2. Vicki
Chapter 2
Vicki
“ I ’m here!” Luce rushed in with the bellboy to haul our shit in. She already wore her lingerie, loving the lobby eyes on her in the long coat she wore open. Then I saw her head, and worried when something red sat near her ear.
“Are you okay? Did you get in a wreck on your way here?”
“Huh?” she stopped to look at me funny.
“There’s blood on your face.”
Luce ran to the bathroom in a panic, wondering if she dinged herself without knowing. Then she laughed with a snort. “It’s paint! I attempted one of those lover canvases. While I enjoyed the glide between our bodies, I hated when it dried in certain places!”
“Too much information! Lalala! I’m going to turn on some music and get the bed ready!”
“M’kay, but you’ll thank me one day for all my sex advice!” She came out of the bathroom after cleaning her head, letting me see she didn’t have a hidden head injury. “I learned don’t stay down too long because it’s awkward as hell to get up with the canvas stuck to your cheeks.”
I pressed play, giving her a glare.
Miss Me More by Kelsea Ballerini blared from the speaker Lucinda brought with the wine. We had this self-care regimen after every failed Naughty-Hour date. We played empowering female ballads and drank wine while watching a movie with one of our favorite men loving a woman right. The movie would come later because we had to laugh about our poor dating history to keep from crying. The future of our country was in poor hands.
My eyes took in the large suite around us, paying for the experience of our class. Columns were stationed around the built-in Jacuzzi to make it appear like it came from Mt. Olympus. It just needed some angry clouds and lightning bolts to sell it as Zeus’s domain. It really fit our evening of female empowerment.
Luce poured us our first glass of wine, biting a piece of aged cheddar cheese in her other hand. She didn’t finish chewing before talking about one of her bad experiences. “Remember back in our first year of college when that football player asked me out?”
A snort escaped my lips, shaking my head. “Dude! How could I forget? I didn’t even have time to give you a checkup call before he left.”
“Right?” She rolled her eyes. “He asked me out, and I met him at the restaurant that Friday after exams. He acted annoyed and refused to talk to me like a child!”
“So you asked him why,” I encouraged her to finish the story, snuggling into the new linen the housekeeper brought us after I called the front desk after the buckaroo left. They never minded when I did because I always left a hefty tip for their trouble.
“And he said his roommates were throwing a party and drinking without him.” She gulped some wine to expunge it from her mind. “I asked him why he even bothered to show up and excused him from our date. He left the moment I said he could. That poor man will have a miserable future when his woman realizes she can control him like a child.”
“But he’ll have tantrums every time he doesn't get his way,” I chuckled.
“Yeah, but that rancid date led me to the most gratifying sexual experience of my life.” She fell against her pillow on the king-sized bed, reliving that night in her mind. Our English professor asked her to go in for some notes on her paper because she straight up wrote an erotic short to gain his attention. He showed her that her short story didn’t compare to the real thing.
“Wasn’t he married?” My brows drew together.
“Sadly,” she whined. “But I didn’t know before that event.”
“You didn’t ask,” I pointed out which earned me getting nailed with a piece of cheese off the tray between us. “He had a picture of his wife on his desk!”
“I didn’t want to know, and that picture could’ve been of his sister, like in The Wedding Planner.” Ah, a classic film that argued her point. Though, most women should assume a picture on a desk is the wife to not end up like Luce. “I still don’t regret it. He opened my eyes to the world of being a submissive, and I can’t shake it. I can literally blame him for ruining all the little boys who followed because none have amounted to that man.”
“The philanderer,” I deadpanned.
She gave me a saucy glare. “I never slept with him again.”
Snickering, I sipped my drink before changing the conversation back to the bad date topic. “Do you remember when you talked me into that double date with the guy from your dad’s firm?”
“Oh, you’ll never let me live that one down.” We polished off our drinks and the second bottle of wine faster than planned. To be fair, our wine glasses held a half bottle each.
“How can I?” I lifted my cup for her to fill it as I giggled. “He ordered a coke, and I ordered a water. The next thing I knew, he busted out in tears!”
“Because that was the same order his ex and him used to give,” Luce could barely finish before falling into her hysterics.
“Such a shame because he was hot.” Shaking my head, I sipped the new flavor of green apple. Stella Rosa nailed their flavors because it literally tasted like a green apple.
“I still fucked that guy from the firm,” she murmured .
“In his childhood bedroom, a step below basement,” I added to tease.
“Okay, so I didn’t realize he was an intern.” She shrugged. “And it had been too dark to see nothing had changed for him in a decade, mainly all the Dragonball Z shit. I get enjoying something, like my brother still building those Lego Star Wars kits, but EVERYTHING in that place was Dragonball Z .”
“And you made the mistake of mentioning it.” Oh, how I loved our nights of us laughing over all the crap that should’ve made us cringe the opposite sex.
“There’s nothing like waking up in a child’s room and getting the 411 on an anime instead of morning sex. And the anime didn’t even have tits out.” She shook her head, enjoying female companions too. “Such a shame. There are so many adult anime shows I could’ve opened his eyes to, but I’d fear starting an anime porn addiction for that lad.”
“Didn’t his mother make you breakfast too?” Giddy, I sat up a little more. It’d been a while since we brought up this tale.
“Seriously, the only perk about him. Her cooking was his only saving grace when I fucked him again the next weekend.” She gave me a pointed look before I could even say shit about his fixation. “And before you say anything, you know I gagged him the next time and dommed his ass… literally. Now that was fun.”
Ah, yup. She pegged him like a pro. Luce had more boldness than anyone I knew, never being afraid to try things. I could barely engage with the strangers I hooked up with online. Though, I always wondered what would happen with the right person. Like maybe I’d be open to different things if I didn’t fear being made fun of for it.
Doing this with her made me feel sane. Luce had been my best friend since boarding school, but we weren’t the Gossip Girl besties. No, we had each other’s backs through the good and bad. It also helped we had different tastes in men, so we never conflicted that way. Though, it stung a few times when the person I liked wanted her, but I couldn’t hate her for being their type.
Luce came out of her thoughts, snapping her finger like she remembered something. “I almost forgot to give you the ‘I’m sorry the sex was bad, but here’s this to make it better’ gift.”
She leapt from the bed in her silk nightie and dashed to the pile of shit she paid the bellboy to bring up. Underneath her favorite fur blankets, she found a mystery book date. I could already tell from the wrapping and extras included on the outside. She then revealed the second one with almost too much glee. We both did it, one for the victim and one for the savior, swooping in to save the day, and we ordered from the same place, so they kept a history of our purchases to give us new ones. The little book shop wasn’t too far from here that offered the cute idea, and they loved our business.
Unwrapping the brown paper that revealed some different tea bags and bookmarks, the owner left me a personal note. ‘I’m sorry for your misfortune but thank you for the consistent business.’
Nearly laughing, I could only shake my head because Luce told everyone our shit so openly. It only made me love her more because I never had to wonder if she hid things from me or talked about me. She said whatever was on her mind, and that included if I upset her. She also respected when I had to tell her something and never belittled me for trying to tell her what bothered me. Total opposite of my parents, but I knew that came from us both not wanting to be like ours .
Inside, I found a new book that intrigued the hell out of me. Wraith by Lynne Leslie sat in my grip, and I knew by her other works that a dirty, MC romance would make love to my filthy mind. Some fun stickers fell into my lap that I’d add to my corkboard specifically for this reason. It hung in the corner of my room, proudly telling anyone who entered what I read. Not that many found their way into my room because I didn’t have many friends, and I never took a hookup there.
“You always know how to make my day better.” I hugged the book to my chest, smelling the pages.
“Duh, I’ve known you half my life. If I didn’t know what would make you feel better, I’d be a shitty best friend. It’s just like when you buy me a new sex toy to try to make my day better. We have our own language.”
She wasn’t wrong. I often bought the craziest thing in the sex store or ordered from a dildo shop online that made literally anything. Just recently, I’d purchased a hellhound dildo to help her live out her monster smut fantasies. If I was in charge of our book blind date, I would’ve gotten her some kind of monster smut because that always made her feel better. Part of me wondered if it came from the idea of mating and being loved no matter what because more than one guy had said Luce was too much. Her personality was too big for them, but it’d never be enough for me and the right guy… like my clamorous talking that annoyed most. My need to speak so frequently made me wonder if it stemmed from never being heard by my dad.
The door to my suite had an echoing knock, making my friend pop up to go answer it. I followed to see what came this time. Once she ordered male strippers to my room, so we had to make some rules. She opened the door to reveal a box of Chinese takeout that I could make out from my hiding place. Unlike her, I didn’t enjoy the world seeing me in lingerie.
Luce gasped at the man after taking the food, but I couldn’t see him yet. “Well, aren’t you just a delightfully delicious delivery boy.”
By her purr, I knew exactly where her thoughts were leading. “No threesome, Luce!”
She gave a defeating groan before handing the boy a cash tip with her business card for him to give her a ring. She’d probably have him open a pizza box like a glory hole for his dick. “She ruins all the fun. I keep telling her threesomes get better after the first, but she won’t believe me. ”
My mind went back to when we did fuck a guy together. It made me uncomfortable sharing, even with my bestie. While I loved her, I didn’t love when the man inside of me watched her instead. We’d keep our different views on that, but we still loved each other. Plus, I never told her exactly why I didn’t enjoy it. It felt like a personal thing after being cheated on by a stupid ex. We could be open about our sex lives with no shame, but I learned I didn’t keep the fundamental preschool skill of sharing when it came to my bedroom fun. Now give me a group of guys wanting to adore my body, we’d be having a different conversation.
Luce carried the takeout to our bed and set it down on the serving tray we had. Finding the two fortune cookies, she handed me one. “You know the rules. Dessert first, then we eat during the movie.”
Laughing, I took mine and cracked it for the fortune paper. It only made me smile even more because they were always so cheesy. “A routine task will turn into an enchanting adventure.”
Luce made a face when she opened hers, telling me I was going to love it. “ To truly find yourself, play hide and seek alone … What the hell? No, th ank you!”
“I don’t think your cookie knows you very well,” I chuckled before climbing onto the bed. Even though they were cheesy and often inaccurate or so ambiguous that they could mean anything, I wanted mine to be true. An enchanting adventure sounded lovely.