“How old are you?” she asks.
Odd. The first personal question she’s asked me. This whole time, I’ve been worried about what to tell her if she asks about me, if I should tell her things that will give my identity away. Usually, I have no misgivings about lying on that front. “I’m 26.”
She nods, absorbing that info, neither a positive nor a negative response. “Have you ever gone through anything that changed you so much that you’ve forgotten how to be you? Orlike you’re notyouanymore, and you don’t know how to be that anymore?”
I want to immediately agree, but my answer is ridiculous because it happened when I was so little. My parents dropped me off at my Gammy’s when I was five, and I didn’t see them again for two years. Even then, it was only for the occasional holiday. I loved Gammy, had been to her place many times, had even lived with her for a couple weeks at a time, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that any of it made sense.
That it wasn’t anything wrong with me.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how to be how I was before I got sick. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be someone different. Iamsomeone different. Everybody’s made that super clear with me, but I feel like I’m still the same me, I just don’t know how to get back there.”
“Do you think they’re scared of you now? Like they’re still scared of losing you? Or that they’re going to hurt you?”
“God, I hope not. Oh, but . . . yeah, that last thing. Physically hurt me. And like I’m not just a normal person who wants to do normal things anymore. They act like I need to live every moment to the fullest when I just want to live every moment.” She takes a big breath, steadying herself, and then looks back out over the lobby and says, “Fine. I just want to get laid.”
I’m about to take the plunge and offer myself up. That sounded good enough for me. She wants to get laid, I want to get laid, we can make this happen.
“God, I used to get laid all the time,” she continues before I get that chance, and I immediately backtrack my thoughts because Imighthave just been friend-zoned. “I used to be such a whore. I fucked anyone who offered—” Shecuts herself off with a gasp and looks to me, horrified. “Not a whore. Not like that. I was never, like, selling myself on a street corner.”
I should tell her I didn’t think that and I don’t even judge sex workers. I’ve heard there’s a lot of human trafficking in the industry, and that blows. But an enterprising woman deciding to put an ad on craigslist or sell pics of her stuffing weird shit up her vag or even standing on that street corner? That’s her business. I sell my body, too.
So I should say something like that, but then I notice the way her coloring intensifies and her eyes widen, only for the lids to go heavy immediately. I notice the cadence of her voice and the swell of her chest. She’s not embarrassed by what she’s just said. She’s secretly excited.
I lean in a bit, get closer to her ear. “Wouldn’t it be fun, though?”
“What? No! It’s scary. Terrible things happen to those women.”
Not disgusting or shameful to her. Just dangerous. “Not to the high-end ones. The escorts.” I don’t even know if that’s true, but it sounds right. That’s the way of the world. “Wouldn’tthatbe exciting? To be taken up to a fancy suite and drink champagne and then indulge in lewd, filthy, shameful, delightful things and make bank off it?”
She’s silent. Still. Her breath lifts and drops her chest, her eyes dart around in thought, but other than that, there’s a very long time she spends with my words before responding.
She swallows and says, “I have a suite.”
“I have eighty-seven dollars in my boot.” Formerly a hundred, and then I got a single smoothie from the hotel’s cafe, and here we are.
She takes another breath before saying, “Eighty-seven dollars does make bank.”
Chapter 4
Tilly
“You’re going to call me John,” Mokushiroku says as we ride the elevator up to the 31stfloor, making me realize we never exchanged our real names. Huh. “I’m going to call you Trixie.”
That’s all he says, although it’s enough to get the other occupants to glance our way. I’m pretty sure it’s clear to everyone on board that the names haven’t been randomly chosen. Prostitutes turn tricks, and their clients are Johns.
Or maybe it’s not clear. I doubt anyone in this elevator is unfamiliar with the terms, but would anyone be thinking about that sort of thing? It’s clear enough that Mokushiroku — or John, I suppose — has no need to pay for sex. Unless that’s his thing.
Thatcould be his thing, I don’t know. Until John proposed this, I didn’t think it was my thing, either. Being Emerson’s mistress makes me feel like shit these days.
It didn’t used to, though. It used to be exciting. He once promised he was going to leave his wife for me, that I wasn’t hismistress, I was the love of his life, I just came into it too late. He never loved his wife, he told me. It just felt like the right thing to do for his career, and it’s not like he dislikes her. They’re happy, but they’re not in love.
I believed everything except his promise of leaving her for me. I pretended like I did, acted excited about it because that’s what he wanted me to do. But I always knew it was a game.
I lead John to the room, but he keeps a hand on my back. He’s propelling me down the hall, not quite knowing where I’m going, but it’s a subtle, accurate touch.
I know this move, whether John realizes it’s a move or not. Emerson has always walked half a step behind me and used his hand to gently steer me to the room. That way, it’s less obvious that this isn’t where I’m supposed to be.
