Rhodium

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

MY FIRST OFFICIAL date as a lowly one-ruby saw me accompany a businessman to a charity gala. You’ll notice I called it a date? Well, that’s because I didn’t want to admit the truth—that I’d become a man’s plaything and got paid three hundred dollars for the privilege.

Not much of that first paycheck went on the rent, though. When Chrissie saw what I’d put on to go out—a knee-length black number left over from a failed real date—she dragged me into her room and sat me on the bed.

Hands on hips, she stared down at me. “Stefanie Amor, I swear you’ve got more looks than sense.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you even glanced in the mirror?”

At least twice. “Of course I have.”

“Then why on earth are you dressed as if you’re going for a job interview? The Benford Association’s gala will be full of leggy models in slinky dresses. You can’t go like that.”

“I don’t have a slinky dress.”

She turned and threw open her closet doors. “It’s a good thing I’ve been at this longer than you, isn’t it?”

Not only did she fasten me into a bright-red halterneck, but she also insisted on redoing my make-up vamp-style and pinning my hair into an elegant updo. By then, I’d missed the bus and needed to leap into a cab to meet my client outside his office at the appointed hour. That was twenty dollars gone.

The rest of that evening’s earnings went to lipstick, mascara, a handful of outfits, and a torture session, otherwise known as leg waxing. Chrissie came with me, and we had a small difference of opinion over some of my purchases.

“You’ve got no underwear,” she pointed out.

“I don’t need any new stuff.”

“Oh, please. Everything you own is white cotton. You look like a Catholic schoolgirl.”

“What does it matter? I’ll be the only one seeing it.”

“You’ll never earn the big bucks thinking that way.”

“Fine by me.”

Small bucks suited me just fine. I took a couple of bookings a week, and that allowed me to quit The Daily Grind and knuckle down to my studies. My grades crept up slowly but surely since I had more free time to dedicate to my assignments.

Every couple of weeks, I’d have a crisis of confidence, usually before a date with a new client or if I happened to glimpse someone I knew while I was out working—more than once I’d seen a fellow student waiting tables in one of the high-end establishments we visited. But the job itself wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. Occasionally, I got a man who thought he could help himself to more than he’d paid for, but a few hints from Chrissie on how to say no plus the canister of pepper spray I’d taken to carrying in my purse gave me the confidence to deal with them.

Octavia, the owner of Rubies, wasn’t at all what I’d imagined. A dark-haired lady who dressed like a star from old movies, she acted as a bizarre cross between a pimp and a mom, checking up on us personally to ensure we were happy and also that we looked tidy. She took pride in her services. One weekend when she was in Richmond, we met up for coffee—her, me, and Chrissie.

Of all the things I’d expected to be doing that Saturday, it was safe to say having a conversation about breast implants and kink in the local branch of Starbucks didn’t make the list. At least we weren’t at The Daily Grind. My old boss would have had a field day eavesdropping on that one.

As we moved on to our second cups, it dawned on me this wasn’t so much a check-up as a sales visit, although Chrissie didn’t need much persuading. For weeks, she’d been talking about getting her fourth ruby, and when Octavia finished describing the extra services she’d have to offer, she nodded enthusiastically.

“Count me in. As long as they’re not allowed to leave a mark on me, I’ll do it.”

All the talk of spanking made me cringe. Hands, rulers, paddles. Who would want to do that?

Then Octavia turned to me. “So, Stefanie. Have you thought about moving up to two rubies?”

I swallowed a chunk of chocolate muffin, and it went down the wrong way. Chrissie thumped me on the back as I took a gulp of coffee to ease the tickle.

“That’s when the s*x starts, isn’t it?” I whispered.

“Yes and no.” Octavia sounded so matter of fact, as if we were discussing a sandwich menu. “Straight s*x or minor fetishes.”

I dreaded even thinking about it, but at the same time, I felt compelled to ask. “Minor fetishes?”

“Some men like the girls to dress up or speak to them in a certain way. There’s no s*x involved, but due to the unusual nature of some of the requests, the money’s better.”

“Like what?”

Over a low-fat lemon slice, she described the proclivities of the men who could afford to indulge themselves. The banker who liked girls to walk all over him in high heels. The elderly gent who got his kicks from having a life-sized teddy bear watch TV with him every Saturday night. Apparently, he whacked off by himself, no contact necessary. Then there was the millionaire who enjoyed dressing girls up like Barbie and having them ride around his house in a tiny electric car.

“And they pay for this? Why?”

“Yes, they do. Because we offer complete confidentiality. Many of these men have wives and families who wouldn’t take too kindly to their extracurricular activities.”

“Go on, give it a try,” Chrissie said.

“We’re actually a bit short of two-ruby girls at the moment. They either move up to three or leave when they graduate.”

The teddy bear couldn’t be worse than the coffee bean, could it? “Okay, I’ll try it. No s*x, though.”

So how did I go from feeding fruit to old men while wearing a bunny outfit to Oliver Rhodes? Desperation. And some really awful luck. They say disasters happen in threes. Well, Oliver was my fourth.