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“Well, that explains it then,” he laughed, slapping me on my sore shoulder. I took the pain. I deserved it. “Get out early, I always say. Dating is the pits,” he joshed.
I cleared my throat and followed his lead as he took another swig, unaware of the poison streaming down his gullet.
“Married then?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “Thirty years next week, actually.”
I felt beads of sweat pour down my back at the declaration. He took yet another sip. I narrowly stopped myself from swiping the glass from his hands. Even if he drops, which he will, you can still back out. Just help him to his room. He’ll think he’d had too much. He’ll only wake up with a great night’s sleep.
“And you’re still happy?” I asked, ignoring my conscience, grasping for anything terrible, anything that could justify what I was about to do.
“Oh, you know, it’s not easy, not all the time anyway, but I can honestly say I am genuinely happy with Maggie. She’s my everything, if I was being candid.” He laughed at some private joke. I hated jokes. My punch line would destroy him if his wife ever found out.
My gut began to ache so terribly, my hand inadvertently scrubbed at my neck. He mistook it for nerves.
“Don’t worry, son. I’m waiting for someone, too, though it looks like he’s a no show and I flew in all the way this close to Christmas for nothing. Anyway, I’ll wait with you.”
“That’s so kind of you,” I told him honestly as he finished his drink.
He ordered another.
I glanced at Lola and she lightly tapped at her wrist but avoided eye contact.
Peter and I spoke of nothing consequential over the following fifteen minutes, but when that time came to a close, he appeared totally inebriated. So much so, that the bartender stopped by.
“Is he staying here?” he asked. “Wish I’d known the guy couldn’t hold his liquor.”
“It’s not a problem. He’s got a room here,” I told him. “Don’t worry, he’s a friend. I’ll take him back to his room.”
He nodded in answer, setting our tabs down on the bar top. I paid his as well as my tab in cash to avoid trace backs or, for that matter, waiting any longer. The drugs were seriously taking effect, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle his dead weight despite my daily reps of two-eighty-five.
I made a move to stand as Peter slumped forward a little. You waited too long. “Come on, dude,” I told him, throwing his arm over my shoulder. We made our way toward the elevators.
“You’re a good man,” Peter slurred. “That’s rare…someone so young.”
I didn’t respond, couldn’t respond, really.
We barely made it to the elevators. I pitched him inside and sat him against the sidewall then held the door open with my hand, praying no one else would come. Lola quickly emerged ten seconds later without a word spoken and we let the doors close.
“We waited too long,” Lola finally said, when we reached her floor. She stuck her head out when the doors opened. “It’s clear,” she said.
I swung middle-aged Peter Knight onto my shoulders with only a little difficulty, glad for the minute rest I’d gotten between supporting his weight during the walk through the lobby and reaching Lola’s floor. “Lead the way,” I told her.
Lola took me to her room, quickly unlocked the door and we entered. The entire ordeal couldn’t have taken more than five minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I pitched him onto the bed. He laid there, clothes in disarray, hair mussed, and snoring.
Lola and I watched him for a good thirty seconds, waiting for him to stir but he didn’t, he was dead to the world.
“Shall we get started?” she asked.
I vacillated back and forth between right and wrong, willing myself to just walk away, begging myself to figure a way out but no argument was more convincing than the mil’ I was getting paid. Besides, I thought, as long as he complies, this is not a big deal at all. He can go back to his wife and kids and I can go back to Brown a little bit wealthier.
“Yes,” I finally answered.
Lola slithered from her dress and stood in her lace bustier and garters, let her curled hair down and went to the mirror, leaning over to freshen up her lipstick. I went to the bag on her bathroom counter and removed the SLR, slid on the power button and waited for her at the foot of the bed. I watched her, taking in her beautiful body, admiring her, internally acknowledging why she was the most expensive call girl I knew. She caught me staring in the mirror and smiled with perfect white teeth.
cked on her door. “Who is it?”
“Housekeeping,” I said, straining my voice in much too high an octave.
