Inez pinches the bridge of her nose. “Must we continue to have this discussion every week, Lydia? These men want the arrangement only you offer. You make double what my other girls make an hour, but they take home more on a weekly basis because of your refusal to take more than one appointment—”
“I said no.” Unwavering, I match her frustration and lift my chin in defiance. “These men kiss me, touch me, fuck me six days a week. I get one day off to brace myself for it to happen again for another six days and another six days and another six days. One client a day is all I can stomach, Inez. Twenty-four hours isn’t long enough to recover from more than that. If they can’t wait for me, find another girl to do it.”
Inez’s defensive posture melts, and her expression softens with compassion. It’s not very often I confide in her my struggle. It’s not very often I admit that I do struggle. My heart turned to stone along my journey from a child watching her mother dance for money to now, but I am human.
Normalcy isn’t a concept I come face-to-face with on a regular basis, but I felt like a fraud sitting in that coffee shop with Talent. It was harder for me to act like I belonged there than it is for me to stare at a man’s cock and pretend I want it. Fitting in among people my own age to drink coffee took more out of me than letting a stranger inside of my body.
This life has me fucked-up.
I’m simply great at hiding it.
“You’re right,” Inez admits. She presses her lips to the top of my head and walks around her desk. “I shouldn’t push you.”
“Thank you.” I chew on the words. What a terrible thing to be thankful for.
“Did you notice we have a new receptionist?” She takes a seat and crosses her legs. I don’t answer, afraid a scream will escape before my response. “Camilla was more aware than I gave her credit for. She caught on in record time, don’t you think?”
I wait to hear if she fired or hired her.
“She wants in,” Inez says. She leans her head back against the chair, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m hesitant, and I’ll tell you why. Camilla’s not like us, Lydia. She didn’t grow up without opportunity. You and I made the most out of the lives we were given, but something happened that led her away from a mostly normal upbringing.”
“What do you know?” I speak, confident that looming hysteria has calmed for now. “Drunk dad? Abusive mother? Did her uncle lead her into a room with candy? Our stories are mostly the same.”
“All she said is that she doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Give her a job. She’ll either tough it out or run home where she belongs.”
“The thing is…”
Filling my lungs with oxygen, I exhale and ask, “Didn’t you just say you weren’t going to push me, Inez?”
Holding her hands up in surrender, Inez asks me to hear her out. “Camilla has the potential to be special like you. Be her mentor, Lydia. Teach her how you’ve done it for so long successfully. I’d like her to pick up where you leave off.”
“At her age, if Camilla needs the birds and the bees talk, she needs a therapist, not a mentor to teach her how to be a whore.”
Inez scoffs. “I hate it when you talk like that.”
“Dress it up however you like, Inez, but that’s what we are. Even you. I have no interest in teaching some lost girl how to sell her body. If she comes from a decent home like you claim she does, send her back. That’s the humane thing to do.”
“Do you think I’m a monster?”
“Of course not,” I whisper. “I think you’re a queen. You know that.”
“The girl made it clear she’s not interested in returning home. She’ll do this with or without our guidance, Lydia. We both know what will happen to her on the streets alone—we’ve been there and it’s not pretty. Camilla’s safer under our influence. With your busy schedule and her willingness to learn the ropes, with enough experience she can service clients in the same manner as you do. We can kill two birds with one stone.”
The decision’s made, so there’s no point in wasting my breath to argue. Displeasure roars from the hardness in my eyes and the set of my straight shoulders. I lock down like window shutters before a hurricane, boarded up and nailed. Inez can stress her point until she’s blue in the face, but I won’t speak another word about Camilla until I’m expected to show her how to sell her virtue.
“For heaven’s sake, Lydia. I recognize that look on your face.” Inez rolls her eyes and sits forward in her seat. “Before you completely shut me out, there’s one more thing I need to run by you. Camilla needs a place to stay, and you have an extra bedroom—”
I take it back. I won’t listen until Inez turns blue, because if I do, chances are I’ll choke the life out of her before she has the opportunity to say another word.
“Think about it,” she calls out before I walk out. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Sitting on my bed with my legs crossed, I chew on my thumbnail, awaiting the arrival of my nightly text message from Talent. I’ve checked the status of the phone numerous times to make sure the minutes and text allowance are reupped. How often have I scrolled through his previous messages to make sure I didn’t miss one? Anticipation runs wild while I wait to see what he’ll say next, hoping it’s something good. The realist in me is certain that Talent wouldn’t be caught dead with me and this is just a game to him.
I go back and forth between throwing the phone to the other side of the bed and keeping it right in front of me to see the message the instant it’s received.
Dog’s happy to be allowed on the bed, and he sits beside me patiently.
It arrives like clockwork. I lift the phone and open the message in a single breath, not releasing it until I’ve read it.
When can I see you again?
Falling back against my pillows, I stare at the tiny screen until the message blurs and the power save kicks in and the light dims. How long will he continue to send messages without a reply? For the last week, his one-sentence notes have given me something to look forward to while the time with clients gets harder and harder to stomach. This is leading nowhere, but I take joy where I can get it.
“What do you think, Dog?” I ask my bedmate. “Should I call him?”
Dog doesn’t give a shit, and I take his disinterest as a good sign. Clearly, if this were a bad decision, he’d save me from danger. That’s what domesticated pets do on TV. Which is the kind of loyalty I expect from Dog until I find his owner.
I press call on the only number I have left programmed in the phone and listen to it ring once, twice, three times. My heart can’t take the suspense, and I motion to hang up before my bed swallows me whole when I hear his voice.
“I was going to answer on the first ring, but I couldn’t handle it if I answered and you hung up because you called by mistake. The second ring could still be an accident, but I knew by the third ring this was the real deal.”
“You are so weird,” I say with a small laugh.
“Where are you?” Talent asks. His voice is cool and easy like a summer’s breeze. “Let’s go for a drive.”