The music ends, and I hand Willow the two hundred.

She smiles and says, "Thanks, Jimmy."

"Chris," I say.

Willow smiles and tosses her head the way pretty women do when they know you want them. She walks away, confident my eyes are on her a.s.s.

Thanks Jimmy, she'd said, all matter-of-fact.

Like it's every day she gets two hundred bucks for a lap dance.

In her mind she's got me right where she wants me.

I can't wait to see her face when she hears about Cameron's tip.

"OH MY G.o.d, you were incredible!" Willow gushes, three hours later. "Best s.e.x I ever had!"

I'm lying.

I mean, yeah, we had s.e.x, and I did my part, but Willow was barely involved.

She's lying on the bed, on her side, her back toward me. When she's sure I'm done, she moves forward till I slide out of her. She sits up, wipes herself with the bed sheet, and turns to watch me remove the condom and set it on the nightstand.

She regards it with disgust. Then gives me the same look.

Makes sense.

She's eighteen, I'm forty-two. It is disgusting.

From her perspective.

I prop a pillow beneath my neck and settle in to relax, but catch her looking away, and take the opportunity to suddenly lift my head and kiss her b.o.o.b.

She recoils when she realizes my lips touched her skin. Now she's glaring at me to show how she feels about the unwelcome a.s.sault.

I lean back onto the pillow and stare at her in the lamplight. This is where I'd tell her she's beautiful, if I thought she gave a s.h.i.t what I thought.

She is beautiful, though.

"Mind if I light one?" she says.

"I'd rather you didn't."

Willow frowns. She's not happy, but she'll get over it. She's two grand richer than she was ten minutes ago.

"Is this what you do?" she says.

"What?"

"Go from club to club, trolling for s.e.x?"

"I would if I could. But my wife rarely leaves town."

"She's not coming home tonight, is she?"

"No. She won't be home till noon tomorrow."

"You don't act like a first-timer," she says.

"I've been to clubs before, but never asked anyone to follow me home."

"I'm honored," she says, sounding anything but.

Willow's making small talk, waiting it out. She's been paid a huge sum for ten minutes of talk, five minutes of s.e.x. She figures I expect an hour for my cash, and she'll mentally calculate it before attempting her escape.

"You got a boyfriend?" I ask.

"Yes."

She's telling the truth. She and Bobby Mitch.e.l.l live together in an apartment on Dillingham. She doesn't know I know this. Mitch.e.l.l is a local tough guy. Hangs out at Shady's Bar &0038; Grill, a block from their apartment.

"You love him?" I ask.

She frowns. "Can we talk about something else?"

She regrets f.u.c.king me. Wishes she could just leave and put this behind her. But two grand's a lot of money for her to ditch me less than twenty minutes into the date. And even though she hated every minute of the s.e.x, it's crossing her mind this could be an easy way to make some serious coin whenever my wife's out of town.

"I've never done this before," she says.

"I believe you."

I do believe her. Willow doesn't f.u.c.k well enough to be a hooker. As a lap dancer she earns enough to put gas in her car, food and drugs on the table, keep Bobby happily unemployed, the bills paid, and the landlord at bay.

Which puts her head and shoulders above the women I've dated.

She may be a lap dancer, but she's cla.s.sy. She only wound up in bed with me because I manipulated her. I kept flashing money and pressing her b.u.t.tons and managed to turn the entire evening into a compet.i.tion between her and Cameron, one that Willow's ego refused to let her lose.

"I shouldn't have done this," she says, gathering her clothes.

"You needed the cash."

She steps into her panties, pulls on her jeans, dons her sweatshirt.

"Bad decision," she says.

"Don't beat yourself up about it," I say. "It was only a few minutes out of your life."

"I could get fired," she says, trying to make me feel guilty. Like she's the first lap dancer who ever f.u.c.ked a client.

She's dressed now, sitting on the bed, staring into s.p.a.ce.

I know what she's doing, reliving the events of the evening, trying to figure out how it got to this point.

She turns to look me in the eyes. It's starting to hit her, the way I played her tonight.

"Nice job," she says. "a.s.shole."

"You're taking this awfully hard," I say.

"I feel like a fool."

"Willow. You're adorable. Sweet. Beautiful."

She says nothing.

I add, "This has been an honor for me."

"I hate myself," she says. "I want to vomit."

I sit up and say, "This is too much. I was hoping for an encore, but it's clear you've had a change of heart. How about you and Cameron switch places?"

Cameron jumps up from the over-stuffed chair where I'd paid her five hundred to sit and wait.

Willow says, "Are you serious? You want to f.u.c.k my friend?"

"I do."

"Then f.u.c.k you both! I'm leaving!"

To Cameron I say, "If you can talk your friend into waiting another fifteen minutes, I'll give you three thousand dollars. I would've given Willow the extra money, but she's had second thoughts."

"f.u.c.k you!" Willow shouts. She grabs her purse, starts stomping off.

"Willow?" Cameron says, her voice pleading.

Willow stops, sighs, and turns around.

"What?"

"Please?" Cameron says.

Three grand's enough to change Cameron's life. For a woman with her looks, it's three months of lap dances. Willow knows this, and they're friends. But for Willow, it's just one more humiliation. Her cheeks are in flames. She's angry as h.e.l.l. Had no idea I was good for another three grand tonight, and realizes she just pouted it away.

When Willow speaks, it's to me. "You expect me to sit here and watch you f.u.c.k my friend? For more money than you paid me?"

"You don't have to watch," I say. "But you have to stay in the room."

Her withering look incorporates the full monty of teenage att.i.tude. "You don't trust me?"

"It's not personal. I don't know you well enough yet."

"You just f.u.c.ked me!" she says.

"Yes. But we agreed you only did it for the money. I'm not calling you a thief, but wouldn't you agree more women would steal a man's money than f.u.c.k him for cash?"

Willow's look says I'm a c.o.c.kroach to her. She's furious. So p.i.s.sed, her body's shaking.

Realizing how close her friend is to leaving, Cameron's in full panic mode. She crosses the floor and whispers in Willow's ear.

I know what she's doing, offering to split the money. Fifteen hundred for not having s.e.x is a pretty good deal. Willow agrees, and reluctantly crosses the floor to the comfy chair. She curls up in it and flips me the finger, then leans her head on one of the ma.s.sive arms and closes her eyes.

Cameron waits for all this to transpire, then turns toward me and approaches the bed. When she's three feet away she plants her feet and starts swaying slowly, from side to side, shows me a goofy grin, and starts to strip.

They all do that.

I don't care how old they are, first time a woman strips in front of you, she'll get a goofy grin on her face and sway her hips like she's moving to music.

Usually the routine works for me, but Cameron's all arms and legs, tall, and skinny as h.e.l.l. Except for her hair, she could be Popeye's girlfriend, Olive Oyl. And though it's an odd comment to make about a lap dancer, movement doesn't become her.

So I focus on her hair.

Thick, shoulder-length, brown, with auburn highlights.

Cameron takes her sweet time letting me see what's under her clothes. That's fine, I need time to reload. When she's naked she motions me to lie on my back. When I do, she climbs on the bed, straddles me, and works me inside her. My first thrust forces a sound from her throat that's meant to be s.e.xy, but puts me in mind of a cow caught up in a breached birth.

Willow laughs in the background, despite her anger.

I bite my lip to keep from sharing the laugh.

Cameron's short on experience, and her p.o.r.n star imitation grates on me like Porky Pig reciting Shakespeare. But for no other reason than to p.i.s.s Willow off further, I pretend I love it. I moan and groan, and thrash about under Cameron and carry on like she's the lay of my life. Of course, this encourages Cameron, who, bless her heart, starts getting into it. She makes a sudden awkward move and we disengage. Undaunted, she pretends she meant for that to happen, and throws herself on her back, spreads her legs wide and yells, "Do me, Chris! Do me!"

I scramble to my knees and notice her legs are so long they actually span the king-size bed! I focus on the triangle in the middle, and try to climb aboard, but she bucks her hips repeatedly. After thirty seconds of this bulls.h.i.t, I press my hand against her lower abdomen and pin her to the bed long enough to get inside her. This time she emits a high-pitched wail and starts chuffing while flailing her long, skinny arms and legs in all directions.

Can you picture this?

It's like trying to f.u.c.k an octopus in a windstorm.

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