by D. B. Story
I held Star—Helen—as long as she needed it. It was quite a while before she could talk again. When she could, her first words were, "You're the only person who has ever cared about me before he or she cared about themselves."
While I doubt that was actually true, I wasn't going to gainsay an emotional woman at such a vulnerable moment. Besides, I really liked hearing that right then. Instead, in a moment of inspiration I said something else instead.
"If that's really true, then you really need to dump that worthless boyfriend of yours."
That was so unexpected that it completely pulled her out of her misery for the moment. She looked at me sharply, her blue eyes still glistening, before lowering her gaze and saying very softly, "Yes. I know."
I loosened my grip, allowing her to shift into a more comfortable position. She somehow managed to wiggle in even closer to me. I again started stroking her back, until I felt her give a deep sigh and relax.
We stayed in that position for many more minutes, until I suddenly became aware of her pubic patch pressing against my—albeit exhausted—most sensitive appendage. I tried not to think about it. But the more I attempted to ignore it, the more aware of it I became.
Star shifted slightly a couple times, seeming to fit even more firmly against me after each move. Now I could feel her nipples hard against my chest. My nose was filled with the fragrance of recent love.
Despite my wishes, I stirred in response. I hoped Star—or was it Helen—wouldn't notice. I thought she hadn't, until she shifted once more, opening up a path between her legs. I soon filled it.
I was embarrassed. I didn't want to take her this way.
But if anything, Star was helping. She moved again, then put one beautiful leg completely over me, opening herself up entirely.
I tried to pull back, but Star, who is far more flexible than I'll ever be, stayed pressed up against me. Then I felt her hand on me down there and my unruly manhood sprang to full attention. I realized she was guiding me into her again.
"Wait," I said, trying to fight a losing battle.
I wasn't worried about getting her pregnant. While possible, that was most unlikely at this point in her cycle. Besides, she was certainly on The Pill. Nor did any remaining menstrual blood concern me. As to her overall health, she was far better cared for than I was. Although I knew I was clean, I was trying to protect her from going bare.
Star knew all this too and wasn't concerned. "Just do it," she whispered in her most sultry voice, although I don't think I could have stopped myself by now anyway.
I slid into her feeling more welcome there than ever before, while she gripped me like she was never going to let go. I felt her shaking again, but she put her arms around to hold me as tightly as I'd held her before, and I came almost at once—memorably! It was the most intimate experience of my life.
* * * *
I don't know how much longer we held each other. We eventually silently parted and she used the corner of a towel to wipe me down. We showered together without a word. There was nothing more to say.
We both knew this couldn't last. We got dressed, then clung together in the room. I tried to give her money, and she flatly refused. In the end, she wasn't going to walk out with me and risk being seen with tears still in her eyes.
We kissed one last time, touching tongues gently, before I turned and left. I knew my way out by now. And regardless of anything that had happened here I was still flying home tomorrow.
It was only a few minutes before my usual driver picked me up for the drive back to the bright lights. I made the trip in silence. I had nothing more to say to him either.
Las Vegas is a city that lives on tokes—which is what the rest of us call tips. Back at the hotel, I gave the driver a hundred for his consideration. In return he handed me a small, square envelope. Inside was a thin, elegant card with the neatly handwritten message:
Thanks for everything!
All my Love,
Helen/Star.
And there was a local telephone number written under that.
The next morning I flew out of McCarran for home, sleeping on the long flight and dreaming what it would be like to have a wife like Star.
Chapter 3—FOR LIFE
A couple days later I called. I knew it was one of her off days. She answered immediately, and we talked for the next three hours.
Two days after that she called me back and we again spoke for hours. That became our pattern of alternating telephone calls.
Her first question for me was; how had I known she had this rotten boyfriend?
I told her that if she'd had a great one, she wouldn't have felt I was the first person to put her feelings ahead of my own.
She agreed. In return, I soon learned a lot about Star—and Helen.
My biggest surprise was that she is actually twenty-seven years old. Then again, she had too much assurance about her to only be the apparent young age of twenty-two, no matter how much she looked it.
I wasn't surprised to learn that she had never really felt attractive, and we spent a lot of time talking about it. Both Helen and Star—and you can consider them two different people—have issues. This is not uncommon for women in the sex trades. At least neither of them ever tried to tell me she was only hooking because she intended to write a book about her experiences afterwards. That's a very old piece of self-delusion.
I could have written a book, however, from all the stories she told me. It's amazing what so many men—and women (everyone loves Star) actually pay for. It's not always what you think. Sometimes it's nothing more than the most expensive conversation in the world.
Her moods varied markedly from day to day. Some days Star was on top of the world, telling me how well that day had gone, and how much she'd made. Other days Helen left work hating "Men". But whoever it was that day that I spoke with, she always said she felt much better after talking with me. Sometimes she said I was saving her sanity.
She was also very interested in the state of my project. Phase II would be starting soon and last a year at least. I had kept myself out of the running for that before, since it was effectively going to require at least a temporary move to Las Vegas. But now I was feeling quite different about that possibility.
* * * *
Only a few weeks later I was flying back into McCarran again on a Friday evening, knowing I had the whole weekend ahead before I had to report for work. Star was waiting in a white limousine with champagne and roses.
Although I had a reservation in a major Strip hotel prepaid by my company, Star took me to her large house on the outskirts of town where the lights of the distant Strip ensured that it was never truly night. Her house was completely empty of other inhabitants. Not even a cat to be seen.
That night we made Love for the first time. It was passion, not business—or need. The large waterbed made it easy to hold each other afterwards for the rest of the night.
Star fixed me breakfast in the morning before we made Love again. Then I surveyed her spacious, well-equipped kitchen, before surprising her with lunch.
We lay naked around the large, secluded pool all afternoon, keeping each other lathered with sunscreen, while letting our passion build again for the evening. We were never more than touching distance apart.
Star had dinner catered in. We fed each other tiny bites with long forks.
Our loving that night was long, slow, and comfortable. We seemed like old friends already.
Afterwards I turned on the air conditioning to maximum so that Star and I could sleep tightly huddled together under the blankets.
The next day I shook things up. I had to.
* * * *
Up until now I've mostly referred to Star, not Helen. Why? Because it was Star who met me at the airport. Star who made love to me at night. Star who cooked us breakfast. Star who catered in dinner. And it was Star who cuddled up against me at night.
"I'd like to meet Helen," I said, to her surprise.
"What?"
"Helen," I repeated calmly. "May I meet her now?"
There was a long look of incomprehension, followed by a dawning realization of just what I was asking for.
Star started shaking her head no. This was one request that went too far. But I pushed it. We were doomed if I couldn't pull this off.
"Helen," I repeated again, speaking softly but putting the full force of my intentions into that single word. I was addressing Helen now, not Star.
"Our last time together was so brief." After a pause I added, "Should I have called first?" I pulled out my cell phone and made as if to dial. "Helen gave me her number too."
That did it. Star and Helen might inhabit the same body, but they were two distinct and mutually exclusive sides to it.
"Why?" she asked me, tears welling up in her lovely eyes.
"Because in the end, I can only love one person with all my heart. Therefore, I need it to be the real person."
Her negation gesture slowly turned into nodding as she digested this. But she still asked again, "Are you sure?"
"Yes," I replied simply, but again with a body blow from the deep intensity I put into that word.
"Okay," came the soft reply, an audible quiver in the voice. "She'll be out in a few minutes."
With that, Star turned and left me standing alone in her bedroom.
* * * *
Time passed before another woman finally entered the room. It was Helen.
All the makeup was gone, along with the wig—one of several that she owned. Helen's natural hair, amazingly the same color as the wig she'd worn for me, was pulled back in a simple ponytail.
Her eyes were a pale gray, now that the royal blue contacts were removed. She wore black, plastic rimmed, thick glasses, showing me that the contacts were more than cosmetic. Strangely, I felt much better about that. If she needed them anyway, then why not pick a color that complements your face and hair so well.
She'd gone so far as to have even scrubbed off her finger and toenail polish, telling me a lot about how she felt regarding everything she used to change her appearance.
Gone too were the expensive heels she'd wore even around the house. Helen stood there barefoot, in a simple white shift. As I watched, she dropped it to the floor, then turned around slowly to give me the complete view. After that she stood there quietly, awaiting my rejection.
There were some things she couldn't change, at least this quickly. Her warm, even tan, that was a product of both sun and bronzing cream for starters. That wouldn't come off as easily as her clothing. Her height and shape remained as well. As did her beautiful breasts, although even there some artful makeup had made a surprising difference. Her areolas were much lighter now, and not much darker than her skin itself.
She'd told me a story once about her boobs during one of our late night chats. Yes a surgeon had worked on them, though the results looked more real than any other boob-job I'd ever seen.
"He told me," she related, "If I went with what I was asking for, that I'd only be back wanting bigger ones later. Also I might lose sensitivity in them."
"And?" I'd prompted.
"He was right in that I've often wanted bigger ones—at least before I met you—when I see the other girls and how some men react to them. But he was wrong otherwise. They've become much more sensitive!"
So Helen couldn't remove Star's boobs. But she'd taken everything else off that she could, and then bared herself naked to me. I couldn't even detect the costly perfume she always wore. This had to be one of the hardest things she'd ever done.
* * * *
This is Helen. A reasonably pretty twenty-seven-year-old woman who, when dressed conservatively in a way that obscures her figure and legs, can walk down any street in this town getting few—if any—second glances.
I closed my eyes for a moment, superimposing Star onto Helen. Then I opened them again.
This is Helen. Who probably already knows more about sex than I'll ever learn. Who can, in any hour she wishes, transform herself into someone extraordinary.
This is Helen. Who though se invited me into her otherwise empty house, yet thinks she's ugly. Who believes that only by becoming an entirely new person, can she ever be beautiful.
"Beauty is created," a successful fashion photographer once said. If you limit that statement to surface beauty, he is completely correct.
I walked over and put my hands on Helen's bare shoulders. It was the same skin I've already touched a dozen times today. Then I removed her glasses and set them aside. I lifted her chin gently to tip her head back, before putting my hands back on her shoulders. I felt her tremble.
Looking as steadily into her eyes, as she has often done into my own, I kissed her once lightly, before saying with all the sincerity I have in me, "You are the most beautiful woman I know. And if I don't make love to you in the next minute, I fear I will die of a broken heart."
Helen stood stock-still for long seconds, making sure she'd actually heard what I'd just said. Then she fell forward into my arms crying.
I hadn't been kidding. A moment later, with strength that only true passion brings, I lifted her up and easily carried her across the room to the big bed.
I started to look for the condoms I knew she kept nearby. However Helen, with her own strength now, just pulled me back and onto her.
For the second time we did it bare. Now I knew we were together to stay.
* * * *
I officially moved in a week later. Two days after that I started doing what engineers do—fix things.
It was the engineers who took some freehand sketches from an architect who didn't know his I-beam from a cross-member, and turned them into the Sydney Opera House. It is engineers who make bridges safe to travel over. It is engineers who turn problems into solutions. When something works, thank an engineer!
Truth is, much of Helen's life was a mess, which is what kept making it so easy for her to want to escape into being Star. Only when she was Star did the problems go away for a while, and the praise pour in. But no problem is ever truly gone.
For starters, despite having an income I could only envy—and I am very well compensated—and living in a state that has no personal income tax, Helen had virtually no savings. She struggled to pay her other taxes each April, and seemed unable to hold onto any of her money.
Her house is beautiful—and rented! Nearly six thousand square feet of mostly unused space that her (now) former boyfriend talked her into getting. He'd lived there rent-free while working to be a rock star. I don't have to tell you what engineers think of rock stars.
Her beautiful shoes were from the most expensive boutique in Las Vegas. Her work outfits and wigs all custom made.
Her meals were often catered, and she had no real plan for the future. Her only real accomplishment of the past year (besides dumping the worthless boyfriend) had been quitting smoking.
"I want to have kids someday," she told me. "I knew I'd have to quit eventually, so I did it now."
I'm glad she did. That's a point in her favor towards a saner life. My ideal woman would never be caught dead with a cigarette.
She was also trying to follow a healthier diet that her last boyfriend had rather pushed her into. (Okay, so he wasn't totally worthless. Just close.) She still slipped off of it far too often simply for the sake of expediency. I put an end to that, for both of us. We'd eat healthy from now on—at least as long as she was willing to keep me.
And then there were all her insecurity issues.
The transformation in her life away from those started when Helen realized she was beautiful and sexy to me as plain old Helen. It wasn't long before I nicknamed her Helen of Troy. Not only did she immediately get the reference, but then she told me the milli-Helen joke. (What's a milli-Helen? It's the amount of beauty necessary to launch a single ship.) This Helen could have launched the whole fleet!
None of this should have been a surprise. Like any really good hooker, Helen is both intelligent and surprisingly
well educated. She is also very good at hiding it around most men. This made her just the sort of woman many men love to talk to and be seen with on their arm. And the only sort I ever want to spend intimate time with.
The process wasn't always easy. There were nights when I held her after our lovemaking while she cried out the years of feeling unsightly and unwanted. And there is a lot to come out. She'd been hooking from the day she turned twenty-one and dropped out of college. But it all did come out along the way.
In the meantime I got her to agree to a strict savings regimen. Helen got much of her income in cash, which is a problem faced by many sex workers. I set the rule that half of everything went into the bank before anything else. Although she protested immediately, once she actually tried it, it proved amazingly easy to live on the half that remained.
Helen is so very different from Star in a number of regards. The first one I discovered is that she is fascinated with penises. I sort of figured this out after she had her mouth on mine the first time without any asking or warning. Unlike Star, who will coolly do an amazingly competent job of sucking you off while charging you extra, Helen is really into it.
At first I was worried that this was one of her insecurities speaking. A fear that a man would never want her if she didn't serve him this way. Or that this really was her avoidance mechanism against sex the way God intended it. When you have someone go at it with the enthusiasm Helen displays, it can completely drain a man of his ability to perform regularly afterwards. But I was wrong. I'll say it again. I was wrong! Helen loves regular sex every bit as much as she is really is into this.
So while Star does it because it makes her clients happy, Helen does it because she really likes it. And that's why I now like it too.
Helen explains it by pointing out how much I enjoy her boobs, which is true. Looking at them, talking about them, seeing them hidden in the bras she sometimes wears, or touching and taking them all turn me on. On our rare off-days together, I'll spend the whole afternoon holding her, topless or naked, in my arms cradling those breasts in my hands. It's my own version of the living bra.
