He throws a package down on the counter. “For you. I didn’t see any birth control stuffed in your panties yesterday. And we both came inside you. So…”
I look at the package. “What is it?” When I look up at him, he’s puzzled. “What?”
“It’s the morning-after pill. You’ve never taken one?”
I open my mouth to speak, then close it immediately and go back to cleaning. I’m not even going there. “Thanks. I’ll take it as soon as I’m done here.” But he doesn’t move. I wait a few more seconds before looking up again. “What?”
His dark eyes are squinting down at me. “You’re not the maid.”
“I know. I’m just…” I shrug. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”
“We won’t kick you out. Even if you don’t help.”
“OK,” I say meekly.
“You should eat. And then go back to bed. You look…”
“Beaten?” I fill in the word he won’t say.
“Like you need someone to be more careful with you.”
When I look up this time, he’s already walking away. “I’ll be in my office if you need anything. Oh—” He stops and looks over his shoulder just outside the entrance to his office. “We’re going out to dinner tonight.”
“Who?” I ask, stupidly, since I can figure that one out. “What will I wear?” That’s a better question.
“You. Me. JD. We’re gonna get this all out in the open over a nice meal. Talk it through like civilized people. I have parcels coming. When they arrive, please have them delivered to my office.”
He turns back to his office and walks through. “Ark,” I call out. “What if JD doesn’t come back?”
“I texted him. So he will. I told him I’m going to keep you for myself if he doesn’t.”
And then Ark goes inside his office and slides the doors closed.
I sit at my desk staring at her images for hours.
Hours.
The clock on the wall ticks away the seconds before I take this step, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s the right choice. I’ve been this man for four years. Can I be any other way? Can I imagine a life after this? Away from this work I’m so steeped in I don’t even notice the things I do are wrong?
No one sets out to sell sex. It’s not something to aspire to. It’s something that happens. An opportunity, maybe. A stroke of luck for some. A way forward for others.
Do I take advantage of girls? Yes. I know this. We offer them money in exchange for a ten-minute video of them on their knees in public, licking JD’s dick like it’s candy.
But I’ve always rationalized it away. Perhaps our money pays for a babysitter for another week? Or fixes their car? Or feeds their family?
Perhaps I am helping to keep a girl away from more dangerous predators than myself?
Or not.
It’s far more likely that giving them a taste of the money is the gateway drug that ruins their life. The ones who don’t show up… those are the smart girls. Those are the ones who see what I am, and once they get a little fresh air and the smell of money is blown off them by the wind of reality, they come to their senses.
Selling sex is dirty.
Selling sex is filthy.
Selling sex is lucrative.
And I enjoy it.
No matter how much I hate myself, I enjoy it. I like the stalking JD does. I like watching him work the room from my seat at the bar, my camera trained on the approach. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, that first meetup is gold. I add it to the movies. Those always get more hits online than the ones that just have some random girl sucking him off in an alley.
I like to see the girl from afar when she realizes the money is too good. The opportunity too fleeting. The repercussions too far away.
I love it. Because we are buying something they don’t want to sell, but they can’t turn us down.
I’m scum for this. I’ve come to terms with it. Hell, I’ve all but embraced it.
My name is Ark and I buy sex.
But one blue-eyed girl has turned my world upside down and I don’t even know how it happened.
And now I couldn’t be more disgusted, and yet so delighted, that I have these pictures on the screen. Whatever I sold to the Devil to get them, it was worth it. It was totally worth it.
I scroll through them again, choosing the best five to bring up in Photoshop. I crop our heads off first, so we’re only shown from the waist down. No need to proclaim to the world that I am scum.
Plus, I don’t want her to be seen online. Not her face, anyway. Her face belongs to me.
Her body, though… I will share her body. With JD here in the loft. With the world from the safety of anonymity. From the impersonal distance of a Tumblr blog.
Why would I do that? If I want her, why would I share her?
I can’t say no to JD. It’s not possible to deny him this. Not now. Not after he saw her scar. Not now that he has this desire to go looking again.
He needs to stay home. He needs to forget. He needs to let this girl take the place of the one he lost.
Because if he doesn’t… if he slips up and starts down that path again…
I can’t think about that right now. Not with these images of the three of us staring back at me.
Blue is sadly beautiful on the terrace, her body between us. Our hands between her legs.
JD is lost in his own want, still blissfully unaware of the scar on the back of her neck that will flip his entire world upside down.
And the rain. The streaked makeup running down Blue’s face. The dress, the bare feet… all of it says I need help.
“I’ll help you,” I whisper to the lost people on the screen.
There’s a knock at the door, so I reluctantly pull my eyes from my computer and redirect to the door. “Come in.”
Blue appears, poking her head through the parting doors, like she’s afraid I might bellow at her for interrupting. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be.” I smile, and she smiles back. “The delivery is here?”