The rain stopped, the sun came out, and Mazie’s emotional smog lifted. Anger took the place of grief. Magenta was right, Mazie decided. Ben Labeck had acted like a jerk. She’d allowed him to take her for granted and look what had happened—he’d lost all respect for her.
“He’s not even all that great,” Mazie grumped to Juju as they made microwave popcorn for their Thursday-night movie marathon at Juju’s apartment.
“Who, Ben?” Juju raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Yes, him. The Sexiest Man who ever left his sock balls strewn like turds all over the floor, waiting for the sock fairy to pick them up.”
“Oh, yeah—the good old sock fairy. The sister of the wet-underwear-on-the-bathroom-floor fairy.”
“I wonder how sexy all those women would find him if they knew he eats every nacho chip in a bag except for the last flake and then puts the bag in the cupboard, so the unsuspecting next person thinks the bag is still half full. Or how he stands in front of the open fridge and moans that there’s no mustard when the jar is two inches from his nose.”
“All guys do that,” Juju said. “It’s selective vision. It’s caused by the Y chromosome.”
“Plus he’s too vain to get reading glasses, he needs an instruction manual to load a dishwasher, and he’s absolutely incapable of admitting when he’s wrong.”
Thinking nasty thoughts was amazingly energizing; it was like eating a chocolate chip cupcake and washing it down with a triple espresso; it was a 5-Hour Energy Drink for the ego. And so on the sixth day after she’d told Ben Labeck she never wanted to see him again, Mazie marched into Magenta’s shop and announced, “I’m ready for that makeover.”
Chapter Ten
“Not too short,” Mazie ordered.
“Just three inches,” Magenta wheedled. “Please?”
“Don’t you dare! One and a half at the most.”
“Two.”
Mazie took a deep breath and nodded, although it was a bit hard to move her head at the moment because her face was slathered in Dead Sea clay and her eyelids had cucumbers on them, which were giving her an overwhelming craving for a tossed salad.
Magenta picked up a strand of Mazie’s just-shampooed hair and made the first cut. He was a genius with scissors, although he didn’t have a cosmetologist’s license and only did hair for a few select clients. His salon was crammed into a small space at the back of his shop: a shampoo sink, styling chair, mirror, and cabinet.
Magenta’s shop looked as though Saks Fifth Avenue had collided with a garage sale. Gowns originally priced in the thousands were offered here for a fraction of their cost. Diors, Valentinos, and Balenciagas shared space with their gaudier showbiz relatives—Bob Mackeys, Jovanis, and Vera Wangs. Wigs of all colors and styles were allotted a sacred shrine, shoes had their own altar, and feather boas and sequined scarves were draped across every possible surface. The clothes were nearly all in larger sizes because most of Magenta’s customers were men—drag queens, female impersonators, and guys who just liked dressing up in women’s clothes.
Magenta snipped, concentrating fiercely, for an hour, before finally twirling Mazie around to check herself out in the mirror. She took off the cucumbers slices. Even with her hair damp, the shape of the cut was evident; short on the nape and longer in front, with strands of varying length splaying down to emphasize her cheekbones.
“I love it!” Mazie patted her head all over, enjoying the feeling of the crisp, shorter hair.
“Thank you.” Magenta looked pleased. “I cut off about five pounds of hair.”
He’d just begun blow-drying when the bells on the front door rattled and Juju whirled into the shop. “Congratulate me!” she said, breathless and beaming. “I just had my first dominatrix session.”
Her dark brown eyes sparkled. In her short white leather jacket, lacy camisole, and skimpy denim skirt, she looked more like a schoolgirl than a paid inflictor of pain.
Magenta turned off the dryer. “Sit down and tell us every single detail. Who did you have to whip? What did you wear?”
Juju collapsed into the shampoo chair. “I decided against the lady buccaneer thing and went with the catsuit. I practically had to use a shoehorn—that sucker fought me every inch of the way—the leather sticks to your skin, it chafes like crazy, and it’s hot as Satan’s armpit.”
Juju picked up a long blond wig, tried it on, and studied her reflection. “It took so long to get into the thing I was running twenty minutes late. But my mentor dominatrix, Natalie—she goes by the name Princess Payne—anyway, she said it’s okay being late for a session because it makes the submissive build up more fear.”
“What’s a submissive?” Mazie asked.
“The one that’s getting his butt whipped,” Juju explained, “but we just call them Scum or Toad or stuff like that. In real life, a lot of them are executives or high-powered businessmen who make decisions and run companies and chop off heads all day. They get a kick out of giving up control for a while and having someone tell them when they can breathe.”
Magenta fanned himself with a hair-coloring brochure. “I could get into that.”
Juju grinned. “So I slam into the room and stride up to the guy, start snarling at him, tell him that he’s a pathetic piece of garbage and I shouldn’t have to waste my time disciplining him, but someone needs to teach him a lesson and I’m the unfortunate mistress who has to do it.”
“Do you work from a script?” Mazie asked.
Juju giggled. “No—I was just channeling my aunt Popo yelling at my uncle Chi-Chi. Aunt Popo could blister paint off walls.”
“Did you have to spank the guy?” asked Magenta, looking extremely curious.
“No—he just wanted to have a dog collar strapped around his neck and to be jerked around on a leash. I made him go down on all fours and crawl into this little kennel. Then I banged on his cage and threatened to have him neutered.”
Mazie nodded. “A lot of guys need neutering.”
“I shocked his dog collar a couple of times,” Juju said, “but mostly I was bored out of my mind. The submissive must have gotten off on it, though; he tipped me fifty bucks.”
“You sound tired,” Mazie said.
“I am. And my throat hurts from yelling. Oh—I almost forgot—the reason I stopped in.” Juju fished a white T-shirt out of her handbag and flapped it in front of Mazie. “Get your pushup bra on, babes—we’re going to a pheromone party.”
“Oh, goodie. Because the last party you dragged me to went so well.”
“This one will be different. It’s called Phero-mates.” Juju brandished the T-shirt. “It’s a matchup event!”
“No matchups. No dating. I’m off men for the rest of my life.”
“But you want kids,” Juju pointed out. “How are you going to have kids?”
“Turkey baster.”
Magenta screwed up his face. “Eww. Is that what it sounds like?”
Juju grinned mischievously. “Women don’t really need guys anymore.”
Magenta groaned. “If only the same was true for gay guys.”
“You know about pheromones, right?” Juju said. “These chemicals people secrete that attract the opposite sex. It’s all very subconscious—”
“I know what pheromones are.” Mazie was convinced that it had been Ben Labeck’s pheromones that had originally attracted her to him. “And I’m not going to find a mate by sniffing his hairy armpit.”
“Nobody sniffs your pits. You just sleep in a T-shirt for three nights, then you stuff it in a baggie and bring it to the party. Which is tomorrow night at eight o’clock, by the way. You owe me ten bucks for the shirt and twenty-five for the admission fee.”
“Thirty-five dollars for some pseudo-scientific—”
“Come on, Maze—step out of your comfort zone.” Juju prodded the styling chair lever with her foot and spun Mazie in a circle. “Now that you’re unattached, you can try all kinds of new things. Show off that new haircut. Try different nail polish
and makeup. Get a new outfit.”
Mazie’s clay masque cracked. “I think I’m about to hatch.”
“That’s right! You’re hatching out of your shell or cocoon or whatever those things are and emerging as this big, gorgeous, man-attracting butterfly.” Juju thrust the white T-shirt at her. “Wear this tonight. Let your pheromones rub off for a few hours.”
“I thought it took three nights.”
“So cheat. Everybody cheats. I’m dabbing a few drops of Chanel on mine.”
“No, no, no.” Magenta waved his arms. “Waste of perfume. You want to know what guys like? Pumpkin pie spice. I read it in Cosmo. Pumpkin pie spice—it slays guys dead. It increases sexual arousal in the human male by forty percent. And vanilla’s in second place.”
Juju looked outraged. “I’ve been spending a fortune on expensive perfume and stupid men just want me to smell like my mom’s kitchen?”
“You know the old expression,” Magenta said. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Turns out that the same is true for other parts of the male anatomy, too.”
Chapter Eleven
Ben edged over the speed limit on the drive back. It was a seven-hour drive to Milwaukee and he was worried that the ice in the chest would melt. Half a dozen black bass, caught shortly after dawn, were packed in the chest, all filleted, deboned, and wrapped in aluminum foil. There were frozen French fries, too, purchased at a convenience store along the highway. He’d go directly to Mazie’s place, he decided. She’d know how to roll the fish in cornmeal and fry them up in a little oil, while the fries crisped up in the oven.
Fish and fries and the Heineken Mazie always kept in her fridge for him—perfect! While they ate, he’d tell Mazie about his fishing expedition and then the evening would end in Mazie’s bed. The thought left his mouth dry and his heart racing. It had been way too long.
Maybe he ought to phone her and let her know he was coming. He quickly dismissed the thought. Mazie would be home. She was always home on Saturday nights. They had an unspoken agreement about Saturday nights.
It had been a week now since that stupid fight in the rain. The details had blurred, and now the whole thing seemed pretty funny. Mazie had yelled something about never wanting to see him again, but she’d just been blowing off steam. She’d be over it by now, happy to see him again and delighted with the fish.
Traffic slowed, then stopped for an accident on the interstate. Getting through the bottleneck took over an hour and it was later than he’d planned by the time Ben pulled up in front of Mazie’s place. He hoped she hadn’t already had dinner. He got out, checked the fish—they were okay, even though the ice was melting—and hauled the chest to Mazie’s door. He rang the bell, surprised to find that his palms were sweating and his heart was beating fast, as though he were about to meet a woman for the first time.
“Come in,” she yelled. It was something that bugged him. She was way too trusting. A single woman keeping her door unlocked was just inviting trouble. One of these days he’d buy her a top-quality dead bolt, instead of the flimsy chain she now used. He let himself into her flat, through the foyer, into the living room.
It was an efficiency, just a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room that doubled as her bedroom. Still, it looked terrific, despite Mazie’s skimpy budget. He inhaled. Her place smelled like fresh paint—one of his favorite smells, and—he sniffed again—like pumpkin pie. Had she been baking? Maybe she’d made pie for him. He smiled in anticipation.
He could hear Mazie clattering around in her bathroom, her bottles and beauty aids clinking against the sink. “Ready in a sec,” she warbled, ducking out of the bathroom with a curling iron wrapped around a lock of hair, “if I can get this stupid hair to—”
She broke off abruptly, staring at Ben in obvious surprise.
He took her in, and all his breath seemed to whoosh out of him. He’d forgotten how pretty she was. She was flushed from hurrying and hadn’t finished putting on her makeup; her lips were still their natural, un-lipsticked pink. Her blue eyes were enormous in a face that looked thinner. And her hair—
“What did you do to your hair?” Ben asked.
Yeah—her hair was definitely shorter. He preferred long hair on women, but the chin-length cut looked amazing on Mazie. She was wearing a red dress in some kind of silky material that wrapped around the front and tied at the waist. It revealed a hint of cleavage and a lot of leg.
She’d known he was coming and dressed up for him. She’d just been faking the surprised look. She looked ravishing, and he wanted to be her ravisher. A jolt of pure, unadulterated lust shot through him, leaving him hot, hard, and ready for action. He let the ice chest crash to the floor and moved toward Mazie, wanting to take her in his arms, feel her lips on his, run his hands along her sweet flesh—
Mazie jerked up the curling iron and pointed it at him as though she was about to fire off a warning shot. Ben stopped in his tracks, his radar picking up subtle signals. This did not appear to be a woman in want of ravishing, a woman ready to welcome home the conquering hero of a lake full of bass.
She wrinkled her nose. “You smell fishy.”
“That’s the cooler,” he said. “I brought you some fish.”
He wanted to punch himself. I brought you some fish. How lame was that? “I was up north,” he explained. “Lake Namakagon. Doing some fishing.”
“Fishing,” she repeated.
Heat prickled across Ben’s face. Maybe he ought to have phoned her. Maybe he ought to have changed before showing up here. He was wearing a sweaty porkpie hat studded with fishing lures, a flannel shirt with ripped-off sleeves, a grungy T-shirt, pants spattered with fish guts, and tennis shoes he’d intended to throw out ten years ago. And she was right, he thought, furtively sniffing himself. He did smell like fish.
“Check this out, Mazie—half a dozen good-sized bass fillets in here. For you.” Wrenching open the chest, he snatched up one of the fillets and held it up for her to admire.
She eyed the fish as though it was a bloody, headless mole a cat had dragged in. “You brought me a mess of dead fish. Is that supposed to be symbolic?”
“Come on, Mazie—you love fish. We can fry them up. You know—with cornmeal and a little olive oil.” It was the wrong thing to say—he knew it the minute he’d uttered it, and yet his mouth acted as a shovel, digging him deeper and deeper into the dirt. “And you probably have tartar sauce, right? Because if you don’t, I can run down to the store and get some.”
“How totally unselfish of you. But I already had dinner,” she said coldly.
“Oh. Uhh … I guess I should have phoned.” But the scene had been so clear in Ben’s mind: him, Mazie, fish fry, sex. Why was Mazie being so unreasonable? What had gotten into her?”
“Why are you all dressed up?” Ben asked. “Wait—was there a wedding we were supposed to go to?”
Mazie set down the curling iron and picked up a pair of earrings. She tilted her head in that graceful way women have when they’re jabbing earrings into their lobes. Ben wanted to do it for her: brush the hair off her neck and nuzzle the deliciously soft skin. He loved Mazie’s earlobes—small and perfectly shaped, unlike his own radar dishes. He suddenly felt as big and gawky and unwieldy as he had in high school, when the cute girls wouldn’t even say hi to him.
“I’m dressed up because I’m going out,” Mazie said.
“Out?” Ben felt the floor shift beneath his feet. “Out where?”
She stared at him as though he was a newcomer to the English language. “Out out.”
“You mean like on a date?” Icy tentacles wriggled around in his stomach. “You’re seeing someone?”
“No, I’m just going out.”
“Dressed like that? With a short skirt and your boobs showing?” He jammed his hands in his pockets. Mistake—there was a fishhook in there. It jabbed his forefinger, stinging like crazy.
“You never objected to my boobs showing before.”
He sucked on h
is stinging finger. “Because they were for me, not every Tom, Dick, and Harry in a bar.”
“It’s no longer your business whether my boobs hang out. We broke up, remember?”
“What are you talking about?” Oh, Christ, was this payback for those women in that restaurant?
“You don’t even remember, do you?”
She was getting mad. Good; anger he could deal with.
“Yeah, I remember. ‘Never darken my doorstep again, you vile Canadian brute!’ ” He made his voice high and prissy-sounding. It was funny. Except—funnily enough—it didn’t get a laugh from Mazie, who didn’t seem to appreciate his comic genius.
“Your ice chest is leaking on my floor,” Mazie pointed out.
Which was completely beside the point and just more evidence of Mazie’s female inability to use reason and logic, Ben thought. It would serve her right if he took his fish and left.
Outside a car horn honked. “I’ve got to go.” Mazie suddenly got all flustered, flitting around the room, picking something up from a table and stuffing it in her purse.
“What’s that?” Before she could stop him, Ben snatched the thing out of her purse. He studied it, puzzled. It looked like a T-shirt wadded up in a plastic bag.
“Keep your paws off my purse,” Mazie snapped, grabbing the package back. She hurriedly tossed it into the steamer trunk she called a handbag and scurried out the door.
Ben couldn’t help admiring the rear view as Mazie left, her shoulders set in high dudgeon. Yeah, she was definitely mad at him. She got in the yellow bumper car that was Juju’s MINI Coop and they took off. Not some guy then—just Mazie and Juju, out for a night on the town. But maybe that was worse. Juju Danda was hell on wheels, and Mazie Maguire didn’t have the sense to come in out of the rain. By herself, each woman was scary; combined, they were a recipe for mayhem.
They didn’t know it yet, but they were going to have a bodyguard.
Abandoning the ice chest in the middle of Mazie’s living room, Ben hurried to his car, made an illegal U-turn, and followed them, glad that Juju’s car was so bright it practically glowed in the dark.
The Sexiest Man Alive Page 6