But, I was working on it. Anger management helped.
I had a stable of counselors and therapists to choose from. Physiologists, psychiatrists… just like the infinity pool at Cliffside Passages, the choices for a better life were endless.
People can change, if they want to. But first, they have to want to. Need will eventually need to follow. And need is not necessarily a bad thing, or a sign of weakness. It can be a useful tool, if you know how to exploit it.
So despite what 'they' say, people can – and do – change.
Take Maddox, for instance. He'd changed, for the most parts. I suppose being tied to a tree and cock-teased for a few days was his personal kind of prescription therapy. Such questionable methods wouldn't be a treatment option at Cliffside, however, and no one was more surprised than I when I discovered I could joke about it. I couldn't say laughter was the best medicine, necessarily, but it certainly didn't hurt.
One of the first, and most unexpected alterations to the infamous Maddox Petersen was that after saying adios to the Stiller and Petersen Corporation, he reinvented himself as an angel investor. And he did it the right way. This wasn’t some kind of money grab to steal a company from under those who built it, but to help entrepreneurs achieve their full potential.
It was during our first real date, over chicken and waffles and dirty martinis when we happened upon the idea of philanthropy as a career choice. He had the money, I had the heart. We were a recipe for success, really. Angelonia Empresa was born soon after.
Maddox was an investor savant. He had this bizarre instinct, this inherent knowledge which pointed out the products and ideas, even simple concepts, that showed the most promise of return. His professional aptitude was on equal footing with my inner creative.
With the burdens of revenge, guilt, and hatred removed, something within me was set free. My imagination was unleashed. And miracle of miracles, I could actually put my college degree to use. I came up with tag lines, brand ideas, and scripted commercials for the prototypes Maddox selected for a financial giddy-up.
Angelonia was unique from other investment platforms in that all its promising entrepreneurs came from either the wrong side, or no side, of the tracks.
Maddox wouldn't entertain a proposal from anyone with a household income of more than five figures. I called him out on it, told him he was being exclusive to that income bracket just because of me and my family's history with the lower end of the middle-class status.
He said that I was right.
Which was strange, because I assumed he was going to argue the point.
I'd come to find out that Maddox only argued when absolutely necessary. He was still an ultra-rich, and ultra powerful man. It’s just that there was no reason for him to spend the extra energy, or burn additional calories, unless he felt a good old-fashioned debate was in order. He'd already topped out at over six feet, and with his newly-cultivated, rugged outdoorsman look, he could get even more of what he wanted. From anyone, anytime. He had all the control.
Behind closed doors, however, he surrendered everything to me. Including himself. For me to hold dominion over that – even the very idea of that – was the most luscious form of foreplay I could have ever fantasized.
It was kinky.
It was naughty.
Even better, it was completely taboo. Totally forbidden.
Nothing could be finer.
It did make meeting the parents a little strange, though.
Hi, Mister and Missus Petersen, so nice to meet you. Your son isn't quite the asshole I initially thought him to be. Also, he turned me into a dominatrix. He's the submissive. Kinda digging that turn of events. Could you please pass the salt?
I'm paraphrasing, of course, but those thoughts did go through my head when I was first introduced to Anna and John Petersen – soon to be known as Mom and Dad. Also strange.
By far, though, our biggest problem was always having to keep the media's nose out of our personal life. It was like trying to alter the course of a river with a toothbrush.
No matter the extraordinary quality of care to be offered at Cliffside, the first and foremost priority on everyone's mind was where the Hispanic broad came from, and what the hell was she doing with a rich white boy like Maddox Petersen.
Ain't that a hoot.
I was the subject of conspiracy theories. Which I found to be a compliment.
One of my favorites was that I was an illegal alien who'd risked life and limb to cross the border in order to clean his gold-plated toilets.
According to the internet rags, Maddox started banging me, got me pregnant, and in order to avoid persecution from the federal government and newly enhanced immigration laws, had no choice but to succumb to marriage.
Apparently, the stress was too much for my petite Spanish frame, and I miscarried. In the throes of south-of-the-border hysteria, I demanded my own business to offset the pain and heartache of an involuntarily terminated fetus. And for those who didn’t care about my love-life, they took things a bit more financial, predicting that Angelonia Empresa was a doomed venture from the start.
Their articles claimed it to be nothing more than a way for Maddox to shut his crazy wife’s mouth. They also suggested that he would have been better served by offering me a nail salon, or a lingerie shop. A contemporary Mexican food restaurant. Or massage parlor.
It would have been easy enough to hold my own press conference, disparage the rumors of gold plated toilets, my citizenship, and tragically aborted child. I stuck by the No Comment gun. No reason to add fuel to the idiots' fire. I simply stated, through my personal blog, the speculations surrounding my relationship with Maddox Petersen
