Jesus. These organized crime people should start working on Wall Street if they haven’t already. They’re both fucking snakes in the grass.
Sorry, I’m just in a fucking awful mood. It’s like life has me by the balls and is squeezing as hard as it fucking can.
I take a sip of my scotch and stare out the window.
“Actually, Mr. Mozorov, I don’t think you’ll be successful at what you’re proposing,” a voice says and I turn my head toward it.
What the fuck! It can’t be.
All of us have turned to the fucking angel standing in front of us, dressed in a tight white skirt and black top that shows off her tits. She’s made up to look like a fucking doll and just seeing her makes my cock twitch in my pants. She extends her arm toward Mozorov.
“Ashley Lane, formerly of Simulated Pleasures,” she says to Mozorov. “May I sit down?”
Hand it to Mozorov, he rolls with the fucking punches and takes Ashley’s hand and gently brings it to his lips. “Pleasure to meet you, young lady,” he says as Gerard rushes out of his chair and ushers her in to sit next to me. Gerard gets another chair and sits down. And did I just see a look pass by between him and Ashley? But they’ve never talked before, so it couldn’t matter.
Ashley turns to me. “How’ve you been, Arsen?” she asks me.
I give her my cockiest, smirkiest smile, trying to act cool.
“That good, huh?” Ashley asks sarcastically. Fuck, she’s here to bust my balls too, I guess.
But out of nowhere, she reaches over and takes my hand in hers. I look down to see this and when I look back at her, she’s smiling.
But it doesn’t last. She turns toward Luca Giannoni and Mozorov and begins to speak.
“Gentlemen, I know you’re wondering what I’m doing here in the first place,” she says and smiles at them. They can’t help but grin like dirty old men looking at her. “And the truth is I needed to tell you something that if I didn't would probably mean you would be buying this company without all the facts.”
Now both men are interested. They lean in.
“The fact of the matter is, that I started work at Simulated Pleasures about three months ago,” Ashley says. “I used to be a dancer at Scorcher's, but I wanted something where I didn’t have to take off my clothes. And before you say anything, yes I went to college. But I got a degree in Art History.”
“Ah, that makes a lot of sense,” Gerard says and Ashley gives him a look of annoyance at his subtle put down of her degree. I can’t help but crack a smile.
“At the same time, I met Arsen maybe a few days before I started working at the company,” she says.
Both men nod, waiting for her to continue.
“Here’s something you don’t know about the two of us,” Ashley says and leans in as if telling them a secret. “Arsen used to call in and talk to me on the pay-per-minute line.”
Mozorov doesn’t understand. “Why couldn't he just call you directly?” he asks.
Ashley shakes her head. “He didn't want me to know it was him,” she says. “And I didn’t. I knew him as King Henry. And he hid his identity from me.”
Mozorov looks at me. “Why would you do something like that?”
I shrug. “She didn't want to date a bad boy at the time and I wanted to fuck her,” I say, wondering if he’ll understand. “When at first she wouldn't give me the time of day, it’s the only thing I could think of to still talk to her. It just kind of took on a life of its own, I guess.
The Russian gangster st
ares at me for a second. Then he nods. “I guess kind of sweet, no?” he asks Ashley, turning to her.
“At first I was mad that he lied to me,” Ashley admits and then pauses to look at me. “But the more I thought about it, the more I realize it was just another side of him that I was falling in love with.”
Now it's my turn to fucking freeze. Is this really happening?
“And while it took me a while to make peace with it, gentlemen, the thing you have to understand is that the time Arsen spoke to me added to my totals. And so the program automatically sent me more people to talk to because it thought I was that good—able to keep people on the line for a long time. And I was so hot from talking to him, maybe I was actually able to keep people paying.”
“So…all the profitability that we see, is because of the two of you?” Luca Giannoni asks, starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together.