Madison

Johnson is my self-appointed spotter. One night, I want to say around ten, he texts me to throw on my slinkiest thigh-high wraparound dress and get the fuck over to the club.

>& don't forget the f'in stilettos

The dress is a splash of silk in all the different expressionist colors. “Inspired by Gerhard Richter,” Brecka says when she loans it to me. As if I know who that is. She's taken to being a member of the one percent like a duck takes to water. The kind of girl who loans an eight thousand dollar dress like it's nothing.

There's a scrippy-scrap of baby blue in among all the colors, not much, but it's there. I use that as an excuse to wear the strappy sandals from Noah Hammond's people. I don't kid myself they came from Noah or that he even knows I got them, but they still remind me of that night. As if I need to be reminded...

I sit up too fast and experience a moment of nausea. There's a quart of butter pecan ice cream in the freezer, and I feel an urge to get it out and eat the whole carton in bed with a silver spoon. There's always something on TV to watch if you can be bothered to look for it.

But I can't sit around angst-eating ice cream and Netflix. Club Sugar Daddy expects better of me, and I know I can't let down the team.

The baby blue stripe in my hair matches the baby blue splashes in the silk dress matches the baby blue strappy sandals. Between the ankle straps and the thigh-high hem is about a million miles of shiny leg made shinier with a banana-scented body lotion. It's a young fragrance, a little too young for eighteen. A subliminal way of appealing to their protective instinct.

I don't want to think about who “they” are or why I want to appeal to them or why I probably need to work real fucking fast.

I don't want to think at all.

My stomach's a little dicey these days. My phone sings— the text from the Uber driver— and I take a deep breath.

It's OK. You got this. You'll be fine.

“Those aren't really what I call stilettos, girl,” Johnson said.

They've got a blocky heel instead of a pointy one. Better for dancing. I shrug. “Straight guys don't care as long as the skirt goes up to my ass.”

He laughs.

We work it the same way we've been working it for a while. He has to watch the door, but everybody loves Johnson, and everybody who works inside is keeping an eye on me. Some of them probably think he's my actual brother. I can order anything I want to look cool in front of whoever I'm hitting on, but I always get served the virgin version. That way, I can pass as somebody fun who's willing to get her drink on but, as a wise man once said, I can keep my head when those all around me are losing theirs.

“Buy you a drink, little lady?” Nice voice, nice face. Kind of Daddyish. Silver hair, silver eyes. Cheekbones. Tall and lean. Dutch heritage, to judge from the height and the accent.

This is the guy Johnson wants me to meet. This is apparently a guy who is worthy of my place in Club Sugar Daddy.

“Strawberry colada,” I say.

“That's a milkshake, not a proper drink,” he says. He's got four bodyguards grouped loosely around him, so expensively dressed and so naturally arranged that you could easily mistake them for his friends. It costs a fuckton of money to have bodyguards like that. They're more expensive to outfit, more expensive to train. They have to have faster reactions and be able to move in from all directions.

Noah's bodyguards, by contrast, just have to be big.

Funny how quickly I learn to see all the differences between what middle-class people think is rich and what's really rich.

This guy is really rich.

And I don't even give a fuck. I'm not even a little intimidated. I look directly into those silver eyes, and I don't blink. “With whipped cream. And a cherry.”

“So give the lady what she wants.” He doesn't look away when he says it. Up to his staff to lean in and get it right. Not up to him to take his focus away from his prey.

Me. I'm the prey.

You think I look easy, Mr. Fucking Billionaire? You think you impress me?

“I'm Janus,” he says, and he puts out his hand, and we shake. A nice grip. Strong. But honestly? It's a handshake. Who the fuck cares?

He slides into the booth across from me, and a girl with most of her tits hanging out delivers our drinks, and I use the long golden spoon to stir the whipped cream into the strawberry colada. I sip very carefully until I'm certain it's alcohol-free.

“Do you know who I am, little girl?”

“A horny fucker old enough to be my Dad.”

He laughs. “Do you have Daddy issues, little girl?”

“Probably. It's hard to say. Never met my Dad to know.”

There's some more banter I don't bother to remember because my heart isn't in it. He snuggles closer and closer, and after a while he suggests we head over to a more private place to continue this discussion. Silver-haired Janus thinks I'm cockteasing him, and I guess I am.

“Not tonight, babe,” I say. “I'm not ready to get to know you better.”

He hands me his card. “You check me out, then you call me back after you change your mind.”

“Yeah, sure. Yeah.”

Johnson's a little surprised to see me waltzing out so early. “How'd it go?”

“I set the hook but I can't give him what he wants too soon.”

“Yeah, I hear that, honey.” Johnson and his banker have already broken up. “Play hard to get, that's my new motto. If you make it too easy, they don't appreciate you.”

It's for the best if he believes I'm acting like this out of strategy. “Yeah.” The truth is, I don't even know why I'm being so bitchy to the richie.

In the back of the cab, I take out the card. It's a name and a number, nothing more. He could've put that crap in my phone or scribbled it on the back of my hand, but apparently he's spent a lot of time in Japan.

I can Google him, but I don't.

I can call him and say I've changed my mind, but I don't.

I rip up the card into teeny, tiny pieces and slide them down into the crack behind the seat.

My house is dark and lonely. Mom's not there. She's hardly ever there, and she's not really there when she is. I sent out a quick text into the ether and get back a minimal explanation.

>Mom? U OK?

>Ya. Bizzy. Luv U.

Vegas is a party town, and everybody's at the party except for me.

Incoming from Brecka asks me how it went, and I text back more of the hard-to-get bullshit I handed to Johnson.

>Good thinking, grrrrl.

At least I haven't let down the club.

At least not yet.

There's a full-length mirror on the back of the closed door to my mother's bedroom. I catch sight of the thigh-high skirt swirling around my thighs and almost don't recognize myself.

I'm just a random pretty girl. Nobody special. He's already forgotten me.

I don't let myself think about who “he” really is. Flipping on the wall light, I turn this way and that in front of the mirror while practicing the magic twitch that makes my skirt fly up. The thong panty is baby blue too. The triangle of blue lace barely hides my clitty. The pad of my thumb strums thoughtfully against the knob I can feel through the flimsy fabric.

There's no reason I have to do this. I can call Janus and have him on his knees right now.

I can call a lot of guys.

My eyes close, and I picture a slice of exposed neck with the long hair falling to the shoulders on either side. The head bobbing.

That isn't any silver-haired rich guy.

That's a rockstar head bobbing between my thighs.

One night of reality. A lifetime of fantasy.

It isn't enough. It just the fuck is not enough.

My thumb hooks into the scrap of lace to pull it down to my knees. My other thumb tucks the hem of my skirt into my waistband. I'm pink and flushed and silk— the product of a professional wax job.

And all for what? For who?

So I can stand in front of a mirror and flick my own clit?

I rub myself faster, and my body goes through the motions. Eventually, mechanically, I manage to spark the expected contractions, but it's nowhere near enough.

A long silver track of cream goes sliding down the inside of my thigh. It tickles. I can't help but think how much it looks like a tear sliding down a face.