Page 15 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
“What time is it?” I muttered, rubbing my face with one hand.
“Who cares what time it is?” she shot back, her eyes sparkling with euphoria. “Don’t you see this manual is about to change my life? And by extension—yours!”
“So far it’s only changing my sleep. For the worse,” I grumbled. “You barge into my room in the middle of the night—do you honestly think that’s normal?”
“Seduction is all about psychology,” she declared, ignoring me. Her eyes had the wild gleam of a televangelist. “It’s not about beauty. It’s not even about charm. It’s all about levers, Bea. Emotional buttons, pressed at exactly the right moment. It’s like hacking a man’s brain…”
She stood up, inspired, like she was about to deliver an Oscar speech. “Éloïse talks about refinedillusions. About appearing unattainable, then suddenly accessible, then unattainable again. A constant hall of mirrors. Saying one thing with words and the opposite with your eyes. It’s an art. And I… I’m about to become a great artist.”
She pressed the book to her chest with solemn reverence, like she was waiting for a standing ovation.
I stared at her the way you look at someone trying to sell you a mattress on installment at three in the morning. Rubbing both hands over my eyes, I tried to figure out if I was actually living through this conversation or just trapped in a particularly surreal dream. “This all sounds like a borderline emotional scam,” I said.
“Scam?” Tess’s eyes widened in outrage. “This is science! Applied seduction!”
She paused theatrically, then lowered her voice as if revealing some esoteric secret. “You have no idea the twisted techniques I’ve learned from this manual. The Contessa must have been a monster of intelligence. A witch. Forget TikTok gurus—this woman could hypnotize, manipulate, obliterate any resistance with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a perfectly timed pause.”
She paced the room, waving the book like an Olympic torch.
“Nothing is impossible, Bea. Nothing. With what I’ve learned today, I could seduce the Pope. It’sincredible… just think: a simple book, made of paper and ink, yet capable of transmitting talent. It’s practically… telekinesis!”
I stared at her, mouth half open. She, meanwhile, spoke like she was in a trance.
“For an entire day I’ve been in mental contact with Éloïse de Saint-Rouge. She was in 1894, I was in 2025, and yet…poof!Direct communication. I heard her message loud and clear, like she was talking inside my head. Do you get what that means, Bea? I was possessed by the wisdom of a woman from another century.”
“And what do I have to do with any of this?” I asked, shooting her a look that was half-asleep, half-homicidal. “Why did you have to wake me up like that? What was the actual emergency?”
“I… I couldn’t hold it in anymore!” she burst out, waving her hands like she was trying to exorcise an energy too big to contain. “I feel so different already, just after one reading, that I had to share it with someone or I would have literally exploded. Literally, Bea! BOOM!”
I shut my eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled again. “Okay, you shared it. Can I go back to sleep now, or do I need to sign a release form?”
“One second! Just one second. Listen to this gem!” She snapped the book open with all the gravitas of reciting Shakespeare, then cleared her throat. “‘The seductress, if necessary, will wield thepettiest psychological tricks and the most devastating mind games to succeed. The seductress beguiles, deceives, misleads. The seductress destroys… and then stoops to gather the pieces.’”
She laughed. A sharp, triumphant, almost villainous laugh. Then she looked at me, waiting for awe. Applause. Something.
All she got was my Sphinx stare. A marble mask, as if I’d been sculpted by a very tired Michelangelo.
But Tess wasn’t about to give up.
“Another one! Wait!” She flipped through the book until she found a highlighted passage. Her eyes shone with mystical anticipation. “‘The seductress enjoys the finest sex, while all others settle for whatever the convent doles out.’”
She raised her eyebrows. “Well? What do you think of that, huh?”
I shook my head slowly, with a blank expression.
But Tess had already locked onto another quote. “‘If the enticement is flawless, seamless, then no man alive will be able to resist the seductress.’”
She looked at me. Again. For what felt like the thousandth time. With the same expression an illusionist wears while waiting for the standing ovation after the grand finale. Who knows what she expected from me: wide eyes, gaping mouth, hands on my cheeks and a big fat‘No way! You don’t say!’
Instead, I just said, “And…?”
Tessthrew her arms wide. “No man alive, Bea.None.Do you get what that means?” She leaned closer, her eyes blazing like neon lights. “You thought I was aiming too high, setting my sights on Zane Ryder.Zane Ryder, Bea! A living legend. Six Grammys, three arrests, two ex-wives, and a voice that could melt steel.”
She paused dramatically, then lifted one finger. “But if a woman has a weapon this powerful in her arsenal… do you really think she’d waste it on some nobody? Some guy who asks, ‘Can I kiss you?’ before actually doing it?”
I shook my head slowly. “No, of course not. Much better to go for a guy who writes songs about breaking hearts and getting arrested in Mexico.”
Tess lit up. “Exactly! See? Youdoget it!”
