Hex and the Single Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

revelation. She replayed botched sexual encounters in her past. To compensate for her
    ambivalence, for her lack of attraction, for the man’s incompetence, she’d fantasized about other men, during.
    “Seeing him in person at the restaurant tonight must have been some kind of trigger,” said Hoff. “I want William Dearborn! He’s a man. I’m a man. This means I’m gay.” He looked accusingly at Emma. “All because of your
    blowjob. I don’t know whether to thank you, kill you, or throw up.”
    “Are those the only options?” she asked.
    Hoff stood. “I’ve never had the faintest interest in men. The idea of sex with a man has always made me gag. I’ve loved girls since I was five. I must have suppressed my homosexuality so deeply that I’ve overcompensated with unrelenting lust for women.”
    “There could be another explanation,” said Emma tentatively.
    “Such as?”
    “Such as, I was thinking about William while blowing you and you somehow knew.”
    He considered it. “Not possible. You were so into it. You were honest and loving. Right now, looking at your bare legs, I’m getting hard. I’m twitching in my pants. You’d think I was straight as a missile.”
    On that tantalizing note, Hoff fled her apartment, leaving Emma alone with her revelation and frustration.
    All this time, at the height of her excitement, Emma had been unwittingly sending a gay porn slideshow into the minds of her lovers.
    No wonder they ran away screaming.
    Chapter 5
    “B oudoir?” asked Victor. “Hay loft? Beach? Classroom? Forest of nymphs? Planet Strumpet?”
    “How about the dungeon?” Emma sat on a beanbag chair on the floor of Victor’s studio, lazily flipping through the portfolio of photos he’d taken for previous The Good Witch, Inc. clients. The sun was brutally bright that late October morning, its rays burrowing into Emma’s hungover brain. Even though Victor’s studio windows were covered with blackout curtains, Emma couldn’t bear to take off her shades. When bloodshot, her eyes looked particularly bizarre.
    After Hoff deserted her last night, she’d dipped into the Bailey’s. Big mistake.
    “On second thought, don’t wheel out the racks yet,” said Emma. “Daphne is the type to bring her own props.”
    “Do I get paid extra if she annoys me?”
    “Charge her double. Triple. She can afford it.”
    “Tell me again how you licked William Dearborn’s uvula.”
    Emma shushed him. “Daphne will be here any minute. She can’t know about that.”
    “She should know he has a girlfriend.”
    Emma closed the portfolio. “I make men think they’re gay,” she whined. “This is just further proof that I am not destined for love. I’m stuck, I tell you. Stuck in a halfway world where I can see everything, hear a pin drop on the subway, taste a single grain of nutmeg in a muffin, smell the molded cheese in your fridge—please throw that away—
    but I’ll never be touched. I’ll never have love. I’m broke and alone. Bamboozled out of my life savings; cheated out of having a life.”
    Victor said, “Do I get paid extra if you annoy me?”
    “Admit that this is a hell of a conundrum,” she said. “Sending images by accident, that’s scary.” Until last night, Emma believed she had complete control.
    “From what you tell me,” said Victor, “William Dearborn didn’t shrivel at your touch.”
    “I reflected on that fact for some time last night between obsessively plucking my eyebrows and alphabetizing my pantry,” she said. “He was like a throwback to the stupid, thoughtless sex of my teens and early twenties. Before the trouble began. When Dearborn kissed me, I could barely breathe, let alone think about other men.”
    “You may have gone overboard on the eyebrows.”
    “Too thin?” she asked, touching them.
    “Makeup table’s free,” he said, taking her by the wrist and escorting her to the vanity. “Do all women fantasize about other men during sex?”
    Emma sat down and