by Robin Roseau
After that promise, Georgieanne and I quickly progressed to phone calls, and it was during our third call that she said, “I’d like to take you to dinner.”
“I’d like that. When and where?”
“I can pick you up,” she offered. “Tomorrow at six.”
“Okay, but I have class Friday morning, so I need to be back no later than ten. Is that all right?”
“Yes. Perfect.”
I’d grown more casual about letting my patrons know where I lived, although I was cycling through a variety of pickup points around campus. I told her where to find me and said I’d be ready.
* * * *
It was a few minutes to six when a shiny black Mercedes pulled to the curb. I couldn’t quite see the driver, but after a moment, her door opened, and an elegant-looking woman stepped out. We locked gazes, and so I approached the car.
“Astrid,” she said warmly.
I returned her smile and walked around the car. “Hello, Georgieanne,” I said, wrapping her in a hug. “Thank you for picking me up.” I kissed her cheek and then stepped away, walking back to the passenger side to climb in.
My date watched me the entire time and didn’t climb back in herself until I was seated and belted in. She smiled at me and said, “You look lovely.”
“And you look quite elegant,” I declared.
“Thank you,” she replied.
We made small talk during the drive. She asked about school. I asked about her job. “I’m the controller for an architectural firm.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Most people don’t,” she replied, throwing a glance at me. “Chief Financial Officer?”
“Okay, I think I know what that is.”
“Well, we don’t have a CFO, but we have a Controller.”
“So the accounting department works for you.”
“Yes, although it’s more than that. Most of my job is strategic.”
“Planning. Budgeting.”
“Yes. And finance. Imagine we’re considering a significant capital expenditure.”
“Such as?”
“Buying our own office.”
“Okay. Very significant.”
“It’s an example,” she said. “The accounting department would provide information to me. I would see income over the last five years and extrapolate trends. I would also compare our current costs to our projected future costs with the new office. I would try to determine whether the new office would improve our gross revenue somehow.”
“How would a new office do that?”
“Perhaps we want to expand staff or offer other services that we can’t do well from our current location.”
“So you look at all that and decide if you’re going to build this new office.”
“No. I look at all this, produce a written analysis, and present it to the board of directors. They decide.”
“Oh.”
“Which isn’t to say that my analysis wouldn’t include key words such as financial disaster.”
I laughed. “Have you ever had to use those words?”
“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t make friends for it, either.”
“You were doing your job.”
“The company president saw it as betrayal.”
“Oh, oh.”
“Which is how I ended up at the architectural firm.”
“He fired you?”
“She. No. But she no longer felt she had my loyalty, and our warm working relationship evaporated.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I like my current firm,” she explained. “Architecture is a mix of engineering and artistry, and we have some amazingly creative people working for us.”
“I bet that part is pretty cool.”
“And I get to see the buildings as they’re being built.”
“I bet that’s fun. Do you show up in a hard hat?”
She laughed. “Sometimes.”
I kept her talking about her job until she parked at the restaurant. She shut down and was about to climb out, but I set my hand on her arm, stopping her. She turned to look at me.
“It can be fun to guess, but on some things, I think it’s a bad plan.”
“I can agree with that.”
“So, even if this question is socially awkward, I’m going to ask anyway, to avoid miscommunication.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
“Not every patron wants the same things.”
“And you want to know what I want.”
“In rough terms, yes. Some are looking for a daughter, although I’m still new and haven’t encountered that. For others, this is a date.”
“Ah. And if I said I wanted a daughter figure?”
“Then I probably wouldn’t flirt with you.”
She laughed. “And if I want flirting?”
“Flirting sounds good,” I said. “So this is a romantic date.”
“That was my assumption.”
“In case it seems weird that I asked, imagine if you really were looking for something different.”
“Right. I don’t blame you for being clear. Romantic date.”
“Romantic date,” I agreed. “Next question. Are you comfortable with PDA?”
“If it’s tasteful.”
“Good. I like holding hands with my dates.”
“Good. So do I.”
At that, we climbed from the car. Yes, we held hands for the walk to the door.
* * * *
It was a nice restaurant and a lovely meal. We held hands sporadically, and under the table, I reached for and found her foot, simply to rest mine beside it. She glanced down when I first did it, but not to the point of actually looking under the table. Then she raised her eyes and looked at me. “Tasteful flirting?”
I smiled and shrugged.
Then, to my momentary disappointment, her foot moved away from mine, but before I could withdraw, hers returned, this time on the other side. She shifted slightly in her chair, and then I felt both her feet, one on either side of mine, trapping it in a way. We wouldn’t stay like that the entire meal, but it amused me. From her smile, I thought it amused her, too.
She offered dessert. I declined. She paid the bill then leaned forward on the table. “I like you, Astrid.”
“I like you, too, Georgieanne.”
“I want to see you again.”
“Did you have more planned tonight?”
“I don’t want to get you back late.”
“Is that for my benefit or yours.”
“You gave a deadline. I’m trying to ensure you know I understand limits.”
“All right. I think you should take me somewhere we can talk a little more.”
“Talk?”
“Talk. And I don’t do goodnight kisses on campus. I hate them from the front seat of a car, and I can’t really invite you inside.”
“To be clear: you invited yourself home.”
“Well, I don’t know if you live down in Eden Prairie. If you do, then that’s far too much driving to return me to St. Paul, or even if you just put me in an Uber.”
“I’m just over the river,” she said. “Ten minutes. Not even.”
“Then yes, I invited myself home, but it’s to talk and maybe cuddle a little, not to get naked.”
“I understood.” She smiled. “Let’s go.”
* * * *
“Wow,” I said, stepping past her. “This place is amazing. Did your company build it?”
“No.”
“That’s the Mississippi River out there, isn’t it?” I gestured to the window.
“No. If we were higher, that window faces downtown.” She pointed to another window. “That’s the Mississippi River.”
“Oh. I got turned around.” I went to the window and looked outside for a minute. Then I waited, and yes, Georgieanne stepped up behind me. As soon as I felt her hands on my shoulders, I took a small step backwards to lean against her, then I pulled her arms around me, h
ugging them against me. Behind me, she chuckled.
“You were just waiting for me.”
“Hoping furiously you’d take the hint,” I admitted. Then I turned in her arms and wrapped mine around her. “From what I can tell, different girls work this part out differently. Have you been a patron for other girls?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Her financial situation changed, and then she met someone.”
“Was that hard for you?”
“I like her, and it makes me sad to know I’ll probably never see her again,” Georgieanne said.
“How long ago was this?”
“About six months.”
I nodded. “All right. There are things we should discuss. Your desires and expectations. My needs, and my requirements.”
“Requirements?”
“Requirement number one: I must never question whether I am safe with you.”
“Oh. Right. And three: how much you cost.”
“That falls under my requirements and will make more sense when we talk about it. Maybe we should sit.”
She nodded, and together, we moved to the sofa. I switched to holding her hands but put a little distance between us, each of us rotated to partly face the other. “Let’s start with what you want. There are three parts of that: duration, frequency, and nature of the relationship. I think we’ve established the basic nature.”
“Romantic.”
“Yes. Duration. If you just want a little fling, or even just a date or two.”
“Longer.”
“All right. Frequency. That can mean an exclusive relationship, steady but not exclusive, or infrequent.”
“I’d like to see you a few times a month, probably not every week, but I’d prefer if we didn’t have time limits.”
“Until summer, I can’t give you full weekends, but I can give you more than a few hours at a time.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Okay. Unless there’s something shocking, we can work out the rest as we go.”
“Nothing shocking, Astrid.” But then she reached up and caressed my cheek. “But am I being clear?”
I smiled. “Has my flirting been any indication?”
“I suppose it has.”
“Good. My needs. This is the shitty part of the conversation.” Then I told her pretty much everything about my situation.
She listened, and at the end, she nodded. “So, you don’t have a fixed fee?”
“No.”
“I’m not interested in a bidding war for your attention, Astrid.”
“Well, right now, there isn’t much competition.”
“And six months from now?”
“I haven’t had to worry about this yet,” I said. “I might not have good answers. If someone I like asks for an exclusive relationship, and offers to entirely take care of me, I’ll probably accept.”
“I suppose that’s the risk I take with any girl.”
“Otherwise, as long as I’m filling my needs, then I don’t intend to drop any patrons. I’m being conservative. I’ll have more free time during the summer, but I’ll also have other expenses, and I don’t know that I’ll suddenly have more patrons to fill my available time.”
She nodded.
“I know this is rather… cold.”
“No, Astrid. You didn’t make your situation.”
“I’m making the best decisions I can,” I said. “I’m not in this to get rich. I just don’t want to drop out of school, and there’s no way I can make the kind of money I need otherwise.”
“I don’t blame you. None of this is a problem for me, Astrid.”
“Good. Requirements. I don’t care if you’re paying for my time. I expect you to treat me kindly, and if I don’t want you to do something to me, you don’t do it. I want to feel that I’d be with you even if you weren’t paying me.”
“Of course.”
“I think you and I both know some patrons would tell me to get out, if I told them what I just said to you.”
“You’re probably right.”
“So. Have I scared you away?”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Good.” I rotated slightly then shifted until I was pressed against her side, leaning against her. Then I lifted her fingers to my lips and kissed them. “You feel nice.”
We sat like that for a minute, then she shifted a little herself before using two fingers to lift my chin. Our lips met, and we shared our first kiss, there on her sofa.
It was soft, and sweet, and deeply lingering. My hand moved to touch hers, still touching my chin, and the kiss lengthened.
Then, after a wonderful eternity, she pulled away. My eyelids fluttered open, and I looked at her, smiling. “That was nice,” I said.
“I want to see you again,” she said, her voice a little husky.
“Good. When?”
“Next Friday. I’ll pick you up.”
“I’m available.”
“Do you dance?”
“I love to dance.”
“A light dinner, dancing, and then expect to spend the night.”
“I’d like that.”
* * * *
And so, I had my first two patrons.
And then Jean called again.
Contempt
“I have another first timer.”
“And it went so well with the last one,” I countered.
“The last one went just fine, Astrid,” Jean said. “You liked her, and she liked you.”
“She just didn’t want me.”
“She wanted you too much.”
I stilled at that. “What’s her name?”
“Cassidy.”
“Why didn’t she just email me like some of the others?”
“Good question. I don’t have an answer for you. Astrid, I think she knows what she wants.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“I don’t think she’s actually telling me what she wants.”
“Oh.”
“I tried to steer her elsewhere.”
“To the sort that Eliza is now dating?”
“Yes, actually.”
“And yet, you’re calling me.”
“She saw your profile.”
“I have a hard time believing I wowed her if you think another girl is a better fit.”
“You have a certain look.”
“Naïve?”
“The word she used was innocent.”
“I’m not a virgin, and less so than when I started this.” Jean snorted. “You know. You should come to Minnesota. I wouldn’t charge you.”
She snorted again. “My husband would want to watch.”
“Oh.”
“My girlfriend would get jealous.”
I began laughing. “Seriously?”
“Well, I’m assuming he’d want to watch. He’s always bugging Hildegarde about it.”
“Hildegarde? Her name is not Hildegarde!”
“You’re right. It’s a pseudonym.”
“So, let me get this right. You’re married, but you have a girlfriend. And your husband and your girlfriend actually talk.”
“I would hope so. They’re brother and sister.”
I froze, and then she began laughing. “You really are gullible, Astrid.”
“That’s not even funny.”
“Yes, it is,” she said.
“Which one is real? The husband, or the girlfriend?”
“They’re both real. But it’s an ex-husband.”
“They aren’t siblings. Your ex-husband isn’t such a jerk that he wants to watch his sister have sex with his ex-wife.”
“Okay, you caught me. The girlfriend is real. The ex-husband is not.”
“You’re really mean,” I said. “I’m of half a mind to…” I tried to think of a really good threat.
And of course, she called me on it. “To what, exactly?”
“Have phone sex at you!” I blurted.
She snort
ed her laughs. “Go ahead. I’ll put you on speaker phone.”
“You could pretend to be appalled.”
“Do you think you’re capable of shocking me?”
“No, probably not. So. What is it you want me to do?”
“I want to let Cassidy call you.”
“If I know when to expect the call, I can be somewhere I am free to talk.”
“Tomorrow evening at 8.”
“Perfect.”
* * * *
“Hello.”
“Hello. I believe our mutual friend, Jean, told you to expect my call. This is Cassidy.”
“Hello, Cassidy,” I said with real warmth. “I am Astrid.”
We talked for about 15 minutes before she said, “I’d like to meet you.”
“I think I’d like that, too. What did you have in mind?”
* * * *
Cassidy picked me up at six. I’d become a little jaded, and she collected me from the dorm parking lot.
We hugged briefly, and then we each climbed in. I waited until we were settled in before I said, “Cassidy. Tell me about yourself.”
“I’m a financial planner.”
I waited for her to say more, almost anything more, but she focused on her driving. The silence was uncomfortable, so finally I asked, “What does a financial planner do?”
“I help people manage their retirement accounts and other investments,” she replied.
“You must be good at it.”
“It’s half sales, landing new clients, half paperwork, and half more paperwork.” I laughed. She glanced over. “I kid you not.” Then she returned her attention to the road.
She didn’t ask me questions, not one single question during the drive. I tried a few more, but I finally decided to just let it sit. Maybe she was one of those people who only like to do one thing at a time, and she was focused on driving.
* * * *
It turned out that wasn’t it. The dinner conversation remained, well, odd. Cassidy was intelligent and articulate. I expected her to drive and dominate the conversation, and in a way, she did, but only because I pushed. She was passionate about her work and knowledgeable about world events. She was, as expected, well-traveled, and getting her to talk about her favorite place wasn't hard.
But I had to drive the conversation. She would steer away from topics she didn't care to discuss -- herself chief amongst them. But the conversation required me to prompt her to speak, and she never asked me any questions at all.