by B. M. Hardin
I walked slowly towards the door.
I wasn’t exactly sure what it was until I was close enough to see it.
Someone had placed a piece of paper that said “Whore” on my front door and a big butcher’s knife was stabbed right in the center of it.
What the hell is going on here?
And more importantly, who knew about my secret?
I removed the knife and crumbled up the piece of paper.
I checked my surroundings just to see if I saw something or someone out of place, but everything looked normal.
Who would have done something like this?
I was sure that it had to be connected to my job at the hotel, but why would someone have come to my home and done this?
Furthermore, how did they find out where I lived?
I was definitely feeling some kind of way but I placed the items in my purse and entered the house as though nothing was wrong.
And the drama begins…
“Do I look okay?” I asked Tia.
I’d changed my outfit all of ten times.
I was going on my first date with Silas and I wanted to look perfect.
I hadn’t been on a date in years and I was as nervous as a woman wearing a weave ponytail with only two Bobby pins in it.
Have you ever done that?
I’m telling you, it will have a sista’ on edge all day!
“You look fine Envy. And those shoes…when did you get those? And are they Louis Vuitton?” Tia questioned me coming closer.
Though I had a ton of free items from the hotel, I kept most of it hidden.
I figured that I would have to ease out one item at a time as though I’d been saving up for it.
Still yet, I didn’t think that Tia was going to believe that I’d bought these shoes with my own money…so I lied.
“Well, I was cleaning up a room one day and someone had left them behind. I held on to them for a while but when no one ever called or came back to claim them, I brought them home. They were my size, so I thought what the hell…I might as well keep them.”
I studied Tia’s face.
She believed me.
She looked at them once more and shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, I will be borrowing those once I drop this load,” she said rubbing her stomach.
She continued to help me get dressed and it seemed like only seconds later, the doorbell chimed.
I kissed Horizon and smiled at Tia.
Here goes nothing.
“So what is it that you do?” I asked Silas.
We hadn’t talked on the phone but a few times and never for very long.
Usually when he called I was at the hotel and though I would promise to call him back once I was home, most of the time, I forgot.
“Well, the short answer is, I’m a doctor. I’m an Endocrinologist. Basically I deal with people with diabetes.”
A doctor?
Little ole’ me snagged a doctor?
I wanted to toot my own horn, but now wasn’t the time or the place.
“And you?” Silas asked.
I didn’t know whether to tell him the truth or to lie. How could I tell him that I was a maid…and a prostitute?
But I had to say something.
“Well, I know it isn’t much of a job, but I run a hotel.”
At least that didn’t sound as bad.
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I’ve been there for years but I’m studying to become a medical assistant as well.”
“See. Nothing is sexier than a woman with a plan,” Silas smiled and touched my hand.
Instantly a chill slithered down my spine, around to my stomach, skipped over my thighs, and tickled my fancy.
For some reason, I had become extremely horny.
Though I hadn’t been in a serious relationship in a while, Tia told me what was newly expected of women on dates these days.
Basically she said if I was just looking to be pleased, I should go home with him at the end of the date.
But if I was truly interested, he couldn’t be introduced to the lady that lived in between my thighs until at least date number three or four.
She’d said that since sex was so easy to get these days, it was even tougher to get a real commitment.
So, I guess that meant that I had to keep my goodies to myself.
At least for a little while.
“So, you mentioned that you were out of practice that day. What did you mean?”
Silas took a sip of his champagne and then gazed into my eyes.
His eyes were filled with so much sincerity that it made me feel so safe and secure.
He made me feel…comfortable.
“I used to be married.”
Past tense.
“My wife and my daughter died in a car accident about a year ago. They were hit head on by a drunk driver. They both died at the scene. I’d been married for a little over ten years,” Silas said.
“I’m so sorry,” I said touching his hand.
He smiled at me.
“It’s okay. So, I guess getting back into the dating game hasn’t been easy for me. What about you? Have you ever been married?”
“No. I was engaged to my daughter’s father. But he died as well. He went to sleep one night and just didn’t wake back up. We’d been together since we were kids. He was the only man I’ve ever been with”
Hell, I had been telling the same story for so long that there wasn’t any point in changing it up now.
He didn’t need to know that I’d gone from two men to a few from twenty in just a few months.
And I still had months and months to go.
The rest of the dinner, we talked and laughed and it felt so good to be in his company.
I could get use to this.
This was what life and love was all about.
“How about we drive around for a while and just talk,” Silas suggested.
“I would really like that,” I smiled.
Just as we pulled off, my cell phone began to ring.
It was Carmen.
Hesitantly, I answered.
“Hello.”
“Envy, I need you to come in. Mr. you know who, had a delayed flight and of course, he only wants you.”
I knew exactly who she was talking about…Gerald.
He was the same man that had turned me into a pro in the sheets, especially the oral sex department and he was the only man that I actually enjoyed sleeping with at the hotel.
Since that day, I was now the only one that he ordered.
Gerald was some type of oil tycoon who had more money than he knew what to do with it.
The problem was that he felt as though he’d worked too hard to have to share it with anyone long term so he refused to settle down and get married.
He said that no one deserved to share his millions or potentially take half of them if things took a turn for the worst.
I guess I could understand his reasoning but at the end of the day, love was all that really mattered.
What was the point in having money if you had to spend it all alone?
“If you come tonight for a few hours, you can have the day off tomorrow,” Carmen bribed me and it worked.
I hung up the phone and explained to Silas that I had an emergency at work.
He understood, drove me home and after we shared our first kiss, I was in my car, heading for the hotel.
I walked in the hotel, still in my date attire.
Carmen was waiting for me in her downstairs office and as soon as I entered, up the elevator we went.
I no longer needed her coaching.
I knew exactly what to do and once I was freshened up, I headed to my room where Gerald was waiting for me.
“So, someone is being picky tonight huh?”
Gerald smiled at the sight of me.
Really, he had become sort of a friend.
Sure, he got what he paid for, but we would also just spend hours talking
about everything under the sun.
It was as though he felt that he could be completely honest with me.
He walked over to me and hugged me.
He often did that, which I had gotten used to.
It was almost as if for those few hours, I was his woman.
“Sit down,” he said.
I did as he instructed, thinking that he wanted to try something new.
“Envy, I want you to quit. Quit and run away with me,” he said.
I looked at him confused.
“I know that this isn’t the idea way of meeting and getting to know someone, but no one knows me better than you. It’s like I can be honest with you. I’m sure that there’s other things that I need to know, and that’s okay, just quit and run away with me,” Gerald said.
Is he serious?
I believe that he is.
“Gerald, you know I’m under contract and—”
“I’ll buy it out.”
He really was serious.
My mind was trying to sort everything out.
Buying me out of the contract sounded amazing.
But did we know each other well enough to just run off and be together?
All we had between each other was sex and conversation.
Despite my current situation, I wanted more than that.
I still wanted, and needed love.
“Gerald, I have a daughter.”
“So, she can come too,” he said.
Okay, so maybe I should take him up on his offer.
Wait a minute…Tia.
I still had to look out for Tia.
She was pregnant and still in college and she needed me to be there for her.
I was all that she had.
“I’m sorry, but Gerald, I just can’t.”
He looked at me disappointedly and shook his head.
“This will be my last time coming here and my last time seeing you. I met someone. I guess I will probably marry her and settle down. All of your talks and advice finally got to me and I guess I thought that maybe you and I…”
I placed my finger on his lips.
I did feel some kind of way that I would never see him again.
As weird as it may sound, we did have some kind of bond or attachment to each other.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to drop everything and become a millionaire’s wife, but I had other priorities that I just couldn’t leave behind.
Maybe Tia could come along and put her education on hold and start again wherever we settled.
Maybe.
And then again…maybe not.
I leaned in and kissed Gerald.
We kissed all the time, though it wasn’t required, but this time, I kissed him with everything that I had in me.
And he was obviously kissing me with everything that he had in him as well.
Our kiss was full of sorrow, regret and maybe even just a little bit of hope, but I knew that this was the end of our road.
Gerald laid me on my back and started to caress my hips and my thighs.
His eyes were closed as he continued to rub every curve of my body.
It was as though he was trying to lock my touch into his memory.
The dress came up and the panties soon came down.
No words were spoken, and it seemed as though we were both struggling to catch our breaths.
The room felt extremely small and there was so much passion in between us that it was almost unbearable.
Gerald entered me, and moaned softly, regretfully, as if he couldn’t believe that this was going to be the last time that he touched me.
It was prohibited to have sex without protection, but this wasn’t the first time for us.
I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant because I’d gotten the birth control that lasted five years after having Horizon. And even if I hadn’t, Carmen kept a stash of the morning after pills.
As I said, the thirteenth floor didn’t play around.
In some sick and twisted way, we had developed some type of connection, but whatever it was that we shared wasn’t love and I would be crazy to think otherwise.
I enjoyed the pleasures of him one final time and once it was all said and done Gerald stood looking at me by the room door.
I smiled at him but he didn’t smile back.
He just looked at me.
I was almost stupid enough to actually think that he might even really care for me but how could he?
No matter what he said, he would never respect a woman like me.
Seeing him place the wad of money as a tip on the table by the door only confirmed that no matter what he said, he saw me for what I was.
An executive maid, that took care of executive guests.
Translation…a very over-priced whore.
No more…no less.
“Goodbye Envy,” he said and without waiting for me to respond, he turned his back to me and exited the room.
I took a second to think and then I stood to my feet and prepared to change the sheets.
If only we’d met under different circumstances but unfortunately, for me, we hadn’t.
***
“Get on your knees so that I can piss on you,” the middle-aged white man said to me.
I looked at him as though he’d spoken in some kind of foreign language.
I’d heard that some of the men wanted weird and crazy things done, but I had yet to encounter it; until now.
“Did you hear what I said? Get on your knees…now,” he said again.
I wanted to curse him out from here to Mexico but I knew that I couldn’t.
I knew that I was going to have to do exactly what he’d said.
As I got on my knees, I’d never felt so low in all of my life.
Since I’d been making so much money, I’d forgotten that what I was doing was a disgrace, but the warmth of the piss on my back, reminded me of what and who I had become.
The man continued to pee on me, and laughed the entire time.
I’ll admit, I wanted to cry my eyes out but what was the point in crying?
This is the type of humiliation that I’d signed up for so I had to put on my big girl panties and deal with it.
But it wasn’t easy.
Leaving the hotel, I was angry.
I was angry at everything that had happened to me.
I was angry at what I’d become.
I was angry because I hadn’t had a choice.
And I was angry because I knew that no matter what, I couldn’t change it for a little while longer.
My phone started to ring and at the sight of Silas’s face I frowned.
He had been nothing but good to me so far but I couldn’t help but wonder if he would still want me if he knew the truth about me.
My guess was that he wouldn’t.
He would be a fool to want a whore like me.
Feeling down and out, I arrived at home to find Tia and Horizon on the front porch.
They appeared to be having some kind of conversation and when they noticed me, they both smiled.
I took a deep breath and tried my best to shake off my frustrations.
I couldn’t let them see how down and disturbed I was.
And I knew that though Tia might not say much, she was definitely paying attention.
“How was your day?” she asked rubbing her belly.
“It was okay. Did I get any mail?” I asked her as I hugged Horizon.
Tia looked at me.
I could tell that she had something to say.
“Um, yes, but you got something kind of strange,” she said and stood up to head into the house.
Horizon and I followed her to the kitchen.
“This was just sitting in the mail box. Since it didn’t have a name on it, I opened it. It’s rings,” Tia looked at me confused.
I looked in the envelope to find that it was indeed a set of rings.
The brides set as well as the groom’s.
Okay
, so first I found the strange whore note stabbed to the front door, and now someone had placed their rings in my mailbox?
Something just wasn’t adding up.
Though I tried to avoid all married men at the hotel, as Carmen said, sometimes, we just never know.
But this was definitely the action of somebody’s wife.
And I was going to figure out whose.
*************************************************
Chapter FIVE
“Merry Christmas!” I squealed.
I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten up before Horizon but it’d given me a chance to pull out the rest of her goodies from the closet.
At the sound of my voice, she lifted her head, smiled, and then Horizon ran to the Christmas tree and started in on her gifts.
After about five minutes, Tia appeared in the living room.
She was as big as a house!
She was having a little boy and I couldn’t wait for his arrival!
I figured by the time that he was born, I would only have a few more months at the hotel and then I was going to stay home and spoil him like crazy while his mama prepared to join the working world and put that hard earned degree that she would have to good use.
I’d saved a ton of money, and I knew that we were going to be okay for quite some time after I left the hotel. But considering that I was almost half way through my medical assistant program so I knew that eventually after leaving the hotel, I would look for a job in that field.
I was sure that finding a job wouldn’t be as challenging as it had been before and from the looks of it, everything was going to be just fine.
“Go open your stuff,” I said to Tia.
She just looked at me.
Then she turned around and disappeared for a few minutes.
“Well, I got you a little something too,” she said and reached me a small box.
“You shouldn’t have. The money that I give you is for you and the baby,” I said to her, taking the box from her hands.
I opened it and immediately I smiled at the sight of the charm bracelet.
It was silver and possessed charms of pretty much everything that I liked to do or things that she’d known that I was good at.
She’d even put a charm of a maid on it.
“Aw, thank you. You didn’t have to buy me anything,” I said standing up to hug her.
She struggled to embrace me over her belly and then she headed to the tree.
“So, which one?” she asked.