It does help to have the guy who gets ready in five minutes and then aimlessly wanders about like he has all the time in the world. He unwittingly becomes your personal assistant that you can call out requests to while you work on your priorities. I called out over the motivational jams loudly pumping out from the little speaker plugged in to my phone. “Hunter? If you’re ready, would you please make sure Luna has food and water? Oh, Hunter? Could you grab my pink bra? I think it’s on the floor by the bed. No, wait. Check in the living room somewhere. And would you look in my closet for one of those old gift bags and put that gift in there that we picked out?” I don’t wrap gifts. I once spent forever carefully wrapping my dad’s birthday gift, getting it just right, it was painful to see all that work undone in mere seconds by my dad’s carelessly fumbling fingers. The giant gift bag is probably the best time-saving, frustration-reducing invention of the century, in my opinion. Perhaps not the best, but it’s in the top twenty for sure.
After Gertie and Brad showed up, we headed to Skokie. When we arrived at the reception hall, I was amazed at the huge crowd of people that were in attendance. On the stage, my parents sat together with their original wedding party at a banquet table. This made them visible to everyone present. Lindsey and Kelly brought along Derek and Luke. It was good to see those boys in human form for a change.
“Leigh! Over here.” My sister, Sarah, pointed out a big round table reserved for us to sit at. Hunter dropped off the gift bag at the table heaped with other gifts.
“Sorry, Leigh. I forgot to mention the only bag I found in your closet had pictures of balloons. I think it was from a birthday.”
“I wouldn’t worry, I bet they won’t even notice.” We had to weave our way through the maze of tables until we reached Sarah. “Perfect! Front and center with room for all of us.”
“Wow. Forty years is a long time.” Lindsey remarked.
“I know. They were going to wait until their fiftieth anniversary for something like this, but my mom said that she didn’t know if the entire wedding party would be able to make it by then. This is another downside of having been born when they were both around forty. Everyone is getting old already.” The thought made me a little sad. On the other hand, I was happy that my parents’ renewed love seemed to be in full bloom. I’ll always take full credit for that act of witchcraft.
“Where’s Randy? Didn’t he want to come?” Lindsey asked.
Gertie lamented. “Randy is taking care of things at the plantation. See what I mean, Leigh? Our business keeps one of us tied up.”
“Yeah, well, the way my brother talks he probably doesn’t mind.” Kelly quipped. “Hey, isn’t that your dad’s brother, Ron? The washed up comedian? God forbid he should start with the tired jokes.”
Ron stood next to where my parents were seated and he dusted off his old routine. “Forty years. Forty years! That’s two life sentences!” The room quieted. “I remember the day that Harry brought Elizabeth home for the first time. He brought three girls into the kitchen and said to our mother, ‘I’m getting married to one of these three girls. Can you guess which one?’ Mother pointed to Elizabeth and said, ‘That one, I know because I already can’t stand her.’ Seriously folks, these two have had quite a marriage. Just the other day Harry told me he takes his wife with him wherever he goes. The problem was she kept finding her way home.” Ron seemed to notice that the volume of laughter was just above the sound an eraser makes when it falls on carpeting. He was about to take it up a notch.
“I know for sure Elizabeth can take a joke. She married Harry. You know, Harry once told her that he’d die for her. I just heard her whisper, ‘Now would be a good time’.” The silence of the room spurred Ron to try harder. “You’re a tough crowd. A really tough crowd.”
“Let’s talk about their sex life.” Ron paused. “Whoa! That was short and quick! Say, I do know Harry really does try. Why, I heard just the other night he suggested to his wife that they switch positions for a change. She said ‘Sure! I’ll lay on the couch and you stand by the sink.’ Enjoy your—” My mother chose that exact moment to elbow Ron right in the groin, thankfully shutting him up and preventing him from wrapping up his lame standup routine.
We were just finishing the meal and it was finally time for gifts. My proud father asked that the gift from his youngest daughter be brought up to the table. I was eagerly awaiting my parents’ reaction since I had worked with Sarah to craft a complete surprise. I knew he would open my gift first, a pair of tickets to a Broadway play. Sarah and Bill were giving them airline tickets to New York. To add to the excitement of finding something unexpected, I pulled the cliché trick of placing the tickets inside a box so it would appear they should expect to find candlesticks or something else. That’s always good for a laugh.
I took Hunter’s hand. “This is going to be such a surprise for them!” I was wiggling with anticipation as my dad lifted the box out of the bag. Then he opened the box and took out the surprise.
“What is that? That’s not the—” I started to say. Dad had removed the vibrator that Gertie had picked out. With a soothing caress, he rubbed the buzzing little toy on the back of his neck. “Hunter! You grabbed the wrong box!”
“A massager. It feels very nice. Thank you.”
Mom blindly reached in and came out with a handful of the huge, lifelike rubber cock. “Fey!” She screamed and flung it away as if she had picked up a tarantula. It landed with a splash in a bowl of red borsht. Aunt Irene leaned over to get a better look at what had frightened my mom. She took a pair of tongs used for serving the chicken and carefully lifted the borsht soaked toy out of the dish. She held up what appeared to be a bloody male appendage for everyone to see. Poor old great aunt Barbara held up her plate in anticipation of being served something delicious. The slippery rubber penis fell out of the tongs and onto Barbara’s plate, resulting in a splatter of borsht on her dress. At first she just stared at the supple toy. Before long she appeared to be admiring it.
I was petrified with horror as were all of the other guests. The anatomically correct chunk of soft rubber rolled off the plate onto the table with a sickening thud. Mom fainted. Irene screamed. Dad…well, he was yelling.
“Mozel Tov!” Shouted my great uncle Lev.
I crawled under the table and Gertie joined me. What else could I do?
“Really? Again? Enough already with the runaway sex toy and severed penis shtick. That joke ran out of gas a long time ago.” Kelly barked.
“Shh. I’m trying to make myself invisible. Hunter? What are they doing now?”
“Sarah ran up there. She and your dad are reviving your mom. Good news. It looks like she’s coming back now. Uh oh. Your aunt threw up and it looks like she’s in the dry heaves phase. You know she kinda looks like Luna trying to yack up a hairball.” Hunter paused and I waited. “And now it looks like your dad is looking over here for you.”
Kelly, my sweet savior Kelly decided on a bold course of action. “I’ll take care of this for you, Leigh. You’ll owe me big time.” She walked up to the vulgar scene.
“Hunter. Hunter. What’s going on?” I whispered.
“Kelly is talking to your parents.” He was quiet for a minute. “She’s on her way back now. It looks like they’ve all calmed down.”
“You can come out now, girls. I took care of it.”
Gertie and I crawled out from under our shelter of shame. “What did you say to them?”
“I told them that it was my fault. That it was me who brought those gifts. I said they were supposed to be given later in privacy. I told them it was accidentally put on the gift table. She was fine once she realized that one wasn’t real. She was actually grateful for them.”
“Eww. So she kept them?”
“All but the Jumpin’ Jackrabbit with clitoral stimulation attachment. Your mom told me to tell you that she already has one, but she’ll keep the others.” Kelly set my jackrabbit rotating vibrator on the table in front of Hunter. Brad, Derek,
and Luke joined him as they marveled and chuckled at how it reacted to the various settings. It’s amazing how quickly a group of grown men can revert to middle school boys when they get ahold of a vibrator.
“Damn. She didn’t buy your story?” I asked.
“Nope. Not a word of it. Sorry, but I tried.” Kelly shrugged her shoulders.
That’s my mom. She knows us all too well. Thanks to my mother’s inclination to endow me with her very intimate personal information, I knew I’d never touch the Jumpin’ Jackrabbit ever again.
Kelly nodded towards my mom who was stashing the box full of remaining toys under the table. “Sorry, Gertie. Looks like you’ve lost your penis to Leigh’s mom. I bet you never thought you’d hear someone say that to you.”
Chapter Five
Invitations to the Party
Thankfully, the rest of the occasion was less eventful. If you don’t consider how Lindsey turned the Horah dance into a spinning circle of disaster. She somehow managed to get her feet tangled together, making it look more like a hockey game than any dance I have ever seen. Sarah, Bill, and their little brood went about visiting relatives while the rest of us talked at our table. All except Gertie.
Brad’s eyes darted around the room. “Has anyone seen Gertie?”
I looked over my shoulder. “You know Gertie. It’s like trying to catch a butterfly with that girl.”
“She’s over there,” Lindsey pointed to the people mingling across the room. “Leigh? Who’s the old guy she’s talking to?”
“Oh, that’s Rabbi Majikovsky. The guy is ancient, and you’ll never meet a nicer man. I’ve heard that he just turned a hundred years old.” I imagine Gertie was drawn to him because she sometimes enjoyed talking to the elderly. As she listened to them reminisce, it allowed her to catch up on some of the things she had missed during her frozen years. Even more likely, she was hoping for some guidance with her newly minted love for Brad. If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, Gertie truly is the sweetest person I’ve ever known.
By the time Gertie fluttered her way back to the table, the guys had wandered off to check on the football scores. Our conversation had turned to the upcoming Witches Halloween Gala.
“Have you ever been to the Gala?” I asked Gertie.
“No, I have always wanted to go. I think you have to be on some list of the older, more well-known witches. Of course I wouldn’t be on that, so it really is a special thing to have gotten these tickets from Marie Laveau.” Gertie opened her purse and retrieved several postcard sized envelopes. “Which is what I have right here!” She handed one to each of us. I eagerly opened my invitation and read it over.
The International Sisterhood of Witches requests the pleasure of your company at the 316th Annual Witches Halloween Gala
For the benefit of Supernatural Being Charities
Halloween Night
Reception at six o’clock - Dinner at seven o’clock
Witches Ballroom, Salem, Massachusetts
Attire is formal, Witch hat with broom.
“Witch hat? Do you think they mean Wicked Witch of the West pointy hat? And black flowing robes?” Kelly asked.
“I suppose if you’re going to be a witch, you’ll have to dress like one. I know one thing for sure, I won’t be wearing black. Just leave the hats and dresses up to me, girls. I’ll be sure to have us all looking great.” Gertie bounced with joy at the prospect of creating custom looks for all of us.
“You can make mine black. I’ve always wanted to play the part of the Wicked Witch.” Kelly said.
Lindsey quickly threw a fun jab at Kelly. “You’ve got the part down. You may as well dress for it.”
“Thank you, Gertie. I trust your judgment completely. Although you may want to skip the invisible fabric option on those. As far as our guys go, I’m thinking black tie and tux, that sort of thing. I don’t want to see any more of Randy’s disco pimp suits. I really don’t.” I just had to say it. I knew if it was up to Randy, our guys would look like a cavalcade of dumbasses strutting down the red carpet. The thought of it gives me the hebejeebees.
Gertie moved the topic of conversation to men. Specifically, Kelly and Lindsey’s dates. “How have Luke and Derek been acting now? I was a little worried when I heard about them being changed into calves.”
“They seem to be right back to their original selves. I have to tell you guys, there isn’t anything serious happening there. If that’s what you are wondering about. What I mean by that is, there is no long term commitment anywhere on the horizon. It’s really just a matter of physical convenience, you could say.” Lindsey seemed to tiptoe around the status of their dates.
“What she’s trying to say is that Derek and Luke are our fuck buddies now—the rare, occasional fuck buddies.”
“Hmm. Interesting. Do you ever switch them around? I’m just curious if you treat them as interchangeable.”
Lindsey was blushing. “No, but Kelly and I have discussed that possibility. We haven’t said anything to them.”
“Oh, and we’ve been bouncing some other pretty bold ideas around as well. You can just use your imagination on that. Lindsey’s being a big chicken about it. So far the craziest thing we did was set up another strip poker game, and this time we weren’t shut down by the morality patrol. So I guess you could classify that episode as same room sex until Lindsey got all shy and they went to another room.” Kelly gave Lindsey a disapproving look.
“I was starting to feel—funny—that I could see what you were doing.”
“That’s the whole point, Lindsey! Anyway, if I’m being realistic about the lack of commitment and acknowledge the fact that this relationship is purely a physical one, it’s actually quite liberating. I’m trying to talk Lindsey into all sorts of things before we lay it on those boys. After all, we will probably never get a situation like this again. Eventually we’ll be like you two. Locked into some monogamous commitment and never having the chance to explore a little. Plus, we are the ones that control when the booty call happens. They aren’t allowed to just show up whenever the hell they want some. The whole thing is really empowering. In fact, I now know exactly why men have been treating women the same way since the dawn of time.”
“Wow! Just wow!” I really had no words. I could see Kelly’s point. I suppose you could say I missed out on that type of thing, but I’m not much of an explorer. I am way too content with Hunter and my committed relationship. Still, it just seemed a little wrong. “But, Kelly, do you think that turning the tables around on men is fair? After all, not every man objectifies women like that. I’m not trying to judge your behavior or anything. I just think you should do something because it’s something you believe to be in line with your conscience, not out of some desire to dish out retribution on the male gender. Do you know what I mean?”
“And I’m not every woman. Besides, I don’t treat every man like they are my personal playthings, just Luke and Derek.” Kelly winked at me. I knew her well enough. “Don’t worry, I’m not actually giving men their day of reckoning. Those boys are totally into it. It works out for them, too. They don’t have to chase some campus co-eds around, pretending to be something they aren’t. If one of them should get lucky on campus, then he has to worry if the chick is going to be a totally obsessed freak. So of course, they have overwhelmingly consented to our little agreement. It’s probably most guy’s dream, really. ”
“I don’t think that arrangement would work for me. You sound like Esmeralda and Marie with their stud of the month club, what with using riding crops and all.” Gertie shook her head. “As for myself, I’m trying to figure out how to get Brad and me to the next level. You know what I mean? Together in the same location. This long distance thing really sucks. And now I don’t even have my new toys to enhance our phone calls.”
When Gertie once again mentioned how much she wanted to resolve the geographic space between her and Brad, I knew what she was after. She wasn’t going to break her promise to use magic on
him. She was trying to poke around until she had garnered enough sympathy that I would use my magic to get Brad to move to Louisiana. Until she outright asked me to, I was in no hurry to offer my literal witchcraft services on her lover. However, I could easily remedy the loss of her plastic treasures. I reached into my purse and handed Gertie the Jumpin’ Jackrabbit. “Here, take this. I know I’ll never, ever use this, not after what my mom told Kelly.”
“Thanks, Leigh.” Gertie quickly slipped it into her purse.
I was ready to return to the talk about Halloween. “Now, back to the Halloween Gala. What do you think it will be like?”
“I have no idea, but I am so excited about it.” Lindsey replied.
“Part of what makes it exciting is the fact that it seems so mysterious yet fun at the same time.” Kelly added.
I had to agree with Kelly’s assessment. “Gertie, could you come up a day or two before the gala and bring the dresses with you? That way we can try them on and make any last minute changes.”
“I sure will. Oh, Kelly and Lindsey, I just remembered. Elspeth Ross sent her Grimoire back from Scotland. She gave me a note to pass along. I have it here somewhere.” Gertie fished around her purse and came up empty handed. “Wait! I know where I put it.” She put her hand down the front of her dress and pulled a piece of paper from some secret hiding spot in her bra. “Here you go.” Gertie said as she handed it to Lindsey.
Lindsey arched back, scrunching her face in complete and total disgust. “Yuck! Sorry, Gertie. I love you to pieces, but I don’t want to touch something covered in boob sweat.”
Haunting Leigh: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Literal Leigh Romance Diaries Book 4) Page 3
