He chuckled. “I think there are a lot
of things you thought about me that are wrong, Tyler.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Oh,
yeah? Like what?”
Dodger leaned forward and took my lips
in a gentle kiss. I was so shocked, for a moment, I froze. Then my
brain kicked in, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed
him back, trying to deepen the kiss and change it from something
gentle and soft into something hard and passionate.
But Dodger wouldn’t let me. He,
instead, lifted his lips from mine and placed a few soft pecks on
my mouth. I found myself opening my eyes—I couldn’t even remember
closing them—looking up at him in what I can only describe as
confused frustration. Dodger just chuckled and placed a soft kiss
on the tip of my nose before stepping away.
“
Now, I know you probably
have clients and errands and things, and I have a few businesses I
have to run, but I would love to take you to dinner tomorrow night
if you’re free?” he asked.
My eyebrows lowered as I
stared at him. Was he seriously asking me on a date? I
didn’t
date
. At
least, not without being paid to do it. Hell, if I wanted to go to
dinner, I could get some guy to pay me to do it. I didn’t care how
gorgeous Dodger was, or how amazing his kisses were, I had too many
things I had to think about. Even though my condo was paid off, I
had utilities and other bills. There was also KuJoe’s constant
demands. Plus, I helped out with Stella, and then there was my
secret that required a constant influx of money. I needed money.
And Dodger’s good looks were just not going to cut it.
“
Look, Dodger, you’re
gorgeous, but…” I started, looking away from his face and glancing
at the picture of the Grand Canyon that hung on the wall behind
him. I wasn’t really sure about the strange, gnawing feeling I felt
in my gut; the sick, twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach; or
the lump in my throat. The last time I’d felt that way was when I’d
dropped Stella off in Glendale to stay with some friends of mine,
because, damn, Mom and the stepdad from hell weren’t fit to raise
her, so maybe Amanda and Tim would be.
“
I’d pay you,” he
stated.
I blinked at him. “What?”
“
For dinner and
conversation afterward,” he said. “I’d pay you. Whatever your rate
is. I’d pay you for it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
Dodger shrugged his shoulders. “Call
me old-fashioned, but I like to know a guy before I fuck him, and
if I have to pay you to get to know you, then I guess that’s what I
gotta do. And it ain’t like I’m hurting for money.”
I nodded and looked away from him
again before glancing back. I held out my hand for him to shake.
“Deal.”
Dodger shook it back
firmly. “Deal.” He smiled at me and stepped back before
straightening his clothes. I offered him a smile in return and
tried to ignore the strange sickening feeling that filled my
stomach. I didn’t
want
to be paid to get to know him. I just wanted to get to know
him better. That was stupid. Life wasn’t built on people doing
things they
wanted
to do. It was built on money. I knew that better than anyone
else. Money was what drove people; it was what made people. The
amount of money someone had, the amount of money they made
determined how successful they were. People didn’t love you if you
were poor and ugly; they only wanted you if you were rich and
beautiful, and in my line of business, I had to be beautiful and
that meant I had to be worth more than everyone else.
I pressed my hand to my forehead as
fanciful notions of dates and outings with Dodger where he didn’t
pay me afterward drifted in and out of my brain. Giving my head a
little shake, I looked up at Dodger and smiled tightly.
“
Are you okay?” he
asked.
I nodded. “Oh, yeah,” I told him. “I’m
fine. It’s just been a really stressful day. Nonstop
clients.”
The grimace that crossed his features
pulled me up short, and those notions fell out of my head like a
lead weight. No matter what he said, no matter what any of the men
who’d ever been enamored of my beauty ever professed, they could
never get past what I did. They thought they could. They hoped they
could, and I couldn’t really fault them for not being able to, but
the plain and simple fact was they could never get past
it.
Shaking my head, I sighed, grabbed
Dodger’s elbow, and walked him back to the front door.
“
Do you have…
someone
else
coming over?” he asked.
I shook my head again. “No, but I’m
really tired,” I admitted. “And all I want to do right now is just
soak in a bubble bath surrounded by candles, listen to some Adele,
maybe some Beyonce, and then go to bed.”
Dodger nodded and smiled at me. “Oh,
okay. Well, I’ll see you later then. For our date. You and I have
some things to discuss.”
“
Absolutely,” I
agreed.
He leaned forward and
pressed a kiss to my forehead before opening the front door and
stepping out. My mind buzzed with a long-buried memory, but I
pushed it away. I had neither the time nor the energy to deal with
the
feelings
Dodger was stirring in me, nor the darkness I could feel
churning just below the surface of my skin. I closed the door and
leaned my head against the cool wood with a sigh. I took a long
moment to infuse the steel walls around my heart with the titanium
glue and alloy nails of apathy that had begun to show signs of
weakening in front of the gorgeous southern billionaire.
Thankfully, he’d shown himself to be just like every other man who
professed to want something more with me before I’d allowed that to
happen. Dodger was no different from the rest of them. Even if he
was the first to make my palms sweat and my mouth dry. To actually
make me
want
to
date him. I mean I couldn’t; I needed the money, and I was,
admittedly, a gold digger, but Dodger made a part of me wish I
wasn’t.
And he was the first man
who hadn’t spent the whole time we were together talking about how
gorgeous I was, all about himself, or complaining about himself. It
was almost as if he saw
through
me. No. I shook my head and remembered my steel
walls, titanium glue, and alloy nails.
Walls once again hardened,
I felt my cool and detached emotional mask slide into place and I
squared my shoulders and pushed away from the door. Spinning
around, I walked up the stairs to my bedroom and into the
en suite
bathroom. Going
over to my vanity, I opened the drawer and pulled out the torch
lighter before sliding the drawer closed again. Stepping across the
light-gray, tiled room with light-brown accents, I lit all the
white candles that filled the room on almost every available
surface except the ones around the tub. I would save those for
later.
I then grabbed the bottle of bath
salts and the one of bath oils and poured both into the bottom of
my large four-person Jacuzzi tub. I turned on the hot water, since
I loved a steamy bath, and then turned the cold water on just a
little because I didn’t want to boil my skin off. I chuckled as I
remembered the first time Jack had attempted to take a bath with me
and how he had jumped out of the water almost immediately because
he’d said the water was too hot. He’d spilled water all over the
floor, knocking over candles and dousing them in the hot liquid,
soaking my bath mats, and knocking my makeup, brushes, and combs
onto the floor. He’d been so repentant he’d begun promising me a
trip to Aruba. I’d found it so hilarious all I could do was laugh
for over an hour.
As I stood beside the tub, watching as
the water filled it, I found myself wondering if Dodger would be
able to handle the temperature, and if he could, what that could
possibly mean.
Sighing in frustration at
myself, because I was not romantic or fanciful, and completely
blaming it on the few hours I’d spent watching
Lifetime
a few days previous, I
turned and retrieved the bottle of bath bubbles and then poured
them into the water. The scent of lavender mixed with the scent of
the rosewood bath oil filled my bathroom, and I could feel peace
instantly settle into my being as well as my mind begin to clear of
the befuddlement of the day. Jack’s death had turned my world
upside down, so it was only natural I would feel a little
off
. My new “attraction”
for Dodger, and the way I was attracted to him—the desire to not be
a companion any longer—was only because I couldn’t see anyone
taking Jack’s place.
I nodded and sighed before reaching
over to turn off the water. Hell, I didn’t need a psychologist. I
could psychoanalyze my damn self.
I lit the rest of the candles around
the tub and pulled off my robe before dropping it to the floor and
climbing into the steaming water. I hissed as the water caressed
and stroked my skin, heating it immediately. I allowed the scented
bathwater to completely cover me before I pushed myself back out of
the water with a gasp. I pulled my hair away from my face and
leaned back against the pillow that rested there.
I let the hot water strip, skin, and
peel away the dirt and grime of my day. I closed my eyes and
refused to move as the bath salts and oils did their job, removing
every kiss, touch, caress, stroke, and disgusting grope from my
flesh. I wasn’t ashamed of who I was, and as a matter of fact, I
pretty much put myself on the same level as women and men who
married for money and even some housewives and househusbands,
except I didn’t have children to care for at the end of every day.
So, though I wasn’t ashamed, I still came into my bathroom and
tried to remove the filth I could feel on my body.
The filth was, by my estimate, at
least sixteen inches deep at this point since it was at that age I
entered into this lifestyle. And no matter how much I scrubbed at
my skin, how hot I made the water, how many times I used an enema
bag on myself, how many times I gargled with mouthwash, I never
felt clean.
I would never be clean
again.
I felt hot tears roll down my cheeks,
but still I didn’t move; I couldn’t move; tonight might just be the
night that all the filth was removed.
And no, the filth wasn’t there because
of my life now. I chose to be a companion. When I made the decision
to continue in this direction after leaving Alabama, that was when
the filth, that grime and darkness I could feel starting to
penetrate my soul, had stopped and morphed into something
different. Something even more dangerous. Granted, guilt had
replaced the filth that had been slowly eating away at my soul, but
I’d long since learned to ignore any and all emotions that I had.
Emotions were dangerous. Emotions—like fear—got you
killed.
And love.
So my decision to be a companion
wasn’t popular, but it was one I’d made, so the darkness had
stopped strangling me. Ceased seeping in through the pores of my
skin to fuse with my blood cells and turn me into a vessel of
darkness.
But still I could feel it. It was
there. That filth. The stain I tried to cover with makeup, pretty
clothes, and a beautiful smile. The grunge I hoped no one would
see. The muck I hoped no one would discover. It came because of
what I’d been forced into back in Alabama. I’d had no choice in the
matter before San Francisco, before California. Before KuJoe. There
were things in my life that I had control of, yes, but those things
I couldn’t prevent? Those things that happened to me? They were the
things that heaped the thick layers of darkness on me. They were
the reason that I even now lay still in the tub, praying to a God I
wasn’t so sure I believed in, hoping against all hope that this
night He would finally, finally, let a small crack of light
in.
Tears continued to roll unbidden down
my cheeks.
Chapter Five
Most people have no memory of their
lives before a certain point, and I guess that’s true for me. My
first memory was of my father—leaning over me, kissing my forehead,
telling me he loved me and walking away. It was the last time I
ever saw him. He walked out our front door and went back on duty as
a police officer. During a routine traffic stop, a group of rich
kids out for a joyride and tweaking on drugs freaked out when they
saw my dad in his uniform, and they shot him in the face and drove
off, leaving him for dead while his partner sat in their squad car
running their licenses.
I was four.
****
My mom fell into a
downward spiral then. It started off with her drinking excessively,
and then there was a parade of men who came in and out of the
house, sometimes more than one at a time, and then the drugs
started.
I’ll never forget the
first time I came home from school and realized my mother was doing
drugs. I was seven, and I was cold from standing outside in the
freezing air, with an old coat that was rapidly falling apart,
waiting for a mother who seemed to be drowning in her grief,
forgetting I’d lost my father as well. We were living in
Scottsbluff, Nebraska at the time. It was where I was born and
where we’d lived my entire life, and when school was over that day
I’d had to stay because my mom was supposed to pick me up, but
she’d forgotten… again. One of the teachers had brought me home,
disapproval apparent on her features. It was a common expression on
the faces of my teachers, the guidance counselor, and the
principal. They waffled between disapproval and sympathy. I’d
hurried inside before she could start any lectures or ask to speak
to my mom, and when I stepped inside, I came to a complete
stop.