by Amy Lamont
“Seriously guys, I’m very happy to stay in tonight. Don’t worry about me. I’ll catch you next time.”
Paige scrunched her face, lips pursed, as she dove into her Chinese food while our roommates tromped out the door.
“I saw that look. What was that for?” I asked.
She finished chewing before answering. “If I had a dollar for every time you said you’d go out with us next time, I’d be a billionaire by now.”
“That’s not true. I go out.”
“Sure. You go out to dinner, to the movies, shopping. But a night out where you might actually meet someone or have a little fun? You always find some excuse not to go.”
I shrugged, but cringed inside. I hated these conversations. I’d been best friends with Paige, Katelyn and Jade since forever. They loved me and wanted me to hang out when they went dancing or to a party. But they couldn’t see that I didn’t enjoy it the way they did. While they drank and flirted and danced with hot men, I spent most of the time on the fringes of things, holding up a wall or saving seats at a bar table.
“Bars and clubs aren’t my scene.”
Ugh. How many times had those words left my mouth? I was tired of hearing myself. But, seriously, how could I ever compete with my stunning roommates?
Even though I left the words unsaid, Paige knew me too well. She pointed a chopstick at me. “I don’t get you. Any guy would be thrilled to have you beside him. I don’t understand why you think someone would choose any of us over you.”
She pointed her chopstick at the door where our friends had disappeared a few minutes ago. “The only difference between you and them is they believe what they see in the mirror. You look and see something different from what’s there.”
Of course she believed that. She was biased. But this wasn’t an argument I could win, so I shrugged and distracted myself by peeking in the cartons of food, finally settling on some shrimp and broccoli. That couldn’t be too unhealthy, could it? After the caramel latte with whipped cream I drank after lunch, I couldn’t afford the extra calories. And neither could my ass.
I grabbed a fork and dug in. I waited, but Paige didn’t start her usual ragging on me for not using chopsticks. I kept meaning to learn to use them. I preferred my meals in my mouth rather than on my shirt.
Then a thought occurred to me. I wasn’t daring enough to use chopsticks. How on earth would I work up the nerve to try to win our bet?
“So, any ideas for our bet?” Apparently Paige could add mind reader to her extensive resume. Her eyes danced with amusement. “I figure Brandi Silver, the author of some of the hottest sexploits ever to grace the pages of a magazine or the Internet, should offer some stiff competition when it comes to outrageous ideas.”
“Brandi Silver I’m not,” I said with a snort.
“Well, there’s got to be a little Brandi inside you. You do manage to come up with all those sexy stories.”
I sighed. “I wish. Complete and total fiction. You know I only invented Brandi when my need to buy textbooks overtook my common sense.”
I’d been struggling to make ends meet with my writing while I put myself through college when a thought came to me—sex sells.
What? I didn’t say it was an original thought.
Anyway, I dipped into my deepest, darkest fantasies—not to mention the sex lives of all my friends and my friends’ friends—to start a blog detailing the sexual adventures and opinions of my alter ego, Brandi Silver. No one was more surprised than me when it got picked up and syndicated by several magazines and newspapers. It had allowed me to put my Creative Writing degree to work in ways I never expected. Not to mention, I started making a decent living long before I held my diploma in my hands. I’d done some freelance writing under my real name since graduation, but Brandi still provided the bulk of my income.
“Come on. You’ve admitted some of Brandi’s deeds came straight from your own fantasies.”
Okay, I might have admitted that to my friends while under the influence of one too many margaritas. Tequila worked like truth serum on me.
“Not like I’d ever live any of them out.” The thought of getting naked in a room with lighting above pitch black set my teeth on edge. My alter ego had no such qualms.
“Oh my God!”
I jumped about a foot out of my chair as Paige slammed her takeout carton on the table. She flew off the couch and into the bedroom she and I shared. Doors opened and papers rustled before she ran back into the living room.
“What the heck, Paige?”
She dropped a bulging manila file folder in my lap before sitting cross-legged on the couch again. I looked down and started flipping through. It took about a second and a half to figure out what it was.
I glanced at her, wrinkling my nose. “My articles?”
“Somewhere in there is your idea.” Paige waved a hand toward the file holding clippings of a bunch of my Brandi Silver articles, blog posts and columns.
I flipped through a few pages, noting some titles as I went—“Nice Girls Do Go Down,” “10 Tips to Make Safe Sex Sexy,” “All Tied Up.”
I read a few lines of that last article. One of my favorites. One of Brandi’s many bold exploits. One not taken from stories my friends told or stories my friends’ friends told. That one came from somewhere deep inside me.
It was actually one of Brandi’s tamer tales. In it, a boyfriend of hers used several scarves to tie her wrists and ankles to the bedposts. The sex that took place once he tied her down was fairly vanilla compared to some of her other experiences.
The story ended with Brandi talking about the vulnerability and trust involved in giving herself over to someone else’s total control. Reading bits of the story again, my cheeks got hot. Along with several other parts of my anatomy.
I almost hadn’t submitted this one. Even now, I got itchy under my skin thinking about other people reading it.
In the end I sent it to my editor. Having someone else read my words might leave me squirming with embarrassment. But I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit the idea of strangers reading those words didn’t give me a little thrill.
And writing about it was as close as I’d get to actually experiencing anything like that. Letting someone strip me naked and leaving every inch of me bare for their inspection while I had no control…not going to happen.
Never going to happen.
Paige’s jaw-cracking yawn drew my eyes from the page.
“Okay, hand that over.” Paige held out a hand and wriggled her fingers at me. “I’m not going to last much longer and I know you. Left to your own devices, you won’t even attempt to win our bet. So I’m going to help you.”
I passed the file over reluctantly, scrunching my face at her. “Why would you want to help me? Doesn’t that ruin your chances at winning? And what do my articles have to do with it?”
She slanted a wicked grin my way. “Don’t worry about me. I have a few adventurous ideas up my sleeve.” She yawned again, covering her mouth with her hand. “If I can ever get enough time and energy to put them into action.”
“I don’t know how you keep that schedule,” I said. Paige had been on the go almost twenty-four seven since she started med school this fall. “But I still don’t see what my writing has to do with our bet.”
“Patience, my friend.” Paige jumped up and ran into the kitchen, then into our bedroom and back to where I sat. When she returned she had a pad and a pen and a baseball cap. She spent a few minutes alternating between flipping through my pages and writing furiously on the pad. Then she ripped strips of paper off the pad, folded each one and threw them one by one into the hat.
“Okay,” she said as she stood and came over to me. “I put some of your most fun Brandi adventures in the hat. You’re going to close your eyes, reach in the hat, and choose one.”
I shook my head and looked back and forth between her and the hat. “Okay. And what’s the point of this exercise?”
“Put your hand up.” She mo
deled for me, holding up the hand not holding the hat, palm out.
Um, what? I raised an eyebrow at her, pressing my lips together.
“Come on, Emma. Raise your hand and repeat after me.”
An uncomfortable twisting started in my stomach. Whatever she had planned, I wasn’t going to like it.
But I also knew Paige was like a dog with a bone. She’d sit here all night until I gave in. And my friend needed sleep. I weighed my fear against my need to help her take care of herself.
With an ungracious huff, I put up my hand. I might want her to get some rest, but I also wanted her to know I caved under duress.
She grinned. “Awesome. Repeat after me. I, Emma, do solemnly swear to do everything in my power to win our bet.”
Not totally unreasonable. I repeated her words.
“And,” she went on, “I promise to start by following through on whatever adventure I pull out of the hat to the best of my ability.”
She shook the hat full of papers in front of me and my heart sank. All of Brandi Silver’s sextivities raced through my head.
Brandi was no wallflower.
“Please, Emma.” The note of pleading in Paige’s voice caught my attention. “Live a little before life passes you by while you sit on this couch. The closest you come to anything exciting is writing about a fictional character’s sex life. You’re twenty-two. This is when you’re supposed to be getting wild.”
The air left my lungs as she held my gaze. Her voice, the look in her eyes, everything about her told me she was worried about me. She was really concerned. And it didn’t take much soul searching to know she was right. This was my fifth Friday night in a row sitting on this couch in these same flannel PJs.
I didn’t look away when I answered her. “I promise to follow through on whatever adventure I pull out of the hat.”
She jumped up and down with a little squeal. “Yay! Your life is about to get interesting, Em. I can feel it.”
She shook the hat in front of me again, every bit of her body radiating with anticipation.
I took a deep breath and held it, and then plunged my hand into the hat.
I grasped a slip of paper and pulled it out, staring at it while a knot of dread formed in my chest.
“Open it.”
I unfolded the paper.
Sex with a stranger.
Well. Shit.
Chapter 2
Standing in front of the mirror, I almost didn’t recognize myself.
Good. That’s exactly what I was going for. I may have promised Paige I’d follow through on whatever I picked out of the hat. But I found a loophole.
I wasn’t going out to meet and hook up with a stranger. Nope. Instead, I was sending in reinforcements. Since there was no way I’d be able to slip an actual other person out to fulfill my obligation, I decided to send out my alter ego.
So right now, as I stared in the mirror, it wasn’t Emma Glover, writer, homebody, and lover of flannel PJs looking back. It was Brandi Silver, sex columnist and self-proclaimed wild child.
I twisted one of my crazy curls around a finger. Even my hair said uninhibited.
“You look gorgeous.” Paige appeared in the mirror behind me, eyeing me from head to toe.
“Thanks.” I managed a tiny smile and looked down, smoothing a hand over my too-short dress. I held in the sigh that wanted to escape. I felt like I was playing dress up.
Not too far from the truth since everything I had on, with the exclusion of the underwear which Paige and I had made a special shopping trip for on Sunday, came from my roommates’ closets. Katelyn and I wore the same size, so it was her sparkly black dress that hit a little higher than mid-thigh the girls voted on me wearing tonight. And the shoes—higher-than-high heels, black and strappy—came from Jade’s extensive collection.
And now, in addition to the cute, yet perfectly functional, cotton bras and panties that took up most of my underwear drawer, I owned a black, lace demi-bra that barely covered anything but did manage to lift my cleavage to new heights; a teeny, tiny matching black lace not-quite-a-thong that left the bottom of each cheek of my ass bare; and silky black, thigh-high stockings and a garter belt.
Seriously. A garter belt. I closed my eyes for a second and focused on the lacy belt around my waist and the straps running the length of the tops of my thighs. I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. I’d never worn anything like this before, and I had to admit there was something sensual about the feeling of this made-for-sex lingerie against my skin.
I opened my eyes and fought the urge to sigh again. I might have put on clothes and makeup and underwear and shoes to transform into Brandi. But when I looked closely in the mirror, I saw the truth. Underneath all that, it was still me, Emma, peering back.
“I can’t do this.”
“You can.” Paige gripped my shoulders. “You can totally do this, Emma. You look beautiful. And you said it yourself on the train, you’re ready for a little excitement in your life.”
Why on earth had I voiced that thought out loud to my friends? After all these years, you’d think I’d know better.
I turned to face Paige. “I know what I said. But can’t we start smaller? A drink with a stranger? A conversation with a stranger? Why do we have to go straight to the sex?”
“The idea is to think big.” She laughed and pulled me in for a quick hug. “You don’t actually have to have sex with a complete stranger, silly. If you decide to just have a drink or a chat, that’s fine. But thinking bigger puts you in the spirit of things. Doesn’t it feel more exciting imagining the night could end with you horizontal between the sheets with some hottie whose name you just learned?”
Butterflies took up flight low in my belly, their wings tickling my insides. Was that excitement? “I’m not sure if it sounds exciting or nauseating.”
She laughed again. “That’s excitement. From here on out you should get used to it.” She threw an arm around my shoulder and turned us both to face the mirror. “Besides, don’t forget, you won’t be alone. I’ll hang at the bar to make sure you’re okay.”
I stared at the two of us pressed so close together. And I couldn’t help the comparisons that formed as I examined us. Where Paige was tall and willowy, I was short and curvy. Her dark red hair fell in a sleek wave over her shoulder. My dark blonde curls hit the middle of my back, but stood poised waiting for the first sign of humidity to shrink into a poufy frizz. The little black dress she wore looked like a designer made it just for her. Mine…well, I had to admit, the dress wasn’t terrible. It clung to the parts that were supposed to be ample and skimmed over the ample parts I most wanted to hide.
“Tell me you’re not totally smokin’ hot.”
I rolled my eyes, but I had to smile. I didn’t look half bad. I still might not catch anyone’s attention with Paige by my side, but, hey, who said I couldn’t have a drink, or a chat, or…other stuff, with one of the guys Paige shot down?
“Let’s just go before I totally lose my nerve.”
Before I could change my mind, Paige grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the bathroom.
When we stepped through the revolving door into the lobby of the Hotel Wynter, the butterflies took up residence in my belly again. But this time I recognized the excitement. The feeling came over me every time I stepped into this place during the holidays. My parents met here during the Christmas season. They brought me here for the first time when I was a toddler and every year after. For a few years after their deaths, I didn’t come. But as soon as I was old enough to hop on a train from New Jersey into the city, I came back every year during Christmas.
The magic seeped into me the moment I stepped into the hotel, leaving me breathless.
The Hotel Wynter took its name very seriously. Every year they turned the lobby, ballrooms and restaurants into a winter wonderland. There were tall evergreens with snow-covered boughs, white twinkle lights, snowflakes and ice sculptures. Different rooms had different themes.
; I especially loved coming here when it snowed. A wall of windows and a skylight took over an entire wall and part of the ceiling in the lobby. When snow fell outside, as it did now in fat, lazy flakes, the winter landscape of New York City became part of the indoor scenery.
“Wow.” Paige’s voice came out on a whisper, letting me know she shared my wonder. “This is beautiful.”
I nodded and then turned my head, trying to take in every whimsical detail. “One of my favorite places in the whole wide world.”
Paige pulled me around to face her, her eyes wide and worried. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
I blinked. “Seriously? After all this,” I waved my hand down my body, “and all your lectures about getting off the couch? Now that we’re finally here, you’re having second thoughts?”
“No, not exactly.” She bit her lip and her gaze wandered around the spacious lobby. “It’s just…I know this place is special. I don’t want anything to take that away from you.”
I pressed my lips together. Did she mean she thought I’d crash and burn? “Why would you dress me up and drag me out if you didn’t think I could pull this off, Paige?” I couldn’t help the hurt that crept into my voice.
“No,” Paige rushed in to assure me, “I don’t believe for a minute that you can’t pull this off. Honestly, I think if you gave yourself even a tiny bit of credit, you could pull this off in your sleep. You’d have guys lining up with a twitch of your little finger.”
I snorted. “Okay, let’s not get crazy. I get it. You’re still thinking we should stick with Plan A.”
She nodded and smiled. “Well, Plan A with a modification. Just maybe move it to a new location. Somewhere not so special to you.”
I closed my eyes tight and felt a warm glow grow in my chest. My friend loved me. I was standing in one of my favorite places in the world with one of my favorite people. It didn’t get much better. I opened my eyes and leaned over to give Paige a squeeze. “I think this is the perfect place. I’d feel uncomfortable anywhere else. At least here I’m not intimidated by the surroundings.”
