Free The Accidental Virgin by Valerie Frankel Page B

the corner of 71st Street, Stacy shook herself loose. Her dress was sticking to the tacky blood on her thighs from that vicious cat’s attack. Her arm was smarting from Idit’s military grip (Stacy bruised easily; she was sure she’d have an unsightly mark in a few hours). And she very nearly broke another heel.
    Idit, arms crossed over her mannish outfit, said, “I picked him up, cleaned him off, and carried him on my shoulders for nearly six months until he got you out of his system. He’s mine, and you’re not going to come along a year later and ruin everything I’ve been working toward.”
    “I’m sorry. He didn’t tell me he was engaged,” protested Stacy weakly. Idit stared at her with unbridled hostility. “I know that apologizing won’t do much good. But I am genuinely sorry. Nothing happened. We’d only just started…”
    “I’m glad Batty had the sense to try and stop you.”
    Hateful cat, thought Stacy. “May I…look, Brian is just confused. We, uh, it just happened.”
    “I don’t care what you did or why you did it,” said Idit, with the precision of a scalpel. “I want to get married. Brian is going to be my husband no matter who he sleeps with. I’ve been working for this, and I’ll achieve my goal.”
    That sounded strangely cold and impersonal. Stacy felt a swell of protectiveness for Brian. “You love him, of course.”
    “Yes, yes, I love him. I
chose
him,” said Idit. “And I believe that he loves me. But even if he doesn’t, he sees enough good in me or what I do for him that he’s agreed to spend the rest of his life as my husband.”
    “Forgive me for saying, but you don’t seem like a terribly warm and tender sort. Brian needs a lot of cuddling and hand-holding.” The reasons Stacy had to end it with him, she thought.
    “Forgive me for saying,” countered Idit, “but I’m not inclined to show my warm and tender side to the woman who just tried to seduce my fiancé. And you don’t have to worry about Brian. I know exactly what he needs.” She turned on the flat heels of her Hush Puppies and headed back toward her future. She was about 10 feet from Stacy when she looked over her shoulder and said, “We’ll never see each other again.”
    “I won’t be a bridesmaid?” asked Stacy.
    “Nor a bride.” She sniffed.

Chapter Six

     
    Wednesday, predawn
    T he outstretched arms on Stacy Temple’s Josie and the Pussycats clock pointed to 3 A.M. Her thoughts crawled from the gory events of the past two days to the salacious. (Stacy sat alone on a large turtle-shaped conference table in the middle of a dimly lit room. Suddenly, beams from above reveal naked men in cages surrounding the table. Somehow it is made known to Stacy that the imprisoned men have been locked inside for nearly a year — fed, watered, exercised, but deprived of physical contact of any kind while being forced to watch pornography for ten hours a day. Stacy was the first flesh-and-blood woman any of these twelve clones of Tony McGuinty had seen in months and months. They were practically frothing from every orifice at the very sight of her in a white lace thong and camisole set. With the slam of metal doors, the cages sprang open. The men emerged and rushed Stacy, a look of depraved starvation in their eyes, gigantic erections in their hands.)
    The ravaging of Stacy’s sleepy-time hours continued. Masturbation was not as soporific as she would have liked. Stacy remembered reading once that the worst thing for insomnia was watching the clock as the minutes of your life ticked by, unused. Her torture acute, Stacy sat upright in bed and threw back the covers. She wandered into her living room and turned on the computer. Might as well check e-mail. She signed on.
    Hurray,
she thought, when she saw that Gigi from swerve.com had written back. After the past couple of days, Stacy would welcome absolution from the woman who, unknowingly, had started Stacy on this quest. She opened the note and