Page 26 of The Saint

He smirked slightly, his own words thrown back at him. “Alright, sweetheart.” He grabbed his glass and took a drink. “If you were my whore, we’d have a very different relationship. I’d boss you around, tell you what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. But I don’t want that kind of relationship with you because I’m in love with you.”

My insecurity started to slip away.

“I wouldn’t pay a whore to do vanilla. But I’ll gladly do that with you. I’d fuck a woman in the ass, but I wouldn’t do that with you. That’s the difference.”

A surge of jealousy suddenly filled me but I wasn’t sure why. He didn’t care about all the guys I fucked around with, so it seemed immature to care about his past. But he spoke about prostitution like he was well-acquainted with it. “It sounds like you’ve paid for sex a lot.”

He responded honestly, like he always did. “A lot isn’t accurate.Somewould be more appropriate.”

“But you’re so hot. Why would you need to pay someone?”

He would normally have smiled at the comment, but he didn’t this time. “Sometimes it’s nice to get down to business with no bullshit. And you can do things that you wouldn’t do with a woman you met at a bar or whatever.”

“Like?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“So…you wouldn’t fuck me in the ass?” I was almost offended by it, that he would do stuff with strangers but not with me.

He looked me dead in the eye. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t like it.”

“You don’t know?—”

“I do,” he said firmly. “It hurts like hell. I don’t mind hurting a woman who’s being paid to be hurt, but I don’t have any desire to do something like that to you. You’re taking this offensively when it should be the opposite.”

“I just didn’t realize you were into…other things.”

“I’m a man. Of course I am.”

“But if you won’t do those things with me?—”

“What we have is so much better than anything I’ve ever paid for. You can’t put a price on this.”

He smacked my insecurity away like a buzzing gnat.

I felt better, but unease still lingered in my chest.

He saw it on the surface of my eyes. “What’s bothering you, sweetheart?”

I wanted to hide from the truth, lie and say everything was fine, but he didn’t lie to me, so I didn’t want to lie to him. “I guess…I’m jealous. Knowing you were paying whores to do whatever you wanted… I don’t know.”

“There were far more women I didn’t pay, if that makes you feel better.”

“It doesn’t,” I said with a sarcastic laugh. “Just hard to wrap my mind around it.”

He stared at me for a while. “You said you’ve been with a lot of guys. It doesn’t bother me.”

“But I didn’t pay them.”

“Why does the exchange of money matter?”

“I don’t know…it just bothers me.”

“Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. You don’t strike me as the kind of woman to look down on it.”

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