Fifty Shames of Earl Grey: A Parody (12 page)

We’re on our way to the charity fund-raiser, which is being held inside the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. I’m wearing a short black dress from Earl’s closet. He says he had Data buy it just for me, though his wardrobe has more women’s clothing than men’s. I’m also wearing eyeliner and makeup, which Earl “had Data buy” for me too.

Earl is dressed as impeccably as ever, except he has swapped his smiley-face tie for a more formal tie with hundred-dollar bills printed on it. “This tie cost more than the money printed on the fabric, if you can believe it,” he says to me in the Space Needle elevator.

“I can believe it,” I say. Hardly anything he says or does shocks me anymore.

Earl Grey looks stunning. I want to stop the elevator and space out on his needle . . . but there are three other sharp-dressed couples on their way to the charity fund-raiser in the elevator with us.

“Anna, you are looking particularly gorgeous tonight,” Earl says.

I blush. “Stop,” I whisper. “There are other people in here . . .”

“Don’t be such a prude,” he says. “Hand me your panties.”

No one looks at us, but they had to have heard him. Still, I do as I’m told. I slip my panties off under my dress and step out of them. I hand them to Earl.

“Thank you,” he says. He leans over my neck and whispers into my ear, “I’m going to get you so wet that everyone in here drowns.”

Oh my.

Fortunately, Earl doesn’t have a chance to make good on his promise, as the elevator stops. “Another time,” I say.

We step off the elevator. The view of the city from the top of the Space Needle is marvelous. The room rotates to give diners at the restaurant a full 360-degree view of Seattle. It normally takes an hour to go around once, but Earl says he had them speed it up so it only takes ten minutes. It’s quite extraordinary. I have to remember not to drink too much, because I don’t want it spinning in more than one direction.

Earl hands me a piggy mask with a silver ribbon to hold it on. “It’s a masked ball,” he says. Instead of a pig nose and ears, his mask has a cute lil’ mouse nose and ears. We slip them on, covering the top halves of our faces. I can still see Earl’s gray eyes.
Oh, we’re going to have fun tonight.

“Would you like to play a game?” he says.

“It depends who I’m playing against.”

“Yourself,” he says. He produces an impossibly large, rounded red die from his pocket and shows it off to me in the palm of his hand. It’s unlike any die I’ve ever seen in my life.

“What is that?”

“A D-sixty-nine,” he says. He must see the look of confusion on my face, because he adds, “A sixty-nine-sided die.”

Woah.
“I thought you didn’t gamble.”

“I don’t,” he says. “Many role-playing games, including BDSM, utilize polyhedral dice to guide the action.”

“And just what am I supposed to do with it?”

He smiles. “Isn’t it obvious? Slip it inside you, and see how long you can hold it in for.”

“Inside me? You mean, inside my—”

He nods.

My inner guidette is hesitant, but I take the die anyway. It’s slightly smaller than a golf ball. I slip off into the ladies’ room next to the elevator, and then return after doing the deed.

“It’s in,” I say.

He smiles. “Game on.”

Paparazzi surround us once we enter the event space, snapping photos of us together. The lights are blinding. Earl grabs my hand and leads me through the pack of vultures. “You’re going to be all over TMZ tomorrow, baby,” he says, smiling. “I don’t think the press has ever photographed me with a woman who has a sixty-nine-sided die inside her . . .”

“Have they snapped pictures of you with women who aren’t carrying dice inside them?” I ask.

“No,” he says flatly.

I quickly change the subject. “So you set this whole fund-raiser up. What’s it benefitting?”

“It’s to raise awareness of the dangers of drunk diving,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Drunk . . .
diving
?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Surely you mean drunk
driving
,” I say. “Like my roommate who almost killed me today.” Though we did end up drunk diving, albeit unintentionally. In a car.

Earl shakes his head. “When you see the presentation I give, I’m almost certain you’ll be persuaded. Facts don’t lie.”

As we walk through the room, Earl introduces me to the other guests. There have to be at least five hundred attendees, all wearing animal masks. There’s no way I’ll even remember their names in the morning. If I see anyone on the street in the morning, will I recognize them?

Earl leads us to a table set up facing the rest of the room. A spotlight turns on him and someone hands him a microphone. I duck out of the light.

When he talks, his voice booms over the PA system. “Welcome, friends, to our annual charity ball!”

The crowd claps wildly for him. “I hope you enjoy the program we’ve put together for you this evening. The waiters are beginning to bring around the food right now, so don’t wait for me to finish blabbing before you start eating.”

There’s polite laughter. I shift nervously in my chair. The die stashed inside my body doesn’t hurt, but I can definitely tell it’s there. It takes all my concentration and muscle skills not to let it slip out.

“We’re going to start the charity auction soon, and I do hope you’ll open up your hearts—and wallets—for us, because it’s all for a good cause: to raise awareness of drunk diving.

“Folks, this is a very serious issue. I’m about to read off some statistics that, frankly, shocked me like a car battery hooked up to my nipples.

“Did you know that alcohol is involved in almost fifty percent of the nearly forty thousand diving accidents every year? Every minute, one person in this country is killed in a drunk diving accident. You may think that this doesn’t affect you, but think again: one in three people will be involved in an alcohol-related diving accident in their lifetime.”

He continues with the facts and figures for over an hour. By the time he wraps his speech up, the waiters are serving dessert. Thank God we didn’t wait to eat until he was finished. “But enough with the grim statistics,” Earl says. “Who’s ready to start the auction?”

Chapter Nineteen

A
FAST-TALKING AUCTIONEER takes the microphone from Earl and launches into the bidding rules. Earl sits down. “That was a moving speech,” I tell him.

“Thank you,” he says, kissing me on the cheek. Well, sort of on the cheek, and partly on the piggy mask.

The crowd cheers. For a second, I think it’s because of us kissing, but then I hear the words “Sold! Fifteen thousand dollars” over the PA system. Someone just bought the first edition of
A Shore Thing
, which I made Earl put up for auction since I couldn’t accept such an extravagant gift.

“You’re doing so much good in the world, Mr. Grey,” I tell him.

“It’s to balance out the cruelty in my own heart,” he says grimly.

I don’t say anything, because there’s no use arguing with Earl Grey when he’s PMSing.

The next item up for bid is a fantasy vacation suite in Hawaii. Without thinking, I raise my hand and scream, “A billion dollars.”

The crowd oooohs. The auctioneer is stunned speechless for a moment.

“Going once . . . twice . . . sold,” the auctioneer says, “to the young woman in the pig mask.”

I look at Earl, whose gray eyes are burning with anger beneath his mouse mask.

“What?” I say to him. “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii.”

“Where did you get a billion dollars?” he asks.

Uh-oh
. “Are we using real money? I thought we were using Monopoly money.”

“No, Anna,” he says, his voice quiet. “We’re using real money here. I guess I’ll have to lend you the billion dollars.”

“Thanks,” I say sheepishly.
Oops
.

“You do know, however, that the fantasy suite in Hawaii that was auctioned off is one that I own,” he says.

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

He shakes his head. “What am I ever going to do with you, Anna Steal?”

I have no idea. I’m thinking the same thing about him.

The auction is over, and Earl is slow dancing with me on the dance floor. The house band, the Icy Dragons, is dutifully playing a faithful cover version of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” at Earl’s request. His anger has dissipated, though he says he will probably have to liquidate one or two companies or move a few thousand jobs overseas to pay the billion dollars I owe to the drunk diving charity.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It must have been all the alcohol.”

“You haven’t been drinking, Anna,” he says.

“Then maybe the pot,” I say.

“You haven’t been smoking pot, either,” he says. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

Earl is an expert dancer, and guides me around the dance floor with grace. “Where did you learn to dance like this?” I ask him.

“I was on
Dancing with the Stars
once,” he says.

“That’s so cool,” I say.

“I lost in the final round to Nicholas Sparks.”

“Is there anything that man can’t do?”

“Toss a salad,” Earl says gravely.

His body feels good close to me.

“You look so sexy in your mask,” he says. “I can’t wait to get you home and make you squeal like a pig.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I think.”

“What do you say we make our way to the men’s restroom? I don’t think I can wait until we leave to have my way with you, Anna,” he whispers in my ear.

I smile. “The bathroom? Is that sanitary?”

“Of course. You just have to use a wide stance,” he says. The band finishes the song, and most of the couples exit the dance floor for a breather. “It’s just about half past ten. How about we speed things up a bit?” the long-haired male lead singer says as the band launches into a fast-paced rendition of “It’s Raining Men.”

“I love this song!” I say.

“Me too,” Earl says. “What do you say we stick around on the dance floor and I show you some of the moves I learned on
Dancing with the Stars
?”

“I’m kind of clumsy,” I say. “I can barely keep up when we’re just slow dancing.”

“Don’t worry so much,” he says. “You need to forget your inhibitions and just let yourself go.”

“Well, if you insist . . .”

He smiles. “Yes, Anna, I insist.”

A handful of dancers hit the hardwood floor. Women are throwing their hands up in the air. Earl Grey, meanwhile, begins twirling me around in circles. I try not to throw up as the world spins around me. Add this to the steady rotation of the entire restaurant inside the Space Needle, and I feel even sicker—

The band’s lead singer screams passionately into the microphone as Earl tosses me into the air and catches me. It’s not raining men—it’s raining Anna Steal!

I find my footing back on the ground, but Earl slides me under his legs and pulls me back up. Suddenly, my feet are off the ground! As if the room wasn’t spinning enough as it was, now Earl Grey is swinging me through the air by my arms. If something doesn’t stop spinning soon it’s going to be raining chunks.

“Hallelujah!” the singer shouts. “It’s raining m—”

There’s a loud thunk. Earl brings me to an abrupt stop and catches me in his arms. I didn’t throw up. Thank my inner guidette! I notice that the musicians have stopped playing, though, and Earl Grey is staring wide-eyed at the Icy Dragons’ lead singer, who is lying on his back, knocked out cold. With horror, I spot a sixty-nine-sided die on the floor next to his unconscious body.

Gulp
.

Chapter Twenty

I
BOARD EARL GREY’S BOAT. It’s one of those ridiculously large yachts, like in a rap video. We’re about to cross the Pacific Ocean, which has since been filled back up with rainwater since Earl drained it to save me. It’s amazing how Mother Nature can repair herself after we damage her. We’ll soon be en route to our fantasy Hawaiian suite, only a day after the horrible incident at the Space Needle. Earl thought I might need the vacation now, as I’ve been a little shaken up after almost killing the lead singer of the Icy Dragons.

After boarding the boat, the first thing I do is throw my arms in the air and yell, “I’m on a boat, motherfu—”

Earl cuts me off by raising a finger to his mouth and shushing me. He points to a sign that reads: PLEASE, FOR THE SAKE OF OTHER PASSENGERS’ SANITY, NO “I’M ON A BOAT” REFERENCES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

Oh. Drats.

There’s another sign just below that one that answers my next question: YOU ARE NOT THE KING OF THE WORLD, JACK.

“So I can’t say ‛I’m on a boat’
or
do any
Titanic
impressions? What are we supposed to do on a five-hour boat ride?”

“I think that’s obvious,” Earl says wickedly.

I smile. Oh yeah. Here we go.

“Fish,” he says.

I frown. Fish? Really? “What kind of fishing?”

“Tuna,” he says, smiling again. He winks at me.

“Ew,” I say. “Was that supposed to be sexy?”