Lustly(12)

I looked around the room and beyond, imagining how someone with nothing could live so lavishly now. “What, did you rob a bank?”

She laughed in a strange way. “Perhaps you’ll think robbing a bank is better than what I’ve done.”

Intrigued, I felt the need to know what could be worse. “I’m listening.”

She crossed her legs, but left the robe open at the bottom. I knew if I looked close enough I’d be able to see her snatch. Even though I wasn’t a lesbian, by any means, I found my eyes traveling over her exposed skin. Her voice caught my attention and I looked at her face, instead of wandering elsewhere.

“I slept with men for money, Lily.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and imagined this classy woman as a hooker. For the life of me I couldn’t see her walking around a corner, leaning into car windows for a quick buck. “You were a hooker?”

“I prefer lady of the night or escort. Though it doesn’t really matter.”

I motioned around the room. “I hardly think you got all of this from selling your body.”

She nodded. “I was desperate, willing to do things that no other woman would think of doing. I wasn’t strong like you, so after only one night I confronted my sister. We had a heated argument, and I left the house and went to the only local tavern that was open. The owner of the company that my father worked for had been hitting on me since I was fifteen years old. He was there, having a few drinks all alone. Of course, seeing me in my condition, he invited me to join him. What started as flirtatious gestures turned into a night of heated passion. I never knew a man could do the things that he did to me.” She smiled and ran her hands through her long hair. “When I woke the next morning there was five-hundred dollars sitting on the bedside table. I felt so humiliated that I rushed to his office the next morning and demanded an apology. After all those years knowing me, and having told him my heartbreaking secret, he’d treated me like a whore.” She brushed her fingers lightly over her lips, as if she was recalling a tender moment. “Instead of apologizing he convinced me that I needed it, as much as he needed to see me again.”

“So he became your first client?”

“Yes. Dominic Vartan was my first client. He’s also my late second husband.”

“Ah, so was he the only one? I’d hardly consider you a whore.” It was one guy who she ended up marrying. It shouldn’t even count.

“My husband committed suicide three years after we’d married. He was in big trouble with the IRS and felt that ending his life was his only way out. During the time of his loss and the government investigation, our money was seized. I was left with a hefty mortgage, and no means of income. Everything was gone in the blink of an eye.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yes, it really is,” she agreed. “I wish I could tell you that everything was rainbows and sunshine, but it wasn’t. I’d made friends, and was living a good life. Imagining giving it up wasn’t an option. So I did the only thing I knew how.”

“You started hooking?”

“Not exactly. Through my husband I’d met plenty of rich and powerful men. Most of them had come onto me at one time or another. Swaying them into bed was never hard. When they realized that they could pay for my disclosure they jumped on the opportunity. Soon I was working five nights a week, servicing the same men. Then they started telling their friends, and I had a decision to make. It wasn’t always sex, you have to understand that. There were plenty of nights where they just wanted the company of a woman that wouldn’t judge them. Most were married, and just not happy with what they had to go home to. Knowing that only proved my theory that men are incapable of being faithful. Given the opportunity, every human will stray. It only takes one perfect situation for it to happen, whether they regret it later or not.”

“If you were doing it five nights a week, weren’t you making enough to pay the bills?”

She laughed. “I made one-thousand dollars a night. Most weeks I had five grand cash. It was plenty.”

I placed my hands on my knees and rubbed them up and down. There was a little part of me that felt completely uncomfortable, but also a side of me that wanted to hear the rest of her story. I thought about my children, probably already settling down for bed, thinking that their lives were so good. Unlike their friends, their parents were still married and seemingly happy. Little did they know that it was going to change. “I’ve never met a hooker before, or lady of the night, excuse me.”

“I’ve never really considered myself a hooker; a high dollar call girl maybe, but never a hooker.” She began to find humor in her own statement. “Lily, I did what I had to do. Failure was never a strong point for me.”

“I don’t understand. For all these years you’ve been selling your body for money? Aren’t you tired of it?”

She sat back in the seat and crossed her arms. “I haven’t had to do it in a very long time, not after I started hiring my own girls. I began making double and then triple. Soon I had over fifty girls working in several states. I even have a couple girls that live in other countries. I suppose you’d call me a madam, now, though I do lavish the benefits in all of my new male apprentices.”

“That guy earlier? He works for you? You have men working for you?”