The Rental

by Rebecca Berto

  I furrowed my brows and with renewed anger, I stabbed my eggs and my bacon and shoved in much more than my mouth could fit. I chomped and wrestled it down my throat, catching Mum’s attention.

  “Err, and things with Rick?”

  I sighed, attempting to keep it under my breath. Mum was being nice, but this conversation was stilted. At least she was trying.

  So try, Vee.

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “I only saw him come by once this week,” she said, scooping some eggs into her mouth, but peering at me.

  “Yeah, he’s been busy.”

  “Do you want to—”

  I was pressurised to full capacity, the anxiety constricting my head like a rubber swimming cap. I shoved out my chair and stood.

  “Darling?”

  I stomped down the corridor to my room, not turning to answer, “What?”

  “Where are you going?”

  Good question. I wanted Mum back, but this wasn’t really her. I slipped my socked feet into my boots and grabbed my bag. I threw on a puffy, hooded coat that tapered at my waist. Inside a pocket, it had some cash. Perfect.

  Mum raised her eyebrows at me as I walked to the door to leave.

  I paused and met her eyes. The decision came to me, but instead I told her, “Going to find some air.”

  • • •

  I HADN’T BEEN to Dad’s gravestone since the first few weeks after his funeral. After that period, I focused on work and buried myself in the routine, so I couldn’t feel guilty for abandoning him in the dirt.

  Air. I would get some as I told Mum, but I needed a break. To forget about home, The Rental, and Rick. I wanted to visit Dad, like a sudden stab of pain in my gut. The idea gripped me, even when I drove off in my car, one hand on the wheel and one in my mouth, biting down my nails.

  Just like that, I knew where I was headed, so I pulled over and made a call.

  My go to guy was loaded. I met him in the usual spot and traded the stuffed cash in my coat for weed since it practically was free money, being forgotten and all. It was for all the coffees, the lunches, and the clothes I didn’t buy. All the sadness.

  I lit up in my parking bay within the cemetery walls, and it hit me fast. Speeding heartbeat in my temples, my shoulders and arms languid. When I exited and stormed across the grassy field of graves and little tombstones, dark, angry clouds swirled above me. I kept my pace, careless if the rain came.

  Dad’s grave was so … beautiful. The metallic paint written across his plaque shimmered compared to the algae covered one next to it. That one had brown, crumpled flowers and leaves, so much so I couldn’t tell quite what type it was or the colour. But Dad’s had daisies, the petals a brilliant white, and the bud had tiny, bright canary-yellow pollen.

  Did Mum come often? She didn’t say a word to me about it. I fell to my knees on top of where he lay six feet under and threw my arms over the grave, sobbing into the gravestone plaque.

  The weed egged on my insecurities, bullying against my diminishing calm. Who was I kidding? I was a mess, and I didn’t treat my boyfriend how a girlfriend should. Maybe—just maybe—it was better my father wasn’t around after all so he couldn’t see the train wreck I’d become.

  The planted ideas suffocated my reasoning, all-encompassing like an eclipsed moon. No sooner than I arrived, I had sprinted off back to my car. My phone had two missed calls—Rick and Mum. There was no way I could call them like this, so I called for rest instead, and closed my eyes while I sat in my seat, curled to the side. Dad’s graveside.

  • • •

  HOURS LATER, I startled awake on my car seat, the understanding of why I was here flooding back. My head was clear, so I turned on the car and drove home, getting more calls on the way, which I had to leave unanswered.

  When I arrived, Rick’s car was there. I hadn’t asked him to be there or given him any reason to come by. And with things being weird, I wondered why the odd turn up. It got weirder when I opened the front door. Mum was on the couch, Rick was beside her, and they were both sitting on the couch, staring. Staring at me.

  She cried, “Vee, my gosh, you scared the life out of me! I had no idea where you went!”

  Rick stood and came, intensity in his eyes I hadn’t seen flame all week. “Baby,” he said softly, taking me in his open arms.

  I pushed back, mad for his sudden happiness after brushing me off. Darkness pooled in his hardening glare and it told me he knew what I’d been up to, that he’d smelt something on me. “Baby.” Stern, cold. It was a flip from the concern he’d said it with moments ago.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s fine,” I whispered, darting my eyes to Mum and back to him.

  He crossed his arms, too, blocking me off, and I was reminded how very tall and big he was. “What were you doing exactly?”

  I stepped in and spoke slightly elevated on my toes. “I just saw Dad, okay?”

  “No, but you know I can smell that. Vee … Vee.” His tone snapped and so did his fingers, raising my chin to look him in the eye. “You promised.”

  “… that I would try.”

  Mum’s eyes went wide and she came up to us, effectively creating a gap. “Thank you, Rick, I’d like to be alone with my daughter now.”

  “I’d rather stay. I’m happy to wait here however long you need.”

  “That’s okay. We could be a while.” Stern eyes to me. “So you better go.”

  I cut between their exchange and said, “Mum, seriously.” I held out my hands, palms up. “Are you forbidding him from being here? He said he’ll wait.”

  “It was not meant to be like this!” she hissed through clenched teeth.

  I peered at her, and then, slowly, like a magnet to my counterpart, I shifted to Rick, eyeing him for an answer. Was the weed still affecting my judgement? What was going on? And what was ‘this?’

  “Mum …”

  “You.” She pointed to Rick. “You weren’t meant to care, and certainly not come when I called to say I was worried for and couldn’t find my daughter. Yet here you are and you’re looking at her like that.”

  I took in Rick’s expression, creases at the side of his eyes, and lines running along his forehead in concentration. He was leant forward, and if Mum noticed what I did, Rick was anxious and concerned for my welfare. I felt the heat in his glare, maddened for my stupidity, and concerned because of my very flaw. The heat was like sunrays after baking for hours under the summer sun. And within seconds, I was uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

  “I love your daughter, Mrs Wyland. Very much. I came because I was concerned for what might have happened after you called, worried.”

  My lips dropped into a frown with a sinking feeling. I’d been selfish to dart off on Mum.

  Mum threw her hands up in the air, pent up frustration raining down over our little group. “So you sell Vee for sex, and then come here and act like you care? The audacity to suck up to me that day in my house!”

  “Wait, wait a minute.” I said, slowing things down with my hands. I stepped back to get a good look at everything. “So you’re the one who dobbed us in?”

  “You’re my daughter! You bet I put a stop to that.”

  “You. You? How did you even know?”

  “You had your emails open on your computer. I saw some stuff. And when I called and spoke to the manager, I said it wasn’t possible because you have a boyfriend. But what do you know! Turns out, he was there with you. You lied to me all that time about where you were.”

  “You should have come to me first. Why did you take so long to tell me?”

  “Today you scared me. Are you telling me you wanted to work at that whore house?”

  “Guhhhd!” I’d said it like God but with the strain and emphasis at the end dragging it out, it got all garbled. “I did that for you. For us. And do you know what’s happening now? I’m bored senseless, and I’m hardly making money with the few shifts from the leisure centre!”

  “Don’t you put this o
n me, young lady.” Mum shook her finger at me. “I never expected anything of you.”

  “Oh, because it’s much better that way. You never expected me to be more than a failure.”

  “Ladies—”

  “Genevieve! I didn’t expect you to do any of this. I’m so ashamed. Do you want this to be your life?”

  “Oh, yes,” I breathed hotly, “I love being someone’s filthy little whore. And I like a big, fat cock sunk deep into my p—”

  “All right!” Rick yelled, his booming voice startling us, and even me mid-sentence, into silence. “Can I please speak to Vee in private?”

  Mum crossed her arms tightly over her chest, not saying a word. But a feeling washed over her face and before long, she nudged her head up and down, and sighed. We both needed to cool down.

  He steered me by my elbow toward my bedroom, flicking the door shut behind us.

  My bed sheets and duvet were strewn toward the end and I still had yesterday’s clothes and my PJs on the floor. It had a bad odour since I’d left the door shut, hardly any air. I went right to the window, chucked it open, and stuck my head out. The cool breeze slapped my cheeks, enlivening me.

  “I’m a disappointment,” I said into the outdoors.

  “No, I’m disappointed …” I snapped around, clutching the windowsill and looked at him. “… in me. I should have felt you needing me and been here with you.”

  “You were,” I told him, but my voice was weak.

  “Not like I was for you in the past.”

  I sighed. He’d felt that barrier, too. Maybe the despair in both our situations had brought us down, and without our kinkier selves at The Rental, bouncing back was difficult. “Some things can’t be helped. It wasn’t you.”

  We appraised each other on opposite ends of the room, the memories we had stacked up between who we’d become. I didn’t know who this new couple was, but it was like a different phase. Stage 1: completed; Stage 2: now in progress—and we’d missed all the coins along the way for bonus points. And I swear, staring at the depth in his eyes and how I looked all the way down, bleak and empty without the passion I’d become accustomed to seeing, I felt we were seconds away from crashing into a flying object and failing the game.

  “Was it Nix, then?” Rick asked. He stepped closer, closer. At my side, he pulled up my hand and held it, examining the cracks between our fingers. “Did I cheat on you? Have you thought it over, and it’s too much? Because, I swear, I’ll go to university and get the most expensive qualification I can and bring you home everything you want, and I’ll never dawdle. I’ll never look at another woman—not that I have …” he drifted off, feeling the end had come to that particular conversation he was having with himself, though he hadn’t quite reached his point.

  “I love you. That’s all I’ve really got and I hope it’s enough.”

  I looked up into his eyes and wrapped my arms around his neck. His hands dropped to my hips, holding me tight. I kicked off the ground and pushed up my shins against his hips, securing my body instantly, but he shifted my legs, making me wrap them around him. And we hugged—only hugged. Right there with the cool breeze, although we were pretty chilly. Together we were hot, scorching hot.

  We’d lost nothing. My heart leapt up into my throat and my legs clenched around him. His breaths grew ragged into my hair, and he sucked in a long hard breath, taking in the scent of his woman. I let out a long breath of my own, feeling like home. Rick had become my home.

  He set me down.

  “I think I let The Rental get to me,” I admitted.

  “Maybe we both did a little,” he said.

  I’d been warned to guard my heart in that place. That it’d make me lonely and helpless without it. I didn’t think about protecting our relationship from it.

  We could try to start again and rebuild our lives without it. But …

  Just then, linking The Rental and my concern together, it finally made sense why he was worried. ‘Bills’ was his discreet way of saying he was worried about the drug debt repayment. I stumbled back and said, “Rick, your debt. That’s what worried you that night last week. And …” I looked into his eyes, seeing the flurry of emotions that clouded him. I pointed my finger. “And that’s why you left that night. Did you go somewhere? Do something?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry, but I’m handling it. You said we didn’t have anything to come between us. Well, we do. I’ve been trying to save my brother, us, me … I can’t do it all, and it’s time to stop, stand up, and make things right. Sorry for sounding cryptic, but just trust me.

  “I apologise for acting like an asshole. I realise I have been. You needed my support, and I drifted away.”

  I rubbed his arm in support. “Talk to me about it.”

  “No, I don’t—” he screwed up his hands in his hair, pulling at it in frustration. His teeth gleamed, lips pulled back tight as worry overcame him. “I don’t want to, okay? I don’t want you knowing. Knowing is involvement, and you’re too important to me to be in that ugly situation.”

  “So it’s bad,” I said resolutely. “Are they coming after you? Do we need to go away until it’s sorted?”

  “Shh,” he said. “I’ll be fine. We’re okay?” I nodded at the latter. “Then it’s not your concern.”

  “Rick, how can our lives not be my concern?”

  His eyes—I could swear—glimmered.

  “That’s right. I love you. And I need to know what’s going on to some extent so I don’t think the worst. I even started to worry if that experience with Nix had come between us, and if loving things that should have been wrong was a mistake.”

  “Wrong?” he questioned. “Vee, let me tell you something. There is a way to make babies. And that is sperm meets egg. There is a way to kill a man, and that is by robbing his heart of a beat. But how do you love a woman?”

  I was stumped, silent, and soaking up the sight of his lips. He’d steered the conversation in another direction—just like that. I couldn’t help but listen.

  “Stop searching for a divine intervention. You won’t find the big clue you’re looking for. It’s okay to love what we do. In fact, it’d be wrong not to. I love all of you, Vee, and that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. To me, it’s all beautiful. Let me protect you, baby.”

  • • •

  SOON AFTER RICK and I left the bedroom and joined Mum in the living area. Her elbows were propped over the bench top, and in her cupped hands was a nearly full mug. She stared at us, not her drink, as she must have heard us from the moment my door opened.

  “Babe, I might leave so you two can talk. Unless you want me to stay?”

  “No, Rick, thanks for your assistance. I’d like to talk to my daughter in private now.”

  I turned to him, the side of my face obscuring her of my pleading eyes. No, he couldn’t leave. Rick softened his eyes a touch, a move too minute for her to understand the way I did. It told me he’d handle this. I didn’t want him dealing with my shit, just perhaps be a hand to hold. So I furrowed my eyebrows and told him no with a stern expression.

  Still, he said, “Actually, Nicky, do you mind if we chat? It’s important to understand some things first, and I’d rather say them since the reason for all this is my fault.”

  “You? You’re the reason for this. Her boyfriend?”

  I winced. The word sounded dirty. But Rick didn’t pull away. He nodded.

  “Vee.” With one word, Mum dismissed me, so I went off to my room and slammed the door. And, of course, I promptly pressed my ear to it to absorb the sounds bouncing off the walls. Their voices were louder, though somewhat muffled.

  Rick explained how I learnt about The Rental in the first place, and most of that first night albeit our intimacy. Mum cut in, and by the stuttered delivery of her questions, she was clueless why I’d want to be there.

  He explained about the money situation and my job at the bar, and how I went in thinking about the ease it would bring to the financial strai
n at home. He talked about the nature of The Rental and what actually went on between rentals and clients, but gave the PG-rated version. He substituted words like masturbation, sexual games, toys and threesomes for the idea that rentals were only there for company—that, yes—involved kissing or light petting, but was focused on companionship whether out to an event or function or within the rooms. And he especially stressed there was no sexual activities of any kind or contact in that way with any part of the body.

  They circled on those key points and then he began saying goodbye. I jolted and launched onto my bed, perhaps too enthusiastically as I nearly fell off the other side. My legs were itching to take me to Rick, but I couldn’t, not yet. Luckily, my mobile was on my bedside table so I took it and rolled my back to the door, pressing buttons, but closed my eyes so I could hear his exit clearly.

  “Vee?” Mum called, knocking.

  “Mmm.”

  I didn’t move a muscle as my door creaked open. I remained that way as her steps padded along the carpet up to me. I pulled my mobile down and lay on my back, looking up at her through my brows.

  In that moment, I was very little indeed. On top of the crushing worry about the debt repayments, Rick took the blame for The Rental. He gave the utmost dignity to our line of work, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of grime all over me, but grime that weirdly felt like soap—the more I tried to rub it off, the more it multiplied in scum.

  How could I refute Mum’s disgust about my line of work? Suddenly, my confidence in Rick and my open, modernised, trusting relationship sagged, like a half-cooked cake in the centre of the pan. Mum was here for my answers, but they were right there in the centre of that soggy cake, half-raw, half-cooked, in that in-between phase that no one enjoyed.

  I sat up and cleared my throat. She sat on the end, the heel of her hand on the duvet, resting her weight as she watched and waited.