The Arrangement 2 Page 2

  I don’t understand what’s happening. When I don’t move, Miss Black waives a hand at one of the large bald men flanking her. The one with dark skin and inky eyes steps toward me. He picks up my dress from the floor and hands it to me. “Dress yourself, Miss Stanz, or I’ll have him do it for you.”

  Sean leans against the ledge of the window frame with his arms folded over his chest. He looks pissed. “Mind telling me which rule was violated?”

  “You know very well which rule, Mr. Ferro.” Miss Black looks down at her dress, like she’s looking for a piece of lint. She smooths the skirt and glances at me as I pull my dress over my head. I have no idea what she’s thinking, or what we did, but here she is.

  “Humor me,” Sean replies. The look in his eye says he’s not happy. The muscle in his jaw works, while he waits.

  Black looks him over, with her little brow pinched. “Very well. You took our property off premises. We don’t do three strikes here, Mr. Ferro. You were careless and you know, as well as I do, what happens to careless clients in this business.”

  Sean walks toward her slowly, “I am well aware, however, the violation was an oversight. Miss Stanz followed me outside.”

  “Why would you do that?” Miss Black’s gaze slips from Sean’s to mine. I stare at her, heart racing, knowing that I’m going to be busted. Sean can get another virgin to screw, and I’ll get kicked to the curb.

  I open my mouth to confess, but Sean cuts me off. “Because I asked her to.”

  “Mr. Ferro, rules are set in stone. We cannot have clients disregarding them. The rules aren’t guidelines, they are mandatory. I’m afraid that you’ll need to seek your needs elsewhere.” Miss Black snaps her fingers at me. “Come, Miss Stanz.” Miss Black turns on her heel and walks through the door. I glance helplessly at Sean. He inclines his head slightly, telling me to go. I grab my purse and follow Miss Black out. The two large men are behind me.

  Miss Black’s long strides are quick. I hurry to keep up. “What happened?” I ask as the elevator doors close. We’re alone.

  She sighs, like she’s annoyed. “He really told you to go outside?” I nod, sticking to the story. “She presses her manicured fingers to her temple. “Men like that are nothing but trouble, always pushing the limits to see how much they can get away with. I’m sorry for putting your through that, Avery. It won’t happen again.”

  “I don’t understand how you knew. We didn’t go very far. And what was that beeping sound?”

  “There’s a transmitter in your bracelet.” She glances at my wrist. “I already told you that. We know exactly where you are. Where is it?”

  “I put it on my ankle.” I point and it’s still there. “It didn’t fit around my wrist.”

  Miss Black acts like I’m a first grader. “Wrist, Avery—it has to be on your wrist. I’ll have it resized.” She shakes her head like I’m an idiot.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t. You just started. The beeping noise was a pager we put in your purse.” She takes my bag and opens it, taking out a little black box. “It goes off when we are outside the building. That only happens if a client violates their contract. It lets you know that we’re coming. I don’t normally show up at all, but with you being new, I didn’t think you’d leave willingly with the security personnel.”

  I nod and look at my purse, wondering when she put that inside. I thought I had my bag with me all night. Sean must have seen the pager when he walked over to the window. My purse has an open top and was laying right next to the window. I wonder how he knew what it meant. Sean seemed to know that Miss Black was coming. “Has he done this before?”

  Miss Black looks at me, confused. The elevator slows as we reach the ground floor. When the doors open, she resumes her hastened pace. Looking over her shoulder at me, she says, “No, not that I know of. He was a new client.”

  A car is waiting for us at the curb. Miss Black walks toward it with her head held high. A valet holds the door open for her and she slips into the car. I follow behind her. The men that had entered Sean’s room with Miss Black are gone. I don’t see them anywhere.

  “Stop looking, dear. They’re invisible when they need to be.” Miss Black slinks back into the seat. Her brow is furrowed and her eyes are pressed closed. “How far did you get? Tell me that you’re still a virgin, please.” Miss Black looks straight ahead. I’m sitting next to her on the limo seat.

  “We didn’t get that far. And yes, I am.” And I’m not happy about it either. Or maybe I am. I don’t know. Tonight was nothing like I thought it would be.

  “Good,” Miss Black says relieved. “You will be paid for your services for this evening. Mr. Ferro was required to pay in advance for this evening. So, you don’t need to worry about getting stiffed.”

  “Bad pun.”

  She laughs and looks at me. I’m staring straight ahead, shell shocked. “You’re an amusing girl.”

  “That’s one word for it,” I mutter. Glancing at her, I say, “I’m sorry. I feel a little nuts. I thought I was going to—”

  She cuts me off. “I know. This job can be an emotional rollercoaster. Don’t worry though. It gets easier.”

  I doubt it, although I say nothing. We arrive back at Miss Black’s. I step out of the limo. Before I can walk away, Miss Black says, “I’ll find you another client by next weekend. This won’t be for nothing. I promise. Come up and let’s get this squared away.”

  I nod, and silently follow her upstairs. I’m paid an insane amount of money, in cash. It isn’t anywhere near what I thought I’d be getting, but it is enough to get me through a few weeks, as long as nothing else goes wrong. I take my money and shove it in my purse and head to my car.

  After I spray the engine, it starts right up. I drive back to the dorm shivering, with wintry wind blasting my face. I considered sealing the window with duct tape, but that’ll look even more ghetto.

  When I get inside the dorm, I bypass my room for the moment and go to find Mel. Her door is cracked. It’s a little after midnight. I wrap my knuckles on the wooden door and push it open. “Mel? You here?”

  Her roommate, Asia, is sitting on her bed talking on the phone. She shakes her head at me, shaking that short shiny black hair. “One sec,” she says to the person on the phone. Raising her voice, Asia says to me, “Mel is working late tonight. She said she wouldn’t be in until after 2:00am.”

  I nod. “Thanks.”

  Flustered, I walk back to my room. If Amber barricaded the door, I’m going to kill her. I slip the key into the lock and twist. Surprisingly, the door opens. My shabby little room is empty. Thank God! As soon as I know that I’m alone, the tears come and they don’t stop until I pass out on my bed.

  CHAPTER 4

  The next morning sucks. Amber and Dennis are arguing. I cover my head with a pillow, but it still doesn’t block them out. To top it off, she has the heat cranked up so high that I’m sweating. I get up and turn down the heater. Hiding under the blankets doesn’t work when the room is 150 degrees.

  “Don’t touch that!” Amber snaps at me. “It’s freezing in here.”

  “I’m melting, Amber. Leave it off for a while.” I sound reasonable, but she makes a face at me. As soon as I walk away, Amber turns the thing back on.

  She turns her anger on me. “You’re such a bitch, Avery. You can’t do whatever you want, whenever you want. I live here too!” Amber is seething, like she’s justified. Dennis watches her, but his eyes flick to me when I explode.

  I round on her, growling, with my hands balled into fists at my sides. “Are you fucking insane? I never get to do what I want! You’re here all the time, you lock the door, you block me out of my own goddamn room, you have sex on my bed when I’m not here, your boyfriends use my blankets to clean up after they stick their dick in your nasty self! If anyone’s a bitch, it’s you!” Amber is staring at me, her eyes becoming glossy like she’s going to cry. I don’t care. I so don’t care.

  “
You’re so mean, Avery,” Amber sobs and turns to Dennis, who holds her in his arms loosely.

  Dennis listened to my little rant. It’s quiet for a second before he asks her, “What did she mean, boyfriends?” He emphasizes the plural part of the word. “I thought we were exclusive, Amber? Have you been fucking other guys?” He pulls her away and shouts in her face.

  I’m so angry. I grab my clothes and run out the door. As it slams behind me, I hear Amber sobbing, saying nasty stuff about me, denying that she was with anyone else. I don’t know why he would care. Dennis screws any girl that lifts her skirt. Enraged, I walk down to Mel’s and knock. It’s still early.

  The door creaks open and she looks at me with bleary eyes, “Awh, hell. You want me to go punch Tramperella in the face? Cuz I’ll be all over that piece of trash. You just say the word. I could hear you guys screaming from here.” Mel yawns the last part and glances down the hall. When I don’t answer, she blinks hard and pushes past me. “I’m gonna go all ninja on her white ass. You come on and watch.”

  I grab Mel’s arm and stop her. “Maybe later.” Mel looks at me and then back down the hall. I coax her. “Let me use your shower and I’ll take you out for breakfast.”

  Mel gives me a look that’s distinctly Mel. It’s all attitude. “I want chocolate chip pancakes, and not that shit the diner serves. Are we talking IHOP?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, if that’s what it takes.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Bribery is underrated. I think I could get Amber whacked if I bribed Mel with a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. She eats them, doused in strawberry syrup. The pancakes look like they’ve been shot.

  “How can you eat that?” I ask. It’s so sweet. I have eggs and bacon. Well, I had bacon. Mel took that already.

  “It’s freakin fantabulous. Everyone should eat this for breakfast. Every day. It’s the breakfast of champions.” She shovels another bunch of fluffy pancakes into her mouth. A bead of syrup runs from the corner of her mouth.

  “That’s Wheaties. And you’re looking a little vampy, there.” I touch to corner of my mouth and tilt my head toward her and say, “You’ve got syrup. Or is that drool?”

  Mel’s back stiffens as she wipes away the blot of red. She points a fork full of pancakes at me and says, “I do not drool. Not unless it’s a particularly hot guy. Then I might drool, a little.” She chews and takes a swig of milk, then asks, “So, how’d last night go? Are we still on Team V?”

  I laugh. “You’re so stupid. Team V. Yeah, I’m still on Team V. Things got out of hand last night. Black showed up and pulled me away.”

  Mel’s jaw drops and the fork freezes half way to her mouth. “No shit!” She leans in closer and lowers her voice, “What the hell happened?”

  I tell her. As I retell the horrible events of last night, I push around the food on my plate. I don’t feel very hungry today. When I finish my story, I look up at her. Mel hasn’t taken a bite. I tell her, “Black said she’d match me to someone else. I got paid a little bit, enough to treat you and pay some bills, but not enough to be home-free the way I thought I’d be. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You’re back to square one.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “Why did Sean do that? It almost seems like he wanted to blow the whole arrangement.”

  “He didn’t. He didn’t react well when I showed up. He left. I chased him. It’s not like he lured me outside to irritate Black. He seemed as surprised as I was when she showed up.”

  “That boy is messed up.” She points her pancake at me before popping it into her mouth.

  “We already knew that.” I sigh and lean my head on my hand. I poke my eggs and paint the yellow yolk across the white plate.

  Mel watches me. “You seem out of it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were falling for the guy. You’re all doe-eyed, making hearts in your food.”

  “I am not,” I say, straightening up.

  “Whatever,” Mel says, “I just call it like I see it. You’ve got that Bambi look on your face, like you’re swooning for Mr. Freakshow.”

  I snort-laugh. “You’re so mental. That’s not it. I just don’t know if can do it again.”

  “It’s just one guy, one time,” she reminds me.

  I nod. “That’s what it was supposed to be this time.”

  ____

  After breakfast, I head to the library to get caught up on school work. The building is huge and smells like dust and old paper. Once I get into the stacks, the lighting sucks. I navigate my way through the massive building until I find my little chair in the corner. It’s a good spot because no one ever comes back here. There’s a desk and chair against the wall at the end of one of the rows. I toss my book bag on it and pull out my work.

  After a few hours pass, I’m leaning with my hand in my hair, staring at the cinderblock wall in front of me. I can’t concentrate. I have no idea what to do. I thought my financial problems were solved and that I could go back to studying. Sean was ideal bait, but then Black sent him packing. I don’t know if I can do it with someone else.

  Memories flit through my mind and I can feel Sean’s hands on my skin. I wish Black hadn’t shown up. I wish things progressed further. I wonder what it would feel like to have my sweat-covered body slip over his, what he would feel like inside of me. My body warms at the thought.

  I’m so out of it that I don’t hear Marty until he’s next to me. “Well, looky what we have here.”

  I jump out of my skin when he speaks and twist in my chair. I had no idea he was there. Marty laughs at me. He’s wearing a pair of dark jeans with frayed patches on the thighs, coupled with a tee shirt and denim jacket. His blonde hair is spiked. He looks like an 80’s remnant.

  I swat at Marty, meaning to slap his leg, but he dodges my hand. “You scared me to death!” I whisper yell at him.

  He laughs and drops his backpack on the floor next to my desk, and then takes his extra tall body and leans against the wall. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he says, “Only people with something to hide get all skittish like that. What’d you do? Kiss a girl?” He winks at me and grins.

  I cover my heart with my hand, willing it to resume a normal pace, but it ignores me. I don’t look at Marty when he speaks and he catches on. “So, you do have something to hide. Is it juicy?” I glance at him, thinking that direct eye contact will help, but the guy sees right through me. In a hushed voice, he squeals, “Oh my God! You have to tell me!” As Marty talks, he falls to his knees and scoots toward me, clutching his hands under his chin, like he’s begging.

  I laugh it off. “There’s nothing to tell.” I squirm in my chair and go back to reading my textbook.

  “You’re a bad liar.”

  Sighing, I say, “I know,” and slump forward, planting my face in the book. “I can’t lie, but I can’t tell you.”

  He grabs my shoulder and pulls me up. I look him in the face as he asks, excitedly, “Is this about the questions you asked the other day?” My face must answer for me, because Marty gets more excited. “Oh my God, you did something morally deplorable, didn’t you? What was it?”

  When I don’t answer, he starts reasoning it out, which scares me to death. He ticks off his fingers, “Well, we both know it’s nothing to do with lying. So that leaves cheating,” he ticks off a second finger and pauses, looking at my slumped shoulders, and says, “Yeah, I can’t see that one either. You’re hardwired to not cheat. That leaves stealing, adultery—”

  “Are you just going to list the seven deadly sins and hope I confess when you hit mine?”

  He waves a finger in my face. “Ah ha! That means it was one of the big seven.”

  “You’re an ass. Leave me alone.” I pretend to read my book. Marty grabs the pages and yanks it away. “Hey!”

  “You tell me everything, why can’t you tell me this?” he says holding my book just out of reach. I make a grab for it and miss. He’s too damn tall.

  “Because I can’t. A
nd it doesn’t matter now anyway, because everything is all fucked up.” I stop jumping for my book and sit down hard in the chair. It feels like a wave of hopelessness crashes into me. Suddenly, I can’t breathe and my heart is pounding. I grab the hair on the sides of my head and look at the floor, saying, “I can’t do this.” My breathing becomes labored, like I’m having an asthma attack.

  Marty puts my books down and kneels next to me, placing his hand on my back. “Whoa, Avery. Calm down. Slow your breathing.”

  Tears well up behind my eyes, but they won’t fall. For once, I wish they would. I wish I could just cry and have this part of my life over with. I rock in the seat. “I can’t do this.”

  “Do what, honey? Be more specific.” Marty’s hand rubs small circles on my back. He leans closer to me. “Tell me, love. I’ll help you however I can.”

  “But that’s just it,” I look up at him with glassy eyes. “You can’t help me, no one can. I have to do something that I don’t want to do. I’m fucked every way ‘til Tuesday with no way out.”

  Marty keeps his hand on my shoulder and looks at me with an expression that I can’t read. It’s not pity, it’s something else, more like pity’s bastard cousin. “Avery, you ever think that you’re alone because you want to be?” I bristle at the suggestion, but he presses a finger to my lips to shut me up, and shakes his head. “No, don’t talk. Listen. There’s a time for listening, and that’s now. I know you’ve got no one and that you’re all by yourself, but you don’t have to be. I’m here and so is Mel. You shut us out, Avery. When things get hard, you retreat into yourself and no one can get through those walls you put up. It doesn’t have to be that way. Friends are your family now. I know that I’d do anything for you, you don’t even have to ask.”

  Awh fuck. His words trigger the tears and they rush down my face. Marty smiles at me, like he knows better. Maybe he does. Maybe I’m the one who’s fucked up. Maybe I don’t have to do everything by myself, but I don’t know what that world looks like. The only people that I could depend on through thick and thin were my parents. Family was everything to them, to me. Now that I don’t have one, I feel lost, like I don’t belong anywhere, like I can’t fully trust anyone.