Page 15 of Start With A Slap

“It’s foolish idealism. Got that from his mum.”

That was interesting. But she digressed. “He’s won eighty percent of his cases. They call him a shark.” Maybe that would appeal to Sever’s tremendous ego.

“You know why he chose employment law,” he said. “Strictly to spite me. Thinks all corporations are evil. Especially private equity.”

“But you’re the ‘good’ kind,” Ivy said, sarcastic.

“I’m the best,” he said suggestively.

She refused to let that sink in. “You’re beyond the pale.”

“Mm. If I had a nickel for each time I heard that... Oh wait. I do.”

She shook her head at him, and he gave her a prurient grin. A grin that made her blood flow directly to her bared vulva. The post-wax tingle had become almost pleasurable, and now, when she got wet, it was impossible to ignore. Face burning, she turned to her food. “Are we sure he’s even yours?”

“Who? Oh. You’re still talking abouthim.”

“Yes. I’m still talking about him.” And she wouldkeeptalking about him. Ivy launched into a two-course-long monologue entitledWhy You Should Love My Husband as Much as I Do.

Sever listened dutifully throughout, and when dessert came, he said, “It’s not working, petal.”

“What’s not working?”

“You’re trying to appeal to my conscience.” He sipped his wine. “And yours.”

“Silly me,” she said bitterly. “Forgetting you don’t have one.”

“I told you; I made up my mind.”

“And that’s where this ‘love affair’ will stay.”

“Methinks the lady...” His gaze darted down her back. “Et cet’ra.”

Had he deduced the location of her very unusual g-spot from her indiscernible quivers? He couldn’t have. No one was that good.

...Were they?

The auction started, and feeling Sever’s smile on her, she directed her attention to the stage. The first piece, a colorful Jim Dine, sold for five hundred thousand. Several more, by lesser-known contemporary artists, followed and took modest sums.

When they unveiled the next piece, Ivy gasped.

“Sunflower X, 1976, by Joan Mitchell. Oil on canvas.”

She was tempted to rush the stage to take in every detail. Mitchell’s collection at the Whitney was what made her fall in love with modern art to begin with. She’d never seen this painting, and it was even more amazing than the ones in the lithograph series...

“Two million bid by private buyer,” said the auctioneer, and the audience hummed.

Ivy crashed back to earth. She never could understand the need to own beauty, to lock it up and keep it to oneself, when it could be displayed in a museum for all the world to enjoy. And the fact that any of these people even had two million dollars to spare... that was just plain obscene.

“Two million one,” the auctioneer said, nodding at someone in the back. “Do I hear two million two?”

Ivy saw the auctioneer look their way, divert his gaze, and say, “Two million two.”

Sever was casually dangling his bidding paddle in front of the table, where only the auctioneer could see.

She lowered the paddle to his knee and kept it there. “What are you doing?”

He glanced at her hand and whispered, “You like it, yeah?”

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