Page 19 of Cursing My Cheating Husband

“Every single one,” Brie confirmed cheerfully. “It’s signing the waiver that does it. My firm actually handles those for Nina. We have multiple paralegals whose entire job is basically enchanting three thousand fresh waivers a night for this place.”

“Three thousand customers a night?!?” I exclaimed.

“Well, on a weekend anyway. A weeknight might be more like fifteen hundred, two thousand.”

I watched as one man pulled out his wallet with fumbling, eager hands, extracting bill after bill and carefully tucking them into an invisible g-string. His fingers trembled as he slipped the money into empty air, his face flushed with arousal.

A bored-looking young witch sat off to the side, scrolling her phone with one hand while her other moved in lazy, practiced gestures. Tendrils of purple energy extended from her fingertips, plucking bills from the air where the men had “tipped their dancers.” The money floated upward, forming a glittering river of cash that flowed toward the stage, where it sorted itself into neat stacks of ones, fives, tens, twenties, and even a few fifties and hundreds.

“Callie!”

I turned to see Nina crossing the floor toward us, and I barely recognized her.

Gone was every trace of the mousy girl I’d known. This Nina wore a black leather corset over a flowing skirt of deep purple silk. Her lips were painted dark plum, matching her dramatic eyeliner. She moved with a confidence that seemed to charge the air around her, a woman absolutely certain of her power.

“Oh my gods, Nina?” I managed.

She laughed and pulled me into a tight hug. “It’s been too long! Look at you!” She stepped back, holding me at arm’s length. “Brie said you were coming back to visit, but I didn’t believe it until I saw you.”

I gestured around us. “Nina, this is incredible.”

Nina grinned. “Come on, let me show you how it works.”

She led us further into the room, right into the middle of the floor. The men didn’t even glance our way. They clearly couldn’t see or hear us through their private fantasies.

And since we couldn’t hear the sultry encouragements of their imaginary strippers, their chorus of pleasured moans sounded hysterically idiotic.

“The men are glamoured to see their absolute ideal woman,” Nina explained. “Every man sees something different. Their perfect fantasy, custom-made by their own subconscious. We just provide the magical framework. They fill in the rest.”

I watched another man eagerly emptying his wallet, thrusting bills into the air with frenzied energy.

“And they pay for... nothing?” I said.

“They pay for an experience they’ll never forget,” Nina corrected. “One they could never have anywhere else. We’re not selling bodies. We’re selling perfect bespoke fantasies.” She nodded toward the bored attendant, still engrossed in her social media as she casually directed the levitating cash river. “And business is very good.”

“And… none of them know it’s not real?” I asked.

“Well, they would know if any of them read the waiver,” Nina said with a sly smile. “It explains in plain English what we do here.”

I blinked at her. “None of them read it?”

“Oh, not none. But almost none. Maybe since we opened last spring, about thirty guys have read it.”

So The Naughty Nightshade had been open for a year, serving thousands of customers a night… and thirty of them had thought with their heads enough to read the waiver first.

Maybe Maddox had a point about what guys are like. Clearly, I had been an idiot to be so focused on finding a man to complete my life. “It’s amazing they don’t figure it out,” I marveled.

Nina’s smile turned softer. “You want to know who the best customers are? The ones who do figure it out, because the ‘stripper’ they see is their wife. Isn’t that sweet? When they’re glamoured to see their absolute perfect woman, and they see the woman they married… I was always a cynic about men, but it gives me a little hope!”

I felt a smile tugging at my lips. It was a relief to know there were a few good men out there. How lovely for those women—to be married to someone whose perfect fantasy was actually the reality they’d built together. That was the dream, wasn’t it?

But it hadn’t been my reality, and thank the gods I’d found out before wasting more years on it. Maddox’s perfect fantasy had been whoever caught his eye that week, and I was going to be well rid of him.

Brie and I said our goodbyes to Nina, and she and I promised to get lunch sometime soon. The warmth of the interaction, and the revolutionary nature of her business, filled me with hope and positive energy.

As Brie and I pushed back out into the colorful chaos of the main street, the emotions swirling inside me shifted into something lighter. Excitement bubbled up at how much had changed, how much everyone had grown and transformed into new versions of themselves.

It was the best proof I could have asked for that I could transform into a new version of myself too.