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ALYSSA

There comes a time in every young woman’s life when she finds herself in something of a sticky situation.

This is my time.

I’m hanging by my fingertips halfway up the fence that separates my backyard from the backyard of my gorgeous, billionaire neighbor. Normally, that seems like a solvable kind of problem, right? Just finish climbing over the fence, you silly goose.

An important detail here is that, by some cruel whim of the universe, my leggings have just caught on a protruding nail and ripped wide open. That pesky little snag is doing two things: one, pinning me in place; and two, revealing to any soul who might happen to walk by that yes, I am wearing a hideously worn-thin pair of granny panties, and yes, they do in fact feature Garfield with a mouth full of lasagna saying I Hate Mondays. The fact that it’s Thursday only makes it that much worse.

There are other problems, too.

Such as the fact that the box of my newly-purchased sex toys I came here to steal back from my neighbor is currently lying on the ground at my feet, juuuust out of reach.

Such as the fact that I’m technically trespassing here and, if the rumors are to be believed, my neighbor is exactly the kind of violently litigious tech tycoon with questionable mob affiliation rumors who will haul my ass straight to court if he catches me.

And, last but not least, such as the fact that said neighbor is currently crossing his lawn toward me right now.

Think, Alyssa. Think. What would Ziva do?

I cringe as soon as the thought crosses my mind. Ziva would never be in this situation in the first place. But Ziva isn’t here to bail me out of it, either.

Neither is my best friend Elle, who is the person who’s really to blame for all this mess.

Well, sort of. See, technically, they’re not my sex toys I came here to retrieve. The box of dildos and the like from Eve’s Garden is a gag gift—no pun intended—for Elle’s upcoming bridal shower.

Just thinking about the contents is enough to make my cheeks go red. I’ve checked the receipt about a thousand times since I finally dared to place the order, so I know the contents by heart. It contains the following:

– One (1) pair of handcuffs lined with glittery pink fur

– Four (4) leather limb restraints (two each for the wrists and ankles) that apparently fasten to some sort of steel ring at the lower back and leave the wearer trussed up and exposed like a Thanksgiving turkey (basting sold separately)

– Six (6) different varieties of flavored lube with cringeworthy suggestive names—crème brû-labia, very-berry-pop-my-cherry, and so on and so forth.

And the pièce de résistance:

– One (1) purple alien tentacle dildo, complete with a suction cup and knotty, weird-looking flanges that make my thighs press together at the mere thought of those things going inside of me.

It’s been two weeks since I ordered this My First Sex Dungeon starter kit. I’ve spent that time alternating back and forth between morbid terror at the whole idea and laughing hysterically at the thought of Elle opening it up in front of every female member of her entire extended family.

If that sounds cruel… well, she deserves it. Ever since we met in elementary school and she came up with the nickname Shylyssa for me, Elle has made it her life’s mission to see me blush as often as possible.

But she gets away with it all because I really do love her and she really does love me. And when everything happened with Ziva, Elle was there for me when I needed it.

She’s not here for me when I need her now, though. In fact, all of Los Angeles seems to be holding its breath, like the whole damn city is thinking, How’s this dummy gonna get herself out of this debacle?

Excellent question.

I wish I had an answer.

Because the silhouette that can only belong to one man keeps advancing.

It’s taking a long time for him to reach me because it’s an absurdly big property. I sure as hell don’t belong anywhere on it. It’s only by some weird quirk of zoning laws and the chaotic urban sprawl of Los Angeles that my two-bedroom bungalow abuts Mr. Uri Bugrov’s sprawling three-acre estate on one tiny little side.

My house literally sits in the shadow of his mansion. But I’ve got a window from my reading nook that gives me a direct line of sight to his front door. That’s how I recognize his silhouette—because I’ve seen it night after night after night.

It’s always the same ritual. Like clockwork, at 9:00 P.M., Uri Bugrov arrives back home in one of his sleek and no doubt ridiculously expensive luxury cars. Some inevitably stunning woman with Jessica Rabbit curves you could see from outer space gets out with him. They go inside. They do (I assume) the kinds of naked, horizontal things that adult women do with men as jaw-droppingly gorgeous and wealthy as Uri. Then they re-emerge, Uri puts the woman in a cab, and she disappears, never to be seen again.

It’s not weird that lots of beautiful women want to sleep with Uri. He’s rich, he’s famous—well, infamous—and he is very, very easy on the eyes.

What’s weird is how jealous I feel sometimes of those women.

I’ve had sex before, though only a handful of times. The whole dog-and-pony show makes me nervous, if I’m being honest. It’s so intimate. People in your space. Breathing your breath. Sweating your sweat.

Er, no thanks.

A therapist I saw for a bit after Ziva suggested that I might have “intimacy issues.” I laughed and said, “No, I don’t have intimacy issues—I just don’t want anyone close to me ever because if I open up to someone then they might just die and leave me and I can’t bear the thought of that happening, so I shut myself off to the world before the world can inflict any more cruelty on me.”

Come to think of it, she might’ve been onto something.

The silhouette grows closer. Ten seconds or less to impact.

An hour ago, life was just peachy. I was refreshing the Eve’s Garden shipment tracking info again and again. Three stops away. Two stops away. You are the next stop. I waited for the doorbell to ring, but…

Nothing.

No knock, no doorbell ring, and, when I went downstairs to check the stoop, no discreetly wrapped package of purple alien dildos.

But as I glanced up, I saw in horror that the mailman was walking up the drive to Uri’s mansion—with my package tucked under his arm.

I should’ve done something then. Screamed, tackled him, maybe even sniped him from my roof with a bow and arrow. Instead, I just stood stupidly in place and watched as the mailman set the package down on Uri’s front step. Then he walked back down to his van, got in, and drove away.

After that, I started panic-dialing any post office phone number that might be useful so they could send in the Postal Service S.W.A.T. team to rescue the goods. But I kept getting bounced around from call center to call center. No one could help.

The end result was that my package was still marooned at the Bugrov estate and I had only one way of getting it back.