“I’m sorry I—”
“No,” I said, interrupting her. “You don’t get to say a damn thing. You led me to believe that it was package delivery service and nothing more. What is wrong with you? How long have you been a hooker?”
“I am not a hooker,” she said.
“You tried to get me to sell myself, you sick fuck. What were you thinking? You didn’t even warn me. You just sent me straight down to the ghetto so that little prick could eye rape me. Do you have any idea how disgusted I am? He tries to get me to fuck him every time I see him. Ooh, I am so pissed. So fucking pissed! You’re lucky I don’t come down there and beat your ass!”
“You don’t have t—”
“Not one more word. Bring your closet to my house immediately. I have to go sell myself tomorrow.”
When Loren pulled up, I pulled back the blinds to look out the front window. She was carrying a takeout bag from Curry Palace and a bottle of my favorite wine. I let her knock and watched her shadow as she paced around. “I’m sorry, Mercedes. Please, I brought a bunch of outfits, and they’re not slutty. They look good, and I brought you curry. It’s your favorite.”
I wanted to let her beg a while longer, but I was starving so I put the chain on the door and grabbed my can of pepper spray so I could stick it out the door when I cracked it. She shrieked and jumped back. “I’m sorry, Mercedes. I really am. You have to know that I didn’t mean to put you in danger.”
I slammed the door, slid the chain off, and opened it. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t spray you right now.”
She met my eyes and said, “Because I don’t want Uncle Sam to die any more than you do, so I did what I did to make sure you could make enough money to take care of him.”
“You still lied.” I left the door open and walked inside.
“You don’t have to do it, Mercedes. I don’t.”
“Well, it’s too late for that. I already did it.”
“Are you going to keep it up?”
“No,” I said. “I can’t believe this. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Loren walked in and closed the door. “You wouldn’t have gone, and you need this job.”
“I’m done talking about it.” I ran up to where she was standing next to the door and grabbed the bag of curry. “I’m eating all the egg rolls.” I stomped into the kitchen to pull out plates and silverware. “And you better not have touched any of the wontons.”
“You’re really mad.” I looked up to see Loren standing in the door between the kitchen and the living room.
“You had your reasons,” I conceded. “It just caught me off guard is all.”
“One of the guys tried to touch you?”
“No.” I didn’t want to tell her anything about Jake.
“Look, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll talk to Tony and make sure he doesn’t give you any of the trouble clients.”
“Thank you.” I pulled the Styrofoam takeout containers out of the bag and started making myself a plate. I spent the rest of the night softening up slowly, making sure she knew exactly how I felt. I’d calmed down by the time we started eating, but I kept it up. She wasn’t going to get away with something like that.
The next morning, I woke up early and spent my time shuffling through my clothes. Loren brought a nice selection, mostly jeans and T-shirts, but there were dressy outfits, leggings, tunics, blouses, and several evening gowns. Loren was petite, and I was not. A lot of what she brought was tight on me. Most of the shirts could barely contain my boobs, and the pants hugged my ass in a death grip. Some the clothes fit all right, but they were more formfitting than I preferred. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing if I wanted to look good for Jake.
I stuffed them in the bag and started pulling hangers aside, one after the other, but I couldn’t find anything I liked. I decided to go with the safe option: a pair of tight jeans and my daisy shirt. If he didn’t like it, I could always change.
When I got out of the shower, I checked the clock. I didn’t have to be at the house for another two hours, so I looked around for things to do. The takeout boxes were still in the trash, so I took it out and washed out my cereal bowl from earlier that morning.
The living room didn’t need cleaning. It served no purpose other than to connect the kitchen to the front door, and cleaning it took all of two seconds. With nothing left to tidy up, I sat down with my laptop. It’d only been 15 minutes, and I had to distract myself somehow.
Two minutes later, I was back in my closet second guessing every little thing. I had no idea what Jake had planned for this next meeting. It was obvious that this was more than just a quick lay; at least I thought so. He wanted me there at 10 in the morning on a Saturday. I had to be prepared for every eventuality. I
wondered if I should bring a bathing suit. He definitely had a pool, but all I had was a black one-piece, and it had a skirt around the midsection.
I decided to bring it along anyway and stuffed everything else I could in the bag. It only took me five minutes to go through my clothes, and I still hadn’t found a sufficient distraction. I fell back onto the bed. I had to accept it eventually.