Switched (22 page)

After a minor argument and some groans by the people in row twenty-eight, I was seated in an extremely uncomfortable middle seat. I had lied about not liking first class. First class was awesome. First class was the greatest thing ever. If there had been a way for me to shove Jackson out of first class, I would’ve done it. But this was my only solution, and I was feeling kind of proud of myself.

I was so proud of myself that I fell fast asleep and didn’t wake up until we touched down in London for our connecting flight.

The plane made its way to the gate, and the plane door opened, but we were instructed over the loudspeaker to remain seated. There was a lot of murmuring. I turned to the person in the aisle seat.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“It looks like the cops. Some kind of anti-terrorist police.”

I wondered if I was going to die in a bomb explosion just as I had turned over new leaf and became an independent woman.

“What’s happening now?” I asked the guy in the aisle seat, again.

“I don’t know. They’re coming this way.”

Two big policemen marched to the back of the plane and stopped right at row twenty-eight. They looked down at me and crooked their fingers for me to follow them.

“Oh my God. What now?” I moaned. “I didn’t do anything. I just wanted to sit in economy. Is that a crime? You guys are always hassling me.”

“Just come with us, ma’am, or we’ll have to cuff you,” one of the policeman said.

The entire planeload of passengers was watching me. Complete humiliation. You could hear a pin drop, as they waited to see what I would do. The guy in the aisle seat jumped up out of my way, as if I had leprosy or I had explosives in my underpants.

The policemen sandwiched me between them, and I followed them to the front of the plane and the exit. They herded me up the tunnel into the terminal. There, a trolley was waiting for us, and we rode it through the airport.

We stopped at a door, with “Do Not Enter” written in red lettering. Despite the warning, they told me to go inside, and they locked the door behind me.

It was a familiar sight. A small interrogation room. A metal table and four chairs. This time instead of posters of Iceland, there were posters of England. One of the Tower of London. One of Buckingham Palace. One of the Queen.

I took a seat and rested my head in my hands. I was exhausted and despondent. I felt one hundred percent sorry for myself. I had no luck. I couldn’t catch a break. Nothing was easy.

I heard the door open and close, but I was to down in the dumps to look up.

“So what do you have to say for yourself?” I heard a familiar voice say.

My head snapped up. Doyle was there, standing like a man in charge, dressed in a fitted suit. He filled it out nicely, I thought. I had never seen him dressed for success, and I was a little taken aback.

“I think I’ve already said enough. What do you have to say for yourself, Doyle?”

He arched an eyebrow. “I think you were a fool to follow Jerkface. I think you were a fool to love him. I think you were a fool to leave me without even a kiss goodbye. I think you’re a fool not to tell me how much you love me.”

“Is that all? Is that all you have to say for yourself? I’m a big, fat fool?”

“Well, there is one more thing. But I’m not sure you’re interested in hearing it.”

“Try me. If I don’t like it, you could always arrest me. You’re pretty good at that.”

“True. True. Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Debra Gregory, I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and that’s even with your clownish neon red hair. I think you’re the funniest, most intelligent, charming, and the damned sexiest woman I’ve ever come into contact with. True, you do manage to get yourself into a lot of trouble. And you do throw up a lot. But I can handle that. I can handle you.”

“Oh, you think you can handle me?”

“Yes. I think I can handle you. Heaven knows, I can’t keep you in line. But I can keep up with you. In fact, nothing would give me greater joy than to spend the remainder of my life trying to keep up with you.”

“Why is that?”

“That’s simple. I love you.”

I let the words fly around the room from his mouth to settle deep in my heart. They felt good there. Like they were home.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because there’s no backsies. You can’t change your mind. The minute you decide you love me, you can never think otherwise. It’s like jail, but worse.”

He readily accepted. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll love you till the day I die, which if I’m keeping up with you is probably sooner than later. Is that enough for you? Do you believe me? Do you love me back?”

“Yes,” I said, knowing it was the truth. “I love you, and I promise to take care of you.”

He pulled me up from my seat and crushed his mouth over mine. I was dizzy, and this time I was sure it was because of the kiss. Love makes kisses so much sweeter. It was the first time I had tasted it.

Read on for an excerpt from
BOUNTY

By Elise Sax

PROLOGUE

By and large, college was a pretty dull experience, but things got considerably more exciting when my art history professor wakened something in me.

It all happened on the first day of my Greek Art course. Mr. Anderson stood in front of the class in his paint-splattered pants, torn t-shirt, and flip-flops. His age was indiscernible, but he lurked somewhere between thirty and fifty years old. He leaned back against the wall with an
I don’t give a damn, but it’s all cool
attitude, and I fell instantly in love with him.

After a brief introduction, he turned off the lights and flashed a pornographic slide onto the giant screen at the front of the room. There was a loud gasp from the class. “Oh, yeah,” he mentioned as if he had just remembered. “I specialize in erotic art. So, I’ll be showing you a lot of that.”

He flashed another slide of a couple immortalized in marble, doing something I couldn’t really make out, but my vagina understood all too well. It woke up.

From then on, I would rush to my art history class. Mr. Anderson would narrate the sensual images in his casual, sultry voice, his well-defined chest pushing against the material of his t-shirt. Occasionally, I would catch myself drooling.

I would have done anything for Mr. Anderson. I let my other classes slide, and I seriously considered changing my major from education to art history. When he assigned the first term paper, I gave it my all. I wrote a masterpiece about Dionysian-inspired art. I gave long, detailed descriptions of the cult of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and general debauchery. It was my love letter to Mr. Anderson, and I was elated when he returned it with a big
A+
on the front with a note: “Great paper! Let’s talk about it sometime over wine.”

I spent days trying to decipher the note. Was this a cute comment, or was he asking me out on a date? I was thinking about this very thing when Mr. Anderson stopped me on campus as I walked to my Spanish class.

“I wanted to tell you how much I loved your paper,” he said. I nodded. I noticed with a slight panic that my eyesight had gotten blurry. I sputtered and coughed. It wasn’t exactly “hello,” but I was proud that I could get that much out. “How about we get together tonight to discuss it? My studio at eight?”

I nodded again, and much to my horror, squeaked.

I prepared for our meeting all afternoon. I washed, exfoliated, shaved, perfumed, and put on way too much mascara and not enough skirt.

His studio was his official office on campus and everything I had imagined. Huge and messy with paintings everywhere and oriental rugs thrown here and there. My eyes were drawn to a large couch in one corner.

“Ah, Abigail. I’m so glad you made it.” Mr. Anderson appeared from nowhere. He wore his normal uniform of painter’s pants and a stained t-shirt. He clutched my arms and kissed me on my two cheeks. European style.

I felt something melt in my pelvic region. I swayed toward him. I was practically floating. I couldn’t believe that he picked me. He could be with any woman he wanted.

“You can call me Abby,” I heard myself say.

“Delightful,” he said, his face drawn into a wide grin. Magically, I appeared on his couch, his body wedged up against mine. He offered me a glass of wine, and I slugged it down and shakily stuck out my glass for a refill. I was torn between bolting for the door and wrapping my legs around his waist.

After all, he was the sexiest man I had ever met, and he obviously wanted me. And honestly, I was almost a virgin, if I didn’t count Jimmy Schaeffer at prom, those two times with Jonas Sinclair from my freshman English class, and the curly-headed guy at the bar at a frat party in the spring. I was basically innocent, and I didn’t know how to handle myself.

“You really are a very pretty girl.”

Mr. Anderson looked deep into my eyes and caressed my cheek in appreciation. I dropped my glass and smashed my face against him, planting a giant, wet kiss on his lips. After a moment, he pulled back and held my face in his hands.

“Easy,” he purred. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

I didn’t care about all the time in the world. I cared about the here and now. He had woken my vagina, and it was being very demanding.

Mr. Anderson put his hand under my blouse and caressed my breast. “Really, really lovely,” he commented. I wanted to show him all my other lovely parts, but he was taking his own sweet time. “I liked your paper.”

“Thank you,” I croaked. His hand moved to my other breast.

“Of course, it really wasn’t an
A
paper. It was a
B-,
at best.”

My body pulled back, and Mr. Anderson’s hand popped out of my shirt. I had worked weeks on that paper. “
B-
?”

“Sometimes I give a better grade when I think the student can provide—how should I put it?—extra credit.”

Suddenly, his sexy smile didn’t seem so sexy anymore. Suddenly, he looked like a predator, his lips pulled back in a snarl.

“Don’t worry,” he said, grabbing me back to him. “I’m sure you’re an
A
student.”

“I am?”

He traced my lips with his finger and stared intently into my eyes. I began to melt again. “Oh, yes. Just remember what
A
stands for.”

I was stumped. “
A
stands for Abby?”

Mr. Anderson laughed. “No, no my sweet.
A
stands for anal.”

I swallowed. He must have been reading a different dictionary. In my dictionary,
A
absolutely did not stand for anal.

“You mean—” I started, my shock turning to rage. “To get an
A
in your class, I have to…”

“You’re going to love it,” he suggested.

He moved to kiss me again, but he was stopped by my fist. His head snapped back on impact, and blood shot out of his nostrils. It was his turn for rage, and he grabbed for me.

I ran out of his studio before he could catch me. On the way out of the door, I heard him shout something about “ungrateful bitches.”

The next day, I informed the dean about Mr. Anderson’s grading scale. After the news spread, some of his other former students came out of the woodwork. The school paper asked me to write an expose, and just like that, I changed my major to journalism.

Instead of becoming an elementary school teacher, I decided to become a reporter. I guess it was a turning point in my life, and it said a few things about me: I can be manipulated into lots of things; I like men…a lot; and I will always go after the story no matter what my vagina has to say about it.

Although, if
A
had stood for anything else, who knows where I would have wound up?

CHAPTER 1

What’s a little fungus in the scheme of things? I mean, sure I was a monster below the ankles, but I had recently gotten a great job as features editor in London for the snootiest magazine on the planet, along with a new wardrobe and a new apartment.

An apartment with fungus in the shower, obviously.

And before I got on the plane for my all-expenses-paid luxury working vacation, my assistant, Amy—I had an assistant. How mind-blowing was that!—sent me to the doctor, who diagnosed me with athlete’s foot.

My feet were puffy and peeling with little bumps and blisters. Pustules. And they itched. “It’s actually the worst case of tinea pedis I’ve ever seen,” the doctor had told me. “You should be hospitalized, Miss Williams. We need to get you off those feet as soon as possible. Of course, I’ve never actually heard of anybody being hospitalized for tinea pedis, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

“I’m going on a really nice vacation. I’m going to an exotic island,” I said.

“Miss Williams, if we don’t treat you immediately, this mess is going to grow under your toenails, and we will be forced to remove every last one of them.”

“But I just had them painted Princess Peach,” I said, cursing the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes.

So, he let me go, and the itching had subsided with the treatment. I only half-wanted to kill myself, now that my feet were smeared with miracle cream and wrapped in thick athletic socks.

The plane was about one-quarter full, and I realized that I was the only woman on board except for the two flight attendants. The other passengers stayed busy, swigging back little bottles of booze and tapping away on their laptops. They dressed in shabby khaki and were intent on their work.

I could have spotted them a million miles away. Reporters. By the looks of them, they weren’t going to the Simoros Islands to do a fluffy article on the country’s centerpiece hotel like I was.

I reminded myself with a mental head slap that I was going to the scene of a violent coup, even if the hotel’s brochure claimed the island’s recent history of government overthrow was far behind them.

However, a planeload of reporters was on its way to cover a hot story. By not keeping current with the news, I was unwittingly flying into a possibly dangerous situation armed only with long layers in my hair and fungus on my feet.