For Love or Money

by Tara Brown

  And now I feel sick. He knew his mom was having sex and still wanted it. He’s so screwed up.

  Wait . . . “That’s not your dad?”

  “He’s in London and then Dubai this week.”

  I look back over my shoulder to where he’s planting soft kisses. “How do you know she pays him?”

  “I heard her talking on the phone with her friend, recommending him.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “No. It’s some gigolo. She and Dad both keep their affairs professional. They have too much money to risk anything else.” He chuckles like he’s remembering something.

  “I am never getting married. I wish my dad kept it professional, instead of marrying every bimbo he meets. I don’t think he realizes he can just date.”

  “I know. They’re so crazy.” He bites softly. “Want to go have a shower and play some more?”

  I shake my head. “No. I have to go.” I have to take more antipsychotics so my anxiety doesn’t make me insane.

  He shakes his head. “Stay. Send someone to get whatever you need.” He pulls out of me and steps back. The cool air between us makes me remember why it is I need to go home. Being with him makes me feel dirty, but it’s a dirty I crave, like drugs and booze and fast cars. It’s recklessness that stops me from ever feeling anything beyond what I have in that moment. There are things deeply wrong with me that I like to reflect on when I have just finished committing a terrible act of indecency. Like a fat girl who justifies her burger and ice cream until she gets it, and then vows to start a diet the minute it’s over and she’s swallowed her feelings. I’m only sober from my pent-up sex rage when it’s over and I realize what a whore I’ve made of myself again.

  In a desperate act of removing the venomous things floating about in my brain, I spin and press my lips against his. It’s an act that’s not like me. It makes him freeze up for a moment before he wraps his arms around me and pulls me into him. He kisses me tenderly, making me smile into it and question aloud, “You don’t think it’s weird we get like this after we have sex?”

  He gives me a mischievous smile. “No. But if you want to play psychiatrist and naughty schoolgirl, we can? I have a pipe and some tweed upstairs. I can be clean, changed, and ready to go again in about fifteen.”

  I am about to say no but I don’t. I don't want to go home and think about what a bad girl I have been and regret my entire week. In some ways, the foot pervert is still in my dorm. In some ways, he’s there reminding me how much I deserved what I got. I paste a smile on my lips. “I’ll use the guest bathroom and collect my underwear before your mom finds it.”

  He nods. “I’ll see if I can find you some knee socks to go with that skirt.” He walks out, adjusting his underwear.

  We are bad people—naughty people.

  I slip up the stairs, picking up my underwear and my blouse–my own trail back to the bathroom. Andy’s mom is done screaming and bleating for the night. I can only assume the young man has left the building with a wad of cash and a soul as tainted as my own.

  I open the door to the bathroom, pulling off my bra, and flicking on the lights before getting into the huge stone shower that is a wall of rock instead of a door. It makes me nervous to use it—no glass door means I can’t see who is coming in. I don’t like not being able to see anymore.

  I almost wish I’d taken Andy up on the shower and am about to go find him, when I hear him come in as he closes the door. It makes me relieved enough that I can fully step under the water and close my eyes.

  He climbs in, pressing against me and using a cowboy accent. “When you’re done sucking me off, I have to get going.”

  I scowl. “I thought we were going to play psychiatrist—” I spin and open my mouth to say something else but his hand covers mine. He growls. “What the shit are you doing in here?” The crabby guy who was mean to me at Nance’s is in my shower. James Holland. His eyes are wide and panicked.

  I shake my head, trying not to give into the anxiety attack I feel coming on as my brain chants, Oh God, he’s the foot pervert. Oh God. Oh God.

  My knees buckle and the room spins, going dark. I hear him swear again, but it’s the last thing I hear.

  Chapter Six

  The gigolo and the whore

  James

  I hold her against my chest as the cab stops. My heart is racing and my mouth is dry.

  Why was she there? I thought she and that wanker Chad had a thing? Was she with Andy? Why does she do these things to herself?

  I’m wracking my brain for an answer as to whether or not Andy knows I was there. I shake her again, hoping she’ll wake up. “Lana!”

  Damned crackheads. I never should have left the party with her still at it. I knew she was messed up. Damn!

  I climb in and give the cabbie the crumpled card in my pocket. He snorts and drives, no doubt laughing at the filthy shit on the invite card alongside the address of the party.

  His eyes dart in the mirror to the girl in my arms. “Is that Lana Webber? She okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s just drunk off her ass.”

  He rolls his eyes. “If she pukes you’re paying to have it cleaned.”

  I give him a hard look. “She pukes, she’s paying to clean it. Hell, if I were you, I’d make her clean it.”

  He laughs. “You sound like my kind of kid. These Ivy League brats are a menace.” He must think I’m a townie or a barfly.

  We make it all the way to the apartment building before she starts to stir. I’m preparing a mental speech as to why I need the doorman to let me in, but when his eyes lower to her face, he just opens it.

  God, even passed-out drunk, doors just open for her.

  I carry her up to the elevator and press the button. Looking down at her sleeping face I can’t help but want to brush the hair from her face. She’s pretty perfect—when she’s sleeping.

  Her eyes flutter a bit before one lid cracks and a blue-grey eye starts to take it all in. She opens her mouth to scream and my hands are full with her so I can’t cover her mouth, so I press her face into my chest, smothering her a bit. She starts to struggle. I realize I look like a serial killer so when the elevator doors close I pull her back. “Stop, Lana. Just stop. I’m not gonna hurt you. Stay calm.”

  She thrashes about, kicking and making noise so I put her down and point. “We’re in the elevator at your friend’s apartment. Recognize it? You’re safe.”

  Tears are streaming her face. She backs away from me, covering her chest like she’s naked but I’ve dressed her. I’ve dressed her and cared for her and carried her, regardless of how much I despise her.

  She shakes and crouches in the corner of the elevator. Something terrible has happened to her. I sit on the far side of the elevator, putting my hands out slowly. We haven’t even pushed a button for a floor yet.

  She shudders. “What did you do to me?”

  My insides clench. “I found you passed out and carried you back here. I figured your friends would want you with them if you were crazy drunk.”

  “I wasn’t drunk.” She itches like a junky, twitching a little.

  “Okay then, high.”

  She shakes, crying harder. “I wasn’t high. You’re him, aren’t you? You’re the fo-fo-foot guy.”

  Not drunk or high?

  It dawns on me that she might not be okay mentally. It might not just be the drugs. Whatever that freak did to her, that rapist freak, she’s not okay. The mighty and strong can only take so much before they snap. I’ve seen it back in Nashville. I had friends like her—strong and confident, and it just takes a true act of cruelty, something really horrid, to break that kind of confidence. I think it’s ‘cause girls like her don’t actually think anyone can touch them or hurt them.

  I shake my head. “I’m not the rapist. I’m not the foot guy. I don’t force girls to do things. I brought you here to help you, that’s all.” That’s a bit of a lie. I brought her here in hopes she won’t remember being at Andy’s house.
r />   She wipes her face, giving me the shittiest look ever worn by a face as pretty as hers. “Why were you at Andy’s house—” she pauses.

  Fuck!

  “You were in my shower?” Her eyes light up a bit and she laughs like she has succumbed to some sort of madness. “It was you? You’re the gigolo?” I swallow hard and she slowly becomes the evil bitch she was in my mind ten minutes ago. She wipes her tears, still looking cracked out and weak. “Andy’s gonna kill you when he finds out you’re making his mom bleat like a sheep every Friday his dad is gone.”

  Jesus. She knows my schedule.

  My gaze hardens and I prepare for a life-ruining experience. A thousand bad ideas cross my mind in a bout of flashes based on my own survival. But trying to stay calm I ask, “What were you doing there that was so innocent?”

  Her giggle stops short. “None of your business.”

  I shrug, regardless of the panic attack going on inside of me. “At least I got paid for my indecency.”

  Her eyebrows lift and she nods. “You are a smart guy. Let me guess, wrong side of the tracks and you need tuition money and your friends’ moms are all MILFs, thanks to thousands spent on perfecting their bodies. Good for you.” She stands, moaning a little and wiping her eyes. She’s weak and exhausted, but the cruel smile on her lips isn’t tired out at all. “You never saw me there. You never saw me crying. You and I never happened upon each other. I don’t think either of us wins if this comes out.”

  My heart stops beating.

  What?

  She’s willing to let it slide? Her pride is that precious that she can’t be vulnerable? She’s either worse than I imagined or far better and actually letting me off the hook, but not wanting me to know it.

  I shrug, nonchalantly. “Sounds good to me. But I just want you to know—“

  She cuts me off. “I don’t want to know anything.” She pushes the floor we need to go to, ignoring my existence.

  We get off the elevator, discovering the party of the century is over but no one has left. It’s now a huge orgy of sleeping people who are mostly naked. I hate rich people. I hate them with a passion. I don’t even know why I want to be one of them.

  “Your friends are still here.”

  I turn and look, seeing them both on the massive sectional couch—unconscious and half dressed.

  Nick is sleeping but Weaver looks funny. She must see it too because she walks right to them and touches him. She turns back, giving me a panicked look.

  My gut drops just like it did in the elevator.

  “He’s cold.” Her words are a whisper that feels like they each drive knives into my spine.

  I shake my head, covering my eyes and dying inside a little. “No way. Come on. Seriously?” Weaver’s gray in color and there is a small trail of vomit from his lips down his right shoulder. My insides are so tight I think I might have a stroke.

  “I don’t know. He might be OD’d.” She pulls a phone from her pocket. “Henry. We have a problem at Nance’s. We need an ambulance immediately.” She speaks deadpan and ends the call. It’s like she ordered pizza and not a doctor.

  I run my fingers along his cool neck, finding a faint pulse and sigh. “He’s alive.”

  She swallows. “I have to get out of here. I suggest you come with me.”

  I almost say no—but I don’t. She’s right. I can’t be involved in a scandal like this. I’ll be kicked out of school. Nick and Weaver both have parents to cover their asses. I don’t have anyone. I step back, hating every single step I take with her through the puddle of people on the floor. When we get to the elevator, she shouts as the doors close, “OH MY GOD SOMEONE HELP HIM!”

  We leave, as they are startled awake. I have to trust the people in that room will help his punk ass. I know Nick will, but it doesn’t give me comfort. Regardless of my internal conflict, I follow her to the stairs and we run down them like a herd of elephants, leaving from the back door. A limo skids around the corner as we get a block over.

  “That's my car!”

  “What is he—batman?”

  She huffs her breath. For a skinny girl, she’s not in good shape. “He tracks my phone.”

  She leans on her knees, catching her breath. The limo stops and she jumps in, leaving the door open for me. My brain begs me not to, but I climb in behind her—sitting across from her. She gives me a smirk. “What a night.”

  Heartless.

  It’s the only word I can think of when I look at her. She’s beautiful in the horrible way a storm is or a bird that’s dead, frozen in the snow. It’s something you want to touch, just to see if it’s real, but at the same time, you don’t want to get too close. Her eyes are cold and dead, and the scared and broken girl from the elevator is gone.

  I shake my head at her, disgusted and ruined in a small way. I had hoped she would be different if given the chance. She doesn’t even flinch at my disturbed look. I nod at the apartment building as we skid away from it. “That kid is eighteen years old. You fucking assholes invite people for their looks to these disgusting parties and get them high as shit and take advantage of them. You make me sick. I’m gonna hate myself for the rest of my life because I chose my education over helping him. I made the wrong fucking choice.”

  “You made the only choice. What were you going to do for him? He’s breathing and alive—do you have life-saving skills that will help his little junky ass? Because I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure he needs something more than mouth to mouth or chest compressions. Not just that, but the room was filled with drugs and booze.” She is smug about a dying kid and I want to slap her. I hate myself for that too.

  I turn and watch out the window as we make the drive back to school. I don’t want to look at her anymore. I don’t hit girls and I don’t hurt women, but my brain is desperately trying to find a way to rationalize smacking some sense into her like my mom always said to me. I have to chant in my mind that she is a girl and not an evil temptress demon I must vanquish to protect society or something. There has to be a way to rid the earth of a hateful thing like that. It’s no wonder her dad is so upset by everything she does. She’s the antichrist.

  I can’t believe I’m in a limo and Weaver is unconscious.

  Chapter Seven

  The buck stops here

  Lana

  Leo comes into the room, looking tired and crabby. He slumps onto my bed next to me and sighs. “She’s being hauled home. She’s in so much shit it’s not even funny.”

  I swallow hard. “I wish I’d been there.” I don’t. I’m glad I left. My dad would murder me. The last time I got in trouble this serious he looked like he might.

  His dark eyebrow lifts. “That’s the funny thing, the doorman says he saw you there that morning. Nance’s dad told her.”

  My stomach sinks. “I left at nine. I never came back until the early hours of the morning and the damage was done. He was on the couch OD’d. I came in, saw him and left again.”

  Leo’s face changes instantly. He slams his fist on the bed. “WHY DIDN’T YOU COME AND GET THE REST OF US? WHY DID YOU LEAVE US THERE?”

  I jump a little, not sure what to say. Why did I leave them? I guess ‘cause I didn’t even see them.

  He covers his face with his hands. “We would have gotten you out. No one would have left you there to catch shit with the townies.”

  “I didn’t see you or Nance. I saw a room full of high townies and a dying kid. I didn’t do this to anyone. The party wasn’t even my idea.”

  Leo’s eyes lift and I can see hatred in them, plain as day. He nods. “Fine. Don’t even see that leaving us there, hanging us out to dry, was the wrong choice. But when you have no friends because everyone knows what kind of friend you are, don’t come crying to me.” He gets up and walks to the door, leaving me speechless. He looks back from the doorway. “Nance was the only reason anyone even tolerated you these last four years.” He leaves, slamming the door.

  My hand instinctively reaches for my drawer, s
lipping two pills from a packet. I drink them down with my diet ginger ale and pull the blankets up to my chest.

  I drift in and out of sleep until I wake to Henry staring at me, startling me upright. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been calling for two hours.” His look grows serious. “Your dad is here.”

  Shaking my head and blinking my heavy lids, I try to wake up. I must be dreaming still. But when I open my eyes again, he’s still here. I realize I’m just going to have to get him to repeat it. “What? I don’t understand.”

  He looks at his phone and nods. “He’s waiting at a restaurant downtown. We have sixteen minutes to be there. It’s an eleven-minute drive.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me up before?”

  He snatches a box of pills from my bedside table. “Because you insist on being a junkie instead of a young lady. Where are the pills I specifically got you? Where did these come from? Never mind, you have five minutes.” He leaves in a huff. He’s never spoken to me like that before.

  “Wow!”

  Something has crawled into his ass and died there, leaving him in a foul mood. Adding my father to my least-popular-bitch-at-school status, and my day just can’t get better.

  When I get to the restaurant in the hotel my dad is staying at, I am ushered into a private dining room where my father is on the phone. His PA, Geoff, looks up and smiles wide. He is probably the only person in the world who likes me. Henry loves me but I am sure most days he doesn’t like me much. But Geoff is my friend. He always has been.

  He stands and wraps himself around me. The level of intimacy is intense, and with any other human being it would be too much, but with Geoff it’s just enough. He bends and kisses my cheek, whispering in my ear, “Heard you were being naughty.”

  “I honest to shit didn’t do a thing.” I shake my head.

  He pulls me back, grinning like he’s guessing exactly how much shit is involved in a broad statement like that one. He slings his arm around my back and helps me to my seat. The server pours me a glass of water. I look up. “Shiraz, please.”