by Claire Angel
“Frank, we’re here. You can take your tongue out of her mouth now,” I said but he was not in any mood to listen to me with his hands busy lowering the straps on Ellie’s dress.
“Frank I’m going inside. Come in when you guys are finished.” There was no reply again.
I knew him and I already knew that his undivided attention was on the quivering flesh in front of him.
Grace squirmed looking very uncomfortable in her skin. I asked her to come with him and she blankly stared straight ahead. This was going to be an interesting night.
I heard the sound of her heels behind me. It was so dark that I had trouble locating the light. I switched on the lights and asked her to come in and slowly closed the door behind us.
My key slipped out of my hand. I was nervous for the first time in my life. I wasn’t the same cocksure confident man of the hour.
As I moved forward, she moved backward keeping me at a distance.
I leaned closer to her and asked out of curiosity, “What did you call me in the car? Sir? I am Edward. Call me Edward. I don’t like beautiful girls calling me, Sir. It makes me sound old.”
She nodded. I could hear her breathing deeply with her chest rising and falling with each breath.
I picked up the key from the floor as she watched me with her eyebrow cocked. She probably thought that I was going to make a move.
“You can sit on the couch. Get comfortable. I’m not going to bite unless you want me to.” I said teasingly as she nodded with her arms crossed defensively.
Frank and Ellie came in with big smiles on their faces.
“What is everyone drinking? Frank said heading to the club on the far wall that was stocked with some of our favorites.
“Give me a beer to start with, Frank.” I said.
“What would you girls like?” Frank asked the girls clinking ice into a glass waiting for a response.
“I will have some red wine. What will you have, Grace? Do you want some red wine? Ellie asked Grace.
“Juice, I will have juice,” Grace stuttered.
“Are you sure, Grace?” Frank asked her looking confused.
“Yes,” she nodded.
The girls settled on the couch as Frank and I went into the kitchen to get drinks and some snacks.
“How is it going with…Grace.” Frank asked teasingly.
“It’s good”. I replied.
But I don’t know why I lied.
“She’s a little quiet for my taste. I know it’s not your fault. I’m not really sure why Ellie brought her along to the club. She certainly doesn’t fit what we are looking for.” Frank said.
“You know me too well, Frank,” I said with a smile.
Frank was right about one thing. I was never interested in having a meaningful conversation with the girls. Grace was not one of those girls.
We returned to the living room to see them whispering behind our backs.
“Here you go girls,” Frank said as he handled the drinks to Ellie and Grace.
“Thanks, Frank,” Ellie replied.
“Thanks, Frank,” Grace said with a little-forced smile on her face.
Frank and I looked at each other with surprise that she at least said something, but that was the extent of the conversation.
He sat near Ellie and I sat on the chair on the right side of the couch. I didn’t dare get too close to her.
After having two or three drinks with the awkward silence to accompany them, Frank said, “We are going to find someplace private to continue this party.” Then they raced up the stairs and I knew the sounds that were going to echo when they got in the room.
“Please, have something, Grace.” I offered a bowl of snacks to her.
She waved her hand dismissively and took a sip of the orange juice. Her body language was screaming that she wanted to be anywhere else.
“Thanks, Edward.” She said in this sweet voice with a smile. It felt like we had turned a corner, but how to translate that into mattress acrobatics was anybody’s guess.
I sat down on her couch and sat close to her but again she jumped when I grazed the back of her hand with my fingertips. The glass of juice slipped from her hand and went into the air in slow motion. It spilled on her clothes and landed in her hair.
“I am so sorry. I am very sorry. I didn’t do this intentionally. I don’t know what has gotten into me. You have been the perfect gentleman and I haven’t made it easy,” She exclaimed with a frantic motion of her hands. She was about to cry like she had committed a heinous sin.
“Relax. It’s nothing. It was just a glass of juice. It’s all right. These things happen. Do you want to change clothes? I think that you should take a shower,” I said
She sighed and nodded.
“Come with me. You can take a shower in my bathroom. It’s upstairs,” I informed her and she followed meekly from behind still looking completely out of her element.
She looked scared that something was going to jump out from the shadows. She quietly followed me upstairs and entered my room. I grabbed a while towel from my wardrobe and one of my starched white shirts.
“The bathroom is through that door.” I handed her the towel and she looked at me to see if I was serious or playing a game at her expense.
She snatched the towel and shirt from me and went inside. I wanted to join her, but I didn’t want to hear her scream for me to get back.
I went out of the room and closed the door to give her some privacy. She was different from all the other girls that had graced my bed.
I wondered if the rumours were true about the quiet ones being the craziest.
I wanted to find out.
Ellie and Frank were standing in the hallway half naked. She wasn’t trying to cover up with Frank’s hands cinched around her waist from behind peeking over her shoulder.
“What happened, Edward?”
“Where is Grace?”
“Is she Okay?” Ellie asked as if it was Grace’s first time with any man.
“Was she a virgin?” I didn’t need this drama.
“Yeah, she’s alright. She spilled some juice on her clothes and in her hair. She’s taking a shower to wash it out,” I replied to Ellie.
“Oh. Good…I was worried there for a second.…” Ellie suddenly stopped.
“What did you think happened?” I asked.
“I wasn’t there. I’m just looking out for my friend.” She tried to avoid my question by deflecting with concern for her friend.
“Guys, I am ordering dinner. Do you want anything special?” Frank asked looking at his mobile.
“I really don’t care.” I was feeling like I was lost having no idea how to break the ice with Grace.
“I’m sure Ellie and I can come up with something to please everyone.” Frank said.
They placed the order for dinner and then we chatted for a while. Frank got two more beers for us and a glass of wine for Ellie.
We had a few drinks, but Grace still hadn’t made an appearance. It was more than half an hour later. Suddenly, the doorbell rang and it was the delivery boy. Frank paid the order while I was sitting on the couch watching TV not really caring what was on.
“Ellie let’s get some plates from the kitchen,” Frank said as he put the food on the dining table.
Ellie nodded and went into the kitchen with Frank. They obviously wanted to be alone to extend the intimacy from what they had done upstairs.
I was watching TV, but my mind was thinking about Grace the whole time.
“What was taking her so long?”
Finally, she came out of the bathroom. And I was now lost in her.
“Is she really for hire…?”
Chapter 2
~Grace~
I felt bad for Edward and he was obviously expecting more to happen than casual conversation.
I was standing underneath the hot spray of the shower and wondering how I could discreetly extract myself from the situation without anybody noticing.
I
thought I could go through with it for the sake of my little brother Brad. The other day was permanently imprinted in my mind.
*
I was working three jobs to make money. My father was a tyrant living for the moment that we were going to disappoint him. His hand was constantly on his belt waiting patiently with his hand out after losing his job at the refinery after 15 years.
The money I had in my pocket wasn’t much after I had gotten some groceries, but I felt that it was enough to keep him from using the belt.
It was sometimes worse when he didn’t say a thing stewing in his own juices and fuming with a bottle of beer in his hands.
Brad, my 10 years old brother was too young to see his father at his worst. He was protected from his wrath and I felt that it was my duty as his elder sister to step in when our father had too much and was looking for a punching bag.
It was pure torture to hear the key in the lock and know that he had come home stinking drunk looking for a fight. I was known to barricade my door rocking back and forth in the fetal position on the floor waiting for him to barge in unannounced.
“I’m sorry. I did my best and I made a mistake,” Brad said.
I heard his meek voice behind the door and I was afraid of what I was going to find when I opened it.
“I gave you $20.00 and you come back with this. What the hell am I supposed to do with a bunch of hockey cards? These are not going to put food on the table unless you plan to eat them. You need to learn a lesson in the value of a dollar and never forget it.” Dad said with that unspoken threat in the air.
I fiddled with the lock nervous with sweat beading down my nose desperate to get inside to stop things from escalating.
“It won’t happen again, Dad.” Brad said with his voice cracking in fear for his safety.
I finally got the door open and heard Brad’s scream from inside the living room.
Nobody knew the hardship that the two of us faced and I was too ashamed to confide in anybody other than my best friend Ellie. She lived next door and was considered my sister.
My mother’s death rocked my father’s world and sent him into a spiral. His decline into a pit of depression at the bottom of a bottle had made everything unravel like somebody had pulled an errant string.
He could say the most hurtful things under the influence and had no filter when it came to his drunken outrages. He told me that the two of us were a waste of skin and that we didn’t contribute to the household.
My Dad was a despicable man and I felt no family connection after my mother was gone. I hated her for leaving us, but I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn’t her fault.
I watched horrified from the threshold hearing the leather slap against his bare back. I don’t know what came over me. I took a deep breath and grabbed the belt in mid-swing with his arms raised ready to inflict more pain.
My Dad beating Brad with the belt was the final straw. He turned to me and my first instinct was to raise my hands defensively.
He stalked me from across the room and pinned me against the wall with the putrid stench of his liquor-soaked breath in my face.
“Do you have something for me?” He asked with his hand out.
I felt compelled to give him everything in my pocket. He smiled wickedly and whistled with the money in his hand going out of the door.
My hands were shaking, and I looked at Brad to see that he didn’t give him the satisfaction of crying.
“I won’t let him do that to you again. I want you to stay in your room and use the lock that I installed to keep him out. He most likely won’t come in until after midnight,” I stated emphatically knowing that he followed a pattern that he very rarely deviated from.
“Where were you?” He asked with puppy dog tears that were welling up in his eyes.
“I don’t need this from you. I was working my fingers to the bone and studying for night school at the same time. When I have enough money saved up, I’m going to take you away from this place and he will never see us again,” I said with him throwing his hands up in defeat and running upstairs to the sanctuary of his bedroom.
I grabbed my jacket and crossed the lawn to the back door of Ellie’s house. I was about to knock when it opened, and the haggard expression of her mother was looking at me with a cigarette dangling from her lips.
She was visiting out a misplaced motherly concern. The smell of the nicotine sickened me and soured my disposition even further than it already was.
“She’s upstairs getting ready to go out,” She said pointing her finger at the stairs without breaking eye contact.
I brushed past her and made my way upstairs hearing a sigh of resignation coming from her lips.
“What do you think?” Ellie asked while spinning in place in front of the mirror.
There was no way that I could ignore the fact that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She was always comfortable being a little bit more provocative than others.
“I suppose it depends on the reason why you are dressed like that. I’m going to ask you to take me with you. You know that I need the money to get away from him,” I said motioning with my head to where my father hanged his hat.
“This is not the type of thing that you should be doing. I’m expecting more from you. I’m going to forget that you even mentioned this,” she said turning her back and reapplying a bit more lipstick to those lips that had become a guilty pleasure for the boys.
“I’m dead serious. I have to make sure that was the one and only time that he ever puts his hands on Brad,” I said with her stopping and turning to look at me over her shoulder with more than a little concern.
“I didn’t know. I will consider bringing you with me as a fly on the wall for the first time. Follow my lead and don’t leave my sight for one second,” Ellie said reaching for her jacket that was on the bed.
I sat down feeling dejected and wondering if I was going from the frying pan and into the fire. She convinced me that it was better that I didn’t advertise the possibility that I was available.
“I’m reminded of what my mother said about money being the root of all evil. It might not mean much to those that have it, but those that don’t work tirelessly to get it. The daily grind and the tedium of something mundane can really get on your last nerve,” I said thinking out loud and looking at all the things she had bought that had come from selling her company with everything that entailed.
I felt that I was entitled to a piece of that pie.I heard the honking and I looked out the window to seek a taxi idling at the curb.
Ellie hooked her finger and made me follow her down the stairs past her disapproving mother staring daggers from her eyes.
Her mother was staring at us with her eyes narrowed in disapproval.
“Don’t wait up,” Ellie said not giving her any kind of rebuttal to cause a confrontation.
“I expect this from her, but you are destined for bigger things. Things might look bleak at the moment, but there’s always a silver lining,” She said taking me by the shoulders to try to shake some sense into me.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” I replied with a tone of defeat that made it sound like I was giving up on the future that was within my reach.
We drove in silence and she was text messaging certain men that might be at the club. I’d made the mistake one time by looking over her shoulder.
She blatantly put herself out there for the almighty dollar.
“I never asked you what you did, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I have to be pretty damn desperate to even think about following in your footsteps. Nobody is going to help me. It’s up to me to make things better for me and Brad,” I said with my hands in my lap looking at my plain nails compared to her pink painted ones.
The driver was trying to be subtle about looking at Ellie and failing miserably. He looked like a lecherous old man trying to reclaim his lost youth. No doubt a lot of guys hitting their stride at 40 were thinking the same th
ing.
“I didn’t put a gun to your head or twist your arm. We can pull over right here and you can walk back to the house. It’s not too late to change your mind. In a lot of ways, you are still a little girl with a lot to learn,” She chided without even looking up from her phone with her fingers a blur of motion.
“It’s not fair for me to judge you. I’m beginning to see that you are only doing what is necessary to survive. I think that some small part of you enjoys stringing men along for the promises of sex,” I said feeling like I was going to stick out like a sore thumb.
“What I do is a means to an end. There are moments that remind me that we only get this one life to live. The money is too hard to pass up. Sex is a commodity and I’ve been lucky to find those that treat me like I deserve to be treated,” She said fingering the string of pearls around her neck that probably cost more than what I made in a year.
I had seen some interesting things that would have fetched a pretty penny at the pawnshop. She must’ve been raking it in to be able to keep those tiny baubles of perfection. Visiting her was hard and I was tempted to pocket a few of her trinkets hoping that she wasn’t going to miss them.