Beautiful Illusion (5 page)

“
T
hat fucking bitch
!” I picked up my cup of Black Label and launched it across the room.

T
hose were
the type of comments that people were being posting on the pickup community forums.

That night at McMillan, when I got totally blown off by the cockblock bitch, one of the students had been filming the entire thing with his cell phone. No one bothered to tell him to turn it off because no one expected that I would actually fail.

The guy who filmed it? It was one of the guys who didn’t listen to my instruction and failed at his pickup attempt that night. He was quick to abandon the training session, upload the video for everyone to see on the forums and sell everyone on the idea that my lessons were just bullshit to get guys to part with their money.

Once the video hit the forums, most of the other guys left as well and only Jason decided to stay. My mood was shattered, and I didn’t want Jason to feel like he had to train alone, so I gave him a refund and sent him off as well.

My phone rang as I sat there, trying to figure out what to do. It was Cobra.

“Yeah?” I answered.

“So what’s the plan?” Cobra asked. “They’re going apeshit online.”

I sighed into the speaker. “I don’t know. As of now, I’m fucked. I pay for my room with the money from the classes, my car, everything. Most of my savings were going towards the magic show. That…” my voice tightened for a moment, and I stuttered due to my anger. “That fucking bitch ruined me.”

“She was just a grade-A cockblocker, man. You shouldn’t let it get to you.”

“But I’m Enigma. I’m fucking Enigma! These guys depend on me to be the one guy who…” I struggled with what I was trying to say.

“Bring order to the force? You’re putting too much weight on your shoulders, brother. The fact is, I can’t ever remember you failing at a pickup, and now you’re tripping balls because you finally got a rejection.”

“A massive fucking rejection. And the girl wasn’t even that hot… What was she? A 7? Maybe an 8? That shit’s humiliating.”

“I think she was better looking than you’d think. That business dress or whatever she was wearing wasn’t doing much for her.”

“I dunno. Maybe. But the fact of the matter is I’m not going to get any more students when everyone thinks my pickup game is a hoax.”

“Yeah, and I read that Rick Jackson is already selling his classes for half off since your video went public. He’s trying to bring more people over to The Dark Side.”

“Oh, fuck! You’re kidding me?”

Rick Jackson was an old school pickup artist who had been around for years. He was in his 50s but looked quite a bit younger and had a totally different style of pickup game than the one I developed. We generally referred to it as ‘The Dark Side’ because his method of getting women consisted mostly of lies and deception.

Tell Them What They Want To Hear, Show Them What They Want To See
was the title of a book he had written 10 years ago, a book where he encouraged his followers to get women passed out drunk or even use hypnotism to them to get them in bed. He fell out of the scene when a girl accused him of date rape and spent a few months in jail. It was only after he was acquitted of charges that he discovered that I was making money by running pickup classes and decided to start his own—classes where he taught his dirty tricks to guys who would do anything to get laid.

“It’ll all wash over,” Cobra said. “Give it time. You know how TMZ people will go crazy when a celebrity makes a mistake, then a few months later, everyone forgets it ever happened? That’s what’s happening with you right now. You’re still the best pickup artist in in the area and maybe even the best in the world. That girl was just a one in a million girl who would say no to anyone.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” I sighed. “In the meantime, I’m going to hope I can get people to come to the magic show.”

“I’ve been putting the word out for you.”

“I appreciate it.”

“What about that promo company you contacted. Have they started advertising yet?”

“I had a couple messages saying they want to schedule a meeting with me. Just haven’t got around to it with all the heat from the pickup community. They emailed me saying something about doubling or tripling the pricing… seems like a bunch of bullshit if you ask me.”

“Well, just forget about the pickup community for now and get your shit together, alright?”

“Alright, man. Thanks Cobra.”

I turned my phone off and walked into the kitchen to pour me another glass of whiskey. I felt a little better after talking to Cobra, but I still couldn’t get my mind off that girl. I thought that I had perfected my game, but apparently it still had flaws. Why had that girl been so resistant to me…? Was she really just a one in a million?

I shook my head and took a swig of Black. I really just needed to focus, relax, and get my head back into what was really important to me.

My magic.

T
he day after McMillan
, I felt a little regretful about what I had done. We stayed a few hours longer, and we had been approached by several other guys throughout the night, but none of them were nearly as attractive or charming as Enigma. Kim ended up going home with a husky looking Italian who was wearing a lot of hair gel and a giant gold watch. She would never admit it, but I had the feeling that she just liked him for his money, because he didn’t strike me as all that attractive at all. But then again, Kim’s taste was much broader than mine.

I just headed home alone that night and watched another episode of
Game of Thrones,
along with the rest of my usual routine.

Part of me wondered if I made the wrong call. What if Enigma really wasn’t just a player. What if he was a nice guy who just wanted to spend a little time to get to know me? With his gorgeous face and smooth, confident nature
that
would seem a little far-fetched, but I might have missed out if it were the case.

I shrugged away my curiosity and headed for the guest bedroom in my apartment. No matter what his intentions were, what was done was done, and I’d probably never see that guy again.

The guest bedroom had been half converted into an office. There was a still a bed there, and it was decked out in all the girly decorations that I had added when I first moved in, but I had since added a desk, a set of file cabinets, copier, and other office gadgets.

I sat down at the desk, powered up my MacBook, and a smile crept over my face.

I’m sure part of the reason that I blew Enigma off the way I did was because I thought he was a player, but in the back of my mind I knew the real detractor of interest was because of my little secret.

Dante.

I had been talking to Dante for 6 months already, and Kim had no idea. There was no way I was about to tell her either, because she would start lecturing me about how much of an idiot I was for wasting time with guys from the internet. And maybe she was right? The pool of guys on the internet was terrible—most all of them were a total waste of time.

But Dante was different somehow.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, body like a Norse Viking; Dante was my daily indulgence—him and my husband Jon Snow, of course. But I’d never tell Dante about my husband. I had already made silly plans in my head that he and I would watch
Game of Thrones
every night, and I’d simply pretend I was engrossed in the magical story, not the long-haired demigod of the show.

I had been pouring through promotional emails for my company one night after a long day of work, and I just so happened to get a random mailing from the website Dateme.com.

“FIND YOUR DREAM LOVER” is what it said—in all fucking caps.

I almost hit the Spam button, which would have sent the email into oblivion and left me forever without the knowledge of Dante’s existence, but instead, I clicked the picture of the overly happy man carrying an overly happy, smiling girl on his back. It probably should have ended there, but when I landed on the site, I was greeted with more pictures of happy couples: old couples, interracial couples, newlyweds. Hell, the site made me feel like something was wrong with me for being single.

Plus, it was free to join.

It was a little intimidating filling out a personal profile and writing what I liked on the internet for all to see, but I was genuinely curious about what kind of messages I would get.

Professional woman. Independent. Loves a nice movie and a daily dose of GoT.

I didn’t put a lot of thought into my profile, and I figured that most men would just look at my pictures anyway. When it came to the pictures, I decided to upload just one—a snapshot Kim had taken of me, wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt ensemble, standing on the Santa Monica pier. Something about a guy clicking on pic after pic of me weirded me out, so I decided that if they didn’t like that one picture I made public, then it probably wouldn’t work out anyway.

A day later, I had two messages in my Dateme inbox.

The first guy was 67 years old who wrote me a fucking book about his life, how he had married and divorced twice, had a couple kids, a dog, and was looking for a woman to settle down with. Apparently, he overlooked the fact that I set my appropriate age ranges of suitors to a max age of 35, and he was nearly three times my age.

The other message? It read “Winter is coming….”

It gave me a good chuckle when I read it, but when I looked at the profile of the man who sent it, I almost peed my pants. Dante only had a couple pics up, but they showed off his broad shoulders and vibrant, dewy skin.

The fact that he read my profile, understood what GoT meant, and was so unbelievably handsome made me want to scream.

He listed his age as 25 and that he was the owner of a software consulting firm in Miami.

A professional, sophisticated man in my appropriate age range?
Check.

From there, the messages started flying back and forth between Dante and I. When I was at work, I’d log into Dateme.com on my lunch break so that I could send him a quick note about how my day was going and see what he had written back, but we also talked almost every night when I got home.

For 6 months it had went on like that, and the anticipation of meeting each other was starting to grow. Being that we were both business owners, it was hard for either of us to find time to fly across the country to meet, but he told me that he had a business trip planned in San Francisco for the week after that night Kim and I went to McMillian. We decided that he would drive down to Los Angeles to meet up with me before he returned back to his home in Miami.

I was stoked that I was going to finally meet him face to face, and the last thing I needed was to get involved with some immature club playboy who would throw a wrench into what Dante and I had going. Dante was a real man, not like that little player Enigma.

But I still couldn’t tell Kim—not until after I met Dante and had solid evidence that he was as amazing as he seemed. I couldn’t tell anyone, because anyone else just wouldn’t understand.

I logged into Dateme.com and Dante was online.

Me: Hey…

Him: Hey babe. How are you tonight?

Me: I'm great. I just finished putting together a promotional campaign for a music streaming company.

Him: Always the hard worker. Are you ready for some relax time this Friday?

Me: Ready… and a little nervous.

Him: Don’t be nervous. We’ll have a great time together. I promise.

I couldn’t wait.

"
W
e don't have
a lot of time let to get the promotion in gear. You really need to make your decision now if we're going to get seats filled," an Asian fellow, neatly dressed in business gear and a pair of thick framed glasses said.

We were sitting in a small conference room with floor to ceiling windows and glass inner walls, nestled high atop a fancy skyscraper. I rubbed my chin and looked at the man curiously, trying to measure his confidence level. $120 was indeed lot of money to pay in order to watch a relatively unknown magician on stage, but the guy seemed to have all the confidence in the world that they could fill the entire venue. I had my doubts, but if they could get even 1/3 the amount of people to buy tickets at that price, I would come out on top.

“I hope I don’t regret this,” I said as I reached for the stack of documents. He dropped a pen on top of the papers—legal, financial and consent agreements. I skimmed through mostly before signing and dating them all. “Anything else?” I asked as I inked in the last line.

“Enigma?!” someone said.

I looked up from the forms, and the Asian guy turned his head to see the pixie-cut girl whom I had met at McMillan a couple nights ago.

“Uh…” I wasn’t sure what was going on.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. She turned to the Asian man. “Lee?”

Lee adjusted his glasses. “He’s the illusionist that we’re going to promo for this coming Friday. He’s agreed to all the terms that you and Angel wanted.”

“You’re the illusionist?” Pixie-cut smiled comically.

“You two know each other?” Lee looked back and forth between the girl and I. I think she said her name was Kim.

The gears were spinning in my head as I relived meeting the two girls at McMillian, but no sooner than I started processing the situation, I saw a monster passing by the glass walls of the conference room.

The cockblock.

At first she didn’t notice me and seemed like she was just walking down the hall going wherever she was headed for the day, but then she turned her head in my direction and her walking slowed, her eyes narrowed, and she slowly approached the conference room door.

“What’s going on in here?” she asked when she stepped through the door.

“Angel, you remember Enigma, don’t you?” Pixie said.

Angel crossed her arms loosely and looked at me with a twisted, confused face. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Turns out he is the magician of the magic show we’re promoting.”

Lee smiled. “All the papers are signed. We can get the team started on it right now.”

My head was spinning, and I could feel the blood pumping up through my neck and into my brain. I thought I was going to explode. I never thought I’d see the bitch again, but there she was, standing in front of me, giving me the stink eye, dressed in some tight-fitting, gray skirt suit cut off at the knee and hugging her curves so tightly that I could see the outline of her bra and panties.

Usually, I found professional attire the opposite of sexy, but something about the way she wore it made my cock stiffen a little. Or maybe it was my rapidly rising blood pressure that made me want to bend her over the conference room table and show the snobby bitch what she was missing the other night when she blew me off—show her what it’s like to get fucked by a real man and knock some of the cobwebs out of her stiff ass.

“Mr. Campbell?” Lee said, snapping me out of my trance. I’m not sure how long I had been burning a hole into the cockblock. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah… Everything is alright.”

“Lee, Kim, can you give Enig… Mr. Campbell and I a few moments to discuss some things?”

“Sure,” Lee said as he stood up and shook my hand. I saw Kim swallow as she glanced at her friend, but then the two quietly slinked out and closed the door.

“Listen, I don’t want—“

“I’m sure you don’t want a lot of things,” I interrupted.

“Relax,” Angel said. “This is a bizarre coincidence. It never crossed my mind that you were the magician who inquired about our services. Had I known—“

“Had you known, you would have done what? Been a little nicer? Not had told me to fuck off in so many words?” I stood from my chair and rested my palm on the conference table. “Actually, you know what?” I shook my head. “I’m sorry… That wasn’t what I meant to say. This is business. That night at the club was—“

“No, you’re right,” she replied. “I was rude. I shouldn’t have been so brash. And if you want, we can tear up the contract and you won’t have to work with Flutterfly.”

I took a deep breath and placed my other palm on the table, then leaned all my weight over. I needed the promotion badly. It would be a while before the pickup community forgot the night at McMillan and the video that was posted online. If I didn’t make the magic thing work, I was left with nothing.

“So you’re really from Orange County?” I asked.

Angel shook her head. “No, I live here in Santa Monica.”

“Figures.” I gritted my teeth together and tried my best to swallow my pride. “I need this magic show to happen, and beside I’ve already spent all day going over the logistics with Lee and signing papers. It’s just business.”

“Okay, and I’ll do the best I can to make your show a success. We’ll be there with you every step of the way.”

“And look. I don’t want you to think I’m butthurt or something.” I waved a dismissive hand. “Just the other night when you blew me off, it caused some serious issues in other parts of my life.”

“Other ladies?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, it’s complicated.” I stood up straight and waved my hand again, hoping to end the conversation right there. “Is there anything else you guys need from me right now?

“Lee said you were good to go.”

“Alright, your people have my number.” I walked right past her, our eyes locked nearly every step of the way.

As I passed her, I noticed the faint scent of lavender floating in the air.

And it smelled so good that it pissed me off even more.