Anything for Money: A Sex-For-Hire College Romance

by Lindsey Bedder

  So that was Emmeline. An orgy of eye-fucking from every guy in her college class: Too easy. Ordering coffee: Too hard.

  Today is the day, I decided. Time to lock this girl down.

  I took her hand again after class, and walked her down the stairs to street level. The city felt insubstantial, as if we could walk directly through buildings and speeding traffic to get to a place with privacy. The only solid thing in the world was Emmeline’s hand in mine.

  I think I was a little drunk on her. I was under the influence of Emmeline and how the world treated her. That morning I’d watched her play around with popping her blouse open at inappropriate moments. I’d watched the barista take her apart with his eyes. I’d watched my classmates gawk at her during her presentation—the boys rapt, the girls incredulous.

  And I’d seen how all this attention worked on her, even though she never acknowledged it. It made her buoyant. It made her a little drunk too.

  So Emmeline let me lead her through the city, two drunks on a mission. She knew exactly where I was leading her, and didn’t mention it. I practiced being familiar with her—a hand on her back to guide her around a pile of garbage bags on the sidewalk, a squeeze on her hand when we laughed.

  We slipped naturally and easily into that conversation. The easy, significant conversation for new couples with busy, nervous minds, which barely requires thought to maintain. We compared our tastes in various things, as if we didn’t already know them from weeks of friendship. It was wonderful getting the same information from Emmeline again when I was holding her hand—it somehow sounded new and exciting. I was meeting her all over again. We discussed movies, coffee, books, lovers, and clothes.

  For several blocks, we walked behind a twenty-something woman going our direction into the East Village. I was staring hard enough to knock her over. I finally had to point her out to Emmeline, because if I didn’t talk about her, I just wouldn’t be able to talk.

  “For example, about clothes,” I said, “Those jeans are totally cool.”

  “Those jeans are?”

  “Yeah. I think ripped-up jeans is a style that will last forever,” I said.

  They wouldn’t. Ripped-up jeans, especially the aggressively sexy, ass-ripped-out style of thrashed jeans favored by the drug chic scene of the East Village around that time, were a fashion bubble that popped roughly the same nanosecond I said ‘forever.’

  The woman ahead of us had a single gaping tear in the seat of her pants. As she moved, her butt-checks winked in and out of the sunlight. It was mesmerizing. If I’d been alone, I might have followed her like a lost dog and eventually died of exposure.

  Emmeline wasn’t volunteering any opinion, so I asked, “What do you think?”

  “I think they’re cool too.” Her voice was unadorned. I had her words, but I couldn’t tell what she had actually said.

  “I think we should get you some torn up jeans,” I teased.

  “Me too,” she said in the same voice.

  “No, really,” I said. “Every second that you’re walking down the street, and the world can’t clearly see your ass—you’re committing a crime.”

  This finally made her smirk.

  Encouraged, I went on: “I think from now on, you should think of your ass as a responsibility to the world. I mean, look at you! Your clothes require entirely too much imagination. Every guy we pass should be able to see everything about your ass.”

  “So therefore I should rip some holes in my jeans?”

  Did her voice hold some amusement? I knew the risks I was taking—I was talking dirty to a girl during the most precarious phase of a relationship. We had known each other for weeks, but this was the first moment verging on romantic... and I was getting sleazy about her ass. I was actually trying to compliment her, and maybe challenge her a little. To see if she’d push back. I wanted to show her I was not as safe as she probably thought. And there was always the remote chance she liked sleazebags.

  “Don’t you get the sense that guys like your ass?”

  “Oh yes,” she said, with a short laugh. “I get that sense.”

  “What about your legs?”

  “They say I have great legs,” she said. “Guys in general say that.”

  “I agree,” I said. “If you’re not wearing jeans with holes, you should be wearing short skirts.”

  “Like, how short?”

  “Hmmm,” I said, pretending to consider. “My definition of short is probably different from your definition of short.”

  “Well, we’re talking about what you want,” she said.

  “If a girl is going to wear a short skirt, it should be short. As short as it can go. And the skirt should fly up when you’re walking, and the wind should shove it around.”

  “I don’t know if I could get used to that.”

  “I think you could,” I said encouragingly. I was getting less jokey now, and more earnest. (A little too pleading?) “Just try it. Wear nothing but short skirts for a few weeks. You’ll stop thinking about it.”

  “I’m imagining stairways. I’m thinking of the drafts in the subways.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Just remember: If guys can’t see your ass, then you’re committing a crime.”

  The woman in front of us turned off our path at a corner. I had to struggle not to stare after her. A part of me thought about following the woman anyway, but how pathetic would that be? Dragging Emmeline away from my apartment to ogle a woman?

  “I’ll tell you what the crime is,” I said. “Guys are going to lust after you, no matter what. You’re pretty. You’re tall. You’re stacked. You have a big chest—I double-checked this time.”

  “But why is it a crime? Why is it wrong to cover up?”

  “Because you’re stealing from them,” I said simply. “You’re stealing from their fantasies. They are going to think about you later, that’s a given. But you’re stealing all the details they should have in their thoughts. Those details—they cost you nothing. On a different day, you’d be wearing a different outfit, and those guys would get those details. So why not every day?”

  “I’m… committing a crime if I don’t show up in their jack-off fantasies?”

  “Yeah!”

  It sounded less stupid when she said it for me. But it still sounded stupid.

  “Why should I care about being a criminal, Trapper?”

  We turned onto my street, and I suddenly remembered that I was leading a girl up to my apartment. We weren’t going there to hang out. We were going there to make out. And this was our foreplay. We were on the cusp—our friendship was turning romantic.

  Or perhaps it was still something more matter-of-fact than romantic. I later found out that she felt we were having a very mature talk. We were measuring compatibilities, like grown-ups. In this early conversation, we were covering miles, whereas two shy kids with sweaty hands would have crawled along with blushes and stammers.

  “Why should you care about being a criminal?” I said, repeating her question. “Because I don’t date girls who commit crimes.”

  There. I’d laid it out. I could still get rejected, and at that point, it would hurt more than a little. She didn’t even know my favorite color yet. Mauve. But she knew one thing with utter certainty, because I finished by blurting: “That’s my thing. I like girls who are a little slutty.”

  It hadn’t been official, even to me, until I said it. I like slutty girls. I guess that was true. Huh! It didn’t seem so bad when I put it that way, either. A little perverse, but honest. Cutely lascivious. I tried to give her a roguish look, but quickly gave up.

  Emmeline seemed to be taking it well enough. Her hand in mine was relaxed, her stride was even. She didn’t break away and flee.

  “How will I know if I’m looking slutty enough?”

  I had answers ready, fresh from my midnight store of imaginative jack-off material.

  “Here’s how you know. At least once per day, some guy asks you out. Or whistles at you. Or makes a
comment. Then you know you’re hot. That’s a requirement. Do you think you can do that?”

  “That happens enough already,” she said without inflection.

  “And guys start talking to you. They remember your schedule, and keep an eye out for you when you’re supposed to show up. Then you know you’re making an impression on them.”

  We entered my building, and waited for the elevator. What she said next froze me to the core.

  “And when do I start?”

  I met her eyes, raising my sunglasses. She watched me expressionlessly. I couldn’t tell if she was with the program or not. But, somehow, the conversation had drifted from my preferences to what we would do about them.

  I gulped, and tried to sound nonchalant, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

  “Well, first, we should get upstairs. Then I’ll get you out of all your clothes.”

  She nodded.

  “Then, later, we’ll take some scissors to your jeans.”

  “Okay,” she said. I saw she was breathing a little hard.

  To show her it wasn’t all about me, I added, “And meanwhile, we’ll talk about what you like.”

  She gave a little shrug. “I’m still figuring that out. I don’t have a bunch of ideas like you do. But give me time. Is that okay? Can we just… do you for now?”

  The elevator door pinged open, and I impulsively grabbed her in an embrace, as if the sound had freed me to move. I walked her into the elevator, and we were already kissing.

  I said, “I’m going to make you into a wet dream.”

  “Now that I like,” she giggled. “But a wet dream for who?”

  “I’m not selfish,” I said.

  “I figured that out.”

  “You’re going to be a wet dream for everybody.”

  Her reply was whispered into my shoulder, almost as if she didn’t want me to hear it, or she didn’t want to hear herself say it.

  “Promise, Trapper?”

  We didn’t waste any more elevator time talking. She pulled me back into the hug and kissed my cheek and chin until I couldn’t take it anymore and pressed my mouth against hers.

  Emmeline was a greedy kisser—passionate, demanding, underfed. Maybe I was not as experienced as she was, but the girls I’d kissed in the past waited for me with open, soft, watery mouths. I would have to tease them awake before they started to react. It was like I had to convince these girls that kissing was fun. So maybe it was just me.

  There was no such passivity with Emmeline. She put her hands on my head and turned it the way she liked it. She nibbled my lips. Her tongue darted into my mouth and drew my tongue out. For once, I’d found a well-matched kisser, and maybe I was even overmatched. I followed her queues and slid my hands up to her neck, cupped her jaw, and tilted her head. She liked when I steered her like that. A little groan escaped her lips.

  The elevator door slid open and we teetered into the hallway, unwilling to part.

  I held her head tighter, pulled her lips harder against my mouth. Her eyes fluttered. My hard-on was locked between us like a fence pole trying to keep us apart. Normally I’d be self-conscious about my dick, but there weren’t enough free neurons in my brain for any higher-level emotion, they were all committed to this primal, hungry girl in front of me.

  Then suddenly she spun around in my arms so her ass was against my cock. She looked back over her shoulder and pulled my mouth back down to her mouth. She took my hands and pulled them across her torso. I let her guide me. One hand she brought up to her chin, over her magnificent chest, and I caught the first vivid feel of the breasts I’d been lusting over for weeks. She put my hand on her neck, under her chin, and I understood. I used it to hold her mouth against mine, and move her mouth like I wanted. She gave another quiet groan.

  My other hand she guided down to her jeans. She popped open her belt quickly, tore open the top few buttons, and shoved my hand down into her jeans.

  My hand slid over the warm, elastic skin of her belly. It was soft, but underneath I could feel the strength of her body. My hand slid into her panties and clamped on her pussy.

  Now I had her whole body under my command. I moved her head again so I could kiss her more deeply. I pulled her ass harder against my cock and held it there with my hand on her crotch. Her torso was stretched out across me like a living invitation, like a sex-guitar that I could tune however I wanted.

  The little details of her vagina—the folds, the textures—slowly revealed themselves to my fingers. She gasped, and the sound was loud in the hall. She ripped open her anguished blouse, tearing off a button or two in her haste.

  A door opened behind of us, voices around the corner.

  “We have to get to my apartment,” I said.

  “Don’t stop…”

  We stopped a little. My door was just up the hall, and by the time the voices reached the elevator and paused (I glanced back, two men were staring at us), I had my key in the door and swung it open.

  We scooted in, still clinched, and I kicked the door closed. Then I went to town on her pussy. While she shivered and tried to hold herself up, her ass rubbed my dick through two layers of denim, and I didn’t care if it hurt. I held her mouth locked against mine, so I could feel her little gasps, and taste her breath. She pulled her blouse down her shoulders and popped the front clasp on her bra, letting everything hit the floor.

  I had glanced down Emmeline’s blouse innumerable times. A girl who dresses as casually as Emmeline will give great accidental views through the day, whenever she opens a low drawer, or scratches an ankle, or even just picks her phone off a desk. I’d done an extensive survey of every slope of her breasts, as well as her nipples every now and then (always good to make me drop out of the conversation for five minutes or so)—but I’d never had a lasting, unobstructed, lover’s view of her magnificent chest.

  My eyes drank her in.

  High breasts, jutting from the top of her ribcage. Crinkly hard nipples pointed at the ceiling. Delicate veins under the skin, which was flushed and blotchy from arousal. I wanted to touch them, but I also didn’t want to move my hands from where they were. I had Emmeline under my control, and I’d never steered a girl like this before. I didn’t want to stop.

  Still kissing me, she yanked open her jeans and pulled them off her hips. I glanced past her breasts to her hands—and saw something in the main room.

  My fucking roommates. All three of them, sitting frozen on the sofa. Staring at us in silence.

  “Um,” I said.

  Emmeline turned her face to them. “Oh. Ha-ha. Yep.”

  And then a very revealing thing happened.

  Emmeline’s pussy was in my hand. As her eyes went from one disreputable, shady face to the next, her pussy flushed in my hand. What other word would suffice? She immediately got three times wetter, so I went from holding a girl’s pussy to holding something like a warm sponge soaked in rosewater. She is turned on by this, I realized, a bit slowly. My mind wasn’t at its sharpest just then.

  Emmeline made a move to cross her arm over her breasts, to cover them. I took her hand and held the arm down, and she let me. She didn’t try to cover with the other arm. She was giving me implicit permission. I even felt her shoulders move back, and her chest inflate, and her stomach suck in. She repositioned herself to make her chest seem bigger and her stomach flatter.

  This happened in just a few seconds so I couldn’t process all the information I was receiving. I barely had enough presence of mind to keep my fingers moving in her crotch.

  “I’m so sorry, guys,” Emmeline said breathlessly. “Trapper didn’t tell me you were here.”

  “I didn’t remember,” I said.

  “You were occupied,” Saul pointed out. “You still might be.”

  Andy’s cell phone flashed. He took a picture of us! I hadn’t even noticed he had it out. As soon as she realized he had taken a picture, her pussy flooded again. If I pulled my hand out now, it would be dripping in the open air. Th
is was too much for me to think about.

  “Andy, you can’t take pictures,” I said belatedly.

  “Too late!” He held his phone up. “You are my latest Facebook status.”

  For a moment I didn’t believe him. Putting a naked picture of a girl online, without her permission, was tantamount to… I didn’t want to think about it. That asshole would be seeing jail time in the near future.

  “Are you fucking shitting me?” I screamed. “I’m throwing you out the window!”

  I tried to let go of Emmeline but she clamped my hand between her legs and held onto me with both arms.

  “Don’t get in a fight over this,” she whispered fiercely. “I don’t care. I really don’t care.”

  My idiot roommates missed this, because they were laughing.

  “Shared to my wall!” Saul said, holding his own phone.

  Fred, meanwhile, took another picture of Emmeline. She saw him aiming, and imperceptibly arched her chest towards him. I wouldn’t have noticed except that she was draped across my body, and my entire body at that point was a huge sex organ more sensitive than the head of my cock. Every minor twitch she made registered with me and turned me on more.

  I felt like the situation was veering out of control. I had to get us out of there. I said, “We’ll talk about this later, assholes.”

  I pulled Emmeline sideways down the hall and out of view, snagging her bra with my shoe. In a moment I had her in my room where we finally broke our embrace. I tried to lock my door but my pussy-drenched hand kept slipping on the handle. By the time I solved that minor puzzle Emmeline was completely naked and throwing books, clothes, and old pizza boxes off my bed.

  “You look amazing holding my trash,” I said.

  She laughed. “You should see me with your junk.”