I blinked at my mailbox. Brass, with pretty filigree swirls around the apartment number. People didn’t make shit like that anymore. I had worked so hard to build this life for myself, this life with a safe place to sleep and pretty mailboxes, and now I was being forced out of it because a goddamnmanmade a mistake? Okay, not just any man, this was Benny and he was a sweetheart, but still?—
He owed mesomethingfor the inconvenience.
Hector had one thing right, anyway. I was resourceful. I had a good emergency fund stashed away, but that would only go so far. I didn’t have a typical nine-to-six job. My livelihood was cobbled together through cam streams, catalogue and fit modeling when I could get it, and whatever Benny left on my nightstand.
I had enough money to walk, but I didn’t have enough money to hide.
“You can’t tell me Benny doesn’t have cash on hand because I know that’s not true.” Benny kept money everywhere he could. I also knew he kept gold and silver bars and coins in a safe behind the mirror that faced the bed.
There was a pause. I held my breath, my hand clenching my keys so tightly that my freshly done nails dug into my palms, only releasing it when Hector heaved a deep sigh of resignation.
“Be at the café on Sixth Avenue at nine tomorrow. I’ll bring an envelope and a burner phone. You turn on thephone only once a day to check for an update from me. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Fuck,fuck, fuckity fuck.
Entertaining men was the last thing I felt like doing, but Hector had made it clear that my cam girl activities did not fit his definition of lying low. This would be my last stream until Benny was in the clear—which could be months from now. I needed to say goodbye and pause the monthly payments from my subscribers.
I dumped my mail and snacks on the kitchen table before heading to my bedroom to get ready. There was a certain kind of man who got off on watching a woman do wholesome things in a supremely slutty way. Generally, that man was older, worked fourteen-hour days, and lonely.
Benny, in other words.
He was my top supporter by a long shot, but not all my subs were middle-aged men. A handful of straight women subscribed because they found my topless cooking videos and flower arrangements strangely soothingandinformative.
I donned a blue 1950s style dress,red lipstick, and my black lace mask, and pulled my wavy brown hair into a high ponytail. Flesh-toned fishnet stockings and round-toed blue heels completed the look.Welcome to the Donna Reed Strip Tease. Benny would be thrilled. I blew a kiss to my reflection and took my camera to the kitchen.
After setting the camera up to record, I got to work on dinner while I waited for subs to join the livestream. Bone-in chicken thighs with crispy skin, carrots roasted in thyme and oregano, and mashed potatoes with plenty of cream and butter. I was cooking for two.
While I prepped the chicken, I broke the news that I wouldn’t be livestreaming for the next couple months, but hoped to be back in the fall. Subscriptions would be paused but not cancelled—unless they wanted to, of course.
Tips poured in along with lamentations that I would be missed. My phone dinged—the first tier had been reached. “Eek,” I squealed, wiggling my fingers to show they were coated in olive oil and garlic. “Let me wash my hands first. I don’t want to get salmonella on my dress.”
After thoroughly washing my hands and drying them, I turned my back to the camera and slowly unzipped my dress. With a little shimmy, it fell to the floor, leaving me in my lacy black bra and thong, and the stockings held up by garters.
When I ended the livestream thirty minutes later, I was down to just the thong. My panties always stayed onfor cooking shows. Call me a prude, but vaginas and food didn’t mix.
After changing into my comfiest sweats, I divided the dinner into two portions. One went into the fridge for Benny. The other went to Mrs. Bianchi on the eighth floor. At eighty-three years old, she’d been living all alone in her rent-controlled unit for three decades after her husband died of a heart attack. Six months ago, I’d found her wandering the hallway, lost and confused. I’d been making her dinner twice a week ever since.
What was she going to do without me? And what was I going to do without Benny?
I ripped open a package of Skittles, dumped the contents on a white porcelain plate, then popped open a can of Diet Coke and poured it into a fancy wine glass over ice, topped with a lime wedge and pretty green glass straw.
With my phone tucked into my bra, the stack of mail tucked into my armpit, and my wine glass balanced somewhat steadily on my plate, I took my dinner to the window, dragging a chair behind me. I dropped into it with a soul-weary sigh.Finally.
Tossing the mail aside, I kicked my wool-socked feet up on the windowsill. God, this view. This was what rich old white man money got you. Fourteen floors up, a deep bay window with three eight-foot-tall glass panes that looked out over the park. It had never truly beenmine, this view. I had always been on borrowed time here.
My eyes burned hot enough that I almost wished I could summon up a tear or two to ease the sting, but unfortunately, I wasn’t much of a crier. I popped a lime Skittle into my mouth instead. Skittles and Diet Coke: dinner of scrappy trailer trash, if not actual champions.
Shit, shit, shit. I had to be out in forty-eight hours. Not just out of the apartment—out of New York. Hector might as well have told me to leave the fucking planet. This city had been my home since my emancipation at sixteen, and I’d rarely stepped outside the city limits since. Mom would probably let me stay with her if I kicked in some money, but as far as I knew she was still with Rob. I fucking hated that guy.
No. I was not going back to the trailer park with my tail tucked between my legs. No fucking way.
Anyway, if someone truly started looking for me, that was the first place they’d go.
I pulled my phone out of my bra to see if Benny or Hector had contacted me. Part of me was hoping this was all a misunderstanding. No such luck.
I tossed my phone aside, popped a red Skittle into my mouth to steel my nerves, and scooped up the mail. Junk, mostly. The Memorial Day sales catalogues were in. I’d posed for Lululemon and J. Crew months ago. That was no guarantee I’d actually made the final pages—I was paid for my time regardless—but there I was. Iallowed myself a quick flip through. If I looked too long, flaws were all I’d see.
