and made me think she at least possessed the standing to question Chambers. She wouldn’t give me her name or specify her relationship to Richard Chambers, although she knew me because she mentioned my book several times.

If you’re not going to tell me your name, I had said early on, then I guess you’ll be known as Anon.

No, no, that’s too Middle English. How about Annie?’

So is that your name?

It is now.

Today, I called her as soon as I arrived at the house, irritated by Chambers’ self-satisfied, smirking smile of victory over tricking me into an admission. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep until I could exorcise that image, mostly because I had conferred it upon him. When Annie answered (and she didn’t always), I said, Would you tell me what that man’s problem is?

Who’s calling, please? she asked as though she might be the residential receptionist.

I could hear Chambers’ same irritating smile in her voice, and I held the phone up, ready to give it a hard rap against the wall. Instead I said, Oops, I am so sorry. How on earth could I overlook the social ritual required by a woman who refuses to give me her name? How are you? Just fine, I’m sure. And I feel just as sure you’re looking good as well. I paused, then ground out the words: What is wrong with that man?

With glee in her voice, she said, Do you know how happy I could make him if I recorded this conversation? He could play it back every morning before he got out of bed, and he’d be guaranteed to have a good day. He’d probably invite you out for afternoon conversations so he’d have twice as many opportunities to piss you off.

Judging from our phone calls, I’d say she was definitely kin to Chambers because she rarely reacted as I wanted her to. If I was irritated, she was quite happy with the state of the world. If I was happy, she found much to complain about. Whatever she did worked for me though because I was addicted to these calls. She must have liked them as well because she usually answered the phone, and she only hung up on me when I’d made her mad.

You know, it’s just ridiculous, I said. First, he demands that I tell him if I had sex with Carla Young, and then he demands that I disown my book. Next he’ll demand --

Did you?

Huh?

Did you have sex with Carla Young? she asked, as if she had been waiting for the appropriate moment to ask and suddenly decided this was it. I’ve read her book and it’s so well written, it doesn’t even fit her. There’s no way she could have written it, not when you compare it to the songs she writes. At least, the ones where you can kind of understand the lyrics. And there aren’t many of them.

I wasn’t sure what that had to do with sex, but I wasn’t going to ask. I take it you’re not a real Carla Young fan.

She snorted. No, I’m not. And you didn’t answer the question.

I don’t remember the question.

Ha. How long were you out there? A long time, right? Months? If you were living with her, I know you did. There’s just not any way you wouldn’t have. I know you did. Did you?

Ask your elderly husband, I said. Changing her relationship with Chambers, no matter what I said, whether it was incestuous stepbrother or her eldest son, never brought any clarification. She wouldn’t tell me how they were kin.

I’m asking you, she said. Did you have sex with Carla Young?

Good Lord, she sounded like Emily. Who cared anymore, now that I had confessed to the most irritating man who had ever walked the earth. Why did I care what this woman thought, especially when she wouldn’t even tell me her name? Of course, I did! Any man would have!

She hung up. I didn’t realize it until I had waited a very long time for a reaction that didn’t come. Her preferred method of making her disapproval known was to hang up abruptly. No warning, no good-bye. And I could measure the extent of her disapproval by the number of times the phone rang before she answered again. This time it rang at least thirty times and I was about to give up.

Why did you tell me that? she asked as though in acute pain. What on earth would make you think I wanted to know you had sex with Carla Young?

I had actually wondered if I’d have sex with Carla should I be faced with the same circumstances all over again. I would have avoided it to save my marriage, but otherwise, I couldn’t remember any woman I’d made love to that I wouldn’t have done the same thing with all over again. Not that it had been all that good with Carla. Chambers’ assessment was closer than I wanted to remember. It was kind of a grunting, thrusting, wordless affair, a sort of every man and woman for themselves. Compared to sex with Emily, it was a primitive sloppy experience. Sex with Emily had been the only spiritual experiences of my life.

You told me just like I’m one of your junior high buddies, she said. I can’t believe you did that.

Excuse me, but I told you because you asked. You need to study lawyers. Never ask a question if you don’t know the answer.

"I knew the answer. I’m just appalled that you told me. It shows such an utter disregard for my feelings. Besides, Bob Galbraith would never ever have had sex with Carla Young."

I sighed loud enough for her to hear. Sometimes even I hated Bob Galbraith, the heart throb and/or hope of silly women everywhere, according to her kin. He was the husband in Letters from Emily and apparently a very effective spokesman for romantic love. He could have done PSAs on TV. Are you despondent over your inability to find true love? Well, whatever you do, don’t give up. What was your point about Carla’s book? What did that have to do with sex?

It didn’t have anything to do with sex. It has to do with you. I’ve read everything you’ve ever written. We have a William Montgomery library out here in case you didn’t know it.

I didn’t know it but I have to wonder why.

Richard thinks of you as the son he never had.

Ha.

Maybe he thinks you’re going to be an important writer.

He missed that too.

Is your career over?

It is if he has anything to do with it, at least if I continue to write books that he hates.

I started to ask if she’d read my other novel, House Above the World, but I didn’t want to sound like a celebrity who lost interest in a conversation when it shifted away from him or her. "Let’s go have a drink and let me talk my way out of this. I’ll show you that I know how to handle conversation with you. I’ll know just what to say if you ask me if