As we make our way through the lobby—me a bundle of hormones, him with a graceful stride—a pantalooned dude walks up to us with a glass bottle filled with white liquid. Reverently, he hands it to Tigger and says something in Ruskovian.
With a curt nod, Tigger dismisses him, then uncorks the bottle and takes a gulp of whatever it is. A blissed-out expression appears on his face, and he extends the bottle toward me.
“Want some?”
I hide my hands behind my back. “What is it?”
“Matilda’s milk.” He looks completely nonchalant as he summons the elevator, as though his statement doesn’t need any explanation.
“Who’s Matilda?” Does my voice sound a bit green? “Please don’t say she’s your dutiful girlfriend who caters to your lactation fetish.”
He laughs. “I don’t have a girlfriend. What about you?”
The elevator opens and I step in. “I don’t have a girlfriend either, but if I did, her name wouldn’t be Matilda. She sounds underage.”
He presses the button for the top floor. “Matilda is a cow.”
My eyes widen, and I back away as far as the elevator car will allow—and not because he’s on a first-name basis with a cow.
He frowns. “She’s one of the few of her kind here in the US, a breed originally developed for the table of Ruskovian royalty.”
My face must show my distress because he sounds defensive as he adds, “She has a good life. She roams free on an upstate farm. Gets massages that even Kobe cows would be jealous of.” He takes another swig from the bottle. “This milk is like a taste of home.”
My eyes bulge. “It’s fresh?”
He frowns. “Yes.”
“As in not pasteurized?” The elevator doors open and I quickly escape proximity to that bottle. Because what if he trips, the bottle flies into my mouth, and I accidentally swallow?
As he follows me, a realization seems to dawn on him. “You’re worried this milk will make me sick?”
I vigorously bob my head. “Drinking unpasteurized milk is more dangerous than anything you’ve ever done. Sky diving, cliff diving, free diving—all other divings combined. It should be called hospital diving. Or Ruskovian roulette.”
He caps the bottle. “It wouldn’t taste the same if you boiled it.”
“But you’d get to go on tasting other things… like poisonous mushrooms.”
With a shrug, he leaves the bottle by the door leading to his new penthouse and I sigh in relief.
Hopefully, whoever milked Matilda did it the way my parents do on their farm: washed the udders and teats and then dipped them in an iodine solution.
Is it weird that I’m still a little jealous of Matilda? He consumes her bodily fluids, but not mine. That means she’s further along with him in baseball metaphors—maybe halfway to first base?
Thankfully, Tigger is unaware of my musings as he swipes his card to let me in.
Wow. The suite now looks lived-in, and the flower arrangements appear brand-new.
One in particular catches my attention. There are a lot of a lupines and peonies in it, a pretty combo that makes me think of werewolf cocks. The arrangement also has bent spoons and his belt integrated into it.
“That one is for you to take home,” he says, following my gaze.
He got me flowers? And not merely flowers, a freaking arrangement?
I suppress the swoony feeling blooming in my chest. This is our training time, so I need to keep things professional. “Thank you,” I manage in a casual tone.
“The pool is ready for you,” he says, his voice slightly husky. “You can change in there.” He points at a nearby door.
I gulp at the heat in his eyes. So much for keeping things professional. I’m a puddle of need, and we still have our clothes on.
Stepping through the door into the bathroom, I swiftly undress, only to pause.
The last time I got naked outside of my room was when I was shopping for underwear. I feel more naked now than then. Probably because I’ve taken off my gloves this time around.
Also, unlike that time, I’m turned on and the temptation to stroll out naked is strong. So is the urge to masturbate. Even with a wall between us, Tigger’s proximity is like lady Viagra.
But no. I’m a magician, not a nymphomaniac.
I put on my bathing suit, grab my dress and purse, and return to the living room.
Tigger is missing.
I put my stuff on the couch, and before I can call his name, Tigger comes back, wearing only a tight blue Speedo.
By Houdini’s bulge. Why didn’t I masturbate when I had the chance?
My nipples salute the sight, and it’s an effort to keep the drool inside my mouth.
On his end, when Tigger takes in my outfit, the bulge in his Speedo grows tenfold.
Some of my drool escapes.
His Royal Hardness stretches that polyester-and-spandex blend, making the walls of my vagina sweat with envy.
“I’m ready for that swim,” I choke out.
If the water is cold, maybe it’ll provide that cold shower effect I desperately need.
He growls something unintelligible and points in the direction of the pool. Fighting the urge to sway my hips, I prance over there.
Yep. The thing is filled up.
“My brother told me it was sterilized before the water was refilled,” Tigger says from behind me. His voice is still rough. “You’re going to be the first to dive in.”
I’m so horny even that hoarseness in his voice is driving me mad.
Taking in a deep breath in the way I’m going to teach him later, I dive in.
Whoosh.
The water isn’t cold. It’s perfect.
The feeling of weightlessness reminds me of childhood.
I hold my breath and swim until my lungs begin to scream, and then I swim some more.
“You were under a while,” Tigger says when I resurface.
I wave it off, my inner magician activating. “I can do ten times that, you know that.”
Lies, but I’m stuck with them if I want to keep this gig.
Deciding not to dive any more for fear of revealing my inability to hold my breath for as long as I claim, I do simple laps around the pool—and it’s beautiful. Once I’m a famous magician and can afford it, I’ll have my own personal pool that gets filled with clean water like this on a regular basis.
Eventually, I get tired and cold, so I swim over to the steps and climb out. I feel vulnerable being so naked and wet—that is, until Tigger walks over with a giant towel in his hands.
When he envelops me in the towel, I feel like I’m getting a hug for the first time in decades, and I warm up almost instantly.
First swim in forever, first hug, first sexual experience—Tigger is a source of a lot of firsts. Would it be so bad if I let that trend continue and had him be the first inside me?
He steps away, leaving me wrapped in a towel. A mixture of relief and disappointment floods me, but the disappointment evaporates as I enjoy watching him walk to the jumping platform of the pool.
“What exercise am I doing?” he asks.
“It’s called a blind swim,” I say. “You close your eyes and swim underwater, guiding yourself with just touch.”
He nods approvingly, then turns and dives in.
I watch him do the exercise with his characteristic fearlessness. The idea behind the blind swim is for him to learn how to deal with the stress of the unknown, but I think I’m more scared on his behalf than he is.
When he resurfaces, I tell him to do some laps, mainly because I want to enjoy the view.
Oh, and what a view it is. The dudes from Magic Mike have nothing on this. Watching him turns me on so much I have to sit down and switch exercises.
We go on like that for a while, and the entire time, I’m aware of one simple fact: when his training is over, he just might offer to train me again.
What will that be like? How many orgasms will it entail?
Just thinking about it sends my heart for a loop. To forestall dealing with that possibility, I force Tigger to exercise until my bathing suit dries, then an hour after that—until I see his lips turn blue.
“You can come out,” I say. “Don’t want you to get hypothermia.”
“Can you get me a towel?” He points at a table with a pile of them.
I do as he asks while he comes out, giving me the view from my wet dreams.
Since I’m unable to envelop him in a towel the way he did for me, I simply hand it over—and drool as I watch him dry himself.
By Houdini’s clit, I’m so turned on I’d probably come at the touch of a feather.
“I have a surprise for you,” he says. “Let’s go inside.”
I follow on unsteady legs.
He tosses the towel on the couch, sits down, and grabs a thick stack of papers.
“Can you sit here?” He pats a spot within kissing distance of him.
Can I? Sure. Should I? Probably not.
I do it anyway.
“This is for you.” He hands me the stack.
I examine the pages with my mouth open.
It’s his medical results, and they have nothing to do with free diving.
I look up from the papers. “Is this—”
“Test results,” he says. “I went to the doctor and got myself checked for any and all communicable diseases known to medical science.”
I greedily return to the pages.
He’s not lying. It’s test after test—and some of the diseases sound made up, while others seem like overkill, such as malaria, which is spread through the bite of a mosquito.
I guess if we’re ever locked in a room with a mosquito, I’ll feel safer now. Though, if he’s like the Dos Equis man, “mosquitos refuse to bite him purely out of respect.”
Another thing I’ll do as a rich magician is get a hold of Tigger’s doctor and have him run this panel of tests on me.
All the results I look at are negative.
When I get to the page labeled “STDs,” I study it closer.
Gonorrhea—negative. Chlamydia—negative. HIV—negative. The list goes on and on.
“To sum up, I’m clean,” Tigger says when I look up again. “I figured that maybe this will save you from having to wear that suit in my proximity.”
Again, the ads pop into my head.
“He once tried to acquire a cold just to see what it felt like, but it didn’t take.”
“His sweat is the cure for the common cold.”
“Some STDs have a long incubation period,” I blurt.
He smirks. “I haven’t been with anyone for the last four months. Does that help?”
I blink at him. “You haven’t?”
Does he want to lose his manwhore badge?
He sighs. “Despite what the tabloids say, I don’t sleep with everything that moves. In fact, I usually only have sex when I’m in a relationship, and my constant travels aren’t exactly conducive to that.”
Wow. His thrill-seeking sounds as bad for relationships as my magic career will be once it takes off.
More importantly, he’s not actually a manwhore?
And he’s clean?
This is hard to wrap my twisted mind around.
If this is true, I can kiss him and not die. It would not be very different from eating yogurt… in that his mouth is teeming with bacteria, but none of them are a threat.
I can also lick him.
And fuck him.
Except all these options sound frightening still, despite the papers.
I take in a breath and slowly let it out. “Can you please put your hand like this?” I raise my hand as though I’m about to swear on a bible—or Houdini’s biography.
Bicep flexing, he does as I say.
“Can I touch your palm?” I ask.
He nods, his hazel eyes curious.
I reach toward him, as if I’m giving him a high five in slow motion.
When our palms are just a hair width apart, I stop.
Our skin is so close I can feel the heat radiating from his palm.
Another couple of millimeters, and I could experience my first human touch in a long time.
Only my palm doesn’t move farther.
Closing my eyes, I even out my breathing to calm myself, but when I open them again, my stubborn palm doesn’t budge.
I drop my hand in frustration.
Is that a pitying look on his face?
“Why can’t I do this now?” I ask, more myself than him. “Germs aren’t in the picture.”
He lowers his hand. “It’s okay, myodik. I didn’t get those tests to rush you into anything, only to give you peace of mind.”
“You don’t understand,” I mutter. “This is just like what happened at the hospital.”
Worry lines cross his forehead. “What hospital?”
I explain what happened with Clarice, ending with, “And I was wearing a suit, so I was safe, but I couldn’t walk in.”
He brushes his fingers over the faded scar the asshole cat gave him. “I know my cat thing isn’t the same, but I can sympathize. When I meet one, rationally I know that the little creature isn’t more dangerous than something like surfing, but that doesn’t help.”
I flatten my hair with my palms. “That’s just it. I’ve been telling myself I was simply being careful. That I was avoiding germs.” Lowering my hands, I look at him wearily. “You must think I’m hopeless.”
“No,” he says gently. “I think you’re stronger than you think.”
I stand up and turn away. He’s wrong. I’m about to fall apart.
He doesn’t get it. This is a paradigm shift for me. I thought I was simply smarter than everyone else, but it turns out I’m no different from my sister Blue with her bird phobia. Worse maybe.
She’s not afraid of birds that aren’t there.
On some level, maybe I’ve always known I had a problem. Instead of wearing gloves all the time, I could just wash my hands after touching people, but I don’t. I don’t feel comfortable touching anyone, no matter what the science says.
Without my gloves, I feel naked.
Wait a second.
I’m gloveless now, but I don’t feel that way.
That counts for something, right?
“Would you like me to distract you from whatever is going on in your head?” Tigger murmurs, and I turn to find him standing next to me.
I swallow at the look in his feline eyes. “How?”
A hint of a smirk curves his sexy lips. “I think it’s time for your exposure therapy lesson.”