“You’ve got a really nice place,” Trina said as she followed Lucas into his kitchen. Trina usually hated saying things like that to clients. She tried not to overdo the whole “compliment the guy paying you to fuck him” thing, as usually it just came across as insincere. But this time she really meant it. Every surface of his kitchen shone, reflecting the dim lights hanging from the ceiling. There was a certain level of inexplicable magic in the air. Maybe it was simply attributable to the fact that she’d just had the life fucked out of her, but her body buzzed with a gentle low-level hum, like all of her anxieties were hiding deep under her skin, far away from her consciousness. It was nice, feeling this way for a change, rather than worrying constantly about whether she was going to have enough to eat the next day.
“Thanks,” Lucas said, going over to the cabinet and pulling out a bottle of wine. “You drink, right?”
“Sure,” Trina said, even though she usually didn’t get inebriated around clients, just for the sake of safety. I guess I can just file this away as another rule I’m breaking with Lucas, Trina thought to herself as she rubbed her chilly shoulders. Just like the condom thing.
Lucas poured out two dangerously full glasses of wine, pushing one over to Trina. “Sit,” he said, pointing at one of the stools near the island countertop in the middle of the kitchen. “Just relax. I’ll do the cooking.”
Trina did as she was told. She was getting used to that, following Lucas’s instructions. It was strange. It wasn’t like she was afraid of him, necessarily, but he seemed to have so much power. Trina was a little too nervous to test the boundaries of their relationships and find where and when she could disobey him. For now, she said to herself silently, watching as Lucas pulled out various ingredients from his cabinets and set to work, I’ll just do what he says. Eventually he’ll get bored of me and move on to somebody else. I can wait it out. I can be patient.
They sat in almost perfect silence over the next twenty-five minutes or so, although at one point Lucas started humming under his breath as he fried up chicken and boiled water for pasta. Before Trina knew what she was doing, some more words spilled out of her mouth. “You have a nice voice,” she said, then took a sip of her wine. What the fuck? Trina thought to herself, fighting to keep her face still and unexpressive as Lucas turned his head around to stare at her quizzically. Stop trying to butter him up, idiot. Just keep your mouth shut and everything will be fine.
“Thanks,” Lucas said after hesitating for a brief moment, his brow furrowed up as he tried to read Trina’s facial expression. “You like music?”
“Of course,” Trina said reflexively. “Who doesn’t?”
Lucas shrugged, and for a second Trina thought that was the end of it, but then he spoke up again a minute later. “Dana doesn’t.”
“She doesn’t like music?” She felt a little surprised that anyone could dislike music, but after thinking about it for a second, she realized that it seemed to fit Dana. There was probably nothing in Dana’s life that she got pleasure from, except for her own power. Maybe Trina was being unfair to her boss, judging her without even really knowing anything about her, but that was what her instincts told her. Trina had had multiple pimps in her life, and she could tell who liked having authority and who desperately needed to have it to feel okay about themselves. Dana was definitely the latter type of person.
“Dana doesn’t like a lot of things,” Lucas said as he dumped the uncooked pasta into the boiling water, checking his watch to measure the time before stepping back from the stove. “She doesn’t like you, for instance.”
Trina shifted uncomfortably on the stool, but she remained still even after Lucas sat down across from her and stared at her expectantly. He expects me to be offended by that, Trina realized. He expects me to defend myself.
Instead, she just nodded and focused her attention on her wine, acting like Lucas hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary.
Lucas’s brow furrowed again, his eyes narrowing like he was trying to decode the secret meanings hidden in Trina’s face. “That doesn’t worry you?” he finally asked, picking up his own glass to catch up with Trina.
Trina shrugged. “I mean, it is what it is. I assume you know your girlfriend better than I do. Who am I to argue with you?”
“Hmm,” Lucas said. He leaned back a little on his stool as he stared at Trina for a long, tense moment where Trina felt like every skin cell on her face was prickling under his intense attention. “You’re a strange one, you know that?”
“How do you mean?” Trina asked.
“One second,” Lucas said, getting back to his feet to rescue the pasta from the water, straining it quickly before dumping it onto a huge plate to cool. After switching the stove off, he returned to his seat, downing the remainder of his wine quickly before pouring himself another glass. “You want more?” he asked.
“Okay,” Trina said, offering her glass forward to get more wine. She’d never had the time or money or any other resource to become a wine aficionado, but she could tell this stuff was expensive, and she figured she might as well take advantage of the opportunity and enjoy it while it lasted.
Lucas poured another healthy portion of wine into her glass, but after she pulled it back toward herself, he remained leaning over the table, staring down at Trina from his greater height. “Doesn’t it scare you?” he asked after an excruciating couple of seconds where neither spoke.
“The wine?” She allowed herself to smirk up at Lucas then, if only for a second. She knew he wasn’t talking about the wine, but it was easier to deflect than to follow him along this line of conversation. She didn’t know a lot about Dana, but she figured her madam would still be pretty infuriated if she knew her boyfriend was talking about her to a random hooker.
Lucas scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Dana. Doesn’t she scare you?”
Trina looked down at her wine for a moment, her mind stumbling over itself to try to come up with an acceptably coherent answer. “I—I don’t know,” she finally responded, giving herself another reprieve by taking another long sip of her wine. “I know she probably should, but…” Trina let her sentence trail off, unwilling to explain exactly what she meant.
Lucas stared at her for another few moments before sighing and getting to his feet to pile pasta and chicken onto two plates for them. “Here you go,” he said, sliding her dinner before her. “Hey, just a word of advice. Don’t tell Dana I fed you. It wouldn’t make her particularly happy, if you know what I mean.”
Trina hesitated before digging into the dinner Lucas had prepared for her. “Why’s that?” she asked, even though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.
Lucas huffed out a bitter laugh and began twirling his fork around in the pasta on his plate. “Don’t play dumb. I can tell you’re smarter than that.”
“Fair enough,” Trina said. She began to take small bites of the food, surprised to realize how good it tasted. He’s a good cook, she thought to herself. I wouldn’t have guessed that. There was more to him than met the naked eye. Despite her better instincts, she felt herself grow wildly curious about the man in front of her. He’d fucked her like an animal, without really caring that much if she came or not. But at the same time, he must have been at least a little concerned about Trina’s safety and well-being, otherwise he wouldn’t have warned her not to tell Dana about the food. He just doesn’t want me to get in trouble so that I can keep coming over here to fuck him. That, or he wants to avoid having Dana scream at him about it. He doesn’t give a shit. Don’t be stupid.
Still, she couldn’t shake the thought that there was another side to Lucas, some hidden part of him that contrasted with the thoughtlessly primal way he fucked her. Before she could stop herself, she opened her mouth and asked the question was that was bearing down on top of her mind: “If you’re so concerned about not upsetting Dana, why are you doing this in the first place?”
Lucas’s hand froze, his fork hanging in midair as he looked up at Trina again. “This?” he asked.
“This arrangement,” Trina explained. “With me. Why are you doing it if you don’t want to piss her off?”
Lucas sighed and put his fork down. “It’s complicated,” he said. Trina felt a little wave of relief wash over her. At the very least, Lucas didn’t seem pissed that she had the audacity to ask him about his relationship. She knew she was being stupid, prying where she didn’t need to be, but for some reason she got the sense that Lucas wasn’t going to punish her for it. After all, half of the reason men came to sex workers in the first place was to confess their most secret hidden feelings to somebody they could trust not to tell anybody else. Why would Lucas be any different?
“I have time,” Trina said, taking a huge bite of chicken. Her belly felt warm, feeling the aftereffects of the wine, but she kept on sipping. It was nice to let herself relax for once.
Lucas nodded, but he still grimaced a little, apparently physically pained at having to come up with the words to describe his relationship with Dana. That’s not the best sign in the world, Trina mused silently to herself as she attacked her plate with more furor. She knew enough about men to know that it was easier for them to talk about their feelings if a woman wasn’t staring them directly in the eye.
“Dana wants what she wants when she wants it,” Lucas finally said with a long, drawn-out sigh. “It makes sense, given how she grew up, with her dad having control over everything. When she doesn’t want to do something, she won’t fucking do it.”
“Then why did she agree to let me come over here to be with you?” Trina asked.
Lucas was quiet a moment, tapping his fingers on the side of the table, obviously debating whether or not to tell Trina the full story. “She didn’t want to fuck me anymore, okay? I get the feeling that she’s more relieved now than anything else.”
“Oh.” Trina felt a hot flash of secondhand embarrassment climb up her spine and the back of her neck. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” Lucas said quickly before taking another big sip of his wine. “It’s better this way. I leave her alone, she leaves me alone, and we both get what we want.”
Trina swallowed a little to clear her throat before forcing out the next question that sat on the tip of her tongue. “If you don’t mind my asking,” she said carefully, pausing to give Lucas plenty of time to interrupt her and tell her to shut up if he wanted before continuing to speak, “why are you still together? You don’t seem to…” Love each other, she thought to herself, but she didn’t want to say those words out loud, in case they might make Lucas uncomfortable or upset.
“Be happy?” Lucas suggested, and Trina nodded, deciding that was as good a phrase for it as any. “We are. At least, I am. I’ve got what I want.” He stared hard at Trina, his eyes gleaming with desire. Trina shifted awkwardly in her seat. She silently prayed that he wouldn’t try to fuck her again immediately, at least not without some more buildup. Her pussy was still feeling the aftershocks of their fuck session from earlier, and she needed some time to recover before taking him in again.
“That’s good,” Trina said after clearing her throat. “It’s good that Dana agreed to give you what you need.”
Lucas scoffed and shook his head. “It’s not about what I want. It’s about what her daddy tells her to do. And Papa Caliperi needs me.”
Trina hesitated to ask her next question, focusing for a minute on her food so she wouldn’t have to look at Lucas. For some reason she was certain that if he saw her face, he’d be able to tell how curious she was. And that was unacceptable. She needed him to think that she didn’t give a fuck about this, otherwise she’d be entering dangerous territory she wouldn’t know how to navigate. There was always the element of power in every sex worker/client relationship: if the client thought that the sex worker really cared about him beyond the money, he’d become too attached to her. Trina couldn’t afford to let that happen.
But still, she couldn’t stop herself from letting her curiosity out, despite the dangers involved. Her desire to know about Lucas and his life was just too strong to overcome. “What do you do for Caliperi, exactly? Like why does he need you so badly?”
Lucas cleared his throat and shifted his stool closer to the countertop, but otherwise he didn’t look surprised or at all taken aback by her question. “I sell the goods.”
“The drugs?” Trina suggested, and Lucas nodded, smiling a little at the way she corrected his euphemism.
“Yes,” Lucas said. “It’s been going really well lately. The city needs its medication, I guess.”
“And that’s why Caliperi will let you do whatever you want, basically?” Trina asked as she stabbed the final pieces of chicken on her plate.
Lucas nodded. “I have connections to people that the Caliperi can’t touch, through the relationships my parents have with the elite in the city. I can sell to businesspeople and lawyers and politicians, people who would rather die before admitting they do business with the mob. Caliperi needs me, otherwise he has to give up on the money I get for him.”
“I see,” Trina said before finishing off her second glass of wine. Lucas reached forward and grabbed her glass to refill it again without asking her permission, but Trina didn’t mind. If she was honest with herself, she was enjoying this, almost as much as she’d enjoyed the sex earlier. But she had to be careful. She couldn’t let him know that she was having a nice time, just listening to him talk about his life.
Even still, as she sipped at her third glass of wine, she couldn’t force herself to suppress the final question that rose up within her throat. “If everything’s so great, why do you two seem so…?” Trina trailed off, shaking her head at herself before finding the right words to say. “I mean, you seem to fight quite a bit.”
“True,” Lucas said, nodding in agreement. “Look, Dana’s a handful. Everyone who meets her can see that.”
“So why do you put up with it?” Trina asked. “I mean, from the way you talk about it, you’re the one with all the power here. Not the Caliperi.”
Lucas was silent for a long moment. Trina felt like her skin was prickling again, but this time she wasn’t afraid. He’s not going to get mad at me, she thought with weirdly perfect confidence. I have more power here than I thought.
Finally, Lucas nodded slowly, his gaze slipping down to the countertop between them. “You’re right,” he said. “The truth is, I’ve always wanted to belong to something, I guess. Something special and exclusive, you know? When I met Dana, I thought… this is it. This is my ticket into another family.”
“What’s wrong with your family?” Trina asked impulsively.
“Nothing, nothing,” Lucas said a little too quickly, waving his hand in the air as if to physically push her question away. “They’re fine. I just… I wanted something else. I wanted to be a part of the Caliperi empire, you know?”
“I can’t help but notice you’re using the past tense there,” Trina commented.
Trina saw Lucas’s throat work furiously as he swallowed, probably attempting to clear his throat. His eyes were full of some emotion that Trina couldn’t quite identify, but she didn’t feel nervous or scared at all. For the first time with Lucas, she knew she was going to be okay. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Somehow, being here listening to his insecurities, she just knew that even if he was capable of causing her harm, he wouldn’t want to. She was safe, even when she was prodding him with overly invasive questions about his personal life.
“You’re right,” Lucas finally said. “I wanted to be made. You know, I wanted to be a confirmed part of the family, somebody who’d be protected and defended. I wanted to go through the special ceremony and everything. Become a real made man. But…” He trailed off, sighing deeply and pouring himself even more wine.
“But?” Trina prompted him, wanting him to continue.
“It’s not going to happen that way,” Lucas said with a shrug, a wry, humorless smile spreading across his face. “Even if Dana and I were to get married, it wouldn’t happen. Caliperi has been pretty clear about that.” He paused, shrugging again as he drank more wine.
“Shit,” Trina said. “Even after everything you’ve done? Making them more money?”
Lucas smiled again, shaking his head. “It doesn’t seem to matter. But whatever. I’m getting richer. They’re getting richer. I can get what I need from you and leave Dana alone most of the time. It all works out.”
Trina wasn’t sure what to say that, but it felt insufficient to her. So they’re just in a relationship of convenience, Trina thought. She didn’t realize until just that moment that she’d actually felt guilty, fucking Dana’s boyfriend, but now that she knew the truth about their relationship, she felt better about doing her job. He’s just like any other man, she thought. He needs someone to care for him. Trina could do that. Or at least she could pretend to.
When it became clear that Trina wasn’t going to continue the conversation anymore, Lucas got to his feet, grabbing his and Trina’s plates and taking them to the sink. “I guess I should get back to Dana’s soon,” Trina said, getting up off the stool.
“Not just yet,” Lucas said, turning around and crossing the room, getting into Trina’s face so quickly that she didn’t have time to prepare herself. “I’m still hungry.”
Before Trina could react, he knelt down onto his knees, looking up at her darkly and running his hands up her bare thighs. “Can I eat you out?” he asked. His tongue came out to lick at his lips, while his eyes seemed to glow with pure desire.
Usually Trina wouldn’t have felt anything one way or another about such an offer. But right here, right now, she felt her knees go weak, threatening to send her tumbling to the floor beside Lucas. “Yes. Yes. You can,” she stuttered out, reaching forward to tangle her hand into his hair. “Please fucking do.”