Aphrodisiac Read online

  Aphrodisiac

  A Saylor Oz RomCom Mystery

  Alicia Street & Roy Street

  Copyright © 2008 Roy Street, Alicia Street

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Alicia Street and Roy Street, with the exception of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Originally published by Berkley-Penguin under author name Allyson Roy

  Cover art © Roy Street

  Table Of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  About the Author

  ONE

  A clinical study found that an effective way to sexually arouse a man is to waft the smell of pumpkin pie under his nose. I guess that means Thanksgiving should be declared National Erection Day. Call me old fashioned, but I’d sooner splash on Miss Dior than smear pie filling over my navel. Gwendolyn Applebee, my close friend since childhood, always said the olfactory sense was our most powerful medium, especially when it came to sex or danger.

  I discovered she was right. The hard way.

  It took me six weeks after her suicide to suspect she’d been murdered. Here’s the fun part: Gwen left me holding the bag. No surprise. I’d been going to bat for Gwen since our teens in a suburb north of the Bronx. She’d been the class geek with buckteeth and thick glasses; the only girl who got ridiculed more than I did. And since I’m about as physically threatening as a foot massage, I learned early how to use my big mouth to outsmart the bullies who picked on her.

  The kids tagged me “the munchkin.” Totally hilarious and highly original. Of course, it didn’t help matters that I was the shortest one in the school. Or that my name was Saylor Oz.

  At age fifteen, my Russian ancestors’ Ozyutikoffsky DNA kicked in, blessing me with a classic jaw line and a bottom shaped like an inverted heart. I figured I could say goodbye to that crapola nickname and maybe even land a boyfriend. But the guys in White Plains Senior High merely revised their greeting to, “Hey, munchkin, I’ve got a lollipop for you.”

  At thirty-one, high school is light-years behind me, but as I ride the subway to Brooklyn I’ve still got charming men with ninety-proof breath offering me their lollipops. No wonder they call it the F train. However, the art of seduction intrigues me, no matter how primitive. It’s one reason I became a sex therapist. Not to be confused with an expert on love. If only it were that simple. The painful truth? I’d always wished I’d rated as beautiful. I hated the way they called me and Gwen the munchkin and the scarecrow. Hurts to admit it, but I’ve never gotten over that.

  And neither had Gwen.

  My doubts about her suicide began the night I’d gone with my best pal Benita Morales to a loft on Gold and Plymouth streets for a poetry reading called, “Eating Pizza On Mars.” We zoned out somewhere between the lesbian astronauts and anti-gravitational foreplay, but we liked the free pizza and there was plenty of Merlot.

  At two a.m. we chugged down the stairs, slamming the clunky fire door behind us. It was a Monday night, and the streets were empty, with the exception of three men on the corner. They looked like a photo op for the cover of Lumberjack Quarterly, in their sleeveless plaids, denim vests and trucker caps.

  Benita, nicknamed Binnie, with café au lait skin and pixie short hair, resembled a Nuyorican Halle Berry; an eye-popping beauty who’d broken her share of hearts. Me? I hadn’t even broken the five-foot mark. We hoofed it along a desolate stretch of Plymouth. The street was a patchwork of cracked pavement over cobblestone etched with old railway tracks that once carted goods between the East River docks and the warehouses that were now being reborn as condos, offices and artists’ studios.

  The effects of three glasses of wine and the sultry July night carried me away in a romantic film noir swoon. Add to that the shadowy atmosphere created by the Manhattan Bridge—the giant blue dragon that loomed overhead and gave our neighborhood its name. DUMBO: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Every few minutes the Q train thundered along the bridge’s underbelly. The only other sounds were our feet on the sidewalk.

  Correction. I could swear I heard rapid and deliberate footsteps hammering along behind us. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw those three strapping country boys who were hanging out on the street when we left the party. We increased our pace. So did they.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “I don’t like this.”

  “Let’s cut it,” Benita said.

  I ripped off my white stiletto slingbacks and broke into a run. (No, I am not one of those women who spend gazillions on shoes while children around the world go hungry. But any height-challenged female with a generous bottom knows the wondrous transformation a few inches of heel can make.) Tonight I’d pulled my strawberry blonde curls into a ponytail and dressed in a ruffled gypsy skirt and spaghetti tank. Benita trotted past me in her favorite uniform: running pants, Yankees tee and Nike sneakers. She’d wear that in her office if she could get away with it.

  The trio matched our speed. Sprinting at full tilt, I had no time to fish inside my bag for my cell. I went primitive. “Police! Fire! Everything! Helllllp!”

  Two men emerged from a lone car up the street. To lend a hand? Nope. They just snickered and stood there blocking our path.

  “This way,” Benita said. She ducked into the shadows of a construction site that had become an abandoned lot between two windowless brick warehouses. I followed, tiptoeing barefoot at full speed, trying not to think about the squooshy lumpy things under my feet. Like doggy doo and trash bags that smelled of week-old Chinese take-out. Adrenaline pumping, I stumbled past a mattress and a bathroom sink. And, oh, yes. Tires everywhere. An endless supply. Landscaping by the Michelin Man.

  At the far end of the lot we ran head-on into a cyclone fence that was topped with a spiky furl of barbed wire. Climbing over it was not an option. Benita clenched her fists. I could tell what she was thinking. A financial analyst by day, she’d also been a professional female boxer for six years. It gave her the confidence to hold her own against a man, but one at a time, and provided they weren’t armed.

  “Don’t even go there,” I said, tugging her elbow.

  We sprang for the darkest corner of the lot. Crouched in the blackness, the two of us huddled between a disemboweled sofa and a pile of worn-out radials. The tires smelled like stale condoms. Mosquitoes whined in my ears. I held my breath at the sound of footsteps crunching on rubble. They were still about ten yards away. Could I phone emergency without revealing our hiding place? My fingers probed through my bag and came up with my Fleur de Sephora orchid spritz. P
fft.Pfft.

  I was definitely a perfume aficionado. Fragrance was a luxury you didn’t have to be rich or sexy to have, yet it could make any woman feel both.

  “What are you doing?” Benita hissed.

  “The smell of garbage makes me nauseous.” That’s when my cell found me. A muffled ringtone played “Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy.”

  Benita grabbed my arm. “Shut that thing up. Those guys’ll hear it.”

  I prayed they didn’t, throwing in a request for some divine intervention. Like maybe they’d all get a sudden case of dysentery. The caller ID was familiar. “It’s Candice Stoutz,” I whispered. “I have to take this.”

  “Now? Are you loca?”

  “She might be in crisis.”

  “What do you think this is?”

  I pressed talk. “Dr. Oz.”

  “All he wants is blowjobs,” Candice sobbed.

  Hushing and racing my words, I said, “Remind Harry of his contract from our last session. No more oral sex without attempting intercourse. But it won’t work if you’re still criticizing him. Resentment is the big spoiler.”

  “Dr. Oz? I can hardly hear you.”

  I whispered a little louder. “Actually, Candice, I’m kind of in a jam. Binnie and I are trapped in a lot on Plymouth Street near Bridge. I need you to call an ambulance for me. Right away. Plymouth near Bridge. Please hurry. Thanks.” I closed the cell, my hands shaking.

  “Ambulance?” Benita sounded irate.

  “I meant police, okay?”

  “How could you be so dumb?”

  “We all make mistakes when we’re nervous.”

  “So, will you please call 9-1-1 and get it right?”

  “Hold on.” I leaned into the torn-up sofa next to me and snaked my arm through the stuffing and springs.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Don’t get mad, but I dropped my cell. It’s in here somewhere.”

  “Ay, bendito. I knew I should’ve brought mine.”

  “Shhhh. They’re getting closer.”

  We pressed ourselves flat to the ground. The sound of a dreaded metallic click could only mean one thing. The cocking of a pistol. I froze, trying not to wet my pants.

  A man’s voice. “I got first dibs on the little one. You get sloppy seconds.”

  Another man. “Bitch’s gonna give up more than that.”

  Delete and cancel, please. My heart pounded. Was it Krav Maga time? Would I have to resort to gouging eyeballs? Urgh. I needed something to use as a weapon. Quietly reaching into my shoulder bag, I located a Jack Rabbit vibrator. Being a part-time distributor for Do-Me-Good sex products did have its benefits. I took hold of the red plastic shaft. Funny how even a fake penis brought out the animal in me.

  The next few minutes seemed liked hours. My face and body were drenched in sweat. The wine in my stomach turned to vinegar. Suddenly in the distance I heard the wail of a siren. Please, please come this way. It grew louder and louder. Next came the pitter-patter of our little muggers’ feet and the slamming of car doors.

  Benita took a quick peek. “They’re going.”

  Moments later, I saw flashing lights bouncing off the walls of the warehouse buildings around us. Okay, so it was an ambulance. As we say in therapy, whatever works.

  A hot-looking EMT helped me find my phone and shoes. We rode in the ambulance to the police station, where we filed a report. Our lack of information wasn’t much help. I doubted Logan would be on the case anytime soon. A sweet young uniform brought us coffee and even drove us home. What’s with all these sexy civil servants? It’s enough to give a girl a daily outbreak of Damsel In Distress Syndrome.

  The police car turned onto Main Street in DUMBO. From the backseat I stared out across the East River at the Manhattan skyline and thought of the years Benita, Gwen and I ran around the city together, dancing at CBGB’s, puking up our first martinis and panicking over missed periods. The three of us had shared an NYU dorm room in the early days and an apartment during grad school. Now Benita and I were roommates again, thanks to her recently divorced status. We weren’t exactly a perfect match, but over the years we’d grown closer, while Gwen had drifted away from us.

  Gwendolyn Applebee had always been kind of a loner, a brilliant egghead who fit perfectly in her chosen field of archaeobotany. She could be maddeningly antisocial at times. Like the way she refused to buy a cell. Said it was too invasive. And she never answered the phone when she was engrossed in her work. But the last time I assumed she lost track of which century we were in, Gwen’s body was discovered a few feet off the Beard Street Pier, floating facedown in South Brooklyn’s Erie Basin.

  How close had Benita and I come to joining her tonight? It didn’t take five guys to steal a purse. Would they have done the ultimate nasty on us and left our bodies in the lot with the garbage? I pictured a crowd gathered around my corpse, as it lay draped over a pile of tires. Good thing I was dressed to party and not on my way to the Laundromat. Which reminded me of a detail about Gwen’s so-called suicide that just didn’t add up. The fanny pack.

  When they found Gwen’s body, she was wearing one of those silly-looking hernia belts meant for carrying a week’s supply of trail mix. But I doubt she even owned a fanny pack. She’d always despised them. I’d been so upset over her death, it had gone right by me. And there’d been no reason to be suspicious. Until now.

  Maybe I’ve been lucky, but after fourteen years of living in New York City I’d never been robbed or assaulted. Tonight was the second time I’d been the target of a crime since Gwen died. Was I seeing a pattern? Sure, being a therapist, I was pattern obsessed. But as we stepped out of the patrol car in front of our door, I factored in the reason we moved to DUMBO a month ago.

  Benita and I had been living in a two bedroom in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg section. When someone broke in and turned that apartment upside down, the police saw it as just another robbery. Yes, we had an alcoholic super and neighbors who happily buzzed in anybody who sounded remotely related to the primate order. Still, those little red lights inside me were flashing. I couldn’t help asking if those thieves had been the same men who chased us tonight.

  The seek-and-destroy job done to our ex-apartment didn’t make a lot of sense. It wasn’t just the degrading woman-hating gynecological references scrawled across my bathroom mirror with lipstick. It wasn’t that they snatched my laptop, twenty-three dollars off the dresser, some costume jewelry, bric-a-brac and three beers from the refrigerator. What I wanted to know was, what made them riffle through every single drawer, cabinet, bookshelf and closet, tearing open pillows, gutting the sofa and doing a filet job on my mattress? All this for spare change?

  The worst part? If my hunch was right, if tonight’s bad hombres were the same guys, how did they know Benita and I had moved to DUMBO?

  ***

  Sometimes I wondered if Gleason’s Gym was the reason Benita agreed to move to DUMBO with me. Especially since the loft we rented belonged to my aunt, who comes in from Long Island for periodic overnighters. Benita wasn’t crazy about that idea. However, the loft also happened to be a stone’s throw from this world-famous boxing gym on Front Street.

  Benita and I went there determined to clear our heads after last night’s harrowing episode. It was seven o’clock Tuesday evening and the summer heat hadn’t let up. My kiwi print tank top and black Lycra capris were soaked through. Because of the large number of hunks at Gleason’s Gym, I’d left my shoulder-length curls hanging loose. Thanks to the heat frizzies I probably looked like Goldilocks from hell. “It must be a hundred degrees in here. They never heard of air-conditioning?”

  “Cut the whining. That’s what gives this place flavor,” Benita said. “It’s the real deal.”

  I’d gone two rounds, practicing my newly learned jab-cross combination. “How did a totally nonviolent person like me ever agree to join this gladiator factory with blood red walls? Eggshell white would have been more tasteful.”

  “Focus, w
ill ya.” Benita stood there with her arm wrapped around the heavy bag to steady it for me. Her enviably flat abs showed beneath a gray crop tee. “Bend those knees. You’re starting to look like the damn Statue of Liberty.”

  “I am bending them.” I went into a deep crouch.

  “Now you look like a friggin’ crab.”

  “My arms are ready to fall off, and you’re expecting Raging Bull.” So, I wasn’t exactly Olympic material. My petite hourglass figure wasn’t all that bad, despite my eternal hope that I’d still grow a few inches. “I’m getting dizzy. I need a donut.”

  “Are you here to eat or work out?”

  “The gym’s snack bar has Danish. Then there’s a Blazing Donutz on Jay Street.”

  “You said you wanted to lose some pounds.”

  My concentration just wouldn’t kick into gear. You’d think I’d be fantasizing a skinny-dip in a cool stream with Oscar De La Hoya, but after last night my mind kept recycling the same questions about Gwen. I just couldn’t believe her death was a suicide, even though the medical examiner reported no signs of struggle and the police found two empty vodka bottles on her desk, plus a good-bye note in her handwriting.

  Yeah, she sometimes drank too much and, granted, she needed antidepressants when Rob left her. The thing is, I knew her like a book. I would have seen it coming. And rule out the accident theory. Gwen wasn’t into getting bombed and roaming the docks. She was murdered. I could just feel it. But why? She didn’t hang out with low-life criminal types.

  Benita’s keen eye picked up on my thoughts. “I know what’s going on in your head. Give it up.”

  “But what if the police were wrong?” I said, punctuated with my best one-two of the day.

  “Come on, Saylor. They checked for foul play. There wasn’t any. And Gwen’s body had enough booze in it to drop an elephant. What more do you want?”

  “I want to know the reason she was wearing a fanny pack.”

  “Same as anyone else. To carry her money and cards. Now, put more on that jab.”