Moments In Time: A Collection of Short Fiction (50 page)

This guy though, his eyes rake me from top to bottom and don’t make me feel anything but beautiful. I know it’s a far cry from how I actually look right now, but I can’t even think about that right now. I lean backward, grabbing my purse from the floor. Rob brings his hands up to cup my breasts as I grab a condom from my bag. I stay arched back for a little while longer so he can enjoy the view before I straighten back up.

“Would you like to do the honors?” I hand the foil packet to Rob and he all too eagerly takes it from me, tearing the corner with his teeth.

Rolling the latex over his erection, his lush green eyes are glazed over with lust and anticipation. I rise from his lap slightly to align myself with his protected cock and guide myself down slowly. It’s usually much more uncomfortable because I’m not wet, but holy shit if he didn’t just slide in with the perfect amount of friction.

My pace starts slow and I soon realize that this is becoming far too personal for just a paid fuck. It’s too intimate to look into his eyes and watch his lips slightly part in satisfaction as he’s fully seated inside of me. I’m almost lost in his gaze but quickly realize my missteps and make every attempt to correct them.

Breaking eye contact, I fix my stare on the cheap picture that’s on the wall behind the loveseat and begin my typical approach. My momentum picks up, no longer softly rocking into him, trying to get him off as quick as possible. I make excellent use of the added height the heels give me and lift myself up then drop quickly with a slight rotation of my hips. When his hands make their way back up my stomach to take hold of my tits and roll my nipples through his fingers, my gaze starts to wander back to him.

“Fuck, Sapphire. Slow down or I’m not gonna last.”

“That’s kind of the point,” I say, grinning and adding in a few tricks I learned in the past to make this process as quick as possible. Leaning backward, I brace one hand on his knee and reach the other underneath our bodies to massage his balls. I give myself a mental gold star when I feel them tighten in my grip.

Rob moves one of his hands to my ass, squeezing and letting himself go, trying to match my motions with thrusting of his own. The other goes between us to my clit, rubbing in quick circular motions. I’m trying my hardest to not come, but
fuck
he’s killing me right now, and the worst part is he knows how affected I am.

A few minutes later, we’re both lost in ecstasy—him growling my name (or my stage name at least) and my legs quivering, threatening to give out any minute as I climb off his lap. He disposes of the used condom in the waste basket strategically placed next to the sofa. I’m putting my clothes, or lack thereof, on when I feel a warm body behind me and arms wrapping around my middle.

“That was amazing, Sapphire.” In the past I’ve been told how amazing I am, how sexy I am, how good of a fuck I am, but when he says it, I believe it. I can’t have this kind of confusion. This is my profession; he’s a John, not a boy who took me home from a bar for a one night stand. I collected money for my ‘services’ and I’ll do good to remember that.

“You got what you paid for.” I know that I’m being short and passive, but the sooner I get out of this room the better. I need to get back on stage, find a rich dick that came here for a quick fuck behind his wife’s back and get on with my night—forget Rob ever came into the bar tonight.

“Okay, I need a minute. Is it okay if I hang back for a sec?” After zipping up his jeans, he buckles his belt and flops onto the sofa, seemingly spent.

“You technically have six minutes to hang out if you want. I’m gonna head back and freshen up. I gotta be on stage in fifteen.”

“You’re gonna go on stage after that?” He sounds shocked, like he forgot this is my job.

“Yeah, Rob, bills aren’t gonna pay themselves now are they?” I chuckle, walking out of the curtained door and heading back to the locker room.

I take only a few minutes to freshen up and change outfits before I’m sitting at the bar ordering another rum and Coke. Since Kayce is on stage, I know that I’ve got one more girl ahead of me and then I’m back on the pole. Scoping out the room, I realize it’s damn near dead in here except for the table of college guys that Rob came in with, but he’s still not back at the table. I’m about to go back to the VIP area to check on him when I see him chatting with the bouncer and making his way toward his friends.

“Yo, Walterson, was she as good as she looked?” one of the kids in the group yells out from across the bar and high-fives his buddy.
Tactful much?

Much to my dismay, I now know his name, giving him more of an identity than just some random guy I fucked. Rob Walterson. Wait. I look at him a little closer and study his facial features. Warning signs are flashing through my brain, and with every second he becomes more familiar.

“Robbie?” I yell and catch his attention. He freezes in his tracks, staring at me like I just insulted him.

“Dallas?” His eyebrows furrow as if he’s pondering a serious question before his eyes widen in recognition. “Holy fuck, Dallas?”

God damn. Mother fucker. Shit balls. This is so not fucking good.

I rush over to him as quick as my heels allow, yelling to the DJ to take me out of rotation for a while. He’s going to be pissed, but at this point I couldn’t give two shits. There’s something that needs to be hashed out and done right fucking now.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he mutters as I walk him to the back door that’s used for the dancers and the rest of the staff.

“You’re fucking right ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’. What the fuck, Robbie? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Oh, ‘cause I knew? Shit, Dallas. Does Jack know?” Of course he would bring up my cousin at a time like this. I think there are more pertinent things to discuss, like how I just fucked my cousin’s best friend, for money no less. “I
knew
you looked familiar. Mother fucker,” he mutters under his breath.

“No, he doesn’t and you’re not gonna say shit. But really,
me
say something? What about you? Am I being punked?” I start looking around for hidden cameras because this kind of shit is something you would see on TV during a candid camera show.

“Dallas, I’m so sorry. If I knew, I wouldn’t have. You know that, right? I don’t go around paying for sex, I swear. The guys put me up for this since it’s my birthday. They said they would pay for a dance, I didn’t know we were gonna have sex.” Does he realize how condescending he sounds?

“Dude, I don’t give a fuck what you do or don’t do. The fact of the matter is, I do. I get paid to fuck.” His mouth forms an O shape as he realizes what he said a few seconds ago.

“I didn’t mean anything by that, I’m just .
 . . I don’t know . . . This is so bad. Jack is gonna kill me.”

“He won’t kill you because you are
never
going to say
anything
. What’s done is done. No need to bring it up again. Just don’t come back here again, understand?”

“Yeah, Dallas, I got you.”

“And don’t call me Dallas while you’re here. The name’s Sapphire. I use a stage name to protect myself. How many girls in this little po-dunk county do you know named Dallas?” Robbie purses his lips, trying to think of how many he can think of. When he realizes, he nods his head. “Exactly, so go back to your friends and get out of here. This never gets brought up again.”

Instead of walking back inside, he walks around the building toward the front. I’m sure his friends are looking for him, so I go through the back door. Sure enough, five more frat boys are standing around the stage in a small circle, undoubtedly waiting for their friend.

“He’s waiting out front.” I don’t wait for a response before heading to the dressing room. As soon as I step over the threshold, my knees buckle and I have to balance myself on the counter. A few of the girls are staring at me, but they probably just assume I had a bad bump or something. I don’t care enough to dignify them with an explanation.

Working the rest of the night isn’t going to be in the cards for me so I pack up my bag, throw on my jeans and a hoodie and leave through the back without telling the owner or DJ that I won’t be back tonight. Fuck, as shaken as I am right now, I can’t say that I’ll be back at all.

My dingy little motel room has never felt so lonely before. Fuck Robbie for making me feel this way. He’s evoked feelings in me that I’ve tried so hard to push aside for years. Jack was the one who finally convinced me to run away from home just before graduation. He knew how bad it had gotten. He watched me change. Now that I think about it, Robbie and Jack were so damn close there’s
no way
that Robbie doesn’t know what happened to me.

There are reasons why I drown myself in a bottle of rum every night. There are reasons that I fuck without any emotion. There are reasons why I don’t ever show any emotion, and I should have listened to my body when those red flags started waving before I fucked Robbie. I can’t ever take that back. I’ve known him almost all my life, and I didn’t recognize him, but those eyes were so fucking familiar.

He used to be a scrawny little kid. I was always taller than him even though he was a year older, like Jack, until high school when he gained five inches on me but never gained any weight. The acne that was all over his face is very much gone now. He’s filled out nicely, too. But those damn emerald colored eyes should have given him away. I’ve never so much as seen
anyone
with similar eyes to his.

“Goddamn, I should have listened.” I slam my hand on the peeling, yellowing wallpaper that’s on every damn wall of this disgusting room.

I can feel the panic attack setting in. I’ve been down this road so many times that I know all the warning signs—the shortness of breath, the heavy beating of my heart, and the crazy thoughts encompassing my head. Rushing to the medicine cabinet in my bathroom, I take two Xanex from the bottle, swallow them with a gulp of water directly from the faucet and start a shower.

Shakily, I shrug out of my hoodie and shimmy out of my jeans. I’m barely naked before I’m under the showerhead, wishing the water could wash away how dirty I feel. These kinds of moments happen few and far between since I’ve detached myself from everything, and I’m so fucking pissed at Robbie for bringing this back up.

No sooner do I wrap myself in a thin and fading pink towel that’s lost all its fluff, I hear a knock at my door. It’s one in the morning and my rent isn’t due for three days. I swear to God, if the owner of this pathetic excuse for a motel thinks I’m going to fuck him again for a rent pass, he’s out of his mind. I did that one time because I didn’t have much of a choice. This cheap-ass room doesn’t have a peephole in the door, so I’m forced to crack the door with the chain still attached.

The second I see those emerald eyes staring back at me, my breath hitches and I brace myself on the door frame.

“Robbie, what the fuck? How do you know where I live?”

“I followed you back to make sure you got home okay. I took the guys back to campus and came back. We need to talk, can I come in?”

I shut the door and rest my head on the cheap wood separating Robbie from me. He’s only inches away and I can feel him all over me again. A few deep breaths and I unhook the chain. I don’t invite him in, but I don’t forbid him from entering. I’m walking toward the bathroom when I hear the handle turn and the door squeak open.

I make the mistake of turning around and notice the same lust from earlier. I’m floored. He knows who I am, knows what I’ve been through and is
still
looking at me like I’m the most perfect person ever.

“Dallas?”

“Yeah,” I whisper all too breathy.
Compose yourself, Dallas.
I give myself a mental slap across the face to wake up and correct my voice. “You came all the way here, Robbie. Start talking.”

“We really need to talk about what happened and what the fuck you’re doing here.” He waves his hand slightly around the room that’s scattered with my work clothes and food wrappers. The look of disgust doesn’t go unnoticed, unless you can look past that to see the pity.

“I’m here because this is where I live. What happened is you walked into a shady strip joint, paid a stripper to rock your world and then you went back to your happy little life, never to think of this night again. That’s what happened. What is there to discuss?”

Robbie walks over to me and I’m frozen in my steps, unsure of why I’m not locking myself in the bathroom. He grabs my arms at the bicep but I’m not scared. I’ve known him too long to know he would never put his hands on me in anger.

“No, Dallas. What are you doing
here
?” he whispers, his eyes pleading with me to tell him every detail of what led me to this point. I know exactly what he’s asking of me.

“Well, Robbie,” I shrug out of his grasp and sit on the edge of the bed, “when I was sixteen, Ralph thought it would be a good idea to not only fuck my mother, but to fuck me, too. He came into my room and decided that my virginity was no longer something I should be concerned with. After that night, shit went downhill. Jack convinced me to run away and I did. I didn’t realize how hard it would be for a kid to get a job and support herself. So, that’s what I’m doing here. Taking care of myself. Just like I have for the past four years.”