Fixed 01 - Fantasy Fix Read Free Page A

commanding brute.”
    “Oh, wow,” Missy breathed, her mouth rounding into an ‘o’ of surprise, and she stared at her friend through new eyes. “Reggie, I can’t believe you never mentioned this. What else have you been keeping secret from us?”
    “Nothing,” Reggie insisted, though it came out kind of muffled by the hands in which she had buried her flaming face. “Not a damn thing. How could I keep secrets from you people? You’re worse than tabloid reporters!”
    Danice grinned. “Hey, it’s not like you want to get back together with Gregory the Grotesque. Now we just know you’re a wild thing in the bedroom. No biggie.”
    “Oh, not at all.” Reggie drained her wine glass and refilled it, taking it with her when she curled into a ball in the corner of her sofa. “Humiliation never killed anyone. I’m sure I’ll get over it in another couple of incarnations.”
    Missy, always the softy, wiped the smile off her face and squeezed Reggie’s arm. “Hey, it’s not so bad. It’s not like you don’t know anything embarrassing about any of us. I mean, come on. You know about my mountain man thing. You know Danice got picked up by a marine on shore leave. You know Ava auditioned for a strip show. Let’s face it, honey. You’re not the only girl out there with…sophisticated tastes.”
    Seeing their words were maybe beginning to get through to their blushing comrade, Corinne perched on the arm of the sofa beside Reggie and topped off the other woman’s drink. “She’s right, you know. Besides, we’re your best friends. We’d love you even if you had secret fantasies about Dan Quayle. We’d think you were insane, but we’d still love you.”
    That drew a reluctant smile.
    “We would,” Danice insisted. “A little kink ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, girl. If your fantasies were as vanilla as the rest of you, that’s when I’d start to worry.”
    Ava waved a hand to get their attention. “All true, of course. And, since our reluctantly cooperative friend has two fantasies that work so very well together, I think we can safely assure her that we are going to make sure they come true, and quite quickly, as well. Next week happens to be the last Friday of the month, which means the five of us will be having a very interesting night in the village. If I can propose a toast?”
    The women reached for their glasses and held them aloft in anticipation.
    “To our dear friend Regina,” Ava said after a brief pause. “And to her very own Fantasy Fix. May they be very happy together!”

Chapter Two
     
    Just because the gods had abandoned her to a cruel fate didn’t stop Reggie from praying they’d keep her from breaking her ankle.
    She took as deep a breath as the black satin corset her friends had laced her into would allow, and concentrated very hard on balancing on her four-inch heels while she descended the steps into the darkened club.
    Seven solid days of frantic pleading, threats and attempted bribery had failed to sway Ava or any of the other three women from their determination to “Fix” Reggie. They insisted on making the scheduled trip to the Mausoleum, an unrepentantly Gothic nightclub in the heart of the East Village. None of them had even shown any sympathy for Reggie’s pleas, except for Missy.
    Even then, as softhearted as she was, Missy refused to side with Reggie against the others. Instead she’d tried to offer reassurance.
    “It’s not like Ava is really going to pawn you off on a loser, Reg,” Missy had said over the phone earlier. “She was just trying to get your goat for giving us such a hard time. She’d kill me if she knew I told you this, but she knows a guy she’s been planning to hook you up with forever, and she’s having him meet us at the club. I’ve met him, and he’s great. Now will you relax?”
    The answer to that, a resounding no of a headache, currently throbbed behind her temples in time to the industrial-techno music that boomed through the