“It wasn’t just dinner,” I tell her. “In fact, it wasn’t dinner at all.”
“What?” She shrieks. “Really? You did it with a club guy?”
She sounds a little too happy about this fact. At first I thought I would be thanking her but after the awkward ending Maxim and I had, I only feel mad.
“Why did you tell Bianca I was a virgin?” I demand.
“What? Celeste, I would never—”
“She said you did,” I tell her.
“Are you sure?” she asks. “She said those exact words? Because Bianca’s very tricky. One time she—”
She trails off.
“She what?” I prod.
“Never mind,” she says. “I’ll tell you some other time. But let’s just say I should have warned you to stay on your toes around her because she can be quite manipulative. She’s kind of the old washed up one around there and in order to keep her place in the pecking order she’s always doing things to curry favor with Terri and the clients. Tipping them off or even… delivering… certain girls.”
“Hmmm.”
So that’s the arrangement. Terri’s the madam and Bianca is her little helper.
I try to think back about whether Bianca actually said Rachel had told her I was a virgin. Maybe I had just assumed that. Maybe she had suspected and lied to see if I would confirm it, which I stupidly did. But still, I don’t want to give Rachel the benefit of the doubt. I’m in too bad of a mood.
“You should have warned me about a lot of things,” I tell her.
A certain Maxim Drier being one of them, but I decide I don’t want to talk about him. At least not yet.
“And why did you tell me to get a yellow bracelet when all the colors were different for Valentine’s Day?”
“Oh, my God,” Rachel says, obviously feeling awful. “Were they really? I didn’t know. Sometimes they have special events where they switch them up, but… oh shit…”
She trails off again, as if realizing the issue.
“Were there four different colored bracelets?” she asks. “One of them meaning—”
“One of them meaning a whole lot more than dinner,” I tell her. “One of them costing a million dollars.”
“A million dollars? No way.”
“What? You don’t think someone would pay a million dollars for me?” I ask her.
“It’s just that… Celeste, really? A million dollars? That’s never been done in the history of The Exchange. The record before that was close… but never up to a million.”
I don’t know whether to feel honored or even guiltier that Maxim paid so much and everything turned out the way that it did. But it doesn’t matter, because Rachel is talking again.
“Who paid that?” she demands.
“Maxim Drier,” I tell her.
Damn it. I hadn’t wanted to tell her. It’s none of her business. She doesn’t need to know. Nor does she deserve to. But she’s my best friend, and I have the tendency to just blurt things out to her. Plus, I feel I have to tell someone or I’ll explode.
“Wow,” she says. “Nice job.”
“Very funny.”
“Seriously, Celeste. He’s picky. He doesn’t go for just anyone. And he has very particular…”
“Tastes?” I ask her. “Needs?”
“Oh.” She falls silent. “Yeah. That just wouldn’t work at all. I see the big problem here, wow. So, you found out what it meant and just left without having dinner or anything? Am I fired? I mean, I understand…”
“No, Rachel, don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that to you, no matter how mad I was at you.”
I can’t help but try to lessen her fear even though I’m still angry. Why did she have to go and get me into this mess? Why did I have to agree to it?
“So, what did you do then?” she asks.
My silence tells her everything.
“You did it?” she asks. “You let him pop your cherry?”
She squeals, but I feel a bit heartbroken, remembering how it felt to be in that room, in Maxim’s arms. And now to be left with nothing.
“Wow,” she says. “I’m impressed. I mean, I knew you had it in you, I just never knew if you’d finally let it out.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. I can never stay mad at her for long.
“So, how was it?” she asks.
“It was great,” I tell her. “I mean, it was incredible. But then it was really, really weird.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard he likes to use whips and chains and stuff. Did he get too rough?”
I pause, not knowing what to say.
“No,” I finally decide.
She doesn’t need to know the whole truth. This is one secret I can keep to myself. She certainly has plenty of them.
“He didn’t. But enough about me. Are you the soon- to- be- Mrs. Billy Andrews yet?”
She pauses, which doesn’t sound good.
“No,” she says, and I can tell she’s trying not to cry.
“Well, that’s okay,” I tell her. “The night’s still young.”
“I don’t think it’s coming,” she says. “I think I just got my hopes up too much and read too much into everything. I don’t know if he wants to marry me. And, why would he? You said it yourself. I’m not even honest with him. I’m damaged goods.”
“You are not,” I tell her. “Don’t talk like that.”
“You know that thing that I started to tell you that Bianca did to me once?” she says.
“Yes,” I say, feeling bad for her without even knowing what it is.
“It was pretty much the same thing that happened to you. She lied to me about what color bracelet meant which level, when I was new and dumb. Except my night didn’t go as well as yours. Things happened that night that I really regret. And that I’m not sure Billy would want to marry me if he knew about it. That’s why it was so important to me to not let him know I work there. But I need to figure it out now. I need to quit soon if there’s any chance for Billy and me to work out.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
I feel so bad for my poor friend.
“If it makes you feel better, my night wasn’t great either.”
“It wasn’t?” she asks. “It sounds like it was pretty amazing.”
“It was,” I admit, “until something even more embarrassing happened than the Tom thing that happened on Prom night.”
“What happened?” she asks.
“Well, we were coming,” I tell her. “Like, coming, coming. Together.”
“Okay, well that’s good,” she says, sounding confused.
“I know. It was really great. I guess it was too great. Because out of nowhere he just said he loved me. And I said it back.”
“He said what?”
“I know,” I tell her, mortified. “I think maybe it’s some weird thing he did in the middle of sex, and that I was dumb for saying it back. Because he seemed really uncomfortable afterwards, even though in the middle of it all, things were obviously going pretty well.”
“I really don’t think that’s something he normally says,” Rachel declares. “I would have heard about it, because that would be weird. Plus, he’s not the type to say he loves anyone. He makes it really clear that he doesn’t fall in love. That’s the whole reason he comes to the club.”
I think about this.
“Maybe he was overwhelmed with feelings and just said it,” she ventures. “Maybe you just brought it out of him. I guess if anyone could overturn a heart of stone, it would be you. You sure are something, Celeste.”
“Awww thanks,” I tell her. I want it to be true, but I can’t believe it. “So are you. I’m sure Billy will propose soon. Just let things take their natural course.”
“Ha ha,” she laughs. “You’re one to talk. Being told ‘I love you’ on the very first date. Not even a date, really.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s not very natural,” I agree.
“Or maybe it is, and that’s why he said it.”
“Maybe.”
I can’t even hope too hard for it to be true.
It’s probably for the best if he doesn’t mean it. I don’t even know his phone number. And I couldn’t be caught running around with someone who pays for sex.
I’m a political ethics reporter. It would ruin my career right when it’s getting started. It was just one night and that’s all it was supposed to be. We both just got too caught up in the moment.
Didn’t we?
We didn’t really mean it.
Did we?
“Thanks for covering for me, Celeste,” Rachel says. “I really appreciate it. I better get back to Billy. We’ll both figure out all the rest of this later.”
“Of course,” I tell her, although I don’t know how I’ll ever figure my part out.
Why couldn’t we have just left it as one hot, passionate night? I could have collected my money and been done with it, moving on from that experience with the knowledge that the first time I had sex was amazing, but short- lived, as it should have been.
Why did he say he loved me?
And even more importantly, why did I say it back?
Deep down I know it’s because it’s true. Not that I can really love someone right away, of course. But he’s the first person who has had me feeling the beginnings of what I think is love. And it’s so fucking scary that we both had to walk away.
I wonder if we’ll ever see each other again.
And I wonder what will happen to my heart if we don’t.
Chapter 13 – Maxim
One Week Later
It’s been one hell of a week. First, my father and I got into a huge fucking fight. He told me he’s disappointed in me— as usual— and that if I don’t stop frequenting The Exchange, he’s cutting me off as a partner to our business venture and from the family trust fund.
Well happy Valentine’s Day to you too, Dad, I wanted to tell him.
Except it doesn’t even matter. It turns out I won’t even be frequenting The Exchange anymore and it has nothing to do with my father.
It has everything to do with the second shitty thing that’s happened this week, or rather, that hasn’t happened. I haven’t been able to get Celeste Sheffield out of my head.
I was such a fucking idiot to tell her I loved her while fucking her. What the hell is wrong with me?
At first, I tried to tell myself I was just caught up in the heat of the moment and meant to say I loved fucking her, not her.
Of course, I don’t love her. I can’t. We just fucking met. And she was my “escort,” to put it nicely. I’m not supposed to fall in love with the hired help.
And yet, there’s something about her that just made me feel different than any other girl I’d been with. She seems into me too. And not just for my money. Everything ended so awkwardly that I didn’t even get to tip her. I still need to do that. I was just hoping I could shake my stupid infatuation for her first, so that things could become business- like between us.
But that hasn’t happened.
Today, I’m at the golf course with my dad, Steven and a client of ours when I get a phone call.
“Hello Mr. Drier, I’m sorry to disturb you when you’re not at the club but I thought there was something you would like to know.”
Bianca’s familiar— and annoying— voice sings into the phone. She must have something good, to be disturbing me on my private number like this.
“What is it, Bianca?” I ask, not sure that I want to know.
If she tells me that Celeste is working there full-time now I am just going to fucking die. I don’t think I could handle that news.
That’s how I know I really do have feelings for her. Usually these encounters are just business transactions for me.
I wouldn’t expect to be the only person that Celeste ever sleeps with just because I was her first. In fact, the old Maxim would tell himself that I showed her such a good time she’s going to rush out to try to recreate it again and again, only to fail because there’s no such thing in comparison to being with me.
But somehow Celeste has changed the old Maxim, by repeating three little words. Suddenly the thought of her being with anyone else drives me insane.
“I assume you had a nice time with the lovely Celeste last week on Valentine’s Day,” she says and I neither confirm nor deny. Knowing Bianca, she’s probably fishing for information. “And I thought you might want to know that she’s coming in today.”
“Is she?” I ask.
Suddenly I feel I’ve made a huge mistake. I never should have let her go. I’m mad at her for working at The Exchange but I also feel partly responsible.
“I’ve gotta go,” I tell Dad.
“What?” he asks. “We’re only on the tenth hole.”
“It’s important,” I tell him.
“You’d better not be going where I think you’re going.”
I’m sick of this. I’m a grown man and can do what I want. If it means losing my fortune to see Celeste one more time, so be it. I at least need to tip her. And perhaps explain my feelings, even though I don’t completely understand them myself.
“I’m not going to be going there any more after today,” I tell him. “But today I need to go.”
Dad sighs, but he doesn’t say anything, for once. I’m waiting for a judgmental comment or a threat to take away money if I disobey him, but no such statements come.
As I hurry off, I have a feeling Dad will grant me tacit if not explicit permission for one more visit to The Exchange despite his misgivings. And one more visit is all I need, to save what I know is worth having between Celeste and me.
Chapter 14 – Celeste
I arrive at The Exchange nearly as flustered as I was last time I was here. I feel as if I’ve barely slept all week.
Instead, I've been continually playing over and over again in my mind everything that happened between Maxim and me, and wishing that things could have ended differently.
The only good thing to come out of the whole experience is that I feel more confident about my sexuality. I know I’m not too slutty or “forward” like Tom had claimed. I just needed a real man to take charge and show me that my sexuality is a good thing.
Not that I plan to use it with anyone else any time soon. My biggest fear is that no one will ever compare to Maxim and I’ll never want to have sex with anyone except him again.
I certainly have been fantasizing about him— I even went and bought a bullet- shaped vibrator like the one he’d used on me, to relive our time together in my mind. It’s not anything like the real thing but it’s as close as I want to try to get for a long time.
I feel a strange bond with Maxim that is probably there any time anyone loses their virginity to someone. But it feels like more to me. It feels like love.
Still, he hasn’t contacted me, and he’s the one with the power to do that, since he knows Rachel and he could easily reach me through her. So, I guess it doesn’t feel like love to him.
Now it’s time to snap back into reality. Because Rachel called me just a bit ago saying she really needs me to bring her little black dress she’d lent me eons ago to The Exchange. It’s a ridiculous request— I have no idea why she needs it— but she told me it was very important and begged me to come.
So here I am, even though I suspect she has something up her sleeve. As long as she doesn’t want me to fill in for her again, I’ll be happy.
There's no way I'm standing up on that stage and being auctioned off, ever again. Even if I had originally been into the idea— which I hadn't been, or at least not very much— now it would be a completely different experience. I've already been claimed by Maxim and no one else can compare.
The security guard must think I’m here to work again because he ushers me to the same curtained- off backstage room I started out in last week. I look around and Rachel isn’t in here, but Bianca is.
She’s chatting to some girl in the corner— that poor girl. I don’t think Bianca sees
me and I don’t want her to. I quickly duck out and go look for Rachel in the main room, where the auctions are held.
She’s not in here, either, but I stop dead in my tracks when I see who is.
Maxim.
He’s standing in the back, looking around just as I had been.
Is he here to bid on a girl?
My stomach drops. I guess what we had meant nothing to him. How silly of me to think otherwise. All because of some meaningless words he said in the heat of the moment.
But when he sees me, he looks really happy. A grin spreads across his entire handsome face, causing his chiseled cheekbones to appear to raise up even higher. He rushes over to me and I know that he is feeling at least something along the same lines as what I’m feeling.
“Celeste,” he says, taking me in his arms. “I was looking for you.”
Then his grin turns sheepish, as if he’s waiting for me to say the same. So, I do.
“I was looking for you, too,” I tell him. “I mean, not exactly right now because I didn’t know you’d be here. I came to see Rachel.”
But I’m always looking for you, I want to add.
Part of me was hoping I would see him here, even though another part was afraid it would obviously mean he was doing to other girls what he had done to me. And I don’t know if I could bear knowing that. But at least it would mean getting to see him again.
I didn’t expect him to be here looking for me. I have no idea what’s going on.
As if on cue, Rachel rushes up to us. She’s wearing jeans and a blouse, rather than the elegant evening dress she should be wearing on stage if she’s working. I suppose that might be why she asked me to bring this little black dress I’m carrying.
“There you guys are,” she says.
“Here we are?” I ask her. “Here you are.”
“Oh yeah, sorry I’m late.”
Leave it to Rachel to be late for a meeting that she herself called. Even though the meeting was supposed to happen at the place she claimed to be when she called me.
“What’s going on?” Maxim asks.
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