Living in Sin (The Escort Series) (8 page)

We all laugh. “Peer pressure’s a bitch,” I say.

Marc finally looks at his cards and throws in his chips. When the flop comes out, it’s two tens and a two. I’ve got three of a kind and my ace kicker. I throw in a stack of chips, raising the blind. Everybody folds except Troy.

“Take your time, baby boy,” Troy says to Nico. “You gotta enjoy it, savor it, taste it…”

“Are we still talking about liquor?” Nico asks.

“If you fuck the way you drank that, I feel sorry for your clients,” Troy says. “Just rushing to get it over with, not taking the time to enjoy the taste and feeling of it.” He shakes his head in disgust.

“Oh whatever. You don’t know how I do things. I’m a beast in the sheets.”

Troy ignores Nico’s last comment and we wait for Marc to reveal the next card. It’s a six. I check and Troy looks at me suspiciously before raising. I quickly throw in the chips to match and we wait for the river card.

The card is flipped and revealed to be an ace. Fuck yeah. That’s why this is my favorite hand. I always get lucky with it. I wait a few moments before raising, making it seem like I’m really contemplating on what to do.

Troy sits back and stares at me. “What you got, man?” he asks. But it’s not really a question he expects me to answer. He’s trying to figure out if he wants to fold or not.

“You’ve already come this far. Might as well,” I say, knowing Troy is very competitive.

The only way he could beat me is if he has a four of a kind or straight flush. With the cards on the board, there’s no way in hell he can have a straight flush. The pair on the board are the tens and since I have the other one, he can’t have a four of a kind either.

I take another sip of my potent drink and wait to see what he’s gonna do. He keeps looking at the cards, then to me, trying to figure out if I can beat his hand or not.

“Fuck it.” He throws the chips in, and tosses his cards, face up onto the table. I see that he has a pocket pair of kings, so he has two pair. Good, but not good enough.

I place my ten next to the other two on the table and my ace by its pair. “Full mother fucking house, baby!”

“Goddammit!” he yells.

I laugh and start collecting my chips. He mutters something about pretty boy powers which only makes me laugh more.

I lean over to Marc. “Yo, so what’s in this drink for real?”

“It’s Wild Turkey 101 proof, Everclear, and black cherry soda.”

“Goddamn,” I say.

“I know.” He smiles and looks over at Nico, who is still nursing his water bottle.

“Ah man, so I gotta tell y’all about this sexy ass chick that I saw the other night,” Nico says. “She was short, and you know I like my women fun sized, and she was curvy as hell. I’m talkin’ coke bottle figure, for real! Her tits were perfect, her hips were amazing and she had a nice firm lookin’ ass. Oh my god, I thought I had died and went to heaven!”

“First of all, you only like fun sized because you’re short, let’s just point that out,” Troy says.

“Just because I’m not a fucking giant like some of you doesn’t mean I’m short. Five-ten is not short.”

“Oh you’re five-ten now? I thought you were five-eight?” Troy asks.

“Whatever. Anyway,” he says, turning his back towards Troy, “she was fine as fuck. Wifey material.”

“Oh yeah? You want to settle down already?” I ask him.

“Eh. I don’t know. How long can you do this job?” he asks rhetorically.

“You ain’t even been doin’ this that long,” Troy says.

“Definitely not as long as you, old man,” Nico jokes.

“Shit, look at this smooth, chocolate skin. I don’t have a wrinkle on this body.”

“Nah, I’m just sayin’. I mean, have y’all thought about how long you’re gonna be doin’ this?”

I have thought about it. I’ve been doing this for several years now. I did it for the money in all honesty. I mean, I didn’t need to do it just to get a date. My brother was killed, my mom went into a depression and couldn’t work, I haven’t seen my dad in I don’t know how long, and we were broke. As soon as I was legally able to do this job, I did it. When the money started coming in, I was hooked. I wasn’t used to being able to buy what I wanted when I wanted. I was able to pay my mom’s debts off and put her mind at ease. I’ve made a lot of money in this job, and in the beginning, I just spent and spent because I could. After a while, I began saving, investing and trying to set myself up for success, because I do know that I can’t work this job forever. I took college classes to get a degree, and now I don’t necessarily have to do this job if I don’t want to.

“Shit, I’ll do this job until I’m fifty if I can,” Troy says. “Money and pussy, what else do you need?”

“Man, whatever. What if you find a woman you want to settle down with? She ain’t gonna be okay with you fucking all kinds of people,” Nico says.

“I ain’t ever getting married, so I don’t have to worry about that. I’m a bachelor. I do bachelor shit.”

We all know that Troy is still pissed about what his fiancé did to him. Even though it was a few years ago, he hasn’t gotten over it and is still thinking he’ll be content being single forever. I think he’ll change his mind after a while.

“What about you?” Nico asks, looking directly at me.

“I’m not gonna do this forever, probably not for much longer actually. It’s made me a rich man though,” I say with a smile. “I have some things going on, I’m gonna venture into a different type of business.”

“What kind of business? You holdin’ out on us?” Nico asks.

“Nah. Troy and Marc know about it.”

“What? That’s fucked up. Why am I being left out?” he asks, looking hurt.

“They’re working with me. We’re doing grown men business. Don’t worry about it. You’ll know soon enough.”

He doesn’t say anything else. He’s probably feeling left out, but in all honesty, he wouldn’t help me business wise. Marc and Troy are like me in the sense that we’ve been saving money because we’ve been doing this a long time. Between us three, we have degrees in business, finance, and can actually make something happen with them.

“As far as wife-ing somebody though, I don’t know about all that,” I say, trying to change the subject.

“You don’t want to get married?” Marc asks.

“I haven’t really thought about it, I guess. I’ve been doin’ this and haven’t really had time or the desire to date anybody. I get laid now; don’t need a wife for that. Although, having someone at home would be nice. It sucks going to that big ass place and having it be all quiet. So I don’t know.” I shrug my shoulders and leave it at that.

“When was the last time you actually dated somebody outside this job?” Marc asks.

I actually have to think about it for a while. “Uhh, it’s been a couple years since I’ve tried a relationship. Anything else was strictly sex.”

They all nod their heads because that’s just the way it goes. Any girl you come across in your personal life is only going to be for sex. Once you disclose your job, they run as fast as they can. If they try to stick around, they end up getting jealous when you have to spend the night with someone or spend a weekend with a client. That just leads to problems. You walk in and you get questions like, who were you with? What did you do? Did you enjoy it? Was she young? Was she hot? It’s too much.

“Oh, but there’s this one girl that I’ve seen a few times recently. I wouldn’t mind getting a piece of that.”

“Oh really?” Nico asks. “Like you wanna fuck her? Or date her?”

“I wanna fuck her for sure. I don’t know her well enough to want to be with her for longer than that. She has a nice body though, and I’d like to see her stripped naked and laying across my bed.”

“What’s she look like?” Nico asks.

“She has long legs, an exotic look that I can’t quite place, and a nice, plump ass.”

“And you haven’t used your pretty boy powers to get her in bed yet?” Troy asks with smirk.

“She thinks I’m dating a client she saw me with. She ain’t havin’ none of that. I don’t know if I’ll even run into her again. If I do, though, I’ll be sure to use my powers to get her into my bed.”

“Y’all don’t get tired of having sex?” Kade asks. When we all look at him like he’s crazy, he continues. “I mean. Like, you do it for your job, and then you still want to do it in your personal life?”

“What kind of man asks if you get tired of sex?” Troy asks as he gets up from the table and puts his palm on his forehead, throwing his head back. “I can’t believe I heard a man ask that question,” he mutters as he walks away.

I laugh at his theatrics. “Okay. Work is work. There is no emotion there, no real connection. I go in and flip a switch. I’m somebody else. They don’t get to know the real me, they see who I want them to see, who they want to see. I also don’t get a choice in who I have sex with or go on dates with when they hire me. I have to pretend to be interested, even if I’m not. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes you’ll get hooked up with a nice looking woman…or three,” I throw in and hope Troy hears me. He’s still jealous. “But most of the time, you don’t get paired up with anybody that’s your type. So in your personal life, you get a choice. You get to pick someone you’re attracted to. Someone you may want to actually spend time with. It’s different.”

We continue to talk and drink for a few more hours before the rest of us decide to head home. On my way to the door, Marc pulls me back.

“Hey, man. So that appointment I was telling you about is going to be on Friday. I’ll text you or call with directions to wherever she chooses.”

“Okay, cool. I’ll see you then,” I say and then go home to think about when I’ll actually be ready to quit this job.

“Where were you yesterday?” I seethe at Emilie. “I can’t believe you asked me to go to dinner with you, and I straighten my hair, pick out a cute outfit, and drive all the way down there, just for you to not show up. And to top it off, GLC shows up and makes me behave like an idiot and I forget my phone!”

“Okay. Before I explain anything, what the hell is a GLC?” Emilie asks.

I let out a sigh. “God like creature. But that doesn’t matter. Where were you?”

“Okay, first of all, calm down. I was going to meet you there, but I had this plan, and I was going to set you up on a date with this guy who’s friends with Chris. You know, the guy I work with. Anyway, he’s not really my type, but I like him as a friend, and I thought maybe his friend would be good-looking, and we could all have a good night.” She finally stops rambling and just stares at me.

“Wait, so you set me up on a blind date with a guy you’ve never seen, who is friends with a guy you don’t even find attractive, and you thought that would be fun? Also, please explain why none of you showed up!”

“I never said Chris wasn’t attractive. He’s just not my type, maybe he’s yours, I don’t know. He’s cute, but we’re just friends. I asked him if his friend was an ugly toad or not and he assured me that his friend was not a toad.”

“Ugh. Whatever. Where did you all go then? Because you sure as hell weren’t with me!”

I move from the entryway, and fall onto the couch. Emilie follows suit, sitting on the opposite end.

“Well, I was getting ready to leave my house when Chris calls and says they can’t make it because Greg, his friend, got sick. I figured you wouldn’t want Chris to show up and then it would be like Three’s Company…but not really since he isn’t gay. At least I don’t think he is.”

“You’re rambling again! Stop!”

“Sorry. Anyway, so I said that was fine and I was going to meet you, but before I left, I went to the bathroom and realized I started my fucking period! Not only that, I had no feminine products. Nothing. No tampons, no pads, not even panty liners. What kind of woman am I?”

I want to laugh, but I also want to portray my anger. I never had a good poker face and I start laughing anyway.

“It’s not funny! I was stuck on the toilet, trying to reach into my cabinets and drawers to see if I could find anything. Meanwhile, I have you texting and yelling at me.”

“What did you do?” I ask through my laughter.

“I did what any woman would do. I folded up some toilet paper, put in my underwear and went to the store to get some goddamn tampons!”

I fall onto my back and curl into the cushion, laughing. Emilie joins in, and all is forgiven.

“So. GLC? We have to change that. That sounds like a cable company or something. Now what could we call him?” She taps her chin with her finger while inspecting the ceiling.

“Well I don’t know. It was shorter than actually saying God-like creature, and I’m not good with nicknames.”

“Let me think, let me think. How about, SB? Because he’s a sexy beast!” Em starts cracking up at her own joke. “Okay, maybe blue eyes, or SOS for sex on a stick, or Daddy Warbucks, cause he obviously has money. Ooh, maybe we could call him…”

“Just stop already,” I laugh, cutting her off. “Your suggestions aren’t any better than GLC. I’ll just call him God.”

“Yeah, and if you’re lucky, maybe he’ll be making you scream, God yes, oh God, oh, oh, oh, God!” she starts feigning an orgasm.

“You’re ridiculous,” I laugh.

“No. You are. I can’t believe you didn’t stay and have dinner with him! Dinner could have turned into dessert. Mmm, I bet he has good dessert.”