Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Orders. Cups. Change. Milk. Wipe, rinse, repeat.
No one asked me to meet a senator, or to go up to his office. No one expected leverage. No one looked at me as if my body might be useful to a legislative strategy.
At least not at first.
It was a little after two on a Thursday, in the lull between lunch and the first wave of people wanting an afternoon caffeine resurrection, when a girl came in wearing a cream sweaterdress that was just modest enough to signal it had been chosen carefully. She looked to be my age, maybe younger, with dark glossy hair and a soft pink mouth that seemed to me somehow to vacillate between innocence and experience as she contemplated the café. She checked her phone twice before a man in a charcoal coat entered and went directly to her table.
I noticed them because I was supposed to notice everyone, and then I kept noticing them because of the way he looked at her and the way she sat up straighter under his gaze. She smiled, but not casually. He did not smile much at all.
Denise called my name from the pastry case, and I turned away. By the time I’d boxed a croissant and taken two orders, they had coffees and had moved to the corner table near the window.
I wished I had I recognized the dynamic as quickly as I did because of some new, hard-won sophistication. The truth felt much uglier. I recognized it because I knew that particular current now. Not romance. Negotiation with sex under it. Appraisal. Terms.
When I cleaned up the adjacent table a little later, I heard the girl laugh and say, in a low voice that still carried, “I’m not asking for twelve. I’m not insane. But if you want exclusivity, and if you expect responsiveness, weekends, travel, all that? Five.”
My hand nearly slipped on a saucer.
The man took his time, stirring his flat white. He was in his forties, handsome in the disciplined expensive way that came with gym hours and a tailor, though not conventionally charming. His face was too severe for that. “Five thousand monthly,” he said. “Separate from housing.”
“Yes. Selecta provides housing, at this level, right?”
I felt my eyes go wide as I saw him nod. I had somehow missed that in the app… if it had even been on open offer.
“And you’re willing to relocate if the arrangement suits.”
She tilted her head. “If the arrangement suits.”
He looked at her for a second, and I saw something in his expression then that made heat creep up my neck. Satisfaction, yes, but the kind a man felt when a thing was going exactly the way he liked and he knew it.
“Done,” he said.
Just like that.
She blinked, and then smiled more broadly, trying not to show how relieved she was. “All right.”
He slid his phone across the table to show her something. “This is the offer. You’ll accept it, and then you’ll update your profile with the compliance verification and the additional photographs. When I move forward, I prefer not to discover later that a girl was shy in text and difficult in person.”
She gave a little breathy laugh. “I’m not difficult.”
“No?” He said it mildly.
Her eyes dropped. “Not if I’m treated well.”
His mouth changed, only slightly. “We’ll see.”
I finished wiping the now over-clean table and escaped before either of them looked up and found me standing there with my face burning.
For the next hour I felt distracted in a way that made me angry. Five thousand. He had agreed to five thousand as if she had asked him to add avocado. Not only that—he had expected her to ask. I knew enough now to understand the numbers involved. My paycheck from the café, after taxes, would barely cover rent and groceries. Five thousand a month was not abstract. It was rescue. It was breathing room. It was enough that a woman could tell herself all sorts of things.
When the girl and the man finally left separately, five minutes apart, Denise leaned against the counter beside me and said, “Another SA pair.”
I nearly dropped the milk pitcher. “What?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Selecta Arrangements. We get them all the time in the afternoons. Neutral location, decent coffee, no one asks questions. You didn’t clock it?”
I hoped my face looked only curious. “I wasn’t sure.”
Denise snorted. “You get used to it. Sometimes the girls are on their first meet and look like they’re going to faint. Sometimes they’re veterans. Sometimes the men are creepy. Sometimes they tip like gods. Same as anything else, I guess.”
Same as anything else.
That night I downloaded the app again.
I told myself I was only going to look… and look seriously this time. Looking was not agreeing. Looking was research. Looking was prudent, in the same way a starving person might prudently stand outside a bakery and inhale.