“Come get me?” I asked.
“Ye’re damn right! Ye’re ridin’ wit’ me tomorrow,” Danny said, offering a big grin. “See ya then, boss!”
“Hey! Wait!” I called after him, but all to no avail.
I watched Mia see both Danny and Marcus out. I glanced down, deciding there was no point in fighting how things were going. A moment later, Mia had returned to the room and was sitting back in bed next to me.
“Jace, you really can be an idiot sometimes, you know that,” she said, sighing softly.
“Sorry,” I said, glancing down, feeling ashamed.
“Be more careful, okay?” she said, moving her hand to my arm. “And you’re staying in tomorrow.”
“Does that mean you’ll pamper me?” I said, grinning wickedly.
“Nope, Danny is actually dropping Candy off and her and I are going on a girl’s day,” she said, grinning coyly back at me. “But I’m sure Danny will help anyway he can.”
“Help in being a pain in my ass, maybe!” I said, pouting. “Come on, Mia… stay home with me, please?”
“Nope! This is your punishment,” she said, smiling wickedly.
“You are a wicked woman,” I said, not bothering to hide the smile as I said it.
“How’s your arm?” she asked, running her hand gently over the bicep.
“A little sore, nothing too bad,” I said and then added, “I’ll be careful tomorrow, okay?”
“You’ll have no choice,” Mia said, grinning. “Danny won’t let you not be.”
“He really can be a pain in the ass,” I said, sighing as I leaned back, already not looking forward to tomorrow.
SIX
~MIA~
I couldn’t hide the grin that I had as I stepped out of the condo, listening to Jace already beginning to whine at Danny. As the elevator doors closed and the last of Jace’s complaints died down, I glanced over at Candy.
“He’s like a little kid, isn’t he?” I said, starting to laugh.
“Yeah, most men are, I’m afraid,” she said with a shrug and then grinned at me. “So… shopping trip?”
“Of course,” I said, grinning as I added, “Jace owes me, so this is on him.”
“Owes you how?” she asked.
“He went and got himself shot,” I said, shaking my head and glanced down, hating how afraid I’d been last night.
Candy arched an eyebrow at that. “He got shot? Aaaand somehow that translates to him owing you?”
I frowned at that, wondering if I was in for a guilt-tripping. Admittedly, having worded it that way, I was feeling suddenly guilty. “Well…” I began.
“Good for you!” she cut in before I could even begin to try explaining myself. “If you weren’t around to keep that boy in line he’d probably have just gone and gotten himself murdered by now, anyway. ‘Sides, he didn’t look too beat-up just now. I’m guessing he’ll pull through,” she offered sarcastically, then, frowning, she offered me a concerned once-over. “You okay, though?”
“Me?” I asked. “I wasn’t the one that was shot!”
Candy only stared at me with a “bitch, please!”-look.
I sighed and nodded. “Yeah. I was nervous, I guess, but it wasn’t that bad,” I said, gesturing to my own bicep. “He was shot in the arm, but after getting shot, he decided to play macho man and continued to push himself still. He lost a ton of blood from just being stupid.”
“Men,” Candy said with a sigh.
“Men,” I agreed, sighing as well.
As the elevator door’s opened, we both walked out into the lobby. I appreciated having this time to spend with Candy, it’d been too long since we’d had any girl-time. We made our way to the parking lot and Candy glanced over at me.
“We taking that sick-as-fuck ride Danny lent you?” she asked.
“Yeah, and it’s my car now,” I said, grinning at her.
“No fucking way!” she said, shaking her head in amazement. “Bitch, do not be fucking with me right now! I swear, you best not be shitting me!”
“I shit you not, I swear! Jace said he was glad it’d get some love,” I said, smiling at the memory. “So, now the car is mine!”
“Fuck yeah!” Candy laughed, sliding into the passenger side after I unlocked the doors.
“Fuck yeah, indeed!” I said, grinning. “And I know exactly where we are going.”
I knew I had made the right choice in where to go when I saw Candy’s face light up as I pulled into a parking spot at the outlet center Jace had taken me a few days ago. I’d already wanted to go back and figured Candy would love the place too. We both wasted no time in beginning to shop and I smiled, enjoying the time we spent together.
“Oh damn, girl! Look at this lingerie!” Candy said, pointing to a shop window with multiple mannequins wearing different styles of lingerie. “These would be perfect for the brothel for some of the girls.”
“Are you still working too?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, glancing over at me as if I asked her a stupid question.
I chewed my lip, finally deciding to ask my friend the question that had been burning in my mind from the moment Jace first offered her the job; from the moment she’d accepted:
“Why’d you decide to stay in the game, Candy? Why keep whoring when you could do anything now?”
She was silent for a moment. Not because she didn’t seem to have an answer for me; no, her silence was more of a pitying reflection—she almost seemed more insulted that I couldn’t figure it out for myself. Then, seeming to come to a conclusion, she smiled and offered what could have either been a dismissive or a forgiving shrug.
“You got an ugly look at what hooking is, baby-girl; I think all those girls with those Carrion cunts did,” she finally answered. “Hooking is… well, it’s a career of passion. Literally. Like, literally-literally! We sell love.” She paused to smile at that and nodded, adding, “For a time, at least. It ain’t about standing on a street corner, ain’t about risking your neck and waiting for the next violent sadist to come strolling over, and it sure-as-shit ain’t about pain.” Sighing, she leaned back, let her head lull for a moment so she was aiming her still-smiling face to the ceiling, and started speaking again like that so that her words took on a deep, almost deifying effect. “What your man’s offering me—what Jace is offering all those girls and, by extension, what he’s offering the whole gosh-darn city—is a way to do it right. Safety and freedom; a means to ensure the health of not only our girls but also our Johns. It’s going to be what it should be, Mia: a means to provide pleasure without fear or control. And isn’t that something to be proud of; something to want to pursue? To sell pleasure?”
I bit my lip at that, startled to find that not only had her response made sense but that it also made me feel a little guilty for asking. But, even in that guilt-inducing response, I realized that she’d actually danced quite marvelously around my actual question.
“But why are you staying?” I repeated, working to drive the point that it was a personal question and not one of ethics or economics. “Why should it be you?”
Candy shrugged. “Why shouldn’t it be me?” she answered with a question of her own.
I frowned at that. “Because… because you’ve suffered for it, too. Like me—like all the other girls—you were hurt and… and…”
“And that was a reflection of what prostitution is with the Carrion Crew,” she finished for me, shaking her head, “not what it prostitution should be. I should be the one to do it because I’ve seen what the shit-end of the job looks like. Somebody else, somebody who hasn’t seen that shit, wouldn’t know what to steer clear from.”
Once again, I found myself startled by how much her answer made sense. But, still, I found myself troubled by the idea. “But how can you still be interested? I’d imagine you’d want nothing more to do with… well, all that.”
Candy actually laughed. “You’re still fucking Jace—what?—every goddam night, and yet you can sti
ll ask me that sort of question? How can a chick who scratches her pussy that frequently ask me why I ain’t applying to the nunnery?”
Part of me wanted to tell her about the amazing anal sex Jace and I had been having—that I hadn’t just been “scratching” my pussy but a lot more—but I only knew I’d be lending more to her point.
“I didn’t mean the sex-part,” I defended, shaking my head. “I meant how can you still be interested in whoring?”
“‘Cause I’m still interested in money, too,” she said with a smirk.
I sighed, annoyed by this response but thankful all the same that I wasn’t finding myself unsettlingly guilt-ridden or awe-inspired this time around. “But doesn’t it make you feel…?” I let this question trail off, assuming that Candy could fill in the rest on her own.
I wasn’t wrong.
“Make me feel whorish?” she offered, grinning. “Believe it or not, Mia, being a whore makes me feel sexy. You never had a chance to really ease yourself into it, y’know? You got blind-sided into the life, I’m afraid. Me? I was hooking on my own for a while—my own boss, you could say—before the Carrion Crew brought me in, and when they did it sounded like a much better gig than it turned out to be. Plus, I was always in it for me; wasn’t about somebody else’s debt or owing something to someone. I got off lucky—so to speak—in that sense.” She smiled, this time reassuringly; almost motherly. “But… yeah! I always liked sex—liked getting guys off even when I was a sophomore in high school—and the idea of getting folks to part with their hard-earned dollars by doing something I already enjoyed was… well, I guess you could say it kinda turns me on. People got their fetishes, and at an early age I discovered that being a whore was mine.”
I stared, stunned. “You’re shitting me,” I accused, taking a bit of pride in using that line against her this time around.
She shook her head. “I shit you not, baby-girl. I was sucking dick at an early age—God! I don’t think there was ever a time I didn’t love sucking dick!—and, this one time, I got a little too excited and started blowing this guy I’d been sorta-kinda seeing right in the middle of the living room at this party we were attending. Wasn’t even drunk or drugged! Nothing! I just, I don’t know, got horny from him rubbing on my ass—I already knew others could see it—and he could see that look in my eye, I’m sure, and he leans in real close, lips to my ear and everything, and says, ‘bet you won’t blow me in front of everyone.’” She smirked and winked. “And so I did just that. Everyone was shocked, sure, but nobody more than him. I went all-out—‘spared no expense,’ as that Jurassic Park dude would put it—and everyone was just watching and cheering. Now, that night I’d been a slut in the traditional sense—damn proud one, too—but they were all chanting ‘whore.’” Candy began to pump her fist in the air and parrot the memory: “SUCK IT! SUCK IT! WHORE! WHORE! WHORE!” the chant becoming a sort of rhythmic sound—one, two; one, two, three—and Candy’s grin grew wider. “He lasted, like, twenty seconds. Nutted right in my mouth, getting all grunty and shaky and stupid—just like men do whenever they bust a nut. Everyone was just screaming, cheering, and I flashed the room the wad on my tongue before gulping it down.”
“Jeez!” I gasped, offering a nervous chuckle in response to the story. “That’s a bit… extreme.”
Candy nodded and offered a shrug. “Stupid kid doing stupid kid shit, I’ll admit, but it was the night I learned that sex empowered me. I didn’t feel demeaned or used; didn’t even feel embarrassed. Hell, if anybody should’ve been embarrassed it was the guy! Mister ‘Can’t Last More Than Twenty Seconds!’ Can’t remember his name now—who would, right?—but I just remember feeling… strong. I never feel more like a woman than when I get to show off my eroticism and get a guy off.” She shrugged again and leaned forward, patting my knee. “I’m not saying there aren’t women who regret being in the business—hookers, strippers, porn stars… all of those sorts—but that don’t mean that all of ‘em do. When a guy walks up to me—chooses me—to be the one to make him feel good, and then I’m able to do it for him—maybe even better than anybody else he’s ever had—that makes me feel proud; and, yeah, it makes me feel sexy. And if they’re handing me a wad of bills after the fact, then isn’t that all the better? Fuck the gold stars and the thumbs-up, I’m getting money as a direct reflection of my performance. It’s all so… so hot!” Candy blushed then, seeming embarrassed by the excitement she was exhibiting, and she leaned back again. “I can understand that it’s not your thing. I wouldn’t expect it to be. But I also wouldn’t expect you to not understand why it would be someone’s thing.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said, begrudging that, once again, she’d managed to make sense. “I guess it’s just… you know, the way the world views us… well, not us, but…”
“I know what you mean, Mia,” Candy said with a gentle giggle. “And, frankly, I don’t care. People would say that all this, the fact that I like what I do, says something about me. Something negative. They’d say that I was traumatized as a kid or that my daddy must’ve diddled me or that I was rewarded for being slutty or that I just want attention. People always say shit like that. Granted, they say that without knowing what real trauma looks like, or, worse yet, they have trauma of their own and choose drugs or alcohol or something to cope. They’d be wrong, though, about all of it. I had a normal childhood. Fought with my old man, sure, but what teenage girl doesn’t. The culprit—the real culprit—is pleasure; I like to feel pleasure and I like to give it. So, yeah, people would say all sorts of awful things about me for liking being a whore, but those same people are afraid to fuck with the lights on. They’re afraid to talk about sex, afraid to admit that they like it, and it throws the whole subject into this fucked-up realm where we—well, us; you know what I mean—are somehow dirty for it; where we should have something to be ashamed of. Literally one of the most natural things our species does… and they’d want me to feel guilty for not only doing it, but actually making a living off of it, too.”
I actually smirked at that. “Then why not just be a slut—steal boyfriends and husbands from the lights-off chicks who’d want to shame you—and get paid to do something else?”
“Stupid fucking question,” she scolded me. “I do it because I can; because doing both is better, ain’t it? ‘Sides, wasn’t it Winston Churchill who said, ‘If you’re good at something, never do it for free?’”
“I think it was Heath Ledger’s Joker that said that,” I told her, laughing.
Candy laughed, too. Then, shrugging, she said, “Either way, it’s a good line.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, satisfied, “I guess it is.”
“Good, then let’s get some fuckin’ lingerie!” she said, grinning wickedly as she led me through the shop.
We both tried on multiple outfits and I was glad to have this time with Candy. As we finished shopping for lingerie, we made a stop at the bookstore and I grabbed a few more books, grabbing a few for Candy as well—mostly erotica and other books on sex. I was glad that Candy was happy with her life, I wanted us both to get our happy endings and it seemed it was coming through.
“So, how is the brothel going?” I asked, glancing over.
“Really great,” Candy said as she flipped through one of the books. “We are booked solid every night and the girls are great, really. If ya ever feel like ya wanna come back, you let me know.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said and glanced down. “Hey, Candy… can I tell you something?”
“Sure, what’s up?” she asked.
I glanced over, needing to get this off my chest to someone. I hated holding back and I hated that I couldn’t tell Jace everything. Taking a deep breath, I told her everything. I told her about the new nightmares that I’d been having ever since killing Mack, how afraid I was at Jace being killed from Papa Raven, told her everything. When I was done, I could see her own look of concern and sympathy growing.
“Oh, Mia,” she finally said. “Hav
e you talked about this with Jace?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “I’ve been worried about stressing him out.”
“Dummy,” she said, wrapping her arms around me. “I won’t lie and say I’m not worried too… but we’ll get through this. Together. Okay?”
“Thanks, Candy,” I said, feeling better from both her hug and her words.
“Next time you have that nightmare, tell someone, k?” she said, glancing down at me.
“I will, I promise,” I said and then glanced down at my watch. “It’s about lunch time, where do you wanna eat?
“Uh, bitch. Didn’t you say there was a Medieval Times here?” she said, glancing over at me with a “are you stupid?” expression.
“I did, yeah,” I said, smiling. “Shall we go see if there’s a showtime soon?”
Turned out there was one in less than an hour and we snagged two seats. I paid extra for the VIP package that was similar to the celebration passes. I wanted to get good seats with Candy as well, wanting her to enjoy the experience as much as I had.
“This place is awesome,” Candy said as she explored the castle entrance.
“Isn’t it? When Jace and I came here, he got super jealous about one of the knights giving me a rose,” I said, chuckling at the memory.
“Oh? Well, this time he won’t have to, ‘cuz I’ll be getting that rose,” she said smugly.
I smiled at her excitement and glanced up as they announced seating would begin. We made our way to our door. They led us through and we were seated right up front again. I glanced around and smiled, realizing we were sitting at the opposite side that Jace and I had sat.
“I think we are sitting at the knight I was booing last time,” I said.
“Booing?” Candy asked.
“Yeah, notice these colors? We all get a knight who represents our section,” I said, smiling.
“Oh! Well, I hope our knight is hot!” Candy said.
The rest of the afternoon had been spent with Candy fawning and cheering our knight. I couldn’t help but laugh at just how into it she’d gotten. I was glad when the knight had given her a rose, worried that she might jump over our table and run after the poor man if he didn’t. After finishing our meal and the show ended, we made our way back to the car.
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