“I’m not going in,” Denise said flatly, crossing her arms over her chest for emphasis.
“Fine. Don’t.” Derrick opened the door of his sedan and paused, arm still on the handle. “You really want to wait outside a sex store while I go inside?”
“Better than going in there.” The way she said the last word reminded him again of how much he’d come to resent his wife. The way she wrinkled her nose and pointed with a thin finger at the door of The Toy Chest, her lips squeezed tight together in an expression of pure derision made Derrick try to see the woman he married and not the one sitting in the passenger seat with the lemon-sour expression on her face.
“Suit yourself,” he said in a half-whisper as he slammed the door a little harder than he’d intended.
While The Toy Chest wasn’t in the best neighborhood in town, no scooting next door for a Cartier watch, but it was far from the worst. The decorations on the exterior were limited to a tantalizing yet tasteful image of a woman’s face, her eyes closed, mouth slightly open, evocative of pleasure. Aside from the name of this image and the name of the store in pink script, the building was rather anonymous.
Stepping inside, Derrick caught a whiff of some pine-scented cleaner and saw the rows of shelves in the center of the store. To his left as he entered, a stunning, dark-maned woman sat on a stool behind the cash register, eyes down as she flipped through a book that must have been very old by the worn binding. She glanced up, freezing him in place with her startling green eyes, then dismissed him with a smile.
He took another step inside, cramming his hands nervously in the pockets of his jeans, taking stock of the only other customer, a grizzled-looking fellow in a dirty raincoat standing before the shelves of DVDs and examining one, replacing it, then scrutinizing the back cover of the next. Derrick wondered how discriminating one could possibly be under the circumstances.
“Um, can you help me?” he finally asked, approaching the counter.
The gorgeous woman closed her book and looked up, painting a smile on her face though her look said ‘Do Not Disturb.’
“What can I do for you?”
“How far do you go?”
Derrick laughed at his own joke, but the set expression on the woman’s face suggested his attempt at humor was unwelcome.
“Sorry,” he said, holding up his hands in apology. “I’m sure you get that a lot.”
Magda glanced out the window and saw his car and the woman in the passenger seat, relaxing some. Guys with wives were always flirty, she knew, and the uptight look on his wife’s face told Magda all she needed to know about the dynamic between husband and wife.
“What are you looking for exactly?”
Derrick leaned on the glass counter, a number of latex toys visible within, whispering in conspiratorial fashion to the seductive witch.
“Two things. One, my wife’s friend is having a bridal shower. She wants to get her a… You know.”
“Dildo?” Magda grinned. She loved seeing people twist and squirm to say the words.
“Yes,” he said, smiling with her. “Something ridiculous.”
“No problem. There’s one on the shelf over there-” She pointed to the left wall. “-called ‘The Stretcher.’ Should be plenty big for a joke or, if she’s daring, a night she’ll never forget.”
Derrick brushed back his thatch of hay-colored hair, still just as thick and attractive as it had been in his twenties, though he was a decade away from that milestone. He liked the easy manner with which the woman spoke, and when she leaned forward to hear him, Derrick had gotten quite the eyeful of her ample cleavage.
“The second thing,” he began, glancing again at the codger flipping through DVDs, “is a real long shot, but I was wondering if you had anything that sort of broke the ice.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, Magda’s smile never faltering.
“Well, something that might put someone in the mood.”
Magda looked out the door again, seeing the wife through the glass, fussing over her hair in the passenger-side mirror.
“You want your wife to be more… interested.”
“Yes. Exactly! When we were teenagers…”
“All the time, huh?”
“Like bunnies,” he said, only he didn’t laugh. “I don’t know what happened. It’s like she’s lost all interest.”
Magda sat back on the stool, sizing the man up. He was still handsome enough, even fit, and his earlier joke hadn’t been funny but she detected no malice in it. And it was within her power to help, not just hurt, as she seemed so often to do. Perhaps it was worth trying to restore a little karma, maybe even find a way to channel the power inside that even now threatened to unleash itself.
Whatever was awakened within her was a beast that demanded freedom, a malicious child that wanted to play. If she could find a way to point the formless and directionless energy at a specific problem, perhaps she could bring it to heel.
“There’s something,” she said, deciding, “but it’s a little unorthodox.”
“I can handle unorthodox if it means my wife being a little more than a warm spot in bed.”
“I think I can promise you that won’t be the case. You have to tell me exactly what you want, though. Be precise.”
Derrick thought, rubbing his smooth chin. Magda liked the square of his jaw and the loose tangle of hair he sported. She liked him, she believed, and vowed to do no harm. It should be easy, after all. A love spell between two people already in a marriage. How bad could it go?
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