“Well he didn’t ask me, did he? He didn’t even look at me.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He acted like I wasn’t there,” she continues. “Like I was… background decoration.” Her offense is making me offended. It’s nice to know where Istand.
“Awww poor thing,” I say sarcastically, as I aggressively fight with the button on my shirt.
I think of the way Ethan’s eyes never left mine. Not once. Not when Sarah spoke. Not when she got angry. Not even when the air in the room changed.
He looked at Sarah like she was furniture. And he looked at me like I was a food source, his craving. It makes my stomach ache.
“Stop being insecure, Leo. We need to talk about this,” she says, her arms crossed while she watches me undress down to my underwear.
“He’s not right,” I say. “Didn’t you feel that? The way he talked?”
Sarah scoffs.
“He’s rich. They’re all weird.”
“No,” I whisper. “It was different, like some cyborg. I’m telling you, the more time I spend with him the more I’m convinced he’s crazy. Nobody is that lifeless.”
I get straight into bed and I close my eyes. I see him again, perfectly still, perfectly calm, like emotions were things other people carried for him. His voice wasn’t seductive. It was level and so matter of fact. Careful. Like he was choosing tools to use, and not words.
God, the way he looked at me. Goosebumps flare up my skin, so I pull the cover up over me to stop my body from responding.
It’s clear that Ethan sees me as an object and not a person. There was no admiration or heat about the idea of being with me. It was more like I was a rare antique placed behind glass that he wanted to play with.
“He looked at me like I was… food,” I say. Sarah rolls her eyes.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I?”
She steps closer, lowering her voice, persuasive now as she sits on the bed next to me.
“Leo, this could fix everything. You hate your job. You hate worrying about rent. You hate feeling stuck.”
She’s right and that’s the worst part.
“I don’t want to be bought,” I say.
“It’s one night.”
“How can you be so relaxed about this? Do you not care? Would it not bother you that I would have to sleep with another person? Touch them? That you are technically trying to pimp me out,” I rage, disgusted at how easily I’m being cast aside.
“Of course I care. But what about what I want, Leo? Do you really think I want to be stuck in this shithole apartment, barely making ends meet? No. But when you are offered something like this, you at least consider it. It’s about both of us.”
“No, you’re making it about you. I told you I didn’t want to move here and how expensive it would be. And now you want to turn me into a rent boy for a night so you can have your dream home? What about us?”
“You would be doing it for us, why can’t you get that! I would do it.”
“Oh, I’m sure you would. I’m beginning to notice the lengths you will go to for the money.”
“Thats not fair.”
“Fuck fair. Its not fair that I’m being expected to fuck a guy. A guy! I’m not even gay.”
“It’s…”
