Magic Mansion (27 page)

Across the table, Muriel teased a single green silk out of the hole. Then a black.

John pushed his hand deep into the silks to try again.

“To your right, Professor,” Faye yelled.

The focus of the Gold Team shifted, as the other three members kenned to the fact that they could be helping Muriel. John reached in and to the right. “Farther,” Faye yelled, and Jia called out, “A little more. A little more.”

Bev screamed, “Right there, Muriel. Right there!” and Muriel pulled. White flashed, but green also.

Monty said, “It’s not alone, so it doesn’t count. Two points to Gold Team.” Muriel was undaunted. She flung it to the side and thrust her hand back into the hole while the mingled silks floated gently toward the floor.

“There! There!” Faye called, and John pinched the scarf that seemed to be closer to Faye’s line of vision and teased it carefully from the mass. It cleared the hole by itself…but it was yellow.

“Not that one,” she called.

Muriel laughed, and drew a pink scarf. “There’s a trick to pulling just one, huh?” she said to John. “But you get the feel for it after a few.” She pulled out another green.

“Indeed.” John reached back in, and tried to find the spot Faye had been guiding him to before. “Right there,” Jia called again. John pulled…and saw the scarf was blue before it even cleared the hole. He pulled hard, and two more came out with it.

“That’s five for the Red Team,” Monty said.

Half a minute was gone. John reached and pulled. Muriel did the same. They each found a rhythm, a speed, that allowed the silks to slide out without bringing along one of the others more often than not, though John racked up another five points, and in a particularly clingy draw, Muriel four.

Two minutes had passed, and it became obvious that if he didn’t find a white silk, Muriel would claim this challenge. And although John was loathe to do it for fear of drawing more spite toward himself, he focused on his True power, sent it surging through his fingertips…and then zeroed in on the idea of “white.”

It was so much easier to convey “white” than “the longest wand” that the response from the silks was practically immediate.
Yes
came from a place somewhere in the middle.
Yes
, from deep down in the pile.
Yes
, from the opposite corner.

Yes
, from the spot toward which Faye and Jia had been trying to coax John.

John walked his fingers through the silks carefully.
White?

No. No. No. No. Yes.

He pinched it between his fingers.
White—are you sure?

Yes
.

The timer was ticking. Only fifteen seconds to go. If John pulled more than one silk, he’d never have time to find another white, and Muriel would win the stunt. Slow. Steady. But were there any other colors stuck to it? Hard to say. And just as he began to draw it from the opening, he sent the request,
only white.

Whatever silk had been trying to cling (red, it seemed like, because it thought he could do with a darker pocket square) understood him, and released.

With ten seconds to spare, and Jia and Faye screaming themselves hoarse, John drew the silk from the hole.

“Is that…?” Monty said. “Yes, it’s a white silk. Professor Topaz has successfully drawn a single white silk. Not only will he spend a week at the MGM Grand and enjoy a guest appearance with David Copperfield, but Red Team wins the silk scarf portion of the Four Props Challenge.”

Chapter 25

FAREWELL DINNER

Ricardo covered his face with his hands. He tasted blood…God only knew what he’d done to his tongue during the last few seconds of the damn scarf challenge. He had no idea how his reaction would be interpreted. Disappointment over Red Team stealing the victory at the last second, he hoped. When really, he was just excruciatingly relieved it hadn’t been John who’d lost.

“Well, that does it,” Bev said. “Two Reds and two Golds. I’m sure they have a nice twist in store.”

“Don’t think that way,” Sue said. “Maybe they’ll let us all—”

“Okay, kids,” Iain called out, “line up in front of the table and pay close attention to Monty.”

Ricardo tended to think Bev was on to something. Whatever a tie meant, it probably wouldn’t be good.

They lined up, John center back, as the tallest contestant, Ricardo to one side of him and Kevin Kazan to the other. Sue, on Ricardo’s other side, was tall enough to stand in the back row, especially in her heels, and she took Ricardo’s hand and squeezed. Thankfully, Ricardo caught himself before he slipped his other hand into John’s. He turned to him instead, looked him in the eye, and said, “A spot with David Copperfield? Way to go.”

“Thank you,” John said gravely. Which gave Ricardo a special thrill, since onstage, it was the way Professor Topaz said pretty much everything.

“Tonight,” Monty told them, “eight magicians battled it out head to head. We had four winners, and four losers—two on Gold Team, and two on Red Team. There is no losing team.”

Sue squeezed Ricardo’s hand hard. He squeezed back and told himself to be happy that even though he couldn’t do the same with John, at least they were standing there side by side—and (barring a very cruel twist) neither one of them would be going home.

“Unfortunately, there is no winning team either, and only one person can be dubbed the Grandmaster Magician in Magic Mansion. And so, in the interest of fairness, our viewing audience will be sending home one member from each team.”

Sue gasped, and Ricardo held on tight as she swayed. Sue hadn’t had one of “her girls” go home since Charity Young…and truth be told, no one missed that awful dummy of hers.

“You’ll have tonight to celebrate the winners and say goodbye to your fast friends at a lavish dinner party in your honor. And next episode, we’ll announce who the viewers have chosen to stay…and to go.”

The formal dining room looked pretty enough, with its champagne fountain, white roses and sparkling candelabra. But Ricardo was exhausted, bone tired, and nauseated from the stress of the day. His tongue tasted like pennies and he suspected if he did manage to swallow any food, it might very well come right back up.

His teammates’ voices registered: Bev saying it was statistically unlikely she would get to stay much longer anyway, and Muriel saying that she’d had a blast at the Mansion, and she’d only done it for a lark anyhow, and Sue saying that it wasn’t fair one of them had to go home since Gold Team, in her opinion, had not officially lost. But mostly he allowed himself the luxury, while the cameras were still setting up and scoping out their best spots, of gazing at John. He tucked a red silk into his breast pocket, then looked up at Ricardo, and smiled. It was a sad-ish smile, and heart-wrenchingly handsome in the way it fit him just so. Like the black suit, and the pocket square.

“Earth to Ricardo,” Muriel said. “Have some champagne. You look like you can use it.”

As Ricardo sipped his champagne, which helped numb the awful taste of his tongue a bit, the catering staff hauled in huge platters of finger-foods, cheeses and fruit, canapes and shrimp. The dining room was in fairly good shape, even the spots the cameras weren’t shooting, and the food was actually better than the fancy dinner they’d had for eleven minutes with David Blaine. And slowly, between the champagne and the camaraderie of his teammates, despite the fact that he would need to bid one of them goodbye, Ricardo felt the horrific anxiety of the day begin to ebb. He wouldn’t go so far as to say he was enjoying himself. But eventually his knees stopped trembling, and he felt he could carry on a conversation without marking the location of the nearest trash can in case the urge to spew took over.

He was actually a bit tipsy by the time he wandered off to the bathroom, which only made sense. Even though the food was pretty good, his tongue wasn’t allowing him to enjoy anything that needed chewing, and the bubbly went down crisp and smooth.

The parts of the Mansion that weren’t currently taping were poorly lit and even a bit ominous. Ceilings were high, and in the dark, Ricardo’s footsteps sounded strange. It didn’t smell like a regular house. It smelled like a museum, or maybe an old library. And the mirror in the bathroom closest to the dining hall was speckled with dark spots where age had worn the silver backing away, which gave it a spooky, decayed feeling. He was glad enough to do his business and return to the party, but as he hurried back with his mind on the dining room, someone grabbed him by the elbow and spun him against the wall.

Kevin Kazan itching for a fight was his first thought—but Kevin Kazan was roughly the same height as Ricardo, so Ricardo wouldn’t find himself looking at a goatee and a red bow tie rather than Kevin’s stupid sideways hat.

Lips fell on Ricardo’s mouth. Urgent. Needy.

Kevin Kazan probably didn’t kiss like that, either.

Ricardo slid his arms around John’s neck, though he turned his mouth aside. “My tongue is a mess,” he said.

John stiffened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think—”

“Don’t be sorry.” Ricardo held on to him and stopped him from pulling away, and even managed to coax him into another brush of the lips. “Just be careful.”

John pressed his lips to Ricardo’s, more gently now, but not chaste, not at all. He held Ricardo to the wall, pinned by chest and hip, with a chair rail prodding into the center of his back and a rough bit of plaster catching at his hair, while his tongue teased at Ricardo’s mouth.

When John broke the kiss, he was breathing hard. Ricardo, too. “We shouldn’t stay out here in the open,” John said, but before Ricardo could protest that he frankly didn’t care, John added, “Follow me.”

John slipped around the corner, stealthy as a secret agent in his trim black suit, and Ricardo followed. He headed into the ballroom, then made a beeline for the screened-off parlor where props and equipment were stored. Perfect. If there were cameras in there, they’d be piled on the floor, not rolling, which meant…Ricardo’s heartbeat thrummed at the thought…that they could get away with doing pretty much anything.

The room was dark, but enough outdoor security lights seeped through the filmy curtains to allow them to pick their way through the clutter of furniture and gear. John paused in front of an old love seat at the far wall, turned to Ricardo, and held out his hand. Ricardo stepped forward, and in that moment, the disappointing reality of Magic Mansion fell away, and he could ignore the smell of sawdust and distant decay, and pretend that it was just him, and just John. They were together, alone. And this was
their
mansion. Their window, their curtains. Their love seat. And yes, it was a silly fantasy, since John probably just wanted a quickie, and Ricardo was probably reading into things, and no one owned a mansion these days, but who cared? Because this really was Professor Topaz, in the flesh. That was the only part of the fantasy that actually mattered. And that part was definitely real.

Ricardo stepped into John’s arms, and John bent his head to press his forehead to Ricardo’s. Not kissing him, not yet. Just holding him. And even that motion sent Ricardo’s heart soaring. “You look fabulous,” John said. His hands slid down the stretchy top. “Did you wear this to distract me?”

“Oh my God, no—”

“Shh. I’m kidding. I do that, sometimes.” John murmured the words against Ricardo’s lips as his hands dropped lower, hesitated, and then slid lower still, to cup Ricardo’s ass.

Now
there
was something to fantasize about. John grabbing him. Spreading him.
 

Taking him.

Ricardo moaned.

He nearly thrust his tongue into John’s mouth, but at the last moment a metallic taste threatened to spoil the mood. He turned his head so his face was buried in the crook of John’s neck instead, and he rubbed up against John, hungry to press together everywhere. His groin butted John’s thigh, and John let out a small gasp. “You’re so hard,” he whispered, fingers pressing deeper into Ricardo’s glutes, kneading them roughly. “I haven’t even touched it yet.”

“Please,” Ricardo gasped.

“Why?”

Ricardo almost didn’t catch the question. It sounded more like a breath. But if John thought it was a turn-on to hear Ricardo begging, he was more than happy to oblige. “Because I want you so bad it hurts. Because every day I see you and I can’t touch you and hold you and kiss you, it’s like torture to remember how you kissed me, and how you touched me, and I’m dying for you to do it again. To do more. To do it all.”

John guided Ricardo to the love seat and lay him back. It smelled faintly of mildew—but even that couldn’t detract from Ricardo’s hottest fantasy come true. John covered Ricardo with his body, kissing him slowly, gently, and occasionally his hips dipped down and brushed their groins together—and within a few slow grinds, John’s straining bulge caught up with Ricardo’s. And maybe they’d get off like that, rubbing together like a couple of college kids in the utility closet at a mostly-straight kegger. It wouldn’t be quite as good as the main event—feeling John
inside
him—but it would be a pretty damn satisfying opening act.

“Yeah, like that,” Ricardo said, when their bodies brushed in a particularly keen way. John dipped his hips and did it again. He fit his mouth to Ricardo’s and allowed their bodies to slide, for the sensation to build—and maybe it would be just as intense like this. Maybe more. “So good,” he breathed into John’s mouth as everything rushed down, down, down, and the tingle of impending release began to build. The slowness of the stimulation, the indirectness of it, made it all seem even headier. And when he came, he could already tell…he was going to come hard.

When John stilled, and when that elusive stimulation ebbed before his climax, Ricardo actually whimpered.

John shushed him quietly.

Once Ricardo wrested his awareness from his own throbbing dick, he realized he heard something other than the sound of their breathing and the gentle creak of the love seat.

He heard footsteps.

John put his mouth to Ricardo’s ear, and said, “Be still.”

Ricardo nodded.

The footsteps echoed through the ballroom, ringing loud. High heels. Ricardo wondered if maybe Sue had come to check on him and make sure he was okay—and that would be fine. Sue wouldn’t make a big stink about finding him in a compromising position with the Professor. But then someone spoke, and it wasn’t Sue at all.