“Well, don’t you worry,” Brice says. “I’m not into older women, and Tiffany is somewhere in her late forties, I’d say.”
“Tiffany, huh?”
He shrugs. “What? I can’t know her name now?” Oh,” he says and snaps his fingers. “Speaking of Tiffany and therapy and everything. We were talking—”
“By ’we’ you mean you and Tiffany.”
“Yeah,” Brice says with a roll of his eyes. “’We’ meaning Tiffany and me. Anyway, we were talking and she was mentioning how her son—her son, Tessa. She’s old enough to have a son—is about to graduate high school. He’s planning to go into this apprenticeship program to be an electrician. She was saying how apprenticeships are really the new things. I mean, they’re not new, but with the cost of university nowadays, it’s a real option that a lot of people are turning towards.”
“Ok,” I say, stretching out the vowel sounds nice and long to indicate that I have no idea where he’s going with this.
“So I was thinking that mayb
e I could look into doing something that when I get out of here. Maybe it’s time I give up on my dream of being a doctor. It’s not like there was ever a real chance I could work my way up from being a janitor anyway.” This is where he reaches out and takes my hand in his. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I don’t think there’s a future working with Greg. Besides, any videos we make for him will be out there forever. Who’s to say that our future employers don’t see them one day and decide to fire us for something we did way in the past? I just think it’s too risky.”
This is the moment I should come clean about what I’m really doing when he thinks I’m taking orders and bussing tables. After an explanation, I could even tack on how I’m doing this because I heard his mother’s sob story about losing her house. That I’m also doing this so Brice and I have a bit of money to fall back on when he’s finally out of the hospital.
But I don’t say any of these things.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I answer, careful not to word my understanding in a way that would directly imply that I’m consenting to his blanket ban. “It would definitely look bad for any future employers.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Brice says, excited that I’m going along with this so easily. After all, I dragged Brice into this line of work. So for me to give it up so easily must pull the weight from Brice. “It’s too late to pull your cam work from the Net, but we can always say that you were just young and stupid, you know?”
This is where my brain snaps back from pretending that everything will be fine as long as we have money at the end of it. I could go along with Brice’s reasoning before, but saying that I was young and stupid is a step too far.
“No, I don’t know what you’re saying.”
Brice, still unaware of the trap he’s stepping into, goes on to say, “I just mean that you weren’t thinking of the consequences when you made those videos. We all do stupid shit when we’re younger. But we’re maturing now. Growing up and—”
“I’m still working with Greg.” This bomb hits like an electromagnetic pulse, frying Brice’s brain and dropping the room into a bubble of silence that’s only popped when I add, “My scenes are all solo, but we’ve made a new deal.”
“What are you talking about?” Brice asks, his tone trying to be jovial, like I’ve forgotten that I’m actually working at the Brazilian restaurant now. “You’re a waitress.”
“A lie.”
“But why would you make that up? Why would you go back to Greg?”
All this time I’ve been thinking I’d be able to take this secret to my grave. That the money I got from it could be explained away as some distant relative leaving behind a portion of their inheritance to me. But now that I’m on a roll, the word vomit won’t stop falling out of me. Brice hurt me with his words, and all this time I’ve been working for us. He needs to know the whole truth, even if it hurts.
“Because I need money. You need money. Your mom needs to keep her house. Don’t look at me like that. I heard her telling you. What was slaving away at a restaurant going to change for any of us? I went back and begged Greg for my job back, but I had a condition: no partners except for you. That’s how we came up with this whole new format of videos. Actually, it was my idea, and that’s why I bargained to get a cut of the profits instead of a direct paycheck.
“And I don’t regret it, just like I don’t regret camming. I wasn’t young and stupid. I was poor. My best friend was poor,” I say, giving him a hard stare. “Camming kept me afloat, allowed me to lend you money when you were down and out. I was always the one inviting you over. Buying you food. That was all down to my fine, fine tippers. So no, I don’t regret it.”
Brice is trying to hold back. I can sense it in the tension of his arms, the tightness of his lips, and the way he keeps looking away from me. When he finally opens his mouth to answer, it’s in a low growl. “I don’t like that you were lying to me, but I like even less that you’re still doing this kind of work. It was okay for you to be camming and everything when we weren’t together, but now things are different.”
“You mean that you’re incapacitated, so since you can’t film scenes with me, I need to get a respectable job?”
“When we were filming scenes together, it was different. Any guy watching would know that I was the one inside of you. But now that I’m not there, they can easily imagine it’s them. I don’t know if I’m okay with that.”
My hand clenches and I imagine slapping him, but the part of my brain that stills my hand has no effect on my tongue.
“I don’t know what to tell you then,” I say honestly. “Because this is happening. So you can either get over it or get over me. Maybe hook up with your physical therapist. She seems to know you so well.” The moment that last sentence falls from my lips, I regret the words, but I don’t apologize. Whether or not Brice approves is for him to deal with. I’ve come to terms with my career choice.
So before I say anything else I’ll rethink later, I march out of the room, tossing aside Brice’s hand when his fingers shoot up to catch me. When I’m at the door, I pause just long enough to say, “I’m happy being yours and yours alone, but if you can’t trust that, maybe it’s time to stop pretending we were ever anything more than friends with benefits”
With that I slam the door and make for the exit as quick as my feet can take me. But even the crisp air outside does nothing to calm the whirling storm that has a hold of my heart. And the one time I wish it were raining, I have nothing to hide the tears sliding down my cheeks.
Part IV