The Blue Room: Vol. 1 Read online

  “Thank you.”

  “Don't thank me. Thank Mr. X.”

  She smiled at me sadly.

  “It's my very first spend,” she said. “I wanted the first money I earned at the Blue Room to go to somebody other than myself. It makes me feel better that way...”

  “You don't have to...”

  “Do you know how big my student loans are?” She swallowed. “My mom and dad – they co-signed my med school loans. But my dad lost his job – and they're gonna lose the house, too, if they're saddled with my debt.” She inhaled sharply. “I'm going to do what I have to do. I got them into this mess. I'll get them out.”

  The first night I wore the locket, I thought I'd sell it. I was desperate at the time, making barely more than minimum wage at my receptionist job, and all I could think of was how much I could pawn it for. It was so tempting. How many hours of my shift would it get me? Fifteen? Forty? Enough for a whole night's sleep at a time? Enough for fifteen minutes of Rita's time at the Blue Room.

  But after hearing what she said about it being her first purchase, I couldn't sell it. I couldn't bring myself to. Rita had wanted to do something nice for me – she'd given it to me – she'd bound us together.

  Even today I feel responsible for taking it. What would have happened if I'd insisted, if I'd refused to take it at all, if I hadn't looked at that locket and seen dollar signs, and instead told her that what she was doing was dangerous, insisted that she stop?

  She might be with me, still, in our apartment. Doctor Rita – or almost. Successful, happy, paying off her med-school loans the old-fashioned way. But such an imagining – I don't have time for hypotheticals. I don't have time for nice little alternatives. All I know is that Rita was my best friend, like a sister I’ve never had, and now there's a bigger chance than I want to admit that she's dead.

  So I finger the locket. And I tell myself I'll do what I have to do. Virginity's just a social construct, after all; sex is just a thing you do with your body. Sex is just an act. Finding Rita is another act. I tell myself that's all I need to know.

  So I sit down with my schedule, and I see I've only got five minutes of reminiscing before

  7:00 pm. Facial.

  7:30 pm. Makeover.

  I don't even have to go anywhere. A small, quiet brunette raps at my door within seconds of the clock hitting seven; she covers me with poultices and ointments and scrubs which probably cost more than a whole month's salary at Dr. O'Donovan's office.

  As they plump and primp me, I start to feel sick again. It's not just the thought of having sex with someone I don't love. People do that often enough, I guess. It's being surrounded by so much money. It's the same feeling I had when Rita gave me that necklace. The Creme de Mer ointments, the Clarins creams, that distinctive perfume that you know only oligarch's wives can afford – all of the smells, the tastes, the sensations, remind me that everyone around me can buy and sell me in a heartbeat. The kind of money that could save my mother's life? That's just a tip scrawled on a credit card bill for one night on the town.

  It makes me sick, at first.

  And then I start thinking.

  One jar of these creams. Sell it on ebay for $200. Ten of those – that's a long way towards covering Mom's hospital debt. Pocket a necklace or two – that's a round of chemo.

  A stack of Washingtons by the bedside? That's an experimental, aggressive treatment. The kind that might save someone's life. The kind that last-ditch attempts are made of.

  And then it hits me.

  I'm like Rita.

  I want that money just as much.

  Everyone around me is buying me, selling me, like I'm a toy. Terrence Blue wants to buy and sell me. At once I hate everyone around me, all these people who think they own me, who think they know what I'm like. The people who thought they owned Rita, too, before they got tired of owning her – whatever that means.

  If I'm gonna be bought and sold, I'd better be the one doing the selling. I want to make a profit on my own back.

  All these people – Terrence Blue, Angus the businessman – I don't want to just fuck them. I want to be them. I want to have the power they have. I want to buy and sell and trade with the best of them, rip them off and send the proceeds to my mother in Nevada.

  Whoever my first patron was, no matter how ugly, no matter how repulsive, I resolved to screw him. In more ways than one. I was going to do this my way. Just like Terrence.

  As the girl leaned over me and started putting make-up on my face, changing me into a creature of unrecognizable beauty, a girl who hardly looked like me at all, I thought of all the girls I knew back home who lost their virginities for far less romantic reason. At parties with guys, in the back of fraternity houses, out of peer pressure, out of fear of being the last virgin at our school.

  I wouldn't just do it for money. I'd do it for knowledge. For power.

  One day, I swore to myself, I was going to walk into a room with Terrence Blue and buy and sell this place from right out under him.

  “Here, Miss Atussi!” The girl rolled out a mirror to show me what she'd done.

  I couldn't believe the sight of me. I was dressed in a form-fitting mint-colored minidress, the heels on my feet sparkly and diamond-encrusted. My hair was smooth and sleek in a pageboy style; my lips were glossed and my eyes were blue, pouty, smoky – the eyes of a femme fatale. I didn't look like some cheap streetwalker, I thought. If I was going to be a prostitute, I was going to be a damn expensive one.

  “Sexy!” I heard Mrs. Walter's voice in the doorway. “Sexy, Miss Atussi, is more than just having expensive shoes. It's about more than how much skin you reveal. It's about how you carrying yourself. It's about how you look men in the eyes. Our Blues Girls look and act like a million bucks. Unattainable. Worthy of being won. These men are powerful men who seek out the best – like challenges. They bet on racehorses, collect artwork, stay at the nicest hotels. They want their sex to be the best experience they've had, too. If you're too easy, you're not worth it. If you play hard to get but display enough interest in him, then you will present a challenge to him. He will want you. Make him crave you, and you will find yourself cherished.”

  I didn't know a lot about being alluring. But I knew a lot about pretending. Back before money was too tight for me to think about anything but work, I'd wanted to be an actress. Well, I'd act now.

  My first patron wouldn't know what hit him.

  “He will meet you in the hotel tonight to take you to dinner downstairs at Azure. Then he will follow you back up to your room after dinner to – get to know you better. If you please him enough during that time, and he stays until morning, you'll double your income. Given your – unique – status, that would net you about twenty-five thousand.”

  My jaw drops. “Dollars?”

  “Dollars – what did you think?”

  My jaw's still hanging open.

  “But only if you impress him enough. The only thing guaranteed is dinner.”

  “What's the point of hiring a hooker if you don't want to sleep with her?” I can hear myself get nasty.

  “This patron is selective,” she says. “He wants to see if he likes you enough to take things further. His time is precious and he doesn't like to waste it.”

  I'm almost insulted. Not only do I have to sell my body for money – I have to convince someone I'm worth it?

  “Now, you look perfect,” Mrs. Walters says. “Don't mess up your makeup before he sees you. As for after – well, men like ruining a woman's makeup themselves. But let it be a man's doing – not some mess you make between now and then.”

  I say nothing. I'm too stunned to come up with a clever remark.

  I go back to my hotel room and try to relax. I turn on the television, listen to music. I try to turn on my computer only to find that the wireless is blocked. I guess they're not too keen on us girls having any contact with the outside world while we're here.

  I watch the clock tick down.

  8:25...
8:26...8:29.

  8:30.

  The doorbell rings.

  Chapter 8

  At once I snap to my feet. I'm on it, I tell myself. Elegant. Unattainable. Alluring.

  At least until I knock over the vase on the bedside table.

  “Oh, shit!” All the alluring in the world flies right out of me as I try to pick up the pieces of the vase. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “Not really the reaction I was hoping for!”

  Terrence Blue is standing in the doorway.

  He's all dressed up – so much so it takes me a second to be sure it's really him. In the Blue Room, Terrence had gone for grunge, but now he's quite the gentleman: clean-shaven, in an impeccably tailored suit.

  Surely he knows the client's coming! Or is this all part of Terrence's sick sense of humor – to try and throw me off my game when I least expect it.

  “I'm sorry,” I say. “It's the vase. It's probably a Waterford or something – I'm sorry.”

  “No harm done.” He just strolls in like he owns the place. Which, to be fair, he does. “I'll just replace it then.” He picks up the pieces and starts putting them in the trashcan. “I'll get housekeeping in here while we're gone.”

  “Not that it isn't lovely to see you,” I try to smile. “But you're kind of ruining my concentration.”

  “And what is it that you're concentrating on, dear Staci?”

  “I'm preparing for my...uh...work meeting.”

  He shuts the door and looks me up and down. I can feel how his eyes sear into me. It feels terrifying – and good, at the same time. I'm in disarray – mentally, physically. How can this man have such an effect on me? I think I'm powerful, think I'm strong, ready for all the challenges that lie before me, and then in a heartbeat this Terrence Blue can have me up against a wall, panting, desperate.

  “You look delectable, Staci. I'm sure your work meeting will go very well indeed. Makeovers always do a number on my girls – but you're a butterfly, now. Completely transformed. Into the glam femme fatale I always knew you were.”

  Before I can say anything Terrence has me up against the door, his hand moving up my inner thigh, fingering my panties.

  Great, I think. The last thing I can afford right now is to ruin the expensive La Perla lace panties that were part of my work uniform. But Terrence has already got them soaked through. As much by the look he gives me as by his sensual touch.

  The heat is overpowering. His hands against my thigh, his fingers caressing deeper, rubbing me just enough to get the blood pumping and that breath so shallow in my throat. All I know right now is – I want him. I want him so badly I'm willing to throw everything else away if he can just let me come.

  And he knows it.

  He knows I'm enjoying him just as much as he's enjoying me. The thrill of the chase. Combat in caresses. He knows I know it too.

  “You're just as excited about me as I am about you.” His breath is warm against my neck. “Your body is more talkative than you are, Staci.”

  “Terrence.” His fingers are in all the right places, now, moving faster and faster, bringing up my heart rate with each slow and torturous caress. It's hot, so hot, and all I want to do is tear off that expensive mint gown Mrs. Walters has bought for me. No, who am I kidding? I want him to tear it off.

  “I love watching you,” he whispers. “Your face.” He probes deeper, and then his fingers are inside me, pressing upwards, into that rough patch of flesh that sends me wild. I'm moaning – I know that now – and I can't stop myself. I don't know if I want to. “So full of desire and passion.”

  He's getting rougher, now. Almost violent. But his eyes are fixed on me and I know he's listening to every beat of my heart, every sharp intake of breath. I know he knows he's going to push me exactly how far I can go – and no further. He knows my body as well as I do.

  “Oh, Terrence!” I'm moaning; I'm panting; I'm heaving. They can hear me all the way down in Mrs. Walters' office. “Terrence – this – this feels so good – but...”

  But my client's meant to be here already. And somehow I don't think watching me get fingered by Terrence Blue is the kink he signed up for.

  Or maybe it is, who knows? The Blue Room's clientele seem pretty into the weird stuff.

  “You have no idea what you're missing.” Terrence whispers into my ears. “Such pleasure. Such wild pleasure. All yours. A body and a face like yours – your body is an instrument. Built to give, but also to receive.”

  At once I'm on the defensive. I'm no instrument – I'm not built for anything, except maybe finding out the truth about Rita. But it's hard to think about that when my mind is going blank, when my eyes are rolling back into my head, when with a shudder and a scream that feels like an explosion I'm coming onto his fingers, his hand, against his chest, crying out into his neck.

  I buck a few more times and then he takes his fingers out of me, lifts them to his lips, begins to suck them dry.

  The look he gives me almost makes me come a second time.

  “Next time,” he says, and I'm wet again just hearing it. “I'll take off your panties first. Then I'll do exactly what I just did to you – only next time, I'm going to use my tongue. And you'll come so fast – I know girls like you – on edge the way you are. It'll only take a few licks before you come so hard you won't know what hit you. But it won't be over.” He wipes his lips with a handkerchief, impeccably monogrammed TJB. “I bet you can come at least four or five times in an hour. You look like it this time. And I'm going to make sure I have the chance to find out.”

  I can't even think.

  A knock at the door slams us both out of the reverie.

  “It's him!” My voice catches in my throat.

  Shit. How am I going to get Terrence out of here?

  I start fixing my lipstick, my hair, everything. I tell myself that this is all part of the plan – that seducing Terrence Blue is the best way to get inside the real back of the Blue Room, to figure out what happened to Rita and why. But why does it feel like he seduced me? And why does it feel so good?

  “It's him...”

  But before I can get to the door, Terrence is already there. He leans out, whispers a few words, then closes it again before I can say anything.

  “Why did you send him away?” I ask.

  My first client – and I don't even get to meet him? Terrence Blue is bad for business.

  “An unnecessary distraction.”

  “But he's already paid!” I cry out. “Mrs. Walters says he's already paid for dinner...”

  Terrence bursts out laughing. “Staci,” he says. “That was housekeeping. For the vase.”

  “But...” the realization hits me before I finish the sentence. “My patron.”

  Terrence doesn't say anything. He just stares at me, with those amazing blue eyes, until I nod, slowly.

  “I think you've passed the dinner test, Staci,” he says. “Normally I make my decisions after dessert – but in this case – I think I will have you for the rest of the night.”

  I stare up at him in shock.

  I'd been prepared to sleep with a patron, that much was true. I'd been prepared to sleep with someone for whom I felt nothing, not even attraction, to turn off my body and my mind and just go through the motions, like a robot. Be an actress, playing a scene with a stranger. But it hadn't occurred to me that I'd have to sleep with Terrence. Terrence for whom I felt something real, even if it was just desire.

  “You're joking...” Somehow, I know he's not. “Terrence – you have to go before my client gets here.”

  “Don't play dumb, Staci.” He grins, pinning my arms above my head as he presses against me once again. He leans in to kiss me behind the ears, which feels so good that my heart stops for a second in sheer ecstasy. I half-close my eyes, enjoying the way his tongue is probing my ears, my neck. “I'm getting through to you, Miss Atussi. That much I'm sure of.” His kiss intoxicates me. “Little by little,” he says. “I'm chipping away that virginal little chasti
ty belt of yours.” He applies more pressure, then his teeth, and that little bit of pain sends me over the edge. I'm moaning again, unable to stand it any longer.

  “You see, I've found one of your buttons.” I'm practically screaming. “You're still new enough to pleasure, that discovering it excites you. You're still so untouched, so fresh – you take such pleasure in the pleasure you feel. You can't fake how your skin heats up underneath my fingers. You can't fake how your pretty blue eyes are dilated so wide. Your body's taking over. Whatever your mind is screaming, it won't listen.”

  “Terrence...my dress...my hair...” I don't even know what I'm saying now.

  “Sorry baby. Those things are beyond repair. It's fine. I'll pay damages.” His teeth nip against my neck and leave a bruise. His smile is wicked. “I called the original client – assigned him elsewhere.”

  “Why would you do that?” My mouth falls open. Against myself I'm thinking of the money, of what it could do for my mother.

  “Don't worry,” he said. “You'll still get paid. I'll see to that. But I don't know what Mrs. Walters was thinking booking you with him for the night. Although I can see how he could have gotten a whiff of you from that little performance you did onstage the other night.”

  “He seems...specific,” I say, thinking of how carefully Mrs. Walters and the others made me up.

  I'd rather him than Terrence. At least then I don't have to worry about falling for him.

  “He likes that glamorous look. The sex bomb you pretend to be. ”

  “Well, then I'll pretend to be experienced for him,” I say. “Isn't that my job. To fulfill men's fantasies.”

  “Not his,” Terrence looks grave. “Look – Staci,” his voice is almost tender. “The stuff he likes – this guy is extreme. And he wants extreme things. To do to girls and to be done to him. There's a reason he pays as much as it does. But the stuff he'll ask you to do – it will take a toll. Even among the Blue Girls, several refuse to see him. After what he's done to some of the girls.”