The first thing I do the next morning is take my laptop to the coffee shop from the other day.
It’s not a ploy to bump into Tigger again. The internet here is faster than at my house, that’s all.
Sadly, no job prospects have shown up despite all the calls and emails I’ve sent out.
Also, no Royal Hardness—not that I’m here for that reason.
Since I shouldn’t spend my sparse money on eating out, I head home for a quick lunch and look for employment for the rest of the day.
The next day, I go to the coffee shop once more—again not in the hopes of bumping into Tigger.
I’m job searching. That’s all.
Sadly, no leads on said jobs again. With a heavy heart, I apply for a waitressing position at the coffee shop and a few other restaurants nearby, only to be rejected on the spot due to lack of experience.
Damn my teenage self for spending all my summers practicing magic instead of getting the usual jobs.
I’m about to head home when I get a text from my twin:
Bella and I will be in your neck of the woods. Can we stop by?
I tell her that they can and hurry home.
By the time I’ve finished dinner, I’ve forgotten about my sister’s text—that is, until someone knocks on my bedroom door.
“Yeah?” I open the door and see Harry standing there.
One of my favorite roomies, Harry reminds me of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, only with round spectacles. Unfortunately, she violently refuses to answer to Sally. Born Harriet, she claims she goes by Harry because of the famous magicians Harry Houdini and Harry Blackstone, but given her glasses, I strongly suspect it’s actually because of Harry Potter.
Until I met her, the name Harry had brought to mind Octodad—since Harry is his first name—but it suits my roommate better. Not for the first time, I wonder if my grandparents realized that naming their son Harry with the last name of Hyman makes him sound like the virginal membrane of a yeti. Then again, he deserves it for naming my poor twin Holly, as Holly Hyman also sounds like the virginal membrane, only that of a maiden goddess. And don’t even get me started on Blue and some of the other sextuplets.
If they weren’t screwed up from jostling for space in one uterus, their names would surely do the trick.
“Someone’s here for you.” Harry sounds miffed about having to be the butler, so I make sure to thank her before I rush to the door.
There, waiting for me, is Holly, and with her is a woman who looks to have stepped out of a fashion magazine.
This must be Bella, my twin’s new best friend.
Damn. She is as gorgeous as my sister has been saying. Reminds me of Angelina Jolie in Maleficent. Actually, since she’s Russian, shouldn’t she remind me of Angelina Jolie in—spoiler alert—Salt?
“You guys totally are twins,” Bella says, her gaze darting from my face to my sister’s.
Hmm. Zero accent.
“Yeah,” Holly says. “Except she was raised by vampires.”
I roll my eyes. “At least I wasn’t raised at Downton Abbey… by Mary Poppins.”
Bella grins at me. “Your sister is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
I return the grin. I can understand Holly’s girl crush now. If Bella were a magician, she’d join Rasputina as a woman I’d sleep with—again, under a gun to the head scenario, of course.
“Give it to her,” Holly whispers to her BFF.
Was it my earlier thought, or did that sound vaguely sexual?
“Ah, right.” Bella brings forward the briefcase she’s been holding. It looks a lot like the one that projected a golden glow when Jules opened it in Pulp Fiction.
Wait. Is the lid decorated with hand-drawn genitalia?
Before I can ask, Bella opens the case and I stare at the contents in morbid fascination.
Dildos.
Colorful dildos.
Bulbous dildos.
Thin dildos.
Small dildos.
Large dildos.
Huge dildos… and even a few obscenely ginormous.
Silicone dildos.
Glass dildos.
Metal dildos.
Even something that looks to be made of wood, but hopefully isn’t, because splinters in the hooha do not sound fun at all.
Holly must mistake my expression because she sounds guilty as she says, “I mentioned your email to Bella, and she wanted to give you a nice selection.”
“Right,” I say, still scanning the phallic goods on display.
“They all vibrate,” Bella says, her tone turning salesy. “All work with the Belka teledildonics app too, so you can have your boyfriend please you remotely.”
If I had a boyfriend—and a very specific person comes to mind—I’d want to enjoy His Royal Hardness instead of a dildo, like the hoi polloi.
“Just pick already,” my twin says, a light blush touching her cheeks.
Oh. She thinks having a woman I’ve never met bring this over is embarrassing for her?
Also, “pick” makes this whole thing sound like a card trick.
“Pick a dildo, any dildo.”
Someone does.
“Now remember your dildo.”
They memorize the dildo.
“Now let’s hide the dildo in any woman in the audience.”
They do.
With great gravitas, the magician locates the woman and pulls out the dildo without taking off her panties. “Is this your dildo?”
My twin looks at me worriedly. “I think her brain crashed from the indecision.”
I shake my head and grab the dildo that’s closest to His Royal Hardness in size and shape, only bright red. And hey, that might be the color of the Ruskovian flag. “This one. How much do I owe you?”
Bella closes the briefcase with a loud thud. “It’s a gift.”
“A gift?” Holding the dildo by the shaft, I wave it in the air. “Isn’t this how you make your living?”
She winks at me. “If you feel like you owe me, you can tell me what you think of it. Like a beta tester.”
Great. That should be a fun conversation.
Then an idea occurs to me.
I can pay her for the dildo with my art and get some priceless performance experience while I’m at it.
Holly frowns. I think she knows where my mind has gone—a feat of twin pseudo-telepathy. I can’t blame her for not being enthused. She was there when I was only starting out as a magician, so she’s sat through tedious tricks that are not at all like the fun masterpieces I perform nowadays.
“How about I show you some magic,” I say to Bella in a voice that might be a touch too seductive.
Her eyes light up. “Seriously?”
“Yep.” I usher them into the living room. “Give me a sec.”
I rush to my room, leave the dildo there, and grab some props.
When I come back, I do a half hour show for Bella, who turns out to be the perfect spectator: oohing and ahhing at all the right moments and asking, “How did you do that?” like she really means it.
It doesn’t take long before my roommates swoop in and begin to perform their own stuff for her, which Bella takes in like a kid at a candy factory on Halloween.
Even my jaded-with-magic twin seems to have a good time.
After Harry finishes performing her signature rope trick, Bella thanks us all profusely, gifts every one of the performers a dildo, and leaves with my twin in tow.
“That’s what stood out to you?” I ask Clarice, nodding at the dildo she chose—the polished wooden one.
She shrugs. “Fits with my stage persona.”
There might be some logic there. Pirates have peg legs that are made of wood, so I guess if they used dildos, said dildos would also be made of wood. Their users would no doubt call them woodies and scream “argh, matey, faster, faster” in the throes of passion.
I grin. “So you’re going to add a wooden dildo to your act?”
She lifts her chin. “You have to live your stage persona at all times.”
With that sage lesson from The Prestige firmly in our minds, we all scatter to our separate rooms.
I smile as I lock my door. To slightly paraphrase Forrest Gump’s Mama, life is like a briefcase of dildos—you never know what you’re going to get.
Before testing out the new toy, I decide to be good and check for job prospects one more time.
Yes! The email sitting in my inbox is from a form on my website, one that’s only used by prospective clients or folks from the media, like Waldo.
I look at the “from” field and see the name listed as Anatolio, with no last name.
Hmm. Doesn’t sound familiar.
I read the first line and cringe: “Dear Amazing Hyman.”
Stupid Waldo.
He covered my breath-holding performance for his magazine and dubbed me that way in his article, claiming that it was my stage name, which it wasn’t until then. To this day, Waldo claims he didn’t intend to be mean. Hyman is my last name and lots of magicians use the “Amazing” adjective in their stage names, like the Amazing Kreskin or the Amazing Randi.
Amazing Hyman is much worse, though. It makes me sound like a virgin superhero, or like something someone might say in an infomercial selling virgins as sex slaves or dragon sacrifices. The fact that I am a virgin (hymen intact or not) just makes it worse.
Fine. Whatever.
I read the rest of Anatolio’s short message. He says that he saw my YouTube performance, was impressed, and now wants to discuss a related opportunity.
Intriguing. Especially because of the last line:
This is a serious proposal. Money is no object. Please set a time and place where we can meet.
He sounds like a man who gets what he wants.
I hit “reply” and ask him if he’d meet me at the coffee shop I’ve been frequenting—a public place, in case he’s a creep.
Before I can close my laptop, I get a reply:
How about tomorrow morning at 10?
That’s before my lunch with Blue, but two hours should be enough to talk business so I agree.
Who is he?
I look up magicians by the name of Anatolio, but the search doesn’t yield any results. Maybe he isn’t a magician? Hey, not everyone is perfect. What’s key is that I get good sleep tonight, so I can wow this potential client into a large fee tomorrow.
Since a liaison with a dildo helped me sleep the night before, I decide to use the same strategy tonight. Plus, I’m dying to test out my new silicone friend.
First things first. I sterilize the dildo as well as I can, then put a condom on it, just in case.
When I get back to bed, I glance at my old dildo guiltily.
Oh, don’t worry about me. Just let my batteries run out and toss me in the garbage. I never expected loyalty from someone as shallow as you.
With a shrug, I look at the new dildo.
Very nice. Bella is a great designer. I like it so much, in fact, that I decide to give it a name. If I’m going to anthropomorphize my toys, I might as well go all the way.
How about Royal Hardness?
No. That’s taken. I’m thinking the Regent.
How about Prince Regent?
Done. I download the necessary app to enable Prince Regent’s vibration.
As I get myself off, I try not to think of Tigger, especially of his hazel eyes, his broad shoulders, or his—
Never mind.
I let myself fully visualize the Ruskovian prince and come with a bang before falling asleep with a goofy grin on my face.