Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel)

by Shrum, Kory M.

  He put his keys in the ignition like he was just going to leave me without even saying goodnight. He just got laid like a million times and he wanted to be mad about it? Seriously?

  “Fine. See you around, I guess.” I would, of course, since my office and his comic bookstore were in the same building. It’s how we met. He owns the building, some inheritance from a dead family member, and I rent one of the offices. Before you judge, Brinkley chose the location, so it wasn’t like I chose my office space for the hottie landlord. Though that sounded like something I’d totally do.

  “Jesse, wait.” He stopped me when I was halfway to the front door.

  I returned to his truck without complaint.

  “I’m not mad,” he said.

  I propped my elbows on his open window frame. “You sure seem mad.”

  “I’m not mad at you anyway.” His voice was soft and sincere.

  “Who are you mad at?” I asked. “I hope it’s not Ally and that’s why you shove our—whatever—in her face.”

  “Relationship.”

  “Arrangement,” I corrected.

  “I can’t just—” he made a gesture to imply the word he couldn’t even say.

  “Don’t I make it easy?” I asked.

  He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles went white. “Men actually do have feelings. And if you haven’t noticed, I care about you, enough that I can’t just—” he sucked air and when he spoke again, his voice was so much softer. “I can’t just fuck you without wanting more.”

  “Then maybe we shouldn’t have sex,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything right away and my heart skipped a beat.

  “Yeah, maybe,” he said finally and my heart pounded harder.

  He was going to agree with me? Don’t people believe in idle threats anymore?

  “Okay.” I had no idea what else to say. I was choking on this horrible lump in my throat. That’s twice someone had said something like this to me. First Ally, now Lane.

  Capitalizing on my silence, Lane leaned out of the window and kissed me goodbye—a very soft, very sweet, brush of the lips. Then he turned over the ignition and was gone.

  Chapter 4

  When midnight rolled around neither Eve nor Brinkley answered their phones. A very bad feeling told me to walk away from this replacement. But Brinkley’s threats just kept coming back and the more I thought about it, the more I suspected this was some kind of test. I had to do it—no matter what. When Eve finally called us back at 6:30 A.M. I refrained from screaming, “What kind of hooker doesn’t work nights?!”

  She insisted we meet her at the Vanguard Hotel downtown at 8:00 A.M. and gave us the room number. She wasn’t getting the “I must shadow you for the full twenty-four hours. Who knows when you’ll die?” explanation. Obviously, she didn’t realize how serious this was.

  When Brinkley remained MIA, I had to call Lane in to help us. We needed someone else to carry my body out. The paramedics would give Eve priority, so the extra muscle would help, depending on what kind of replacement this turned out to be. With surprising enthusiasm, Lane agreed, though I’d been certain I wouldn’t see him for days. Despite the freshness of our argument, I was relieved to have him. Ally, on the other hand, was not.

  In the car, Lane made me swear not to use the word hooker since it was derogatory. She was to be called a “sex worker.” The clarification didn’t tell me why the hell Brinkley put a sex worker’s file in my bin. A personal favor? That humored me.

  Eve entered her tenth floor suite, and threw her purse and oversized black bag on the floor with an air of irritation that suggested she regarded this whole situation as a total pain in the ass. The idea that she and Brinkley had a past seemed less likely.

  The room was gorgeous with a view of downtown, the park and river below. The wind-caught river particularly, shimmered like iridescent fish scales. Opposite one wall was a floor-to-ceiling mirror. It made the room feel bigger. The king-sized mattress sat between two end tables. A desk made of dark cherry wood matched the armoire with a large television inside, and drawers for clothes underneath. I’d have found the room more impressive, if I hadn’t been distracted by why I was here in the first place.

  “We should put the camera here,” Lane said.

  “I don’t want to be taped,” Eve said. Her bleached hair was pulled up high in a bun and her button-up gray jacket heightened her naughty-but-nice persona.

  “This isn’t a pornographic video, it is a security camera,” Lane said. “And it wouldn’t be necessary if you’d let us stay in the room.”

  Eve removed mascara, a compact and lipstick from her purse. “Want to watch, do you, sweetie?”

  “I need to know the second she dies so we can carry her out,” Lane says.

  Ally snorted and my back muscles tensed. Lane’s did too, his shoulders rolling up toward his ears, but he didn’t look away from Eve. As she touched up her makeup, Eve stole glances at Lane’s tattoo as if confronted by a rough-tongued rogue for the first time. But surely she’d met tougher men in her line of work.

  “No,” Eve repeated.

  Gritting his teeth he said, “It’s for your safety.”

  “No.”

  Ally’s arms crossed. I rocked back and forth on my heels waiting for this to get crazier, but Lane didn’t say anything. Defeated, he just bent down beside the bed to pack up the camera. Legally, he couldn’t install the camera without her consent. But legally, Eve wasn’t even allowed to do whatever—whomever—she meant to do in this room. I crossed my fingers and called Brinkley again, only to have it go straight to his voicemail.

  This is a test, Jess. To see how high you’re willing to jump. What’ll it be? The moon or prison?

  To combat the heat of the crowded room, I opened the window. Broadway Avenue below was infected with chanting anti-Necronite protestors and honking horns, none of which made me feel better. Ally hadn’t even removed her red coat. Irritated by Lane’s presence, she sighed, grumbled and muttered under her breath as she shuffled the paperwork for the fourth or fifth time.

  Ally’s job was to make sure there weren’t any physical obstacles to prevent the swift removal of my corpse. She had put down blankets in the car so I wouldn’t dirty the seats, in case an ambulance wasn’t called. Her big brown eyes were focused, her dark lashes reflecting light from the high windows. She slipped her hair behind her ears, revealing her furrowed brow and angry mouth.

  “You’ll want to take this stairway.” Ally said to Lane, pointing at the map with her index finger. “It leads right to the parking lot.”

  “Why can’t I just take these stairs to the lobby?” Lane asked.

  “Because—” Ally huffed. “Those stairs are marked off for the housekeeping staff. You don’t want to start down them just to find yourself blocked by a towel cart.”

  “We don’t know what time the replacement will happen,” Lane countered. His voice mirrored her irritation. “There might not even be a towel cart. How would they even get a towel cart into a stairwell, anyway?”

  “Look, the desk person told me this was the best way in the event of a fire.” She jabbed the map with her finger. “But even though this is your first replacement job, you’re the expert now.”

  “I don’t need practice to be good at something.”

  Ally’s face started to match the red shade of her coat. “No wonder Jesse keeps you around then.”

  “She doesn’t keep me around for my learning curve.”

  “Whoa!” I jumped in, signing time-out with my hands. “A bit of professionalism, please?”

  I noticed Eve had paused in applying her makeup to stare at us like we were a circus. Damn, I just knew I was going to get a big, fat ZERO on that survey card.

  “Ya’ll about done?” Eve asked and arched a perfectly, penciled eyebrow. “We’ve only got about five minutes until showtime.”

  This argument ended with Ally fussing over the paperwork she’d already organized and Lane huffing over the hote
l map he’d already memorized. Oh, what fun we were having.

  I was glad that Ally had the paperwork though. It proved my occupation, in the event the authorities wanted to know what the hell we were doing up here. If someone had walked in right now, do the math: the three of us, a prostitute, one bed and a video camera. Throw in a corpse, a.k.a. me, and the authorities might be more than curious. All of this on top of the fact that my handler was MIA, the need to defend myself felt more immediate.

  Eve forced Lane and Ally from the room at 8:25 A.M., wanting them gone before her first patron—or whatever the hell you call such a connoisseur—showed up. I was more nervous about the two of them alone together in the hallway than what the hell I might expect once left alone with a sex worker. I watched Lane close the door behind them with a feeling of dread that left my limbs heavy and heart racing.

  “How will you explain why I’m here?” I asked Eve once we were alone. Still by the window, I glanced at the tiny people below, pulsing like blood platelets through the clotted streets.

  She had her hands in the front of her shirt again, lifting one breast then the other. “I’ll think of something.”

  I was scared to ask what “something” might be.

  “What are they screaming about down there?” she asked, now satisfied with her breasts inches higher on each side.

  “The Vanguard agreed to hold the first ever NRD conference next month. The Church isn’t so happy about it,” I answered. I only knew this because Ally told me.

  “I wish they’d shut up,” she said. Her cheeks flushed. “It’s worse than the abortion clinic.”

  I assumed she meant the women’s health clinic on 4th and State. “They do more there than just abortions. I’m sure people appreciate the free yearly exams and birth control too.”

  Eve smirked. “You ever even been to that place?”

  I shifted my weight. “No.”

  Let’s just say I wasn’t afraid of dying of cervical cancer.

  She shrugged. “It’s a nice place.”

  “You say it like you go there a lot.”

  “Free STD testing,” she said.

  I must have made a face before I’d meant to. “You use protection.” It didn’t come out like a question.

  She folded her arms over her chest. “I’ll do what I need to do to keep my baby in a good school.”

  I was still at a loss as to what to say when she handed me a picture: brunette pigtails, her mother’s big eyes and pretty smile, dimples for goodness sake. I muttered some sort of compliment, feeling the heat rise in my face at the realization that Eve had a beautiful little girl.

  “She goes to school at St. Mary’s,” she said. I recognized the name of the prestigious private elementary school on West End Avenue.

  “Don’t you have to test into that school?”

  “And my baby passed easy,” she said, returning the picture to her leather wallet. “She’s smart like her daddy.” Her face went red and eyes wet. “She’s the reason I’ll do what I have to,” she whispered, and I don’t think she meant for me to hear that last part.

  I wondered if one of her patrons was daddy. Not that I’d berate Eve on the importance of a good father figure. I couldn’t even remember mine after all, and my mother’s replacement husband Eddie—let’s not even go there.

  I turned to the protestors again. Around and around they went, marching in a circle, their signs bobbing over their heads. Given my condition, I wouldn’t judge someone just because society says they’re different, not normal. What could I say to Eve by way of an apology?

  Someone knocked on the door before I could come up with anything good.

  “This is Charlie,” she said, escorting the young man into the room. Her face brightened with his smile. Charlie had bright orange hair and so many freckles that it looked like a skin condition. He emptied his pockets on the vanity table like a kid offering his lunch money, but in the vanity’s light, I saw at least two hundred dollar bills.

  “Who is she?” Charlie asked. He put his shifty hands into his pockets.

  “A voyeur, honey,” Eve replied. “Just what you need.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but Eve cut me off. “Don’t be shy, sugar. Charlie likes an audience.” He blushed deeper. “Humiliation is his thing.”

  Then she smacked him. The air was static with its echo. My hand instinctively reached out but I retracted once I saw his face. His eyes glazed into an expression that I could only describe as calm ecstasy.

  “Ain’t that right, baby?” Eve asked him and ruffled his hair. He smiled and gave a soft nod. She hit him again and he was in heaven.

  Turned out, all of Eve’s clients had their own thing. The few I thought most interesting:

  “It needs to be about ten inches longer. See? Like in this picture.”

  “Put on this hat. I’ll be the boat.”

  “Just take a deep breath and then we’ll try to fold it the other way.”

  “Meow. Purr.” (Yes, like a cat. Repeated in accompaniment with only cat-related noises for about 45 minutes.)

  No matter how many toys she pulled from the mysterious black bag—gels, handcuffs, nipple clamps, ball gags, collars, whips, harnesses, butt plugs, dildos, CDs for the black radio in the corner armoire—there seemed an unending reservoir of more. Like a clown car. She didn’t always have sex. Interestingly enough, it was rare. When she did, I took to distracting myself. I’d stare out the window, use the bathroom or try to fix the crooked bedside lamp. It just wouldn’t sit right for some reason.

  Things in the hotel room got real interesting when Eve’s last client showed up. Just before 2:00 P.M., Mr. Brad Cestrum walked through the door. I have to say, Eve looked upset to see him.

  Though she’d introduced me, she didn’t make up a story this time. This was a surprise given the fact that in the last six hours I’d been a voyeur, a sex worker in training, a social psychologist, and her parole officer.

  He was disturbingly average. I couldn’t identify one distinguishing feature that would make him noticeable in a crowd.

  Eve had her shirt undone and hair down and Mr. Cestrum wasted no time in bending her over the bed. Her skirt lay flipped up and rested on her back. From what I’d discerned from infrequent peeks this morning, this was about as average as sex got for Eve. Vanilla as it was, I still blushed when my eyes caught a glimpse of the long curve of her hip and exposed thigh.

  In the sudden awkwardness of the situation, it occurred to me she might not even die in this room. She could get attacked on the street or hit by a car or something, and I would’ve had to watch all this for nothing. Who has sex all day anyway? Okay, most of this wasn’t about sex, but wasn’t she hungry? Didn’t she want a cupcake or something? I wanted food. And I wasn’t even the one getting the workout.

  When I checked the clock at 2:28 P.M, my head felt swimmy. Anxiety slid over my chest like a second skin. A draft of cold air swept the room, which to a replacement agent, meant that Death, knocking the door wide, had just entered and announced itself.

  I turned around to check on my charge and found Brad choking her. Her face was already a red-purple-blue color, so I had a decision to make. I tried to pull Brad off of her but she croaked, “Don’t.”

  “You want him to do this to you?” I just couldn’t believe it.

  She sort of nodded despite the hands on her throat, and reached out for my hand.

  This is a test. To see how far you’ll go.

  Every bit of training that Brinkley gave me over the years pulled itself into play. It’s important to understand that death was, by nature, precarious. Death-replacing was not the same as preventing an accident and a good agent was required to keep this in mind.

  This is why I was forced to let Brad choke Eve instead of choking him to see how he liked it. The only choice I had, according to Brinkley’s rules, was to give Eve my hand and replace her when the time came, if this is what was going to kill her. But to jump in and change the situation, changed the A
MP prediction. After all, I’d never been part of Eve’s life before this. And if I changed it, I changed her reading.

  I had an FRBD contract saying I couldn’t do anything to change the circumstances of a replacement.

  So I offered Eve my hand.

  Brad reached out as if it were myself I offered. It had not been the first time today I’d had such offers. I told Brad—as I told the others—that I was here for her, not him. I slipped my hand into hers and let her squeeze the hell out of it.

  But this just seemed so wrong. Being choked in a hotel room was too easy, so preventable. I’ve had to catch people falling off buildings. Wrap my arms around people as the sound of metal crunched around us in brutal car wrecks. I even had to replace a baby that would have died in childbirth while it was still inside the mother. But this?

  Surely this wasn’t how Eve would die.

  It just didn’t feel right. Why hadn’t my eyes changed to their weird zombie vision? Infrared, x-ray, or whatever all that sparky electric stuff that happens to me when I replaced someone—the weird shit that makes me sound much more like a freak than an unfortunate person with a neurological disorder.

  I thought of Lane and Ally. They were nice and comfy out in the hall, while I was in here struggling against the burning pain in my chest. I gagged, but no air came in or out of my lungs. At least I recognized this as sympathetic damage, something my body experienced because Eve experienced it. I was certain that if I’d held a mirror to my face, I’d see every little vein in it bulge, blistered at the surface. I didn’t let go of her hand, though I wanted to clutch my own throat and try to pull free whatever was suffocating me.

  The pulse in my ears drowned out their noises, the furious slap and squish of their bodies colliding, faster now and in time with the protests of the groaning bed. The pounding in my chest was so hard that either my heart was going to smash through its bone casing or my lungs wouldn’t survive this thrashing. It’d be a tossup as to what organ would survive.

  I was losing consciousness. The room reduced itself to spots, the usual lack of oxygen kind, not zombie vision, as I crumpled to the floor. When my face hit the carpet, I wasn’t sure if I still held Eve’s hand or not.