Page 2 of Savage

I wonder when it’ll happen to me.

Giulio shakes his head. “Nah, my buddy doesn’t like the bitchy girls. Hell, he doesn’t even like the good girls. What my buddy wants…” He starts moving around the room, inspecting the other girls who are getting ready for opening hours. He dismisses all of them with a brief comment, like “too big,” or “too healthy.”

Then he stops in front of me, and his grin widens. “Hi, Stef. Have you cried this week?”

I shake my head wordlessly. I have the feeling I’m about to, though. I don’t want a reward for not crying. I don’t want a punishment for crying now. I just want to be left alone and invisible, not to be one of the chosen few. Maybe it’ll take me longer to work through Dylan’s debt this way, but I don’t want to become one of the popular girls.

“Good job,” Giulio says, reaching out to pat me on the head. I tremble, wanting to pull away but not daring. “Turns out, my buddy really likes girls who cry. He pretends he doesn’t, but I’ve got his number.” He starts laughing. “Okay, realistically, I would have picked you even if you weren’t a crybaby, but it’s definitely a bonus. So come on, let’s go show Dr. Savage a good time.”

I don’t know why a doctor would like women who cry, but it doesn’t surprise me anymore. I used to believe people went into vocations like that to help people, just like police officers and the clergy, but I’ve seen enough of their type over the past few months to know just how delusional and naive I’d been.

Private visits are even worse than being on the floor, but it’s not like I can say no. I get up and cast one last helpless look at Elena, who only smiles encouragingly at me, before my shoulders droop and I walk toward Giulio.

I don’t know what he sees when he looks at me. There’s nothing really appealing about my too-thin body, my sallow skin, or my thin, too-dry blonde hair. But if the guy likes tears, pleasing him shouldn’t really be a problem.

I want to laugh, even though it’s not actually funny at all.

Giulio puts an arm around my shoulders and plays with the strap of my top. “Hmm… well, I guess the outfit doesn’t matter. I’d put you in a sexy nurse costume, but he’d probably walk out the moment he saw you.” He guides me out the door and toward one of the private rooms.

He stops to knock only briefly, then pushes the door open.

“Hey, Dr. Savage! Nice to see you. I brought you the girl I told you about.” Giulio says. His tone is cheerful, but his grip on my shoulder is strong, as if warning me not to try anything.

Like he really needs to warn me.

The man already sitting inside is even better looking than Giulio, with dark hair and piercing eyes, and he’s wearing a well-tailored suit that’s completely at odds with most of the customers of this place.

He’s also scowling.

“Giulio,” Dr. Savage says. “Is this a joke? She looks like you picked her up out of the gutter.”

I want to be offended, but he’s not too far from the truth. Dylan and I hadn’t been far from the gutters by the time he’d handed me over to Giulio Pavone.

“No, no. You want a project. I know you. If I give you one of the other girls, you’ll just get bored. Also, you definitely don’t want one of the ones who talks back.” Giulio nudges me toward the sofa where Savage is sitting. “Go on, Stef. Show him what you can do.”

What I can do? I give him a desperate look, because we both know I have no idea what to do. Traci or Cat would already be on his lap, probably, giving him a flawless lap dance, but I’m not either of them. I’m not particularly graceful.

Giulio shoos me forward anyway, with that too-pleased look on his face that lets me know this is going exactly like he wants it to.

That doesn’t make me feel any better.

I approach the doctor, shivering and wishing I had more on than a skimpy top and a tiny skirt over an even tinier pair of sheer panties. Some of the girls would try to talk to him, but my mouth is dry, and I have nothing to say.

There are no rules in Ntimacy about keeping hands off the girls, but this man doesn’t strike me as the type to blindly grope a random woman. Maybe. Maybe I’m thinking too much of him. Maybe I’m mistaking his boredom and annoyance for something else entirely.

“Would you like a lap dance?” I whisper, the words almost lost in the room.

“What else would I want?” he says sharply.

Giulio comes over and sits down on the same couch, with a decent amount of space between him and Savage. “You could ask her to get on her knees and open her mouth,” he suggests.

Savage glares at him. “I’m not getting my cock out in front of you.”

“Fine, fine. One of these days I’ll convince you to be more adventurous. For now… Stef, just give him a nice lap dance. Let’s get our overworked doctor to relax a bit.” Giulio makes an impatient gesture with his hands.

I can’t deny that this is awkward… and I don’t like it. I don’t like that Giulio is insisting on being right here, next to us, where he has his eyes on me the entire time. If he wasn’t in here, maybe I could do a little better, but as it is, I struggle to get into position to begin one of the erotic dance routines Traci had impatiently shown me once then given up on me over.

Just a dance. I can do this. I’ve done so many of them in these past months that it should be nothing… but it doesn’t feel like nothing.

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