Tiffany Reisz - Misbehaving

“The apocalypse?”

“The SEXpocalypse. Ben already had a job offer on the West Coast. Did you really want him having sex with her all year and then dumping her the day he graduated?”

“Well…not really,” Claudia admitted.

“And Ben was an old senior. You know he was twenty-three and she was eighteen? You remember that part?”

“I sort of forgot that part.”

“You would have hated Ben for dumping Bea and then hated me because he was my best friend. I couldn’t face that. I told him you wouldn’t want him dating your sister because of the age difference. So he did what I asked and backed off.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t. Because I was with you and she was with me, they were together for the entire school year. And she was in love with him and he wouldn’t even give her the time of day. He treated her like his own baby sister.”

“Yeah, he was nice and respectful and didn’t once hit on her.”

“She hated it.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Yes.” Claudia slammed the pillow down onto his stomach. He laughed and pulled her into his arms.

“I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t really think that maybe they were actually in love with each other. Ben didn’t want anything serious. That wasn’t his style. I thought they just wanted to fuck and they could do that with anybody.”

“True,” Claudia said. Beatriz had a gift for wrapping guys around her finger and Ben had a line of young ladies waiting to be his next one-night to two-week stand.

“You were the only person in the world to me back then. I would have done anything to keep us together. Forgive me? My cock and my heart were in the right place, right?” Henry asked, putting on his puppy dog eyes.

“I forgive you. Maybe.” Claudia could never resist the puppy dog eyes. “I mean you’re probably right. He probably would have dumped her. He’s had as many girlfriends as Bea’s had boyfriends and that’s saying something,“ Claudia agreed somewhat reluctantly. She sort of liked painting Ben and Henry as the bad guys. She hated to admit that Henry had a point.

“Ben was seriously stoked about the job waiting for him after graduation. He couldn’t wait to get his ass out of Brooks. I think Ben would have crushed her if they’d gotten together back then.”

“Probably.”

“See? I knew I was right. I’m the hero here really.” Henry puffed his chest out. Claudia rolled her eyes.

“Being right doesn’t make it okay.”

“How do I make it okay?” Henry asked. “I love Ben and I love Bea, and I really want you to take all your clothes off. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get you naked. And make them happy. But mostly get you naked.”

Claudia sighed.

“We have to fix this. She’s still mad at him. He’s still mad at you. That means…they aren’t over each other.”

“Good point. So what now?”

Claudia knelt on the bed and pulled her shirt off.

“Well, Bea has this book review to write. She’s gotta find a partner to have sex with since the book’s a sex position manual for Generation Y.”

“What’s Generation Y?” Henry asked.

“Us.”

“Gotcha.”

“You see, Bea has to try out the positions in the book. What if we tell Ben that Bea wants him to be her book buddy?”

“And tell Bea what?” Henry asked.

“We’ll tell Bea that Ben volunteered to help her out with this book thing. And so he’ll go to her room expecting sex. She’ll open the door expecting sex. They’ll have sex. And either it’ll work or it won’t and it doesn’t matter either way because you and I are getting married no matter what.” Claudia pulled off her bra and started to shimmy out of her jeans.

“Worth a shot. Anything to get me out of the doghouse and into doggie style.”

“Good. Go talk to Ben.”

“Can I fuck my bride-to-be first please?”

“No. Ben first. Then me.”

“I have to fuck Ben first? Good thing he’s pretty. You know he was bisexual for one week in college?”

“Henry.”

“And you can just get lost in those blue eyes. I call that color Chris Pine blue.”

“Henry.”

“I want to be the Spock to his Kirk. You know, the J.J. Abrams reboot, not the original series.”

“Henry!” Claudia flicked his nose—hard.

“I’m going. I’m going. Don’t start without me.”

Claudia tossed her panties at Henry’s back as he headed to the door. As soon as he was gone, she picked up the phone and called Bea’s room.

“Bea’s answering machine,” came the voice over the line. “Please leave a message at the beep.”

“This is the Hotel Essex,” Claudia said, rolling her eyes. “And no one has owned an answering machine in twenty years. And you’re just trying to annoy me.”

“Beep,” Beatriz said.

“Hi Bea, it’s Claudia,” Claudia began. Bea often faked her own answering machine, especially when she knew who was calling for the sole purpose of annoying them. That’s okay. Claudia knew exactly how to get her revenge. “I just wanted you to know that Ben was into you during college, and he still is. Henry asked him not to pursue you because of me. That’s all. No need to call me back. Bye. Oh, and if you ask him to have sex with you this week so you can work on your book report thingie, he probably would go for it.”

Claudia hung up the phone. Immediately her hotel phone rang. She didn’t answer it. She heard a buzzing from her purse—Beatriz calling her cell. She ignored that call as well.

Five minutes and fifteen unanswered phone calls later, Henry walked back in the room. Claudia lay naked on the bed. She rose up on her elbows and looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.

“So?” she asked.

“He’s on his way to her room right now.”

“Good,” Claudia said. “Now we can have sex.”

Ben stared at the door to Beatriz’s hotel room. She was there, behind that door. Right there. The last time he’d seen her she’d been completely naked and standing in his dorm room. That was five years ago. So much had happened since then. He’d gotten his first real job working for Google, gotten promoted and almost gotten engaged. This could have been his wedding weekend, but thankfully he realized his girlfriend wasn’t in love with him, only with the idea of being married. Neither of them cried over the breakup. A good sign that breaking up was the right thing to do. He’d moved three times since college and changed jobs twice, but during all that he’d held on to one constant—Beatriz.

She probably didn’t know he read her Miss Bea Haven column she wrote for The Daily Cocktail. He’d messaged Claudia on Facebook last year and asked, as casually as he could, what Beatriz was up to. Living in Spain, Claudia said. She had a great job working as a translator for a European publisher. Oh, Claudia added in the P.S., Beatriz also wrote a column for a big website that acted as the repository of all things sex on the internet. Beatriz reviewed sex toys and sex books. Nice work if you could get it, Claudia joked. Just a joke. Ben had likely broken some sort of internet record for fastest ever Google search. He found the column and read every single post Beatriz had written. He hadn’t read them all at once. He had to take a break—or two or three—between articles. Beatriz wrote in detail about her experiences with different types of vibrators—what worked for her, what didn’t, how she used them, how they made her feel. He could just see that beautiful woman lying naked on her bed pleasuring herself for hours on end. Who needed porn when he had these sex toy reviews? Knowing Beatriz, she’d stop every few minutes to take notes—vibrator in one hand, notepad in the other.

Ben even had whole sentences from her reviews memorized. He hadn’t tried to memorize them. He wasn’t that much of a desperate, horny stalker. But certain sentences had burned themselves into his mind.