He must have been carrying a pie when I hit him, because an aluminum pie dish was stuck to his face. Blueberry filling dripped down onto his shiny black suit slashed with neon blue zigzags. There was only one man who would have been wearing such a wild suit.My stalker.
Oh no. No, no, no!For just a second I was frozen in fear. I could have reacted in a million different ways. A normal person would have helped him clean up his papers. Or found him a towel to wipe the pie off his face. Or at least apologized. But this was my stalker. And I couldn’t have this be our first real encounter ever.So I just did the first thing I could think of - I laughed. Right in his pie-covered face. And then I ran upstairs as fast as I could.
Why the hell did I laugh at him?!This had Incident #3 written all over it.God, what was wrong with me?But wait…had he seen me? I didn't think so. The pie would have blocked his vision. At least the squishing noise was a pie to his face rather than his liver being flattened. It was possible that I was in the clear. Raven Black didn’t experienceincidents.Hopefully.
The whole thing could have been so easily avoided if he had just been paying more attention. And what was he doing in the stairwell anyway?Oh, right. The elevators were down. That would also explain why he had been so late. I pictured him painstakingly carrying that pie down sixty stories only to have me throw it in his face.God, I was such a monster.I guess it could have been worse, though. At least I didn’t kick him in the nuts and tell him to watch where he was going. That would have added insult to injury. Or I guess injury to insult.
Really, he should have known I was coming. He was stalking me after all. Maybe he wanted me to hit him with the door. No. It was an accident. All of it was a terrible, hopefully anonymous accident.Please don’t have seen me.
I exited the stairwell into the second-floor hallway and pressed my back against the wall. It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest. Why did I have to be me? If Chastity had run into him like that, she would have known just what to say. She would have apologized and seductively licked the pie off his face or taken off her shirt and used it to clean up the mess. And then they would have gone back to his place for a change of clothes. And fallen in love. It could have been the perfect meet-cute, but I had ruinedit. I’d even laughed in his face. Why in God's name had I done that?
Maybe it's not too late!I could still go back and apologize. I could play it off like I had run away to find him a towel. I looked around for a cleaning cart. Those things were always stocked with fresh towels. But there were no carts to be found. The hallway was empty except for a statuesque blonde in a stylish maroon pantsuit approaching.
I sized her up. There was no way I was going to ruin my beautiful panda shirt with blueberry filling, but if I could trick her into giving me her blazer...
No, that wouldn't work. I could hardly talk to strangers, much less convince them to give me their clothes. The only option was to sacrifice my own. I looked down at my favorite panda shirt. It would be a crime to get blueberry filling on such a finely crafted garment. And it would also literally be a crime for me to strip down to my bra in the stairwell. If the police weren't already hot on my trail after the Dr. Lyons incident, stripping in One57 would lead them right to me.
"Raven Black?" asked the woman.
"It wasn't me!" I screamed. She was either an FBI agent coming to arrest me on rape charges, or she was a member of my stalker's personal security detail. Either way, I was screwed.
"You're not Raven Black?" she asked.
I looked to either side for an escape route. "That depends. Who are you?"
"Frankie. Frankie Underwood." She gave me a huge smile and offered me her hand.
"Ha. No way. Frankie Underwood is supposed to be a big strong man with a nine-inch penis. I'm not into girls." Was being a lesbian on the list of expected behaviors?No.It definitely was not. Oh my God, had I just said all that out loud? Had hitting my stalker with a door made me lose my mind?
"I’m not really into girls either. But I am into helping girls find new apartments."
I eyed her skeptically. "I feel like this is a trick." She was definitely FBI. I was wanted on so many charges at this point.
"If you think I'm trying to trick you into finding a place you'll love, then you're right. This is a trick."
Hmmm...maybe she is telling the truth.
I studied her a bit more closely. She had a black bracelet on, which meant she was part of the Society. It looked like she had made it herself out of beads…just like Rosalie used to do. Suddenly my mind flashed back twenty years. Rosalie and I were sitting cross-legged on the family room carpet. I had a piece of bread stuffed in my mouth (my way of circumventing the “no food in the family room” rule) while we threaded plastic beads onto string.I tried to shake away the memory. The last thing I needed was to burst out in tears in front of this FBI agent. Or…normal person? Actually, the fact that she was wearing a beaded bracelet made me feel a little less nervous. How dangerous could she be if she made homemade bracelets?
“Ready to find your dream home?” asked Frankie.
It didn’t seem like there was a way out of this. And I didn’t want to go back in the stairwell and run into my stalker. It was better if he never knew I was here.Let’s go hide out in a random apartment to avoid him.“Yeah, sure.”
“Wonderful.”
I glanced down at Frankie’s blazer. She even had a laminated nametag with her picture, name, and the logo for Frankie Underwood Realty. This wish had nothing to do with free shoes or my husband, so it wasn’t one of my wishes. Which I guess meant it was one of hers. Had she wished to be a successful real estate agent? It wasn’t the kinkiest fantasy, but whatever. Maybe selling houses really got her excited. In a way, that was close to my Jack and the Bean Stalk fantasy. Only in that scenario, the buyer was a giant, and the real estate was a sky castle. Or maybe the buyer was a giant's penis and the real estate was my vagina. You know what...just forget it. It made more sense in my head.
"So we're really just going house hunting tonight?" I asked.You're not going to turn me into a skin cocoon?
"Yup. That's the plan. But first let's duck in here and go over a few of your preferences." She walked over to Suite 212.
"Okay, sure. I'll be right there. I just need to uh, use the bathroom real quick. I think I saw one in the lobby."What am I doing?I thought as the words came out of my mouth. Was I running away from this lesbo FBI agent in disguise? Did I really have to pee? Was I going back to see my stalker? Maybe it wasa combination of all three. "I need your blazer. I mean, can I borrow it?"
She gave me a weird look. "Are you going to pee on it?"
"What? Ha. No way. I'll return it to you completely clean. Unless there's a horrible blueberry accident in the stairwell. You know, I've heard that's a real issue around these parts. I'm just cold. Brrr." I tried to rub my arms to look cold, but I only succeeded at jiggling my boobs. And then I realized that I was entirely too awkward to talk to my stalker. It was a blessing that he'd taken a pie in the face and not seen me. I needed to learn to interact with other humans and then I could try again. "Actually, just forget it. I suddenly don't need to pee anymore."
She glanced at my crotch.
