by Bebe Wilde
“You’re not for real, Cold Hard Cash,” I told him.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re just not real.”
“Are you saying I’m fronting?”
“Are you?”
“I am not,” he said.
“Listen, I want to have more sex with you,” I said. “You don’t have to work me.”
He bristled at my words. “Work you? What the fuck does that mean?”
What was I saying? And why was I ruining this? What was wrong with me? Why even bother calling him out for playing me when I was leaving in…what? Two days? I thought about that and got a sick feeling. I didn’t really want to leave. But I couldn’t stay, that much was obvious.
Just then my phone rang. We stared at each other, then he straightened up and retrieved my clutch from the coffee table and handed it me. I pulled my phone out and answered, “Hello.”
“Where the fuck are you?!” Becca shrieked in my ear. “We’re getting ready to call Miami Metro!”
“Oh, fuck! Oh, shit!” I said and looked at Cash. What the hell could I tell her? Well, why not the truth? I measured my words and said, “I… Well, it’s like… First of all, I’m okay and thanks for the concern.”
“Where the fuck are you!”
“I’m with Cash.”
A long pause. A very long pause.
“Are you there?” I asked.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“I am,” I said.
She sighed with relief and said, “Well, okay then. We got up late and we thought you were sleeping in and then we went and looked and your bed hadn’t been slept in and… You get the picture.” She paused and yelled to Nicki, “She’s with Cash! Yeah, Cash! Cold! Hard! Cash!”
Nicki came on the phone, “Are you fucking serious? You boned him?”
“Well, he boned me,” I said and glanced at him. He stood back, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. He didn’t like me talking about him like this, like he was a piece of meat. He was angry. I was an idiot.
“Jealous!” she squealed. “I am so jealous! Does he have a big… You know, a big dick?”
“He does,” I said. “Maybe we can talk about that later?”
“Oh, every last detail,” she said. “I am going to live vicariously though you, okay?”
“Okay,” I said a little uncertainly. “Listen, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Congrats, bitch!” she squealed. “You fucked the best one!”
“Bye,” I said and laughed a little, then hung up. I set the phone down and stared at him. What now?
“You should go,” he said and wouldn’t look at me.
“Come on,” I said.
“No,” he said. “You should go.”
“Why? Why should I go?”
He shook his head with frustration. “This is why I don’t date! This is why I don’t get involved. No one can handle it. I was stupid for thinking that you would be any different. I thought you were different.”
Ouch. That hurt. But I understood where he was coming from. I got it. I had been stupid, short-sighted. I had assumed that because he was a stripper he’d be that kind of guy, the kind that used women and then booted them out. But he wasn’t that guy at all. He was actually a man. A real man. And just because his job might be a little sketchy to some, it made him no less of a man.
“Just leave,” he said.
“Come on,” I said again. “It’s just that you’re so…” I stared at him, looking all sad and said, “You’re so hot.”
“So are you!” he said, his voice rising. “I told you that you were the most beautiful woman in the room last night.”
“I thought you just said that to all the girls.”
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I don’t say that to just anyone. Just you.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. But I did say, “Just me?”
“Just you,” he said. “I thought you were different.”
Why did he keep saying that? It was a little cold. Why was he getting so riled up about all this? It’s not like we… No, it wasn’t like we had a future together or anything. This was just fun, an affair. Right?
“But, no!” he said and threw his hands up in frustration. “You’re like all the rest! You think I’m just some piece of meat.”
Well, yeah. I stared at him, looking so serious and burst into laughter. This intensity he was displaying made him that much hotter. And he was already smokin’! He glared at me. I held my hands up and said, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t take you seriously right now. You’re just too fucking sexy!”
“Oh, my God,” he said. “I can’t believe you right now.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “I don’t think you’re just some piece of meat.”
“Well, I’m not,” he said. “That’s my job. And, get this, I love my job. Aaron, the jackhammer guy, is married with three kids and he works hard to give his family the life they want. What is so wrong with a man doing what he has to do to provide for his family? Nothing! At the end of the day, it’s about money, Myra. Money.”
He was right about that. It was just I’d never thought about it, and I’d certainly never been put in this situation before. But could it be possible that I’d met the rare man who wanted to get married, have a family and lead a normal life? Could it be possible? But it wasn’t normal; he was a stripper. How would I tell my parents? “Mom, Dad, I am going to marry a stripper.” They’d freak out. And my sister? God, I dreaded that conversation. But I was getting way ahead of myself. He didn’t want to marry me and I didn’t know about marrying him. This was supposed to be fun! Why had it suddenly turned not fun?
“But I know what you’re getting at,” he said, pointing his finger at me.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I don’t have to explain myself to some girl I just met.”
“Some girl?” I asked, almost seething. Was he serious?
“That’s right,” he said. “Oh, let me guess. You dated some asshole who—surprise, surprise—didn’t want to get married. So now you think all men are like that and can’t understand when one isn’t. You come in here with your preconceived notions and judge me. Guess what? I am not one of those assholes!”
“I never said you were an asshole!”
“Why do you think all those women come to our shows? To get loaded and grab some ass? Well, some of them do, but some they come because we’re a fantasy to them and for a night we give them what they all want—a fantasy man. They’re like you, women who can’t meet a good man.”
“Like me?” I asked, shocked. “I’m not looking for a man! I’m on vacation!”
“Well, get back to it,” he said and went to the front door and opened it. “We could have had something. You and I, we could have had something.”
“But you’re a stripper!” I said, almost laughing.
His face dropped. Oh, fuck me and my big mouth! I hadn’t meant it like that! I mean… I didn’t know how to take him.
“Oh, is that all I am?” he snapped.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I pleaded. “Please understand that this isn’t the sort of relationship situation I’m used to.”
“Why?” he asked, staring me dead in the eye. “Because it could actually work?”
I blanched. “That was a little below the belt, Cash.”
“And you don’t hit below the belt with your comments about me being a stripper? Huh?”
I sighed heavily and wanted to move away from him. This was too heavy, too much. It was supposed to be fun!
“So what I do is holding you back?” he asked, then paused for thought. “Well, I’m a person just like everybody else and if you can’t accept me and what I do for a living, then you can’t have me.”
I stared at him. I couldn’t have him? Not even right now? Not even just for a little while? I was leaving soon and I thought this was just a fling. I mean, the guy had a lot of things going for him. But could he
be for real? I didn’t know. It was too good to be true and when something is too good to be true, it usually isn’t.
I stared at him, then at the door. Then I went to the door and shut it, facing him. I wasn’t leaving and he couldn’t make me. There was something to this man and I wanted more. He was going to let me in. I was going to see to that. And so what if I was leaving? So what if there was baggage here? Right now we were together. We might not have that in a few days. Right now, I was making the decision to be with him and he could go along for the ride. He liked me, I was sure of that, and I liked him. We had today and tomorrow. After that, we’d have to see.
He told me to leave, once more, almost begging me with his eyes. I could see that he had been hurt before by people like me and he had made a real effort to let me in. Now he’d been hurt again and wanted me to leave. I was so sorry for my small-minded assumptions. They had made an ass out of me. But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay and I wanted him to want me to stay.
I wanted him. There was something magnetizing about him and I was stuck having to do what my heart told me to do. And my lust, too. And I was staying and he was going to fuck me again. Later on, we could work this out, or not, but right now, we were going to have sex.
And so, I told him to do it, to fuck me, to take me, to give me all he had. He’d hesitated but then he was overcome by his emotions, by his lust and he took me, fucked me against the wall, giving me himself, all of himself and I gave him myself, too. When it was over, he held me tight. In that moment, I knew it was going to be hard to let him go.
* * * * *
Cash took me all over Miami, showing me everything the city had to offer. I called the girls and told them I was in lust and that I wanted to spend time with him. They said they understood but we did have to catch a plane in a few days. I kept putting off reality until one morning I got a text that read: “Pln lvs in 3 hrs HURRY! Bec.”
I panicked. Cash was sitting beside me on a park bench, staring out over the ocean. He looked so cool and handsome I wanted to cry. It was over. It was time to leave. I had to go back home and get back to my life, my boring life. And we’d had so much fun. We’d had our argument and then we refused to talk about it, like anyone with any sense would.
He glanced over my shoulder and read the text, then sighed. “Well.”
I stared at him and wanted to beg him to beg me to stay. We’d had some great sex and such a good time I hated to see it end.
I started to get sad when he said, “Maybe we could—”
“Let’s don’t,” I said and took his hand and squeezed it. “If it’s meant to be, then we’ll know. Right?”
He nodded. “I suppose.”
I stared at him and knew the wheels were turning inside his head. He was a deep thinker, that was for sure. So, I said, “If you think about something too much, Cash, it ruins it.”
He threw his head back and laughed, then shook it at me. “You are adorable. You’re a pain in the ass, but you are adorable.”
“So, I’m an adorable pain in the ass?”
“You are.”
Good to know.
But the fact was, reality was setting in and I knew that this might not work. We were in the throes of passion and sometimes that makes you a fool. I’d know when I got back home what to do. It was killing me to leave, but I had no choice.
He dropped me off at my hotel and I got on the elevator, went to my room and packed. Becca and Nicki had already gone to the airport, texting me that they’d meet me there to say goodbye and then they’d go to their gate and I’d go to mine. We were on separate flights this time. There was no real reason why they should fly back to Atlanta with me.
I didn’t think about what I was doing; I just did it. I took a cab to the airport and then started the check-in process. The whole time, I kept wanting to look over my shoulder for him, but I refused. The real reason was because I believed I’d just been a fling for him. That’s all I’d been. And I knew if he didn’t come, then we were finished. It would be a fantastic memory but that’s all it would be.
I made it to security and got in line to go through. Then I thought I might need to text Becca and Nicki to see if they were boarding yet as I wanted to see them before they left. But then, for some reason, I paused and glanced over my shoulder. Just that once.
And there he was. Cold. Hard. Cash. Not so cold, not so hard. He was walking towards me with purpose. He was showing me that I had made the right decision. He’d let me go but then realized he couldn’t let me leave and that made me the happiest girl in the whole wide world. I had my man now! And he was such a good, good man. Even if his career choice was a little questionable.
“You didn’t think I was just going to let you go, did you?” he asked as he walked towards me.
I kinda had. But I was so glad he’d proved me wrong.
He stopped in front of me and then shook his head, wiping the tears from my face with the back of his hand. “No, no crying. That’s not allowed in Miami.”
I laughed and tiptoed to kiss him and he kissed back, showing me that there was something between us and it was this incredible love I’d given up on, had lost hope on, didn’t believe existed. It did exist. This was it. Right here, in front of me, kissing me back and telling me that while fairy tales aren’t real, you can certainly tweak reality and start to believe in true love.
My parents would say I was crazy. My sister would roll her eyes. The women I worked with would be so jealous. But my best friend, Becca, and even my new best friend, Nicki, would tell me, right to my face, “You did good, girl.”
And they’d be right.
