SIX (II)

“I mean, the job was for the position of a girlfriend, so that’s checking out the merchandise for you. Not that I’m innocent. I’m fine. But if this is like… something a man and a woman do like… something I haven’t seen yet except in movies…”What the hell am I babbling about? “I’m saying I haven’t done the ‘how’ of this play ever yet.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No. I have a dildo in my room, that’s the best that I can say.” I even said that proudly, because that couldn’t be more embarrassing than saying I hadn’t had a boyfriend in my twenty-one years. “No, I’m not a lesbian either.”

He was looking at me now like I was a specimen in a petri dish under a microscope. “I thought at first that you'd just been very private with your relationships that it wasn’t shown in the report. But… you’ve liked men before?”

“Sure. But not enough to want to have sex with.”

“Have you been asked out? I mean, of course, you have…”

“Of course, I have been! I’m not completely hopeless.”

“Oh, baby, I… that wasn’t an insult. I just… couldn’t imagine that you never…”

“I told you, I am not completely innocent. I’m fine.”

He looked like he was going to say something, but then he closed his mouth as if he wasn’t sure if it was safe to say what he was about to say.

Good for him.

“Okay, so, just to make this clear… sex is part of this arrangement, I’m sure.” I took my bug back. I needed something on my hands.

His eyebrows were suddenly closer together.

“Don’t put laces and flowers on it,” I warned. “Be brutally honest.”

“There’s kind of a tricky answer to that.”

“How tricky is a ‘yes?’” I asked, exasperated.

He sighed. “It is tricky. You know why I took so much care in choosing the candidate for the kind of work I need you to do?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want my mother to get any kind of hint that this is just a convenient arrangement.”

“You’ve explained that.”

“It will be in writing. You’re going to meet my parents, of course. You gotta be beautiful, desirable, natural, young… and someone I can’t stop touching.”

I thought something down there just kind of melted. “Touching. So we’re going to have sex,” I repeated, took a deep breath. “Probably lots of it.”

He was looking too somber.

“Look, Bain. Make no mistake about this. If you happen to be physically deplorable to me, no amount of money would make me even consider your proposal. I would be questioning it, too, if, in the last five days, you made me feel sick about the proposition. So don’t look at me like that.”

“What about your mother?”

“We’ve got our house on the list of a private agent. So it’s not impossible. We’ll be losing our house, but…” I gulped.

“Thank you… I guess, for saying you feel safe with me.”

I nodded slowly. “I do…”

“You are it, aren’t you? The one I have been looking for for months.” He looked relieved.

“And I’ve been waiting for some help from above for months,” I admitted. I recovered my mug of coffee, glad that we’ve gone through that part now.

“To be honest, I thought you wouldn’t accept it.”

“You didn’t think I would jump at the offer?”

He shook his head. “No. I watched you every night and you swiped away advances left and right. You weren’t even thinking about it, or of using your body to earn something extra. You are in a place where you can easily do so, but you were reading books and writing notes for your paper on your breaks.”

“And so?” I reacted. People always find that weird and almost pitiful, when they realized I was truly studying for my exams at work. “Never mind.” I carefully sipped hot coffee. “Where are we going today?”

“You don’t want me to continue anymore? Because there’s something else that made you a definite candidate for me.”

I stared suspiciously at him. “What?”

“The first night you saw me, you couldn’t stop looking.”

My face started to heat up. “I’m not denying it. But it’s because you kept looking at me, too!”

I had already noticed him more than the other cute guys in his crowd, but I might not have given him more attention had Lucy not whispered to my ear that the man with moody eyes kept following me with his eyes.

“That’s the point, I think, that you’ll not find this job painful. That you’ll enjoy this like I will.”

“There’s nothing painful, other than it’s been so weird so far,” I said.

“It shouldn’t. My mother would see right away if I’m the only one who wants you.”

I laughed. “How? Who wouldn’t want you?”

We were looking at each other like caught gazelles after I said that.

“You really do like me, too, huh?”

I tried to calm myself by taking a deep breath. “Mr. Dunham, just to make my point clear, you are irresistible. You are hot, you are such an eye candy, and have money to buy bling and other glittery thingies—women would kill to take you home and have sex with you in their kitchen. Or bedroom,” I hastily added. God, what is wrong with my mouth when I’m with him?!

He was laughing at me.

“Stop!” I said.

“Let’s just test it, shall we?”

“Now?”

He carefully took the mug again from my hands and lowered it down the side of his mug again on the counter.

“Yes. In your kitchen. Do you know how much of a tease you’ve been since you opened the front door? And, to make this official. I’m taking your consent to my offer…”