Mischief

  They dressed warmly, both of them in jackets, scarves, jeans and boots. As soon as they left the house and stepped into the night air, Nora took a deep breath and smiled. New England autumn. There was nothing like it. She inhaled deeply again, and smelled chimney smoke, crisp cold air, the sweet rot of raked leaves left to molder.

  “I love that smile,” Nico said as they headed down the street along the sidewalk. He put his arm around her waist, a possessive protective gesture she had no objections to.

  “I was smiling thinking about all the possibilities of the gift you gave me. So many sadistic things I can do to you...”

  Nico exhaled heavily. “Next time you’re getting jewelry.”

  “Too late now. But speaking of smiles...”

  “What?” he asked.

  “When you poured the wine earlier, you smiled when you saw the label, like you were about to laugh at something. What was it?”

  “Ah, you noticed.” He looked sheepish, like she’d caught him cheating at cards.

  “I noticed. I notice everything about you,” she said, playfully elbowing him in the side.

  “You bought Six Hills Chardonnay. I know that winery,” he said. “I worked there one summer a few years ago.”

  “The guy at the store said it was his favorite. Yours too?”

  He shrugged. “Good wine, but, ah...I might have been involved with the owner’s daughter.”

  Nora laughed. “Nico, did you have sex with the wine we’re drinking?”

  “Not with it...near it,” he said, laughing that quiet way he had.

  “How old was she?” This was a fun question Nora loved asking about Nico’s exes. All the women he’d been involved with since he was seventeen were significantly older than him.

  “I was twenty-two. She was...forty? Forty-two? It wasn’t serious.”

  “I’m not jealous,” Nora said. “It’s okay to have exes. Neither one of us were virgins.”

  “My last girlfriend was jealous. It’s good you aren’t.”

  “It’s even better you aren’t,” she said with a wink.

  “How is he?” Nico asked. This was an approved question that didn’t break the separation of church and state rule. How is he? was fine. How is he in bed? was not.

  “He’s irritated. He’s in Petaluma now for a conference he’d rather not attend. Otherwise he’s fine. Kingsley’s good. Juliette and Céleste send their love. Michael and Griffin just got engaged, which is exciting. Oh, and I had very good sex half an hour ago with my beautiful boyfriend. Safe to say we are all doing well. And you?”

  He smiled and glanced around. “I’m in Halloween-ville,” Nico said. “Of course I’m good.”

  Nora glanced around the street. Nico was right. This was Halloween-ville. Their B&B was in a residential neighborhood that did Halloween to the nines. Nearly every house they passed had a pumpkin on the porch with an electric votive candle inside, making it look like little orange monsters were grinning and glaring at them from all around. Spiderwebs holding enormous plastic spiders hung from trees and black and orange crepe paper fluttered across doorways and porch railings. Skeletons dangled in windows. Witches with red eyes glared from rooftops. Zombie arms reached through the posts of white picket fences.

  “It’s just like the movies,” Nico said, giddy as a schoolboy. She knew what he meant. The houses were classic New England cottages and Colonials. As they walked, red and gold leaves blew across the quiet street.

  “I hope it’s not a slasher flick,” Nora said. “The horny girls always die first in those movies. I’ve got a target on my back the size of a barn.”

  “I’ll protect you and all the horny girls of the world,” Nico said. “You should watch more French films. We love horny girls. I know I do.”

  “That’s it,” Nora said. Horny girls. Yes. Perfect.

  “What’s it?”

  Nora leaned back against a white picket fence and faced Nico. “I know how I want to use my present you gave me.”

  “What is it?” he asked, trying to look unconcerned though his eyes betrayed him.

  “I want to watch you with another woman.”

  From the look of shock on his face, Nora could tell that was the last thing Nico had been expecting her to do with his “gift.”

  “Watch me? How?”

  “Have sex,” Nora said. She thought that was obvious.

  “Are you serious?” he asked. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Of course,” she said. “Why not?”

  “When I said I was glad you weren’t the jealous type, I meant, I’m glad you don’t hate how much I have to work or hate when I mention ex-girlfriends. I never thought you might...”

  He paused and exhaled hard. He’d stopped talking and didn’t seem like he was going to start again anytime soon. Nora filled the silence.

  “I would never make you do it,” she said. “If you don’t want to, obviously you don’t have to. But if you’re open to it...”

  “I’m not...” Nico took a long breath again. He wasn’t having an easy time with this conversation.

  “Not interested?” Nora asked. “Not into it? Not that kinky? Not ready?”

  “Not him,” Nico said. His face was a blank mask, emotionless, but his eyes flashed with turmoil and she knew who he meant.

  “Nico, I know you’re not Kingsley.”

  “Do you?” he asked.

  “Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,” she said. “You wear the same size shoe. You stand the same way. You shrug the same. And you have the same nose and jawline, which is why anyone who sees you two can tell you’re related. But you couldn’t be more different.”

  “I don’t sleep around with every woman—or man—on earth,” he said.

  “Neither does Kingsley,” Nora said. She paused, rethinking the truth of that statement. “Well, not anymore anyway. And you can’t judge him without judging me. I’ve had a lot of lovers, too. And sometimes several at once.”

  “I don’t judge. It’s not that,” he said. “I’m yours.”

  “I know.”

  “Only yours,” he said.

  That “only” stung a little. She wondered if he felt like she was foisting him off on someone else.

  Nico said no more. He’d closed down to her, his arms crossed over his chest, no eye contact.

  “I know you aren’t Kingsley,” she said again. “But I am me. And I am sort of slightly very, very kinky. We’re still getting to know each other. You should know this is something I like to do, even if we never do it together.”

  Slowly he nodded. Slowly he met her eyes again. Slowly, he uncrossed his arms, stood up straight, and they set off walking again. Slowly.

  “Maybe if I knew why you liked it?” Nico said.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Why do you like older women? You just do. It’s your taste. I like kink. I like playing with others. I like watching. I like helping. My favorite sessions with clients are the ones with married couples. The husband and I dominate his wife together. It’s sexy and fun and...well, that’s it. It’s sexy and fun. And it wouldn’t have to be full-on sex. Just a blow job would make my day.”

  Nico shook his head but she could see the first hint of a smile on his face. “You are...”

  “Insane?” she said.

  “Interesting.” He paused. “And a little insane.”

  “Comes with the territory.”

  She knew he’d come to terms with her request when he slid his arm around her waist again as they walked.

  “I’m not saying no to it,” he said as they turned a corner. Nora knew they were close to the bay. Here the autumn smells mixed with saltwater in her nose. “I wouldn’t say no to anything you really wanted.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying...how does that happen?”

  “What?”

  “How do you find someone to do that?” he asked. “You can’t just ask someone to come over and blow your boyfriend, can you?”

  “I
can,” she said. “But I know some interesting people back home.”

  “We’re not at home,” he said. “Do you know anyone in this town?”

  “No,” she said. “But I could still find a girl to play with. Easy.”

  “Easy?”

  “Easy,” she said. “If we’re talking about finding a girl to fool around with you while I watch? Easy as pie.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Nico said.

  “I can prove it if you let me.”

  “What if I don’t like her?” Nico asked, shrugging. “What if she’s your type but not mine?”

  “I would never inflict a woman on you who you weren’t excited to be with. We’ll just find Salem’s finest retirement community.”

  Nico slapped her ass.

  “I like younger women, too,” he said.

  “Liar. You do not.”

  “I’ve never been with a woman my age, but sometimes I find them attractive. I choose to be with older women because I like that they have experience and their own lives and jobs.”

  “So you’re saying for a fling, I can find us a horny twenty-something?”

  “If she wants to be with me...”

  “Nico, you’re twenty-six, French, and you own your own winery. You’re also sexy as hell. This is not going to be a challenge.”

  “I think it’s going to be a challenge.”

  “So are you saying yes? You’ll do it?” Nora asked.

  “If I like her too,” he said again. “And if it happens naturally. Don’t try to make it happen. She has to like us and we have to like her. Okay?”

  “I accept those terms,” Nora said. She held out her hand to shake and Nico took it like it was a snake about to bite him. Then he wrapped his fingers around hers and pulled her roughly to him for a long kiss.

  “You,” he said, “could talk me into anything.”

  “Don’t say things like that,” Nora said. “Because I will.”

  He released her and Nora turned them down a side street.

  “Where are we going?” Nico asked. Up ahead was a bright streetlight, the kind that marked commercial areas.

  “To find us a girl.”

  Chapter Seven

  Nico made a sound Nora had only ever heard Frenchmen make—a soft groan of exasperation mixed with frustration and a soupçon of utter disbelief. Nora found it adorable. She didn’t tell Nico that.

  “There’s a couple of very nice hotels up this way,” Nora said. “We would have stayed at one, but they were all booked for Halloween. We’ll go into the hotel bar and hang out and if a cute lonely girl shows up, we’ll invite her to our table. Eleven o’clock is prime cute-girl hunting time.”

  “My girlfriend wants to watch another girl suck me off. This is not what I had in mind for Halloween,” he said.

  “Kinky Halloween is different from Vanilla Halloween,” Nora said. “I should have warned you.”

  “Hmm,” was all he said to that, followed soon by a second “Hmm.”

  “Here’s the thing, moosh. You’re very sexy when you’re fucking. I like to look at you when you’re fucking. You’re usually pretty guarded, but you’re not so guarded—”

  “When I’m fucking, yes.”

  “But...when you’re fucking, I’m being fucked. Hard to concentrate on the show when I’m part of the show. Understand?”

  He made that sound again.

  “It is a power trip, too,” she admitted. “Giving a woman the order to pleasure you? Ordering you to let her?” Nora leaned against a light pole and put the back of her hand on her forehead. “Be still my horny heart.” She stood up and turned around. “Oh...”

  “What?” Nico asked. Nora pointed at a green sign nailed to a telephone pole.

  “It says the cemetery’s down that way,” she said, pointing down a second street. “You want to see if we can find a ghost before we find a girl?”

  “I would much rather go ghost-hunting than girl-hunting.”

  “Ghosts first,” she said. “Girls after.”

  As they walked to the cemetery down the block, Nora explained to Nico who they were looking for. The Smiling Girl, dead a decade, according to their B&B owner. Very pretty. Went to meet her boyfriend for a tryst, got her throat slit instead.

  “And...” Nora continued, “supposedly she’ll walk next to you if you’re stupid enough to stroll through the graveyard at midnight.”

  “It’s eleven,” Nico said.

  “Maybe she’s up early.”

  They stood at the edge of the cemetery next to the iron gate, slightly ajar. Red maples lined the stone fence, and their heavy branches swayed in the wind and dropped scarlet leaves around them. Inside the cemetery, Nora spied row after row after row of gothic-looking tombstones.

  “Looks kind of spooky in there,” Nora said.

  “It’s a cemetery,” Nico said. “What is it supposed to look like? Cheerful?”

  “Good point.”

  Hand in hand they entered the cemetery. They stayed on the main path and walked slowly through the graveyard. It wasn’t large—merely one city block—but it was one of the creepier cemeteries Nora had ever visited. Considering she lived near one of New Orleans’s famous crypt yards, that was saying something.

  The headstones were so old and weathered that she could barely read the names on them. The trees were overgrown and let in little light from the surrounding streets. She and Nico walked very close to each other, holding hands, and didn’t stray from the path. She wasn’t scared of hands reaching out of the ground or ghosts or demons, but in a cemetery this old and neglected, there was a good chance there were rocks or divots or branches just waiting to break the ankles of unsuspecting tourists.

  “What do you think?” Nora asked.

  “It’s beautiful,” Nico said.

  She glanced around again, saw what he meant. It did look like something off a vintage Halloween postcard.

  “Do you ever think about where you’re going to be buried?” Nico asked.

  “That’s such a French question.”

  Nico laughed softly. “I want to be buried in my vines,” he said. “So my body can nourish them.”

  “Too bad. Kingsley already bought a family crypt in New Orleans. You have a shelf.”

  “I have a shelf?”

  “It’s under my shelf.”

  “You’ll be on top of me for eternity?”

  Nora nodded.

  “I can live with that. No, not live with it...”

  Nora laughed and put her arm through Nico’s. They’d made it halfway along the main path and were nearing the bend in the U that would lead them back to the front entrance.

  “You see any ghosts?” Nora asked.

  “Not a one,” Nico said. “You?”

  “No.”