Part of the Family

by Cristina Grenier

  “You know…” Melody was lying across her lap, gesturing with her glass of wine as she gazed lazily up at her friend. “The world is fucked up, Kayla.”

  At that, the dark-skinned girl laughed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “It’s not fair,” Melody continued, frowning deeply, “You work all these jobs and you have these amazing grades and you deserve Columbia so much. Like, an obscene amount.”

  “It would be nice.” After three glasses of wine, Kayla could at least admit that much. “But my options are looking pretty thin, Mel.”

  “Well, let’s think about it,” the blonde suggested, as if they hadn’t already. “Really think about it. Explore avenues heretofore uncontemplated.”

  Makayla rolled her eyes. “I’m not panhandling on the streets of New York. That’s out.”

  “Well, what about grants?” Melody raised her head to take an awkward sip of her wine from the side of her glass. “Somebody will give you money. You’re a star student.”

  “They might,” Kayla agreed, “But it wouldn’t be in time for the next semester. I’d have to wait at least another year.”

  Melody groaned, sitting up as her brow wrinkled in frustration. “We have to think. Who could pay your way?”

  “That’s the great thing about our society today,” Kayla groused, pouring herself another glass, “There’s always a catch for everything.”

  “But what if the catch was something nice,” Melody ventured, holding out her glass for Kayla to top her off as well. “Something you like.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure no one is going to pay my way in exchange for watching me read an entire microbiology textbook in one sitting.” Melody snorted, but wasn’t dissuaded from her current mission.

  “Let’s ask Google.”

  Kayla looked at her as if she’d grown a second head. “Ask Google what?”

  Melody shrugged. “How you can get a sponsor to send you to school. Google is the answerer of all questions.”

  “I feel like it’s more of an authority the drunker you are,” Makayla replied dryly, but she didn’t protest when Melody snagged her computer and began typing the question into the google search bar. The younger woman was surprisingly quiet for a good ten minutes, sipping on her wine as she clicked through page after page.

  Makayla had almost forgotten what they were discussing by the time the blonde leapt to her feet with a triumphant exclamation. “This is it! I found something for you, Kayla, and it’s perfect.”

  The dark-skinned woman arched a brow. Somehow, she highly doubted that whatever Melody had come across was perfect. She wouldn’t be surprised if it involved selling off some of her body-parts - they were certainly drunk enough. What she found when she looked at the monitor, however, was even more shocking.

  The website pulled up in the browser was rife with women in low cut tops and miniskirts alongside men in designer suits, looking the part of rich, important pompousness. The headline emblazoned across all these images was enough to scramble her inebriated brain.

  Be A Sugar Baby. Take Your Life in Your Hands.

  What the fuck was a Sugar Baby? Whatever it was, it didn’t sound very promising. It sounded inappropriate.

  Makayla eyed Melody warily. “What is this?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of Sugar Daddies?” Melony grinned, entirely too pleased with herself, and Kayla wondered if she really thought this was a suitable plan or if she was just a little too drunk.

  “The guys pay for everything in exchange for having a girl on their arm and in their bed? Sounds like a glorified escort service to me.”

  “But it’s not,” Melody rebutted matter-of-factly. “An escort service is a one-time thing, and it almost always involves sex, right?”

  Not that Makayla was an authority on these matters, but she found herself nodding. “Sugar Babies don’t always have sex with their benefactors. Sometimes it’s just about keeping them company.”

  At that, Makayla couldn’t help but laugh. She very much doubted that men who were willing to go online to find women would be pleased with simple companionship. “So...your plan is for me to...what? Become a Sugar Baby?”

  “Well, yes!” Melody admitted, before reaching over to the computer and clicking through to the registration page. “Look at this! When you sign up, you can tell them what you are and aren’t willing to do.” Kayla moved forward with extreme skepticism, still clutching her glass of wine, to see what Mel was talking about. “See? You tell what age guy you’re looking for, your interests, your goals in life, why you want to be a sugar baby, then there’s this whole list of dos and don’ts. You can tell them upfront that you don’t want hanky panky...if you chose to go that route.”

  “What do you mean ‘if I go that route’?” Makayla rebutted incredulously. “In what world would I have sex with a stranger?”

  The blonde sighed, shaking her head. “I’m not saying you would, I’m just saying the option is there. What if you like the guy? What if you’re so into him that you want to jump his bones?”

  Kayla rolled her eyes. “Now we’re getting into Rom-com territory.”

  “Oh, come on, Kayla. We’ve looked into tons of other stuff, right?” Mel’s expression turned pleading. “I know how much you want Columbia. If I could send you there myself, you know I would,” Before Makayla could even begin to protest, she continued quickly, “But since you’re so hell bent on doing it yourself, we have to explore all of your options. What better option than to have a guy pay for your company, and be able to set the parameters?”

  Kayla thought that she had to be drunker than she thought, because what Melody was saying didn’t sound like such a terribly bad idea. If she could choose to keep sex out of the equation, maybe it wouldn’t be as weird as it sounded.

  “Ok, so say I did want to do this,” she figured she’d start with hypotheticals. Makayla was much too cautious to jump into something entirely without knowing all the details. “How would I go about it?”

  “Well, first you have to find a man you’re willing to connect with.”

  Immediately, the dark-skinned woman frowned. “I have to find the man first? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It’s just to get an idea of your tastes. I’m sure they don’t even really take it into consideration - just a hook to get you on the site.” Melody patted the space next to her with a grin. “Want to browse?”

  In fact, Makayla would be much happier just drinking her wine and continuing to watch bad TV, but how the hell could she refuse when Melody was looking at her so expectantly? With a sigh, she topped off her wine glass and settled in next to the blonde. Somehow, she felt as if she was going to regret this.

  But a little wine always made everything better.

  **

  If a headache for the ages and three hours of his morning lost wasn’t what regret felt like, Dominic didn’t know what was.

  When he first woke up, it was all he could do to stare at the ceiling as he tried to remember what the fuck had gotten into him the previous night. He had been telling himself all week that he wouldn’t let Stephen pull him into his shenanigans. He had planned to have a few drinks with him and the other guys, maybe talk a little business, and then relax for the rest of the evening.

  But, apparently, Stephen had other plans.

  When Dominic showed up at the lounge they frequented, the man had already purchased a bottle of expensive whiskey and, surprise of surprises, he had brought a gaggle of female lawyers to the party. Dom stayed resolutely away from them, doing his best to make conversation with the man - but he was always thwarted when the scantily clad woman in Stephen’s lap piped up about her most recent case or her amazing conviction rate.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like an intelligent woman - that wasn’t the case at all. What Dom didn’t like was the woman draping herself all over Stephen while he was trying to have a conversation with the man. If they were going to fuck, he wondered why his friend had even invited him out
in the first place.

  Ultimately, Dom had turned to whiskey in his frustrations, and the dark liquor had done a number on him. Past a certain point the previous evening, he didn’t remember much. In fact, he barely remembered getting home.

  When a knock came on his door, he groaned. “What?”

  “I’ve got some coffee and ibuprofen for you, sir.”

  It was Brett. Dominic couldn’t ever remember being so grateful to hear his voice. “Get the hell in here, Brett.”

  The middle-aged man never judged him, merely tending to his needs as they occurred. He stepped into the room, clad in his usual dark sweater and slacks, and set a cup of strong black coffee on the bedside table next to Dominic, along with a large bottle of Ibuprofen. “Feeling a little under the weather this morning, sir?”

  In answer, Dominic merely groaned again, reaching for the pills and coffee as if they were his lifeline. Once he had downed half the cup with three pills, he sat up in bed, wincing. “What time did I get in?”

  “Around four in the morning, sir. Should I have Sophia make you some breakfast?”

  “Please.” Dom replied, nodding. “Lots of eggs.” He needed a shower and he needed to check on things at the firm. For him, weekends didn’t mean that work stopped.

  “Right away.” The moment Brett left, Dom kicked off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the medicine to take effect. A good ten minutes passed before his head stopped pounding - but just as he was about to head towards the bathroom, his phone buzzed on the bedside table. Assuming it was a business call, Dominic answered immediately.

  “West.”

  “Do you feel as shitty this morning as I do?” At Stephen’s tortured tones, Dominic couldn’t help but smirk. It gave him no small amount of satisfaction to know that the man who had caused all this was suffering at least as much as he was.

  “I’m actually feeling alright.” And he was - after his coffee and ibuprofen. He was lucky that, unlike Stephen, he wouldn’t have the task of banishing some woman he barely knew from his bed. “You sound like you’re on the edge of death though.”

  “I might be,” Stephen challenged, his tone positively pitiful. “But it will all be worth it if you tell me you got a few hits.”

  “A few what?” Dominic’s coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth at Stephen’s words.

  “Hits. On that site? Come on, man. You were gung-ho about it last night.”

  Oh no. Oh fuck.

  Carefully, Dom replaced his coffee cup on the table before he stood, wracking his brain in a vain attempt to try and remember the events of the previous night. He should have known not to over-indulge - not when Stephen was around. When the younger man was drunk he tended to get strange ideas into his head.

  Ideas that Dominic would never, ever go along with unless he himself was drunk as well.

  “What site?” His voice was remarkably level when he answered Stephen, even though his chest was tight.

  “Oh, fuck, you don’t remember.” The man on the other end of the line sobered substantially. “I’m pretty sure this means you’re going to be pissed at me.”

  This didn’t sound good.

  “Tell me, Stephen.” Dom was hungover and far from in the mood for playing memory games.

  Stephen hesitated slightly before revealing everything in a rush. “Well, we were half a bottle in or so and you started talking about how it was hard for you to find women to take to events because they always expect so much from you. I told you it would be easy enough to get an escort and then you looked like you were about to punch me so I brought up the DownDaddies site-”

  “DownDaddies? What the hell is DownDaddies?”

  Surely this couldn’t get any worse than it already was. “Um...it’s a website where wealthy, affluent men can browse a selection of women to attend functions with them, to travel with them...and um...sponsor them.”

  Dominic stared at the phone as if it had just insulted his mother. “You’re not serious.”

  “Well, you seemed interested at the time. I mean...you signed up and everything.”

  A long, shocked silence stretched between them.

  Stephen had to be joking. He had signed up for what amounted to a hooker website? If the media got wind of this there would be a fucking field day. “To be fair,” Stephen quickly tried to alleviate the tension, “It seems like a pretty legit website! You can screen girls by age, by location...even by what they want the money for! Sometimes sex isn’t even involved. It’s more like a...social agreement kind of thing!”

  But that was the last thing Dominic wanted to hear. “How the hell do I get rid of it?”

  “Well, you can delete it, but you put down the five hundred all ready and that’s non-refundable-”

  “Five hundred?” Dom cut him off incredulously. “Goddamn it, Stephen. I just want it gone. Tell me how.”

  Five minute later, he had his laptop on the bed and was scrolling through the site that he didn’t remember joining. The premise of the company was absolutely ridiculous - matching young women with men who just wanted pretty things on their arm for events and social functions. It was, Dominic told himself with no small amount of disgust, a thinly veiled excuse for sex - paying for a woman to be at your side. The very idea was both insulting to him and to women themselves.

  There was, however, more to the site than the front page. As Dominic navigated from page to page in his attempt to find a way to delete his account, he encountered a preference page, an introduction from the creators of the site, and more. Despite his ire, he found himself pausing to skim them. Stephen attested that this site wasn’t like hiring an escort. Then, what was it that made it so goddamn special?

  He had to admit, the introduction was well written. It spoke to the need of men to find female companions for events without worrying about what was expected afterwards. Unlike most men in his position, Dominic wasn’t gifted with an overabundance of female friends - at least none that weren’t trying to sleep with him. He supposed it would be nice to have someone to attend charity events with him - to travel with him and keep the media quiet without avoiding the next scandal. It would be all the conveniences of having a woman in his life without actually being beholden to her.

  He couldn’t believe that Stephen had been right - even a little bit.

  After a whole lot of searching - and some unintentional browsing - Dom finally managed to find the page containing his profile. He noticed - with a wince - that he had indeed paid the five hundred dollar registration fee for the site. It satisfied him more to see that, even drunk as a skunk, he hadn’t been idiotic enough to use his actual name. Quickly, he perused his alias and found that, to his relief, he hadn’t posted a flat out solicitation for sex. He had been pretty damn tasteful - citing that he wanted an educated woman who would be willing to help him in alleviating the societal pressures of always having a woman on his arm. He supposed that his registration wasn’t all that reprehensible - though he did notice that he hadn’t checked the sex is not important to me box.

  Of course he hadn’t.

  Sex was important to him - under the right circumstances, of course.

  Frowning, Dom moved the cursor to hover over the button that would delete the profile. He didn’t need this. Being drunk with Stephen the previous night had, perhaps, allowed him to let slip far more than he wanted to. The best thing to do would be to delete the damned thing and get on with his day.

  But, somehow, he hesitated.

  There were five messages blinking in his inbox. He supposed they were the ‘hits’ Stephen had been talking about.

  Dominic considered for a moment before deciding that it couldn’t hurt to see what kind of women had answered his ad. Somehow, he was pretty certain that he would only run into women desperate for him to pay for their designer wardrobes and trips to faraway lands - and that was hardly what he wanted.

  But he didn’t have to deal with Stephen or anyone else right now. No one would ever have to know that he�
�d looked.

  They were all good-looking; but, of course, Dominic assumed that would be a prerequisite on a site that required him to pay five hundred dollars just to register. He scanned each of their profiles with more interest than he was willing to admit. Isabella Marcos was a Mexican-American woman looking to support her child and start a bakery - at thirty two, she looked like a young Eva Mendes - more than enough to make any sane man’s blood run hot. Then there was Stephanie Yates, who was looking to start a nonprofit company - a noble cause, if he ever heard one. It was too bad he had never been the biggest fan of blondes.

  After two more profiles, Dom was almost ready to return to the previous page and erase his shame - when the last picture on the page caught and held his attention.

  Makayla Price.

  He was drawn immediately to the deep mocha hue of her skin and her hazel eyes. Unlike the other pictures on the page, hers didn’t appear to have been edited within an inch of its life. Makayla was a natural beauty, with a crown of gorgeous curly hair, a full, succulent mouth and a wide, innocent gaze. She didn’t look as if she was trying to seduce him with her gaze - rather, she looked shy - almost embarrassed.

  Dominic felt immediately guilty when his libido responded with wild enthusiasm.

  He forced himself to read through her profile instead of staring at her picture - and his eyes widened. She was a Medical School hopeful from California, hoping to attend Columbia, where she’d already been accepted.

  Attending Columbia would put her in the city - within easy reach...a medical student who simply wanted her degree...he supposed he couldn’t see the harm in exchanging her company for paying for something she so desperately wanted…

  Jesus.

  With a groan, Dom shoved his computer away, trying to clear his head. He must still be hungover if he was even considering this. He wasn’t a man who liked to pay for his pleasure - he had never stooped so low. Even if sex wasn’t involved…

  He ran a hand through his messy hair, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. Maybe he was still drunk from the previous night.

  Besides, even if this girl did express an interest in his profile, there was no way he was going to fly her to the city without at least speaking to her first.