Void

by Cassy Roop

  “I think it stopped.” He said, still standing dangerously close to me. It was the same surge of energy I felt when I was with him and my client last night. How was it that after nearly thirty years of vacancy, my emotions were beginning to open up and all because of two men; one I have seen, the other still mysterious and secret.

  “Keep this with you in case it starts again.”

  I felt drained as if my body had just run a marathon in a sprint. The new things that were taking place inside of me did something that I also wasn’t used to.

  Being overwhelmed.

  I watched Andris take a drink out of the coffee cup that sat on his desk before setting it down and reaching for a pen. He flipped open my folder and jotted down a few notes, all the while I was trying to bring my body back down to a level that wasn’t threatening to make me explode from the inside out.

  “So pleasure, you feel. Pleasure, you understand,” he stated just before leaning in and whispering like we were accompanied by other people in the room.

  “Is this why you do what you do? Is that why you are an escort?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” He seemed taken aback by my answer, an almost angry look in his eyes. “I have homework for you for our next session.”

  “What? I’m back in high school now?” I asked.

  “It is to help you, Nicola. That way you don’t have to sell your body in order to feel things.”

  “There is nothing wrong with what I do.”

  “Other people beg to differ.”

  “Well, I don’t care what others think.”

  He took a long breath, running his hands through both sides of his hair, leaving a messy, disheveled look in the wake of his actions.

  “I want you to keep a journal. Expressive writing can be beneficial in helping to stretch your ability to detect emotions. You need to do it every day, but write beyond just the events of the day. Include observations, things that you think you are feeling, even if you aren’t sure. It may be hard at first, but the overall goal is to broaden your observations within and outside of yourself.”

  He opened a drawer to his left and pulled out something wrapped in white tissue paper. Peeling it back, he revealed a beautiful leather bound journal. Reaching over, he handed it to me and I ran my hands along the smooth surface of the leather.

  “Use this.”

  I opened the pages to find them stark white, something ironic since on the inside, I was black. Vacant.

  “You don’t have to be a whore, Nicola. You can do this on your own, and I want to help you do it.”

  A stabbing pain hit me in the chest and gut and the journal fell from my hands and landed with a thump onto the dark hardwood of the floor. My breath temporarily left me in a rush as if I had been sucker punched, and as quickly as it appeared, it left me. Bending over, I reached for the journal and my purse before standing to my feet.

  What the hell was that? My blood felt like it was boiling in my veins, like a caldron sitting upon a fire. I didn’t say anything to Andris as I made my way over to his office door, afraid of the things that were happening to me. My legs wobbled slightly as I walked and I just prayed I had made it out the door before they gave way from underneath me.

  “Nicola?”

  I stopped in my tracks, my hand poised on the door knob, but I didn’t turn around to look at him.

  “In here, I am Dr. Andris Gunn.”

  I spun around and looked at him as I clutched the journal to my chest, like I was trying to hide behind it.

  “And you are Nicola Forbes. That doesn’t change. But out there?” He said, pointing to the window of his office and my gaze followed to where the sun was shining brightly outside.

  “Out there, I am Sinclaire and you are Jericho.”

  I didn’t say anything. Instead, I turned around and walked out of his office. I made my way all the way out of the lobby and onto the sidewalk where I hailed a cab. It was moments after I had climbed into the back seat that the realization hit me. I reflected back on the few times I could remember my mother and father fighting. I vividly remembered my mother clenching her chest after my father had said something to her and she lashed back out at him.

  What I had just felt up in Andris’s office…was anger.

  FUCK.

  I gripped the sides of my hair hard enough to feel a small, piercing pain in my scalp before letting it go. I was in deep, deep trouble. The pangs of jealousy that swept through me when Nicola described how he made her feel as he touched and caressed her were surprising. The instant rise in my arousal as I watched her body flush with desire from her memories alone, had me close to wanting to throw her on the floor and give her everything she wanted and needed. But I was her doctor. How fucked up was it that she was my patient? Staying involved with her outside of treatment would be a disaster, but the pull I felt towards her was so strong I didn’t think I could break the ties.

  I was jealous of her client. Jealous that he could bring out emotions and desires in her that I wanted to do. I had only met her last night by chance. Kiki was our regular escort. She was always available to us whenever we needed her, but now having met Nicola, I knew there was no going back for either of us.

  I sat in my chair for several moments, my fingers tapping against her folder, fighting between ethics and desire. My mind was telling me one thing, while my body told me another. I could still smell the faint honeysuckle scent of her skin lingering in my office long after she had left.

  Pleasure. She feels pleasure.

  That was something that patients with her condition typically felt. Not so much pleasure, but the ability to experience the emotions that they are void to, through physical contact.

  The internal battle within me raged in full force, and I was half a heartbeat away from turning her case over to one of the other doctors when I had an epiphany.

  I could use our sessions on a client level with our sessions on a therapy level to provoke her. When she spoke about last night, I felt every thought through her words and her actions…and she felt them too.

  Yes.

  I smiled to myself. It was fucked up and morally wrong, but I was willing to risk my license and my life that this would work. I could use sex to throw a wrench in her ability to know her own self-experiences, as well as what others think and feel. It was a risky experiment, on that I had no control to use to go with it, but it was now a thought that wouldn’t leave my mind.

  I picked up the phone, dialing the familiar number.

  “Alexandra, we need to talk.”

  “HE WHAT?” I exclaimed as I sat across from Lexie in her office that afternoon.

  “He upped the ante. Twelve and a half grand per session.”

  I sat back in my chair. How the hell could I turn that down? Especially after my therapy session with Andris. Did he call the client and tell him about me? Is that why he upped the price?

  “Why is this guy so dead set on having me? I thought Kiki was his usual reservation. I only filled in one night, and all of a sudden he wants me for twelve weeks?

  “I don’t know, Jer, but you would seriously be an idiot if you turned it down. That’s more money than you make in five months. That’s…”

  “A hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” I said, interrupting her. The shock of just how much money that was had me in disbelief.

  “That is in addition to what he is paying me to contract you out. I don’t know what you did to this man, but whatever it was, keep doing it.”

  “What did Kiki say about it when you talked to her?” Lexie waved her hand through the air as she took a long drag from her electronic cigarette.

  “She was a little pissed at first, but I gave her some of your regular clients, including old man Patterson, since the contract requires to be with no other clients for the duration of the twelve weeks.”

  Why did this man have a desire to keep me to himself? The thought though, made me shiver as the familiar electric pulses invaded me, like it did every
time I thought about him. I wished I knew his name. I wished I could see his face. He was probably some old ogre who would have me running in the other direction.

  Who the fuck was I kidding? The man was probably gorgeous beyond all knowledge. One of those reclusive CEO men, who hid their insecurities behind walls of mansions and millions of dollars. I found myself going over the possibilities, each scenario playing like a silent movie before me, but each one resulting in me coming undone beneath him as Sinclaire guided and watched.

  “So?” Lexie asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  “So…”

  “Are you going to take the job?” She slid the stack of papers over to me. I didn’t have to ask her what they were. I already knew.

  I picked them up and the pen that Lexie handed me. I glanced over it briefly before I scrolled down to the bottom of the last page and noticed a signature at the bottom, but it was too messy to make out an actual name.

  “He already signed it?”

  “Yeah,” Lexie replied as she slipped her electric cigarette back into the top drawer of her desk. She pulled out an envelope and handed it over to me. I took it, and looked at her with curiosity.

  “This is the first session’s payment. In advance. He said as soon as you sign, it’s yours.”

  I clicked the top of the pen, and without a second thought I signed my name to the bottom of the contract and placed the pen down on top of the stack of papers. Lexie handed me the envelope where I expected to open it and find a check. Instead, it was cash.

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “The client?” She asked and I nodded. “No. He has his assistant, Sinclaire, call me and negotiate everything.”

  Sinclaire. Or Andris. I couldn’t let Lexie know that he was my new psychiatrist. She would be tearing that contract up in less than two heartbeats. If it was one thing that Lexie was very strict on, it was my therapy. She, like my doctors, believed that I would be cured of my lack of certain emotions. After nearly twenty-five years in therapy, I hated to tell her that it probably wasn’t going to happen. I needed this money. It would finish paying off my condo as well as have enough left over for me to start real savings. When you are left with absolutely nothing, you remember every struggle that you faced trying to survive. I remembered being fourteen years old and sleeping on the streets of New York. I remember looking for food in restaurant dumpsters or having to go to the Salvation Army to get a warm meal. No one cared about the poor Senator’s daughter and the fact that she was homeless and hungry after her parents died.

  “He told me the conditions are just like last night. Sinclaire will be there with you and the client. You know what to do if you ever feel like the situation is unsafe, correct?”

  Lexie required us to have her number pre-programed in our phones as speed dial one. That way all we had to do was press “one” and send. She knew we would need her, if, or when she answered and all she heard was background noise. Our clients were required to provide her with the address and location of where our session would be held. There was also a time limit so that the client couldn’t keep us over a certain amount of time. We also had Vinny, Lexie’s scarily huge husband, who had won national bodybuilding competitions, ready to kick the asses of some clients who decided they wanted to break the rules.

  “Yes. I have a feeling that everything will be okay.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll have your schedule cleared for the next twelve weeks. What are you going to do with all your free time?”

  Good question. I was usually always sleeping during the day, unless I was attending therapy, because the majority of my clients required their sessions at night. There were a few that would make arrangements for a daytime meeting, but the majority of them were after normal working hours.

  I opened the envelope once more, letting my thumb glide through the stacks of hundred dollar bills.

  “First things first. I’m going shopping.”

  I HOPPED INTO A CAB and headed towards lower Manhattan. I held my purse close to me, knowing that I carried twelve and a half grand in there, full of cash. I knew exactly where my first stop was going to me.

  Agent Provocateur.

  Although expensive, it held some of the world's most beautiful and exquisite lingerie that was designed to reveal or conceal, hug curves, or be flirty, fun, and sexy. Since my profession required me to be physically enticing to my clients, I thought it could be both a luxury and an investment. Most of all, I really had a deep desire to please both Andris and my client.

  The boutique was beautiful with a plethora of designs and styles to choose from in a vast range of colors. My eyes zeroed in on a gorgeous teal blue silk and lace piece.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I turned around and smiled at the saleswoman who had approached me from behind.

  “It is.”

  “It’s from our Cassia collection. This color would look great with your skin tone and blonde hair,” she said, fingering the material before picking it up from the table and holding it up to my chest.

  “Would you like to try it on?”

  “That would be great, thank you.”

  I followed the lady to the back of the boutique where she offered me a luxurious fitting room to change in. After closing the door, I removed my clothes and stood staring at the lingerie that the sales lady had hung up on the back of the dressing room door. I let my hands run over the material, relishing in the soft feel of the silk and lace. I removed the bra from the hanger and placed my hands through the straps, before snapping the ends together at my back. It was a quarter cup bra that swept up to fan across my collarbones, creating a delicate opening that accentuated my full breasts. A tiny black bow completed the bra as it rested in the middle of the cups between my breasts.

  I reached for the thong, pulling it on over my legs to allow the stretchy silk sides to rest gently on my hipbones. Lace graced the front of the fabric and also in the rear. The same contrasting black bow that was on the bra, sat in the front, just at the top of my mound. I reached for the suspender, pulling it on to where the lace top part swept romantically over my hips. Lastly, I put on the pair of matching thigh-high teal silk stockings and secured the black clasp at the end of the suspender to them. I turned around to look in the mirror, amazed at how the delicate fabric felt. I ran my hands down the front of my body, imagining what my mystery client’s hands would feel like as he touched both my skin and my fabric. My face flushed with heat, as blood ran to my face at all the possibilities of pleasure I would get to experience with him.

  “Everything okay, Sweetie?” The sales lady asked as she knocked gently on the door. I undid the lock and opened the dressing room door a fraction of an inch so that I could see her.

  “Can I get your opinion on this?”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling. I opened the door wider so that she had the opportunity to look at the entire ensemble. I slipped back into my black heels and stood before her to be assessed.

  “I think the color looks gorgeous on you. Your décolletage looks phenomenal in the Cassia bra. What sort of look or idea did you have in mind for the piece?”

  “Well, I have a special date and want to look feminine, sexy…wanted.”

  “Well, Honey, I think you have all of those nailed down. Your date will be thoroughly pleased, I’m sure.” Her smile was warm, and I appreciated her kindness.

  “I’ll take them, then.”

  “Great, when you are finished, I will wrap them up for you. Will it be cash or charge?”

  “Cash, please. Thank you.”

  SEVERAL HOURS AND a couple hundred dollars later, I arrived back at my condo with all my new purchases. I splurged on a few more lingerie pieces for work, as well as a few cocktail dresses and a new pair of shoes. The cocktail dresses could be worn for work or play, seeing as how I did have a few clients that only used my services as a companion date, for a social functions or business dinners where they wanted or needed a companion.

  I dug in my purs
e for the keys as I balanced all of my packages on one arm before opening the door. A crunch was heard under my foot as I stepped into the condo and I looked over my shoulder to find a white envelope laying on the floor addressed with my name. Someone must have slipped it under the door while I was gone this morning. I walked over to my couch and sat all of my packages and bags down before going to retrieve the envelope. Lifting the flap, I pulled out an intricately designed invitation to the retirement party of my former therapist, Robert Gunn. Who was also Andris’s uncle. That meant that he would be there as well. Did I want to subject myself to seeing Andris again so soon? I read through the invitation and noticed that it was for tonight at eight pm. I looked at the clock and noticed it was three in the afternoon. It gave me just enough time for a small nap and then plenty of time to get ready.

  My rest was fitful, when I finally fell asleep, images of the night before would begin playing on repeat. It seemed that every time I reached for my blindfold so that I could pull it off in hopes of getting just a glimpse at my mystery man, I would jolt awake before my eyes were ever uncovered from the darkness. By the time I was finally able to shut my brain off long enough to get rest, the alarm on my phone had gone off telling me it was time to get up and get ready. I stumbled through my dark condo, moonlight savings time having the pleasure of it being dark at five pm.

  The shower was soothing as I washed and buffed my body, amazed at how aware I was of the excitement I felt about getting to see Andris tonight at the party. I couldn’t help but think about all the faces I would see there and wondered if I would be searching the crowd all night wondering if he was there.

  After my shower, I towel dried my hair and rolled it in my foam rollers before venturing to my room. The Agent Provocateur bag rested on the foot of my bed and I wondered if I wanted to wear the contents that were inside. Shrugging, I decided to go for it. Maybe if my mystery client was there, he would see me and decide that he wanted to have another session sooner rather than later.