September
Lucy's Age: 17
Venice was indulging in her usual cloak-and-dagger antics today. I'd texted that I wanted to go out earlier that morning, and she'd responded back at the regularly scheduled four-hour check-in with an address and a time that had been accompanied with a reminder that I was to hightail it out of there if she missed the next check-in or was more than fifteen minutes late.
I arrived at the address, a particularly high-rent area near Fifth Avenue, fifteen minutes early because I hadn't been quite sure how long it would take me to walk there from my apartment. Venice arrived five minutes early herself and smiled when she saw me. The expression started out cold and haughty and then warmed up as she shed her working persona and the girl who'd texted me a picture of two kittens yesterday peeked out from underneath the uncaring be-otch that Imastious had tried to turn her into.
"What made you pick this place? It's way on the other side of the island from where we normally meet up."
Venice shrugged, her bare, shapely shoulders moving as she pointed at a store across the street. "It's good to mix things up in case someone tails me partway to the rendezvous spot. Besides, you said you wanted to get out of the apartment so I figured I'd take you shopping."
I looked at the displays in the store. "There's only so much cash I can steal from the house fund before Mrs. Phelps starts threatening to just come clean to Geoffrey. She's bluffing, but it's pretty apparent that she views the house money as her own personal slush fund. There's no way that I've got enough cash to buy anything there."
Venice's smile was even warmer than it had been a few seconds earlier. "Don't worry about the cash, silly girl. Imastious is a complete lowlife, but working for him means that I've got a lot of cash that needs spent in some useless fashion or another. Clothing has the benefit of being not only non-threatening, but also fun."
I'd never really been shopping before. Food shopping with Renworst didn't count, and ever since I'd gotten access to the internet I'd just purchased all of my clothes online. I almost said as much, but stopped because I was worried that Venice would tell me that she'd already deduced as much just based on the state of my wardrobe.
I'd always thought that I dressed okay. Today I was in jeans and a short-sleeved polo, but Venice was a whole level above me. I stared at the store she'd pointed to for a couple more seconds and then shrugged and followed her across the street. It wasn't like she could dress me any worse than I was already dressed, not in a place as expensive as this was likely to be.
Half an hour later I was starting to wonder if I'd spoken too soon. The clothes were all expensive, not designer, more like an extremely high-end box store, but Venice had a distinctive style and it mostly involved, tight, thin, and short. My figure was still pretty good despite the fact that I hadn't been running as much lately, but I still wasn't sure that I was ever going to wear some of what she purchased for me.
I finally lured her over to the boys' section of the store by claiming that I needed to get some running clothes, not that I expected to find anything good in a store that seemed to cater to 'preppy slut,' if there was really such a thing.
There was a guy stocking the shelves over by the running gear and Venice gave him a slow once-over as we got closer.
"Now that is what you need, Lucy. Look at the way his shirt has to stretch to contain those shoulders, but don't spend too long staring though."
"Because we don't want him to see us drooling over him?"
"No, because you'd miss the amazing things his pants are doing for his butt!"
My face instantly heated up. I was pretty sure that he'd been able to overhear Venice, but she didn't seem to care. Instead she practically danced away from me with a twinkle in her eye. I was starting to suspect that she was extra childish when she was with me as a way of compensating for how controlled she had to be when she was working for Imastious.
Actually, it probably wasn't just when she was with me. The photo of the two kittens she'd sent me hadn't been professionally done, which meant that she'd been somewhere recently where she'd been able to snap it. A leisurely morning at the pet store was hardly in keeping with the image she gave off most of the rest of the time.
I rubbed my cheeks, wishing that there was a way to instantly eliminate a blush, and then I walked back over to Venice who was busy holding up a pair of boxer briefs and raising her eyebrows suggestively at me.
"Do you know how hard it is to tell where the act ends and the real Venice begins? The suggestive clothes, leering at boys, it's hard to sort it all out sometimes."
She shrugged, as though trying to dismiss the question, but I could feel her mood change. "It's probably hard for you to tell where the act starts and ends because sometimes I'm not sure myself. I'm not the oversexed whore that Imastious tried to turn me into, but I do still have a pulse. I can appreciate a nice set of shoulders or a tight butt and still be faithful to Geoffrey, not that he cares one way or another right now."
"Is that why you're into him? Just purely for physical reasons?"
"Who, Geoffrey?" Venice looked at me in surprise. "And here I thought you weren't paying any attention to Geoffrey's less subtle attributes."
I blushed slightly. I didn't think of Geoffrey as a father figure and there wasn't any blood relationship between us, so it wasn't like what I was thinking was tantamount to incest, but the tone to Venice's words still made it feel like we'd just crossed over in to awkward territory.
"I've got eyes and a 'pulse' like you. It would be hard not to notice the fact that he keeps himself in good shape."
Venice seemed to be waiting for me to say something else, but when I didn't volunteer anything else she shrugged and put the underwear back on the shelf.
"No, love, I'm not with Geoffrey just because he's got a killer bod and knows how to use it. I'm with Geoffrey because, despite all of the terrible things he does, he could be so much worse. He doesn't even realize just how hard he's trying to be good. He's rationalized away everything good he's ever done to the point where he thinks that it was all just about his own self-interest, but I know that's not the reason."
Venice absently reached out and ran her fingers over another pair of silk boxers. "I'm with him because he saved my life. I may not be entirely happy with who I've become in the process, with the things that I'm capable of doing now, but alive sure as hell beats dead."
"So you pretend not to care, wear the clothes that Imastious dresses you in, hurt whomever he tells you to hurt, but it's all an act to hide the fact that they didn't succeed, that you're still a decent person inside where it really matters?"
My question earned me a sad smile that reminded me of the first time we'd talked. "Honestly, I don't know anymore. There are days where I'm not sure which one is the act. Sometimes I wake up from nightmares where I'm doing terrible things and enjoying them."
She shook herself slightly, apparently having decided that she'd said too much, and shot me a smile that was much more chipper.
"Besides, this isn't Imastious' style at all, this is the kind of stuff that Geoffrey likes. Imastious runs much more to high-class prostitute than girl next door. Come on. It's time to get a couple more things for you. I actually wish I could be there to see his expression the first time he catches you wearing some of this."
"What makes you think I'll ever wear any of it, let alone somewhere that Geoffrey might see me in it?"
"Trust me, once you own this kind of stuff it's hard not to dust it off at least once in a while and see how many heads you can turn. You'll wear it sooner or later."