The Rental

by Rebecca Berto

  We arrived at what must have been the kitchen, but it was far from a typical, dingy eating area like in most workplaces. The main area was built along the far wall, under the stretched window overlooking the road. Closer toward the door sat a dining table and tucked in a side corner was a sofa and TV. We sat on the latter since two women were already eating at the table.

  “Are you new?” Nix asked, settling her butt into the corner. “I haven’t seen you round.”

  “Just a few days old!” I said, upbeat, but it wasn’t very funny. “Um, actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Mmm?”

  I strummed my fingers along the sofa cushion under me. “I was wondering if you had any advice about what I should say to Amber. About turning up with Rhett like that? I’m wondering if I should tell her like it was.”

  “Yeah, I definitely suggest you don’t try to pull the wool over her eyes. She has cameras all over the corridors and you guys certainly gave Jimmy and me a hot welcome.”

  I bit my lip and smiled involuntarily. “Anything for the show, right?”

  “Right.” She nudged my arm with her elbow. “But you know that can’t be a regular thing, right? Jimmy loves the idea of you two, but you don’t want him thinking something is actually—”

  “Oh, I know!” I exclaimed. “I don’t want Amber thinking that anything …” I circled my fingers between us, trying to mime, not say, the truth. I didn’t know how stellar my lying voice would be when it came to denying Rick.

  Nix cracked a smile, but I wasn’t convinced she bought my antics. I played with the hem of my tank top. I hoped I didn’t sound like I was trying too hard.

  “Can I give you a word or two of advice?”

  “Sure,” I said, focusing on her eyes.

  “When girls grow up into adults with this place, too many of them crawl back here after they think they’re done. It becomes their lives. They can’t stand ‘normal’ relationships. Have trouble being monogamous. Have trouble asserting themselves. It fucks with you. Everyone goes along routines, and you get lost in a sea of no one and everyone with bodies, yet faces of ghosts. I guess what I’m saying is be careful of how attached you become.”

  I sighed relieved she thought I had a fling with the first hot guy I’d found. It was safer than the truth.

  “Um, I appreciate your help, but I think I fucked up with that Rhett stunt. Jimmy was cool with it, but it doesn’t change what was expected of me professionally.”

  Nix laughed. She curled up next to me and hung a limp hand over my shoulder. “I’d pay you a grand if you ever did something here Amber didn’t know about. I’ve heard the woman let her marriage fall apart for this place. She’s the definition of driven. The reason why we don’t have competition at our elite level? They don’t make it like The Rental does.”

  “She knows what I did.” I confirmed. Of course, she did. The cameras caught us in the hallway. Doing exactly what we weren’t meant to be doing between just friends.

  “Yes, but she shouldn’t be terrible about it. I’d just toughen up for the talk she’ll give about honesty. Mother Amber expects us to do right. She would have expected you to tell her you planned to include him.”

  Because only people with feelings for each would latch onto each other. I planned all that. All the better for the booking, the client. Right. I’d have to sell that story even if I already sounded dubious.

  “Okay, thanks. I need to go.”

  “Happy to chat or give you any pointers,” Nix said, rubbing my shoulder as she left.

  I went around to the reception and knocked on Amber’s door and her footsteps approached in seconds. “Come,” Amber beckoned, pushing open the door.

  When I met her eyes, she gave me a stern glare. I sat down, placing my hands over my thighs while Amber moved a stack of papers to rest her arm on her desk.

  “I won’t torture you any longer. Cut through the bullshit, should we?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Are we talking about …”

  “Your booking with Jimmy, yes. I saw Rhett come onto you and you enjoyed it. Nix’s client loves as many bodies as he can get, but I myself don’t appreciate your dismissal of my rules. No personal relationship between staff is something I expected you to abide by.”

  “Sorry,” I said and bowed my head.

  “I would have fired you for that, but I’m giving you a warning instead.”

  “You are?”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. “The surprise impressed Jimmy so much he tipped us more than three times his usual. Anything that makes our clients want to come back is far from a bad thing, so for this unexpected luck, I’m simply reminding you today of our non-negotiable rules.” Amber paused and raised her eyebrow, crushing the harsh mood between us. “I think you’ll be interested to know your client, Jimmy, has scheduled you in personally in the future.”

  “Really!” My voice was exuberant and my shoulders felt weightless. That first night wasn’t a one off.

  “Want to see your schedule, then?”

  “Yeah, sure. I feel like I’m getting ready to perform for a concert.” When Amber only greeted me with a set of questioning eyes, I added, “Like I’m setting myself up to be adored and screamed at or booed and dragged off to get eaten alive.”

  “We condone biting, Victoria, if you were wondering.”

  At the front desk, Amber leant down to the computer in the space the receptionist had vacated for her. She worked there for a couple of minutes then pointed at the screen. “Here’s your profile.”

  At first, my gaze scattered over the page. There was a bit of paragraph text at the top, and then a chart below of an overview. I skimmed and clicked around the screen, finding a tab with the booking details.

  “So,” Amber said, “what do you think?”

  Jimmy was listed as I expected. Two new unknowns were booked weeks ahead. A Greg Simmons and an Ian Welling.

  “You have to go over their profiles, go through the booking information, and confirm the client and their preferred time.”

  Amber gave me a laptop, which I took to the sofa in the lounge bit of the kitchen. And there, I read in quiet more of the details. I had just begun when Amber returned with an environmentally friendly bag, with the handle over her forearm. She held it out in a for you way. “A belated welcome pack.”

  “Thank you.”

  Inside, there were a few condom packets stamped with: ‘Welcome to The Rental’ on them. There was an empty make-up bag, three shades of lipstick—one, a gorgeous cherry red—mascara, bronzer, body and facial cream, a brush set, and also branded pens, notepads, and other knick knacks.

  I’d just finished searching it when I felt the presence. His voice accompanied it, saying, “Like a child in a chocolate factory.”

  Rick was in gym shorts, cut-off mid-thigh to show bulging muscles and popping veins. There must have been a gym on the premises, which he used to stay fit for his job. My eyes travelled up his white tank, and to the toned muscles of his shoulders, chest, and arms, slick and sweaty.

  He wiped his forehead with a small towel and draped it over his shoulder. My lustful reaction to him had been obviously caught, right there, in his scheming grin. He squatted at my feet, thighs clenched tightly.

  I plunged a hand into the welcome bag to grab a handful of merchandise to show off. “I certainly didn’t expect such a useful welcome pack,” I said, grabbing what felt like the edge of the plastic make-up bag. In my hands, however, was a condom. “Oh,” I said, dropping it back in.

  “Subtle, Vee.” Rick steadied himself on the arms of the sofa. His closeness made my knees intuitively draw apart. I looked down at how his arms engulfed my space, loving how he intruded it.

  I had to get one up on him after my embarrassing slip. So, I sniggered, combed my hair back out of my face, and pushed his buttons how I knew I could best. “You think it’s for you? How do you know I’m not planning to use it when I see Jimmy, after our first solo booking?”
>
  The mood in Rick’s eyes darkened. His eyebrows stiffened into a harsh line, but when he spoke, his unexpected tone tripped me up. “Pursuing Jimmy again? In that case, if I can’t do anything but watch the both of you, I’m more than happy to do so, Vee, if you’ll allow me that pleasure to watch you do things to yourself.”

  A kaleidoscope.

  Rick’s expression was still but stirred something in me, something that felt like it reached in and spun my world, and so I latched onto him. The air whooshed from my lungs. With two fingers, I placed them on his lips. So soft. Like the smoothness of a mug and the softness of a teddy bear.

  Kissable.

  Rick stood, his arms still gripping the arms of my sofa. His figure loomed above, and he didn’t waver from undressing me with his eyes, watching my shallow breaths that made my chest rise and fall rapidly. He pinched my chin to hold me where he wanted.

  I didn’t dare move as he lowered his lips. I watched him lick them and almost choked on my impatience, but managed to swallow instead.

  Tightness in my body warned me I was being stupid. He was being stupid. We both were, playing with the trust of Amber like this. This wasn’t a place to break the rules, yet … I didn’t care in that moment.

  When Rick met my lips with his, he was leant down, and I was upstretched to connect with his flesh. I probed inside his mouth and he groaned, the vibrations rocking all the way to the tips of my toes.

  The things I wanted to do with him … the condom was wholeheartedly for him, and he knew it. We’d done everything but sex, and I felt ready with the empty yearning in my core to be filled. The thoughts filled me up like water in a bottle, higher and higher like the rising level, the liquid replacing the emptiness, the anticipation for the final spill.

  “Please,” I begged, clutching my hands at his sweaty tank. My want for him confused the sensible part of me that told me to stop breaking the rules. I intended to push him back, but if I didn’t act soon, he’d mistake it for longing. “I need to go.”

  “Vee?”

  “Can we talk after?”

  “Vee …” he repeated, reluctantly stepping back to allow me to pass him.

  “After!” I called and rushed out, lungs heaving for air in my worked up state.

  He knew what we were doing was wrong. He just stopped caring. Come to think of it, Rick never intended to be careful about hiding us. I’d wanted to, but he’d been keen for me not to work here with him.

  I paused outside the door, resting my head against the wall. There, I took in my breaths slowly, and then pushed off, deciding it was best to go home for the day.

  Rick was in the tapping of my foot at the red traffic lights, and along the long, cruising streets. I had to get a bit of space, just for the night.

  I had to be careful I didn’t let him swallow me up as much as I had to be wary of The Rental.

  • • •

  RICK NOTICED THAT I had backed off, and called me once that night, which I replied with a text, filled with some hugs and kisses.

  The next day, I had a half-day shift at the leisure centre, but The Rental followed me there, first an email from Amber that Jimmy decided he wanted Nix to join in with our booking, and then some texts to Nix while I had a toilet break. I managed to fire off a couple until I told her I had to go, lest the staff thought I was constipated, which wasn’t ideal to have floating around the workplace, no matter my desire to leave.

  I arrived home to Rick’s car parked outside my house pulled up by the kerb as he had so long ago now. I recalled it from a distance, seeing into that life.

  And as I imagined, I saw peeking behind the curtain, an image of meek, naïve little me. I burst into laughter as I trotted up the steps and met him, followed by my mother approaching behind.

  “I see you two are friends?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mum called over his shoulder. She was a bit shorter than I was, and Rick was a giant next to her. I looked up to his broad shoulders and further to his gelled brown hair, realising I saw past all that, comfortable in every way that mattered with him. But it didn’t change the massive turn on of how big he was next to me.

  The image of his beauty made me aware of my own state, stinking of chlorine and possibly sweaty. I ducked my head down into his chest as he enveloped me, and sniffed an off scent that was probably my post-work stench.

  I excused myself, darted off to the shower, and leant my head back into the cleansing water. I lathered myself thickly with the shower gel, knowing he’d smell my fresh skin when I got out.

  Mum popped her head in as I was drying my hair. I’d slipped on a knee-length robe and was tousling my darkened blonde locks over one shoulder. “Rick’s here to say hi,” she announced, eyebrows high. She was giving me a clear message I had better listen to. “Make yourselves comfortable. I’m just outside with a cuppa.”

  “Thanks, Mum,” I mumbled, drying my hair again.

  Rick saw me and sucked in a long breath.

  We spoke about our date on the pier and the old days and things that flowed easily between our smiling mouths. But the things that weren’t so easy to say plagued me, and seeing Rick looking so perfectly stunning, lounging in jeans and a well-fitted T-shirt, on my bed, his big, long limbs fallen off the sides, I excused myself to change. I couldn’t be in this robe and naked underneath when he was in my room, body languid and relaxed, when mine was hyped up and wanting things I’d never done before. Mum was just outside. I reminded myself of that.

  I came back in with a sloppy knit sweater that fell over my leggings and fluffy socks. My hair was drying over my shoulders, and I combed my fingers through it as I shut my door behind me, leaning my body into it.

  He jumped off the bed and strode over. He kissed me there, holding my face up to his and pressing angel soft kisses. Everything about the way he wanted me was poetic like the wordless magic he invigorated between my lips to my mind. He was hard only in his strong muscles, the rest of him feathering down my length, comforting.

  His eyes were warm like his kisses and his body against mine. Gazing down at me, he skimmed his fingers along my back and up to my shoulders. He massaged over my collarbones and caressed my neck with the pads of his thumbs.

  I felt him stop, and I gazed to see him staring. “What?”

  “What was it like when he touched you?”

  I quaked. I didn’t expect that after our moment. “Jimmy never touched me.”

  He looked to his thumbs on my neck. “No, Justin. What was it like for you when he touched your body?”

  “I know what it was like for him: exciting. His hands were everywhere, but they left no impression on me.” Not like yours do.

  “Do I remind you of him?”

  I wrestled a chuckle to remain silent. “Absolutely not.”

  “Do you think of him when I touch you?” At his words, he caressed his fingers from my neck to my breasts. He waved his thumbs over where my nipple was beneath my clothing and thumbed the spot, pressing circular motions over and over, making my head spin. At that point, Rick was my angel. I never felt deserving of the exponential joy and toe-curling pleasure he brought.

  “No. Rick,” I whispered, voice stolen amongst the heralds of joy in my head as I wrapped my arms over his shoulders, “you remind me of you. I don’t think of Justin like that anymore. That part of my life is gone. Over.”

  “Like that anymore,” Rick mimicked.

  So there was a reason behind his questioning, I thought.

  He dropped his hands to my waist and curled his fingers around the sides. “In what way do you think about him?”

  “Let’s go to the bed.” I sidestepped him, not looking until I sat down on the duvet. He had his hands crossed over his chest, tall but unsure. His eyes scattered all over the bed, the path I took to leave, and me. He came up after some silent seconds, easing onto his elbow, and he let his legs hang off the end.

  “What is it?” he asked, brushing my cheek.

  “Don’t you think of Justin?” I s
aid, removing his hand from my cheek so I could hold mine in it. We entwined our fingers over and through like moving vines as I spoke. “He’s holding a sentence over you. And I wonder … about the guys you owe. Will they come collect if you can’t pay? When will they be satisfied?”

  He dropped his gaze and rolled onto his back, hands on my pillows. He wrestled two under his head but continued to clutch just as tight when he stopped moving. I grabbed the other decorative pillow and laid my hand under it for the right lift. We were there together on our backs, staring up at my ceiling, and my pulse sped up as the time diminished of which we’d be as innocent as we were—as we were now.

  “It’s handled, Vee,” he hissed.

  “Why are you—”

  “I’m not,” he interrupted, jolting right into my light, and stealing it with a blinding kiss. It ran through me and left me with tingles. “I’m sorry. I have about 20K now. The same as a car loan,” he said, adding on the comparison.

  “Hmm,” I mumbled, understanding. Didn’t mean I wanted to agree. “Rick, I want to ask something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If things don’t work out at The Rental … like if we get caught …”

  Amber said any more shit like that from us wouldn’t be forgiven again. I should have been scared. Exploring more of that world awakened my sexuality. I likened Rick’s and my positions there like a flame. Getting caught would burn us. Pain, goodbye, the end. But not getting caught? That was like swiping my hand through a flame, and that—well, that was utterly exhilarating.

  Playing with fire was addictive. I knew the consequences but didn’t fear them enough to care as I should.

  Rick answered with his body, leaping on top. His chest crushed my own, and I revelled in the breathless feeling he created right there physically. It matched how I felt for him.

  Mum and Dad had been married for two decades when he passed, and they never stopped eye-fucking each other. It made me dry heave when I caught one of those glances. Cara never believed me when I told her; her parents didn’t even look at each other period, she said. But the way I felt about Rick was so consuming, so strong like he was my religion. I had faith if Rick could do something for me, he would.