Authors: Winter Renshaw
*Unedited excerpt
**Subject to change
“Don’t
take another step,” he said as the heavy hotel room door slammed behind me. My
heels anchored into the dense carpet, my body paralyzed by the assertion in his
command. The room was pitch black save for the sliver of light that broke
through the heavy drapes. In the corner stood a man, or rather, the outline of
a man. I couldn’t see his face. “There’s a blindfold on the table to your left.
Put it on.”
“Why?
Are you some kind of monster?” I meant to sound lighthearted, but the second my
voice broke, I showed my cards. My stomach flipped as I grabbed the blindfold
off the table and tied the fabric around my eyes. Satin. Maybe silk. Blackest
black. “Where do you want me?”
The
hotel air conditioning kicked on, bringing a quick chill to my mostly bare
skin. My left spaghetti strap fell down my shoulder.
“Leave
it,” he said as I attempted to fix it. “It’s going to be off soon enough.”
His
voice sounded closer. Licking my lips, I forced a smile, swallowing the warning
sirens going off in my head that drowned out my better judgment and scrambled
my thoughts. I could smell him. Vetiver and bergamot with a hint of cigar
smoke.
The
John’s arm gripped the crook of my elbow with firm intention as he led me over
to the bed.
“Bronwyn,”
he said. “Couldn’t think of a better hooker name?”
“I’m
not a hooker,” I spat. “And it’s my middle name.”
“Is
it safe for you to be giving out your real name like that?”
“If
it makes you feel better, you can call me any name you want,” I said, the
corner of my lip curling up into a teasing grin. My first name was Elinor
– Nori for short. But he didn’t need to know that. “My name isn’t all
that important.”
“Names
are everything.”
“That
why you won’t tell me yours?”
“Yes.”
“So
who’s name will I be screaming out tonight?” I flirted, though attempting to
flirt while blindfolded felt rather ridiculous.
“John.
Call me John.”
“Original.”
“You’ve
got a mouth on you.” His hand gripped my chin without warning, his thumb
tracing over my bottom lip.
My
heart leapt. Most of them men I spent time with didn’t like a girl with a mouth
like mine so I usually kept it shut, but something about his raw energy made me
act out of the ordinary.
He sounded
young. He couldn’t have been much older than thirty. Most of the men who
requested my company were sexually depraved, middle-aged politicians who bought
my exclusivity until they were bored with me or their bank statements were
looking rather bleak, and then they passed me onto someone they knew.
In
my business, referrals were everything. I didn’t need a pimp. I didn’t need to
walk the streets. My services more than spoke for themselves, and what fifty
year old man didn’t want a twenty-four year old honey on his arm with natural
DDs, bee-stung lips, and an angelic face framed by silken blonde waves? Their
own personal Marilyn Monroe. Not to mention I could carry on an intelligent
conversation courtesy of my B.A. in Art History from Georgetown.
I
didn’t think of myself as a hooker or a prostitute anyway. As far as I was
concerned, I was a high-class sexual concierge for the
well-to-do
.
I supposed if someone absolutely had to put a label on me, they could call me a
sugar baby. But this guy was too young to be a sugar daddy.
Much, much too young.
“How’d
you hear about me?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.
“Not
at liberty to say,” he said.
I’d
had four clients in the last five years. It had to have been one of them or
someone close to them who knew what they did under the veil of night.
A
man had been standing outside his door when I’d arrived, dressed in black as if
he were with the Secret Service. “John” was much too young sounding to be the
president, but whoever he was…he was someone important.
“Take
off your dress,” he commanded, his voice sending a commanding chill down my
spine that prickled my skin and sent a curious smile to my mouth. “Small talk
is over.”
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