by Kira Barker
Ah, that.
I knew that however I reacted now, it would give away too much; if I hesitated, she would call my late response a lie because I’d taken the time to consider. If I replied immediately, she would take it as a knee-jerk reaction that belied my real intention. So I did nothing and just continued to stare right back at her.
“You’re not even denying it. Must be worse than I thought,” she surmised.
“I’m not a little girl, Brigitte. I can take care of myself.”
She laughed.
“But you are, Penelope, and ignorantly stupid on top of everything else.”
I wondered how best to prove her wrong, but in verbal sparing she was one of the people who could still best me. Brigitte didn’t let me get that far, though, and spoke up again.
“Let me tell you a story. The story of a bright, young girl who thought she could rule the world and have it all.”
I had a certain feeling that I knew the protagonist intimately from any reflective surface, but chose to indulge her.
“Please do.”
She shook her head, but still launched into her tale.
“There was this bright, young girl. The world rested at her feet, and she knew it. She could have anything she wanted—money, influence, power, men—with just a smile. Many women hated her for her beauty and charm, but even more for her guts that let her take all those things that others didn’t even dare dream about.”
Or maybe it was not about me; that sounded a lot more like her. She must have seen that realization on my face, but didn’t comment on it besides offering a small, sincere smile.
“She wasn’t cursed with false modesty, so she took it all, but always retained her head about it. Until she met a young boy who already had it all but didn’t know it, and thought that if he could add her to his collection, everything would be perfect. She loved being cherished above all else—money, status, material things—because it catered to her vanity. From the ranks of the peasants she had risen, and now he treated her like a queen, just as she deserved.”
She put in a dramatic pause, but I didn’t jump on it, so she continued.
“Only his family didn’t approve of him not just bedding a whore, but showing her around everywhere. So they cut him off from his trust fund and told him to get a job or sleep on the streets, they didn’t care. And neither did he, because he was in love; and neither did she, because she was in love, too, and she had enough money set aside to last them for a while. Of course she wasn’t working anymore, because being queen now, she couldn’t sully herself by letting anyone but him touch her. They lived on love and happiness, until the first check bounced.”
“Ah, the plot thickens,” I murmured, garnering another, now wry, smile.
“You have no idea. Anyway, with all the money spent and him too lazy to get a job, she went out into the world to find decent employment, knowing that it would not befit a queen to keep whoring around. Times were tough, but not that tough, and she soon slaved away hours cleaning, sorting, filing, typing—whatever temporary employment she could snatch up. At the end of the day, she would return home and hand over her money so he could continue to spend it.
“It was never enough, and soon the boy grew bitter, then angry. He took it out on her, mostly to hurt her but also because slaving away at a day job left her less than ready to cater to his every need. He spent her money on cheap booze and cheaper whores. And every time she wanted to run away, he would plead on his knees for her to stay, to take him back, because he loved her.”
I thought I could now see where this was going, but held my tongue and motioned her to continue.
“His last resort was emotional cruelty, and when not even that worked, he started beating her. He would be so, so sorry the next day and blubber around about how this would be the last time, and please, please, please would she forgive him? And she was young, now less naive but still she believed in that impossible thing called love, so she found it in herself to forgive him. This, of course, didn’t make him rethink his ways, let alone change them, and one fateful night he got too rough and she had to go to the ER for stitches.”
Brigitte’s mouth turned into a hard line, her eyes now challenging me to call her a stupid twit, but I didn’t. We all had our demons, and I wasn’t going to be the one to throw the first stone.
“In the end, that was what saved the girl’s life, or at least her sanity. With no money and no insurance, she had to drag her sorry self across town to one of the free clinics where doctors volunteered their time. She explained to the nurses that she’d fallen down the stairs, but they likely knew that excuse by heart as they did the peculiar shapes of her bruises. They tried to talk to her, but she would have none of it. So one of them asked their senior volunteer doctor to give it a try. And one look at him, and she disassembled inside.”
Inhaling deeply, she sipped from her drink, her eyes now taking on a faraway look of remembrance.
“She tried to rally what was left of her spirit and become the regal queen again, because that was how he’d always known her. Because the young doctor had been one of her clients, in fact the last one she’d dropped at the boy’s insistence. But she saw her sorry self—small, insignificant, bruised and beaten—in his eyes, and that accomplished what months of abuse and years of badgering hadn’t managed. It made her see what she had become, and she didn’t like it one last bit.”
She blinked, her gaze focusing on me now, and finally she dropped the pretense that she was just recounting a random fairy tale.
“It wasn’t pity that shook me awake, but the wad of cash that he got out of his wallet and pressed into my hands, telling me to get a room somewhere and never go home again. I balked, outraged and offended, but he simply took me by the arms, turned me to face a mirror at the side of the room, and forced me to take a good long look at myself. That’s when I realized that I was on the fast track to hell, and while part of me was already so dead to the world that I didn’t care, there was a flicker of resistance, a will to live and set things straight again. So I took his money, his advice, and his new phone number and left. I still knew a girl or two from my working days, asked if I could crash on her couch until I found something else, and moved on.”
Now that was disappointingly brief.
“And that’s the moral of the story?”
She snorted.
“Real life tales seldom hold morals, honey,” she drawled, straightening. “But I’m not done yet.”
“What happened to the boy?”
She gave a dismissive sound that I felt lacked a lot of the anger she must still be feeling.
“He crawled back on hands and knees to his family, told them that he saw the error of his ways and all that jazz. And like the schmucks they are, they took him back and set him up in style again. Last I heard of him, he still hadn’t gotten a single day’s work done.”
“And the young doctor? Your savior?”
I couldn’t help say that a little sharply, but Brigitte just deflected my attack with a fakely sweet smile.
“Why, he is, to this day, the only man I still regularly fuck. Three wives, two divorces, children from five different women, and I am the only constant in his life. I see him every Thursday afternoon, and he regularly takes me out to dinner. He still lavishes me with gifts, he comes to me when he needs to talk, or vent, or just hide from the world for an hour or two, but we both know exactly where we stand. Our relationship has gone on longer than you are alive, but it has never, not for a single day, been anything other than a working relationship.”
I had to admit, her story struck a few chords inside of me, and not just because it wasn’t that uncommon a tale from what I’d heard from other girls over the years. Love is hard enough for people who aren’t traipsing freely over the moral boundaries of society, but for us, it was so very often beyond what our lives permitted. As much as I loved my job, it was that kind of occupation that could leave you impossibly jaded at the end of the day, after it ground awa
y at your soul and humanity.
But just like any other stupid girl in love, I knew that, deep down, my case, of course, was different.
“Thank you for sharing with me. I appreciate it. I might not sound much like it because my feathers are still kind of ruffled, but I am grateful that you care enough for me to try to set me straight every which way you think might work.”
Brigitte’s answering laugh was a raucous one, drawing a real smile from me in turn.
“I see. Don’t hustle the hustler, eh?” she replied, then shook her head. “So you’re not even denying it. You’re falling for him, hook, line, and sinker.”
I considered my reply carefully before I offered it.
“Honestly, I don’t know. But it is none of your business as long as I don’t screw up on the job, so why should you care?”
“Because it won’t end well, and I don’t want to see you broken like I was, even if it’s just mentally.”
Her voice was soft, uncustomary so, but enraged me rather than placated me now.
“Just because you made a bad call and suffered the consequences doesn’t mean that any relationship any of us may or may not have will always end in grief. Girls drop out all the time, and I can’t imagine that none of them end up actually enjoying their lives.”
A muscle in her cheek jerked, but she did her best to keep her own temper in check.
“Is that what you’re planning next? Drop out, maybe become a loving wife and mother? Because in this economy and with your utter lack of working experience over the past decade, you won’t find any other job that would suit your—or his—standards. Don’t be stupid, girl. If you wanted to quit, you would have done so before you hit the second half of your twenties, which was a lot longer than just a year ago.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t let that sit on me. Squaring my shoulders, I got up, for once glad I had opted for high heels because that gave me an extra inch to stare down at her now.
“Is that all? I have an appointment tonight and I should get ready now.”
“Sit your ass down this very second, Penelope,” Brigitte said, but it was the utter lack of heat in her voice that made me follow her command, not the words themselves.
Sighing, Brigitte studied me for a moment, then looked away and snorted.
“You will come to your senses, or you won’t. I’ve done what I could to make you see reason. Do I really need to tell you that you are not living an enchanted life and that your Prince Charming will never sweep you off your feet? Didn’t the events of last week prove that, again, to you?”
“If you thought that letting some guy I had objections to in the first place rough me up would serve as a reminder of what I have to lose, you bet on the wrong horse. If anything, that opened the door wide for other considerations.”
Her fingernail tapped the lacquered top of the table briefly, but she stilled as she locked gazes with me.
“That wasn’t my main reason, if you want to know.”
“Then what was?”
She considered, but chose not to answer that question.
“I have a proposition for you,” was what she said instead.
“What kind of proposition?”
If she told me she’d give me the keys to the kingdom if I dropped Darren immediately, I was ready to walk out on her for good. And judging from the way she kept studying me, I realized that she knew what was going through my head right then.
“It might have come to your attention that I’m no longer the youngest bird around,” she started.
“You don’t look a day over forty,” I lied.
She took that with a nod of her head and a bright smile.
“Shut up. See how your reflection wrinkles back at you in two decades from now. So far it has never bothered me to work with girls half, or in some cases, a third of my age, but of late I’m growing tired of it. Also, my daughter is thinking about making me a grandmother, and I’d rather spend my afternoons laughing on the playground than continuing to manage my stable of mares.”
That made me blink.
“You have a daughter?”
Brigitte’s smile turned proud for a second, an expression I’d never seen on her face before.
“The only good thing that came from my delusions of wanting a normal life. I was pregnant that night I had to go to the hospital, but didn’t know it yet. And by the time I did, I was busy moving on, and there was no sense to letting one little detail hold me back.”
“Does she know who her father is? Does he know?”
She gave a noncommittal grunt.
“He doesn’t, although he would if he wanted to. None of the alimony checks until her eighteenth birthday ever bounced. She knows, but she doesn’t know the details. She grew up with me always busy but usually with a smile on my face; I never saw a reason why I should tell her that things hadn’t been that rosy when she was conceived.”
The question why she’d even had the baby burned on my tongue, but I swallowed it instead of asking, realizing that it was probably too personal and also kind of moronic. If she’d really loved the father of the child and had only broken things up between them because she had to, maybe she had seen the life growing inside of her as a reminder of all the good times, rather than a momentary nuisance.
“So you’re, what, quitting?”
“Retiring,” she corrected me. “Not from one day to the next, and I would of course always be there to lend a helping hand and sharp side of the tongue to my successor, but I think I’m done, yes.”
“And you are telling me this because…?”
I let the end of that sentence hang between us.
“Because I think that you would make a damn fine madam, if you just got your head out of your ass,” she provided helpfully.
“Ah.”
Did this come as a surprise? Hell, yes. Then again, if I considered who else there might be from amongst the ranks of her girls, her options seemed rather limited.
As if she’d read my thoughts, Brigitte explained. “Of course I could hand off my books to someone already in the business, but I’ve always kept my service a little more like a family than just a roster of names, and I would hate for that to change. Let’s be real for a moment. You are getting old, at least for selling yourself at your current level. You know the girls, you know the business like few else, and you have a good head for numbers.”
“Besides degrees in economics and marketing,” I pointed out.
“There’s that,” she admitted, smiling briefly. “I know you could run the business end of the operation easily, and you would make a good mentor. You could decide for yourself to keep on a few of your regulars for a little longer, if you need the thrill. The job is a 24/7 thing, but it pays well. And you know the value of providing a well-oiled machine for those girls who need it.”
It was an offer that I should definitely consider, and I couldn’t help but feel a little vindicated by her offering it to me.
“So where’s the catch?”
She shrugged, looking at me levelly.
“You tell me? I personally don’t see one.”
“And that last week, with Ray Moss, was an oh so subtle segue to why I might want to switch sides?”
Another shrug.
“Maybe a little. But it mostly proved to show you what you are, and what you are not, and despite your rampant hormones, I think you got that message.”
“Loud and clear,” I admitted.
“Let me ask you a question,” she went on.
“Please.”
“Is Darren Hunter worth jeopardizing the golden egg I’m ready to drop into your lap? Right now, he might be happy to ignore that you’re a whore, but very soon it will start to grate that you willingly give your body to other men, shitting all over his turf. And do you think that he will accept that you only manage, and no longer directly participate if you take over the operation? And let me tell you this now—everyone will know what you do and who you are. You think you have it bad as an
escort now with the occasional hard glare from a scorned wife? Try being the one who is in control of enabling scores of husbands to cheat, every single day of the week.”
That was something I hadn’t considered yet, but I could see where that might be a problem. Less because of how such an occupation might reflect on me, and by extension maybe on him, but the day at the country club had shown me all too well that he wouldn’t be pleased if it screwed with his plans.
“You do realize that I’m not stupid enough to believe he will ask me to marry him when next we see each other, and whisk me away to his castle in the sky?”
I tried to make my voice as wry as possible, but hated how petulant I ended up sounding. Brigitte just looked back at me without a trace of pity—but lots of understanding—in her eyes.
“You don’t have to decide right now. I’m not quite ready to give up control yet. But you should know that you have options, and you should make your decisions based on logic and consideration, not with your cunt or heart. You don’t have to drop him this very moment; enjoy your time with him, but don’t lose your head. He’s been using escorts for years already, so he might stick with you for a long time if you make the right arrangements. But trust me when I tell you that nothing good ever comes from love, and brief pain now is a lot easier to overcome than loss and grief down the road.”
Like always with her, she made too much sense that I could ignore her. It was similar to when I’d started working for her, or when, after college, I’d decided to stick with what was supposed to be just a means to make a living while I finished my education. Rationally, I knew that Brigitte had a vested interest in pushing me one way or another, but that didn’t change the fact that I kind of agreed with her.
And I could easily see myself in the picture that she painted. I wouldn’t have to worry much about how to make a living down the road; there were always legal matters, but I was sure that whatever means had kept her hands clean and well-manicured would serve me just as well. I was not opposed to keep working myself for a while longer, not at all, but it wasn’t just Ray’s slander that made me realize that I was on borrowed time. Taking over from Brigitte would be the easy, comfortable alternative.