by Fiona Murphy
This sugar baby thing was the basic equivalent of a mistress, a fair exchange of money for time and, of course, sex. The more I thought about it the more appealing it became. Especially picking a woman out who was more than willing to be available for sex on my schedule. She would be well-versed in how to give a good blow job, too. Shit, I look around and frantically try to remember the time I found Marshall’s dad using Marshall’s hot tub completely naked.
It works. A quick look at the treadmill display tells me it’s been thirty minutes. Close enough, I hit stop, take a picture and send it to Marshall.
I’m walking home
But I’m stopping for breakfast and I’m having bacon
I go downstairs to the locker room, stow my bag and undress to shower off, the sweat grossing me out. A few men greet me, I only nod. I’m not interested in having a conversation while I’m naked. Hell, I’m not much for small talk, dressed or undressed.
Once I’m dressed in the jeans and polo I brought to change into, I check my phone to find the link I was promised. Walking outside I say fuck it and hail a cab to get me home quicker.
At home I make a beeline for my office. I’m typing in my credit card when Alice puts my plate down in front of me. Scrambled egg whites with red and green peppers and wheat toast.
“You’re home early, sir.” Her voice is full of censure. I’m being punished with egg whites.
“I’m only a half hour early. I played a game and ran on the treadmill for thirty minutes. I don’t want egg whites. I want real eggs and bacon and white fucking toast.”
She doesn’t blink. “You’re home early, sir. Eat your eggs.” Without waiting for me to say another word she walks out of my office.
I am firing her. Her voice comes through on the intercom. “Eat your eggs and you’ll get a BLT for lunch.”
Damn her, I press the intercom. “I want french fries with my BLT.”
Alice doesn’t say anything, telling me with silence I’m a pain in her ass. “You’ll get french fries with your BLT.”
Starving, I eat the stupid eggs and toast as I surf the site. It was as bad as I first thought it would be. Almost all of the women were blatantly plastic, the few who weren’t didn’t appeal. The women are listed by most popular, how many clicks their profiles have had.
I’m at page eight before a profile catches my attention. She’s blonde, I don’t really have a preference for blondes or brunettes. What I like is her sense of humor. She makes it clear she’s been doing this for a while and she’s content with her life as it is. Older than the majority, at thirty–two, but closer inspection of the profile picture of her in a very sheer teddy with a thong below, and I’m guessing she shaved off a good five years from her real age. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I consider digging into her, I like digging through the web’s nooks and crannies to find out a person’s history.
Alice sets down a bowl of Greek yogurt and fresh blueberries. “Where’s my granola?”
“You came home early. Granola is full of fat.”
“Alice, if I don’t get some granola with this I swear I’m chucking it out the damned window.”
“We are on the sixty-second floor, your window doesn’t open. Don’t get snippy with me.”
“Fine, I’m sorry.” I mutter.
I catch the clock in the corner of my screen. I’ve been at this for a lot longer than I thought I would be. I need to get to work. Once I decide I want her, I’ll do the digging then. For now, I’m content to see if Crystal is really what I’m looking for.
With a shrug, I send an email asking her out to dinner for the next day. Within ten minutes I have a response. Eight o’clock at a restaurant well-known in the city for their seafood and steak. When I reply I’m looking forward to meeting her, I mean it. Until she sends back a reply of her naked, with the response she’s looking forward to meeting me, too. A bit much, I think as I look at the picture. At least her tits don’t look fake.
Chapter Two
His smile is wide. He’s sure I’ll say yes. Looking down at the barely passable manicure I had given myself for this interview, I should say yes. This is it, I’m down to nine hundred dollars and change in the bank. I won’t be able to make my half of the rent next month. This is my ninth interview since I was fired six months ago.
The only work I had managed to get was doing some part-time off-the-books bookkeeping for my landlord, who didn’t do all the reporting he was supposed to be doing. But his niece was back from her vacation which had included three weeks leading up to her huge wedding and two weeks in Cancun.
I haven’t had a single job offer until today. It’s just a shame it’s not a real job. Carl Winters wants me to fill the role of sugar baby, not assistant firm accountant.
When I walked away from being Frank Capelli’s sugar baby five and a half years ago, I thought I’d left men like Carl behind me. I had no idea Carl owned this company when I applied. I haven’t run into very many people in the financial industry who knew me when I was with Frank.
Until now, the thought of going back to being a sugar baby never crossed my mind. While I’m not ashamed of what I’d done, selling my body, my time, a piece of me in exchange for safety, security, and money, it had been only until I earned my degree. Until I could make something more of myself.
Maybe I haven’t gotten a new job in accounting because I said the wrong thing in my interviews. Or maybe it’s because I can’t imagine anything worse than getting another job in accounting. I have tried, but this isn’t for me. The degree I worked so hard to earn isn’t what I thought it would be.
While I actually consider his offer, I can finally admit I’m miserable working in accounting. So miserable that going back to something I never thought I would do again is far more appealing than another day spent knee deep in spreadsheets. However, if I have to fall back on the one skill I’m good at, selling myself, I won’t sell to Carl Winters with his fake teeth, fake smile, and fake tan. I also won’t be doing it here in Boston. It’s been a nice city to live in, but I’m done here.
“Thanks for the offer, Mr. Winters, no thanks.” I’m out the door as fast as my heels will carry me.
Now that I’ve made my decision, I feel like a weight has fallen off my shoulders. I can finally admit it, really admit it. I fucking hate accounting, all the rows of numbers, the spreadsheets, the formulas, the fear one mistake will undo everything, will fuck up everything. Every morning, when I walked toward my building to go to work, I wanted to keep walking. When I pass it from time to time, I’m filled with relief that I can keep walking.
Letting myself into the apartment I share with a dental hygienist named Robin, who is determined to land herself a dentist, I’m relieved to find she’s not home. In my room, I sigh as I look around. This has been my home since Frank brought me to Boston eight years ago. I love this place, it feels like home.
I had resented the need for a roommate but Frank, understandably, stopped paying the rent when our arrangement ended. Even though he was nice enough to help me get a good job, the rent was too high to handle myself and have money left over for groceries. I was lucky though, Robin had become more than a roommate. She’s my best friend.
I get on a website where Frank had told me he found his latest mistress. We don’t send each other Christmas cards or anything, but we run into each other every other month or so, sometimes more often. Frank’s office is only a few blocks away from my apartment.
Usually, we run into each other at a coffee shop we both go into. When I see Frank it doesn’t bother me. He was a time in my life that helped me get to a better place. He’s also a nice guy or I never would have agreed to be his sugar baby in the first place.
As I look over the website, I run through the profiles of some of the men and wonder if this is really the best option I have. A quick check of my bank balance tells me it’s pretty much my only option if I don’t want to grovel for an office job in this city. Since I don’t know what I want to do now, and need mo
re time to figure it out, I choose going with what I know. The website seems promising, there are more profiles in Chicago than there are in Boston, another plus.
While I was with Frank, we went to Chicago often and I feel like I know the city. Whenever we went, I was always sad to leave it. I build a profile and don’t bother to change out of what I’m wearing to take my profile picture. I’m not into all the sexy lingerie, there are only a few pieces in my closet, and all bought by Frank.
I consider putting my financial terms in my profile but see most women don’t. That’s fine, I’m not a hundred percent sure of how much I want to ask for monthly. The fifteen hundred a month from Frank had seemed high, before moving to Boston. Then when I got here, between school and household expenses there were times I had to ask Frank for more money for groceries and clothes.
With a heavy sigh, I wonder again if this is a good idea. As badly as I hated the accounting, there were up-sides to the job, mainly the pay. I also liked being accountable to no one for what I spent and where I went. I had made enough to spend the weekend roaming New England, getting to see places I’ve only seen on maps. Everywhere from Maine all the way into Washington, D.C. It was a far cry from the four bland, white walls of a home broken up only by crosses and bible verses that my parents raised me to believe was in store for me.
Yes, I traded my body in order to see all I have seen. It wasn’t all that different, though, from being taught I was to trade my body for being taken care of by my husband. I would be his responsibility, to keep our refrigerator filled with wholesome food I would be expected to have on the table for him. In return, I was to be a good wife. I was never to say no to my husband for anything he wanted of me. At least, my way I wasn’t required to push out baby after baby, and I said no to a lot of things.
Determined now, I start to make piles of my stuff. There are the things I couldn’t do without, the stuff I could maybe sell, and then a pile to give away. I work for hours before my stomach finally forces me to stop. Seeing nothing in the fridge interesting to me, and because I hate to cook, I order from the sushi place down the street for delivery.
“Hey, can I get in on your order?” Robin causing me to jump in surprise. With a muttered curse at her, I hand the phone over. When she’s done she hands me back my phone and we both sit down at the dining table to wait. “Sorry about the scare. I thought you heard me come in an hour ago.”
“No, I’ve been busy in my room. I didn’t get the job, again. I did get another job offer, which got me thinking. I’m not an accountant, I can’t stand it. I need to figure out what I really want to do. Don’t hate me for the short notice but I’m leaving Boston.”
Robin looks at me as if I told her I kicked a puppy then sighs. “I get it. I hate it but I get it. This isn’t an easy town.” She would know, her mother is fiery little Italian dynamo, her father was black and she had suffered heavy taunts for being mixed-race in South Boston. It didn’t help that her father had left her and her mother when he finished his residency and became a heart surgeon. In Robin’s words, he had traded up to a newer, blonder version. His child support always came late when it came at all. “I also get hating the accounting. Did you know I actually started in nursing but hated the blood and guts thing? At least I only wasted three months of my life before one of my advisors suggested dental hygienist. So, where are you off to find career 2.0?”
“Chicago. I’m, uh going to see if I can find a sugar daddy again.”
Robin knew about me and Frank. She had gotten the story out of me one night after too many bottles of wine and too many hours without sleep. Instead of judging me as some dirty whore, she had judged me as a stupid idiot for ending such a ‘sweet setup’ as she called it.
“Chicago, cool, Chitown, but it’s called Chiraq now, too. You know that right?” I love her for not even caring about the sugar daddy thing.
“Yes, I know about the Chiraq thing. It’s still more southside than north or the gold coast, which is where I will be asking to be put up.”
“Hmm... yeah, money goes a long way to keeping you safe, but it’s no guarantee. You need to be careful, okay?”
“Yes, mom.” The buzzer goes, the doorman signaling our food is here.
Robin pushes me back down. “I’ll get it, my treat. God knows how many times you’ve treated me. Be right back.”
Dinner is long and filled with memories of the things we’ve done together. I admit, yes, I thought when I first met her she was a flake and wouldn’t last. It was only her first and last month’s rent she handed me at the end of the showing of the condo that had won her the place.
She admits she had been in awe of how posh I’d seemed and used me as a standard on how to dress and talk. She’d scraped hard to win a partial scholarship to the University of Vermont, as much for the school as to lose her accent. Fresh out of school she had landed at my door determined to live in my neighborhood. Robin wasn’t going back to South Boston and the racist insults about the color of her skin. She figured the people in our neighborhood would be too polite to be blatantly racist, and she was right.
We laugh at how far we’ve both come. I had introduced her to buying quality clothes, the kind that lasted for years and were cut to look good on her plus size body. How to love her body and try to get her to understand she was more than her body. Most importantly, there was Supernatural, a show we shared as solemnly as we did the coffee maker we both are addicted to.
Robin had introduced me to reading for fun, instead of the memoirs and history books I read when we first met. I was still trying desperately to make up for religious homeschooling where the history of the bible was the only history I knew. She also introduced me to going to New York and seeing Broadway shows for a fraction of the price. Robin showed me how to have fun, simply to have fun. She also tried to teach me to knit, but we decided our friendship was more important than me learning to make a scarf.
We spend the night in my room boxing everything up, with me giving her everything, except the clothes, from the donated pile. Whatever, it was donation. Although Robin is also a size sixteen she’s taller than me by five inches and most of the clothes don’t work for her.
It isn’t until we’ve had three bottles between us and she buys the bed from me to make it easier to rent out my room that we both wonder if she’ll get to stay if I go. We scramble for my cell to call the landlord but it’s almost one in the morning. Since we’re asking a favor we decide not to piss him off with a late night call.
Robin sobers up as she wonders if she’ll have to leave, too. I sober up as I realize that my choice will have an effect on Robin. It’s not something I had thought of. Even though we’ve lived together the last five years, none of the choices I’ve made have ever really affected her.
The only reason I can afford the place is because my apartment is one of five in a brownstone owned by a business associate, Ivor, of Frank’s. As long as I could pay what Frank paid, which wasn’t what the place was worth, then I could stay as long as I wanted. I had no idea how valuable the empty room was until Robin had already moved in. If I had, I would have charged more and stashed the extra money in savings.
Fuck, I sway drunkenly toward the shower as I wonder about the plans I’ve made. It wasn’t too late. I could call Carl Winters. I could get his number from Frank. But another thing that gave me the creeps about the guy was Frank didn’t like Carl. Carl wasn’t a friend of Frank’s, just an associate who had been at a few of the dinners I’d gone to with Frank. I trust Frank’s opinion of people.
Out of the shower, I’m completely sober. As bad as I feel about what might happen with Robin I know I can’t stay. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I know whatever it is it isn’t happening in Boston.
The next morning I wake up to find Robin sucking up espresso. She grimaces, “It’s my second cup. I have a root canal first thing this morning to assist on. Can you call Ivor? It doesn’t matter what time it is, call me when you know.”
; “I will.” I promise, as she leaves. I toss a frozen breakfast sandwich in the microwave because I don’t cook unless I have to. Frozen food wasn’t awesome but it’s cheaper than eating out. While I wait for it I make my own espresso. My morning ritual done I sit and worry about the call to Ivor.
I wonder if there were ways I could have prevented getting to this point. Maybe if I had saved better, and not traveled as much as I had. While I had stayed away from the high-priced hotels when I traveled, sticking to the bed and breakfasts, I usually dropped three to five hundred every weekend I went away. Counting them up, my tally is at four a year over the last five years, and I shrug. I don’t regret it. What’s done is done.
I call Ivor and get his voicemail. As succinctly as possible, I leave a message about me leaving and Robin wanting to stay and if it can be done.
Finished with breakfast I go into my room, surprised at how bare it looks. I check the website and find nothing as far as messages I want to read. The only messages I’ve received are four with the subject line of fat ass in everyone one of them. Looking down at my body in just the camisole and panties I wore around the apartment I know I’m no size two. My last suit bought was a size fourteen, but the suits I’ve worn lately have been sixteen. Losing my job had me stress-snacking.
While my size alone should keep me off the website, I know a man is out there who will appreciate my curves. I know, because I’ve encountered them before. Men who told me my D cup breasts were what they wanted. Men who told me my ass made them hard. While yes, there is also a curve to my tummy and my thighs, there is someone out there who will appreciate me as I am. I just hope they aren’t weirdos and they answer before I run out of money.
My phone rings, it’s Ivor. “Anne, what you ask it’s not a small favor.” Ivor has been in Boston for over sixteen years he told me once. He’s never lost his Russian accent. I’m pretty sure he never will.