Page 4 of His Promise

He. I’m not even sure whoheis.

I stare at his back, and my eyebrows knit. He looks like he’s in his mid-thirties, about my age. Is that old enough to be a councilman? Devin was,is, young for his success, but he’s still ten years older than I am.

“Are you Mr. Gruco?” I ask because I can’t fend off my curiosity. My embarrassment melts as my curiosity grows, and I forget that I’m a prostitute in his mind. I forget I’m not supposed to be up here.

He picks up a glass on a drink cart at the edge of his bed and turns his head to scold me. “Part of the agreed terms are that you’re to refer to me asSir. You’re not to say my name.”

“Right,” I say, shaking my head as if I forgot. Then I remember I couldn’t have forgotten, and I take a breath to tell him this is a misunderstanding, and that I’m not the person meeting him tonight. “Listen, this is really awkward, but—”

“Don’t tell me this is your first time.” He sets the glass down and sighs. He seems disappointed, and the engrained response to avoid disappointment swoops in like a shadow I can’t get rid of.

He’sthattype of man. The kind that can make you feel as if you’ve done something wrong with the narrowing of his eyes. A slight frown. He’s the kind you don’t want to disappoint, and you can’t help it.

I was a sucker for that type of man when I was eighteen years old and met my husband while I was waiting on his table. I was a sucker for that type when I married him, and I was a sucker when I let it all unravel into the hell it became.

Ihatethat type of man.

“Not even close,” I mutter, without thinking through what I’m saying. I may not have been a prostitute technically, but he’s not the first man like this I’ve dealt with. It’s not my first time.

My ears burn with both anger at myself and embarrassment, and I open my mouth to try yet again to explain the misunderstanding, but I pause and watch as he takes out his wallet.

“Great. A thousand, right?”

Air sticks in my throat, and my lungs begin to burn.

A thousand.

A thousand dollars.

“Yes?” he asks again when I don’t answer. He has the bills out now. Ten crisp Benjamins dangle in his grasp carelessly. It’s nothing to him. It’s paper.

But it’s everything to me.

My eyes don’t move away from the money in his hand, the week’s worth of bartending at a shitty nightclub for men more perverted than him. The rent payment that would put me ahead for the first time since leaving Devin. That would putusahead.

My son’s image flutters into my mind, and the words are out of my mouth before I can think about what this will make me. Officially.

“For the hour.”

He gives a curt nod and places the stack of bills on the cart like this is no big deal. Like I’m not about to sign away my dignity for the gold he thinks is crumbs.

It’s just sex.

One night.

Onehour.

…

What the hell am I doing?

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