Page 16 of Hired Help

Her gaze swipes across my face before she faces straight ahead, exiting the moment the doors open. “If I can afford the best, why would I buy anything cheaper? Someone has to book these rooms, or they’re wasted.”

If I can afford the best.

I guess that explains how she picked my listing. Not for my physical attributes or the highly rated commentary but because she scanned the service providers on offer and automatically took the most expensive.

The thought rolls some of my anxiety away. It’s always better once I know the reason someone chose my ad from all those on offer.

“Are you from Christchurch?” I ask, detecting an accent from further north.

“I am now,” she says, inserting her key and opening the door wide to let me pass in front of her. “My father moved me all over when I was little.”

She follows through to the lounge, then overtakes me, moving to the curtains, which are half drawn, to fling them wide.

The large room is separated into a half dozen different uses with the assortment of furniture but instead of sitting, she moves through to the adjoining kitchen. There’s a kettle that she fills before switching it on.

I guess in places this expensive, no one washes their underwear by boiling it in the jug.

“Do you want a drink of anything?” She opens the fridge, pulling out a bottle of wine and wrinkling her nose.

“A cup of tea would be good.” I couldn’t care less about the actual drink, but the sharpness of her movements indicate nerves and I want her to relax.

I move to the wall nearest her, leaning against what would be the doorframe if the hotel had bothered to put doors in the place. The only ones in the open-plan space must lead to the bedroom and the bathroom.

My caution would usually lead me to check both, it wouldn’t be the first time a hidden surprise was waiting, but I watched her book the room. There’s no reason to suspect it’s not safe.

And she’s a teenager. Problem number one.

“What did you want my help with?” I shift my feet before adding, “I’m not used to being hired by clients so young.”

Her shoulders hunch, then she squares them and turns back to the kettle, the loss of eye contact apparently enough to make her more relaxed. “My partner said I was terrible in bed. I guess I wanted an expert opinion.”

There’s emotion lurking behind those words but even if she’d been a robot, I would wince in sympathy. Jesus, teens can be cruel. Who the hell would ever expect a girl this age to be knowledgeable in the bedroom?

As I watch her fussy movements while she prepares our beverages, I also wonder what the fuck was wrong with whoever she was sleeping with. When I was that young, a face this pretty in a magazine would have been enough to get me off. Let alone, to be in the same room, in the samebed.

“You understand I’m not a rating service?”

Her jaw clenches and I guess there was far too much flippancy in the tone.

“And you don’t need one,” I add before this meeting can go any further south. “You’re a teenager. You’re meant to be finding out what you do and don’t like, not becoming an expert in pleasuring a man.”

Now her shoulders tense as hard as her jaw. “I don’t like any of it,” she confesses in a tiny voice, almost a whimper; a confession that makes me ache with sadness. “But I want to.”

With the cups in hand, we move back to the lounge. I take a seat on the sofa and although I pat the cushion beside me in welcome, she chooses the separate recliner, curling her knees up as she sits, cradling the mug against her chest like the world’s least adequate shield.

Her body has a tremor so fast, she’s vibrating.

“Well, what have you tried?”

She pulls at the skin of her throat, twisting it and letting it go before pinching it again. The crimson stain shows how savage the small motions are.

I put my cup on the table and lean forward, hands clasped between my knees. “You don’t have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable. You don’t have to doanythingif it makes you uncomfortable. Any time you like, you can ask me to stop talking or change the subject or leave and I’ll do that, okay?”

Brooke gives a curt nod, then stares into her coffee for so long, I think the last of my proposed scenarios is about to be put into force.

But she doesn’t. That more than anything, tells me how worried she is. I want to smack whatever boy eroded her confidence to this level until his face is black and blue.

“I guess…” A deep crease appears on her smooth brow. “You mean like positions and stuff?”

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