Shopping for a CEO's Wife (Shopping for a Billionaire Book 12)

by Julia Kent

  “I’m here with my mom to ask some questions about looking better for my upcoming wedding.” I look at Josh. “And you’re here to tug your penis.”

  “I am here to ask about foreskin restoration services.”

  “What kind of rings do they put on you to make the skin stretch? Is it like those disc earrings for earlobe holes that punk rockers wear?”

  “No.”

  “Do you get your penis pierced? Do they add weights to it?”

  “I am not talking about my penis with you, Marie.”

  “Now you develop boundaries? Now?” I elbow Josh in his bony ribs. “You spent all this time telling us about your status as a puller -- ”

  “Tugger.”

  “Tugger, and now you want to put it back in the privacy box? Sorry, Josh, it doesn’t work that way. Your penis is now a topic of conversation forever.”

  “Why do you want a foreskin?” Marie asks.

  “Why?” He’s incredulous. “Because it makes sex more pleasurable!”

  “How do you know?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How do you know? You’re never had sex with a foreskin on. How would you know whether it is more pleasurable or not?”

  Josh’s jaw hangs open.

  “Marie’s got a really good point.”

  “Shut up. Both of you. Let’s get in there and get this over with.” In a flurry of bony elbows and outraged limbs, Josh climbs out of the car, smoothing his suit jacket. He looks just enough like Buster from Arrested Development that I do a double take.

  “I, for one, can’t wait to get this removed.” Marie grabs her loose neck skin and practically turns it into a cape. Hmmm. If she had some of that loose skin removed, could they surgically attach it to Josh’s --

  “We’re only scheduling services today. This is a multi-step shop. We come back for most of the actual procedures later.”

  “Of course,” Josh says. “They have to take before-and-after pictures to measure progress.”

  “Measure,” Marie snickers.

  “We need aliases. They’ll ask for names.”

  “Right. How about Peter?” Marie suggests, without a hint of irony.

  “Peter?” Josh starts snickering.

  “And you can be Ethel,” Josh tells Marie.

  “Ethel? No. How about Peggy?”

  “Peggy?”

  “I always wanted to be a Peggy.”

  “Fine. You’re a Peggy.”

  “And you’re my son, Peter.”

  “Fine.”

  “Peggy procured professionals to pick a perfect pecker for Peter, her poor progeny,” Marie chirps, clearly pleased with her alliteration skills.

  “You can stop now, Peggy,” Josh orders.

  “How many perfect peckers can Peggy’s progeny Peter pick?”

  I slice my finger across my neck as I look at Marie.

  “I know! Neck surgery. Can’t wait.” She frowns. “I should have fit ‘prick’ in there somewhere.”

  “That’s what she said,” Josh cracks.

  “Shhhhh.” Trying to shush them is a fool’s errand, but I’m a fool.

  A fool for bringing them on this evaluation.

  I look at him. “You’re gay. Shouldn’t you say ‘that’s what he said’?”

  “Yes, but people don’t get the joke if I do that.” He makes a sad face.

  The spa reminds me of a much bigger version of our chain of O Spas, except the medi-spa isn’t about female pleasure. The focus is on medical procedures that lead to aesthetic and/or psychological improvement. Botox, liposuction, foreskin restoration, chemical peels – if it makes you feel more attractive, they offer it.

  A woman who reminds me of a much older version of Chloe Browne, our Boston O Spa designer, floats into the room. She has pure white hair pulled off her face, with big, round eyes deep-set into her face. Thick eyeliner highlights her long lashes and her cheekbones are so prominent, they might as well be doorknobs.

  “Hello, and welcome. I am Helené.” She pronounces it hell-eh-NAY. “May I get you some coffee? Tea? Cucumber water? Kombucha?”

  I feel like I’m at Grind It Fresh!

  “I would love a cucumber water. The natural lithium in cucumbers is so good for mood,” Marie says.

  I give her a sharp look.

  “What?” she whispers as Helené pours some from a crystal pitcher. “If Pam can say scientific-sounding things she reads on the internet, so can I. And it’s true. There really is lithium in cucumbers.”

  “Then we need to force-feed them to you by the truckful,” I murmur back, before shutting up as Helené returns with a smile and the waters.

  “What brings you here?” Helené asks.

  Marie answers before I can. “Esther here is getting married.”

  I am apparently Esther now. So much for Ethel as my cover name.

  Helené’s eyes light up. “Congratulations! We have some wonderful wedding spruce-up packages that I am sure you’ll adore.”

  “And we’re here to make poor Peter’s penis bigger,” Marie declares to Helené, whose eyes immediately flit to Josh’s crotch with a pitying look that would make any guy shrivel.

  “What? No! My penis is plenty big,” he cries out. “Really! It’s larger than average. I’ve checked.”

  You’ve checked? I mouth to him.

  Shut up, he mouths back.

  “I see. Well, sir, we don’t do enlargements. That technology is beyond our medical licensing. However, we do foreskin restoration. Are you circumcised?”

  “Isn’t that a little personal?” Marie gasps, fanning herself with her hand, as if embarrassed.

  Josh pinches the bridge of his nose.

  “We’re medical professionals, madame. If we cannot talk openly about our beautiful bodies in a medi-spa, then where can we?”

  “I am interested in foreskin restoration,” Josh declares.

  Helené nods and turns to a small iPad on her desk, tapping discreetly. She looks at the screen, which is now covered with pictures of flaccid penises.

  Marie homes in like a paparazzi drone outside my window.

  “What’s that?” she asks.

  “Those are penises,” Helené explains patiently.

  “I know what they are, for goodness sake! I’ve been married for more than thirty years.”

  “Many women who have been married that long haven’t seen one in years,” Helené points out.

  “Not me! Jason and I have sex nineteen times a week, combined!”

  Josh looks a little queasy.

  “Nineteen!” Helené seems impressed. “That’s wonderful stamina for people your age.”

  Marie’s eyes narrow at the ‘your age’ comment.

  “What do you mean, ‘combined’?” Josh asks. My arms stay by my side, but I look at him with eyes like an air traffic controller’s, flailing lighted guiding devices that say MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

  Don’t ask.

  “You know – combined,” Marie says, frowning as if Josh is an idiot for not understanding. “We have sex together twice a week, and all the other times add up to nineteen.”

  Josh turns to me as if I can rescue him.

  “I don’t understand it, either.”

  “Lovers?” Helené asks.

  “What?” Marie gasps, offended. “Of course not! I don’t cheat on my husband!”

  “Then how do you get to nineteen?” Helené asks.

  “Please stop drilling for details,” I whisper to no one in particular.

  “Anyhow,” Josh says in an arch tone, “I’d like to learn more about your restoration services.” He points to a picture of a flaccid penis on the iPad. “I am a C3.”

  Against my better judgment, I look. Ten pictures are in a grid on the screen. Pictures of penises with varying levels of turtleneck to them. Each one looks increasingly weary, as if the weight of the foreskin gives them bad posture. It’s like looking at a row of eighth-grade boys at a middle school dance, all lined up against the wall.

&n
bsp; C1 is no turtleneck. More like a crewneck. V-neck, even. The small print is hard to read, but this seems to be the level with the least foreskin. C10 looks like a full-blown elephant trunk.

  I can’t help it. I make a mental comparison with Andrew and pick a number.

  “Were you always a C3?” Helené asks, her manicured fingernail sliding against the glass screen over to C1.

  “No. I’ve made it from C2 to C3.”

  Her eyes light up with approval. “Ah, good progress. That portends well for future stretching. Which devices are you using?” She taps the screen a few times and a new grid appears.

  “This isn’t a joke?” Marie marvels, watching Helené and Josh. She pulls me aside. “Men actually do this?”

  “I guess so.”

  “And pay good money to have someone tug them?”

  Helené overhears us and walks over, smooth as can be. “Yes. We are a judgment-free zone, Peggy. People come to us because they sense a void inside themselves. Something needs to be changed. They’re missing something.”

  “Like a foreskin?”

  “A sense of completion. For some people, it’s asymmetry.” Helené eyes my breasts a little too closely.

  I cross my arms over them.

  “For others, it’s lost youth.” She looks at Marie for a second longer than is comfortable.

  “Thanks goodness I don’t have that problem!” Marie says with a chipper smile. “Everyone I know says I look ten years younger than I really am!”

  “You look fabulous, Peggy, for someone who is clearly in her seventies — ”

  Flash! Click! Before Helené can continue, the main doors fill with a burst of lights and cameras.

  “Damn it! Paparazzi followed us here?” I say with a growl.

  “Why would this place be any different?” Marie asks, fluffing her hair. She turns to the main doors, sucking in her gut, jutting out her boobs.

  “What are you doing?” Josh and I are being ushered down a private hallway by Helené, who is motioning for security guards to come help.

  “Giving them what they want! Pictures of beautiful women. I am Declan McCormick’s mother-in-law, after all.”

  “You realize no one out there knows who you are,” Josh hisses. “They’re here for Amanda.”

  “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t look good! No one wants a double chin in high-def on a computer screen.” Marie angles her face and grins.

  Flash! Click!

  I grab her by the arm and yank her down the hall, hoping no one got a good shot of me. Fury pounds through me, heart hammering in my chest. My every move is being tracked by these stalkers, isn’t it? I know it in theory. I even know it in practice. But every time they appear, invading my life when I least expect it and have my guard down, it’s too much.

  No one can be expected to handle this. A pang of sympathy for mega-stars rips through me.

  “Poor Kanye West,” I murmur.

  Josh hears that and comes to a halt. “Did you just say ‘poor Kanye West’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the drones follow him, too.”

  Josh blinks rapidly. “Do they talk to you through the order station at the Starbucks drive-thru, too? Send signals through the coffee stirrers?”

  “It’s true,” I insist. “The paparazzi use air drones to take videos and pictures of celebrities.”

  “That’s a thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that how they get all those naked celebrity photos of people on yachts and canoeing? Because praise Orlando Bloom in all his glory. And I mean allllllll.” Josh looks down at his own package. “Orlando’s parents left him intact.”

  “And I’ll bet Katy Perry wishes she had a good throwing arm for taking out the damn drones,” I grouse. “Or a trained hawk.”

  “You’re putting yourself in the same league as Orlando, Kanye, and Katy?”

  I pull him aside and whisper, “Not in the same league, but in the same circumstances. I can’t even do a mystery shop without being followed! Yesterday I found them rifling through the garbage at my mom’s house!”

  “Did they find anything good?”

  “A few used tampons of mine, some junk mail, and Mom’s old inhaler.”

  “Bringing sexy back, Amanda...er, Ethel. You’re bringing sexy back. Perez and TMZ are salivating.”

  “What would they find if they went through your trash? A bunch of adhesive tape, fishing wire, and bad porn?”

  “I don’t look at bad porn!”

  “You still have a New Kids on the Block poster in your bedroom.”

  “How would you know?”

  “It’s in the background of your Facebook profile photo.”

  “It’s a collector’s edition.”

  “I’ll bet it is. It collects whatever doesn’t make it into the sock.”

  “Now you’re just being mean.”

  “But am I wrong?”

  “Shut up.”

  “You shut up.” My temper is flaring. It comes out like a rare orchid, blooming for a short time and then disappearing.

  “I’m telling the boss on you.”

  “I am your boss.”

  “I mean your boss!”

  “My boss is my fiancé. Good luck with that.”

  “This is why workplaces have strict no-fraternization policies.”

  “Says the guy who is also dating an Anterdec employee.”

  He opens his mouth to argue, holds his breath, then pouts. “Fine. You’re right, Geordi works for Anterdec. We’re both walking sexual harassment cases waiting to happen, aren’t we?”

  “What does that have to do with the paparazzi chasing me everywhere?”

  “Nothing. I just needed to say something that makes me win this argument.”

  “You didn’t win!”

  “Did too!”

  “Did not!”

  It slowly dawns on me that Helené and Marie are watching us, Marie’s eyes wide as can be, with a look that tells me Helené definitely heard Josh blow our cover.

  “Anterdec?” Helené’s perfectly threaded eyebrow rises. “You’re with Anterdec?”

  Oh, no.

  Chapter 13

  We’re driving back to the office. Josh and Marie are silent.

  They are silent because I am using all of the words in the world, all at once, on this rant.

  “I can’t believe that I have been a mystery shopping professional for five years and never once – not once! -- have I blown my cover. Not the time Shannon’s ex-boyfriend’s mother caught us being gay at a credit union. Not when Andrew thought I was dating a bunch of dog owners while I was working the DoggieDate account. Not even that time I evaluated bra fitters at the department store and had that pervert put nipple clamps on me.”

  Marie perks up. “Does she still work there? Which store?”

  “NOT ONCE!” I shout. “But now that I have the paparazzi following me everywhere, I go on a rare field report and you blow our cover.” I poke Josh’s shoulder for emphasis.

  “Me? Me? I didn’t blow our cover. You did!”

  “WHAT?”

  “You were the first person to use the word ‘Anterdec.’ Not me.”

  My mind replays the conversation. Damn it. He’s right. I was.

  Just because he’s right doesn’t mean I’m letting him off the hook, though. No way. I stay quiet as Josh pulls the car into the Anterdec parking garage using the private cardkey for executives. Andrew gave me one so I can escape the media attention.

  “This is so nice,” Josh says as the special gate opens and he pulls into the garage, finding a spot very close to the main elevators.

  “Don’t get used to it,” I snap.

  “I still can’t believe you’re marrying Andrew. I’m with Geordi. We both found our soulmates.”

  “I know,” I say, softening. “It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

  “I mean it literally. I can’t believe Andrew puts up with you.”

&nbs
p; I threaten to pull his elastic band. Josh slams his palm over it and bares his teeth. He looks like a shaved groundhog with impressive orthodontics in his teen years.

  “I liked you so much better when you were Greg’s code jockey.”

  Josh sighs. “Look, Amanda, it’ll be fine. So we blew our cover. You’re not doing field work again, anyhow. I hardly ever mystery shop, and we all know the division is being repurposed. It’ll be fine. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

  My phone buzzes. Text from Shannon.

  Oh, you poor thing, is all it says.

  What? Why? What happened? I reply.

  #scrotoxic is all she answers with.

  “Scro-tox-ic?” I read slowly, trying to figure out what she’s saying.

  Look at the gossip sites. You have a hashtag, she continues. Makes #poopwatch seem quaint.

  Of course I have a hashtag #andyandmandy, I reply.

  Not the one my mother gave you guys. You’re now #scrotoxic, she responds.

  How can I be #scrotoxic when I don’t even have a scrotum?

  Get online. Check Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Now, she warns.

  Bzzzzz.

  Another text. This one is from Katie.

  Don’t worry. We’re in damage control mode now, she says.

  When someone who works in a job where their entire role is to manage messes says “don’t worry,” you worry.

  I practically sprint into my office and boot up my computer, simultaneously opening all my social media apps on my phone.

  “You are so busted!” Josh squeals, on my heels, his phone in his hand. Given that we’re social media friends on every platform possible, I’m guessing that whatever’s going on has invaded his accounts, too.

  I start checking social media and all the gossip sites frantically. Juicy paparazzi photos and stories take a few hours to make it online, though many are on Twitter within seconds. Shannon hated having hashtags from Jessica Coffin.

  But she ain’t seen nothin’.

  “#scrotoxic? They’re tagging this one with #scrotoxic!” Josh screams, reading his phone. “Oh, Amanda. You’re also all over the bad plastic surgery sites.”

  “Already? I wasn’t there long enough to get surgery!”

  “Look at this one.” Josh points to a picture on his phone. It’s a split screen with one side a picture taken at Shannon and Declan’s wedding, another from the medi-spa a few hours ago.