Playing Games. Dianne Drake

great. One caller half-soused. She couldn’t blame her because that’s sure what she’d do if she had to go public with her life. Her life… If she took that public, her listeners would be getting all liquored up from boredom. “So are you ready to start teaching, ‘cause this is guaranteed to be a mighty fun lesson.”

      “Yesh…because I don’t want to be pushed around by him anymore. And if I confront him, tell him what I know, he’ll just say he’s sorry, beg me to forgive him, then we’ll be fine until he starts sneaking out again.”

      On that count, the caller was right. And Roxy was getting herself worked up for some good, on-air two-timer throttling. “You’re right. There sure will be a next time. If he gets away with it this time, he’ll figure he can go out and do it all over again. Once he’s had seconds, he’ll want thirds and fourths and it’ll never stop.”

      “So tell me what to do, Doctor Val. I want to get even with the jerk, and I definitely want to teach him a lesson.”

      Roxy took a drink of her orange soda, then laughed into the microphone. It was a throaty, deep, practiced laugh. A pseudo laugh, one that fit her pseudonym—Doctor Valentine McCarthy. Valentine was her real middle name, McCarthy her married name, although she’d dropped it right after the divorce and hung out her license to practice as Doctor Roxanna Rose, Ph.D. But she liked hiding behind her pseudonym, liked hiding behind her husky pseudo voice, too. And it fit the raven-haired, brown-eyed radio shrink who came out at midnight, talked sex for two hours, then went away to be just plain Roxy again. Make that Roxy with the bright, sunny laugh—cropped-cut, blond-haired, blue-eyed girl next door that she was. Not a thing like her pseudo self, thank heavens.

      All things considered though, it worked out pretty well. For both of them.

      “Well, my advice is simple. Do unto hubby as hubby would do, and apparently has done, unto you. Have yourself a little fling, too. Then let him know about it. Does his honey have a hunky hubby? Maybe he’d like to get in on some good extracurricular activity, since his little woman is already getting it on her own. Or does your hubby have a lonely hubba-hubba back at his office, down at the lodge, maybe his best friend? If he does, I say go for a young one if you have a choice—they’re so eager and willing to please when it comes to a more experienced woman.

      “And that’s what you are. More experienced, not older. Also, finding yourself a younger man will definitely let your hubby know that you’re not over the hill or otherwise checked at the door, that there’s still some mighty good grazing left, even if he isn’t the grazer. Oh, and leave the clues, so he’ll find them. Be obvious. He deserves it.”

      “And if I do all of this, Doctor Val, do you think he’ll leave me?”

      “Honestly, he could. I’ve gotta be truthful about that. But if he leaves because you’re doing unto him, then he wasn’t going to stay around, anyway. And if he does leave, you’ve got options, ‘cause you can do a whole lot better. But if he doesn’t, I’ll bet he’ll think twice before he wanders off again, knowing you might be wandering off right behind him. Bottom line, dish the dirt, but have a little fun while you’re dishing it. Two more can play at hubby’s game besides hubby and his mistress. And call me back, will you? Let me know if it was good for you.”

      Roxy cued Doyle to bring up the program music. “That answer got me all hot and bothered, thinking about all the exciting possibilities that are waiting for us out there if we care enough to go out and hunt them down. So let me go cool off for a minute, then I’ll be right back.” She went to break. Two minutes this time.

      “Her husband?” Astrid screamed over the microphone into the booth. “You told her to go out and have an affair with her husband’s mistress’s husband? Come on, Rox. What’s wrong with you? That’s crazy, even for you!”

      “You come on, Astrid. When you were dating that guy, Buford, last year, and found out he was sleeping with three other women besides you, didn’t you want some revenge? I mean, who was it that stalked him at night and poured syrup and feathers all over his car?”

      “Burton, and yes, I wanted revenge. I’ll admit it. But that was different. And my revenge could be fixed at a car wash.”

      “Yeah, you left him the ten-dollar bill under the wind-shield wiper, you wimp. But what I’m saying here is that the emotion’s the same. We get wronged, we want to fight back, whether it’s with the guy’s girlfriend’s hubby or a bottle of syrup. Same thing. And I just gave her an interesting way to fight back. Which she’s not going to do, Astrid. Human nature. She wants to fix her marriage, not make it worse. But I’m betting she’ll let him know, one way or another, that she knows what he’s doing. And if her marriage can be worked out, that’s the start of it.”

      “And what if she takes your advice?”

      Roxy wrinkled her nose. “Then she might just have some fun. And guess what, I’ll bet no one’s turning me off at the break right now and going over to that all-night sports talk show. When they’re talking home run, they mean home run, but when Valentine talks home run, her callers know exactly what she means.”

      “I love it when you two fight.” Doyle chuckled. “I think people would pay big bucks to see you do it in person…in syrup and feathers.”

      “Somebody gag him,” Roxy yelled, glancing up at the computer screen, checking for the name of the illustrious Doctor Edward Craig. Not there yet. Kind of a surprise because the spicier calls always brought him out.

      “Gag you, next time you pull something like that,” Astrid muttered. “And next time you want something to drink, get it yourself.”

      “She’s baiting him,” Doyle quipped. “That doctor dude. That’s just her way of asking him to come out and play.”

      “And he’s ringing the bell right now,” Astrid announced over her microphone. Part of her job was to screen the calls—letting in the good, keeping out the bad. And her order was to always move the self-important Doctor Edward Craig right to the top of the call-in queue. Not because Roxy particularly liked him, because she didn’t. But the ratings! He brought ’em, she loved ’em. A match made in broadcaster’s heaven.

      “So maybe I bait him a little….”

      “A little?” Doyle sputtered. “Honey, you throw out the chum and he eats it up like a hungry shark. And you enjoy it, even if you won’t admit it.”

      “Oh, yeah. I enjoy it all right. Just like brussels sprouts. My mom fixes me brussels sprouts when I go home and I eat them because I have to, but they give me gas.” Roxy thought about Doyle’s notion that she liked the great Eddie Craig’s calls, then dismissed it as ludicrous. He was a sprout, that’s all. Necessary, not gratifying. And he did cause a fair amount of gastric upset from time to time, even though somehow she always managed to walk away satisfied. In a professional sense, of course.

      “Come on, Eddie, let’s see what you’ve got cooking for me tonight,” she said, checking his name on the monitor. Yep, he was there, first name on the top of the list, and ready to go. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be way better than brussels sprouts.”

      “Good evening, Valentine. You’re in rare form tonight.”

      At the sound of his voice, Roxy wrinkled her nose at Astrid. The man did come on so darn strident sometimes. Like sending her copies of the fifteen billion books he’d written—the ones still in the carton in the trunk of her car. Unopened. “Good evening, Doctor Craig. And let me just correct one thing you said before we go any further. I’m always in rare form. Not just tonight.” Something about his voice, that little Boston/British accent thing he had going on, made her voice go even sexier than her normal Valentine sexy. If dark chocolate could talk, it would sound like Edward Craig.

      Roxy glanced down at the dark-chocolate truffle on her desk. Every night, right about this time, she got the craving.

      “Rare form, maybe. But rare doesn’t necessarily mean good. Not when you do such a disservice to your listeners with your advice.”

      “My