When we finished, Kurtis and I shook hands. Power crackled around us, sealing the deal. He vanished.
I climbed out of bed then and glanced at the clock to see how much longer I had succubus freedom.
It was time to go seduce my boyfriend.
The cold insanity of what I was going to do hit me a little while later. I was a total hypocrite. I’d made all these claims about the honesty and goodness between Seth and me, yet here I was about to entangle him up in a web of trickery which involved me deceiving him in order to test his fidelity—fidelity, by the way, which he wasn’t even really forced to adhere to.
But I’d made my deal with Kurtis, and now I was in. So, I tried not to dwell on my guilt and instead attempted to focus in on how I would win this bet. After all, if I did, almost everything else would become irrelevant. Seth would prove faithful, I wouldn’t have to sleep with him (how wrong did that sound?), and Kurtis would have to suck it up and do something he didn’t want.
Still, I felt kind of bad blowing off Seth for the night. To make matters worse, I even did it a little coldly. I wasn’t mean or anything, but I was definitely brusque with him in the hopes that my attitude would make him accept another Beth invitation.
It did. Of course, who could say? Maybe he still would have accepted if I’d been perfectly nice. Regardless, after “Georgina” took off for another party, “Beth” called Seth with an offer to come watch a movie we’d talked about at the carnival.
“Look,” I said on the phone, “if it’s too weird…I understand. I mean, I got what you were saying last night, and really…I don’t want to cause trouble for you or anything. I mean you and your girlfriend probably already have plans, but I thought I’d check since my roommate actually just rented it…”
There was a long pause, and I could perfectly picture the look on Seth’s face. “I don’t have any plans…” More silence. I held my breath. “Okay. What’s the address?”
I gave it to him, rented the movie, and got to the condo ten minutes before he did. That turned out to be a good thing because it took me about that long to recover from the shock of the place. Maybe Kurtis hadn’t been bullshitting. When he delivered on his promises, he delivered. The condo had two floors and sat right on the edge of a stretch of gorgeous, private beach. Wood floors and leather furniture gave the place a swanky, sexy feel, and a fully stocked bar completed the image of a pimped-out bachelor pad—or in my case, bachelorette pad.
Of course, I realized the problem right as I let Seth inside. He stared around at the luxurious accommodations, at the six-figure sculptures and teak end tables.
“I thought you were short on money?” he asked in amazement.
“Er, I am,” I replied. “This is my roommate’s…place. Her family pays for it, and I rent a room from her.” I didn’t add that that room would technically have to be the bathroom since there was only one bedroom in the place. I had checked it out in my initial examination. The room had a round bed and mirrors on the ceiling. Honestly, Kurtis might have been trying too hard.
Seth looked a little skeptical, but I distracted him by asking about the cut on his face. Later, I found popcorn and tea in the fully stocked kitchen, and we settled down on one of the sleek black sofas to watch the movie. It was an independent film I’d seen several years ago and thought was amazing. I’d wanted him to see it for a while now; I never thought it’d be under these circumstances.
As we watched, I covertly maneuvered myself nearer and nearer to him. I used reaching for the popcorn as my excuse and pulled off the moves like a pro—because, well, I was a pro. Eyes on the screen, he didn’t even realize what I’d done until the lights came up and we were sitting thigh to thigh and arm to arm. We weren’t exactly groping, but we’d clearly moved past something platonic.
Seth noticed then, and he shifted himself away a little—but not too far away.
“What’d you think?” I asked.
He leaned his head back against the couch. Those long-lashed, amber-brown eyes stared off thoughtfully as he processed his opinions. In some ways, it wasn’t hard playing Beth. Seth made both of us melt.
“Pretentious,” he finally said. “But it had some good points.”
“Pretentious?” I exclaimed.
We launched off into a critical analysis of the movie, very much like the ones we usually got into. I became so consumed that I didn’t even notice the time passing until my eyes ran over the clock on the DVD player. Ten-twenty-seven.
The clock’s ticking, Cinderella. Offer expires at midnight.
I hastily wrapped up the movie discussion, even conceding a few points to him. Moving on to the next stage, I brought us into personal matters.
“I’m really glad you could come over tonight,” I told him, leaning against the couch in a way that made the space between us more intimate. “I was really afraid to call after last night…I mean, not that it was bad…but well…”
“Yeah, I know. But I’m glad you did call. Nothing else was going on.”
Seth’s eyes studied me in an appraising way. Then, as though realizing what he was doing, he averted them in a way common to him.
“You keep saying you’ve got a girlfriend,” I teased, “but I’m starting to wonder if that’s just a line to keep me away. You always seem to be free.”
He flinched, undoubtedly reminded of the way I’d abandoned him tonight.
“Oh, she’s real…mostly. She’s just been really, um, busy.”
“Is she, like, working tonight?”
His brow furrowed slightly. “She might very well be,” he muttered in a dry tone.
“What’s she do?” I asked innocently.
“Um…she’s in…customer service…”
“Wow. I didn’t know jobs like that ran so late.”
“Well, it’s a conference kind of thing…”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right. So, she’s, like, schmoozing. Like…working the room?”
“Something like that.”
“Why aren’t you with her? Seems like you could go to parties with her, even at a work function.”
“I’m not much of a party type,” he said. “Especially these parties.”
I tilted my head and met his eyes with a knowing look. “Is that really the truth?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. With the way you keep seeing me…and the way you talk. It just kind of sounds like you’re avoiding her.”
“Er, no, no,” he said. “It’s not that…”
“But you said you have kinks. Maybe you’re avoiding her and don’t realize you’re avoiding her.”
“No, I don’t think so…”
“Oh? Well, then, what are these kinks? You guys have trouble talking to each other? Not much in common?”
“Nothing like that,” he assured me. “We have lots in common.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Sex?”
His mouth opened to form a protest, but he stumbled on it.
“Ah,” I said sagely. “I see.”
“No,” he said firmly. “It’s not what you think…”
I studied him—face and body—and made it very obvious that I was doing so. I nodded with appreciation, liking what I saw.
“Well,” I finally said. “It must be on her end. Nothing wrong with you. And here I’d had this image of this slim, gorgeous model with great genes.”
“She is gorgeous,” said Seth. I was happy to see him come to my defense.
I frowned. “Then…wait. Do you, like, have problems…”
The faintest flush showed in Seth’s cheeks. It was a rare phenomenon, one I would have found adorable under other conditions.
“No,” he said. “No problems like that.”
“Then…will she not…?”
Again, he took too long to answer.
“Oh,” I said.
Silence fell. I could hear the ticking of a shiny, silver-rimmed clock on the wall. Elevenoh-seven.
At last, I spoke. “I don’t want to be harsh here or overstep my limits…but well, she’s an idiot.”
He shook his head. “It’s complicated.”