“Evelyn, got it,” Todd said, pushing the cocktail straw to the side so he could take a sip of his drink. “Are you going to become an escort like your friend and I here?”
My face flooded with heat at the thought of it. “No, I couldn’t.”
“Would you pay money to sleep with her?” Payton asked.
Todd gave me an evaluating look that made me feel more like a piece of meat than I ever had at this bar.
“I don’t know, maybe,” he said, indifferent, “I don’t usually pay for sex.” Usually, my brain noted, which implied he had.
“It’s not just sex.” Payton set a hand on Todd’s arm and drew him closer to her. “It’s an experience. You’re buying the opportunity to be in complete control, to do whatever. Even the dark, twisted fantasy you’ve been secretly wanting to try.”
“Yeah?” He tried miserably not to look too excited, but the thought of doing whatever sick idea he had to Payton was too much. “You’re into the hardcore stuff?”
“Absolutely. But Evie’s not a freak like me.” Her blue eyes went to the other guy, who was focused on me. “What about you? Would you pay to do whatever you wanted to her?”
“Don’t use me in your recruiting material,” I said. I’m not sure why I cared, but a small part of me waited to hear the answer on whether or not this random stranger would pay for the privilege to have total command over my body.
“Well, she’s hot and all, but I’m not into the weird stuff,” he answered. My heart beat just a little faster with his flattery.
“He’s vanilla, plus he’s broke,” Todd added.
“Wow,” Payton said. “Sounds like our friends have a lot in common.”
I was broke, thanks to huge student loans which, coupled with rent in downtown Chicago and utilities, left me with virtually nothing. I don’t know if I’d say I was strictly into vanilla sex, though. I was by no means a prude, but by comparison to Payton, I was a nun.
“Wait, how does it work?” Todd asked. “If you’re blindfolded, how do you make arrangements?”
“The club handles that.”
The smile faded from Todd’s face a little, like he was worried she was actually serious. “What club?”
“The private club I work for.” She finished her drink and pulled a business card and pen from her purse, and then handed her bag
to me. “Turn around.”
I did so and finished my drink, knowing we were about to make our exit. She set the business card on my shoulder and scribbled a word on it.
“If you’re interested in learning more,” Payton said, and handed the card to Todd, “go to this website. The password on the back is good until Sunday at midnight.”
“What?”
“Thanks for the drinks,” she replied, taking back her purse and dragging me away. Leaving them wanting more was her specialty, but the two men standing there looked more confused and disappointed than anything else.
The rest of the team waited for our boss to arrive and begin the Monday meeting, idle chitchat about the fading summer weather filling the silence. Logan Stone was now eleven minutes late to the meeting he had called.
“Should we give him five more minutes?” Kathleen, one of the senior designers, asked. I would have preferred to leave now. The order for my first major account had come back from the printers, and the finished sample was waiting for me in a FedEx box on my desk. Seeing your design work in a finished piece was deeply satisfying, and I had a bit of Christmas morning anticipation about it.
He came in with no excuse or apology, and gave us barely a greeting. It made me wonder if this was a deliberate tactic to let us all know how little he thought of our time, or to make sure we knew where we stood.
Logan had been a senior designer when I started, and last year he beat out two other senior designers to take over as department manager. The power had gone straight to his head. He’d had difficulty accepting client feedback before the promotion, and now he was a nightmare. Negative feedback was met with what I like to call “education” lectures, where he’d spew all the design reasons for the decisions he’d made in the artwork. It was impossible to argue with him.
He always got his way, and the worst part was he was usually right.
Logan’s tie was askew like it had been thrown on in a hurry. Maybe his lunchtime quickie had run over. He was attractive with short, perfectly styled brown hair and a trim, lean frame, so it stood to reason he had a girlfriend. Or maybe a fuck-buddy, since his strict personality would make him difficult to date.
He plugged in his laptop and navigated to the critique folder, where the entire department dumped their work-in-progress proofs. It was anonymous to everyone but him and the artist who’d built it, and occasionally it could be brutal. But today he seemed to be in a decent mood, elevating his “Start over” critiques to “Needs work.”
If he was going to be like this from now on, I had no problem with Logan being late to every meeting. After we concluded, I packed up my things and overheard his discussion with another coworker about his weekend. He’d run a half-marathon on Saturday and finished at the top of the 30-34 year old division, but it had come at a price.