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The really fucked up thing is that the client had been a regular of mine, and, up until that night, he had been a good one: He played in the lines, he treated me well, and healwayspaid on time. Sometimes, I even surprised myself by having a genuinely good time with him. Gavin was big and rough and, although he could be cruel, he knew his way around a woman’s body, knew when to edge a little further into pain and when to stop and dwell.
That night was different.
I knew it the moment I walked into the room.
But I stayed anyway.
Leaving the dough to rise in its bowl, I wash my hands and then bend down to sort through the wine fridge. It takes me a moment to find the right bottle, a red blend from the Central Valley, and when I push to my feetagain, my heart jumps in fright. “Toni.” Raising a hand to my chest, I exhale. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.” She smiles sadly. “I thought I wanted to be alone but…” She shakes her head.
“Sometimes you need activity. Ambient noise. Or the memories become too big.”
“Exactly. Lizzie…She, ah, left me this voicemail on the day she died…I can’t stop listening to it, and wondering where she was, you know. Who she was with…”
“Jesus.”
Leaning over, she peers into the bowl on the counter. “Bread?”
Sensing that she needs to change the topic, I say, “Pizza. Figured we could have a girls’ night.”
I put the wine on the counter. As I hunt up the various toppings we could add, I keep talking, hoping that I can give Toni the distraction she needs. “I was just thinking about that time Lizzie came and picked me up after Gavin beat my face in.”
“God, I remember that.” Leaning her elbows on the counter, she watches as I work. “We should have done something. Should have reported it or done…Something.”
“He knew that we’d boxed ourselves into a corner,” I argue. “I had seen him half a dozen times by that point. We could hardly say I hadn’t taken the money for sex.” I look at Antoinette. “I wouldn’t have risked the business, Toni. Ever.”
“Still.” Her eyes glint dangerously. “Makes me sick to my soul to think of you, locking yourself in that goddamn bathroom.”
A full-body shiver passes over me, but instead of pushing it aside, I embrace it, chasing the tickle of unease as it whispers along my skin. “God, I remember Lizziebarging in, that goddamn Derringer in her hand pointed at Gavin’s raging hardon.”
Everything is still so clear, almost as if my memory is on film, and all I have to do is push play. I had curled into a ball on the bathroom floor, still fully clothed, trying to make myself as small as possible. The tile was cold against my bloody face. “Every time Gavin pounded against the door, it rattled as if it would burst at any moment. And all I could do was wait and hope, praying that Lizzie would come.”
“And she did.”
“And she brought her gun.” A raspy chuckle slips through my lips as I think back to the look on Gavin’s face as Lizzie and I backed out of the room, me dressed in a tight, leather corset, lace underwear, knee-high tights, and heels, my nose broken, my eyes puffing shut, and Lizzie barefoot in jeans and braless under a huge Lakers jersey, the pistol pointed at Gavin’s Viagra-fueled dick.
He hadn’t dared to follow us.
And he had never contacted Toni again.
The strangest thing about that night is I don’t think sex even crossed his mind. That night, Gavin needed something to hit, and I was there, self-selected and ready—just within reason.
“It was a long time ago now.”
“Time.” Restless now, Toni pushes back from the counter. Her spiked heels click on the tiled floor as she walks to the fridge, and while I don’t think it’s intentional, the perfect cadence in her stride adds sex to the sound. “Time is a funny thing,” she says, “for women like us.”
“Well, we never seem to have enough of it, that’s for sure.”
“That’s everyone. Us...We measure the progress of our lives in dates and arrival times, hours sold, monthlycheck-ups, menstrual cycles.” She waves her hand in the air. “And the time it takes us to recover from the last trauma.”
“Don’t be silly.” When she spins to face me, eyes flashing, I just laugh. “We never recover from the last trauma. We just balm over it with the new one.”
Toni doesn’t smile. She nods once. “Sometimes I hate myself for bringing you all into this life.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I raise both my brows. “Are you hoping I’ll flog you? Because I’ll give you a discount,” I tease.
“Don’t be absurd,” she says without missing a beat. “We don’t give discounts.” But she’s smiling again.
