Amply Rewarded (7 page)

I was expecting him to flare into a mad frenzy. Anyone with self-respect would. I had insulted him to the core. But, not surprisingly, he did exactly as I said. He got dressed, thanked me and left.

Later that afternoon, Carla knocked on my door. “Here’s your first bonus. I don’t know what went down in that room, but he couldn’t stop raving about you,” she said, and smiled. “Nice work. Welcome to your new life.”

People who grew up with money either learn this lesson late in life—the so-called ‘hard way’—or not at all. Money is not power. Money can’t actually buy anything—it’s an illusion. If used correctly, it can be powerful. But that makes it no different than anything else. If we were playing a game of cards, that jerk’s hand would have been no match for mine, even if he had gone to all the right schools and would eventually become a snooty, high-paid lawyer.

I told Kelly about him—about what a pasty, puffy-lipped dork he’d been. That, I thought, would be his worst nightmare—the threat that a pretty girl, be she paid or not, would recount all his insecurities and laugh at them with her friends. It had to be most men’s worst nightmare. It was also to my great advantage, and so I didn’t tell Kelly what I had made him do.

Instead, I told her I wanted to take her out. I wanted to reciprocate even just a little of the hospitality she had shown me.

* * * *

We walked from our house through Chinatown to Kelly’s favourite restaurant. Sometimes, she said, she got homesick and went to this place that served up the best fried chicken she had managed to find outside Alabama. I didn’t have the same kind of attachment to my home. Her childhood, I speculated, had been laced with these kinds of memories—tastes and smells—and she told me her parents had been sad when she’d decided to leave.

“What could I do?” she asked. “They didn’t get that Green Hill was a dead end for me. What could I have done there?”

“What did they want?”

“They wanted me to get married, have children, be like them, I guess. But they hated their lives. At least, that’s what it looked like to me. I hated my life. Maybe theirs was okay. I never asked. Anyway, I had to get away from my uncles. I had to get away from…” She stopped, looked into a little shop window and tugged on my arm. “Damn, it’s closed. I’ll have to take you here some time. They have the most amazing things in here.”

It was an antique shop with beautiful, old, art deco oak furniture piled high at the back. It was dark now, and I imagined it was the kind of place that was dark even on sunny days because there was so much stuff piled on display.

“Look at that little box.” She pointed at the window. Her finger touched the dewy glass and left a mark. It was a gold pill box with gemstones on the top of it. I didn’t know if she was really keen on the box or if it was her way of changing the subject, so I never asked about either again.

Her favourite place was an old-style diner that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We had walked through a stretch of warehouses and were somewhere in the industrial district, but I was no longer sure exactly where. It’s funny what you learn about people based on where they like to eat. When I’d first seen Kelly, I’d thought she was the embodiment of glamour. She’d been everything ‘big city’ in my mind, but I had been wrong. Green Hill, she said, was a tiny little town, a forty-minute drive from another fairly small town. She had grown up, much like me, obsessing over the idea of a bigger, brighter, better place.

“So, what’s your plan? You know…at Carla’s?” she asked as we were seated in the blue vinyl booth.

It was a direct question. I had barely moved in. I had almost screwed up with today’s client. I didn’t even know if I could cut it. “I’m not sure yet.” I grabbed the plastic menu and studied it, hoping we weren’t going to talk about work all night.

“Well, a word of advice?”

“Sure.”

“Carla knows what she’s doing. She’s a good person, you know? She’s the reason I could leave my job at the Side Bar and I’m glad I’m out of that dive. I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s hard. It was okay when I first got here. It seems like this place is a big city, you know, but it’s not. You will get recognised. I didn’t think so at first. I couldn’t imagine it. But then it happened. I was minding my own business, shopping for groceries and some guy, some random asshole, came up to me and said, ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ and I was like, ‘Who?’ but we both knew and…”

“You hated it?”

“Hate is a strong word. I’m very private. I don’t like knowing people I haven’t set out to know. The good thing about Carla’s is that it’s a lot of regulars, a lot of word of mouth and overall pretty decent people.”

“And the bad thing?”

“Money. She takes half of everything. It’s not my idea of a good deal. It’s just I needed something to get on my feet. She’s getting the better end of the stick, though, I’ll tell you that much.”

“But the other day you said that it was great money.”

“In comparison to the Side Bar, but it’s not a long-term thing for me. I don’t want to get stuck making someone else rich, you know?”

She glanced at the menu. “I’ll order for you,” she said. “I’m the Southerner. I like this place. Betty-Anne, the owner, really is from the South. It’s the real deal here. You like okra?”

“Don’t know.”

The waitress, a middle-aged woman with a ponytail and a pencil behind her ear, came over. Kelly ordered a ton of food and smiled at me. “Good for the soul,” she said, revealing the twang she usually hides to the waitress, who also smiled.

“So what’s
your
plan?” I asked.

“Long term, I want to build my own thing. I’m not sure what yet. I’m not even sure if I’ll stay in this industry. It can really wear you out if you’re not careful.”

“You seem pretty together.”

“How do you mean?” Her question was vaguely defensive, as if she didn’t like that I had made that observation.

“I just mean that you seem to be pretty happy.”

“Yeah, well, ‘seem’ is the word there.”

“Really?” It hit me. I don’t know what kind of strange vision of Kelly I’d carried around in my head before that moment. I had sincerely thought that she liked what she did. I had been naïve, I guess.

“You were so nice to me. I guess I thought you were happy.” I knew it was a dumb thing to say.

“So being nice is being happy?” Kelly retorted. I didn’t blame her. I was nervous and I’ve always had a bad habit of saying dumb things when I get nervous.

“That’s not what I meant.” I didn’t know how to take it back. I didn’t know what to say. I had hurt her feelings because of my own stupidity. God, I just wanted to hold her and tell her I was sorry and for her to forgive me. Her eyes were piercing, as if she had a threshold that, once crossed, would make her turn harsh and angry almost immediately. “Sorry, it’s just that you’re the one that asked me to stay at Carla’s. I thought you…”

“You wanted my help, remember?”

“I’m sorry, Kelly.”

“Look, forget it. If you want my advice, marry rich. It’s the easiest way. Self-preservation, security. You’re not cut out for this.”

I was insulted and hurt. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t expected her to be so blunt and I couldn’t make myself come back with anything.

Our food arrived and we didn’t broach the subject of my career again. All along, though, behind our surface conversation, I kept returning to her statement. I couldn’t figure out if she was trying to be nice to me—‘self-preservation’?—or if it was her way of telling me that she didn’t think I was good enough. If she really meant it was the easiest way, why wasn’t she on the lookout for herself?

* * * *

It was mid October, and I couldn’t get the jerk’s comment out of my mind that I should do something with my life and go to school. Did I really want to be doing this forever? The answer was no. Solidly. I was bored. I also couldn’t get Kelly’s statement out of my head. It was mean, like something my family would tell me. Marrying rich wasn’t what I wanted. If I’d wanted that, I could have just stayed in bloody Glendale and married some Idaho tycoon and sprouted out kids. How could she even have said that to me?

I wanted to have as much of an idea of where I was going as Kelly had. On my days off, I browsed the bookstores for information. I hadn’t grown up with the idea of going to college but that shouldn’t stop me. I hadn’t even taken SATs because, well, why would I? I wasn’t particularly good at school, even though my dad had said I was smart as a whip.

I bought a study guide and took it home. I perused the pages and read all of the words carefully. At first none of it made sense but, once I forced myself to sit down with that book for an hour a day, I found myself retaining the oddest information and actually enjoying reading the newspapers and magazines that Carla subscribed to. She was different from us, that was for sure. She seemed so accustomed to this lifestyle, as if it were just the most natural thing in the world to live in a beautiful house in Berkeley. I still couldn’t leave the front door without feeling as though I had somehow landed in the lap of luxury. What was so bad about giving a few blow jobs to earn my keep here? And that thought, I knew, was the fundamental difference between Carla and me.

Here I was, miles away from where I came from, having simple interactions, all things I had done with Tommy. I wasn’t convinced that Carla wanted me to feel comfortable as much as I was convinced that she wanted to sell me to the highest bidder. Kelly was right about her—she was smart.

But so were we. One of Kelly’s regular patrons had been waiting for the opportunity of two girls at once to come along. Josie, for whatever reason, had declared early on that she wasn’t into it. Kelly had arranged for him, Mr Rutherford, to take us to a hotel and pay us directly without Carla’s knowledge.

Our job was to interact and fulfil Mr Rutherford’s desires. I embraced the principle of the task. Kelly, who knew him best, was to direct me and I would follow his orders. I never saw it as the financial opportunity it was, nor did I see it as servitude to Mr Rutherford. I really just did it the way I would have done absolutely anything for Kelly. We took a cab to the hotel, Kelly feeling smug about the whole arrangement.

“We’ve gotta start doing this more. This is our ticket out of Carla’s. You know, we could just fuck Carla, leave that house, get an apartment together and work like this all the time.”

“I suppose so.” I don’t know why I was hesitant. I guess when I thought about living with Kelly, which I did quite often, I pictured us each having moved on somehow. I pictured her wearing a loose, thin linen shirt and painting in our living room. I pictured coming home to her. I didn’t picture the two of us going out to meet Mr Rutherford. But here we were and it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, I was prepared to have my socks knocked off. I had never been in a fancy hotel room. And even though I had watched Kelly many times, I had never actually participated.

She approached Mr Rutherford, who was waiting for us in the room, with her usual ease—made a bit of small talk, offered him a cup of tea as a joke. We all laughed. Though he had arranged this for her hospitality, tea was the last thing on his mind.

Then Kelly immersed herself in his world. As though she could read his mind, she took her shirt off, revealing a tight corset underneath. She ordered me to remove my clothes—all of them—immediately. I did as I was told. I wouldn’t dare disappoint Mistress Veronica, whose tone and delivery were so skilled. I was to be her assistant and I wanted nothing more than to do the best possible job. Naked, I knelt by her as she gestured for me to do. We were mere inches from where Mr Rutherford sat on the king-size hotel room bed. Kelly took me by my hair so quickly that I let out a gasp. When she grabbed me this way, it was sexy. It told me I was in good hands. I wanted her to take charge, to hold on to me however she saw fit.

She kissed me while watching Mr Rutherford. Her tongue pierced into my mouth as she held me with one hand. It wasn’t the soft kissing I was used to at night. This was ferocious, and everything I had imagined about Mistress Veronica. With her free hand, she caressed my breasts until my nipples were hard, then she stood up quickly, pulling me with her and forcing me, by my hair, to place my nipple in Mr Rutherford’s mouth.

The sensation of his eager sucking went straight through me and my excitement dripped out of me. Held by Mistress Veronica and nibbled on by this older, almost startled gentleman, I was ready to do anything with them. I loved the attention the combination gave me. Mr Rutherford moaned as though he was the luckiest man alive, and I understood the sound with ease. Mistress Veronica unzipped his pants and held my head down to take his cock into my mouth. I complied, both because I had no choice and because there was nothing I wanted more than to see what she would think of next. I hoped she would force me onto Mr Rutherford’s cock, if only to appease my yearning clit.

She used my mouth to harden him and just as I thought she was going to mount him in front of me, she merely sat on his lap instead, facing me. Her back to him, she took my hand and guided my mouth to her lovely, moist cunt. I wanted to devour her. She rose up and started writhing her way down his hard shaft. Both of them moaned. He put his arms around her, cupping her breasts and fingering her nipples, and her eyes stayed locked with mine the whole time.

I sensed what she wanted and licked her with him inside her. She leant back on him, exposing more of her pussy for me. She spread her legs wide. I licked at her swollen pinkness and, even more so than with Tommy, I felt the sensation that I wanted more and more of her. I couldn’t get enough. She started to slide up and down rhythmically, almost jumping. Her breasts bounced beautifully and she moaned with delight as her body shivered with a powerful orgasm.

I was in awe. I had never seen anything so seductive. It was different from what men did. I wanted to explore more of her, but she changed position. Her attention turned towards him…and me. He was massive, much bigger than he had been in my mouth. His eyes were large with disbelief. I wondered if she had ever climaxed with him before, or whether this was a special offering for me that had nothing to do with him. I chose to believe the latter. Just as I chose to believe that she was the one fucking me when she took me by my hair again, slid her fingers to my opening and guided me, slowly, onto Mr Rutherford’s glistening cock. He tried to grab my hips and thrust inside me, but Mistress Veronica slapped him on the side of his face.