“Then quit acting like a puppy who’s ready to bolt the minute the front door is open,” he said with a smirk.
“You’re kind of awful, you know that?”
“I’ve been told a time or two. You know what’s strange?”
“You don’t care?”
“Not a bit, isn’t that great?”
“No, fuck you.”
He cocked his head. “Do you still want to?”
“Why? Are you offering?” I asked with a snort.
“No,” he said, and despite being the answer I expected, I felt a small jolt of disappointment even though I knew it was just me trying to escape my thoughts...probably. “I’m also not saying no, but I’m not offering either. I’m done offering my body to people.”
“What’s left?” I wondered as we reached the room. “People...pushing themselves on you?”
“Again? That would be interesting,” he said in a light tone that didn’t quite fit his mood.
“Again?” I asked, coming to a stop and staring at him. “What do you mean, again?”
His eyes drifted over my shoulder. “You’ve seen firsthand how people treat sex workers, or at least their attitude. Do you really think there wasn’t someone who was just as rude and ignorant as Ian, but worse?”
“I...did they...” I didn’t know how to ask.
“No,” he said, looking to the side and giving a sad smile. “The first time?—”
“The first time,” I repeated, appalled.
“The first time, I was lucky, and he wasn’t expecting a real fight. The second and third times, I was prepared. I learned to read the danger signs and made sure I knew where I was goingto be, where the exits were, and...well, a taser takes the libido of most people. Not all, but most,” he said wryly. “Thankfully, the two I had to zap were fairly vanilla, so electrocution didn’t do it for them.”
“Vanilla,” I repeated bitterly. “They were rapists.”
“Attempted rapists, and banned from getting escorts from any decent service,” he said with a sigh.
“They should have been in jail.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked in amusement. “Did you forget I was an escort? No better than a whore to a lot of people? And before you get mad, prostitution is illegal.”
I stopped at that, frowning. “I...forgot. I guess I always forget that.”
“Why?”
“Why do I forget? Because it’s a stupid thing to be illegal. I mean, it’s just sex, for God’s sake; sex for money, but sex. Hell, it’s probably easier for some people; all they have to do is fork over the money and boom, laid. None of that lead-up bullshit, no need to seduce someone, just sex. And I mean...well, actually, that would be a pretty awful job, wouldn’t it? Wait, have you ever been arrested?”
Isaac grinned. “No, but I have gotten close. See, escort services operate in an interesting legal gray zone. All you have to do is make sure you’re being paid for yourcompany, because that isn’t illegal. And if you happen to have sex with the person who hired you, well, you did that of your own volition, not because you were paid. Of course, the price difference between a standard escort service and an upgraded service was substantial and suspicious as hell, but they have to go to the effort of proving you were prostituting yourself. Which is harder to do when you’re like me, and work for an escort service that has existed for a while and is professional and thorough. They had their ownlegal department, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they had people who, on the side, bought or scared off persistent cops.”
“You make them sound like a mafia,” I muttered, realizing we were standing outside my door. Isaac had been patiently waiting for me to open it, even though his card gave him access, because my room wasn’t set to privacy mode.
He watched me open the door with amusement. “Honestly, I never dug too deep into the internal affairs of the service, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“That they’re mafia?”
He snorted, following me inside. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they had connections to crime groups. I heard rumors, of course, and they knew how to make problems go away quietly, but that was all. Nothing substantial. There were clues, though.”
“Like what?” I wondered.
