11
At first, I thought the theory that the Countess’s techniques had failed because those guys “just weren’t high caliber enough” was nothing more than a clumsy excuse—like tossing a lace doily over a minefield.
I didn’t even have the strength to mock her: reality had already heckled her harder than I ever could.
But then, on the way home, I started noticing something strange.
Not for a single second—and I mean not even one—had Tess lost her unshakable optimism. She walked as if she were strutting down some invisible runway, chin high, eyes glittering, lips curved in that unmistakable, wicked little smile of hers.
Not a fake smile. Not the smile of someone pretending the night had gone well.
It was the smile of someone who had a plan. And—far more unsettling—of someone convinced that the plan was unfolding flawlessly. Exactly as expected.
“See, Bea,” she said on the subway ride home, as the train jerked along the tracks like an old, exhausted bull. “I was simply… out of their league. My techniques are BEYOND. Like, literally on another dimension.”
I stared at her, because she was talking with the inspired air of a woman explaining quantum physics to the entire subway car.
“It’s like when you let a cat play with a ball of yarn,” she continued.
“The cat only enjoys it if you toss it close, tease it a little, then—bam!—snatch it away at the last second. But me? I wasn’t even in the same room as the yarn.
I was on another planet. Miles away. Light years away.
The only option they had was to walk off… because they didn’t get it. At all.”
“Wait, wait…” I cut in, trying not to laugh. “Weren’t you the one who swore, before we left the apartment, that you’d hypnotize them, seduce them, and leave them drowning their sorrows in whiskey because of their unrequited feelings for you? Or something like that?”
“Yes, okay, true,” she admitted, without losing a single ounce of poise. “I said that. But I hadn’t yet grasped the true power of the Countess’s methods. Don’t you see? I used a bazooka to fish goldfish out of an aquarium. Of course it didn’t work. It was counterproductive, if anything.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t need to dismantle her theories—half Sun Tzu, half cursed romance spellbook.
The truth—the one I’d never admit out loud—was that deep down, I was glad she hadn’t lost her momentum. That her enthusiasm remained intact, sparkling, inexplicable.
Because at Spice, watching her launch herself at those poor, unsuspecting men with the confidence of a praying mantis in an evening gown…
I’d had an idea. An idea so strong, so sudden, I’d almost bolted out of the bar to run home, open my laptop, and start typing with trembling fingers before the thought slipped away.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
Because the greatest comedy show on earth was unfolding right before my eyes. And I had a front-row seat. Reserved. Perfect view.
Tess—with her tragic elegance, her overblown metaphors, and her attempts at seduction that looked like a cross between avant-garde theater and emotional sabotage—was pure inspiration.
It felt like a lightning bolt had struck me straight in the forehead. But the good kind of lightning. The kind that sets your soul on fire instead of frying your brain.
And yet, I kept my cool. I slipped on my mask of cynical, world-weary Bea and hid my excitement. I didn’t want to interfere. I didn’t want to rush, steer, or touch anything .
No.
All I had to do was sit back, watch—and pray that her grotesque, glorious, absurd journey to seduce Zane Ryder kept spiraling further and further out of control.
To the limit. Or beyond.
Because the more off-course she went… the more I found my own.
When we finally got home, Tess kicked off her ankle boots with the exaggerated grace of a diva finishing a sold-out world tour.
“Now I need a proper night’s sleep,” she announced, stretching like a velvet-coated cat. “Tomorrow is going to be an exhausting day of study.”
“Study?” I asked, watching her from the kitchen doorway.
“You’ll see tomorrow,” she replied. Then disappeared into her bedroom as if she’d just closed the curtain on a theatrical performance.
Curtain down.
I literally ran to my room.
I had to pee like crazy, but I ignored it. Completely. I had something far more important to do. And, if we’re being honest, that physical urge would only help me: that creative tension that makes you write as if your bladder and your soul were racing to see which one bursts first.
I was a flood. Literally. And I had to spill onto the page.
I sat down at my desk, brushed the cracker crumbs off the surface, shoved aside a couple of notebooks filled with half-baked ideas, and finally… unearthed my old Olivetti.
It was there, buried under a pile of crumpled sheets, dried-up pens, and half-dead dreams.
But not today.
Today, it rose again.
I slid in a fresh sheet, stretched tight, white as a second chance.
Placed my fingers on the keys.
Closed my eyes.
And typed the title:
How to Seduce a Rockstar
But then I ripped it up.
I crumpled it into a ball and tossed it over my shoulder with a sharp, decisive flick.
Not out of anger. Not out of frustration.
I did it because, one second after typing it, I already had a better idea.
A more fitting one.
A truer one.
I was even more fired up than before. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding like I was about to confess my love to someone… or punch fate right in the face .
I slid another sheet into my Olivetti.
Aligned the page.
And typed:
How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
I smiled.
This time, I pulled the page out carefully—not to throw it away—and placed it face-down on the desk like it was treasure.
Then I grabbed a new sheet. Slotted it in.
And started typing.
My fingers hammered the keys with a furious, unstoppable grace. Words spilled onto the page like they’d been waiting forever to be released. My hands moved faster than my thoughts. But there was no confusion.
Only certainty. I knew what to write. And I knew how to write it. I didn’t have to make anything up. It had already happened. In fact, it was happening right now .
I didn’t need to wait for inspiration, like I’d been told for years.
Here it was: inspiration, dressed in a black corset, trying to seduce a rockstar with goth-witch tactics and self-published manuals.
Here it was, real life.
“Happy now, Mr. Bronson?” I whispered, fingers still dancing across the keys. “Did you expect it to be this grotesque and surreal? I doubt it.”
And yet, here it was.
Painfully real.
A story of madness and redemption, of delusion and clarity, of metamorphosis and waterproof mascara.
And love?
I didn’t know if there’d be room for that, too. But for now, there was resentment, strategy, transformation. And yes, a brand-new energy. A voice that, finally, was mine.
“Well, Mr. Bronson? What would your fancy literary friends say while swirling their thirty-euro French wine? What would they think of a story like this?”
I smirked to myself.
Because deep down, I knew.
This story was absurd. Unbelievable. But damn alive.
And maybe, for the first time… it had more heart than anything I’d ever forced myself to write before.