Chapter 2: The Suggestion Blooms
The morning light felt accusatory. It sliced through the gap in the blinds, illuminating dust motes dancing over the wreckage of Greg’s nightstand. The empty whiskey glass stood as a monument to his earlier panic, the thrill in the garage curdling into a nauseating fear of what he’d done. What he could do.
Jessica stirred beside him. She made a soft, catlike sound of waking, stretching her arms above her head. The duvet fell away, revealing the slender strap of her silk camisole. Her eyes opened, meeting his. For a suspended moment, there was no guard there, just the soft haze of sleep. Then, like a shutters slamming down, her expression cooled. She noticed his stare and pulled the sheet up, turning to look at the clock.
“Ugh. It’s late,” she said, her voice morning-rough and already tinged with dissatisfaction.
The power from last night was a dormant live wire in his gut. The fear was still there, but underneath it pulsed a desperate, hungry curiosity. It wasn’t enough to have kissed her once. He needed to know the shape of this thing he held.
“You slept well,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.
“I suppose.” She sat up, running a hand through her tangled hair. “I still feel a bit foggy from last night. That whole hypnotism thing was… bizarre.”
Now. He had to do it now, before the day hardened her.
He rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand. He made his voice low, intimate, a gentle echo of Valois’s cadence. “Good girl.”
The effect was instantaneous. The slight tension in her shoulders dissolved. Her breathing deepened. Her gaze, which had been darting toward the responsibilities of the day, settled on him, placid and utterly open. It was breathtaking. It was terrifying.
“You had fun last night,” he whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs. “You felt a sense of freedom. You should chase that feeling today. You’ve been so… constrained. All those beautiful clothes you hide in your closet. You’d feel so liberated wearing something that makes you feel alive. Something bold. You want to feel the sun on your skin, don’t you? You want to feel… seen.”
He leaned closer, watching the words sink into the still waters of her eyes. “When you wake up, you’ll remember how good it felt to be spontaneous at the gala. You’ll want to carry that with you today. It’s your own idea. A new mood.”
He paused, the silence in the room immense. Then, gently, he said, “Wake up, Jessica.”
She blinked. A slight frown knit her brows for a second, then smoothed away. She looked at him, and it was just Jessica again, but a Jessica with a new, determined light in her eye. “You know,” she said, throwing the covers off with a decisive movement. “I’m tired of feeling so frumpy.”
Greg’s blood sang. “Oh?”
“Yes. I’m going to wear that new blouse today. The silk one from that boutique in the city.”
He knew the one. It was diaphanous, a pale peach cloud of fabric. He’d bought it for her on a hopeful anniversary two years ago. It had lived in its bag, tags attached, ever since. “The sheer one?” he asked, feigning mild surprise.
“It’s not sheer, it’s ethereal,” she corrected, but without her usual sharpness. She was already heading to her walk-in closet. “And I’m not wearing a stifling bra with it. It’s meant to flow.”
Greg lay back, a slow smile spreading across his face. He listened to the quiet sounds of her getting ready: the rustle of fabric, the soft click of hangers. The sickly morning light suddenly seemed golden.
An hour later, they were seated on the veranda of the Willow Creek Country Club, the Sunday brunch crowd buzzing around them. Mimosa flutes caught the sun. Jessica laughed at something their friend Liam said, a full-throated, easy sound that made several heads turn.
The peach blouse was a masterpiece of suggestion. It flowed and clung with every shift of her body. As she leaned forward to refill Liam’s glass from the champagne bottle nestled in its ice bucket, the neckline gaped slightly. The morning sun behind her lit the thin fabric into transparency, silhouetting the soft, full curves of her breasts, the dark nipples stiffened by the cool morning air.
Liam, mid-sentence, stammered into silence. His wife, Chloe, glanced from Jessica’s chest to her husband’s frozen face, her mouth a thin, tight line.
“It’s just so gorgeous out today,” Jessica said, sitting back, completely oblivious. She spread her arms wide, the fabric pulling taut across her chest. “I just woke up and thought, life’s too short for boring clothes.”
“That’s certainly a… philosophy,” Chloe said, her voice brittle. She deliberately adjusted the cardigan tied over her own sensible sundress.
Greg watched it all from behind his sunglasses. He sipped his bloody mary, the spice sharp on his tongue. The power was a warm, heavy stone in his pocket. He saw the forced averting of eyes from Mark, another friend at the table, who suddenly became intensely interested in the grain of the teak wood. He saw the lingering, hungry glances from a man at the next table over.
Jessica was radiant. She talked more, her gestures wider, her opinions delivered with a newfound, breezy confidence. She was the woman from the stage—uninhibited, free—plopped right into the middle of their meticulously dull suburban life. And she had no idea why.
“You seem different today, Jess,” Mark finally managed, his eyes carefully fixed on her face.
“Do I?” She took a sip of mimosa, leaving a perfect orange lipstick stain on the flute. “I just feel good. Light. Maybe it’s the champagne at eleven.”
“Maybe,” Chloe said, not sounding convinced.
The brunch wound down. As they stood to leave, Jessica hugged Chloe goodbye. The embrace, always a bit awkward, was now charged. Chloe’s arms were stiff pats on Jessica’s back, her face a mask of displeasure over her friend’s shoulder.
Walking to the car, Jessica linked her arm with Greg’s. “That was fun,” she sighed, content. “Chloe seemed a bit off, though. Do you think she’s okay?”
“She’s fine,” Greg said, opening the passenger door for her. “Probably just jealous.”
“Of what?” Jessica laughed, sliding in. She caught her reflection in the side mirror, tilting her head. She didn’t adjust her blouse. She just smiled at what she saw.
Greg closed her door. He stood for a second in the parking lot, the sun hot on the back of his neck. The experiment was a monumental success. He had rewritten a piece of their reality with a whisper. The heady triumph was immediately followed by a colder, more calculating realization. This was a tool of infinite precision. He had solved for intimacy last night. Today, he had solved for image, for pride, for the petty satisfaction of watching other men want what was his.
But as he started the car and glanced at Jessica, humming along to the radio, a new question etched itself into his mind. She was a sail, and he now controlled the wind. Where did she actually want to go? And what happened when a sail, pushed by a constant, unnatural gale, finally tore free?