The Sexiest Man Alive (2 page)

But not irresistible to
her
, Mazie reminded herself. She was completely over him. He could strip and do the funky boogaloo in the middle of her kitchen floor and she wouldn’t experience a single twinge in her twingey parts. She wore an invisible protective anti-Labeck shield these days. That jolt when their hands brushed—classic Pavlovian response—was something that could be unlearned as easily as learned.

“I tried to call you,” Labeck said, “but your phone—”

“Is kaput. So whatever was so urgent, you had to break into my apartment to tell me? You no longer have key rights to this place.”

“
Key
rights?”

Turning her back on him, Mazie stalked out to the kitchen. Ben followed, making himself right at home, leaning against the kitchen counter, watching as Mazie picked up Muffin’s water bowl and refilled it from the tap. She refused to look at him, but she could feel his gaze roaming over her, checking out her legs and boobs and making her despise herself for the way she automatically sucked in her stomach and stuck out her butt when she bent over the sink.
Stop it!
She could avoid looking at him, but she couldn’t help inhaling him. He smelled like lime and cinnamon and that unique Ben Labeck scent, sort of like warm sand.

She turned around to face him, narrowing her eyes, and because she was so furious at him her words came out in disjointed chunks. “Saturday night, you—you came on to me, seduced me, made me think … I thought you—and then you just … just pulled one of your disappearing acts!”

“I was at Y sports camp—”

“Oh, so that makes it okay? Just drop out of my life whenever you feel like it, and when you drop back in, beat up my dates. You don’t want me, but you can’t stand the thought of another man having me, is that it? Well, for your information, I don’t need you jumping in, playing the big macho superhero!”

“I’m supposed to just stand by while some troglodyte mauls you—”

“
You’re
the troglodyte, Ben! You want to yank me by the hair into a cave and use me whenever you please, then go off and catch fish or whack a stupid ball around or chase skirts—oh wait—I forgot! Now that you’re the Sexiest Man Alive, women chase
you
—”

“That is so completely—wrongheaded, crazy, illogical—”

“You need to leave. I have to work on my course.” Mazie yanked open the laptop on her counter. Then her eyes snapped to Ben. “I left this open. You’re always going around closing things that don’t need closing. You snooped in my stuff!”

“If you don’t want people seeing what’s on your screen, you shouldn’t leave it open.”

“Oh, right. Blame the victim.”

Color rose in Ben’s cheeks. “Typical Mazie Maguire. You don’t close your laptop, you
never put lids back on jars, you don’t keep your phone charged—and you sure as hell don’t check the guys you go out with to find out whether they’re psychopathic rapists.”

“What a busy life you must lead, keeping track of other people’s faults.”

“At least I don’t waste my time smashing dwarfs—or is that Beethoven with the pointy red hat up on your screen?”

“They’re not dwarfs, they’re gnomes. I’m gnashing gnomes and I’m damn good at it.”

“No, you’re not. You’re only at level fifteen. My four-year-old nephew is already at twenty-nine.”

“Lucky for him he didn’t get his brains from his uncle.”

Ben turned and stalked out of the kitchen. Infuriated, Mazie snatched up the ergonomic mouse he’d given her for her birthday and chucked it at him. It whizzed past his head, barely missed his ear, bounced off the wall, and dropped to the floor.

He halted for a moment, back still to her, then opened the door and walked out.

What had she been
thinking
, throwing that mouse? If it had hit Labeck’s hard skull, its delicate wiring might have been damaged. She needed to test it out, make sure it was okay. Just one game of Gnome Gnash, because she deserved some fun after the horrible night she’d had. A gnome appeared, stuck his tongue out, and wiggled his hips tauntingly. Mazie blasted him off his toadstool. Take
that
, you little rodent! Another gnome appeared in the corner of the screen, stealing her horde of mushrooms. Mazie fired but missed.

Damn! Labeck was right. She
was
bad at this.

She clicked on the TV. Apricot Ames, the hostess of
Milwaukee Tonite!
, appeared in front of a wall-size mural of downtown Milwaukee. Taken at dusk, the mural showed the city at its most glamorous, the skyscrapers ablaze, their glow reflected in the river.
Milwaukee Tonite!
glowed in bright blue neon on the set, but Apricot herself outshone the neon. She was a tall blonde with a thin face, fat lips, and hard hazel eyes beneath acres of fake lashes. “Goo-o-d evening, viewers,” Apricot cooed, leaning forward to display her bounteous cleavage. “Welcome to another edition of
Milwaukee Tonite!
, the program that tells you what’s hot, what’s hip, and what’s happening around brewtown—”

“Oh, drop dead!” Mazie flung a dish towel at Apricot. “Everything is
your
fault,” she hissed at the TV image.

A purple gnome scampered across the computer screen, bent over, dropped trou, and
mooned Mazie. She zagged a lightning bolt at his butt and he exploded in a puff of violet smoke.

If only it were possible to zap real-life problems that easily, Mazie thought. Why couldn’t you dial back real life to
beginner
level and start over again? She would scroll back three weeks, back to when her life had been normal, back to the day before that evil woman on Milwaukee’s most popular local show had proclaimed Bonaparte Labeck “The Sexiest Man Alive.”

“I’ve decided to become a dominatrix,” Juju announced.

“That’s nice.” Mazie opened the window to let out the paint fumes. “Is that where you wear spike-heeled boots and whip guys’ butts?”

“And get paid to do it.” Juju carefully brushed paint onto a cabinet door. “Three hundred bucks for a one-hour session—do you believe that? Plus it’s the only profession where customer service means treating customers badly.”

“It sounds kind of illegal.”

“Well, it’s not. Dominatrixing is disciplining, not getting paid for sex. Clients schedule appointments to be punished the same way they schedule dentist appointments. All perfectly legal; I checked it out. No sex involved—in fact, the guy doesn’t even get to touch you, unless you let him kiss your feet or something.”

The way Juju explained it made it sound sort of appealing. For three hundred bucks an hour, Mazie wondered, would she be willing to wear a cat suit so tight that it thrust her spleen up into her ribs and order a man to lick her toes?

“I’m going to need equipment,” Juju said. “I already have my outfit—I’m going with a kind of lady buccaneer theme, with an eye patch and a long, curly red wig—but I still need whips and stuff. A woman I know is throwing a passion party tomorrow night and I figure I could pick up a few things there.”

“A passion party? Does that involve partner swapping?”

“You don’t know about passion parties? Women are flocking to them like crazy these days, ever since that book came out.”

“What book?”

“
Spank Me Like You Mean It
. It’s hot; it’s kinky, it’s a number one bestseller.”

“I guess I could check it out at the library.”

“Then get in line. I hear the waiting list is in the hundreds.”

Juju Danda always knew exactly what was trendy. She was Filipino—her name was a shortened form of Jhun-Jhun—but claimed to be Thai because American guys thought Thai girls were hot. She had exquisite pale brown skin, silky black hair usually worn in a beehive to add a couple of inches to her four-eleven frame, and a sprinkle of freckles like nutmeg powder across her nose. She was not much bigger around than a pretzel stick, but she’d dealt with her lack of cleavage by having amazing silicone boobs installed. They looked like a two-pack of Hostess Sno Balls set out on a tray. Her legs were incredible, with muscular thighs and built-up calves, a result of her workouts on skates. Men always adored Juju when they first met her because she was tiny, cute, and fragile-looking, but any fantasies they had about dominating a sweet, submissive Asian woman were soon shot to pieces because Juju reacted to attempts to control her like a cat ordered to fetch a tennis ball.

Mazie had first met her when Juju, then the manager of a downtown coffee shop called Hottie Latte, had hired her as a waitress. Mazie hadn’t minded the job; the tips were great and the work wasn’t that hard. The only drawback had been the required uniform: flimsy lingerie and high heels. Then just a few weeks ago, the Hottie Latte building had been sold, the shop had gone out of business, and all the Hotties had been thrown out of work. Juju had turned to an exciting career in Roller Derby, while Mazie, after much job hunting, had found a job in the field of geriatric nutrition.

Finding a job was tough when you had a four-year gap in your résumé.

Oh, that? I had a job with the state, in the transportation sector. Stamping out license plates
.

She’d been released from prison when newly uncovered evidence had convinced a judge that she was innocent of murdering her husband. She’d applied for her old job, teaching music at a Milwaukee high school, but school boards weren’t enthusiastic about hiring an ex-convict. The fact that she’d been proved not guilty made no difference; she still carried an invisible barbed-wire tattoo.

She’d finally found a job working for a charitable organization that delivered meals to the elderly. No job security, zero benefits, and a minimum-wage salary that barely covered Mazie’s rent. She’d managed, however, to scrape up enough cash to purchase two quarts of low-gloss acrylic paint to redo her kitchen.

Pale delphinium blue, like the photos she’d seen of Claude Monet’s kitchen. Her table and her chairs—ladder-backs with woven hemp seats purchased at a yard sale—would be yellow like the ones in Monet’s dining room. She’d invited Juju to help, coaxing her with the promise of a bottle of chardonnay.

Finally the last jot of paint had been applied to the last cabinet. Juju and Mazie looked over their work and saw that it was good. Except for the dribbles and blotches and uneven spots, but you hardly even noticed them if you drank more wine and kind of squinted your eyes.

“So eight o’clock tomorrow night for that party,” Juju said. “Bring your checkbook.”

Mazie waffled. “Ben and I sort of have a standing Saturday-night date.”

“You’re too available to him, that’s your problem. He needs to hear
no
once in a while. Tell him it’s a girls’ night out.”

Was that true? Mazie wondered.
Was
she too available?
You can always count on good old whatshername
.

Wine bottle in hand, Juju wandered out into the living room. As she scrubbed the paintbrushes at the sink, Mazie heard Juju turn on
Milwaukee Tonite!
Apricot Ames came on, her high-pitched voice vibrating with synthetic enthusiasm, as though she gargled with sparkly confetti.

“Holy Batman!” Juju cried. “I don’t believe it! Mazie, get out here!”

Soapy-handed, Mazie hurried to the living room. Bonaparte Labeck stared at her from her Goodwill television set.

“… this year’s
Milwaukee Tonite!
’s Sexiest Man Alive,” Apricot Ames gushed, “is a breathtakingly handsome bachelor who seems unaware of his own powers over women—but don’t take
my
word for it, ladies—check out this yummy photo for yourself.”

Juju and Mazie goggled at the photo on the screen. It must have been taken at a pool, because Ben was wearing swim trunks and his hair was plastered to his head. He didn’t seem aware that his photo was being taken; he was facing away from the camera and was shown in three-quarters view. He was toweling off, the better to emphasize the roller-coaster bumps of his biceps, his broad, powerful chest, his flat, stunningly sculpted abdomen. The wet, clinging trunks left little doubt about his below-the-belt endowment.

“Okay, ladies, here are his vital stats,” Apricot continued, sounding like a sixth grader with a crush on the football captain. “Our Sexiest Man is six feet three inches tall, one hundred
eighty-seven pounds of hard, solid muscle. He has chocolate brown eyes and adorably messy hair that’s a shade between burnt umber and raven. And check out those high cheekbones—a legacy from an Ojibwa great-granddaddy—and the adorable boxer’s nose, courtesy of a hockey puck he forgot to duck.”

Juju pretended to stick her fingers down her throat. “Who wrote that drivel—the president of the Justin Bieber Fan Club?”

“Shh.” Mazie found herself drawn to the screen, where photos of Ben in hockey gear were flashing in quick succession, some from his college days and others of him in action with the Snowplows, his amateur team.

Apricot’s teeth flashed toilet bowl white. “Salivating over that name like we are, viewers?
Bonaparte! Labeck!
Born in St. Amelie, a small town on the Quebec-Vermont border, Bonaparte grew up in a traditional French-Canadian family with three younger sisters, a dad who’s a master carpenter, and a mother who’s a professor at a junior college. He was a three-sport athlete at St. Paul’s Prep School, lettering in hockey, baseball, and basketball, but it was hockey that gained Bonaparte his scholarship to the University of Wisconsin, where he made varsity his freshman year and helped his team win three division championships.”

“I gotta tape this,” Juju said, whipping out her phone. At this moment, probably every other woman in the Milwaukee metro area was doing the same thing.

“It was Bonaparte’s part-time job in college that gained him a foothold in the world of television news casting,” Apricot babbled on. “He began as a cameraman with a college news station and now works as a videographer for WPAK, Channel 13. He’s definitely on the wrong side of the camera, don’t you think, girls? But this hardworking guy is not
just
about the job.” Apricot gave a lascivious wink.

“Bonaparte’s interests range from golf to fishing to skiing to book clubs. He’s known to his peeps as a gourmet cook who adores having a big group of friends over for impromptu spaghetti dinners. His specialty, as you might imagine from his French background, is crepes Suzette.”