When somebody becomes a fraudster, she or he doesn’t it intentionally. One not stands up a good day after having slept pleasantly, and at the end of breakfast decides “from now on I’m going to be a fraudster”. No. It is more related with a pile of lies which one is going telling out without worrying about the consequences, and that unknowingly, they are going taking control of one’s life, no resistance. In other words, like the carnivorous plant from “the little shop of horrors”,  lies start as a small seed, which grows and grows, until it is able to eats you up, if you feed it as it pleases.

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My name is Paul Laimbert, and before getting this certainty, I used to lie unconsciously using some little paltry lie to the occasion. I was wanting that way, to decorate my scant successful life as gallery art assistant, with exciting and remarkable details during the social events which I had to assist; leaving outside my sad reality and replacing it by that that I thought it was able to give me a place at the same level of people around me, thus, gaining their sympathy and endorsement. 

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I was on this kind of things, enjoying as much as possible with the great social life that my job was offering me; when one day, in an opening party for a new exhibition which was being celebrated at the gallery, a very beautiful woman with a very stunning body came into the hall, drawing quickly the whole presents’ gazes. 

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This woman was no other than Shanna Smith, the daughter of a famous business man in the city. She had come invited by the artist, with the intention of buying some of his works. Promptly, she joined the group formed by the art gallery director and several influencers from the art’s scene, so as to share their points of view about the works exhibited.

 

A couple of drinks later, inside the group I was, we were discussing about how much convenient is to express through the contemporary art, co-existential dilemmas of the modern human being in a post-modernist society. 

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 - The discussion should be expounded with none reservations. - I pointed for my partners at a certain time, pretending myself a great expert about the topic. However, I had never heard a thing about it or if I heard something, I couldn’t remember it; but my goal was do not miss a trick in the conversation, and someone had to say something. 

 

 - Right! Otherwise, the objective concomitant analysis’ impartiality would be endangered. - One of the fellows answered with an unanimous support from the whole group as a result. They and I, were speaking the same language, even my brain was able to recognize the most of the words, however, the more I was trying to find a global meaning for all of that, the more I was achieving a bigger bewilderment.

 

Immersed in the conversation, from the other side of the hall, the art gallery director was making signs trying to get my attention. I approached him immediately as I realized, exaggerating a certain bearing of worry, because it was not frequent that during these events my presence were required; except if it would arise a necessity of solving any unexpected problem, as it could be “please, call cleaning service” or “please, check W.C. are not obstructed”. 

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 - Please, go to the Ladies W.C. and check out what is happening there. It seems somebody takes locked in a long while and people is starting to complain. - The gallery director told me, in confirmation of my expectations. 

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When I arrived to the W.C., I found a group of five little drunk ladies gathered in front of the door. They were trying to encourage what seemed to be a woman crying into the toilet room. I asked them for keeping calm and for an explanation about what was happening there. 

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 - The young lady closed the door and later, we started to hear she crying. At least, it was 10 minutes ago and I can hold it no more. - Said one of the drunk ladies that by the red color of her cheeks and her vigorous movements, I guessed she must be at the opening party interested only in the open bar, like many others there.

 

I asked kindly for clearing the place, suggesting them to use another W.C. sited in the other wing of the gallery. 

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When at last I found myself there alone, I approached an ear to the W.C. door and I heard fairly a woman weeping. I nocked tactfully on the door and ask her, please, for opening it. I must have made a good selection of my words, because she opened, only with that; in such a way that it was easy for me to have the feeling that I had to come in. 

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Once inside, I discovered to my own surprise, she was the beautiful and wealthy, Shanna Smith. 

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I couldn’t believe what was happening there. The beautiful woman was sat on the toilet with her face sunk between her hands, and all together covered by her beautiful fair and bright, just like the very rays of sunlight, hair. She explained me that she just received a picture of her boyfriend with another woman, in an extremely loving attitude.

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That seemed to me hard to believe. I couldn’t understand how somebody, enjoying the love from a so beautiful woman, who even would have been considered a deity fallen from the paradise of gods by any other civilization in the past, couldn’t be utterly satisfied only with she. 

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Therefore, I tried to encourage her with a mixture of funny comments and some clever and common expressions suitable to the occasion. To say true, I solved perfectly the fix, in such a way that If I could recover one by one my words, I could write successfully the book “ The perfect friend’s guide for helping to cope the drama of a loving disillusion”, and the prologue too.

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 - Thank you very much. I’m embarrassed for this. - She said with her eyes still smudged by the tears and trying to fix up the perfect hairstyle she came to the gallery with. Even in that disarranged way, the beautiful Shanna Smith matches perfectly with my ideal of female beauty and anyone’s who had a good mental and visual health. 

 

 - My name is Shanna Smith. - She said at the same time she was offering me her hand to seal the introduction. 

 

 - I’m Paul Laimbert. Don’t worry miss Smith, we all like to have somebody near to talk to, when things like that happen. Even a perfect stranger fits fine for it. - I said ripping again a sweet smile from her. 

 

 - Nice to meet you Mr. Laimbert. You are very kind. To find a good person is delightful nowadays, there are a lot of miserable people around everywhere. May I ask you what do you do? -. 

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This question switched on instantly my subconscious’ engine, which usually only is started up when it detects that I’m not at the same level of the person who I’m speaking to. Then, the first lie was produced, and thus, one after one.

 

 - I’m an advertising executive. The company where I work have been in charge for promoting this event. - I blurted thinking such a thing would like her. No doubt it was a lie, but I was in the habit of solve similar situations and I didn’t worry at all about the possibility of come out finally as a real fraudster. 

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After a while talking, in which we even started to address informally one each other; I offered to give her a lift to go home and she accepted. To avoid finding someone who could uncover me, I proposed to go out the gallery separated, signaling her I would wait in my car, in front of the main entrance of the gallery.

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When we arrive her home, for my surprise, she didn’t leave the car immediately, instead of that, she stayed inside and we keep talking for more than an hour. We talked intimately about our lives; in my case, of course, about my sad lie. 

 

 - This last season I’ve been completely dedicated to my job. I have pending a lot of projects and I barely have some time for my life. - I said following the role of the successful advertising executive to get her interest. 

 

 - Well, take my visit card and if you find some day, some time to take a drink, I would like to be called by you to take it we both together. - She said before get out the car and give me a kiss in a cheek so sweet and tender like a peach in syrup. 

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Of course, I called her. During the following weeks we had several dates in that, bad luck for my bank account, my savings started a dizzy sloped downward as we went dining out in the most expensive restaurants in the city. - It’s amazing to pay for one dinner the same than a family with 3 children pay for a week purchase, and 2 hours later be hungry again. - But, what else could I do? Shanna Smith was interested on me; she, one of the most beautiful and wealthiest women in the city. I had no more choice than pretending I could afford those dinners in those so select establishments and much more. She was worthy of it and I could get, at last, the great drift of my life, if I played well my cards. 

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She used to invite me to her luxury apartment; where I discovered, besides she has a stunning body, she was a marvelous lover. A real priestess of passion. She was able even to revive the most defeated of the warriors, when it was necessary. She liked delivering herself no conditions and enjoying sex until the last drop of energy; knowing how use her sweet and powerful gifts for it when my strength became weak, because of her almost never-ending sex drive. 

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Make love with her, was the own fantasy in itself. A skin made of silk, where my hands found joy, dressed her naked body dominated by extreme curves which went giving shape to the absolute perfection of her figure. I lost myself in it to find myself again, over and over, tasting the sage from each corner of her anatomy. From all and each one of her movements, sprung the seed of the next, wrapped in the delicious flesh of its juicy fruit; by which I supplied myself until fill every one of the vessels made just to save the harvest, with the juice from the source of my stream. 

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Day by day, our relationship was progressing because my lies were working. Thanks to it, Shanna was each time more in love with me, what spurred me to keep feeding that always starving monster. Therefore, after each date, the successful advertising executive came back victorious, sinking deeper into the dirty mud, the sad and insignificant gallery art assistant. 

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Until one day, while we were walking on the beach at the sunset; something happened that lighted the fuse of the dynamite which ended making blow up all that mountain of lies, and also I with it together. 

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 - What about a meeting with my friends in your apartment? So, you could show me it at last, and I would introduce you to them. It would be perfect, wouldn’t it? - She said.  

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I was living in a small apartment near the train tracks, which had the same comforts than a hermit cave. I couldn’t organize there a meet without unveiling the whole lie that I had been building for weeks and I couldn’t refuse either to meet her friends if I was determined to keep going with all the fake.

 

 - Yes, all right. Great idea! - I answered instinctively, leaving for later to devise an appropriate solution. 

That night we made love in Shanna’s apartment in front of the fire place and she ask me to stay there in order to we sleep embraced all night. - Shanna was like this -. 

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While she was sleeping, I was in that luxury room where the cold darkness had been placed itself. When, as a bad omen that I couldn’t figure out, wheeled on my mind a solution for fixing the trouble. Suddenly, before my eyes, the movie with the plan that I had to do was shown, and I took notes.

 

At the next morning, during breakfast, I told Shanna that I had to go out the city for a couple of days because of job, but at my return, we would schedule a meeting at my apartment, with the single condition that I would take charge of everything; two days will be enough to prepare my plan.

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First, it was needed to get an apartment whose features matched with the life style I was wanting to seem. Art gallery director’s flat must do it. So, to avoid complex explanations or the bothering obstacle he refused to lend me it for one night, I would leave him out of combat for a few hours with a fistful of sleeping pills which I would add into his usual coffee in the afternoon. 

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Then, I must order a dinner in a good restaurant with food service. I would prepare the apartment so as to it seemed mine. We would have a quiet evening event and at the end, maybe a little too early, however, completely necessary, I would ask Shanna to marry me. So, I would give the great strike of my life or in case she refused, I would break up with her and I would finish with the whole fraud forever.

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Last, to imagine at the right moment some excuse for chasing all of them out, Shanna included; to come back to the gallery for picking up the director, to bring him to his home, to come him into his bed and to tell him the next day, that once he fainted spontaneously, I myself had brought him to his home, meanwhile he was unconscious and to wait he believe me or telling him any other lie. 

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Two days later, I had everything ready. I managed to get the sleeping pills through a contact which I knew he plotted with drugs, when we were students at university and that lucky me, he kept the business open.

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I arranged the meet at 8 p.m. In the afternoon, I brought the coffee to the art gallery director with the sleeping pills dissolved into. Half an hour later, he was snoring at his office seat and I took him the apartment keys from his pocket. I closed the gallery and went in haste to the apartment for arriving before the restaurant food service.

 

The apartment’s decoration was perfect to develop my fraud. It was the typical of one important and sophisticated person, as I remembered from some parties I had attended. The food service was finishing letting everything ready; and to me, it just remained to hide every picture of the director scattered at the apartment and to wait the arrival of my guests.

 

At 8 o´clock, with a British punctuality, they did ring the doorbell as I was finishing perfecting the last details at the apartment. 

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Once formal introductions were done, I offered them a hurried tour around the house. 

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 - Dear! Your apartment is really beautiful! I can’t understand how you didn’t bring me here before... I should be angry with you. - Moved Shanna said me while she was punishing me sweetly, joining her lips with mine because at last she was at my apartment.

 

I was feeling more nervous than I would have wished; what was making me difficult find the right words or even to behave myself correctly for keeping my fraud naturally. 

 

 - Let’s say I’m very possessive with my intimacy. I think is a trauma that I have since I was a child. Perhaps because uncle Alfred used to come into the bathroom of our house without knock before at the door; we had extra rooms and he spent sometimes a season with us, because he had been evicted since he could not afford to pay the rent, because he spent all the money of his subsidy as a deaf person, in cigars and variety shows. Luckily, he died before my 14 birthday. He fell slept during one of the shows in which the theater came in flames with no more; that was uncle Alfred, when a deep sleep was hooking him, it was impossible to awake him. It was very funny because at Christmas, we used to make jokes about that. We laughed with the idea that, if one day, our house started flaming while he was sleeping, he surely would die burned. Finally, it happened, although it wasn’t at home but at the theater. So, we can say he died doing what he really liked, in spite of that show was not as funny as uncle Alfred hoped. Who knows? Maybe, now he is in heaven, still angry because the show was boring to die and he can’t reclaim the money for the ticket. - My brain processor was working until the top of its capacity and I couldn’t stop it already.  

 

The dinner was a success. A Vichyssoise and an orange duck, which not only were delicious, besides, no one brought the doubt even for a moment that I could prepare all those dishes.

 

My program was flowing perfectly; it was being an enjoyable evening event and we were reaching the time for the dessert. The moment to ask my beautiful and ingenuous beloved to marry me. Thus, I slid over the table a small box which only could contain one thing.

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 - Shanna Smith, would you marry me? - I asked her, opening the small box showing the ring that was inside.

 

It was an utter shock. The silence was settled in the dining room, only interrupted by some stifled laughs from Shanna’s friends. We all were waiting anxiously an answer to put end all that tension created. She rose her gaze and looked at me like that day, when we first met and at the end of the night she said me goodbye in the car, with that same gaze, clean and innocent, it able even to embrace you steadily.

 

From this moment on, the next happened can be described as “the serial of facts by which I finished eaten up, no remedy, by my own fraud”. 

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Shanna Smith, the beautiful and wealthy woman over which my hopes of having a life brimming with comfort and success have been set, was already about answering; she had already her answer ready into her mouth. She was going to pronounce it for all of us and by the bright of her eyes, I imagined she was going to accept; but an inopportune and insistent calling at the door interrupted that magic moment.

 

I ask everyone for ignoring it, at the same time I wished with all my inner power that it were only a disoriented neighbor in the wrong floor. But the calling started again, and at this time, a strong voice could be listened from the other side, which said loud:

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 - Police! Open the door, right now!  -.

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I stood up, ran to the door and opened it. Before me, the art gallery director’s face escorted by several uniformed police agents. This image, produced me a demential wheeling of my mind, which was transforming everything bad in good and everything good in extraordinary, for delight of a crowd in the empire of cotton clouds and redeeming light, that were celebrating joyfully with a chorus of angels and trumpets the moment, and embracing it, like a people in parade welcoming one of its neighbors that comes back home as a hero. Immediately after, my soul was left adrift and a few seconds later, I was smashed against the floor, my sight dyeing in black.

 

When I recovered conscience, I found myself handcuffed. The art gallery director was talking with Shanna and her friends at the other side of the hall, while a police agent was writing on his notebook. It was clear that all my fraud was being revealed.

 

Once their talk finished, they said goodbye and the small group of Shanna and friends went to the main door to leave the apartment. I was in the middle of their way sat on the floor, hands at my back and humiliated. When they passed by my side, they threw their most aggressive and disgusting gazes of offense to me; Shanna threw as well the ring I just had given her, it hurting me seriously in an eye, since she hit in it with splendid accuracy. 

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Of course, I lost my job. The scant savings I remained were used to pay trials and compensations to the art gallery director and to Shanna Smith for deceive and provoke her, as their attorneys declared, a severe posttraumatic stress disorder, which was preventing her to have a right judge of unknown people because this was forcing her to be suspicious with all of them.

 

I sold my car to avoid me evicted and now I’m at the employment office queue, waiting for a chance to get out from this pit in which I came into, because I’m not able to admit my true reality.

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From everything occurred, the most bothering thing for me is that I was quite near to get my goal and If I couldn’t get it, it was not only by my fault. My skill for lying is worthy of study; I’m at the same level of the best one of all the politicians, no doubt. However, I must improve my skill to choose a good sleeping pills supplier or even better, to buy them at the pharmacy with medical prescription if it were necessary. Thus, I would avoid buying an already expired with less power which spoil all my plans and my life. 

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All in all, whom is keeping a fraud must know, that is really easy to lose control of it and end becoming its own puppet. So, if you are one of those that make use of some little paltry lie to the occasion in daily life, please remember that earlier or later, the most of the fraudsters are discovered. And better for you it be as earlier as possible, because the later they realize you are lying, the more the monster which you are feeding up, will keep growing and growing and making you with each lie, smaller and defenseless as his craving is.

 

Give me credit. I’m not telling lies.