Free The Love of My (Other) Life by Traci L. Slatton Page B

tutor’s shoulders. He turned away, told me I was too young and innocent, and to stop it because I didn’t know what I was doing. I had never felt so vulnerable.
    Not long after that, David had a party. His parents were out of town, and I finagled to get him alone in a closet and have my way with him. After that, we’d been together more or less forever… .
    Until three years ago.
    “There was no rejection in my world, Lolita,” Brian said. He was peering closely into my face, must have seen the emotions chasing themselves across it.
    I shook my head and grinned. “My mom was sick upstairs in bed. I was so humiliated. But no one knows about that, not even Ofee!”
    Brian raised my hand to his lips and kissed my palm. “You love red wine, but you’re allergic to it.
    You sometimes get a histamine reaction. Here.”
    He released my hand and gave me a folded photograph.
    I was suspicious but I opened it. There I was, smiling back at me, radiant in a big white wedding dress with a gossamer veil floating around me like a white aura. On either side of me stood Ofee and Brian, both in tuxedoes.
    “It’s photo-shopped,” I stated, though a shiver went along my spine. “Ofee would never wear a tuxedo, not in any universe.”
    “Happiest day of my life!” Brian said.
    “Do you need medication? This is a really elaborate stalker gig.” I held out the photo for him to take.
    Brian secreted it back on his person. His eyes were effervescent when they returned to me. “Let’s go back to your apartment. One of your drawings showed people having sex.”
    “None of my drawings shows people having sex!
    And neither are we. From now on, we’re strictly platonic.”
    But it wasn’t a vow I could keep when we got back to my apartment. Brian kissed me in that inscrutably irresistible way that high-jacked my good sense, and I blamed my lack of willpower on the red wine and my histamine reaction.
    Too bad I didn’t get a histamine reaction in this world.

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17
Nine of spades
    The next morning, I left a note for Brian next to him on the bed where he was still sleeping soundly. “Thanks for everything, you’re amazing, please leave,” read the note. “PS, I saved the last yogurt in the fridge for your breakfast. Please put my skull on the kitchen table.”
    I was in my office helping Mr. Jenkins figure out his amplifier telephone when cacophony erupted in the church. I had a sinking feeling, and when I peeked out into the church, sure enough, there in the nave was Brian performing magic for a crowd.
    He was clumsy and obvious, narrating his inept trickery with jolly, oblivious patter. It made me groan. I slammed my office door shut.
    “EH?” shouted Mr. Jenkins.
    “Nothing, nothing, Mr. Jenkins,” I said, waving him to silence. I took a moment to think deeply.
    What to do, what to do?
    Then I grabbed my cell phone. It was still working, though for how much longer, I didn’t know. My mobile bill was getting a little stale. I peered out through a crack in the door and waited for my best friend to answer his cell phone, half a world away.
    “Tessy, sweetheart, is that you?” Ofee drawled.
    “Ofee, I miss you!” I cried.
    “I miss you too, Tessy, but I only have a moment.
    I’m actually in Scorpio pose right now. Demonstrating for my students.”
    I had a flash of Ofee, unibrow and all, twisting himself into a pretzel while talking on the phone to me. In the background, beautiful Thai people served fruit and drinks to impressed onlookers.
    “Okay, sweetie. Don’t you still do privates with the dean’s wife at Columbia? Have you heard of a guy named Brian Tennyson?”
    “Brian who? Oh, wait, yeah. The physicist. He’s an author, too,” Ofee said. His voice changed timbre, and I could tell he was transitioning to a different pose.
    “What pose?” I asked. “You mean he’s a real professor?”
    “Flying crow,” Ofee said. He raised his voice, speaking to someone near him. “That’s great, Martin, what