My mother raised her artfully waxed brows at me. Grad school was a pretty amorphous category.
“How long have you been seeing her?” she asked.
“A few months,” I said. I’m picking her up on the way home from here, I thought, and making a one hundred thousand-dollar deposit with her madam. And signing a waiver that says I won’t sue the service if I happen to contract chlamydia, genital warts, etcetera, even though they’ve signed a contract that states my escort’s vagina is pristine and sparkling.
Not that I was going to sleep with her.
“So, her name?” my mother asked, expectantly.
Just then, my phone buzzed. I smiled at my mother in triumph. “I have to get this,” I said and picked up. “Molly. Wait one minute.” I knocked back the rest of my bourbon and leaned down to give my mother’s papery cheek a quick kiss.
“See you tonight. I gotta take this.”
Then, happier than I’d ever been to get bad news from Molly, I hustled out of the house without a backward glance.
Audrey
My luxury wardrobe was packed and ready to go. I was sitting in the office, crossing and uncrossing my legs, waiting for Mr. Preston to pick me up.
Elena clicked around the corner in her heels and frowned at me. “You look nervous—don’t be. It’s going to be fun,” she said.
“I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity, Elena,” I said. I sprayed my mouth with breath freshener for what was probably the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes.
“Well, you’re perfect for this job. Beautiful, smart. You’re able to hold your own in a conversation. And I have a guarantee that you’ll behave this time.” She gave me a look that I understood instantly.
“That guy was a creep, Elena,” I said defensively. “If I hadn’t run, I would probably still be his sex slave, shackled up in his scary basement.”
“We’re lucky he didn’t press charges against us,” Elena said. “And I don’t blame you for wanting to get out of there. But if there’s ever a problem, you call me. You don’t pepper-spray a client, handcuff him to a wall in his underwear, and then run away.”
“What if he was going to kill me, huh?” I asked.
“He wasn’t going to kill you,” she responded, rolling her eyes at me as if I were being dramatic.
“Elena, he told me I was going to be his lifelong prisoner. And he’d already done some scary stuff to me at that point,” I said. “All I kept thinking was, who was gonna help my brother? Who was going to take care of him if I never came back?” I was traumatized more by the memory of that worry than by the creepy John himself. I could handle him. But Tommy being left all alone?
That I could never handle.
“There, there,” she said, coming over and rubbing my shoulders. “Don’t get all blotchy.”
I knew she was being nice and cooing over me because I was her prized show pony of the moment. But I smiled at her anyway. She’d given me this assignment, and I was going to be able to set things up for Tommy now. So that if a John ever did decide to keep me as a permanent-resident sex slave, my poor brother would at least have a roof over his head.
She cupped my face in her hands and clucked her tongue in approval. “You’re perfect looking even when you’re upset,” she said. “And all your body parts are real. James Preston is going to love you. And then he’s going to love me, too.”
After staring off into space for a second, probably counting all the money she was going to make, Elena came back to earth. She looked at me. “Back to the pepper-spray incident. I do not want my girls getting hurt. Not ever. You call me if there’s a problem. If it’s bad, I’ll have you call 911 immediately. After I screen the issue. But that guy telling you that he wanted to lock you up and hate-fuck you every day for the rest of your life? Honey, you haven’t been around that long. That’s nothing. Really, that’s not so bad.”
I looked at her, indignant. “He had a basement filled with handcuffs and shackles, permanently affixed to the walls,” I said. “It seemed pretty bad at the time.”
She squeezed my face as if I was an insolent child. “I forgive you for running,” she said, even though I wasn’t asking for her forgiveness. “But I want you to make this James Preston thing your triumph. Your return to good graces. You remember that you owe me for giving you another chance. If you make him happy, I’ll be sure that you only get the best clients from now on. The normal ones, who just want to pretend that you’re the perfect girlfriend. And maybe jerk off in your face.”