Author's Note: This is a chapter I've been excited about for a while. Hopefully you'll see how far Crystal has come in the relatively short time we've known her. Please enjoy.
* * *
During the time we were forced to wait until Kat could take a pregnancy test, we tried to live as normally as possible. But we also operated under the assumption she was pregnant. We spent a great deal of time relaxing, sprinkling in work. Partying took a back seat, although Jess, Rita, and I had some fun occasionally. It was a comparatively domesticated life, which was, to my surprise, fairly easy to adjust to.
Jason and I had made a significant effort to get JP's movie funding off the ground. We decided to treat the financing like a more traditional venture capital effort, with the film productions the "fund" to get capitalized. We approached investors through Jason's bank, after promising to give a decent cut to them, but largely were able to treat it as an independent effort. That was important to me if I wanted to turn this into a serious money-maker for us. We were closing in on fully selling the fund when, at the end of a long Friday, Jason made an intriguing and surprising revelation.
"Wait, what?" I said, not sure I had heard him correctly.
"You heard me," he said with a smile. "Crystal's ex-husband wants to set up an appointment with her. At the agency."
"You're joking," I said. "No way!"
"Way, dude," Jason said.
"I don't know whether that's hilarious or just completely fucked up," I said.
"I told her to do it," he said. "Show him what he missed out on."
"I can dig that," I said. "How did Crystal react to it?"
"Oh, she loves it," Jason said with a laugh. "She wants to lord it over him. Put on a real show. But, honestly, she's not so keen on actually being with him again, especially like that."
"I can understand that," I said, a bit absently.
My mind started churning. I knew how Crystal's ex had treated her. He was a sack of shit. I also knew Crystal liked power games. She loved her newfound freedom and wanted to take charge. I could sympathize with her desire for revenge.
"What?" Jason said, shaking me back to reality.
"Huh?" I said.
"What were you just thinking?" he asked.
"Well, I mean," I stammered, "I don't know. If you wanted to ..." I let my words trail away.
"Come on, bro, tell me," he said. "If you've got an idea, I want to hear it."
"So, if you really want to fuck with this guy," I began, and I laid out a scenario that, objectively, probably was part daring and part stupid.
"Shit, man," Jason reacted after I told him. "That's genius! Grade A fucking genius!"
"I bet you could get Crystal to go for it," I said.
"She's totally going to go for it," he said. "It's so good."
"My only other recommendation is to do this at a hotel," I said. "You don't want to compromise the agency. Don't do it at the Hooker House."
"For sure," Jason said. "For sure."
"Oh, and one other thing," I added.
"What's that?" he asked.
"I want every last fucking detail, man," I said.
"You got it!" he said enthusiastically.
* * *
Two days later, my phone pinged with a text from Jason.
"Dude, we just wrapped it," he said. "You would not believe what went down. It was insane!"
"I want details!" I said.
"Let's meet for drinks," he said. "Crystal is headed back to the Hooker House."
I named our favorite wine bar, which also happened to be appropriately loud and crowded, which would let us speak freely.
"Thirty minutes," he said.
By the time we were seated across from each other in a leather booth, voices cascading on the exposed brick walls and concrete floor surrounding us, Jason was already talking excitedly. He laid out the afternoon with Crystal and her ex-husband at the St. Regis in exquisite detail.
The plan had been for Jason to wait in the hotel's bar until Crystal had gotten paid and laid down some of the plan's preliminaries. Then, Jason would head up to the room, ostensibly as security for Crystal. That part, it seemed, had gone on without a hitch.
"So she texted me," Jason said, "and I headed up."
For almost the next hour, he talked excitedly and without interruption from me as narrated Crystal's appointment. I was riveted, taking it all in.
* * *
When Jason had knocked on the door to the room, Crystal answered the door in a red bustier, matching Brazilian thong, and stockings, with a garter belt to boot. She was a picture of seduction and lust, and she grinned at Jason as he walked inside. What he found, he couldn't believe. Crystal had done it. She had handcuffed her ex to the bed and tied his ankles to the four-poster as well.
"You're just in time," Crystal said. "The show's just about to start."
Her ex protested insistently when he saw Jason sit down at the desk in the bedroom, but Crystal brushed him off as required security. Jason picked up the envelope that sat in front of him and counted the stack of $100 bills. It was an even $2,000. Crystal danced for her ex, stripping in a disciplined and seductive rhythm as she unsnapped the garters, rolled down the stockings, and let the bustier fall on the floor.
"Do you miss these, Benjamin?" Crystal said in a taunting tone, as she cupped her breasts.