The Wonder of You (A Different Kind of Wonderland Book 1) Read online

  Guess I’m going to have to work a little to get in there.

  This will be good for me, I thought. When was the last time I actually had to exert any real effort to get a woman into bed? Although, after what happened, I hadn’t had anyone in my bed for over a year. I hadn’t seen the point and, besides, it had always come easy.

  Too easy.

  There she was in her ID photo, the perfect picture of that Cheshire grin in the palm of my hand. She had her glossy dark, bourbon-colored hair twisted into one of those messy buns on top of her head, with glasses perched on the tip of her nose. The only thing missing was a pencil behind her ear. She was every bit the graduate student, intellectual and adorable all at once.

  Now that I was sure this monstrosity of a purse was hers, I was going to enjoy exploring the shit out of it and I had no intention of playing fair.

  Fuck that.

  I wanted this woman.

  She had a couple of concrete blocks posing as textbooks in there. The first one was Obeying the Master: Evolution of Human Sexuality in the Kink Community. Man, that’s a hot title. But after thumbing through a few pages, I laughed to myself, because leave it to a bunch of tight-assed academics to make a topic like kinky sex read like stereo instructions.

  The other one wasn’t any more interesting. Pity. I was always up for learning something new.

  She had a lined, spiral notebook in there too, with a shit-ton of sex info, citing trends and statistics in the U.S. and worldwide, along with some interesting commentary of her own. Alice may be a good lil’ grad student, but she was no bloodless academic. Just looking through the margins, I could tell she had a fire in her belly that was anything but textbook.

  “Hey buddy, ride’s over,” the cabbie said over his shoulder.

  “Oh right,” I glanced at the meter and gave the guy a fifty. “Keep the change.”

  The cabbie kept thanking me, which always made me uncomfortable, so I pushed out fast. I shoved the notebook back in and cradled the bag under my arm. I knew I was demonstrating a level of weirdness, even for me, but I didn’t want anyone even looking at her bag. I wanted to be the only one who got the chance to explore what was inside Alice’s head.

  Being raised by a single mom, I knew a woman’s purse wasn’t just someplace to keep her shit together. It was a small, portable caravan of her life with everything she held important, like a tangible, tactile diary.

  Of course, I made a living, a really good one, out of finding meaning in ordinary objects, of taking the discarded and transforming them into something new. So there was a strong possibility I was building up this impromptu scavenger hunt, and this woman, into way more than I should. She sure as hell was beautiful, and having a backbone made her even more captivating, especially when I thought about . . . well, the shit I tried not thinking about anymore.

  Because thinking about what happened has never made the present any better and I haven’t found anything close to an answer. Maybe not getting an answer to the countless pleas to any higher power that would listen was the universe’s way of telling me I didn’t deserve a reprieve—getting no answer was my punishment for playing God.

  I shook my head, physically trying to rid myself of that train wreck. For now, I wanted to shut myself off from the world and get to know this woman.

  As soon as I walked into the studio, I spotted Ingrid standing over one of her canvases, placed on the floor in front of her. Rail thin, she was wearing her usual uniform of jean shorts over ripped black tights, swimming in an oversized sweatshirt, with her Doc Martens and a beanie covering her electric blue hair.

  “Everything taken care of?” I saddled up next to her, studying her progress.

  “Yeah, total cake,” she answered without losing focus on her painting. “Maybe someday it’ll sink in that your name is like a Wonka golden ticket.”

  “Still?

  She met my gaze, cocking one brow straight up like a super villain. “Hells yeah. In fact,” she turned, reaching over to her desk, grabbing a message slip, “here’s another one for your collage. It’s a beauty.”

  Confirmed dinner for three, 8:30pm. Make sure to ask for Tiffany. She’s the VIP liaison. Her personal cell is 917.555.0439 if you need her before or after your reservation.

  She also asked if you were ‘involved’ and what you liked in a woman.

  PS: I should get a raise for having to deal with this shit.

  PPS: The feminist revolution wept today. It was a long, ugly cry.

  I let out a sound between a laugh and a bark.

  “How did you answer this time?”

  Being my assistant for so long, she was asked on a consistent basis if we were together or whom else I may be fucking. In the beginning she’d just roll her eyes, but once my career took off, she had a list of retorts at the ready.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I went for truth this time. I told her I was a gold star, Chapstick lesbian who’d rock her world more than you ever could. That seemed to shut her up.”

  I put out my fist, which she bumped back without even having to look up from her work.

  “Nice,” I said, handing the slip back. “Just mark out the contact info and put it with the others.”

  “Will do,” she said as she shoved it into her pocket. “Got enough yet?”

  “Probably, but it’s always good to have extras.”

  I was currently working on an art piece partially made out of all the slips of paper given to me since I’d become famous. Business cards, torn matchbook covers with phone numbers scrawled inside . . . all had various come-ons and requests. I had quite a collection, enough to make a three dimensional, mixed media sculpture depicting a battle between the gods Narcissus and Nemesis, my own postmodern reinterpretation of the Greek myth.

  “Should I ask why you’re cradling a woman’s purse like it’s your ‘precious?’”

  I couldn’t help but smile to myself, knowing she couldn’t go a day without at least one Lord of the Rings or CS Lewis reference—some of the few decent residuals emanating from her strict, religious upbringing. I met her inquisitive gaze. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “’Mmhmm.” She wasn’t buying it, but I wasn’t surprised; Ingrid had a built-in bullshit detector. Guess her time living on the streets honed that skill. I tried not to think about the way I found her because it made me want to punch things, mainly her parents.

  “I’m going up,” I told her. “So, no calls, no interruptions. Got it?”

  She gave a smart-assed salute. “Aye aye, captain. Enjoy getting in touch with your feminine side.”

  I offered her the bird as my response, although she knew me well enough by now to know it didn’t have any real ire behind it.

  Moving through the studio never got old, especially having this amount of square footage in the city. While everyone else was running from lower Manhattan after 9–11, I knew I could take that chunk of change I’d gotten from my father-slash-sperm donor and actually afford a decent-sized, live/work space. My building used to be, of all things, an international bank with offices above. Now, the first three floors were studio space and everything above that was apartments I rented out.

  The top floor was all mine though. My sanctuary. And that’s where I was headed now.

  I had gutted the top floor myself; keeping the industrial feel and making sure it was designed with as little clutter as possible. Every time I came home, I’d see my city through the floor-to-ceiling windows, taking in the surrounding skyline that stretched to the stars—and I felt as close to settled and peaceful as I ever have.

  I sank into the corner of my L-shaped suede sectional, cracked all my knuckles at once and settled in. Just as I’d expected, there was a whole world in her bag.

  I went back to her lined notebook because, even though most of what was inside appeared to be dull-as-shit lecture notes, she did have some cool doodles, random thoughts and quotes peppered along the margins.

  Just thumbing through each page, I could im
agine her sitting in class with those sexy librarian glasses on and her hair in a knot on the top of her head, chewing on the end of her pen, half listening to some fossil droning on.

  Man, did she know all these quotes off the top of her head or did she write them down as she heard them? Some were deep, but others were funny as hell:

  You cannot make everybody happy.

  You are not a taco.

  Group projects help me understand

  Why Batman works alone

  I will never

  Apologize for being me.

  You should apologize for asking me to be

  Anything else.

  In my defense,

  The moon was full and I was left

  Unsupervised.

  I felt like I was getting a cheat sheet on everything Alice. I may not have known the particulars, but I certainly could surmise their effects. I was getting to know her in a way I had not earned.

  Crawl inside

  This body,

  Find me

  Where I am most ruined

  Love me there.

  ~ Rune Lazuli

  That last one slayed me, sucker punching me right in the gut. No way. I’ll never let anyone get under my skin like that again.

  Not again.

  Never again.

  The only thing left that I hadn’t violated, was that hot pink, drawstring bag. I knew I should have left it alone, that once I looked inside, I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about how she used it on herself.

  “Fuck it,” I mumbled, untying the perfect bow she had made and loosened the strings’ hold. Sure enough, inside was a bottle of lube and a vibrator. I sucked in a harsh breath as my cock swelled, straining against my zipper.

  I couldn’t help but imagine her using that toy while I watched, spreading those porcelain white legs wide apart for me so I could admire her delectable, hot pink center. Alice may have been little, doll-like even, with those big blue eyes, but she was no girl. She was a woman—one who owned her sexual needs and desires. Her carrying around her vibrator was the hottest fucking thing I’d ever discovered, like she kept it close in case she had an ‘emergency’ and needed to get off ASAP.

  I wanted to know more about this woman, especially how she tasted and sounded when she let it all go. That meant, for the first time in a long while, I was going to do the chasing.

  “I knew who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

  ―Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

  Alice

  “I cannot believe I did that. In the history of my entire life, I have never, ever done something so, so . . .” I was so worked up I couldn’t even finish my sentence.

  “Alice, you’re twenty-five years old and have been stuck in the same state your whole life until a month ago. Your entire life hasn’t happened yet,” Caroline said. She may have thought I was overreacting, but that didn’t stop my sister from helping me search through her apartment. I knew it was no use. My purse wasn’t here—and it wasn’t back at the room I had temporarily rented until one of my sister’s roommates had moved out. I had called, but I knew I was wasting my time.

  A shock of white blond hair poked through my doorway, attached to a girl with pale grey eyes rapidly blinking.

  “Alice, what’s wrong? You look like you lost your pet puppy or something.”

  It was Lulu, one of the remaining roommates in the place I now shared with my sister in Chelsea. They had a two-and-a-half bedroom—yeah I know, don’t ask, ‘cuz only in New York would a misshapen nook count as a half bedroom. It was still a space Lulu and Caroline had gotten some rent money for, so them, offering it to me free of charge was huge. My program offered university housing at a reduced rate for doctoral students, but it was still ridiculous. I was devoting to studying sexuality, but I didn’t want to work a pole in order to finance it.

  Of course, I had offered to pay something for the space, which was only big enough for a twin and a storage locker, but both girls insisted they were good as long as I kept their place neat and in groceries. I knew it was just my sister’s way of letting me save face. She didn’t need me for neatness; she was totally OCD about her apartment. Everything always had its place.

  Everything except my bag, which was still missing.

  “I lost my purse,” I said, feeling my throat getting all tight. “This guy, this total jerk, who needed a cab got me all flustered. I think I left it in there.”

  Lulu was fidgeting with her hands while biting the corner of her lip, acting like a skittish, scared-of-its-own-shadow little rabbit. When I had first met her, I thought she was on something because, well, no way was someone that naturally high-strung and anxious, but I soon realized that was how Lulu got when she felt out of control.

  “This is my fault. I should’ve called into work and asked for the morning off so I could’ve helped you two today.”

  “Me being empty-headed has not one thing to do with you, honey,” I tried to console her. “Don’t take that on, ‘kay?”

  She shrugged, tucking both hands inside her jean pockets and letting out a slow breath, one of the techniques she told me she had learned in therapy.

  That’s another thing I’ve learned since coming to New York: you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting either a therapist or someone going to therapy.

  I knew Lulu never took more than three seconds to consider what she was going to wear on any given day, but I still appreciated the chuckle I got reading her T-shirt: Computer engineers know it’s not the length of the vector that counts but how you apply the force.

  Yeah, she was a total nerd. She wasn’t just smart, Lulu was like Mensa-level, thank sweet Jesus she’s hasn’t succumbed to the dark side, brilliant. Oh, and she was crazy-beautiful too.

  I’d almost consider rear-ending a van full of nuns for bone structure like hers. The only thing she lacked was sense; the woman was living proof common sense wasn’t so common after all.

  “Well, did you have anything important in it?”

  That stopped me cold. Dear Lord, for someone who was a certifiable genius, she could be scarily clueless sometimes.

  “You’re kidding me, right? You do realize most women don’t walk around with their keys and a billfold on a lanyard like a cowbell around their neck, like you do.”

  My bad mood had no effect on her. She shrugged her shoulders again. “Well, maybe you should. It’s really convenient. What else do you need besides keys, a credit card, ID, and lip balm?”

  “It wasn’t just my bag, it was my portable lifeline. Besides my wallet and make-up, I had my class notes, a couple of textbooks worth more than my kidneys, not to mention Eduardo.”

  “Who’s Eduardo?” Caroline asked as she walked into the ‘room.’

  “That’s the name of her vibrator,” Lulu clarified for her.

  That comment earned me a judgey look. “So let me see if I’ve got this right: My sister—who’s already studying to be a sex therapist—not only names her vibrator but also takes ‘him’ wherever she goes?”

  “It’s highly probable that other women in New York do the same,” Lulu said. “Fifty three percent of the population of New York is female. That’s a little over four-and-a-half million women. Recent statistics show that one in three women owns a vibrator. So it’s totally feasible that, out of one point three million—”

  “Thank you, Dr. Kinsey. That’ll do,” my sister interrupted, all while giving me the stink-eye. “And don’t encourage her. Alice is already a unique enough creation.”

  “Don’t look at me like I’m touched in the head or something,” I said.

  Both her hands were up, palms out. “Absolutely not. It’s totally normal for someone to carry their sex toys around with them—in their pocketbook.”

  “First of all, it’s a bag. No one’s used the word ‘pocketbook’ since 1955. And second of all, I usually don’t carry it around, but even if I did, there’d be nothing wrong with it. I j
ust shoved it in there when I was packing all my stuff is all.”

  Just then, Rayna—friend and neighbor, who lived in the penthouse of our building—walked in, surveying the unholy mess I had made in my attempt to find my bag.

  “Hey, you know your front door was wide open. Everything okay?”

  My sister crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Alice, I know you’ve only been in the city for only a short time, but you have got to remember you’re not in Devil’s Peak anymore.”

  I could feel my face and neck turn red. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m really sorry.”

  “What’s going on?” Rayna asked while leaning her curvy hip against the doorjamb.

  I recounted the story of my carelessness yet again.

  “Well, if you can remember the name of the cab company, I’ll call them for you.”

  I met Rayna’s gaze. “Thanks, that would be great, but let’s face it: this is New York. It’s as good as gone.”

  “True, but I’ll give it a try,” she said as she whipped out her phone and dialed the number of the cab company I gave her. She walked into the other room so she could hear. In the meantime, Lulu was also standing by the doorway, looking like she didn’t know whether she was coming or going. That’s when I remembered.

  “Hey, I know you’re meeting with Beck soon. No need to stick around here. It’ll be okay.”

  Beck was the Beckett MacMillan—as in the founder of MacMillan Technologies—and he was considering backing some of Lulu’s inventions. Turns out he was just as much of an obsessed gadget geek as she was, and he obviously recognized genius when he found it.

  “If you’re sure . . .” she hedged. “You know I hate being late. It’s an important date.”

  “Go,” I insisted. “And use that gloss I got you. It’ll plump your lips and make them even more luscious than they already are.”