I was waiting for Jade at the kitchen table when she got home. From there, I had a perfect view of the door. It was a small apartment. My room was about twelve steps away, and it contained a couch, a television, and a corner where I’d piled all of my stuff. Otherwise known as the ‘living room.’ My heels were kicked off and I was working on my third glass of red wine when I heard her key in the lock.
‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me who he was?’ I was on her as soon as she walked in the door.
One perfectly sculpted dark eyebrow rose as her bright green eyes took in my new dress and tipsy state. With her black hair, pale skin, and model-esque figure wrapped in a bright red sheath dress under a perfectly fitted black coat, Jade was stunningly gorgeous in her stiletto heels. No wonder Enzo had looked disappointed when he’d opened the door to find me standing there. I wasn’t bad looking, but I didn’t look like that. I had what my grandmother used to tell me were ‘good childbearing hips.’
‘What are you talking about? I told you who he was.’
‘But you didn’t tell me who he was,’ I insisted. ‘You didn’t tell me where he was taking me. And that someone there might recognize me. Hell, you didn’t even tell me his name!’
‘You didn’t ask.’ Jade set her purse on the small table by the door that was used as a catch-all for bags, keys, mail, and anything else we didn’t have a place for. Then she shrugged out of her coat and hung it on the hook beside it, taking an envelope out of the pocket. ‘He said he needed a date for a party. That’s all I knew. He doesn’t give me details.’
‘You didn’t even bother to tell me that much,’ I accused. ‘Do you know what I wore to his hotel?’
She spun toward me, an expression of horror on her face. ‘Don’t tell me you wore the pink dress.’
‘I wore the pink dress.’
Her hands flew up to cover her ears, and she whacked herself in the head with the envelope. ‘I told you not to tell me!’
Grabbing the bottle of wine, I refilled my glass.
‘I told you he had money, Sera. Money. You don’t wear the pink dress to a date with a guy who has money.’
‘Well, Jade, how the fuck am I supposed to know that? I’d never done this before. He had to go buy me a new dress so I would look presentable enough to be on his arm.’ I frowned at her. ‘And what does having money matter? They all have money, or they wouldn’t be able to afford us!’
‘But there’s money, and then there’s money. The first ones are your typical guys who have a hard time getting dates and wanna get laid. They’re either too nerdy, too ugly, too shy, or whatever. They only pay for the hour or two they need to wine, dine, and fuck you, and they don’t tip. The ones in the second group are really just lonely guys who want some company because they’re afraid that every woman they meet only cares about how rich they are, and not them as a person. Money is no object to them. I once had a guy like my company so much he paid me triple my rate to keep me at his house for a week just so he could pretend I was his while I watched television and made dinner for him.’
‘We do only care about how rich they are.’
‘Yes, but with us, they know that going in. They’d rather pay for an escort than take a chance on catching feelings for someone who’s only after what’s in their bank accounts. With us, it’s all out there in the open. They know what to expect. No complications. We smile, we laugh at their jokes, we don’t argue with them, we look at them like they’re the only man in the room, and the ones that want to fuck us can do so without worrying we’re gonna show up on their doorstep the next day with a casserole dish hoping they’re ‘the one.’ Mr. Delligatti is in that category.’
I set down my wine glass a little too hard. ‘I’ve never made a casserole for any man.’
Jade opened the cabinet to the right of the small stove and grabbed a glass for herself, then joined me at the table, slapped the envelope down in front of me, and poured the rest of the bottle into hers. ‘It’s an expression.’
‘Did you ever show up at some guy’s door with a homemade dinner and hearts in your eyes?’ I couldn’t see the Jade I knew now doing something like that, but when do you really ever know people?
‘Hell no,’ she told me. ‘They stalked me. Not the other way around.’
‘That I can believe.’ I sighed heavily and ran my finger around the rim of my glass as I looked up at my new friend from beneath my lashes. I glanced at the envelope. ‘What’s this?’
‘Mr. Delligatti wired over the money for your time tonight.’
Curious, I opened the envelope and my jaw dropped open as I thumbed through the stack of hundreds inside. ‘Holy fuck.’ Closing the envelope, I shoved it back at her. ‘You need to return it to him.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because I didn’t fulfill my obligation. We never even made it to the party.’
She gave me a naughty smile. ‘I figured that out as soon as you told me you’d worn the pink dress.’
I shook my head. ‘We didn’t do that either. I bailed on him. Cut the date short.’
‘Why the hell would you do that? What about your…little problem?’ She paused and set down her glass to give me a sympathetic look. ‘Was he not interested? Was it the pink hair?’
Taking a drink for courage, I filled her in on what had happened. ‘I showed up there expecting maybe we’d have a drink or two, a little small talk—’
‘Oh, Mr. Delligatti doesn’t do small talk.’
Sarcasm dripped from my voice when I said, ‘Yeah. I figured that out real fast.’
The corners of her red lips tipped up as she fought her smile, until finally she took a sip of wine to hide it. ‘Sorry,’ she said when she put her glass back down. ‘Go on.’
‘As I was saying, I thought, you know, we’d kick it around a bit and then get down to the business at hand—ridding me of my involuntary, imposed virginity. So, imagine my surprise when I found out he didn’t want to fuck me. I mean, he did. But first, he wanted to take me to a party. And not just any party. A wedding reception. To welcome a made man’s new bride to the family.’ I didn’t have to tell her what family I was talking about. I’d told Jade the second week I knew her that I was the daughter of a wannabe mafia boss and that I’d moved down here from Dallas to get the fuck away from him.
I didn’t tell her that he’d kept me a near prisoner my entire life because he was so afraid someone would steal my ‘innocence’ before he could auction it off to the highest bidder. I also didn’t tell her that I’d run away from home, so to speak. I was a grown woman, and legally could live wherever the hell I wanted, but that didn’t mean much in my family. If my father found out where I was, all he had to do was send a few of his thugs down here to Austin to get me, and before I knew it, I’d be locked in my room again. It was nothing short of a miracle that I’d made it to this age without him finding some disgusting old gangster to give me to. He needed something before he could do that, though, to make the best possible match. A better position in the family. Apparently, these days, virgins alone weren’t enough to elevate you.
He’d finally attained that position just recently by killing off a few select colleagues without anyone knowing it was him, which elevated him to the position of underboss in a relatively short time. I just thanked god that I was an only child and that my mother was dead, so she didn’t have to see the things I would resort to doing just to get away from him. Not that there was anything wrong with what Jade did. Hell, to each their own. I certainly was in no position to judge anyone. And although I wasn’t looking to become an escort, filling in for her just this one night was supposed to help me get rid of the one thing my father valued me for…
My hymen.
‘I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you tonight,’ she told me. ‘I’m booked again tomorrow night. And this guy is not mafia. I can guarantee it. He’s the owner of the newest tech company. The one that has that new high-rise downtown. You know the one I mean?’
I did know. And I’d read an article about that guy. All about how he was now one of the youngest billionaires in Austin. The article had also had a picture.
‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ I told her. There was no way in hell I was going to finally lose my virginity to a guy who looked like he was fourteen. ‘Enzo asked me…no, that’s not right…he ordered me—through the concierge—to come back and meet him in the lobby of his hotel on Tuesday night at eight.’
Jade grinned. ‘Well, there you go! You’ll have a second chance.’
I looked at her like she’d lost her mind. ‘I’m not going to go.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s mafia, Jade!’
She raised her eyebrows as if to say, ‘And?’
I rubbed my forehead with my fingertips. ‘You just don’t get it. I have to stay away from him. If he figures out who I am, my father will be the next to know, and his men will be down here to collect me in a hot minute.’
‘I think you’re just being paranoid. If he didn’t recognize you right off, how will he know who you are unless you tell him?’
‘No, Jade. I’m not.’ I laid my palms flat down on the table and tried to emphasize just how wrong she was. ‘You don’t understand because you only play in that world. You don’t live in it. The mafia is like a giant spiderweb across this entire country. The entire globe! Every big city has its boss, the one that calls the shots, but they all work together whenever they need to. The Italians, the Russians, the Irish… And it’s a big sausage fest. For as family oriented as they are, very few women have any power within this network. We’re treated like possessions. Wives are there to cook the meals and raise the kids and smile pretty so the men can pat themselves on the back on what good providers they are. How manly they are out there playing gangster while the little woman waits for them at home, barely staying one step ahead of the FBI and a life in prison. Or worse, getting gunned down in the streets, leaving their families alone with no means to provide for themselves. So they have to depend on the boss to make sure they’re taken care of. And they’re not allowed to leave the ‘family.’ Ever.’
‘I didn’t realize,’ she said quietly. ‘I mean, I’ve seen the movies. And I know that organized crime exists, but I’ve never been involved, other than to be someone’s arm candy. I’m shooed away to go powder my nose when the men I’m with have to talk amongst themselves. I only see the glamour of it all, not the reality.’
Sighing heavily, I sat back. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload on you.’
She gave me a small smile. ‘So, what are you going to do?’
‘I think from now on I’m just gonna stick to my waitressing job at the club. And who knows?’ I smiled. ‘Maybe I’ll meet someone, and I can have a normal one-night stand like everyone else. I just won’t get paid for it.’
Jade finished off her glass of wine and stood up to put it in the sink. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Alright,’ she said as she passed me on the way to the bedroom. ‘But keep the money. You gave him your time. You earned it. And if you change your mind, just let me know.’
‘I will,’ I called after her. ‘Thanks.’
‘Night!’
‘Goodnight,’ I called after her.
When I was alone once again, I got up from the table and washed both of our glasses and turned them upside down in the drying rack. Finished, I wiped down the counter, rinsed out the sponge, and then leaned against the sink and stared at the envelope of money lying in the middle of the table.
Slowly, I walked over to it…and then left it where it was as I got my sleeping clothes from the couch and went to the half bath off the kitchen to brush my teeth and get ready for bed.
When Jade had offered to let me stay with her and brought me here so I could get out of the cheap hotel I was in, I couldn’t hide my surprise. With the kind of money she made, I’d expected something much bigger and fancier. And I knew what she made because she’d come into the club where I worked alone one night bitching about a date who’d stiffed her.
But the place was in a newer building in a nice part of the city, and Jade, I’d discovered, was a practical girl underneath it all. It was the reason she’d gotten into her line of work. Why slave from nine to five when you could have rich men—or women—take you out to parties, buy you fancy clothes and five star meals, and then pay you just for the honor of your company? The sex was an added bonus for her. And she had enough of a reputation within the industry that she could pick and choose who she slept with, so all in all, not a bad gig.
But even though Jade was always talking up how great the job of being an escort was, it wasn’t the life for me. Being around rich people made me nervous. And when I got nervous, I developed a tick of sorts…
Walking over to my coat where it hung on the rack beside Jade’s, I stuck my hand down into the right front pocket and pulled out the porcelain crucifix I’d lifted from the restaurant. Jesus hung from the cross with his eyes closed, a crown of thorns on his head and each hair perfectly in place. There was even a little blood painted on his hands and feet to add that realistic feel. I didn’t know why I took it. I barely remembered doing it. It had no value to me. No meaning. I didn’t need it. And yet, there it was. Judging me.
Tears filled my eyes as I shoved back into my coat pocket. Surely, I was going straight to hell for all the things I’d stolen in my life. I’d look up the restaurant online tomorrow and take it back as soon as they opened. I could pretend I’d lost my phone or something and thought I’d left it there. Or maybe I could just put in the mail anonymously with an apology letter. Surely the family who ran it wouldn’t remember everyone who’d been at the party. And as soon as it was back in its rightful place, I’d stop at the catholic church on the corner and go to confession. It would be my first time there, so I wouldn’t have to go into a long explanation of how I’d been doing this my entire life and couldn’t stop, no matter how much I wanted to.
The response the priests always gave me was to pray. Just pray and everything would be better. It was their fucking answer to everything.
But praying hadn’t saved me in this life, no matter how much time I spent on my knees.
Maybe it would help me out in the next one.
