Nobody's (5 page)

“What about tonight?”

“What just happened, I suppose.”

“We had sex.”

A smile formed on his face and I let out a soft chuckle.

“I know that,” I told him.

“Then what else is there to think about then? Is it more complicated than that?”

I hesitated answering him. It was a question I didn’t want to consider and certainly one I wasn’t going to answer. Even though he was drifting off to sleep, I could sense that there was more to it than just a simple inquiry. This was the first time I had spoken to him in a way that didn’t have a pretense of sex to it. This was more than just empty pillow talk.

I decided that the best response was none at all. I didn’t want to tell him that already he was the best client I ever had. I had to remain in control. If he knew that I felt something for him, even if it was just that he was a better customer than all the others, I would put him in a place that would hurt my position to negotiate further with him.

I leaned in close to him and kissed him on the cheek once again. Another smile formed upon his face to let me know that he appreciated the gesture.

“Get some sleep, Angel. That is what I want.”

“Whatever you desire…”

I curled up next to him to see if he would at least grant me that kind of intimacy. He wrapped one arm around me and I rested my head upon his chest. Suddenly realizing how tired I was from everything he had put me through, I closed my eyes and quickly drifted off to sleep.

I woke up several hours later when the sun peeked in through the windows and caught my eyes. When I stretched my arms and sat up from the bed, Thomas was nowhere to be found. I lazily made my way toward to the bathroom to wake myself up. When I walked into the living room, Thomas was sitting at the table.

He was already fully-dressed in his suit. I felt embarrassed, my only clothes strewn across the floor in last night’s heat of passion. But Thomas didn’t seem to mind as he stood up from the table and offered me a seat.

“Please, Angel. Will you join me for breakfast?”

I hastily put my underwear and dress back on as I took a seat across from him.

The table was right next to the large window wall of his suite. The city was different in the morning. I looked out and could see all of the old buildings with the morning sun shining from the east upon them. In the distance, I could see the dreariness of my apartment looking back at me. My night with Thomas was over and it would only be a few moments before I would have to return to it.

The smell of the food brought my attention away from the view and I was slightly taken aback at the amount of food upon the table. Eggs and pancakes and waffles. Sausage and bacon. Juices and fresh fruit. Croissants, toast and other kinds of pastries. It was a breakfast buffet except there was no one here to eat it.

“Please, help yourself.”

I tried to remain modest despite the rumbling of my stomach. I ate the food while trying to remain the picture perfect prostitute that he had paid so much for.

“You’re a brunette.”

I gulped a piece of my breakfast, suddenly remembering how radically different I must have looked to him. I looked down at the table and slowly nodded my head to acknowledge the truth.

“Why do you wear a wig?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said as I shrugged my shoulders.

I hesitated. Thomas was still a client. I was his whore. We were both actors playing a part. We were reciting lines from a script. As far as I was concerned, he paid me for this time to play my part. Him asking me about my hair was a business question. It wasn’t a question for Angel. It was a question for the real me. But I reluctantly gave him an answer, reminding myself to stay in character.

“It’s out of the ordinary,” I said. “I want to stick out from all of the other women.”

“Why would you need to stick out? You’re already beautiful.”

I looked up at him but there was no expression on his face. There was no smirk or smile. There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in his tone and his eyes didn’t hide anything more than an intensity that backed-up what he had just said. I turned down at my plate of food, away from his gaze, and took another bite.

We sat there in silence as we ate the excessive breakfast buffet he had prepared for me. Every now and then I would look up at him and he would ask me if I was enjoying the food. I gave him a genuine response when I told him that it was doing more than just satisfying my appetite.

It was strange. I made my way out on the streets last night to look for a man to spend the night with. I offered them an intimate encounter, one hour at a time. Maybe it was just because I was spending my time in the wrong part of town but there was something different about Thomas. Despite him having his way with me just last night, there was a satisfaction emanating from him this very moment. He was enjoying my company even though I was sitting all the way across from him and not saying a word.

I looked up at him and wanted to ask him a question. I wanted to talk to him about something besides just satisfying our own desires. But when he looked back at me, I restrained myself. I bit my tongue and simply smiled back at him, too afraid to learn more about him. I wasn’t supposed to care about the actor. All that mattered were the characters being played and the cameras were still rolling.

“How about now, Angel?”

“W-what?”

“Where you usually stay. It was dark late last night but now that the sun is out, can you point out where you usually stay? If I’m correct, I picked you up right around this area.”

He pointed off into the distance at the slums my apartment was located in. Even from far away and just looking at it, you could feel how unsavory the entire area was. I gulped my food and reluctantly nodded my head to confirm.

“Somewhere around there, yeah.”

“I’m only asking you Angel because my driver needs a little heads-up on where to drop you off. If you remember, he was lost last night and you were the tour guide that saved him.”

“Right.”

I returned his smile but inside my heart sank a little. This was it. Just as quickly as he had come into my life, I was being forced to say goodbye. I shook the thought out of my head as I had grown so accustomed to doing so many times in his suite and remembered why I was here in the first place. I made more money in one night than I made in months. I had everything to be thankful for.

As Thomas finished his breakfast, he continued to watch me eat from across the table. I wanted to ask him why he was staring at me so intently. His stare wasn’t perverse or deviant. He looked at me like he was just admiring me.

“I have something to ask you, Angel.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Mr. Livingston. You can ask whatever you like.”

“It’s not that simple. It’s more than just a question. It’s a request, actually. One that is completely selfish. Can I still ask you?”

“Of course,” I smiled at him, my mouth still full of food.

“I was thinking, Angel, if you would be so inclined… that we could make this something more.”

“More?”

“Do you have regular… clients, Angel?”

“I have people I’ve seen more than once but I wouldn’t call them regulars.”

“How frequently would be too frequently, Angel?”

He looked at me with his deep green eyes and held an intense stare with me that projected a seriousness that words could never say. I suddenly found myself in the position to ask more of him.

“There is no such thing as too frequent,” I said to him.

“Are you sure about that?”

“I don’t believe you’re capable of asking too much of me, Mr. Livingston.”

“Tonight. I’d like to see you again tonight.”

“Okay. Is there a time specifically tonight?”

“As soon as the sun goes down. Am I being inappropriate, Angel?”

“Not at all.”

“I did run into you late last night. Your fee will be a little greater, I’m assuming.”

“I suppose I could give you a little discount…”

I smirked at him and the rigidness painted on his face disappeared. It happened again. It was as if I had willed him into doing what I wanted him to do. I convinced his limo to stop and pick me up and now he was asking to see me again before we had even said goodbye.

He stood up from the table and straightened his suit out.

“I’m sorry, Angel, but I must say goodbye at this point. There’s no need for you to leave immediately. Please. Sit. Enjoy the rest of your breakfast and make yourself at home. My limo will be on call whenever you’re ready. In fact, you can stay here if you prefer. It would make it easier for me to find you.”

He walked over to me and despite my mouth still being full of food, he leaned down and kissed me tenderly upon the lips. He winked at me and walked out of the suite without a care in the world. I didn’t even have a moment to react. I was still stuck in disbelief at everything he was offering to me. When the door closed, the locked clicked and snapped me back to my senses. I was having trouble wrapping my head around everything that had just happened.

We already had a date set for tonight and it was clear that Thomas had the money to pay for me. But he was offering me the opportunity to stay in his suite. His time was up. He had gotten what he had paid for. But when I looked at my apartment complex in the distance, I wondered if I should give him just a little bit more time, even if he wasn’t here.

“Thank you, Thomas Livingston.”

I took sip of orange juice and leaned back in my chair. My appetite satiated, I enjoyed my moment of contentedness as I watched the sun rise over the city.

Chapter 5

I sighed as I looked out into the city. The view from the suite was amazing. And it wasn’t just the view. I turned around and bathed in the luxuriousness of it all. It was leagues nicer than my apartment and Thomas had left me here without a care in the world. But despite having a date scheduled with him for later tonight, I soaked in the atmosphere surrounding me like it was the last time I would ever be in this room before I finally gathered my belongings and left. As soon as I stepped out the door, a man in uniform was there to greet me.

“Hello,” he said as he tipped his cap to me. “I’m Mr. Livingston’s driver. Mr. Livingston informed me that I’ll be taking you where you need to go.”

He was a tall and rigid man. I couldn’t figure out whether his posture was a result of proper etiquette or if he was just simply built that way. Even though he looked like a chauffeur and was in service to another man, he still seemed significantly better off than most of the people I was used to seeing. His face was clean-shaven and underneath his hat the dark hair was cropped closed to his head.

I couldn’t take him in for too long because I didn’t want to test his patience. I simply nodded my head and he led me back through the hotel and into the limo.

“Where will be heading, Miss Angel?” he asked me from the driver’s seat.

“Take me to…”

I stopped myself for a second. A thought came across my mind that made me reconsider what I was about to tell him. He never said that he would take me straight home. He only asked where he should take me.

“What is your name?”

“Call me William.”

“William… Where have you been instructed to take me?”

“Mr. Livingston informed me to take you wherever you needed to go.”

“I-I need to pick something up for Thomas tonight. We have a date. Could you take me to a place where I can buy a new outfit?”

“I know just the place.”

William tipped his cap to me and just like that we were on our way. It wasn’t a lie. I intended on doing something special for Thomas tonight. It was the least I could do. But more importantly, I figured I would take this time to take advantage of Thomas’s generosity. With two thousand dollars in my purse and a chauffeur willing to take me anywhere I wanted to go, for once, I felt like I had just a little bit of freedom.

There were two ways to attract a man close enough to get him to talk to you. The first is how you did your makeup and your hair. The red wig stuff in my purse made it clear that I wasn’t the average woman and despite Thomas’s earlier comments, natural beauty wasn’t enough to stand out from the crowd. Mascara, eye shadow, blush, lipstick. All of these were tools to get a man to look in your direction. Obviously, there was a thin line between looking like a clown and fooling a man into thinking that your skin was unblemished and your face was shaped perfectly. But I had enough success with my clients to know that I wasn’t making a fool of myself in that department.

That left the outfit. I put less thought into what I needed to wear. It was simple. Show a lot of skin but don’t do anything illegal. You wanted people to know that you were a prostitute but not a whore, even though the two were interchangeable. That usually involved tight clothing that pushed my breasts up and hiked up my legs.

I usually got my outfits at a local thrift shop near my apartment. Every now and then there would be a few name brands but the tag on the inside of the dress was less important than what it did to my features.

Now that I actually had some money in my purse and just a little bit more motivation to try harder, I decided to spend some of the money Thomas had generously donated to me. I figured it was the least I could do since he did tip me more than I could have asked for.

We pulled up to a small boutique just a few blocks from the hotel. From the outside, the store was plastered with mannequins of women wearing ridiculously elegant outfits. I felt like I was burning money just looking at them.

“Will this place suffice, Ms. Angel?” William asked me politely.

I stared at the mannequins through the windows and wondered what I would look like in any of those outfits. Then I looked closer and could see my reflection in the glass. My black dress looked completely out of place next to the mannequins. Was this what I really looked like? I didn’t look like someone who would be spending time with a man like Thomas. I looked like someone who belonged back in the slums, turning tricks for a few bucks to make ends meet.

“Miss Angel?”