Searching for the Kingdom Key

by TylerRose.

  Sleep in this new place was not easy, but at least the spirits left her be. Having traveled so far, it would take them a few days to find her again. When she finally fell asleep, it was a good, hard sleep that she didn’t wake from until her alarm clock went off at 8am.

  Showered, though she hated to shower in the morning, dressed with eyes put on, she was on her way by nine. She wore her business suit, brought several copies of her resume and a copy of her times from her file back in Toledo. The temp handler didn’t believe the scores. He tested her again in typing, word processing and spreadsheet applications. Surprised but satisfied that she really was that fast and accurate, the agent sent her out on a telephone job before noon. She had the address, the directions to get there, and was told to be at the door by 1pm.

  Tyler found the office. It was in a converted apartment building. She was early enough to have lunch first, people-watching out the window of the diner and wondering what the job would really be. Ten minutes before the hour, she went into the building and found the office. “Taking phone calls” could have meant a million things.

  Orientation told her everything. This was an escort service and she was setting up dates with men to have sex with prostitutes.

  Oh joy.

  But, she reminded herself, she’d wanted a job. Any job. Just to get money coming in, she could work this one for a while and, when she was more established, ask the temp agency for something else.

  The owner sat with her when the first call came. A highly manicured fingernail scanned down the page as Tyler repeated his requirements. Exotic but not too dark, and someone who wasn’t too new. And he didn’t want too thick of an accent.

  Jaida leapt out at Tyler.

  “I have just the girl in mind. Her name is Jaida,” she said before Ms. Chase had a chance to approve the choice. “She’s Indian by heritage. Asian Indian, that is, but has been here in America since she was a little girl. She has an American accent, so…no problem. How long will she be staying?”

  “Two hours,” he said.

  “Two hours? Is that all? What if you ask her to do that thing.”

  “What thing?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Mr. Brown, everyone has a thing. I have a sneaking suspicion that if you asked Jaida and offered her the standard extra amount for it, she would be more than accommodating.”

  “Uuuhh…okay. Three hours.”

  “Keep the key in plain sight so it doesn’t get lost,” Tyler said after taking his location information.

  Ms. Chase stared at her. “How did you know that about Jaida? You haven’t been here five minutes and have met no one.”

  “Says right here she’s in college to be a sex therapist,” Tyler pointed. “She’s game.”

  Ms. Chase laughed and went back to her office, leaving Tyler to field the early calls and contact the girls with their appointments. More girls were calling to say they were available or would be at a specific time. Tyler managed to eke an extra hour out of nearly half the men who called.

  Some of the girls started coming into the office to drop off money. The second desk girl had come in, to work from four until 1am. She handled the money. Tyler watched, to see how to was done.

  The call girls sat together in the living room of the apartment, talking while they waited for a date. Some girls called to say they’d settle the next day when they came in. About six, a woman with an overly polished phone voice called to request a girl for her boss, and started rattling off his preferences.

  “Hold up. What?” Tyler cut her off in mid-request.

  “Mr. Holmes would—“

  “I don’t have a Holmes on our list of clients,” Tyler said, eyes on the H section of the pages in her hand.

  “I’m his Executive Assistant. Add him. Mr. Holmes would like--”

  “I don’t care who you are or what he wants. He’s not on the list and that makes him a first time client. Either you or he will have to speak to Ms. Chase directly before she decides if she will send one of her girls to a complete stranger. So you get him on the line or he’s just going to have to use his right hand like every other guy who didn’t get lucky this evening.”

  Male laughter came over the receiver. He’d been listening from the start. “Thank you, Alicia. I’ve got it.”

  “Yes, Mr. Holmes.” A click as she hung up.

  Tyler remained silent.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot to tell her I’d not used your service before,” he said, still amused. “I am Thomas Holmes, owner of Holmes P & I. Ms. Chase will know who I am. We met a few weeks back. I own the building she’s operating from.”

  “Hold for a moment.”

  She jabbed the button and put the phone down, shaking her head all the way into the next room. Ms. Chase was reading a letter, and looked up with the darkening of her doorway.

  “There is a Thomas Holmes on the phone. It’s the first time he’s called to hire a girl. He claims to own this building. Says you’ll know who he is. Line two.”

  “Yes, I do know who he is. I met him when he bought the building. Once I talk to him, I’ll send him back to you to set up the date,” Ms. Chase said, picking up the receiver. “Mr. Holmes, how nice to speak with you.”

  Tyler answered another call and sent a girl out before the line flashed again.

  “He’s all yours,” Ms. Chase said from inside her office.

  Tyler picked up the phone. “Are we ready now, Mr. Holmes?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “I’m the rude chick answering the phone,” she replied.

  “I don’t think you were rude. You’re the first gatekeeper for the business. You were right to take control of the call. My assistant is used to services already knowing me. So it’s my fault entirely that your guard went up. But you shouldn’t have mentioned using my right hand if I didn’t get lucky. Ms. Chase would be angry at that because if I’d been a cop, that would be grounds for a search warrant. Have you worked there long?”

  “Are you trying to set up a date with me, Mr. Holmes?”

  He laughed. “Not at all. Except for the masturbation reference, the way you handled that made it sound like you’ve been there for years.”

  “Today is my first day. I have other lines starting to flash at me,” she lied. “Shall we proceed?”

  “Very well. I want someone who hasn’t gone out on very many dates. I prefer them new, while it’s still fun and hasn’t become an actual job.”

  She looked over the girls on the sofa, asking, “Any preference for looks? Ethnicity?”

  “No. Couldn’t care less,” he said.

  “Okay, I’ll send you Cindy. She started last week and got in two days before she had to take seven days off. So today is only her third.”

  “That will do. She’ll be here overnight. Figure from seven until seven.”

  “Address.”

  An apartment building not far away. Sixth floor. Tyler was off the phone and Cindy was out the door. The next call came in, as the busy part of the night was starting.

  Ten o’clock, calls having tapered off dramatically, Ms. Chase told her she could go for the night. Pleased with how easily Tyler took to the phones, she offered her a permanent job working 1pm to 10pm Thursday through Sunday. Most girls were where they were going to be by 10pm and any who came into the office after that would only be bringing money.

  “We’ll consider you as temp to permanent until you tell me you’ll take the permanent job. But you cannot move up to money handling until you’re permanent,” Ms. Chase told her. “So think about it and let me know.”

  “Thank you. I will,” Tyler said, and headed down to the street to walk Los Angeles at night.

  She walked home, not minding that it was a long walk. She needed the time to think, and hadn’t seen the city at night. The work itself was kinda fun. Talking with the girls between calls was fun, hearing their stories of different men, different celebrities they’d been with.

  Of course the business itself was illegal but so
was half what went on in the motorcycle clubhouses presided over by Nails and Dicer. So men were paying women to have sex. So what. Far as she could see, this company was well-run and treated the girls well. An escort system wasn’t as brutal as street walking. The woman running it was still a pimp, but Tyler hadn’t seen anyone leave her office upset or with a black eye. She’d seen enough of that in the last two years.

  The hours were certainly good. Three weekdays off. She could eventually take classes in the morning and start going to college. She would look into that come the fall. She didn’t want to go back already. She’d just gotten out of high school literally a week ago.

  She’d get three dollars an hour more when she learned the money end of the transactions, if she took the permanent job.

  A flashing neon sign and noise from inside a restaurant caught her attention. Karaoke night. She missed singing. Going in, sitting at the first available table, she looked through the list book. Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen was there, as was Fleetwood Mac’s Gypsy. Plus Benatar’s Heartbreaker, Hit Me With Your Best Shot and Love is a Battlefield.

  She wrote herself in five times, filling in spots over the next three hours and ending with Edge of Seventeen, and ordered herself some supper.

  By the end of the third song she performed, the owner was sitting next to her, asking when she’d started singing and what other songs she liked. He asked her to come back as often as she could. The audience loved her and that meant he did too.

  She got herself into a routine of sorts, with Monday being her explore Los Angeles day. She played the tourist to see all those things she had always wanted to see. Twice a week she went to Karaoke night. The owner bought more of the songs she liked. She started making friends with some of the other regulars.

  “I’m not old enough to drink,” she admitted when one of them offered to buy her a shot of something.

  “If you could, what would it be?” he asked.

  “Jack and cola.”

  “You order the cola. I’ll order a shot of Jack. Then you steal it and pour it into your cola when I go to the bathroom,” he smiled, and signaled their waitress.

  Her cola and his shot arrived and he went at once to the restroom. She glanced around to see no one was watching and quickly dumped the shot glass into her cola glass. She kept herself to one, however, and never left her glass sitting by itself.

  By the end of April, she was familiar with nearly all the escort clients and had managed to make some of the more gruff first timers into congenial repeat clients.

  “Who do you have that’s new?” Thomas Holmes asked, his usual opening line.

  He’d taken up the habit of calling himself whenever he wanted a girl; but always asked for someone new. Not that the girls minded. She’d been told he was a really good time. Game for just about anything with few objectionable quirks. He saved those for particularly special girls.

  “No one you’ve not already had over, Mr. Holmes,” Tyler said. “We don’t have any new girls starting until day after tomorrow.”

  “That’s a shame. What about you?”

  “Me?! I’m not an escort. I just answer the phones and settle the money.”

  “And go home to masturbate alone in your room.”

  “Whether I do or don’t isn’t your concern,” she laughed. “Why do you always want someone new? It’s not just about wanting them eager and bouncy, before they become jaded.”

  Silence.

  “Did I ask something I shouldn’t?” she asked more seriously.

  “More unexpected than shouldn’t. The others are good for one date; but most of them aren’t very interesting. They want to be models and movie stars and that’s it. By the end of one date, I know enough to know we’ve had all the conversations we’re ever going to have. They do not keep my interest.”

  “Are they interviewing for a job as your permanent mistress? You think, for some reason, that I would hold your interest? Or do you intend to do the same thing to me?”

  “I’ve kept you on the phone, talking for half an hour, more than once,” he teased. “Enough to know I’d like to know more about the voice on the other end of the phone. Come see me. You’ll make in one day what you make in a month sitting there answering phones. You can’t tell me you couldn’t use the money. Phone money is barely enough to pay the rent at a piss-poor apartment.”

  He had her there. She wanted out of the hotel room, but couldn’t get a place on her own yet. Rent would eat up her savings too quickly if she got anything she considered decent. No way would she take a roommate situation.

  “I can fix it with Ms. Chase so that you don’t ever see anyone else unless you want to,” he said. “One date a week with me and you’ll be set for the entire month. Save up and get your degree.”

  He sure knew how to say all the right things. Why would he suddenly be offering a steady gig to her when he’d never met her? She wanted to question more, get sticky with him. Then she remembered how long it had been since that one night with Jerome. The last night she’d had sex. She was horny as fuck. She needed some serious body pounding and couldn’t get that with a dildo, regardless how big it was.

  She was at least familiar with him, had heard about him nearly every time one of the girls came to settle up. He wasn’t abusive. He wasn’t an asshole. He never tried to short a girl, tipped well. None of them ever had anything negative to say.

  Still she hesitated.

  “Come over once. Then we’ll talk about the rest another time. I’d at least like to meet you,” he said. “We can have lunch.”

  He wasn’t taking no for an answer. She couldn’t say she minded. It had been too long since she’d had a man’s full and undivided attention.

  “I don’t have anything but jeans and t-shirts,” she said.

  He always wanted them dressed in some slinky, sexy number.

  “Tell you what, I’ll tell Ms. Chase to give you $500. I’ll reimburse her myself. You go shopping right now and buy a sexy dress with something even sexier underneath. I’ll give you a phone number. It’s to my driver. When you have the outfit and are wearing it, he will bring you to my home. Put me on hold. Transfer me to Ms. Chase. I’ll take care of this right now.”

  She did, and sat there those moments wondering how all that had happened. Ms. Chase came out with the cash in hand.

  “Go around the corner to the little boutique. Five hundred will only buy you so much, so you’ll be limited in your selections. He didn’t say shoes, but you certainly cannot go in sneakers.”

  “I’ll deal with it, Ms. Chase. I know what to do. I’ll settle before I take my phone shift tomorrow.”

  She went around the corner, but not to the boutique Ms. Chase wanted her to shop in. She crossed the street to the leather and SM shop instead for a hot little red dress in patent leather she thought Thomas would appreciate much more. She paid for it and a pair of spiked red pumps, and wore them out of the store with nothing underneath. Her clothes and purse inside a matching tote, she used a pay phone to call the driver.

  “We’ll be there in five minutes, Miss Tyler,” he said, and hung up on her.

  We?

  Turned out the car was a limousine and “we” meant Thomas was in the back seat. The driver parked at the curb and came around to open the door and the richest man she’d ever met stepped out. Owner of huge corporations and investment firms. Philanthropist. And a kinky fucker if ever there was one. He kept all that in check with the girls he usually spent time with.

  He was about six feet tall, lean but not lanky. Business haircut, medium brown, hazel eyes. Rather a subtle Nordic look about his features.

  On the curb, he looked her down and up while she looked him down and up, and smiled at her. “You look good enough to eat.”

  “I could do with a bite,” she smiled back. “But only if you’re Thomas Holmes. You’ve not introduced yourself.”

  “Forgive my manners, Miss Tyler. I am Thomas Holmes, your blind date. I’m forty years old, ridiculous
ly wealthy, and also hungry. Where would you like to go?”

  “I’d love to go to Spago. Is it open for lunch?”

  “As a matter of fact it is on Thursday,” he said, taking her hand to guide her toward the car. “Sit facing forward.”

  She sat on the far side of the bench seat, angled on her hip toward the center with legs crossed in his direction. He sat directly in the middle of the seat.

  “That’s not where Ms. Chase told you to shop. I think I can be certain of that.”

  “Frilly isn’t my thing. I think you’d rather a girl be herself than trying to be what she thinks you want her to be. They never do get it right, do they?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because you never ask any of them to come back. You’ve not had a single girl for a second date. You said it’s because they don’t hold your interest. I can only surmise they are too much of a put-on, trying to snag a rich guy or use him to get a leg up with a director or producer. So I’m going to be who I am instead of pretending to be what I’m not. I never wanted to be an actress, so I couldn’t care less if you could advance my career. Mind if I have a smoke? I can wait if you’d prefer.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re dying for a cigarette, aren’t you? Go ahead.”

  “You don’t like girls who smoke. They’ve all said that.”

  “I don’t like girls who lie and say they don’t smoke,” he corrected.

  “Then we’ll be just fine because I’m a smokin’ fiend. I’d be even happier if you had some weed but I won’t hold my breath.”

  He laughed, an open-mouthed expression. “I think I’m going to like you a great deal, Tyler. Why’d you pick Tyler? It’s a boy’s name.”

  “I didn’t. My mother did.”

  “You didn’t pick a pseudonym for working at the service?” he questioned. A lie of a question, since he already knew that very well.

  “I saw no need. No one cares what my name is when I’m answering phones. I don’t intend to be going out on dates with anyone else.”