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Taryn
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Christa picks up her martini glass and presses it to her lips, her eyes wide. “Are you serious?”
I nod. “Yes, it was freaking amazing.”
“Like, people were watching and you weren’t even nervous?” she asks, pulling the olive-laden toothpick from her glass and popping the olive in her mouth.
“I couldn’t see who was watching or even if anyone was. Besides, the way the other people were out there in the open, butt-ass naked and doing it in front of everyone, it was nothing compared to that. Those people were freaks!” I confessed.
“Girl, I need in on this. Where’s this club?” she asks. “I wanna try it out once.”
I chew my lip and dribble soy sauce all over my sushi roll. “That’s just it, I’m not even supposed to be talking about, let alone telling you its deep, dark, juicy secrets. I can tell you how to download the app to get access to it, though.”
“Can you at least tell me where it’s at so I can maybe watch from the outside to see what kind of people go in?” she asks. “I’ve lived here all my life and this is the first I’m hearing of this. I know about that big kink club with the ranch theme that’s around here, and I’ve been there once, but there were too many weirdos and old people,” she says.
I make a face. “Old people, seriously?”
“I mean, not old like my grandparents but closer to my parents’ age, maybe a little younger. 40s and 50s. No thanks.”
“Well, this one doesn’t have a location. It moves around.”
“All right, send me the info on the app,” she says.
I briefly consider just downloading my bootlegged copy I’d stolen from Carter’s computer onto her phone, but there’s no way I’m risking it.
“Okay, I can send you a link to download it, but there’s a huge catch.”
She looks at me leerily, holding a sushi roll on chopsticks at her mouth. “What is it?” She pops the roll between her lips.
“It costs fifteen hundred bucks to download.”
She starts to choke on the roll and I hand her a glass of water, which she downs. After she calms and her face turns back to a normal shade, she says, “What!”
“Yeah, plus 500 at the door. It’s definitely for the hoity-toity,” I say with a smile.
“Rich boys like yours who can afford that.”
“Two grand for a night is nothing to someone like Carter. I saw him spend more on a bottle of champagne when he took me out with his friends a few weeks back.”
She snorts. “Why do you think I want access to this club? I need to find me a daddy.”
“Girl, you do not need a daddy. You just need someone nice who wants to take care of you,” I say, smearing wasabi on my roll.
“True. So are you going back to this club?” she asks me.
“I’m not sure. Probably. As a couple of course. We’re going shopping for more toys this weekend, probably gonna have a playroom built in his house. Sounds like fun,” I say.
“Yes, it does. So you’re really serious about Carter, huh?” she asks, sipping her martini.
I can’t help the smile that finds my face. “I really am. We already said the L word and have been talking about moving in together. Into his place, of course.”
“Yeah, you need to get out of that condo, move up to something bigger and nicer. You’ve earned it. You still gonna save your mom’s place for Eric?” she asks.
I nod. “Yep. In fact, he called a few days ago. He’s getting out early—November now! So we have to get the house together even quicker.”
“That’s great news, Tar. I’m really happy for you. But hey, I think you’re making great progress on it so far. Let your brother pitch in when he gets out, it shouldn’t all fall on you, especially since he’ll be living there practically for free.”
She’s right.
“He did mention wanting to pitch in and help, so I think I’ll let him. I’ll keep at it when I have time, but I’m not gonna bust my ass. It has every creature comfort aside from anything super modern in it, so I’ll let him make it his own,” I say.
Christa smiles before popping another roll in her mouth. “And your brother, he’s single, right?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Yes, his girlfriend dumped him about six months into his sentence.”
She hisses a breath. “Ouch, harsh.”
I shrug one shoulder. “Not really, I mean would you wait six years for a guy? I fucking wouldn’t.”
“It depends. I mean if we were married with kids I might, but just as a boyfriend, probably not,” she answers. “So, is he cute or what?”
“You seriously want to meet my brother?” I ask, laughing.
Christa is twenty-seven, only a year older than me, and we’ve been friends only two years but she’s my best friend in the world. While my other friends from high school and college had left the state or settled with husbands and kids, we drifted apart. I met Christa at the law firm and we’d immediately hit it off. So she hadn’t met any of my family except my mom once or twice before she passed.
“I don’t know. What’s he in prison for again?” she asks.
“Involuntary manslaughter. Drunk driving, killed a lady,” I murmur so no one else can hear us.
“Oh, man. Yeah, that’s bad.”
“Well, I’m not saying this just because he’s my brother, but he’s not a drunk or anything. Sure, he liked to party on the weekends but honestly, it was more distracted driving. He had been drinking, yes, and was just over the legal limit, but he dropped his phone while on a two-lane highway, bent down to grab it... head-on collision in Boulder,” I tell her quietly.
Christa points a finger at me with wide eyes. “Wait. I think I remember that case. I had just gotten my degree and had just started at Mills & Graves. We took an interest in it. Melinda said the guy was for sure going to do time, even though he didn’t mean to hurt anyone, obviously. Crazy that was your brother.”
“Oh yeah, no way he wasn’t going to not do time, they make an example out of people,” I say, parroting what Carter told me.
“So what’s he gonna do for work? It’s hard for ex-cons to find jobs,” she comments.
I cringe at the use of ‘ex-con’ to describe my brother, but I really have no defense to that. “He asked Carter for a job, but we’re hoping Carter’s friend can get him a job at the hospital instead.”
“Oh, yeah? Doing what? Like janitorial stuff or a cook?” she asks presumptuously, which I don’t blame her for.
I chuckle. “No, he’s got a master’s in sports medicine and wants to go back to doing physical therapy. He was on his way to getting his doctorate when he got locked up.”
Christa’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “Uh, what does he look like again?”
I laugh and pull out my phone, showing a picture of the two of us right before he went inside.
She whistles through her teeth. “Damn, he must work out. And those blue eyes. Wow.”
“He’s a total gym-rat. He’ll love the gym more than you, trust me,” I tell her.
She waves a dismissive hand. “Girl, he can spend all the time he wants at the gym as long as he saves some of his workout for me. Uh!” She uses both hands to make a thrusting motion.
“Gag! Don’t talk about my brother like that!”
“Okay fine, on one condition.”
I lift a brow over the rim of my wine glass. “What’s that?”
“You’ll introduce us.”
“I will, but it won’t be for a while. I’m reading a book right now and trust me, you don’t want him fresh outta prison. Let him go find some ho to get his sex-deprivation”—I suppress a gag at even talking about him like this—“outta his system, and when he’s ready, I’ll introduce you. You sure you won’t get in trouble at work for dating an ‘ex-con’?” I ask, making air quotes.
“Girl, who’s gonna find out? It’s not like I’ll tell them. Plus, the answer is no. They can’t fire me for that. Only if I worked in law enforcement or something.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
I look up to see the pretty Japanese server looming at our table.
“I’ll take another wine and she’ll have another of whatever that is,” I say, pointing to Christa’s empty glass.
“Can I get you dessert?”
“Chocolate,” we say in unison, laughing.
“Right away, ladies,” she replies, walking off with a smile.
***
“You seem distracted,” I say, running circles over Carter’s bare chest while we lounge together on a lazy Saturday morning.
“I am,” he murmurs, kissing the top of my head and squeezing me tighter to him.
I squirm to get free of his grip and prop myself up on my arm. “Wanna talk about it?”
He looks like he’s warring with himself and finally says, “There’s an issue with the club.”
“The Mile High Rooms?” I ask, surprised. I thought he was going to say he was stressed at work or something.
“Yes,” he replies, staring into my eyes. “They might get shut down.”
“Why?” I ask, eyes wide.
“Long story short, someone took a video inside the club of a politician’s husband engaging with one of the working girls and sent it to her. She’s out for blood and wants the club shut down,” he says quietly.
“So... he cheats on her and it’s the club’s fault?” I ask, incredulous. “Sounds like seriously misplaced anger.”
“You’re right, it is. People do weird things when they’re angry though. Jim told me she can’t divorce him because she has to keep up her image, plus, he comes from old money and funds all of her campaigns, so I guess her solution is to take away his means of cheating.” He clicks his tongue. “Stupid, I know.”
“Not cool,” I say, laying my head back down on his warm chest. “What are you guys gonna do?”
“Jim’s looking into literally trying to pay her off and promising her the husband’s banned permanently from the club. I don’t know that bribery’s such a good idea, but he’s gonna talk to an attorney.”
“And you’re worried,” I conclude.
“Yes and no. I’ll be fine financially without the club, but the money is nice. It nets me a couple million every year. I invest it for my future, but some of it does go back into the business. For the first two years, I used it to pay cash for this house and the two cars, so I could be debt free,” he admits.
The nerd in me finds it highly attractive that he saved up and is debt free in his personal life. It means he has security. Something all girls look for. I have no idea what he pays himself for a salary though, but I figure one day I’ll ask. Just not today.
“But you wouldn’t miss the club personally if it shut down,” I state more than ask.
“No, I don’t need it. I never have. Like I told you, I only utilized it once or twice with consensual women. No working girls,” he tells me.
For some weird reason that doesn’t make me feel better, probably because I’m in love with him and the thought of him with anyone else leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Which I acknowledge is ridiculous since he’s thirty-five years old and hasn’t ever been married.
“That’s a lot of money to lose yearly, but honestly, if there are paid sex workers there, this Jim guy could be in a lot of trouble. Like, criminally. He knows that right?” I ask.
“Yes, he does. That’s why he’s talking to a lawyer. The guy knows he’s been skating on thin ice this whole time with regards to that. I did advise him at one point to stop paying them, but he said they brought in better revenue for the club.”
Something comes to me. “You haven’t invested in this club, have you? I mean, I know you created the app but you don’t own stocks or partial ownership or anything, right?”
“No. Jim offered me twenty percent with a buy-in fee but I turned it down. Something in my gut told me not to. I’m glad I didn’t,” he admits.
I feel relieved. “Good. When I was working at the law firm, I used to read case files when I was bored. The federal government does not play around with this stuff. Even partial owners or stockholders would get in trouble for criminal shit the owners would do. They’d make these stockholders plead down to probation and a fine, but they were still considered felons after that. The feds play super dirty. The state isn’t much better in their prosecutorial ways.”
“Fuck,” he mutters, looking down at me. “I’m glad I didn’t. I just hope Jim will be okay.”
“I think after this, if he’s successful in paying this politician off, that he should get rid of the sex workers altogether. If he’s got a license for the club, a liquor license, and everybody’s there consensually and not being paid, he should be just fine,” I say.
“He knows that, as I’ve said the same and I’m sure his attorney will also reiterate that.”
I lean up and breathe against his lips, “Everything will be okay. Now kiss me.”
He smiles and wraps me in his arms, obeying my command.