Mona's Honeymoon Fantasy (Delta of Venus Inc.) (2 page)

“Miss Porter,
I’ll be honest with you. I think the best way of losing your virginity would be
to find a man who loves you and doesn’t give a damn whether you’ve been
completely chaste or an utter slut. Unfortunately, if you want to have
biological children then the clock is ticking on that particular scenario.
Wouldn’t you agree?”

Mona nodded.

“If you prefer,
we can arrange for a wildly attractive man, who also happens to be an expert in
pleasuring women, take care of this for you.” She paused dramatically as Mona
considered this option. “So. You tell me, what is the more viable solution to
your problem? Wait and see or live out your ultimate fantasy? It’s your
decision.”

Mona grinned.
“Well, when you put it that way it seems silly not to take advantage of your
service.”

Miss Bright
nodded. “Indeed. Now, what kind of traits were you looking for in your faux
bridegroom?”

“I guess I want
what every woman wants.” Mona shrugged. “Someone kind and intelligent, with a
sense of humour. And good personal grooming habits. I know it’s just for a
weekend but I can’t see myself being comfortable around someone who doesn’t
take care of himself. Slobs aren’t sexy.”

“So what you’re
telling me is that you don’t want a dirty jerk? That’s your fantasy man? You
don’t set the bar very high, do you?”

Mona gave her an
exasperated look. “I’ve been setting the bar way too high. That’s my problem. I
just thought I would start with the deal breakers. How specific do women usually
get when describing their fantasy man?”

“Typically our
clients bring in a picture of a celebrity crush or a male model to give me some
idea what they’re looking for. One client brought in a romance novel and she
wanted me to provide the hero from the book jacket.”

Mona`s eyes
widened in disbelief. “You mean one of those shirtless guys with the rippling
abs and sinewy forearms? The ones that never actually leave the gym in real
life?”

“Well, a
reasonable facsimile was provided, yes. All our SFs are in top physical
condition but none of them spend an inordinate amount of time working out.
They’re too busy for that.”

Mona covered her
mouth with one hand. “They service that many women?”

Miss Bright
smiled at Mona’s shocked expression. “No, most of them have jobs and lives.
They’re well-rounded and educated men who also happen to enjoy many sports. We
don’t keep them in a stud storage locker, you know.”

Mona chewed on
her lip. “So if I said I wanted a guy who looks like Superman, you have the Man
of Steel tucked away somewhere?”

“His Fortress of
Solitude is just a phone call away. Blue tights and all. Is that what you’re
looking for?”

Mona gave a
delighted laugh. “Hmmm…that is a tempting idea but to be honest, I’ve always
found Clark Kent more appealing.”

Miss Bright made
another notation in Mona’s folder. “Interesting. You prefer the nerdy alter ego
to the hero. That’s a new one. Anything else you can tell me? More deal
breakers?”

“Not really. I
mean, I trust that your guys are all reasonably attractive and adept at this
whole sex thing, so I really don’t know what else to request. Just someone
sweet and genuine, I guess.”

Miss Bright
closed the folder and gave Mona a long, measuring look. “You think your fantasy
man should be sweet?”

Mona frowned and
leaned back. “I don’t mean that he needs to recite poetry or throw flower
petals at my feet. I’m not looking for some over-the-top romantic gestures. I
just want him to be kind and gentle. Is that so wrong?”

Miss Bright
shook her head. “Forgive me for saying this but sweet is the last thing you
need. The right man for this fantasy should challenge you. He should make you
feel desired and excited, maybe even a bit angry.”

Mona’s large
dark eyes widened. “Let me get this straight. You think my fantasy man should
annoy me?”

Miss Bright
nodded. “Absolutely. Think about it. Imagine yourself in bed with your sweet,
tender lover.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against her chair’s
back. Her voice took on a lilting quality as she described the scene. “It’s a
warm, tropical night and the windows are open to let in a cool ocean breeze. You
can hear the waves lapping and the palm trees rustling outside. The Egyptian
cotton sheets slide against your dewy skin and then he’s there, on top of you.
He’s kissing you softly, whispering in your ear how beautiful you are. It’s all
so perfect and sickeningly earnest.” She sat up abruptly and her eyes snapped
open. “But ask yourself this? Is it exciting? Arousing? Or do you think you
would find yourself freezing up at the last second? Because no matter how
sincere and wonderful this man is, he’s still a stranger who’s there to take
your virginity. If it was me I’d prefer someone to distract me from the
awkwardness of the situation. A playful, sexy, and somewhat irritating man
could provide you with an experience that accomplishes your goal but is fun and
pleasurable as well. Doesn’t that sound more appealing?”

Mona bit her lip
and seemed to consider Miss Bright’s suggestion for a long, drawn-out moment.
“I understand what you’re saying but I chose a honeymoon fantasy because I
wanted every woman’s ideal. I’ve waited for this my whole life and I want to be
able to remember this experience fondly. Being pissed off isn’t part of that,
so I’m going to have to insist on what we originally agreed upon. I want a
besotted bridegroom who takes my virginity with gentle passion, not some obnoxious
comedian who cracks jokes as he’s screwing me.”

Miss Bright
sighed. “That’s not precisely what I meant but I see you’re set on this course
of action. So I will do my best to give you what you want. This is your
fantasy, after all.”

“Yes, it is. But
I do appreciate your input, not to mention your honesty. You’ve obviously had a
great deal more experience in this area.” She waved her hand at the yellow
folder on the desk. “So answer me this: am I being unreasonable? Is sweet too
much to ask? Your guys must be pretty jaded. Maybe they’re not capable of
fulfilling my fantasy. Should I forget the whole thing?”

Miss Bright
shook her head and gave a short laugh. “Oh no. That’s not even an issue.
Believe me. Most of our Scene Facilitators are quite capable of tenderness. But
it is a rare request. Most women come to us to have their more depraved
fantasies fulfilled. The loss of true innocence is something different entirely.
I’m sure it will be a welcome change for whoever takes on this particular
challenge.”

“Then you think
I came to the right place?”

“Indeed I do.”
Miss Bright stood up again and held out her hand to Mona. “It will be my
pleasure to make your fantasy a reality.” The two women shook hands briefly and
then walked towards the tall, double-doors of Miss Bright’s office together.

 They walked
slowly down the long hall, making arrangements as their high heels clicked on
the cool grey marble beneath their feet. They passed the conference room on the
right and Miss Bright glanced inside. No meetings were scheduled this morning but
she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Pausing she
looked closer and nearly stumbled into Miss Porter. She knew exactly who was in
there. Inwardly she groaned as the tall, dark shape sitting at the head of the
table slid his chair down the length of the long room to better track their
movements down the hall. By the time they reached the lobby he was standing in
the conference room doorway, watching them with undisguised interest.

Miss Bright
ignored him. Instead she focused on hustling Mona onto the elevator before she
could spy the powerful man staring at them with the predatory gaze. It just
wouldn’t do if her client saw him before the scene was set. Plus, she’d have to
do some fast talking to get him to help her out with this fantasy. He wasn’t
exactly a fan of her work. In fact, he thought fulfilling fantasies for a
living made her a pimp. Asking him to act as a Scene Facilitator would require
calling in a few favours. If he wasn’t so perfect for this particular fantasy she
would never even mention it. He was exactly what a certain forty-year-old
virgin needed, even if she didn’t realize it yet.

Chapter One

Mona Porter gave her stylish brown
leather suitcase one last shove and yanked the plane’s overhead compartment closed
on it with way more force than necessary. A resounding slam would have been so very
satisfying but the stupid door refused to cooperate and closed with a gentle
‘whoosh’ instead of the dramatic ‘bang’ she’d wanted. It just figured. Nothing
was going right today.

Slumping down in
her seat, she tried not to scowl as she looked around at the other passengers
in First Class. She was sitting on the aisle, in the last row of their section,
so she had an excellent view of the other people boarding the plane. Was he
here? She sat a little straighter and craned her neck around but there wasn’t
anyone remotely gigolo-ish anywhere in sight. But the seats were still half
empty. Maybe he would get on the plane in Seattle or perhaps he took an earlier
flight? Did DOV Inc., make their talent fly coach? She somehow doubted it.
Everything about the fantasy fulfillment agency seemed classy. Well, as classy
as a glorified sausage-factory could be anyway.

Miss Bright had
said her Scene Facilitator would meet her at their private bungalow on the
beach in Lahaina. Mona’s scowl deepened at the thought of what would happen
after she met her fake bridegroom.

She should be in
a fabulous mood. After all, she was on the verge of finally unloading her hated
virginity. No prom night fumbling for her. Not even an awkward one night stand.
Nope. She was going to shed that hated hymen in truly spectacular fashion. Yup.
She would be deflowered on her own terms and she`d do it in an ideal setting,
under perfect circumstances. She was taking control and making her fantasy a
reality. Well, aside from the whole paying to sleep with a complete stranger
part anyway. A stranger who would act like he actually cared about her feelings
but was really just there for the money. Yikes. As good as it all sounded in
theory, in actual practice this whole experience was starting to feel hollow
and borderline pathetic. And that was the problem. She’d thought she could go
through with her plan but now she was having second thoughts.

When she’d been
sitting in Miss Bright’s plush office at Delta of Venus Inc., she’d been eager
to have her fantasy fulfilled. But now that she was on the actual plane which
would whisk her away to her fake bridegroom, genuine panic was setting in.
Hence the terrible mood. She’d worked way too hard on herself to allow doubt to
creep in now. She needed to remember that she was strong and confident. She
didn’t waver once she made a decision. Second-guessing herself at this point
was not acceptable. She needed to shake off her old insecurities and carry-on
with her plan. She was bold and decisive, damn it. And more than a little
famished.

Yes, that’s it. Hunger
must be a contributing factor to why she seriously wanted to throw her carry-on
at the perky flight attendant in the impossibly short skirt at the front of the
plane. But hunger was nothing new to Mona. She felt like she’d been vaguely
ravenous for the past two years.

That faint
emptiness in her stomach also reminded her that she hadn’t been entirely honest
with Miss Bright and that guilt wasn’t helping to improve her state of mind. Yes,
it was true that she was still a virgin because she hadn’t met the right guy
and it was also true that her job was demanding and took up most of her spare
time. But there was another contributing factor she believed accounted for why she
was able to hang onto her innocence for so long. Well, actually there were
about 123 factors. One for each pound she’d lost over the past two years.

The fact was
that she’d been obese for most of her adult life. Not just chubby or curvy but
really fat. And though Mona believed there were many heavy women out there who
were genuinely happy with themselves and had satisfying romantic lives, she wasn`t
one of them. She was utterly convinced that the extra weight she carried made
her practically invisible to men. You’d think being so large would make a
person more visible but the opposite was actually true in her case. Men didn’t
seem to see her or if they did they didn’t see her as a viable sex partner. Her
fat made her asexual to them. But she wasn’t asexual or frigid. Under the right
circumstances she thought she’d probably have a pretty healthy libido. Not a
nymphomaniac, obviously, but she was certainly interested in sex. If her choice
in reading material was an indicator then she was definitely preoccupied with
erotic activities. She’d just never had the opportunity to find out where she
fell on the whole sex drive scale. She hadn’t even been seriously kissed since
she was eighteen, so how would she know if she was a sex kitten or not?

The really scary
part of this whole over-the-hill virgin thing was that she’d accepted her role
as the funny, fat sidekick in her friend’s more exciting lives. She’d been
mostly content watching as they experienced things she could only imagine, like
passion, devotion and true love.

Okay. She`d been
lonely, but not unhappy. Not at all. Mostly she`d been too busy creating her
cupcake empire to really think about what she actually wanted out of life. She
told herself she was too preoccupied with building a successful business and focusing
on her career to care about what she was missing. She was extremely adept at keeping
herself pleasantly distracted from the fact that deep-down she felt that she
was unlovable because of the way she looked

Until one
morning when one small discovery had changed everything. She`d been putting on
her plain, boring bra with the thick, reinforced straps when her fingers
brushed something unusual. It felt like a small lump in her left breast. It was
hardly noticeable so she touched it again. It was definitely something that
needed to be checked out.

That tiny mass
had altered her entire destiny.

She’d been
extremely lucky. The lump had been benign and the scar from the lumpectomy
barely showed. All her worries and fears during the mammogram and biopsy
procedures had been for nothing. She was fine. She could go back to her life.
She still looked normal. She wasn’t disfigured and she had her entire future to
look forward to.

But something
was different. She wasn’t content anymore. Or more likely, she realized that
she`d never been content in the first place. She`d just been so focused on
living her life that she hadn`t noticed that it was almost half over and she
hadn`t done anything she`d planned, except work.

She’d looked at
the people around her and realized she’d been living on auto pilot since high
school and that just wasn`t good enough. She didn’t want to just exist anymore.
She wanted to live. And one of the biggest obstacles to making that happen was
her own body. She realized that she’d been hiding behind her fat like a shield.
It protected her from having to actually try to have a normal life. In order to
pursue her goals she felt like she needed to become visible again. She needed
to lose the weight. For real this time.

She`d tried to
lose weight in the past and the results had always been disappointing. This
time, however, she was motivated by the thought that she`d already wasted most
of her life hiding. Did she really want to live whatever time she had left being
fat and alone? The answer to this question was always an emphatic “Hell, NO!”

She’d committed
herself to getting fit. It hadn’t been easy. She’d struggled every single day
not to make excuses, to be conscious of what and why she was eating. To make
smart choices regarding nutrition and exercise. Some days she’d wanted to cry
with frustration at how difficult it was to stay on track. Other days she was
angry with herself for letting herself get to this point. But every once in a while
the infuriating little red needle on her scale would jump to a slightly smaller
number or her pants would feel a bit looser. Those rare and wonderful moments
made her feel like she was finally in control of her body and her life.

About a year
into her weight-loss journey she’d actually started to feel somewhat visible
again. Men were noticing her and instead of being delighted by this turn of
events she’d felt exposed and self-conscious. She’d even had a short binge-eating
relapse when Darryl, one of the buff, young personal trainers at her gym had
begun consistently asking her to go out with him. At first she’d thought it was
a cruel joke or some kind of motivational tool, but after weeks of his
undivided attention every time she entered the weight room it became obvious
that he really was interested in her. It also became abundantly clear that she
had no idea how to flirt or react normally to a man finding her attractive.
After all, she hadn’t experienced mutual attraction since high school. Since
Joe.

When Darryl
abruptly left for a job in Alberta, she’d actually been relieved not to have to
deal with him. That’s when she realized that the fat had only been part of the
problem. Lack of confidence was the real issue. For some reason she didn’t feel
worthy of male attention. Despite the changes in her body, she was still the
same overweight wallflower on the inside and nothing would really change unless
she could figure out how to feel good about herself.

So she’d started
an internal makeover to go along with the external one. This part was actually much
harder than the weight loss because she had to really face why she’d allowed
herself to settle for such a safe and sheltered existence. She read practically
every self-help book she could find hoping to find the magic self-esteem formula
but all she’d discovered was that fear of rejection was at the heart of her
problem. Recognizing the issue didn’t help conquer it. In fact, the knowledge
that she had subconsciously sabotaged her own happiness for most of her life
made her feel helpless and out of control. How exactly could she overcome
twenty years of negative programming by her own design? Her task seemed
overwhelming.

She did what
she’d done with the weight loss: called in some professionals. The nutritionist
and personal trainers at her gym were able to educate her in planning her
work-outs and diet to maximize weight loss. Perhaps a counselor or psychologist
could help her work on the underlying issues that made her allow herself to
become obese?

With that in
mind she’d asked her doctor for a referral and had embarked on the quest for
someone to help her figure out why she was so messed up. She was uncomfortable
opening up to her close friends and yet now she was looking to pour her
deepest, darkest secrets out to a complete stranger. It all seemed so unnatural
to her but she knew had very little choice if she wanted to embrace any real
change.

 It had taken
her a couple tries to find a counsellor she felt compatible with but then she
had walked into Dr. Nora Freedman’s tastefully cluttered office. Nora had
immediately struck her as both non-judgmental and no-nonsense, which is exactly
what she needed.

At first, she
had felt incredibly awkward talking about herself and why she was able to run a
successful business but was completely unable to control her eating habits or
talk to men without wanting to turn tail and run to the closest Cheesecake
Factory. Sitting across from Nora and complaining about her fairly awesome life
seemed so self-indulgent and dramatic, but after a few sessions she started to
feel more comfortable with the ritual. Nora gave her several embarrassing confidence-building
exercises and eventually she started to appear more poised and self-confident
in social situations. Eventually she was able to put on an excellent show of
being exactly the kind of woman she admired: cool, witty and occasionally even flirtatious.

Once Mona
reached her goal weight she celebrated by going on an extravagant shopping trip
to New York with her best friend, Lana. The new clothes and stylish accessories
she tried on made Mona feel not just confident but sexy for the first time in
her life. She was no longer invisible. It would seem her transformation was
complete. At least externally. Inside, the butterfly still felt like a chubby
caterpillar. But she hoped that would change with time.

Lana always
looked good so she was significantly less awed by the experience of shopping in
the extravagant shops. For Mona, however, shopping in a city famous for its
fashion was the fulfillment of a dream she never thought could come true. After
some initial awkwardness she was actually able to stand in front of a full-length
mirror in some of the ritzy shops in Manhattan and almost feel like she
belonged there. Until recently, she’d been too intimidated to shop anywhere but
plus-sized stores. Most of her clothing was actually purchased through online
shopping sites just to avoid dealing with patronizing salespeople. Being treated
with obsequious enthusiasm by salesgirls who looked like models and were famous
for treating unattractive patrons with disdain was unreal.

At one
particularly swanky boutique, Mona had looked up from the pricey shoes she’d
been trying on to find Lana shaking her head in disbelief.

“What? Do they make
me look like a stripper?” She’d asked, frowning as she stared down at the shiny,
black pumps.

Lana snorted. “Absolutely.
And in the best way possible. Those look amazing. And you know it.”

Mona gave Lana a
surprised look. “Amazing? You mean compared to how much my legs resembled Miss
Piggy’s ham-hocks before, right?”

Lana rolled her
eyes. “No. I mean amazing by anyone standards. Muppets included.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. I just
can`t believe it. You`re like a different person. Who knew this,” she waved her
hand up and down Mona’s body, “existed underneath all those bulky clothes and
extra weight.”

“C’mon. I’m exactly
the same. Just a smaller version.”

Lana shook her
head from side to side. “But you’re not the same at all. I don’t know if you
realize it or not but you just put that snotty little shopgirl in her place.
You. The woman who used to apologize constantly and never stood up to anyone.
Ever. Not even her employees.”