Chapter 24: Andrea
Sammy had a pitiful look on his face when I opened the door. I’d seen pitiful looks on men before. It did nothing to sway the foulness of my mood or my opinion of what he’d done.
I nodded and he came inside. I closed the door and led him to the living room. I sat on one end of the couch with my knees tucked up and my arms around them. I was wearing a robe and the panties I’d worn to bed. I pulled the robe down over my legs to make sure I was covered. I was in no mood to fool around at the moment and my expression let him know it.
“So, the girl you saw at IDS, her name is Carina, she is a friend,” he said, sounding very much like a little boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Her brother had been arrested and his VISA had expired. She’s Russian and freaked out. I guess over there if you get arrested sometimes you spend months in prison awaiting trial, so—”
“I don’t care,” I said, shrugging at him.
He blinked like a stiff wind had blown into his eyes. “I’m sorry?”
“I don’t care about your Russian girlfriend or her brother.”
“Okay…” He stared at me for a moment, then rubbed his chin. “So, why exactly are you so pissed off?”
“You’re a pimp.” I said it as if it were a proven fact, with a voice full of harsh judgment, which bothered me a little because I could hear my mother in my voice. She hated everything and everyone. And was the queen of the snap judgment. I did my best not to be like her, but sometimes it was hard. Like right now. I added, “And that girl is one of your prostitutes.”
He smiled just slightly, as if I’d told a joke without realizing it. “Is that what Regina told you?”
“Regina told me enough,” I said. “It was clear watching the two of you that something was going on there. Clearly, you are not just friends.”
“Fine, call us friends with benefits,” he said, frustration in his deep voice. “Yes, she works at Club D as a Specialist, but—”
“A what?”
“A Specialist,” he said, exhaling loudly.
“What is a Specialist?”
“A Specialist is an escort with special… talents.”
“Oh god, please don’t tell me what they are,” I said quickly, huffing while holding up my hands to shut him up. “I saw the way she wrapped herself around you like a boa constrictor. I can imagine what her special skills entail.”
“You probably couldn’t,” he said, glancing away. “But that doesn’t matter. What matters is she is just a friend.”
“A friend with benefits.”
“Yes.”
“That you pay to have sex.”
“Well, yes, but…”
“That’s not a friend with benefits,” I said, smirking at him. “That’s a prostitute and a john.”
“Whatever. The point is—"
“The point is,” I said, cutting him off. “She is a ‘Specialist’ who works at your whorehouse that you fuck when you’re there.” I put air quotes around the word Specialist because I felt stupid using the word in such a way.
“It’s not a whorehouse,” he said, anger tinging his voice now. “It’s a private club where wealthy men go to enjoy themselves without worrying about the public or TMZ watching.”
“It’s a whorehouse,” I said, folding my arms over my chest and glaring at him.
“It’s not a whorehouse.”
“Men pay women for sex, right?”
“Yes, but…”
“It’s a whorehouse and you’re a pimp. And a john. And the owner of the whorehouse. And Regina made it sound like you were this Carina’s best customer.”
“Regina talks way more than she should,” Sammy said, blowing out a long sigh. “Look, Isaac, Denny, and me started Club D so we’d have a place to go to unwind and drink and yes, fuck gorgeous women, without it being plastered all over the internet. At the time, we were single and every time we tried to go out on a date or drinking or whatever the fucking cameras were there. We got tired of being chased by paparazzi and TMZ, so we opened Club D to get laid and give to charity.”
“Give to charity?” My eyes rolled on their own. “You can’t be serious. A charitable whorehouse. Now I’ve heard it all.”
“It’s true. We don’t take a penny out of the place. Every cent taken in goes straight to a charitable trust that we set up. In fact, we are in the process of giving total ownership to the trust. We’ve raised a shit ton of money.”
“I’m sure you have,” I said condescendingly. “Let me guess, you sell pussy by the pound? Are there to-go orders? Is there a menu the men can pick from? Maybe a blowjob from column A and an assfuck from column B? Give me a break, Sammy. How gullible do you think I am?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’ll have you know that we’ve raised over twenty-two million dollars for charity in the last three years.”
“Bullshit.”
“Not bullshit. Documented fact.” He took out his phone and wiggled it at me. “Would you like me to have the accounting reports sent to you?”
I blinked at him. “Twenty-three million dollars?”
“Yes, and the women who work at Club D—the whores, as you call them— make ten times the amount they would make in Vegas or doing stuff online. Carina, the Russian girl you saw, has made nearly two-million dollars working at Club D. Enough to bring her entire family to America and house them all in a lifestyle they could have only imagined before.”
“Twenty-three million…” I stumbled over the words. “Remarkable.”
“So, before you get all high and mighty on me,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Think about what would have happened to Carina and her family if we had not started the place and given her the opportunity. She might be mixed up in some sex ring, for all you know. Same with the other girls. We don’t force them to do anything. They applied to work there and are free to leave anytime, but we’ve never had a single girl quit. You wanna know why? Because they are getting rich working a couple of days a week and get to keep every penny they earn. The Club doesn’t take a cent of their earnings. Not one red cent.”
“Wow…”
“Yes, me and Denny and Isaac had sex with the girls, but we paid them for their time. They were not there just to amuse a bunch of rich fucks!”
“Sammy, I had no idea…”
“And Serena, Denny’s girlfriend? She’s worked as a waitress at Club D for two years to pay for her Master’s in physics. Another girl, Simone, is getting her PhD. in pediatrics. Do they fuck guys for money? Yes. Could they make six figures a year doing anything else? No fucking way. So before you judge Carina or me or anyone else, maybe you should—”
“Sam, stop!” I said loudly, holding up my hands to shut him up.
He blinked at me. “What? My two minutes up?”
I blew out a long breath and worked up a smile. “I’m sorry.”
He narrowed his gorgeous eyes at me. “You’re sorry?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For jumping to conclusions,” I said, swiping a knuckle under each eye because I found myself tearing up. “And for overreacting. And for being a judgmental bitch.”
He frowned for a moment, as if he thought I was just messing with him, then a smile curled the corners of his lips. “You mean it?”
“I do.”
“Then, I’m sorry, too. I would have told you about Club D, but honestly, it never came up and I didn’t give the place a second thought after we, I mean, after you… Fuck, you know what I mean.”
I tugged up the front of the robe to wipe my nose. “So, did you get her brother out of jail?”
“My lawyer is handling it.”
“You didn’t stick around?”
He smiled. “I had a lunch date that I wanted to get back for.”
“So… Club D… will you still be spending your weekends there?”
“That depends,” he said, holding out a hand. I set my hand in his and his fingers closed around it.
“Depends on what?”
“On whether or not I can spend my weekends with you.”