The Rental (7 page)

“You work here,” I said, but I said it flat so it came out as a statement. “It doesn’t bother me.”

He skipped a breath and rubbed my hand.

“I know how hard it can be with jobs and money,” I added.

“I don’t want you here,” he whispered. He took in a deep breath and met me with his stern brown eyes.

I didn’t have to ask why. You could see it in his eyes he wanted to shield me. “Prostitution.”

He shook his head. “Similar concept. Above board.”

“Rick. It’s not like I care. Friends, right?” I even held out my hand in the spur of the moment.

Rick looked at my hand briefly, and gritted his teeth, struggling to control himself. Then something snapped in him. I could see the moment he decided what he wanted.

Supporting his weight on the sofa cushion, he leant forward and caught his breath a moment from my lips. I sucked in the air of his proximity and closed my eyes, dropping my hand to the sofa, too.

I’d waited years for his kiss, and when it finally happened, fireworks exploded above us, marking our moment with the sweet taste of success. From the moment that he knelt on bended knee, washing mine, he’d wanted this.

At the back of my neck, his clenched hand kneaded his passion in an unmistakeable dominant gesture. He parted my lips with his tongue, and invited himself around my own, licking a map that seemed like he never wanted to forget what this felt like. I kissed him back and moaned when the softness of our tongues found each other’s.

If yin and yang could feel solid, it would feel like us. I swirled my tongue over and around his with force, and the change stilled his body for a split second. He came back harder with two tight fists in my hair, closer hips, and a long, satisfying moan. I moved my hands to his waist, reaching around his back fluidly. He trailed his fingertips down my neck, shoulders, and a fiery path along my ribs. I shivered as those hands circled my waist, fingers claiming me with the weight of his touch.

He parted with a thrust of his lips and whispered, “Not friends, Vee. I never want to be just your friend.”

I gulped and ran a shaky hand down his chest, over his shirt. “Still want me to leave?”

He didn’t move at first and then gulped as deeply as I had. He shifted his head up, down, up.

“What are you afraid of?”

It made no sense whatsoever. Every sense had told me yes, yet he was telling me to go.

“You finding out.”

“Finding out what?” I shook my head lightly, smiling. I wasn’t afraid of where he worked. I’d accept him, of all people, no matter what he did. Didn’t he feel he already had me? “What are you afraid of? I won’t judge you.”

He matched my stance, running soft fingers down the centre of my chest. He let them fall to my thighs. “It’s not me I’m worried for.”

“Then who?”

But I knew. I knew before he opened his mouth, and then licked his lips before he spoke.

“Us.”

Okay. Maybe I didn’t.

I had no idea what world I had just stepped in.

• • •

T
HE APPROACHING FOOTSTEPS
were there one moment, and at the foot of the door to the room that we were in the next. I shot a warning glare to Rick, but he placed his hands on either side of him and pushed upright. Whoever it was didn’t seem to bother him although I felt heat flush down my body.

“Probably Amber or one of her minions,” he said just before the door opened.

In stepped a tall woman, although she was wearing thin heels, and probably was as average as I was without them. However, with her straight set of shoulders, bold magenta lip colour, and fitted silk top and skirt, I doubted anything about her was as average as I was.

“She has eyes not only at the back of her head,” Rick said, sitting on the arm of the sofa, arms crossed over his chest in a way that made me think of our kiss, “but in most corners of The Rental.”

“Rhett,” she acknowledged. She looked right into his eyes and he smiled back. “It must be Christmas in—well it’s not yet July, but we’ll be there soon enough. Who are you?” she asked, turning only to direct the last bit at me.

I stood and smoothed down my dress. I felt like she was interviewing me for a job, so I stopped fidgeting and held out my hand. I extended a sure, calm welcome, and she took it, shaking. “Genevieve Wyland, but people call me Vee.”

“Sorry, Amber, we were just—” Rick started.

I cut in, fearing he’d ruin whatever this was. I wanted to hear her out before he dismissed us, especially because she seemed to be someone superior and I’d intruded on her property. “Just saying a quick hello.
Rhett
here forgot his coat and mobile. I apologise if I’ve inconvenienced you, or if I shouldn’t have come.”

“That was kind. Are you here to sign up?”

Signing up sounded like work, and The Rental sounded nothing like my mind-numbing remaining position at the leisure centre where I froze under the air conditioner of the reception desk or sweated my ass around the pool on my feet for hours. The Rental seemed like it could bring me the flirtation I’d seen in those stripper’s eyes at Rick’s twenty-first, but it was all above board and legal, so it couldn’t be any more than they’d done. I’d watched that show with a quivering need to feel something as passionate. Getting high gave me that, but it cost me everything from a lonely gap between the already distant relationship with my remaining parent to silly decisions that made me say yes to Justin when nothing might have ever developed without the catalyst.

I smiled. “I am now, ma’am.”

Rick shot a warning look my way, but I raised my hand and waved him off. He had to give me a chance. I was eighteen, but I could be mature and work at the same place as he, even if this place sounded like it offered pleasurable services. I’d seen those women touch him in ways I had wanted to, but it turned me on, not fuelled jealousy. He had a lot to learn about me if he thought I couldn’t handle it. I wanted to show Rick I was stable enough for him, for us, and to handle anything.

“Why don’t you follow me to my office? I’d like to have a chat if you would?”

The three of us were standing in a triangular shape, Amber near the door, me a metre or so farther, and Rick to the side of the room. It felt like a standoff with the tenseness rolling off Rick’s chest.

“Fantastic.” She widened the door and smirked. “I came in here to see who was snooping on my property and I find you. Follow me.”

She headed out, and Rick rushed to my side, hands on my forearms. “Vee, what on earth are you doing? You’ve got no idea what this is.”

Sure, I agreed with him there. However, I had nothing to lose and everything to possibly gain. That aside, it also meant a reason to learn more about him. I didn’t want another relationship where we hid things from each other. And he was pushing me away. I doubted I’d see him again if not for tonight’s accidental run-in. Even as he gave me his number, I felt something off.

“But I want to know. I have responsibilities, and I don’t see myself getting a well-paying job anywhere else in a hurry. I just want to learn more, okay? I don’t care what I hear. I won’t hate you for it,” I said, and then added, “I promise,” for extra reassuring.

He flicked his gaze outside where Amber had well retreated toward her office and then over my body. His hands were still clinging to my forearms, and when he returned to look at me, his eyes slightly rolled, and he tightened his grip, pulling me in. His pants brushed my stomach and from the contact, a slight hardness.

I pulled my arms back, and he released, letting me follow Amber.

I didn’t look back. If I had, I’d have stared long and hard at the want in his pants. The idea of where it had come from—what it meant for us—both scared and thrilled me.

And I had a job interview to attend.

I caught up to Amber and followed her around corners into a couple more hallways before the final one opened to a wide foyer area. Lavish, deep red carpet with a diamond pattern covered the floor. There were glass automatic doors at the front entrance, and on the opposite side of the room was a reception. She led us past and to the next-door down.

Her office was medium to large in size, had only one portrait of a pretty, young woman on her desk, and otherwise covered with snacks, a used coffee mug, a dangling whip from a wall-mounted bench, and papers and files.

She brought over the spare chair in the corner near her desk and I sat in wait while she retrieved a water jug and two glasses from inside a cabinet. She filled the jug with the water fountain and laid it out for us on her desk. She held up the jug to me, but I shook my head, so she poured a glass for herself, sipped, and then cleared her throat. “Are you friends with Rhett?”

“Old school friends,” I clarified, feeling it summed us up pretty well minus the messy details she didn’t have to know.

“
School.”
She cocked her head and smiled wide. “Are you in school, Vee?”

“Oh, no. Sorry for the confusion. I’ve finished, but we used to talk a while back.”

“You’re not twenty-one.” It was a statement, and it, like everything else Amber had said, cemented the authority she had in this place.

“I’m eighteen. His brother was in my year level, so we eventually became friends, too.”

“Lovely,” Amber said although she didn’t seem to mean it. She was looking at her computer and looking at something on it. It was on an angle from where I sat so I couldn’t look discreetly.

“Okay.” She slapped her thighs, indicating she was ready to give me her full attention. “We had staff issues last night. I had to fire one of our girls, so we are short and calmly swimming along like ducks, while we run around silly under the surface. Everyone here prides themselves on professionalism as much as pleasure and she was not respecting the business.” Amber paused. “Do you know much about The Rental?”

“Not really.” I could have lied, but I decided right then I shouldn’t ever do this to Amber.

“The Rental is an agency to rent out services to clients; however, there’s no sexual intercourse of any form allowed. Rentals and clients can kiss and make out. Contact is allowed on arms, necks, chests, waists, ass cheeks, thighs down, and on the back. Masturbation and games of sexual nature are allowed as well as non-contact dates to events or parties—pretty much everything is allowed as long as the client and the rental’s sexual regions are not breached by the other person. This is forbidden by a binding contract. The same rules apply regardless of gender.

“On a different note, we have rentals of all sorts from those in relationships, fresh out of high schoolers like you, college age, through to seniors.”

“Wow,” I sighed.

“Not what you can handle?”

“Not that at all,” I said, slowly, to form a back-up explanation. “I’m a part-time worker at a leisure centre and not at all thrilled with the work there. I want something more, and your description of The Rental blew my mind. I’m interested—I’m an amateur, but passionate and excited.”

“Do you believe in fate, Ms Wyland?”

Her left-of-field question threw me, and I sat back. “Still working on the belief part, but I think there is some sort of order that occurs that we cannot help, only ride along on.”

She nodded. “If I met you a week ago, I’d have turned you down. We want the best of the best staff, experienced and knowledgeable. But a woman who let her addictions get the better of her just left me in a lurch. And I see you. You want this. She wanted the sustenance for her lifestyle. The Rental worked her; she didn’t work The Rental.”

Amber leant forward and said, “Are you in control and driven, Ms Wyland? Because, if you are, I believe fate gave me this twist to give you a go if you are able to begin relatively soon.”

I smiled and reeled off my answer immediately. “Very.”

Amber turned her back to me while she went through a file, and I allowed the fear crawling all over my skin to erupt in a cold shiver down my back. My heart thumped loudly at my lie, and I could feel it beating strong in my ears, spurring me on. I was driven, but I wasn’t in control.

Some days, I found a park, a dark shadow behind a building, or sat in my car to find my high. I had no one to do it with anymore, but it was the only way I could get up in the mornings.

On those mornings, I missed my daddy so hard in my chest I stung raw from freezing the emptiness. It was times like those that the smoking worked literally and metaphorically, heating me up. Back to life—a sliver of light down the dark tunnel that promised an end after all this.

Amber turned back after a moment and reeled off details. Such as the pay. Most of it would go to me, and The Rental took a cut of the handsome figure the client would pay. I smiled and hoped she didn’t catch me hiding how I very nearly baulked. It would be a higher rate hourly working here than I got for working three hours as a lifeguard, and that already had been more than most of the jobs my old friends kept.

Amber explained how The Rental was well secured. On top of the security cameras outside and within the open areas, they had many other bodyguards like Rick for real-time safety. The only place they provided privacy was within the rooms, both for clients and for staff.

Dates could occur in the rooms within the building or out at a location of choice. All new clients had a police check run and other tests for safety and security of rentals.

“I’m impressed by your restraint,” Amber said afterward. “Many new rentals jump at the beginning and try to show their confidence. This job isn’t just about sexually pleasing a client. Mostly it’s not. It’s about fantasies, hidden or repressed desires, but also to curb loneliness, depression, and insecurities. It needs to be the whole package. Being hired company for a night in this demand requires a degree of acting. You need to seem like you care whether you like the client or not, and you need to have a good head on your shoulders. Clients can mess with you when it’s not about the sex. Some are … lonely. Really lonely.”

Amber handed me a booklet. “This is a company form for new employees. All forms are kept locked and only accessed by a manager, one senior HR person, and myself. We do, in saying that, need your real name and details.”