AVERY (The Corbin Brothers Book 2)

by Lexie Ray

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Andrew said. “We want to see what fits and looks good, after all.”

  We helped the personal shoppers carry everything into our bedroom and had Andrew wait out in the sitting room.

  “This is fun,” Cream said, clapping her hands as she shimmied into a dark blue dress. Of course. She’d always wanted to be a model.

  I’d gone through my entire life wanting to stay out of the spotlight. To me, a fashion show was torture, but I vowed to grin and bear it for my friend’s sake.

  “It sure is,” I lied, one of the shoppers zipping me into a pink dress.

  We both picked shoes and walked out of our room. Andrew was there, waiting for us, drinking coffee and chatting with who I believed to be the lead shopper. He looked up as we entered, and I found myself holding my breath, wishing fervently for nothing more than his approval. I didn’t know why it was so important to me, but it was. I wanted him to think I was beautiful.

  “Simply breathtaking, both of you,” he said as Cream grabbed my hand and twirled me around. “I’ve never seen a pair of more gorgeous women. Excellent choices for the cut and color of these pieces, Ms. Starr.”

  The lead shopper smiled and shrugged. “You incredibly detailed descriptions were a help,” she said. “There are so many times when we just have to guess at things.”

  How had Andrew described me? A short Latina with a huge ass? I had to wonder.

  “Next,” Andrew said, sending us scurrying back to our room to get a different look on.

  It was almost like playing dress-up, I supposed, as we tried on clothes and went to show him. There were skirts, jeans, blouses, tops, and more.

  “Do you think he wants us to model the lingerie?” I asked, holding up a thong and raising an eyebrow.

  “I’d do it if we were alone,” Cream said, pressing her boobs together as she tried on a shirt. “But I don’t think he’d like it with everyone here.”

  We walked out with the last outfits on. Nearly everything had fit us perfectly. The personal shoppers were good at what they did.

  “This is it,” Cream said, holding her arms out and turning around.

  “Superb,” Andrew said. “We’ll take everything that fit.”

  “Everything?” Cream repeated, her mouth agape.

  “Everything,” Andrew confirmed, nodding.

  “Thank you,” I said softly as the lead shopper slipped him a bill. He hardly glanced at the sheet of paper, keeping his eyes on us.

  “Thank you for both being so beautiful,” he said, signing the paper with a pen the lead shopper produced.

  After the shoppers left—they had also brought a bag full of cosmetics and toiletries—we started preparing dinner. It was nearly eight o’clock by then.

  “I’m starving,” Andrew said, looking over to my skillet. “What are you preparing over here? It smells excellent.”

  “Carne guisada,” I said. “Beef stew. We’ll have a little rice to help soak it up.” I pointed at another covered pot.”

  Cream was busy setting the table. She had already chopped up some vegetables for a light salad.

  “Beautiful as well as talented,” Andrew said, standing a little too close to me for comfort.

  “It’s simple to make,” I said. “My family always used this recipe.”

  I wondered what the female contingency was doing. I wondered if I would ever see them again.

  We ate together, both Cream and Andrew showering me with compliments over the stew. It was an easy thing to make. I basically just dumped a bunch of ingredients together in a pot and heated it up. The flavors and spices did the rest.

  Cream and I took over cleaning up after dinner as Andrew went over some papers he’d brought home from work. When 10 o’clock rolled around, he yawned.

  “I think we’re going to go put our new pajamas on,” Cream said, smiling at me suggestively. Our new pajamas were several silky teddies. I tried not to frown. What did Cream have in mind?

  “What a wonderful idea,” Andrew said. “I’m thinking about turning in, myself.”

  “Well, we’ll want to show you how these look before you go to bed,” Cream said with a wink. “We’ll be back.”

  When she closed the bedroom door behind us, I turned.

  “What’s your plan?” I asked.

  “We’re going to sleep with him,” she said. “He deserves that.”

  “Do you think so?” I asked. “Is a new wardrobe worth giving up your sex?”

  “I’ve given it up for a lot less, believe me,” Cream said, shedding her clothes and pulling her teddy out of a dresser drawer. She slipped it on and admired herself in the mirror.

  “I’m not ready,” I said, folding my arms over my chest and remaining stubbornly dressed in my plain black T-shirt and jeans. I sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Not ready for what?” Cream asked incredulously. “You had just as much sex as I did when we worked at Mama’s nightclub.”

  That wasn’t true, but I didn’t bother correcting her. Whole days would pass between me taking customers upstairs. I was very picky, and Cream wasn’t picky at all.

  “I’d like to take some more time before sleeping with him,” I said. “I don’t feel good about it, yet.”

  “I’m sure you’ll feel good when he’s pounding you,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But it’s not going to be tonight.”

  Cream huffed. “When do you think it’s going to be, Pumpkin?” she asked. “You can’t just string him along.”

  “I’m not giving it up until I’m good and ready,” I said firmly. “Neither one of us should feel like we have to do something if we don’t want to.”

  “You’re right,” Cream said, turning away from the mirror and back to me. “We shouldn’t have to do anything we don’t want to. The thing is, I want to do it. I like sex. And I’d like to make sure that Andrew knows how much we appreciate him.”

  “He bought us,” I said. “Do you think he cares whether we appreciate it?”

  “I would,” she said. “I’d want to know that the people I took into my home were okay with it. That they were happy with what I was doing for them.”

  And are you happy here? I wanted to ask her, but I bit my tongue. I was worried about hurting her feelings and fighting with her. I didn’t want to push Cream away.

  We were all we had left.

  “I’m going to him,” she said. “You don’t have to, Pumpkin. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But, sooner or later, he’s going to start asking for you. You know he is. And I don’t know what’s going to happen if you deny him.”

  Cream closed the door behind her and the bed suddenly felt too big.

  Andrew was kind, generous, and handsome. Why did I feel so strangely about having sex with him? I had sex with strangers all the time at Mama’s nightclub.

  But Mama had given me a chance to get used to things there before I started taking customers upstairs. That was the difference. I made decisions at my own pace. I observed until I was comfortable enough to participate.

  Here, there wasn’t a chance to do that. Cream was suggesting that Andrew was going to demand that I have sex with him.

  What would I do if it got to that point? Was it better just to get into bed with him of my own free will?

  I heard their soft voices as they passed by the bedroom, and heard the sound of the master bedroom door closing. If I strained, I could hear the sounds of their sex. It made me squirm and I stopped trying to concentrate on it.

  I got into my own teddy and slipped under the covers after turning off the light. In the darkness, it was all I could do to avoid listening to the two of them having sex. I finally had to put a pillow over my head to muffle the sounds. I felt truly miserable and utterly alone.

  Falling asleep, I almost missed Mama’s nightclub. I’d been happy there before everything had gone wrong. It had all started off just fine.

  Chapter Six

  True to
Mama and Cocoa’s word, I didn’t have to sleep with anyone right away while working at the nightclub. I shadowed Cocoa for a few nights, happy to be in her shadow and not having to leap right in before I had a chance to observe. I watched her flirt with the customers, winking coquettishly, and moving heaven and earth to bring them their hearts’ desires.

  It amazed me to watch Cocoa turn her switch on and off. Many of the other girls kept their switches permanently on, always flirtatious and boy crazy. I watched them, too, flitting around the nightclub, shaking their asses on the dance floor with customers. There wasn’t really a method to it. They were friendly and fun loving. It came more naturally for some over others. Cocoa, when she wasn’t working, was serious and caring. In the nightclub, however, she was completely different, laughing and slapping butts and everything.

  Blue seemed to be wild and crazy all the time, not just when she was spinning liquor bottles and blowing kisses to customers from behind the bar.

  Cream was perhaps one of the most natural. She was blatantly sexual and didn’t try to hide behind a veil of coyness. She told customers exactly what she wanted to do whether they were on the market to get a taste of her body or not. That was how she got the majority of her upstairs business, I found out. She coaxed and teased and cajoled and provoked until customers had little choice but to go upstairs with her.

  I heard—though I didn’t know for certain—that Cream didn’t sell it all the time. Sometimes, she gave it away, especially if there was a customer in particular that she really liked. Cream had fun working, I noticed. Blue had fun doing whatever she was doing. And Cocoa pretended to have fun. It made me wonder about all of their stories—where they came from, why they were Mama’s girls, and what they were hoping to do in the future.

  Bits and pieces came to me, letting me put together an incomplete puzzle of their lives. Towards the end of my tenure at the nightclub, I had a pretty good idea of the whys and what fors and hows and whens for nearly all the girls.

  But, as a general rule, I never shared anything about myself or my past. I was nothing but polite, spending time with everyone during meals or after the shift was through, but I didn’t talk about the female contingency or Jimmy or East Harlem or anything. I liked to edge out of the spotlight and watch, figuring everything out before I tried to participate.

  However, try as I might, I couldn’t stay out of the spotlight when I was working at the nightclub—especially when I finally stopped shadowing Cocoa and started taking care of tables of my own.

  My ass was, as Mama had foretold, a big hit. A huge one, in fact. I caught customers salivating over it, watching my every step as I moved around the nightclub, taking drinks and food orders to other customers. I was endlessly propositioned. Many, many, many men wanted my upstairs business, but Mama and Cocoa helped put them off until I figured out how to do it myself.

  “I’m gonna warn you, sugar,” Mama said one night. “The more you put the customers off, the more you’re gonna make them want you. Men love what they’re denied.”

  “Maybe that’s her master plan,” Cocoa said, her eyes twinkling at me. “Pumpkin’s giving them a taste of what they could have, stringing them along, until she pounces. None of us will get any customers that fateful night.”

  “Just don’t cause a riot in the nightclub,” Mama said mildly.

  I was nervous the first time I took somebody upstairs, but ready. I felt like it was getting harder and harder to resist or deflect customers’ overtures, and I didn’t want to cause trouble for the nightclub right when I was beginning to feel like I fit in.

  I chose my first upstairs customer carefully—a kindly older black gentleman with whom I felt like I had a good rapport. He always came in wearing a different suit but the same spectacles. His black hair and beard were speckled with white. Like the rest of them, he had loved my ass from the beginning, always requesting to sit in my section no matter where it was that night.

  He called me beautiful, and I melted a little. He was never crude, like many of the other customers, who often liked to tell me just what they’d do to my ass if I’d only take them upstairs.

  I felt that I would be safe with the man, that nothing would go wrong, and that I could easily experiment with what I wanted to be when I was around him, out of sight of the other people in the nightclub.

  “Is tonight going to be the night you’re going to honor me with your company upstairs?” he asked me as I sat his martini down in front of him without spilling a drop. I was getting better and better at transporting Blue’s cocktails across the nightclub floor.

  “Mr. Marshall, it would be my honor to take you upstairs,” I said, softly, making him lean closer to me to hear my words above the music.

  “You’re going to have to forgive me, Miss Pumpkin,” he said. “But I thought I heard you say that you wanted to take me upstairs.”

  I gave him a small, private smile. “That’s exactly what I said, Mr. Marshall. I want you.”

  His elated smile squeezed my heart somehow, as if I were doing charity work. I wasn’t. I had led a number of men on for whole weeks while I was still getting used to everything and had decided to pick one so I could start earning the kind of money all the other girls always talked about.

  “Why don’t you go and get Mama so we can get everything figured out,” he told me. That simple statement told me more than I think he meant it to. He had obviously done this before—paying to have sex with Mama’s girls. I’d seen newcomers to the nightclub blush and hem and haw while trying to proposition Cocoa. Mr. Marshall knew just what was required of him, and that was Mama.

  Mama was easy to find in the crowded nightclub. She liked to stay near the door for most of the night greeting customers as they walked in. When she saw me coming, she grinned. She knew exactly what I was there for.

  “And who’s the lucky gentleman?” Mama asked.

  “Mr. Marshall,” I said, following her back to the man’s table.

  “Good choice, sugar,” Mama said. “He’s a gentle soul.”

  The way Mama looked at me made me a little nervous, like she knew more about me than I thought she did. She conferred with Mr. Marshall for a few minutes before she stood up, beaming. That told me that Mr. Marshall was more than prepared to part ways with a lot of money in order to be the first to enjoy my presence at the nightclub.

  “Pumpkin, baby,” she began, saccharine sweet, “why don’t you show Mr. Marshall upstairs? I’d ask Cocoa to take you up there, but you’ve been around for long enough to have a handle on it, I think.”

  Mama was right, even though I wasn’t sure how she knew. I knew exactly what to do and the location of everything in every room, just from observation. I knew that girls went to the bathroom before beginning their business to freshen up and to place lube in strategic places. I knew that you expected everything and nothing—it was the only way to be prepared.

  Had Mama been watching me as closely as I had been watching her and the other girls?

  “Right this way, Mr. Marshall,” I said, offering him my hand. He placed it gallantly on his arm and we made our way across the nightclub, heading toward the staircase that led to upstairs—upstairs and upstairs business.

  Cocoa caught my eye as we walked, raising her eyebrows at my choice of first customer. My method was going to be simple, I decided. Never put myself at risk. Go after the highest-paying customers. Make it about nothing but business.

  My method was my business plan. Cocoa never said no, making her one of the busiest girls on staff. But I could see her spirit eroding because of it. Cream gave it up for whomever she chose, no matter whether it was for pay or gratis. She could make a lot more money—or save herself a lot of drama—if she only stuck to business.

  I watched for weeks so I could learn how to be discerning in my choices of customers and, most of all, to figure out what not to do. That’s how observation worked for me. I liked to learn from others’ mistakes so I could be assured not to make the same ones.

&
nbsp; I felt like a lot of girls thought they couldn’t say no when they were asked for a little upstairs business. I was toeing a line in the sand on that one. If I was going to start with the upstairs stuff, I was going to be the one choosing my customers, not the other way around.

  “Here we are,” I said quietly, opening a door in the long hallway. I liked this room and its shades of purple. The comforter for the bed was a richly royal affair.

  “You wait here, please, Mr. Marshall,” I said, ducking into the bathroom. I stared at myself for a few moments in the mirror, my dark eyes very wide. I wheeled through a series of possibilities—should I be a sex kitten, or a Lolita? Shy or capable? Ladylike, or a whore? That one gave me a bit of pause. I was now a whore, like it or not, from any angle you looked at it. I was selling my body for sex.

  I touched up my makeup with the basic set stored in the bathroom and slipped my uniform off. Mama had loved the way the skirt had looked on me when I tried it on with her. She’d swatted at my butt playfully, joking about how my “behind” was going to get me ahead in life. In addition to the uniform, she’d purchased several lingerie sets for me.

  “I know that you’re not going to start right away,” Mama said, looking to head off any protests, though I hadn’t planned on making any. “But there’ll come a time when you do start, and you’ll need these.”

  I was wearing one of them—a lacy duo that I thought made me look sexier than I felt. I shook out my hair and applied some lube before stepping out of the bathroom. Mr. Marshall was standing placidly by the bed, waiting patiently for me.

  “Mr. Marshall,” I said, putting my hands on my hips as I walked across the room to him, accentuating each and every rock of my hips. “You don’t look very comfortable at all. How about I help you?”

  “I would love that, Miss Pumpkin,” he said.

  I slipped his spectacles off slowly, smiling at him and trying not to look as nervous as I felt. It was just sex—as simple as a game. I’d done it before and I could do it again. What did I ever get from Jimmy except for a pair of bruises that had only just recently faded? From this, I was getting paid.