Intense

“It’s really beautiful,” she says again, smiling and looking out at the city lights.

“I love it out here,” I say. “This is the only room with a balcony like this.”

“Really? Yours doesn’t have one?”

“I know. Horrible.”

She laughs. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just, this house is amazing.”

“I tried to keep the outside as original as possible, and this was the only original balcony.” I park the cart and begin putting our meal onto the table. There’s a cut of steak and a baked potato for me and what looks like a Caesar salad for her, which I’m guessing is what she asked for at some point. Michelle is very good at learning her guests’ preferences.

“Sit,” I say, pulling her seat out, and she sits. I pour myself a drink of whisky from the cart and sit down across from her. I sip my drink as she starts eating.

I take a bite of my steak, but I’m not really hungry. That’s not the purpose of this little meal, anyway.

“What’s your real name?” I ask her suddenly.

She looks up at me, surprised. “Aria,” she says.

I cock my head. “Really? You used your real name?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t want to have to learn a new one. I figured it’s easier this way.”

“Pretty name,” I say, and I know she’s not lying.

“Thanks. One of the nicest things my mother ever gave me.” Her joke sounds rehearsed, like it’s one she’s made many times before, and I smile.

“Were you and your mother close?” I ask.

“No,” she says, and goes back to eating.

Interesting. Her family life is a touchy subject.

“Can I ask you how you got into this business?”

She shrugs again. “I’ll tell you. But I don’t think you want to know.”

“Why not?”

She puts down her fork and cocks her head at me. “It’ll ruin the fantasy, won’t it?”

“Not at all,” I say. “You’re the fantasy, Aria. The real you.”

“You don’t want the real me,” she says, looking down at her plate.

I lean toward her. “Try me.”

“I’m not like you, Ethan,” she says. “I don’t have anything.”

“Having things doesn’t make a person,” I say.

“I’ve made mistakes.”

“We all have.” I reach my hand out and put it on hers. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. But I want you to know that I want to know, and I’m not afraid of the answers.”

She looks me in the eye and I can see something there, but I’m not sure what it is. I hope she understands that I’m being sincere. I assume something happened to force her into this job. Maybe it’s not a bad thing that forced her to do it, or maybe it is. I can’t really say, but I can accept it either way. We all have a past, but I don’t judge her based on that.

Still, her past can tell me things about her, and I want to know everything there is to know. It won’t change my opinion, but maybe I’ll see a fuller picture of her, get to know her in a way I couldn’t have before.

“I had a boyfriend when I was twenty. He was a real asshole.” She crosses her arms over her chest as she speaks, and I can tell that’s a defense mechanism.

“What was his name?” I ask.

“Derek,” she says. “He seemed so nice at first. Until one night he convinced me to get high with him. Derek was a heroin addict, it turned out. He still had a job and stuff, so he was functional at that point, but it wasn’t long before we were both consumed by addiction.”

I nod slowly, listening intently. So it’s drugs and addiction. That’s her dark secret. I want to smile and tell her that it’s okay, that I’ve heard worse, maybe done worse, but I don’t. I just listen and take her seriously.

“Things got bad for a while. We were junkies, but we were junkies together. And then one night, Derek bought this shit from a guy we didn’t know. We were desperate for it. And he shot up first. I watched him die right there in the street.” She looks down at her lap and is quiet for a little while.

“What happened to you after that?” I ask gently, prodding her.

“The usual stuff. I was still an addict, after all. I met some other addicts, fell in with another group, but didn’t sleep around. Couldn’t bring myself to, not after I watched Derek die. He was my first.” She blushes as she says that, which is so incredibly cute.

“Anyway, eventually I hit rock bottom. From there, I checked myself into a drug rehab place, a really nice place. Also an expensive place. But it was too late. I also had a pretty big debt with a local dealer, the kind of debt you won’t ever run out on. So between the rehab place and the dealer, I needed to make some money. Being a waitress wasn’t doing it. My debt was drowning me. I’ve been clean for years, but the debt hasn’t gone away. So I turned to this.”