My phone rings, stemming all thoughts of plans for the day.
Amara’s the only one who ever calls me. And the reminder of my job is enough to make every ounce of excitement freeze in my veins.
“Scarlett,” she says sweetly when I answer. “How are you today?”
I let out an unfeeling hum. “I’m okay.”
“Class was good? How did you do on your exam yesterday?”
I hide my sigh as I slump back into my chair. Leave it to me to find the one madam who genuinely cares about her girls.
In an instant, my mind flashes back to the night I met Amara.
I’d been on my own for exactly one day and was already being slapped in the face by reality.
Namely, that the world was much more expensive than I realized and that I had zero marketable skills to find a job.
I’d spent all day searching, growing more and more defeated with every rejection. I barely had enough money for another night at a cheap hotel and I hadn’t eaten anything all day, too nervous to buy anything more than a hot dog from a street vendor. By the time I ducked into a bar to ask for a glass of water, my hopelessness had grown to the same level it had been when I left home.
That’s where Amara found me.
Apparently, she watched as I turned down a businessman’s advances at the bar, in awe of the gentle way I did it. With the way she tells the story, I was so polite about it that he wasn’t even offended by the rejection.
She pulled me aside after that, bought me a drink, and asked me what I was doing so far from home.
Maybe it was naïve of me, but I felt like I could trust her. Despite knowing she was a no-nonsense woman, there was also a softness in her eyes that made me think she genuinely cared.
Or maybe it just reminded me of motherly affection I subconsciously craved.
I told her all about my sob story. How I’d run away from a bad marriage and a worse family, and now found myself alone and broke in a city that I thought would be a fresh start. How I had no idea what I was going to do for money because I’d never had a job and had no skills.
The part of that night I remember the most is how Amara’s eyes lit up when I said that.
You have more skills than you think, mia cara,she said.
When I asked her what she meant, she told me she owned an escort agency and that she thought I would be a perfect addition.
I was too shocked to even laugh. She wanted to hire me as a…hooker?
Not as a hooker, she corrected.An escort.
What’s the difference?I asked.
As an escort agency, we offer companionship for dinners, business outings, and other social events, she explained.Both parties are consenting adults, and at no point are sexual favors being exchanged for money.
I must have given her a look of disbelief, because she followed it up with,Think of it this way instead: what if a seventy-year-old man loses his wife of fifty years and grows lonelier every day? Does he not deserve to have dinner with a pretty woman? To have an adult conversation with someone who likes him? Or if a man doesn’t want to go alone to a mandatory work event, is it wrong for him to pay for a date?
I remember feeling silly for my assumption. But that still didn’t explain why she was telling me all this.
It wasn’t until she saidBasically, I own an agency that pays women to stroke a man’s ego the way you just did without even tryingthat I understood.
She really was trying to recruit me.
You’re gorgeous, charming, and you have an incredible read on people. You’d be every man’s dream date. I really do think you’d be a perfect escort. But…I also want to help you.
Sometimes, when I look back, a part of me wants to slap that version of myself that believed a stranger just because she had motherly eyes.
It was then that my predicament truly registered. If I couldn’t find a job within the next day, I’d either end up on the street or on the train back home. And neither option was acceptable.
