Before their lips met, a new song came on. “Cream,” by Prince & the New Power Generation. Justine cocked her head to the side and pointed at a speaker.
“That’s a sign,” Justine said.
“Definitely.”
They kissed.
Chapter Eleven
Justine was clearly nervous so Nora took it easy on her. The kiss was nothing more than a light brushing of lips, followed by a second longer brush.
Justine pulled away, grinning. “Do you think Nico was watching?”
Nora looked over and Nico flashed her the okay sign of approval.
“He was watching,” Nora said. “Now go kiss him.”
Justine took a long deep breath, squared her shoulders, and straightened her hat.
“I’m going in,” Justine said. “If I don’t make it back in ten minutes, don’t come and get me.”
“Make me proud, kiddo,” Nora said.
Justine strode over to where Nico stood by the velvet drapes. Nora watched, smiling, as he leaned in to hear whatever it was Justine whispered in his ear. Must have been good because he smiled and glanced Nora’s way, seeking permission.
Nora waved her hand, telling him to get on with it, and then with his eyes still on hers, he kissed Justine on the mouth.
The kiss lasted no longer than Nora and Justine’s had. They were all still getting to know each other. Nora walked back to them and patted Justine on her witchy little behind.
“Good girl,” Nora said. Justine was bright-eyed, blushing and beaming all at once. Nora could have lit a cigarette off the heat of her face.
“I…I’m going to faint,” Justine said.
“Nico, hold her,” Nora said.
Nico wrapped Justine in his arms, and Justine leaned into the embrace and sighed.
“I used to complain about all the Halloween tourists,” Justine said, eyes closed in her bliss. “Never again.”
Nico took her chin in his hand and kissed her again. This time the kiss lasted a little bit longer.
“Now one for me,” Nora said. Still holding Justine, Nico leaned in to kiss Nora. Nora stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Not you. Her.”
Justine playfully pushed Nico away as if he were old news, threw her arms around Nora’s shoulders, and kissed her with the longest kiss yet.
“See?” Nora asked. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“I think I’ll survive,” Justine said. “But one more just to check.”
She turned to Nico for another kiss and he obliged. He obliged for a very long time. While Nora could happily watch her young lover get into mischief all night, they still had things to do.
“Come on, lustbirds,” Nora said. “More of that later. Party first. Make-out later.”
“What are we doing?” Justine asked as Nora took her hand. Justine took Nico’s and the three of them wove their way through the horde of dancing bodies.
“This is Nico’s first Halloween, and he leaves tomorrow. We need to do all the Halloween stuff, and we need to do it now.”
“All of it?” Justine asked.
“All of it. Starting with...” Nora led them to the hotel lobby’s bar where a pumpkin carving station had been set up and pumpkin beer was being served by the snifter-ful.
“Booze and carving knives,” Justine said, shaking her head. “What could possibly go wrong?”
For a first timer, Nico did fairly well. The face he carved on his pumpkin was a rather standard triangle-eyed ghoul, but all in all it was an excellent amateur effort. Nora carved a simple cat face into hers, complete with whiskers. Justine wowed them both with her creation. Into her pumpkin she carved a complete graveyard, with the largest tombstone bearing the letters RIP.
“That’s fantastic,” Nora said.
“In Salem, they teach you this shit from birth,” Justine said. “If you can’t carve a decent pumpkin by sixteen, they won’t let you get your driver’s license.”
After pumpkin carving they bobbed for apples. Nora failed miserably at this task. Justine didn’t do much better. Both of them simply ended up with wet faces and wet hair. Nico, however, got his apple in his first bite.
“It’s the fangs,” Justine said as she repaired her lipstick. “Gotta be the fangs.”
“And the oral fixation,” Nora said. Justine raised an eyebrow.
Once they’d all dried off from their faceplant in the apple tank, they found the hotel’s fortune-teller and had their palms read.
The verdict? Nora would be coming into money soon.
“Not news,” she said. “I get a royalty payment every first week of November.”
Nico’s fortune was that he would be going on a long journey very soon.
“Yeah,” Nora said. “His flight for France leaves tomorrow at one.”
As for Justine...she would face a challenge soon that would have a positive outcome.
“So that means I should have a threesome tonight?” Justine asked the fortune-teller.
The fortune-teller looked at her in surprise, then looked at Nora and Nico.
“I would if I were you.”
That sealed the deal.
At midnight, the party atmosphere turned from festive to drunken roar.
“Let’s get out of here,” Nora said. No, she didn’t actually say it. She screamed it over the din of the crowd.
“My car’s nearby,” Justine said. “I hope.”
“Nearby” on Halloween in Salem meant six blocks away, but as hot as the hotel was, the crisp night air was more than welcome.
“Did we miss anything?” Nora asked as Nico put his arm around to keep her warm. “Costume party. Haunted house.”
“Did you all trick or treat?” Justine asked.
“We’re a little old for that,” Nora said.
“Not in Salem,” she said. “Hold on. I got this.”
They were on a residential street. Justine ran ahead of them, racing up to porches and glancing around. Nico looked at Nora in confusion.
“Found it!” Justine called in a stage whisper. She stood on someone’s front porch. All the lights were off in the house except for the half dozen pumpkins on the stoop still glowing from the electric candles inside.
Nora and Nico came up the walkway to her. Justine held a bowl in her hand.
“A lot of people leave out their leftovers,” she said. “Go for it.”
Nora waved Nico forward.
“Trick or treat?” he said.
“Where’s your bag?” Justine asked. “Wait. I have a better idea.”
She unwrapped a piece of candy, a mini Kit-Kat and popped the end in her mouth between her teeth. Nico took the other end in his and bit it off.
Then the porch light came on.
“Shit,” Justine said. All three of them ran from the house laughing like naughty children, which was exactly what they were.
They were still laughing when they reached Justine’s car. Once inside and on the way back to the B&B, Justine told stories of her childhood antics in Salem on Halloween, the stunts she and her brother had pulled, the tricks they played.
“Does anyone ever choose trick?” Nico asked. “I mean, after you say, ‘Trick or treat’?”
“You mean does anybody ever refuse a kid candy and roll the dice on a trick?” Justine asked.
“Right,” Nico said.
“Not that I know of. Most people give up the candy. Better than getting your house egged or rolled,” Justine said, and quickly explained what “rolling” was to Nico.
“Toilet paper?” Nico asked.
“They’re not very good tricks,” Justine said. “Pretty amateur stuff.”
“If you’re not going to trick someone right,” Nora said, “you shouldn’t trick them at all.”
“I used to pull tricks on my family when I was a kid,” Justine said. “They made me stop after that time I faked my own kidnapping.”
“Sweetheart, that’s not a trick,” Nora said. “That’s psychological torture. You sure you’re n
ot a secret dominatrix?”
“Not yet. Maybe after tonight,” Justine said. She winked at Nico who replied by tugging one of Justine’s curls. Aww, the kids were flirting. So adorable.
Nico turned and looked at Nora in the backseat.
“Trick or treat?” he said to her.
He had a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Trick,” she said. She did love a challenge.
“Okay,” he said. “You asked for it.”
Chapter Twelve
They arrived at the B&B a few minutes later. The three of them left the pumpkins they’d carved on the porch with the other Halloween decorations and quietly crept up the stairs (or as quietly as three slighty-tipsy revelers could manage).
“Cool room,” Justine said as she unpinned her witch’s hat and dropped it on the dresser. “Thanks for having me over.”
“Glad you could join us,” Nora said. “Wine, Nico.”
Nico nodded and poured three glasses for them all.
“That’s nice,” Justine said when Nico handed her the glass. “You just…give an order and he follows it? That how it works?”
Nico glanced at Nora, waiting, probably as curious to hear her answer as Justine was.
“Not quite,” Nora said. “He’s got a mind of his own, damn him.”
“You’d never love a doormat,” Nico said.
“Never,” she said.
“I thought you guys like…licked boots and stuff like that? I’m sorry if that’s a rude question. I’m just curious.” Justine sat on the edge of the bed. Nora liked how careful she was with her wine glass, trying not to spill it even as she sat. She was respectful and mature. A good person to play with. All fun, no drama.
“Ask all the questions you want,” Nora said. “That’s how we learn. You gave us a history lesson about Salem. Here’s one about us: There’s lots of different ways to submit in a kink relationship. There are subs, submissives. There are slaves. There are service tops. Lots of options. What we do, Nico and I, it’s something that began in France around the late eleventh century. It came out of the culture of courtly love—young knights would fall in love with a married lady and serve her faithfully and devotedly. It was supposed to be chaste love, but we’ve all seen how well that worked with Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot.”
“He lanced her,” Justine said. “A lot.”
“Precisely,” Nora said. “I have someone I’m practically married to who I spend most of my life with. And I have Nico who serves a very different role.”
“I’m like her knight,” Nico said. “In private, I please her. In public, I protect her whether it pleases her or not. If someone insults her, I defend her honor. If someone tries to hurt her, I hurt him. When we’re playing, she’s in charge. When it’s serious, I take over.”
“So no boot-licking,” Justine said.
“I have clients who pay me money to lick my boots. Nico gets to lick everything else.”
Justine laughed. “So if I said something really rude to the mistress over here,” Justine said to Nico, “you’d kick me out?”
“I’d escort you out,” Nico said, gesturing with his wine glass to the door. “Or she would. You insult her once?” He shrugged. “You don’t get to do it twice.”
As opposed to Søren, Nora thought, who would likely agree with the insult. And he would probably be right.
“Okay,” Justine said. “Got it. Understood. One more question though.”
“Ask,” Nico said, smiling at her.
“Will you marry me?”
“Tonight?” Nico asked, his eyebrows raised.
“I’m asking both of you,” Justine said. “Gotta be legal somewhere, yeah?”
“Oregon,” Nora said. “I assume.”
“You two are awesome,” Justine said, grinning.
“So are you,” Nora said. “You ready to play?”
Justine took a long breath as if steeling herself.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think.” She looked at Nico who lifted his wine glass to her in a salute. “Okay, definitely ready to play.”
“Nervous?” Nora asked her.
“A....little tiny bit nervous,” she said, her voice hitting a high note and squeaking.
Nico stood by the end of the bed, leaning on the post. Nora blew a kiss at him.
“Don’t worry. So is Nico.”
“Are you?” Justine asked him. He nodded.
“You?” Justine asked Nora. Nora shook her head slowly. “Because you’re only watching?”
“I’m not watching,” Nora said. “I’m cheerleading.”
Nora raised her arms and shook her invisible pompoms. Nico rolled his eyes.
“Plus,” Nora said, collapsing into the armchair and stretched her legs out onto the ottoman, “nothing’s going to happen—wait. I need my riding crop to do this speech.”
She leaned over the side of the chair, unzipped her toy bag and pulled out her favorite red riding crop.
“Okay,” she said, pointing her crop at Justine and Nico. “As I was saying, nothing is going to happen that you don’t want to happen. Both of you. If either of you gets uncomfortable, you say ‘I want to stop,’ and guess what? Everything stops. Then we drink a little wine, eat a few Kit-Kats, find a bad horror movie on TV or call it a night. Comprendnez vous?”
“Je comprends parfaitement, mon amour,” Nico said.
“Ah…French,” Justine said. “Don’t know what you both said. Don’t care. Whatever you tell me to do to him, I’m ready and willing to do it.”
“Good,” Nora said. “Let’s start easy. Take off his jacket for him. S’il vous plait.”
It was a simple order, but Nora could see Justine was still nervous as she raised her hands to Nico’s buttons and slowly undid them.
“Very good,” Nora said as Justine pushed the jacket off Nico’s shoulders. “Now fold it and put it on the dresser.”
Justine obeyed. “Next?” she asked.
“Shirt,” Nora said.
“This is so crazy,” Justine said as she went to work on Nico’s buttons.
Mischief Page 7
