Ten Years Ago
For as long as I could remember, I had enjoyed dressing up. For me, there was a fascination about slipping into a fairy princess dress or a costume pulled from a dress-up box, because putting them on allowed me to escape from the real world. It was how I coped with my childhood. How I dealt with the truth about my parents and who they were. It was my escapism. A skill I would call upon, time and time again, when I needed to get through another day of neglect.
I never dreamed it would become my profession. That when Alex called on me, I would become whoever he needed me to be. All it took was a wig, a certain style of clothing and a whole lot of play acting.
Tonight, I was a blonde. With red lips and false eyelashes. My dress was black, tight to show off my curves, and matched with a pair of five-inch heels. Later I would slip on a long-sleeve jacket and a pair of Hermes gloves, and I would walk with phony confidence toward another night of memories I’d rather forget.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, feeling the disgust already rolling through my stomach.
“Are you ready?” Alex asked, walking up behind me.
I looked at him in the mirror and nodded.
I wasn’t ready. I didn’t like doing what he wanted me to do. The men were always so gross. Some were old, some were young, some were even good looking, but they were all vile and they made my skin crawl.
“He is waiting for you,” he said, cupping his hands over my shoulders. “Serge is downstairs ready to drive you.”
In the back of the limousine, I looked at the bright lights of the city moving past the window. I was calm, despite the repulsiveness I felt for what I was about to do. Tonight, I was meeting Luciano, the Lamb, Bianchion, a well-known underworld figure known for his love of good wine, good food, and for inflicting pain. He also had a penchant for blonde women with long legs and red lips, and often indulged in all of his desires in one night.
According to Alex, one of Luciano’s dates ended up losing an ear when he bit it off during sex. Another suffered internal bleeding when he took her virginity with a police baton.
His nickname was ironic. Because he was anything but a lamb. No matter who you were. Family. Business associate. Lover. Streetwalker. High-class call girl. If the urge possessed him, he could be brutal on a whim.
“Keep your wits about you, my darling, and you’ll be fine,” Alex had said. “This one is worth a lot of money.”
I found Luciano at his usual hangout, a nightclub he owned called Sin in the City, where the town’s rich and coked-up twenty-somethings liked to party. It was a dark and sophisticated bar where you could get away with just about anything in the shadowy corners. A place where coke was currency, human decency was optional, and a good time was everything.
He was waiting at the bar, a man in his early sixties with white hair and jowls, nursing a tumbler of whiskey. When I approached him, his gaze swept up and down the length of me, a lascivious gleam in his watery eyes.
He bought me a drink, which I accepted but didn’t touch.
We flirted and did the dance two people do when sex is in the cards.
I laughed at his embellished stories and looked at him through heavy lashes when the conversation became suggestive, while he got hard behind his Armani slacks.
I played the part I was expected to play.
I became the person I had to be to get the job done.
I ignored the bile rising in my stomach as his clammy, fat hand slid along my thigh.
“Are you wearing any panties beneath that dress?”
I held back the vomit I needed to hold back as I slightly parted my legs. “Want to take a look for yourself?”
It wasn’t long before he was leading me out of the club and into a waiting limousine. We were on our way to his penthouse where he was about to have his mind blown, and I was about to make more unpleasant memories.
BULL
“This has got to stop, Bull.”
Tito’s whiny voice broke through a pounding headache as he stood in front of me, his hand on his hip, his comb-over sticking to his forehead beaded with sweat.
He ran our production company, Head Quarters, and was brilliant at what he did. Granted, he was a little weird. And I really didn’t want to think about what he got up to behind his closed office doors. But he knew porn and he knew what sold, and he had made us a lot of money.
He was also terrified of Sybil.