“Oh. You probably have a lot of repeat clients?” How many relationships did this guy have going on at once? He could cry casual client relationships all he liked, but if he was seeing these women repeatedly, there was something more…at least on their side.
“A few,” he said with a shrug. He stretched, looking like he was working on getting out of bed.
“Have any of them ever fallen for you?”
It was the wrong question, and I regretted asking it the second the words passed my lips. The haze left his eyes instantly, and they sharpened on my face. His expression closed to me, his lips pressed together, his brow lowered. In a single, fluid motion, he was out of bed.
“Not that I know of,” he said vaguely. “I don’t encourage that kind of thing.”
It sounded like a warning. I wanted desperately to backpedal, to tell him that I didn’t mean it like that, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t give my position away. In my fluster, my mouth ran on without me.
“You can’t help how they feel,” I said, trying to sound comforting. “I mean, I’m sure you’ve broken your fair share of hearts.”
He didn’t answer. He froze with his shirt halfway on, hiding his expression from me. By the time he pulled his shirt all the way on, a cool customer-service smile was pasted on his face. My stomach twisted in my gut, and I knew that I had made probably the worst misstep of my life. He finished dressing, slipped into his shoes, and checked for his keys.
I threw my robe on, feeling vulnerable and exposed in my nakedness. Tension mounted in the silence, and I could feel nonsense pressing at the back of my tongue; anything, any words to warm the icy temperature in the room.
“I hope you enjoyed your experience,” he said firmly as he turned to leave. I followed him to the door, feeling like a lost puppy.
“I—I did, I…”
“You got what you signed up for, free of charge. I don’t expect you’ll need the service again.”
“Wait, are you saying—”
“Goodbye, Carmen.”
“I—”
The door closed on my sentence before I even knew how to finish it, and just like that, he was gone.
Miserable, I sank on the couch, reeling from the roller coaster of the morning’s emotions. How could I have let myself get so confused?
“Idiot,” I chided myself. It wasn’t like he didn’t make it clear from the beginning.
I wallowed for a while, sinking into something cold and gray that didn’t want to let me go. I’d felt like this before; not exactly like this, of course. I had never clicked with anybody as quickly as I had with Nick, but I’d been disappointed by men more often than I cared to remember, and my solution had always been the same. Shaking off the clammy tendrils of depression, I called Tyra.
“I was just going to call you! How was your date?”
“Just ended,” I sighed.
“Oooh, girl! What happened? Tell me everything.”
“It started out great. The game was fun, we got along, everything was clicking. We were talking like old friends, it was super casual, very relaxed.”
“Good! He must really like you, then.”
“No,” I sighed. “No, Tyra, I don’t think so.”
She paused for a beat, then spoke in a tone full of sympathy. “What makes you say that, hun?”
“Well, he did his thing. You know, the whole O-Doctor stuff. He’s really good at it, and Tyra, I’ve never felt that good in my life. It was like everything that ever frustrated me didn’t matter anymore. I understood myself, not just my body, but my mind and my emotions and my needs. It’s like it’s all wrapped up in the same thing.”
“Makes sense,” she said. “But what happened?”
“He spent the night. We slept together, just sleeping. I thought he would sneak out after I passed out, but he didn’t. I woke up next to him, and I’ve never felt so happy. And the way he looked at me…I really thought he was into me, Tyra, I really really did. But then—”
“I’m dying here, Carmen, tell me what happened before I explode.”
“I started asking questions,” I blurted out in a rush. “About the escorting thing and everything, and whether his clients ever fell for him.”
“Oh no.”
“I know! And he got all cold and polite, and then he left. He told me he didn’t expect me to call him again, and I’m crushed, Tyra. I’m just crushed.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. What a jerk.”
“He’s really not, though. It’s not like he ever told me it was going to be something more. I just thought we got along so well at the game and everything. But, I guess he has to be good at getting along with women, doesn’t he? It’s kind of his whole job.”
“I thought his whole job was good sex,” she said.
“Yeah, but—okay, it’s like he knew me well enough to know what my problem was, even though I didn’t. He managed to get me to where I needed to go because he understood my brain, not just my body. He couldn’t do that if he wasn’t good at doing stuff like that, could he?”
“I guess not,” she admitted. “So it was all just part of the job, then. But why didn’t he charge you? I don’t get it. If you really were just another client to him, why didn’t he want to have you pay him? And to say that he didn’t expect you to call him again, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why?”
“Because if he was giving you a free sample, it’s just good business to encourage you to call him again later. He’s not getting anything out of this, and I can’t figure out his angle.”
“Maybe he had an extra ticket to get rid of and wanted to use it on a sure thing.” I sighed.
“No,” she said adamantly. “He had no way of knowing that you were a sure thing, and if that was the case, I’m sure he’s got clients lined up who would like to go to a baseball game with him.”
“Nope. Jumbotron. He goes with the intention of getting seen on screen. It’s a bucket-list thing—and I’m sure the women who hire him outright wouldn’t be comfortable with that. Especially since most of them are wealthy.”
“That makes sense,” Tyra said thoughtfully. “Hell, maybe you’re right. Maybe it was just…easy. You’re not, though. I want you to know this isn’t a reflection on you at all. You went out and had fun, right?”
“Yeah,” I said miserably.
“Well there you go,” she said. “Progress. You haven’t been out in a year, and you haven’t had a good date since… Jeez, Carmen, when was the last time you had fun on a date?”
“God, I don’t even remember.” I sighed.
“Well, now you have something to remember,” she said firmly. “It’s no loss, honey. You came out ahead, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said with a little laugh. “Over and over again.”
“Ooh! Okay, tell me. I need to know!”
“Living vicariously through me?” I teased.
“Nah,” she said and giggled. “Just scrounging up some imagination fuel for later, know what I’m saying?”
I laughed and indulged her.
“Damn, he sounds amazing,” Tyra said when I had finished regaling her with all the dirty details. “It’s a shame he’s not available.”
“Right? He has absolutely ruined me for other men.” I laughed.
“Nah, I think he’s just got you primed to find someone who’s actually worthy of you,” she said. “Now you know what you could have, and you can rewrite your expectations to match.”
“You know, that’s true. Thanks, Tyra. I feel better. How are you feeling, anyway? Any news on the baby front?”
“Not yet,” she sighed. “It feels like it’s taking forever, even though we’ve only just started trying. I’m just, impatient, you know?
“I can understand that,” I said sympathetically. “I mean, really. At least you have somebody to try with, right?”
“I guess so. I know it’s silly, but I feel left out,” she said. “I joined a bunch of expecting mommy gro
ups, you know, just so I would be involved when it actually did happen. Everybody’s in there talking about their sore boobs and how they’re throwing up all the time, and I’m not. My skin looks amazing and my boobs are where they’re supposed to be, and I hate it.”
“Terrible problems to have.”
“Is that sarcasm?” Tyra sounded hurt.
“No, not at all,” I promised. “I totally understand where you’re coming from. I’ve wanted morning sickness for so long that with my luck I’ll get all the symptoms all at once. And not until I’m forty-three.”
“Not a chance,” she said adamantly. “This is a turning point for you. Your plans are going to come back on track, I can feel it. You’re about to go husband hunting, and you’re going to catch yourself one heck of a trophy.”
“Whatever,” I said dismissively, but I was smiling. “Think there are still any husbands out there?”
“Girl, it’s open season. Go get ’em.”
We wrapped up the call on that hopeful note. I felt better until the silence washed back; then I was alone again, with nothing but the lingering scent of Nick’s cologne to keep me company. Children laughed in the courtyard outside my window. Mothers shouted at their offspring. Lovers called tender affections to one another as one of them left for work.
Me? I turned my music on loud and scrubbed my apartment from top to bottom. I filled trash bags with mementos of everything I was still holding onto, all of the negative emotions which lingered on silk roses and inside the comfortable oversized clothes. In the end, after a moment’s debate, even the hangover sneakers found their way to the trash.
Tyra was right. This was my chance to start over, and I was going to do it my way.
Chapter 10
Nick
“Yo, Nick! What the hell is this?” Charlie slid his drink at me, one that I had made a million times before. His face was twisted in disgust.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“You tell me, I didn’t make it.”
I sipped the drink and immediately recoiled. Rum and tequila taste nothing alike, and I had used the wrong one. “Sorry, Charlie, let me remake that for you.”
“Yeah. Dude, you good?”
“I’m good, I’m good.”
“You never messed up like that before. What’s the matter? Woman got you down?” He said it loud enough for the whole bar to hear, and my regulars all laughed.
“Nick, have women trouble? You’re out your damn mind, Charlie,” Brett wheezed. “Man’s got a different girl hanging around him every night. Never seen a man so committed to bachelorhood.”
“That true?” Bleary-eyed Steve leaned heavily on the counter. “I don’t blame you, boy. Never get married. It ain’t worth it.”
“Oh shut up, Steve,” Charlie said, elbowing the old drunkard. “You’re just pissed ’cause Mary won’t let you spend your savings on a boat.”
“Could’ve bought seven boats with what I’ve spent on her hair,” Steve said bitterly. “I tell her, I says, woman you’re seventy! Ain’t nobody believing you’re a natural redhead.”
“Gotta be careful talkin’ like that,” Brett said, clapping a huge hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Next thing you know she’s gonna be wanting a facelift.”
“Too late. She already does,” Steve said. “I told her, I says, they don’t make cranes big enough to lift that mess.”
The crowd around them howled with laughter. I slid Charlie’s drink back to him, right this time. It had taken me three tries, but I finally made the stupid thing properly. Never had that much trouble with a drink before, and I was pissed at myself for it.
“Seriously though, Nick,” Charlie said when the laughter had died down. “What’s goin’ on with you tonight? You screwed up the ladies’ drinks earlier too. You ain’t sick, are ya?”
“What are you, my manager?” I flicked my towel at him, and he shrugged.
“Just makin’ sure. Nobody makes these like you. I gotta make sure I’m not gonna have to train another barkeep after you kick the bucket.”
“I’m not kicking anything anytime soon,” I said lazily.
Someone flagged me down at the other end of the bar, and I rapped my knuckles on the counter as I left Charlie. I was grateful for the interruption. The last thing I wanted to do was admit to Charlie that he was right; the man had a big mouth, and I had an image to maintain.
But he was right. I had never been more distracted at work, and it was woman trouble, and I was irritated about it. I’d been out with hundreds of girls since retiring from the Marines, and not one of them had affected me like this. Granted, the rest of them had all paid me.
“That has to be the problem,” I muttered to myself as I grabbed a bottle off of the shelf. “Blurred the lines. Messed myself up.”
“Clients are clients, dates are dates, and never the twain shall meet.” That was what my mentor had told me when I started, and I’d taken it to heart. Clients had backed out at the last minute before, and I had walked away. Why hadn’t I done that this time?
“Now, boy, you never look at their faces when they get there. Never. That’s how they hook you.”
I tuned back into a conversation between the old-timers at the wrong moment. They seemed to have adopted some broken-hearted young guy and were mentoring him about a woman.
“But she’s so beautiful. So hot. How can I not look?”
“Oh, you look,” Charlie said with a wheezing laugh. “You look at her body, you look at the sweet spot, but don’t ever look at her face. Women are sirens, boy.”
“Succubuses, all of them,” Brett interjected. “Get you hooked with their eyes, make you feel like the only man in the world.”
“Then they scream your name like a damn spell,” Steve slurred. “Get you hooked in the bedroom, then spend all your money on their hair till you’re too old to do anything about it. Keep you weak, they do.”
As they spoke, the image of Carmen’s face, lost in ecstasy, rose in my mind, sending chills all over my body. I should have left in the night. I should never have stayed. But that face… I shook my head, willing it to go away. I wasn’t like Steve, and I wasn’t like the guy Steve was comforting. I had rules for a reason. Money changed hands, I did what I was best at, and I moved on.
My life plans depended on that last part. The moving-on part. That’s the whole reason I did things this way, to keep the lines firmly in place. Nobody had any claim to my time or attention but me and my goals. I was going to get there, come hell, high water, or her. I liked my life the way it was, damn it.
“But what if it isn’t like that?” the kid was saying. “What if it’s magical forever?”
“Oh, we got a romantic over here. Nick, give us a stout, stat! Gotta retrain this pup.”
I poured the beer and handed it off. The young guy made a face at it but drank it anyway. He was nervously accepting his position as the old-timers’ apprentice, and I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or worried for him. Either way, I decided to hover. Purely for his benefit, I told myself. Had nothing to do with solidifying my own views.
“Listen, son,” Steve was saying. “It starts out magical. That’s how they get you. Then it turns into ‘honey do this’ and ‘honey do that’, and next thing you know thirty years have passed. And you never made it to Ibiza, and you never found out what a French hooker can do, and you never bought a boat because there was a family to raise and hair to pay for.”
“Will you get off the hair already?” Charlie snapped.
“Not until Mary does!” Steve roared, slamming a hand down on the table.
Everybody laughed, and I made a mental note to cut Steve off after his next one.
“But didn’t you like that part?” the kid asked, sounding a little desperate. “Raising kids and all, with somebody you loved?”
“Don’t let Steve get to you, he’s bitter,” Brett said. “See, the thing of it is, son, you’re young. Real young, from where we sit, and too young to be getting tangled up in al
l that. Live a little first, huh? You got years before you gotta settle down. Marriage changes a man. Derails all your plans.”
Exactly, I thought. There’s nothing a woman could do for me that I couldn’t do for myself, not even a woman like Carmen. The future I glimpsed in her bed was a dream, an illusion, and not one that I had ever wanted for myself.
The kid shrugged. “I never even had any plans till I met her. I was working in a warehouse, getting jerked around on my hours, living with my parents. She came along and all of a sudden I’m demanding a promotion. I never would have done that without her.”
“That’s what they do!” Steve said, almost shouting. “Roust you out of your comfortable life, tell you to make something out of yourself, change your socks—”
“Use a washcloth!”
“Take a shower!”
“Eat a vegetable!”
“Nag, nag, nag. Clip your toenails, walk the dog—”
“Change the oil!”
“Call the plumber!”
Everyone around added their own example, and the kid at the center of the conversation looked more and more dubious.
“So, hold on,” he said, squinting. “You’re upset because they want you to take care of yourselves and your pets and your houses? Isn’t that, like, what adulting is?”
“C’mere,” Charlie said, gesturing exaggeratedly and putting an arm around the boy’s shoulder. “Lemme tell you a secret, kiddo. That’s exactly it. Exactly. Who wants to be an adult, anyway?”
“So you’re projecting your dissatisfaction with adulthood on your wives. Makes sense,” the kid said wryly.
Charlie jerked back and twisted his mouth. “Psych major?”
“Sociology.”
“Pfft. Let it go, guys, kid’s not drunk enough for this,” Charlie said, shoving the boy away. He laughed, and the conversation moved on to other things.
Me, I cursed the universe for calling me out like that. It was completely uncalled for, and it completely ruined a perfectly good evening. I caught myself thinking about alternate futures, and every time I did, I got a little more resentful. There was absolutely no reason why I should be thinking like this. Not now, not when I was so close to getting everything I wanted.
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