A Grand Seduction (15 page)

Ridelle took another drink of tea, as if gulping courage. “Bruce kissed me.”

Dominique waited for the rest, blinking when nothing else followed. “And?”

Now Ridelle hooked onto her gaze. “And nothing.”

“
That’s what all the drama is about? Good Lord, you either need to get out more or there’s something else on your mind besides Bruce giving you a tour of his lips.”

Ridelle’s gaze shifted over Dominique’s head, landing on an abstract watercolor in splashes of blues, black, and red. Her voice was flat when next she spoke. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Dominique wandered back to the kitchen and poured steaming water into another mug. “Why don’t you tell me what happened. Everything that happened.”

Ridelle shifted around in her seat, facing the kitchen while Dominique pulled out a bag of chamomile, changed her mind, and reached back inside for the Earl Grey. Right now, she didn’t feel like relaxing. “We went shopping for the television as planned. Afterwards, it happened just like you said it would. It was getting near dark, and Bruce suggested dinner.”

Dominique nodded, but remained silent as she swirled the tea bag in her cup.

“
We found a place and it seemed okay at first. We both had too much to drink, perhaps, but we just talked. Then I brought up the topic of desires. Bruce told me we can have anything if we want it bad enough.” She stared down at her mug. “I think we both knew what desire we were talking about.”

Still listening, she popped open the trash compacter long enough to dump the used bag inside, then closed it with her hip before sauntering back to her seat, cup in hand. “Smart move, bringing up the subject. We want him to equate you with desire. What then?”

“
Neither of us could finish eating. Took most of it home in doggie bags.” Ridelle set her mug on the table, then twisted toward her friend. “Back at his car, he asked me to tell him what my desires were. I put my arms around him.” Her voice dropped to a monotone whisper. “He told me not to be afraid of it.”

“
Now we’re getting somewhere damn interesting. And that’s when he kissed you?”

Ridelle shook her head. “No. He started to, but then he pulled away.”

Dominique stopped blowing on her cup. “Oh. He didn’t kiss you, after all?”

“
Not then. He said he needed to take me back to my car. So we drove back to the electronics store. I apologized when he was going to the trunk to get my things out of it.”

A gulp of too hot tea seared its way down Dominique’s throat, rasping her reply. “Apologized? For what?”

“
We didn’t speak on the way back, and I knew he was shaken. I told him I was sorry for upsetting him. When I turned to leave, he grabbed me. Before I knew it we...” She trailed off, closing her eyes.

Ridelle was gone for a short while, during which time it was impossible not to notice hard little nubs bulging against her thin blouse. When her eyes fluttered open, she dragged a hand through her shiny, but tangled hair. “We kissed for a long time, at least it seemed like forever. Then I panicked. I jumped into my car and sped off, leaving him standing in the empty parking lot.”

She sat back, whooshing out a rush of air as if the burden of confessing a murder had just been lifted.

Dominique sipped more gingerly from her cup, feeling the annoying yelp of singed taste buds. “So, you ran. Nothing wrong with that. If anything, it lends credibility to this all being genuine and not some calculated seduction on your part. Men like the thrill of the hunt. If he has to chase you a bit, so much the better.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want him to chase me I can’t do it. I can’t be with him like that.” Her face twisted in a sour grimace.

Dominique’s tender tongue worked against the top of her palate while she considered Ridelle’s stomach-turning plight. The man’s lip lock had obviously nauseated her, making it impossible for her to conceive of his naked, hairy body writhing on her. Were this not a problem readily overcome, many a man’s seed would never find its way outside a wad of tissue in his own fist.

A gentle laugh erupted at the thought. “My dear, I understand completely.”

Ridelle cocked her head, fixing her with a narrowed gaze. “You do?”

“
Of course. I’ve been there myself—many times. Trust me, you can do this. I’ve got all sorts of tricks on how to make unwanted sex palatable.” She looked up in the air, as if reciting an invisible list from the ceiling. “Some of the classics are watching nasty movies before the big date, excusing yourself to the bathroom for a little private foreplay ahead of time, or focusing on a good mental fantasy of some hot hunk while he’s doing you.”

Ridelle slashed a hand through the air. “You’re totally off base, Dom. Geez.”

Dominique raised her hands in surrender. “What? There’s nothing wrong with getting yourself more receptive when someone can’t wet your whistle otherwise.”

Brown eyes rolled while Ridelle’s head gave a weary shake. “It’s not that I can’t go through with this because I don’t want Bruce. I can’t go through with it because I do.”

Confusion thickened as Dominique leveled her gaze at the glassy stare across the table. “I don’t understand.”

“
He kissed me tonight, Dom, and I liked it. I wanted it. My body screamed for more.” She turned her head away, staring into the empty kitchen with her arms crossed in front of her. “I’m rat scum. Adulteress rat scum.”

Dominique shook her head. “Honey, you have nothing to feel guilty about. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Ridelle’s laugh squinted her eyes enough to spill tears over the edge. “No? He’s Frannie’s husband. This is a have-to scenario. I shouldn’t
want
to do him.”

Her voice dropped to an encouraging wisp of silk. “Ridelle, are you falling in love with Bruce?”

She snorted. “Of course not. I know what he is.” She snapped up the mug, drained the remainder of tea, then fingered the handle stem. “I don’t want him for myself when this is done.”

Dominique shrugged. “Then there’s no problem.”

“
Yes, there is. I want him to touch me, despite knowing what a cad he is. I’m a big, skanky tramp, and I think Fran knows it. That’s why she’s all weird toward me—she’s seen it coming. She’s depending on me to be some saintly martyr, and instead I’m acting like the star of a porno titled
Hot Bitch In Heat
.”

“
Oh, enough.” Dominique stood, leaving Ridelle staring as she wandered through an archway leading to the back hall. Pulling open the cabinet underneath a sink just outside the guest bath, she yanked out what appeared to be a silver overnight vanity case and marched back to the dining room.

She laid the case on the dining table and scooted it under Ridelle’s nose. “Open it.”

Peering with open curiosity, she set the empty mug aside and pulled the case closer. She depressed a pair of flip locks and opened the top.

Dominique watched as her friend’s face turn red, eyes bulging at the contents. “What is all this stuff?”

“
What the hell does it look like?”

Ridelle’s lip sneered, but a wicked smile lurked beneath. “Sex toys.” She picked up a rainbow colored shaft of studded rubber. “Some really wild ones.”

Dominique laughed. “Right you are. There’s a bit of tramp in all of us, darling.” She leaned over and pawed through the treasure trove before holding up a tube of buttercream-flavored love oil.

The other girl shook her head, her voice pounds lighter than when she’d first walked in. “So what’s your point here? If you can’t beat ’em, tramp with ’em?”

“
No. It’s that what you’re feeling isn’t betraying a friend. It’s just natural born chemistry.”

“
That doesn’t make this right.”

The woman’s eyes landed on a pair of old handcuffs that sparked some good-times memories right in the pit of her stomach. “Fran asked for this, and you agreed. You think you have to prove your intentions are pure by obtaining no sexual pleasure from this whatsoever. Does that about sum it up?”

The girl dropped the bright orange love ring she’d been examining with puzzlement back into the case. “Well, yeah.”

Dominique shook her head. “It can’t work like that, honey. You’re a healthy young woman. Bruce is no George Clooney, but he isn’t exactly Woody Allen, either. And I’ve seen the bulge in that man’s slacks.”

To visualize her point, she pulled out an eight-inch jelly dildo in bright purple and waggled it at her friend. Ridelle’s eyes shot open. “You’re crazy!”

“
He’s a wealthy, distinguished businessman who has an eye for you.” She waggled the dong closer, as if it were a walking Bruce. “Of course that attention is flattering. He wants you. That’s flattering, too.”

Ridelle burst out laughing. “Stop that!”

The other’s eyes twinkled mischief as she reached into the case to extract the cock ring Ridelle had just abandoned. She danced it slowly toward her the dildo hand. “Then here you are, playing an undercover role. A woman of erotic mystery, dressing in sexy clothes and playing the part of seductress. That’s exciting.”

The toys shuffled closer to one another as Dominique went on. “The tension between the two of you grows. The anticipation. Does he really want you? Bad enough to risk anything? Are you truly that desirable?”

The girl’s face had gone red from laughter and tears streamed down her face. “Holy shit, Dom.”

“
Just when one thinks that’s all the sexual tension two human beings can stand, there’s a final blow.” She waggled the jelly penis and love ring in front of Ridelle’s face to within centimeters of each other, then froze them in place. “Their lust is forbidden.” She strained the dildo and cock ring toward one another, quivering them to elicit another paroxysm of laughter from her friend. “They want, but cannot have. In not having, their want grows. Then, finally, Boom.”

Dominique’s toys jammed together, consummating rubbery passion in a graphic depiction of adultery as her demonstration concluded.

Ridelle wiped tears from her eyes, chest heaving with hiccuping exhaustion. “You are one completely crazy bitch, you know that?”

She tossed the toys inside the box and shrugged. “Whatever it takes to make my point. I was the captain of my debate team, you know.”

Laughter subsided into a dull hoot. “Oh, no doubt. With you waggling fake dicks around, the other team probably forgot what they were supposed to be arguing.”

She leaned her left hand on the table, reaching across to Ridelle with the other to brush back a wayward strand of hair. “Please stop beating yourself up for having female hormones. If you get some physical enjoyment out of the deal, use it to your advantage. It’ll help you do what has to be done. Consider it too small of a reward for what you are doing for Fran. Okay?”

She nodded.

Dominique shoved the box closer. “Good. Now I want you to take this home.”

Eyebrows shot up. “What? I’m not taking that stuff!”

“
I assure you, it’s sanitized for your protection.”

“
I don’t need dildos to get me in the mood for this job, remember? That’s the whole problem.”

She shook her head. “Not for that. It’s to remind you of our talk. If you start wavering again, I want you to take out this box and look through it. Remember that you are human and were coerced into doing this. Consider any orgasm you may experience in the line of duty as the silver lining to this cloud.”

Dominique winked at the girl and started to flip the lid shut when something caught her eye. She pulled out an iridescent silver phallus that could readily have been the official dildo of NASA. “Not this one, though.” She thumbed on a switch, bringing the space aged device to surprisingly forceful life. “I think we have a date tomorrow.”

The girl’s eyes widened at the sound and they erupted in a bubble of laughter. She flipped the switch off. “Now get some sleep, then figure out when you’re going to see him again.”

“
I’ve already figured that out. In my rush to escape, I left one of my bags in his car.”

Dominique smiled. “Perfect. Couldn’t have worked out better if you were as scheming, trampy, and diabolical as I am.”

Ridelle finally agreed to take the box after two more attempts to turn it down, and Dominique was finally alone again. It was two a.m., but her mind was still working. Or perhaps the Earl Grey hadn’t been the wisest option.

Time was running short, and Dominique knew it was time to put her other plan into action. She hadn’t seen things happening quite this way, but the danger was clear nonetheless.

Ridelle would go through with the affair, that much was certain. Despite her misgivings, Bruce was a forbidden drug.

Dominique headed for the master bedroom, flipping the dining room light off as she went. Pandora lay curled at the foot of the queen sized bed, fast asleep on the wine Egyptian cotton duvet. Sliding into bed, Dominique pulled the remaining covers over herself as she settled down with a final resolve.