chapter
ONE
My best friend Payton and I were celebrating her best month yet at her job, where she’d pulled in forty thousand dollars, more than I’d make all year after taxes. Actually, she’d made it in a handful of nights, and she’d made it selling her body to men. Payton was a bonafide high-class whore.
“I’m providing a service,” she joked. “The ugly and fat guys can fuck a girl who looks like me.”
She was a hooker with a heart of gold, as in gold-digger, and had chosen this ‘career’ even though she held a degree in communications from Northwestern. She’d chosen it. There was no need or goal that had forced her into the position, although I often wondered if there was an emotional one she was desperate to satisfy.
We’d been randomly assigned roommates for the semester of college we studied abroad in Amsterdam. I’d selected it because attending school abroad looked great on a résumé, and she’d gone because, I suspect, she was bored. It was in the red-light district that spring when she discovered her exhibitionist streak. The entire dorm floor of Americans decided to go together to a sex show, mostly as a joke, and the host running the show had gawked at my gorgeous roommate.
My mouth fell open when the performers invited Payton to join them and I’d watched in fascinated horror as she made her way triumphant to the stage. She hadn’t participated in the actual sex that night, but had no problem showing off the creamy skin of her breasts or touching both of the performers anywhere and everywhere.
It made me uncomfortable, but if I’m being honest, also envious. Not so much of the performance, but her total lack of inhibitions during, and absence of shame afterward. Confidence oozed out of every cell of her. She was attractive, but her unapologetic personality made her insanely hot. Even though I’m straight, I had a girl-crush on her.
We stood now in one of the quieter corners of her favorite spot, a trendy bar where no drink was less than twelve dollars and which was also overrun with assholes looking to get laid.
“These are from the gentlemen over there,” the thin-as-a-soda-straw waitress said, passing us drinks and gesturing to the other end of the bar. Usually the assholes traveled in pairs, and the less attractive of the two would try to make conversation with me while the other did his best to land Payton. She was tall and slender with vibrant blue eyes, and I was the poor man’s version. I had mousy brown hair to her glossy, black cherry locks. My curves were my thighs, whereas hers were located up top for maximum appeal. My face was plain and unremarkable, and hers was exotic.
“I think you should do it,” Payton said.
“Do what?” I asked. The pair of suits had noticed we’d accepted their drinks and now were making their approach.
“Come with me next time. Give it a try.” This was at least the third time she’d suggested it.
“No way. Have you not met me?”
She gave me a knowing smile.
“I’m Todd,” the guy said before he’d even reached us. He couldn’t have looked more cliché douche if he’d tried. “This is my friend John.”
How fitting. The quiet one locked eyes with me for a moment, and then seemed to struggle with the urge to look around for better options.
“Thanks for these,” Payton said. “We were thirsty. I’m Payton and this is Evie, and I was just telling her to consider joining me next time I’m seeing clients.”
“You two work together?” Todd asked. He smelled like he’d been standing too close to a cologne factory when it had exploded.
“No,” she continued, “but I think she’d like it.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an escort.”
Todd blinked, stunned. Then, a smile widened on his face and gave us a look at his too-white teeth.
“Oh, yeah? Me too. What kind of benefits do you get? Dental? Vision?”
“No need for the vision, I wear a blindfold during. Both my clients and I like our anonymity.”
“Of course,” he said, seeming to want to play along. “So, Evie, are you—”
“That’s my bad,” Payton interrupted. “You don’t actually get to call her that, only friends and family do. Her name is Evelyn.”
Her sweet, oddly possessive streak over my nickname had developed after we’d graduated and my first great love had dumped me. His loser friends knew me by the nickname, and after a disastrous run-in with them post-breakup at the Taste of Chicago, she decreed the name from now on had to be earned.