His Toy: A Bad Boy Romance

1. Michelle

Michelle“What are we doing here, Daddy?” I asked as my eyes scanned the rowdy roadhouse crowd. It was the kind of place where you half-expected Patrick Swayze to be standing behind the bar, managing the security. But then, as you looked around at everything going on, the poker in the back corner, the fist fight out in front, you quickly realized that Swayze wasn't the one running security at this show. In fact, I was pretty sure there wasn't any.

But, still, the crowd had a wonderful energy that crackled through it like an infection. Here, with Daddy and his bodyguard, Mike, watching over me, I could appreciate the excitement and the roughness of the clientele and even let myself feel a bit of it from the safety of their protection.

I would never leave their protective circle, though. Definitely not the way I was dressed, with my knee-length, white, backless, low-cut dress, and its impossibly high slits up both sides that showed the tops of my stockings on my long legs. I'd get mauled out there with the way I looked. Or worse! In fact, the only reason I'd even ventured to come in here was because Daddy and Mike were with me.

Don “Daddy” Williams was my manager, the man who owned the escort company I worked for. High dollars for high quality, that's how I saw it. And, with my dark red hair, perfect figure, and charming personality, I deserved a higher price tag and the best customers. Hell, most of the men I went on dates with didn't even want to sleep with me; they just wanted my company. Did I sleep with some of them, though? Sure, but it was always my choice. Luckily, most of the men who could afFrost me hadn't been trashy or gross, so, sure, I'd let some of them pull me into bed.

So, was I a prostitute? No. Of course not. Men just paid for the pleasure of my company, and the chance to have me on their arm for the evening. It wasn't exactly my dream job or anything, but a girl had to get by somehow. Especially when I'd started out from east Texas six months ago with just four dollars to my name, a busted old truck, and a dream to be an actress in LA.

My name on a movie house marquee: Best Actress Michelle Davies. That was I'd wished for over almost the last two decades, ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper.

But then life happened, as it does.

First, my pickup broke down here, in this little waypoint in the middle of nowhere, just a few hundred miles from the land of the silver screen. No money, no way forward. Daddy Williams found me at the local diner and offered me a job. I saw dollar signs while we talked, enough money to get me to LA and float me till my big break.

“Remember how last night you smarted off about that land deal I was going in on?”

I nodded.

“With Atchley, your date?” Daddy asked, leaning in so I'd hear him over the raucous crowd, his big voice matching his big belly as it filled my ear. “Said I was making a mistake by agreeing to it?”

I nodded as I sipped my Cape Cod through the straw, the burning taste of alcohol hitting my throat and warming my tummy. “I remember.”

“Well, this is what you f*****g get,” he replied, sweeping his arm out over the crowd all around us, “for giving me f*****g business advice in front of a client.”

I choked on my drink, getting a nose full of cranberry juice and vodka as it came back up. He kept going before I could respond.

He leaned in and stuck his big, nicotine stained finger in my face, making me recoil. “You need two hundred dollars to buy your way back into the house for the night, sweet little Michelle, and men like these don't exactly carry that kind of cash.”

Get back in the room for the night? What was he talking about? I had a whole wardrobe there, all my clothes, shoes, and jewelry I'd been collecting for when I moved to LA. He couldn't do that to me! There were thousands and thousands of dollars in designer clothes there, things that were mine by all rights, bought and paid for by my earnings!

“You can't do that!” I yelled. “You can't just hold my belongings like that!”

“Who says I can't?” he asked with a grin. “You? Who you gonna call? My buddy Sheriff Watts? He'll be too busy playing cards at the Mansion to do much about it, his eyes taking in as many t**s and p***y as they can handle.”

The Mansion was Daddy's other business that he ran, this one at the front of the sprawling estate I, and all the other girls, lived on. He ran it as a gentleman's club, a place where wealthy men could come in, play cards, have expensive drinks, and get a little action when they wanted to. Because I didn't want to be mistaken for one of those kinds of girls, I steered clear of the big house as much as possible.

“But, two hundred dollars?” I asked, disbelief in my voice as I shook my head. “You can't expect me to get that from one of these guys!”

Daddy laughed, his big, over-the-top bellowing laugh, his hands on his belly as it shook up and down like some creepy Santa. “Oh, honey. I don't expect that! I expect you to do some crowd-sourcing. Ain't that what the hip new thing is, now? Getting a whole bunch of people to pay small amounts? I figure you can get at least twenty-five for every blow job, maybe even fifty for a quickie. What man in his right mind wouldn't pay that much to see those beautiful ruby red lips of yours wrapped around his c**k?”

My mouth dropped open like Daddy had just slapped me in the face. “Now, Daddy—”

“You gotta learn,” he yelled, cutting me off as he leaned in close enough for spittle to land on my face, “to keep your f*****g mouth shut!”

My head snapped back, my dark red barrel curls bouncing around my face.

I'd never seen him this angry before. Never seen anyone this angry, I didn't think, except for maybe my Sunday preacher when he was talking about the gays and the liberals and the evils of places like Los Angeles.

“You're my girl,” he said in a lower, more sinister voice, “and I expect a little more respect from you. Hopefully, you spending the night down on your knees in the men's room'll teach you just how good you got it with me as your daddy. Understand me?”

I nodded mutely, my imagination filled with a room full of disgusting, eager men rubbing the crotches of their tight jeans. Bikers, oil field workers, barbacks, skeezy gamblers. A shudder went through me as I thought of them all, of what they'd do to me, especially with Mike and Daddy gone.

He nodded back, then glanced towards his bodyguard. “Come on, Mike. Let's leave Ms. Michelle here to figure out how she's gonna pay off her debt.”

Mike, as big as a house and twice as wide, followed after him, not even bothering to glance back at me as he left.

I swallowed hard, and even considered reaching out for Mike to beg him to stay, but the two men disappeared into the unruly crowd, leaving me completely alone.

Two-hundred dollars? And no one watching out for me while I tried to earn it? I swallowed again and took another sip of my drink. How was I going to do this? How would I come up with that kind of money?

Already, I could feel the eyes turning to me now that my protection was gone. Hungry, leering eyes that looked my barely- clothed form up and down like hungry wolves. I didn't even want to consider what these men here were thinking, what they wanted to do to me.

Forget how I was going to make my money, what I wanted to know was how I was going to get out of here in one piece.

One man sidled up to me out of the crowd of beer guzzlers and whiskey hounds, a cigarette burning in his hand. His face was scarred and pockmarked, his teeth worse than Austin Powers as he gave me a losing grin, and he smelled like he hadn't showered in weeks.

Bile rose in my mouth as he got closer, and I immediately began to shake all over. This wasn't what I'd signed up for when I took a job with Daddy. Sure, escort jobs weren't exactly savory, but I still didn't have to sleep with creeps like this!

“Hey, sexy momma, saw Daddy walk out of here on you. You one of his girls, huh? You looking for a date? I got a twenty, and I'll even lick your p***y before I shove it in.”

I backed away from him, my eyes frantically searching the bar for anyone I might recognize, anyone who could possibly save me from this man, and the fifty others like him that were now intently watching our exchange. “I'm sorry,” I stammered out, “but I'm not—”

“Come on now,” he said, stepping in closer. “I saw you with Daddy Williams. I know how his girls is, what kind of work they do on their back. My name's Zeke.” He reached out to me and stroked my arm with one finger, sending a chill of revulsion through my body. “What's yours, sexy momma?”

I resisted the urge to throw my drink in Zeke's face. I managed to stop myself at the last moment, knowing it would just make matters worse by enraging him. But I knew this guy thought I was just some cheap w***e, a piece of meat he could pay so he could have his way with me. He wasn't going to take no for an answer.

And then I heard him, his roaring voice over the crowd as he slammed his fist into the table. I glanced right, back towards the illegal poker game that had been going in the corner

“f**k you,” the man, now standing, roared as another man raked in the pile of chips from the center pot. The spot in front of the angry man, though, was completely empty. “f**k you, Samuels! You're a f*****g cheat. I just know it!”

He was tall, built like Rocky Balboa, and a total hunk even in his rage. I could tell from just one glance that he'd been in a few fights, and he'd won most of them. Something else about him really got me going, too. Maybe it was how sure he seemed of himself, even after he'd lost, or just the way his hands looked like they were used to hard work.

“Nah, it was you, Alex!” he yelled as he spun on the man to his right, his fists balled up tight, ready to knock some sense into the world. “You threw it so Samuels could have his go at me! You tipped him off!”

Yeah. This guy right here was what I needed. He could play Kevin Costner to my Whitney Houston anytime. I just knew it.