The Blue Room: Vol. 1 (7 page)

          I wonder for a second if
I'm doing the right thing. If there isn't some other way to find Rita, some
better way, some way that doesn't require me to sacrifice my virginity in the
process. But I know now that I'm Rita's last hope. The police never care about
girls like Rita – strippers, hookers, whatever you want to call them. And if
the clientele here at the Blue Room is as powerful as I'm starting to
understand it is, then the last thing any policeman in this town wants to do is
to piss them off, ask too many questions. That's just the way things are in
this town. The rich get richer and the poor get – whatever it was Rita got.

          I've got to find out what
happened to her. I've got to find out why.

          I sit alone in my room,
catching my breath. I'm almost tempted to smoke a cigarette, but I'm pretty
sure if I do Josephine Walters is going to descend on me like a hawk and give
me a lecture about spoiling my teeth and skin. They treat us right, here,
that's for sure. Like prized cows, fattened for the slaughter.

          From my suitcase I take out
a little ribbon, a locket dangling on the end of it. Rita bought it for me a
few weeks after she started working at the Blue Room.

          “You work so hard,” she
said to me. “You're so beautiful. You deserve a little something for yourself.”

          I remember how I stared at
it in amazement. That silver must have cost her a fortune – that's what I said.
I remember telling her how I couldn't accept a gift like that – how I couldn't
understand how a girl like Rita could make so much money, so fast.

          “Thank you.”

          “Don't thank me. Thank Mr.
X.”

          She smiled at me sadly.

          “It's my very first spend,”
she said. “I wanted the first money I earned at the Blue Room to go to somebody
other than myself. It makes me feel better that way...”

          “You don't have to...”

          “Do you
know
how big
my student loans are?” She swallowed. “My mom and dad – they co-signed my med
school loans. But my dad lost his job – and they're gonna lose the house, too,
if they're saddled with my debt.” She inhaled sharply. “I'm going to do what I
have to do. I got them into this mess. I'll get them out.”

          The first night I wore the
locket, I thought I'd sell it. I was desperate at the time, making barely more
than minimum wage at my receptionist job, and all I could think of was how much
I could pawn it for. It was so tempting. How many hours of my shift would it
get me? Fifteen? Forty? Enough for a whole night's sleep at a time? Enough for
fifteen minutes of Rita's time at the Blue Room.

          But after hearing what she
said about it being her first purchase, I couldn't sell it. I couldn't bring
myself to. Rita had wanted to do something nice for me – she'd given it to me –
she'd bound us together.

          Even today I feel
responsible for taking it. What would have happened if I'd insisted, if I'd
refused to take it at all, if I hadn't looked at that locket and seen dollar
signs, and instead told her that what she was doing was dangerous, insisted
that she stop?

          She might be with me,
still, in our apartment. Doctor Rita – or almost. Successful, happy, paying off
her med-school loans the old-fashioned way. But such an imagining – I don't
have time for hypotheticals. I don't have time for nice little alternatives.
All I know is that Rita was my best friend, like a sister I’ve never had, and
now there's a bigger chance than I want to admit that she's dead.

          So I finger the locket. And
I tell myself I'll do what I have to do. Virginity's just a social construct,
after all; sex is just a thing you do with your body. Sex is just an act.
Finding Rita is another act. I tell myself that's all I need to know.

          So I sit down with my
schedule, and I see I've only got five minutes of reminiscing before

         
7:00 pm. Facial.

          7:30 pm. Makeover.

         
I don't even have to go anywhere. A
small, quiet brunette raps at my door within seconds of the clock hitting
seven; she covers me with poultices and ointments and scrubs which probably
cost more than a whole month's salary at Dr. O'Donovan's office.

          As they plump and primp me,
I start to feel sick again. It's not just the thought of having sex with
someone I don't love. People do that often enough, I guess. It's being
surrounded by so much money. It's the same feeling I had when Rita gave me that
necklace. The Creme de Mer ointments, the Clarins creams, that distinctive
perfume that you know only oligarch's wives can afford – all of the smells, the
tastes, the sensations, remind me that everyone around me can buy and sell me
in a heartbeat. The kind of money that could save my mother's life? That's just
a tip scrawled on a credit card bill for one night on the town.

          It makes me sick, at first.

          And then I start thinking.

         
One jar of these creams.
Sell it on ebay for $200. Ten of those – that's a long way towards covering
Mom's hospital debt. Pocket a necklace or two – that's a round of chemo.

          A stack of Washingtons by
the bedside? That's an experimental, aggressive treatment. The kind that might
save someone's life. The kind that last-ditch attempts are made of.

          And then it hits me.

          I'm like Rita.

          I want that money just as
much.

          Everyone around me is
buying me, selling me, like I'm a toy. Terrence Blue wants to buy and sell me.
At once I hate everyone around me, all these people who think they own me, who
think they know what I'm like. The people who thought they owned Rita, too,
before they got tired of owning her – whatever that means.

          If I'm gonna be bought and
sold, I'd better be the one doing the selling. I want to make a profit on my
own back.

          All these people – Terrence
Blue, Angus the businessman – I don't want to just
fuck
them. I want to
be
them. I want to have the power they have. I want to buy and sell and trade
with the best of them, rip them off and send the proceeds to my mother in
Nevada.

          Whoever my first patron
was, no matter how ugly, no matter how repulsive, I resolved to screw him. In
more ways than one. I was going to do this
my
way. Just like Terrence.

          As the girl leaned over me
and started putting make-up on my face, changing me into a creature of
unrecognizable beauty, a girl who hardly looked like
me
at all, I
thought of all the girls I knew back home who lost their virginities for far
less romantic reason. At parties with guys, in the back of fraternity houses,
out of peer pressure, out of fear of being the last virgin at our school.

          I wouldn't just do it for
money. I'd do it for knowledge. For power.

          One day, I swore to myself,
I was going to walk into a room with Terrence Blue and buy and sell this place
from right out under him.

          “Here, Miss Atussi!” The
girl rolled out a mirror to show me what she'd done.

          I couldn't believe the
sight of me. I was dressed in a form-fitting mint-colored minidress, the heels
on my feet sparkly and diamond-encrusted. My hair was smooth and sleek in a
pageboy style; my lips were glossed and my eyes were blue, pouty, smoky – the
eyes of a femme fatale. I didn't look like some cheap streetwalker, I thought.
If I was going to be a prostitute, I was going to be a damn expensive one.

          “Sexy!” I heard Mrs.
Walter's voice in the doorway. “Sexy, Miss Atussi, is more than just having
expensive shoes. It's about more than how much skin you reveal. It's about how
you carrying yourself. It's about how you look men in the eyes. Our Blues Girls
look and act like a million bucks. Unattainable. Worthy of being won. These men
are powerful men who seek out the best – like challenges. They bet on
racehorses, collect artwork, stay at the nicest hotels. They want their sex to
be the best experience they've had, too. If you're too easy, you're not worth
it.  If you play hard to get but display enough interest in him, then you will
present a challenge to him. He will want you. Make him crave you, and you will
find yourself cherished.”

          I didn't know a lot about
being alluring. But I knew a lot about pretending. Back before money was too
tight for me to think about anything but work, I'd wanted to be an actress.
Well, I'd act now.

          My first patron wouldn't
know what hit him.

          “He will meet you in the
hotel tonight to take you to dinner downstairs at Azure. Then he will follow
you back up to your room after dinner to – get to know you better. If you
please him enough during that time, and he stays until morning, you'll double
your income. Given your – unique – status, that would net you about twenty-five
thousand.”

          My jaw drops. “Dollars?”

          “Dollars – what did you
think?”

          My jaw's still hanging
open.

          “But
only
if you
impress him enough. The only thing guaranteed is dinner.”

          “What's the point of hiring
a hooker if you don't want to sleep with her?” I can hear myself get nasty.

          “This patron is selective,”
she says. “He wants to see if he likes you enough to take things further. His
time is precious and he doesn't like to waste it.”

          I'm almost insulted. Not
only do I have to sell my body for money – I have to convince someone I'm worth
it?

          “Now, you look perfect,”
Mrs. Walters says. “Don't mess up your makeup before he sees you. As for after
– well, men like ruining a woman's makeup themselves. But let it be a man's
doing – not some mess you make between now and then.”

          I say nothing. I'm too
stunned to come up with a clever remark.

          I go back to my hotel room
and try to relax. I turn on the television, listen to music. I try to turn on
my computer only to find that the wireless is blocked. I guess they're not too
keen on us girls having any contact with the outside world while we're here.

          I watch the clock tick
down.

          8:25...8:26...8:29.

          8:30.

          The doorbell rings.

Chapter
8

         
A
t once I snap to my feet. I'm on it, I tell myself. Elegant.
Unattainable. Alluring.

          At least until I knock over
the vase on the bedside table.

          “Oh, shit!” All the
alluring in the world flies right out of me as I try to pick up the pieces of
the vase. “Shit, shit, shit.”

          “Not really the reaction I
was hoping for!”

          Terrence Blue is standing
in the doorway.

          He's all dressed up – so
much so it takes me a second to be sure it's really him. In the Blue Room,
Terrence had gone for grunge, but now he's quite the gentleman: clean-shaven,
in an impeccably tailored suit.

          Surely he knows the
client's coming! Or is this all part of Terrence's sick sense of humor – to try
and throw me off my game when I least expect it.

          “I'm sorry,” I say. “It's
the vase. It's probably a Waterford or something – I'm sorry.”

          “No harm done.” He just
strolls in like he owns the place. Which, to be fair, he does. “I'll just
replace it then.” He picks up the pieces and starts putting them in the
trashcan. “I'll get housekeeping in here while we're gone.”

          “Not that it isn't lovely
to see you,” I try to smile. “But you're kind of ruining my concentration.”

          “And what is it that you're
concentrating on, dear Staci?”

“I'm preparing for my...uh...
work
meeting
.”

          He shuts the door and looks
me up and down. I can feel how his eyes sear into me. It feels terrifying – and
good, at the same time. I'm in disarray – mentally, physically. How can this
man have such an effect on me? I think I'm powerful, think I'm strong, ready
for all the challenges that lie before me, and then in a heartbeat this
Terrence Blue can have me up against a wall, panting, desperate.

          “You look delectable,
Staci. I'm sure your
work meeting
will go very well indeed. Makeovers
always do a number on my girls – but you're a butterfly, now. Completely
transformed. Into the glam femme fatale I always knew you were.”

          Before I can say anything
Terrence has me up against the door, his hand moving up my inner thigh,
fingering my panties.

         
Great
, I think. The
last thing I can afford right now is to ruin the expensive La Perla lace
panties that were part of my
work uniform
. But Terrence has already got
them soaked through. As much by the look he gives me as by his sensual touch.