Oh, well, I might as well enjoy the free drink, I thought to myself. I sipped on it while staring around at the patrons. This wasn’t a family resort; it seemed to cater to rich people living lives of leisure, or business types. I had a fanciful notion that the barman thought I was some rich young heiress who whiled away her evenings drinking overpriced cocktails and pondering the emptiness of her existence. The idea made me giddy, so I decided to play along with the role for a minute, running my finger along the edge of my glass and trying to affect a demeanor of jaded privilege.
Perhaps he thought he could butter me up with free drinks and then wheedle his way into my bank account. My real-life bank account was nothing to write home about, but my imaginary heiress bank account could keep him in Rolexes and designer underpants for the rest of his days.
Now that I was watching him, he did strike me as the type who could sail through life on his looks if it so pleased him. Jay was attractive in a rough around the edges, battle-scarred sort of way. The bartender was a pretty boy. I doubted he had a single scar on his tanned, muscular form.
Once he was finished with the ladies, he sidled his way back over to me and began wiping down the bar top.
“Is the cocktail to your liking, honey?” he asked, and I gave him a polite smile. I was beginning to tense up now, because the way he looked at me was like he’d already stripped me of my dress and was pleased by what he saw. Actually, it was kind of irritating.
“It’s great, thanks,” I said, stiff.
He leaned slightly closer. “I love your accent. Where are you from?”
I inwardly snorted at the idea of my accent being anything other than common and mundane. The romance languages were the ones that had the enviable accents. “Ireland,” I answered finally.
“Oh, yeah? I’m a fifth Irish on my mother’s side, you know,” he said, and winked. “What brings you to this part of the world?”
Before I could tell him that I was on my honeymoon, another voice did it for me. That voice was one part amused and another part seriously pissed off, and it came from the stool to the left of me. A stool that I was sure only seconds ago had been empty.
“She’s on her honeymoon,” said Jay, and I turned to him. He was frowning.
The whole randomly appearing thing was a bit of a habit of his, something of an occupational hazard for magicians, you could call it. One of these days he was going to give me a heart attack. It usually goes something like this: I walk into the empty kitchen, open the fridge, pull out some orange juice, take a sip, look to the previous vacant table, and there sits Jay, sending my heart racing. It’s similar to when you think you see a person standing in a darkened room, but it turns out to be a coat rack…or a cardboard cutout of Harry Styles. Only in my case, the person often turns out to be Jay.
The bartender quickly took in the dynamic, eyebrows shooting up into his forehead, nodded, and suddenly looked like he had a very important task to complete elsewhere. A second later, he was gone.
Jay took my hand in his and leaned down to sniff at my cocktail. “As if he didn’t see the ring. Prick was trying his luck,” he muttered. “What are you drinking, darlin’?”
“A Sex on the Beach,” I said wryly. “The barman suggested it.”
“I bet he did. I can’t leave you alone for a minute before the vultures start circling.”
I laughed loudly. “But of course. I might as well be Pamela Anderson in the ’90s. The menfolk just can’t get enough of me.”
“That is a weird analogy, Watson. Why wouldn’t you just say Megan Fox? Or Mila Kunis?”
Trying to keep a straight face, I replied, “They didn’t come to mind. But I’m very interested by how quickly they came to yours. Do you have a celebrity crush, Jason?”
He pulled my hand up to his mouth, turned it, and kissed the inside of my wrist, murmuring, “The only crush I have is you. The only person I see is you.”
He made some intense eye contact with me that had me burning up and wishing I’d never had the genius idea to make sex off limits. In that moment, I wanted him to show me with his body the things he was doing to me with his eyes.
“That’s….” I cleared my throat. “That’s a very good answer. So what brings you down here and out of your crazy magician cave?”
“I went to take a piss and saw you were gone. It’s a good thing I came after you, too. Otherwise, the pervy fuck of a barman might have tried to spike your drink.” His words dripped with possession…and I kind of liked it. “I also have a question for you about our bet,” he went on, piquing my interest.
“Oh, yes?”
His gaze darkened roguishly. “I need to know what your limits are. Do you want me just to scare you, or are you giving me permission to mindfuck the shit out of you?”
Well, the second option sounded both frightening and sexy as hell, which was exactly why I swallowed and answered, “The latter. Yes, definitely the latter.”
Jay grinned in approval and brought his arms around my waist, his fingers kneading my hips. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Part Two: The Tease
Arriving back in Vegas was a whirlwind of activity. Jay had to get back to doing his show five nights a week, which meant I had to return to work, too. Since I hadn’t won our bet yet, I was still confined to the usual (boring) man choices of the wardrobe world. My artistic freedom was going to come at a price, and that price would be fooling my husband into believing he couldn’t frighten me.
I spent our first afternoon home secretly Googling techniques for staying calm in times of crisis. If I knew anything about Jay, he was going to go all out, so I needed every advantage I could get.
In other news, we’d been invited to a Halloween party being thrown by Tina, the girl who worked as Jay’s assistant. Don’t get me wrong — he didn’t have those sexy magician’s assistants who wore sparkly outfits that showed lots of leg and/or cleavage, but he did have a PA. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t like her much, and I rarely disliked people.
This was probably due to the fact that she showed a lot of leg and/or cleavage anyway.
I could tell she fancied the pants off Jay and was secretly biding her time. It was ridiculous; I mean, we’d just gotten married, for Christ’s sake. And really, it was so unclassy to have designs on someone else’s man. It wasn’t as if there weren’t thousands of other eligible bachelors in the city for her to set her sights on. No, she wanted mine. I knew Jay was aware of her affections and a little discombobulated over what to do about it. He was trying to be a gentleman, but I thought maybe he was going to put in for a new assistant soon.
I was hoping that was what he’d do, because I was one step away from making a voodoo doll, and since I was a dab hand at crafts, it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that I would….
Anyway, I was holding my head high and not succumbing to the urge to trip Tina and her too-tight jeans over, and I had agreed to go to the party. It was fancy dress, which meant I needed to find a suitable outfit. I kind of felt like going down the comedic route by dressing as a beer bottle or a stop sign, but that wouldn’t do. All of the women would be going as sexy angels, witches, nurses, vampires…llamas. No? Okay, then.
The point was, I needed to come up with something that was fancy dress but also provocative. It was shallow, but I wanted to look better than Tina. I would have designed and made something myself, but I was too rushed off my feet. That meant I had to go to a costume shop and buy an outfit. Unable to decide, I ended up buying three and bringing them back to the hotel with me to try on. They were as follows:
1.) Black pleather cat suit with spider-web netting over the boobage. Indecently tight.
2.) Sexy cop outfit complete with handcuffs and a bare midriff.
3.) Another black cat suit, this one for an actual cat, with cute ears and stick-on whiskers. Again, indecently tight. I thought I might have to be sewn into it like Olivia Newton John in the “You’re the One That I Want” scene from Grease.
>
And you know what? I kind of hated all three. I just wanted to wear a nice dress, do something cool with my hair, and be done with it.
It had been three days since we made the bet, and I was dying to give in and call it off. In terms of our relationship, everything was still very new, and I had a hunger for Jay that simply wouldn’t abate. It was torture to watch him doing stage rehearsals, which could be very rigorous, and hence he would work up quite the sweat. Yesterday he pulled off his T-shirt, balled it up, and used it to dab his forehead. It almost felt like it was happening in slow motion, like a Diet Coke ad or something. I mean, how was I supposed to resist that? Tina almost spontaneously combusted with an eye orgasm.
I coughed loudly, and her gaze slid to me, momentarily widening in shock to be caught ogling. It was funny. I was having a hard time with all this jealous/possessive business. Before I met Jay, I was always the sort of girl to back off and let the sassy go-getter chicks have the guy. But with him I felt like doing bodily harm when other women so much as glanced at him, going all Vampire Bill and proclaiming Jason is mine!! It was a strange new feeling for me, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
Back to the present, I was trying unsuccessfully to zip myself into Halloween costume number one, the spider-web cat suit. I stood in front of the mirror in the lounge area of our suite, twisting my body as I tried to pull the zipper all the way up, but the lady was not for turning. I had way too much hip, belly, and tit going on for a surprisingly unstretchy material. I should have gotten one made out of spandex or something.
Finally, with a lot of wriggling around, I managed to get the zip done up the entire way. I felt like my ribs were being crushed, but I was triumphant, pumping my fist up into the air in victory. Unfortunately, my fist pump exerted a little too much action, and I heard a rip. I froze, eyes widening, as I turned and looked at my backside through the mirror.
I thought these kinds of things only happened in cheesy physical comedies, but no, it seemed the arses of pants that were too tight could split in real life, too. It was at that wonderfully opportune moment that the door to the suite opened, and Jay walked in. I stood in front of the mirror, staring at him through the glass, caught with my pants down (or should I say, torn at the seam.) I had half a mind to run and hide in shame, but it was too late. He’d already seen the damage, as it were.
I could tell he was trying not to laugh when he plastered on a bland expression. “Hey, you want some dinner?”
Bless him, he knew I was embarrassed and had chosen not to capitalize on the moment.
“Yes,” I sighed. “And you can go ahead and get a few jokes in. You know you want to.”
His mouth twitched. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Watson.”
“I bought the wrong size, okay. And the shop was about to close, so I didn’t have time to stay and try it on.”
He went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, twisted off the cap, and took a long gulp before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “If it’s any consolation, your tits look great in it,” he said, smirking.
I gave him a tiny grin. “Ever the charmer.”
He winked at me, and I went about relieving myself of the awful cat suit. The material made some rather unsexy noises as I pulled on it, heaving heavily when I finally got it off. I sat on the floor in my bra and knickers, trying to catch my breath after such a vigorous ordeal. Jay walked out of the bedroom, where he’d somehow managed to procure an energy bar. He had it halfway to his mouth when he paused midstride, piercing me with his gaze.
“Oh, no, you don’t, you’re not allowed to give me bedroom eyes. That’s against the rules,” I said, quickly standing up and hurrying to throw on a T-shirt and some yoga pants.
He took a bite out of the bar then and began to chew. In my sex-deprived state, even seeing him chew was like pornography.
“I wasn’t giving you bedroom eyes, Matilda. They were more ‘I want to tear your panties off and bend you over the couch’ eyes, and I didn’t happen to see anything about those sorts of eyes in the rulebook.” He gave me a very smug grin.
“All carnal looks are prohibited,” I said. I had been heading for the couch, but I stopped, turned, and went to perch on a pouf instead.
“It’s been three days. I have no censorship control over my eyes at this point, so you’ll just have to deal with them. Now, what are you going to do about your Halloween costume? It saddens me to say it, but it looks like whatever you were supposed to be in the cat suit is out of the question. A damn shame, too.”
“I have some other options.” I waved away his concerns. “What about you? What are you going as?”
He smiled, flashing his teeth at me, but didn’t reply.
I didn’t bother pushing him, because if I knew anything about Jay by now, it was that he never told a secret he didn’t want to tell. We ate dinner, and then it was time for his show. He performed in the hotel’s venue downstairs, so we only had to take the elevator down to get there.
The next day he was working out a few kinks in his choreography. And when I say “choreography,” I don’t mean dancing. In a magic show, it’s all about placement on the stage and standing in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time.
I was mending a cape Jay used in the disappearing part of his act. It was probably one of the few “old school” tricks he performed. Anyway, the cape had gotten torn on one of its edges. I suggested simply buying a new one, but he was adamantly against it. Apparently, some old guy he knew back in Boston who mentored him in magic for a while had given it to him, so it had sentimental value. That was why I was taking extra care to make it good as new.
Practice was an everyday thing for Jay. His show was a thrill ride when you were watching it from the audience, but the little details that sometimes took days or even weeks to perfect were tedious. Saying that, I still loved hanging out while he practiced. I was sitting by my sewing machine in the small room devoted to wardrobe with the door open. It was at just the right angle to be able to watch him. He had a small notepad in his hand and a pencil tucked behind his ear as he paced. He’d take three steps, stop, scribble something down on the notepad, then take another three steps.
Tina came in then, carrying a brown paper bag and a tray of takeaway coffee cups. I drew my lips into a tight line when I saw how short her skirt was. In terms of looks, she was the exact opposite of me. Tall, lithe, blonde, and graceful. She could have been a ballerina in another life. And sadly, I noted how Jay never had to bend down to speak to her. If they were kissing, their bodies would be perfectly proportioned for their mouths to meet.
I didn’t know why my brain came up with these horrible thoughts; it seemed it got a sick pleasure out of torturing me. Or perhaps I got a sick pleasure out of torturing myself, since technically speaking, I was my brain.
Jay barely gave her a second glance as he thanked her for collecting lunch, and took the proffered sandwich and beverage. She placed a hand on her hip and said something, but I was too far away to hear. Still, I imagined it was something saucy and flirtatious. My fears were totally unwarranted; Jay would never cheat on me, but I still couldn’t help having them. I quickly looked away and focused on my task when Jay’s head turned in my direction.
I wasn’t a crazy, jealous fool. I was so cool I was oblivious to all of my husband’s admirers. Ha, yeah, right.
“Yo! Watson!” he called, hands clasped around his mouth. “Lunch is here. Come eat with me.”
I suppressed my smile when a tiny scowl flittered across Tina’s face. She hadn’t known I was there. Perhaps she’d been hoping Jay would invite her to have lunch with him. I set my work aside and made my way out. Jay was already sitting on the floor of the stage, his legs dangling off the edge as he dug into his sandwich. Tina glanced at me, then held out the remaining sandwich and my requested tea.
“I guess this is yours,” she said as I took them from her.
I swallowed and glanced away. “Um, yes, thank you, Tina.??
?
You see, this was my problem. I couldn’t help but be polite to people, even when they didn’t deserve it. Her first day on the job, Tina had shown up in loose jeans and a very respectable shirt/cardigan combo. However, after she saw who she was going to be working for, i.e. Jay, she began showing up in low-cut dresses, short skirts, and painted-on jeans. What? I was a designer. The sorts of clothes people chose to wear was something I noticed more than the average person. And Tina’s outfits were clearly chosen to catch the eye of any that-way-inclined gentleman in the vicinity.
Tina also giggled unnecessarily whenever Jay said anything even remotely funny and fingered the silver moon pendant that hung around her neck a lot. Having read one or two of Jay’s books, I knew a good deal about body language tells, and Tina’s fingering of her pendant was a move designed to draw my husband’s eyes to her chest. She wasn’t as well-endowed as I was, but still, breasts were breasts, and men liked to look.
I sat down beside Jay, and Tina walked off. Deciding this was as good a time as any to broach the subject that she was attracted to him, I dived right in.
“Your assistant fancies you, if you hadn’t noticed,” I said absently, and took a bite out of my sandwich, which was surprisingly good. I just hoped Tina hadn’t spit in it or anything.
Jay let out a long breath. “Yeah. Bit of a problem. She’s great at her job, though.”
My initial instinct was to say no more, but I wasn’t going to back down. I couldn’t allow myself to. “I don’t like it.”
Jay took a slug of his coffee and set it down. I could see he was smiling already before he turned to look at me. He seemed entirely too gratified by my jealousy.
“Well, you don’t have to look so pleased about it.”
“Hey, I have a right to be pleased. It only took you a goddamn month to actually come out and admit you had a problem with her. I was beginning to think you didn’t give a shit.”