Selling Scarlett

chapter Twenty-Three

~ELIZABETH~

"Scarlett!"

"SCARLETT!"

"There she is!"

I'm standing in the parking lot by the side of the Joseph building, having just declined a ride from—of all people—Michael Lockwood, the guy who Hunter bashed to pieces, when my posse catches up to me. I turn around, and before I can get a good view of anything, Juniper smashes into me, surprising me with a ferocious hug. "We were dreadfully worried!"

"I'm sorry, girl." Loveless pats my head, and Bella says, "We've been looking for you for half an hour."

Juniper releases me, and I look down the row of concerned faces. "I'm really sorry. It's my fault. I went to the bar and..."

"That's when I saw Juan," Loveless says. "He was my client a few years ago and I hadn't seen him since then so I guess I got distracted."

I feel relieved. None of them saw me with Hunter—at the bar or in the bathroom.

"I'm so sorry," Loveless says. She grabs my hand, and I'm being tugged behind the rest of them. I assume we're going to our ride, and a few seconds later, there is Rod in the Escalade. The other girls shuffle me inside first—"So you don't get lost," Bella teases—so I end up in the back, sandwiched between Loveless and a wall.

As we crawl onto the crowded strip, I listen to the girls talk about the reason we're leaving 'early'. Apparently Domino, Marie V.'s overzealous client, started talking crap about the guy whose nose he broke in the fight, and Loveless thought it was a good idea for the Love Inc. crew to leave.

"So I held you guys up? I'm sorry."

"It was Loveless's fault for leaving you," Juniper says. "Don't worry. We're a family here. We forgive each other."

"How was Juan?” Bella asks Loveless. "Still looking fine as mama's apple pie?"

"Finer than a key lime pie," Loveless confirms.

She glances over at me, giving me an exaggerated wink. I don't really understand it, and it's not long before I find myself drifting off into my own little bubble of Scarlett angst. How is it possible that I’m selling my virginity as a fund-raising measure, but I'm so addicted to my crush that I'm all tied up in knots not over the auction the day after tomorrow but over who said crush is screwing and why.

By the time we make it off the strip, I've decided that I can console myself with something: Hunter is obviously in to me in the same way I am to him. I remember the way his green eyes burned when he grabbed my arm in the ladies' room. When I add everything together, I’m very tempted to say Hunter doesn't want to have a thing with me, but he can't help himself.

I smirk. Maybe it's pheromones.

My smirk turns into a frown when I remember seeing Priscilla out by Hunter's car.

I really wish that bitch would just disappear.

The road darkens as we head southeast, toward the ranch, and in the privacy of the dark, I allow myself to remember Hunter's beautiful body. I'm pretty sure this will be the last time I ever see it—I'm not doing that to myself again—so I want to remember everything. But the thing that stands out most in my mind, other than the beautiful, blissful expression on his relaxed face as I worked him toward an orgasm, is his back.

And I know Priscilla did that. And I hate her for it.

And I wonder for the hundred-thousandth time, why? Why is he with her? Assuming for a second that her personality and her job don’t matter at all (and I’m aware the job gripe is kind of hypocritical considering the company I’m presently keeping), she’s not even that striking. She’s attractive in a prefabricated kind of way, but there are lots of other fish in the sea—other pretty women with Crest-white smiles, fake tits, and mile-long legs.

I swallow, feeling weird. I'm one of them, aren't I? Okay, my boobs are real, but now that I've gotten into shape, I'm leggy, and I've always had a nice, white smile. It's strange to think of myself as pretty when I'm so accustomed to ignoring my appearance—but I am pretty. I'm striking. A week or two under Brenda's care and I'll be just as cut as the next working girl. I'm the whole package, so why is he with her?

I’m going to figure that out.

As far as the other major thing I have to think about—I feel comfortable with this, comfortable in general as the girls take turns describing features of their best-ever client, leaving the others to guess names. And then we turn onto the little asphalt road that's lined with billboards, and Loveless leans in close and whispers, "I didn't talk to Juan tonight. I saw him, but he went downstairs before I could get to him."

Her eyes widen purposefully, and I know what she's saying. She saw me disappear with Hunter. I expect her to ask me for details, but instead she pats my knee. "It's your story, Cinderella. Just tell me, did you lose a shoe?"

She has a habit of saying things that I don’t understand, but I have a miserable sense that the answer is yes. Tears fill my eyes, and she whispers, "Oh, honey."

I nod, and I feel a little better.

When Rod lets us off in front of the girls' rooms, Loveless slips off with me, toward the big house.



*



"I'm okay if you're busy tonight," I tell her as we make it to the side entrance. "I don't want you to feel like you have to babysit my sad self."

"Pshh. I don't do anything I don't want to do. Not usually. When I break that rule," Loveless says as we walk toward the elevator, "I break it for my Daddy when he calls wanting to talk about baseball.”

“Baseball?”

She shrugs. “He loves the Cubs. I can’t stand baseball.”

I think about my own Dad and feel a sharp pang. "Does your Dad know you do this?"

We step into the elevator, and Loveless smiles. "He knows I've got a good job in the entertainment industry, and he knows where I live." She shrugs. "I bet he thinks that I'm a stripper—but he doesn’t ask, and I don’t tell.” She laughs. “Thank God."

I nod. "Sounds perfect."

"It is. When it comes to some things, Mom and Dad don't want to know."

"Are your parents married?"

She shakes her head. "Divorced. My mom's married to a woman up in New York. It was an amicable split."

"Are you an only child?"

She laughs as the elevator dings and we step out. "You sound like Marchant giving me a job interview. He likes to psychoanalyze us."

"Really?" That doesn't seem like the party-going bachelor I hear so much about.

She nods. "Really. Once you get three or more women in one place, it gets crazy enough without adding an extra dose of cray cray."

I smile. "Don't I know."

I lead the way to my room and unlock the door. When we step inside, Loveless inhales deeply. "I love that smell."

"Which one?"

"That flowery smell they put into the rooms here," She looks over at a side table and smiles knowingly. "Those are tiger lilies—they aren’t what smells."

"So they spray in here to make it smell good? Like that 'new car smell' that dealers use?"

"Yep." She winks and walks over to the refrigerator, opening the door and smirking at the contents. "You've got the sex 'fridge, too."

I'm in stitches as she goes through my refrigerator, giving examples for how to use honey, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, chocolate ice cream, strawberry yogurt, pickles, champagne, white wine, chardonnay, cherries...

By the time she's finished, I feel five percent more lighthearted.

"Thank you, Loveless."

"For what?" she asks, popping open a box of refrigerated chocolates. She holds it out to me. "I'm just informing you of what goes on in this room when we get over-booked. These are girls' private rooms, but we have to make do sometimes. I think I've come in here at least three times." She smiles naughtily, and I laugh.

"You're about as innocent as a junior high schooler."

"I am not," I say defensively.

Her mouth draws into a frown. "I guess you're not. So maybe you should just get on with your story. I want the whole sordid tale. I've got a Hunter story of my own."

"Yours first," I say. She opens her mouth to protest, and I say, "Because mine will take all night."

Her brown eyes widen and she waves a chocolate. "I've got enough of this to keep me going. I'll go first, but I want the whole thing after that."

I blush, and she hoots. "Okay," I say grudgingly.

She crosses her long legs and begins to unlace her wedge sandals. "I was working with Mr. West a couple of years ago. I think maybe five. He used to come out here and get all coked up, drinking everything besides that big ole water tower Marchant uses to irrigate this place. But he never came to us that way. He's got a room here, so he would spend the night and sober up. Sometime around three or four, he would come knocking."

"On your door," I murmur.

"It wasn't me first. He used to come see one of their college friends. Elinor. But she was only here for two, three years and she moved on. I think she's a lawyer up in Portland now. Great set of natural DDs."

"What's a DD?"

She laughs. "Double-Ds."

"Ooooh." I smack my head. “Right.”

"You've got good ones, too."

I look down at my girls and smile a little awkwardly. "Thank you."

She nods, then reaches out her hand, pinkie extended. "I want you to pinkie swear for me that what I tell you next won't leave this room. Hunter hasn't been here for a while, but he's still my client until it's been a year, and he's Marchant's best buddy. I don't need a headache, you know what I mean?"

"My mother's an alcoholic."

Her face scrunches. "What?"

"I'm telling you something about me. So it won't feel so uneven."

"My Dad has another family." I inhale deeply, because the truth is, it still hurts like hell. "A new wife and two girls. She says her girls came from the sperm bank, but I think that's a lie. They look like my Dad."

"Oh." Her eyes go wide. "Well that is something. I appreciate your confidence. You're right. It does make sharing easier. That must suck a big dick."

I nod. "Yes."

"So you want to hear my Hunter story?"

"For sure."

"Well, he used to come in feeling like hell. You could see it in his eyes. He was tired and I think he would feel sick. I think he wouldn't want to go to sleep, so he'd come into my room and want to f*ck me for four hours straight."

I flinch at her words, and she gives me a knowing look. "It's not the f-word bothering you, is it?"

"No," I confess. "I have a dumb crush on him."

"So you don't want to picture him with me."

"It's silly."

"No it's not. It's natural. And it's been a while, sister. More than half a year at this point.”

"That's okay. You can, keep going. It's not like he's mine or anything."

"You sure?”

I nod, not entirely sure I want to hear, but certain I don’t want to miss out on details.

“Well…anyway. Hunter came to see me for a while, and after some time I learned his ways. I talked to the other girls and you know, we compared stories. And here's something I figured out: He likes us all to shut our eyes. We have to."

I'm confused. "Is that uncommon?" I think about that song—the one about closing your eyes during a kiss. "I would think leaving them open would be unromantic."

"You don’t get much romance here at Love Incorporated. When he wants our eyes shut, it's because that's the only way he can cum."

I feel like I've been hit in the heart. I nod.

"I think he's using that instead of tying us up or holding us down. He likes to have control. A lot of them do. But he doesn't like us to look at him—ever. And when we sleep he never does." She shrugs. “I'm not saying this is big news around here. I'm just giving you some background.”

I digest this. He's always kept his eyes open with me. "Maybe it's a privacy thing..." They are prostitutes, after all. He doesn't know them.

"No. He doesn't feel safe. It's kind of frenzied, how he acts. Trust me girl. I've been with a lot of men.”

"So that's your story.”

“That's not all of it. But now that I've seen the look on your face, I want to hear about you and him. If you don't mind going into it."

And, strangely, I don't. I haven't been totally open all the time with Suri, and even if I had, she's had so much of her own stuff going on; she hasn't been as interested in my details as she normally would be. Loveless knows Hunter, too, and I can tell she's affected by him. That she cares about him. Even if it's just escort-to-client.

So I spill. The whole dirty affair, from house party to the sauna in the bathroom at the fight.

When I'm done, her eyes are wide. "You and him have got a thing. A real thing. If he's letting you look at him, that's something, honey. And let me tell you something else. Something private that I want you to keep just to yourself."

"What is it?"

"That night. The night it happened with him and Sarabelle. I walked into the room that night because I noticed that the cameras had gone down and I was checking on everybody. Sarabelle wasn't there and he was out of it. Lying on the bed. He had gotten sick. And he was crying. He was holding onto his face, like he'd been bitch-slapped, and he was saying, "Please don't look at me. Please don't look at me like that."

I frown, confused. "What do you think that means?"

“I don't know.” She shakes her head. “I told the cops Sarabelle was gone when I found him, and he was sleeping. It didn't look like he had hurt anybody. He didn't seem in any shape to. I didn’t mention what he said. I guess it kind of struck me as his business. And I don't see Hunter West as any kidnapper. But I've wondered about it since then. And I've thought about it. How he looked. It bothered me. I was just thinking maybe you could figure it out. Someone who knows him in his real life should know. Someone should care."