Amply Rewarded (5 page)

I was puzzled.

“I… You know…”

I pieced it together. “Oh, my God, Veronica. Are you an escort?”

“Are you disappointed?” she asked. I thought it was a strange question.

“Not at all. I think it’s great.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I’ve known Carla for a long time and this is a different kind of place than most. I have a lot more control and I can’t argue with the money.”

“It sounds really good.”

“Are you looking for work or something?”

“Actually, I am.”

“You sure this is the kind of work you want?”

I nodded. “Definitely.”

“I could talk to her for you…or introduce you.”

“Would you?” This was fate. But her face changed. She looked sullen, maybe sceptical. It was hard to tell, but I could feel it.

“Most girls don’t just start here, you know. Have you done anything at all like this? Dancing? Hostessing?”

“No, but I learn quickly.”

“I’m sure you do. Just remember, I’m trusting you and I’m about to do you a massive favour, and neither of those two things happens very often.”

“I really appreciate your kindness and hospitality.”

“Don’t mention it. I had fun with you last night.”

“Me too.”

We sipped our coffee, then Veronica made toast.

“So what exactly does this work entail?” I finally asked.

She winked at me. “I can show you the ropes, but you’re going to have to set up your boundaries with Carla. That’s how it works.”

“Lucrative?”

“Very.”

“I’m in.”

I took her empty mug of coffee and refilled it and wondered, if she shared this house with others, where they were.

“This is my suite. You’d have your own. Oh, it’s civilised all right. And I’ll tell you what else. This is a nice part of town, you know? A nice neighbourhood. Like, no one really knows what goes on here because we’re all young and whatever. Carla has everyone convinced we’re trust fund babies going to Berkeley.”

“Seriously?”

“Sure. This is high end. Carla was pro for years. She really made a name for herself and then she became an entrepreneur, and now she’s got a few of these set-ups around the city.”

“That’s so smart.”

“Which part? The fact that she made buckets or that she figured out how to manage other girls instead of doing the work herself?”

“I was just thinking about the student housing cover-up.”

“That is pretty damn smart,” Veronica said. “Believe me, I’m studying her. I’m going to do the exact same thing once I’ve got my start-up capital.”

She sounded so ambitious and sophisticated. I’d never in my whole life met a woman like her. We had a wonderful morning together. It felt as if I’d known her forever. I think it’s funny with friendship—not a matter of time at all, but a matter of love. Veronica made me feel like the world was in bloom and I was right inside the most exquisite blossom watching it unfold.

I was to talk to Carla that afternoon. Veronica set it up before her first and only appointment of the day. She told me to be downstairs in Carla’s office at three and to borrow something nice from her closet. I hadn’t expected Veronica to be so kind and generous. I wasn’t sure what I had expected. After last night’s midnight beach dancing, my expectations had become irrelevant.

Downstairs, Carla was friendly, too. But intimidating. She wore a pink skirt and blazer suit with a white button-down shirt and a string of pearls. She was much more conservative than I had imagined, and much more elegant. Again, I felt naïve.

“So, Veronica filled you in on what this is all about?” she asked, crossing her legs and looking rather sternly at me over the rim of her glasses.

I nodded.

“Okay, ‘cause I can’t have you moving in and then moving out. If you go, it’s gotta be like on semester break, or something.”

I nodded.

“I built this business from the ground up,” she said. “It’s solid.”

She seemed so powerful to me—easily the most powerful woman I’d ever met—and I really could not believe my tremendous luck to have landed such an excellent situation right away. Her bookshelves were lined with all the classics. Carla seemed decent and smart. Veronica had called her jaded but she looked too young to be. She was also beautiful. Not in the dark and mysterious way Veronica was, but in a girl-next-door sort of way.

“Why do you want to do this kind of work?” she asked.

I was thrown off by the question. I didn’t understand why my motivations were relevant to her. “I enjoy taking advantage of men.”

She looked at me for a while. It was awkward, to say the least.

“Some girls feel as though it is the men who take advantage of them, so your phrasing is interesting,” she finally said. “Have you done this sort of thing before?”

“No,” I said. “But you don’t have to worry about me. I can handle this.”

She still just sat there stiffly, shifting her gaze from my face to my body to her nails and back to me.

“We’ll start you slow. Lots of clients just want companionship, massages, that kind of thing.”

“Veronica said she could help me along, too,” I offered.

“All right,” she announced as she held out her hand to me. “I’m prepared to offer you a contract.”

“Wow. Thank you.”

“Fifty-fifty split. You get free rent and no bills.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Rarely more than one client per twenty-four-hour period. I don’t know what Veronica told you, but this is high end. Doctors, lawyers, that kind of thing—so spend some time reading and educating yourself. This is about presenting the entire package, not just looks.”

I nodded again.

We shook hands before Carla had had a chance to ask me where I knew Veronica from, or for how long. We talked about some more details, then she handed me a wad of cash to update my wardrobe. An advance, she said.

The arrangement was that I was to stay with Veronica until Josie had cleared her stuff out of her suite. It was just the three of us and Carla didn’t take visitors. She just liked this house more than any of her others, which was understandable, since it was stunning. I had always thought that these kinds of arrangement involved more people. I guess all I knew about it was from movies.

Back in Veronica’s suite, she toasted me with a cup of Earl Grey tea.

“You made it. Congratulations.”

“I kind of can’t believe it.”

“All the glamour and excitement?”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll wear off. Like, tomorrow. Trust me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You do know what you’re getting into, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“But have you done it?”

“Well, no.”

“Well…then.” She pulled a couple of cigarettes out of a package and passed one to me, then lit them both. “You’re free to stay here and watch what I do, okay? But I don’t want you being obvious about it. It’d be too hard for me to stay in character.”

“In character?”

“Veronica.”

I looked at her, puzzled. It must have been clear.

“Oh, shit,” she said, “I didn’t tell you my real name. It’s Kelly. When I moved here, I didn’t think it sounded sophisticated enough. Anyway, you’re not supposed to work under your real name. Carla told you, I’m sure.”

“She didn’t say much, but I guess that makes sense.”

“Well, listen. Watch and learn, cause it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it.”

That night, I watched Kelly make five hundred bucks from her regular, Mr Stevens. Just like us, apparently most men didn’t use their real names either, and first names were out of the question. If you walked by each other in the street, you weren’t supposed to acknowledge each other. That was just part of the code.

Mr Stevens, Kelly suspected, was a married man. He had a thing for her schoolgirl uniform. He came straight from work, dressed in a suit, and sat all uptight in Carla’s lounge downstairs, where he waited for Veronica to emerge from the en suite changing room. I hid behind a vintage wall divider in a dark corner. The thrill of having to be absolutely silent added to the experience.

Kelly came out wearing a tight, button-down white shirt with black pinstripe mini skirt. Her hair was in a chignon, as if she were a sexy librarian. She wore a ton of eye makeup, but Mr Stevens didn’t look at her face. He was so entranced with her body and her bare midriff.

“Oh, Veronica, I’ve missed you.”

“Why haven’t you come to see me, Mr Stevens?” Kelly cooed.

“I’m here now.” He patted his knee. “Come and sit with me.”

She went straight for his lap and put her arms around his neck.

“Oh, that’s my girl,” he said, closing his eyes momentarily. “I brought you a little something.”

He handed her a wrapped box. She tore off the wrapping paper and pulled out a pair of panties that had a slit down the middle.

“Wear these for me.”

She took them in her hand, and went back out to change. She re-emerged very quickly, then she took off his jacket, placed it neatly on the side of the couch and straddled him. He petted her hair and she started to unbutton his shirt. His grey chest hairs sprouted out, and she tugged at the fabric. Awkwardly, he adjusted himself so that she could take his shirt off. She kissed his chest. Lower and lower, she went over him with her mouth until she reached his belt. She knelt down on the floor in front of him. Mr Stevens stood up, undid his belt, unzipped his pants and stepped out of them. Inside his boxer shorts, he was hard.

Kelly stroked his erection. Seductively, she said, “Mmm. What’s this?”

“Let me show you,” he said, taking off his boxers.

She winked at him and smiled. “You’re so big. It looks like you could really hurt me with that.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, baby,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. Come here.”

She knelt in front of him and took his cock into her mouth. He placed his hands at her head and tugged at her hair until he managed to unravel the bun. It looked as if it hurt. He stroked her hair and looked as though he was in another world, completely devoid of himself and reality.

For a brief moment, I wondered what it would be like for him to drive home to his wife and kids after this, but I didn’t care. I didn’t know Mr Stevens and, other than a mild curiosity that I have for all strangers, I didn’t give a damn. Kelly, on the other hand, was dear to me and I wondered what it did to her to pretend to be okay with this. I wondered what it was like for her to wear that outfit, and to have sex with a man who was old enough to be her father.

She didn’t seem disturbed so I let myself indulge in the vision unfolding in front of me.

She paused for air. “Do you like this?”

“Mmm. Yes,” he said. “Do you want to come sit on me?”

She nodded.

“I don’t want you to take off your panties.”

She walked over to him, reached into a jar on the coffee table and pulled out a condom.

“How do you know about these? I thought you were a virgin,” he said.

“Stop teasing me.”

He split open the package and rolled it onto his cock quickly. Kelly put her hands on his shoulders and slid herself onto him. She made it seem like it hurt a little as she eased herself downward slowly.

“That’s my girl. You can take the whole thing, can’t you, baby?”

“Mmm.” She moaned and bobbed up and down.

It didn’t take long for Mr Stevens to come. Not long at all. Kelly was on him for less than five minutes when suddenly his face crinkled and his body stiffened, and he yelped like a little boy.

And that was it. She got off him, patted her outfit straight and sat down next to him, almost as though they were strangers sitting together in their doctor’s waiting room.

Mr Stevens sighed. “Thank you, Veronica. It’s been a pleasure, as usual.”

“Can I get you anything?” she asked.

“No. I should get going.”

With that, he got dressed, put on his jacket, took his briefcase and left.

Kelly poked her head behind the divider. “You can come out now.”

I didn’t say anything. Then Kelly laughed. I laughed.

“Jeez. It takes me longer to put on my eye makeup than it does to get that guy off.” She straightened the pillows on the couch. “Come on. I’m going upstairs for a shower. Come with me, and then we can go grab a drink somewhere.”

* * * *

“Don’t get the impression that it’s always that easy,” she said from the shower. I sat on the counter in her bathroom and watched, as per her invitation. “I mean, some guys take longer but, you know, for fifteen minutes of my time—if it was even that long—five hundred bucks seems like a fair deal.”

She squirted a dollop of facial cleanser into her palms and lathered her face vigorously. She was so beautiful, so graceful and it seemed to come so easily to her. Once out of the shower she towelled off and got out her hair dryer. Her long hair flapped about as she combed parts of it through with a wide-toothed comb.

“A lot of the guys Carla knows will take you out for dinner, or to business functions or whatever, so that’s a whole other level of investment.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant but didn’t think I should ask.

“Some of them pay you to stay the night with them in a hotel. So that’s kind of challenging, at least for me. I could never sleep or anything.”

She took me out to celebrate my new job and her five-minute, five-hundred-dollar evening. We took a cab to a luxury hotel and sat in its lounge, overlooking the city. It was breathtaking.

“See, now, what you wanna do is find someone in a place like this. You know…eventually.”

“A man?”

“A rich man,” she advised.

“You just have it all figured out, don’t you?” I asked.

She looked at me and her tone changed. “I’ve got nothing figured out. Nothing. I was just making plans for you.” Then she laughed.

There was something cryptic about the way Kelly spoke. The things she said never really added up to the whole truth, but then I wondered what the whole truth was. Perhaps some things really were better left unsaid, particularly in new friendships.

That night, back in her apartment, she poured me a bath and sat beside the tub on a towel on the floor while I soaked. She played some bluegrass and bobbed along calmly, quietly.