InstructionbySeduction Read Free

like that. Or at least not that
bad. Just a few more years.
    Sitting up, Leah pulled a bunch of bubbles toward her and
rubbed them across her chest. They crackled as she crushed them and circled
them across her shoulders and arms and breasts.
    “It ends now,” Leah said aloud. “I’m not going to take their
crap anymore and I’m not letting anyone make me cry. Everything is a choice.
And I choose to love me for me. I don’t give a fuck-all what anyone else
thinks.”
    Wet and clean, Leah lifted herself from the bath water
feeling renewed and strangely stronger. The wonders of a good self-pep talk .
She wrapped a towel around herself, tucked the corner to keep it on and walked
back into her bedroom.
    The box was on her dresser sitting wide open.
    Leah stood paralyzed. In the months that had passed since
she bought it she had never been able to open it. She’d tried everything but
still it remained unmoved. And now there it was wide open for the world to see,
all on its own.
    You do not open the box .
    Leah took several cautious steps toward her favorite mystery,
afraid to blink and lose the illusion of the openness. But the closer she got
the vision remained the same. The box was open. It was no mirage.
    Swallowing hard, Leah reached up to the top of the dresser
and picked up the box. Her heart pounded painfully. What was in it? Had the old
man just smoked too much opium back in the day? Truth? The box was open. You
do not open the box.
    With a shaking hand, Leah lowered the box until she could
see inside it.
    It was empty.
    Bang, bang, bang.
    Leah yelped and dropped the box. The banging on her
apartment door sounded ten times as loud as it really was. She looked down,
panicked that she’d dropped the box. Certainly it was closed now. Certainly it
knew she was unworthy and careless and would be keeping all of its secrets to itself.
    But the box remained open, sitting upright on the carpet.
Leah bent over and picked it back up, then impulsively tried to close it. The
lid would not move. Leah laughed, a sound of freakish bewilderment. She pushed
hard but the more she tried to force it the less the lid would budge.
    Bang, bang, bang.
    “Who’s there?” Leah yelled.
    No answer.
    Leah put the box back on the dresser and walked into the
living room.
    “Who is it?” she called again. Still nothing.
    Against her better judgment Leah continued to move toward
the door, covered in nothing but her towel. Then she felt it again—that strange
familiarity she’d experienced at the flea market. Something that belonged to
her was near.
    “Who’s there?” This time it was no more than a whisper. It
didn’t matter. She was going to open the door no matter what.
    The deadbolt turned under Leah’s fingers. The click that
meant the difference between safety and vulnerability resounded through the
apartment like a shattered dish.
    She grasped the door handle and turned it, feeling the scene
move before her in slow motion. When she pulled it open, she didn’t know what
to expect. A ghost? Chinese poltergeist? Her mother?
    The man standing there was some kind of dream, perfect in
every way. He looked like he could have hung out with the Rat Pack in Vegas.
His dark-brown hair was cut short and clean, the perfect complement to his
basic black suit and white shirt. His black tie had tiny silver lines across
it. His green eyes had a hint of mischief in them and one corner of his mouth was
turned up into a bad-boy smirk. His hands were stuck casually in his pockets.
    “Hey.” With a short nod of his head, he proceeded to push
past Leah into her apartment. As he passed her, Leah shrank in shock at the
feeling that swelled within her. A feeling that had been sadly dormant for many
long months, maybe even years. Desire…passion…even lust. And here she was
feeling it for someone she’d never laid eyes on before.
    Leah stood, her mouth agape as this stranger walked into her
kitchen. The late January wind blowing straight into her