A month ago, when I got back from London, I felt like I could do anything. Apollo and I had an understanding. I was ready for the semester to start. This year would be the last one before I could start really living my life.

Today, when I walk into Talisman, I feel like everything’s turned upside down.

“Hey Cal,” I call absently to the security guard at the reception desk.

“Hey, G.” He looks up, and his usual smile falls, and his eyes sweep me from head to toe. “You look like hell, man. What’s up?” he says, his tone a mixture of surprise and worry.

“I know. Long week. Is George in?” I ask.

“Yeah, he’s in his office, I think. But, G …” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, and his eyes dart away. “You can’t go in there looking like that. He’ll lose it. You know how he is …”

“I’m not here to work. I just need to ask him a question. I won’t see any clients.”

“He won’t care.” He gives me a knowing look. But I’m too tired, too stressed, and too desperate to pay attention to him right now.

“Okay, I heard you,” I say and then walk through the doors that lead to the management office.

When I started working here a few months ago, I felt like I’d hit the jackpot. The money was great. It meant I could cut back on my other job and still have enough to pay tuition, help my mom with rent on her place, and save a little.

But, now it’s not enough, and I pray like hell I can get George to give me some more clients. Instead of making my usual study of the portraits of the famous people who’ve been members here in the past, I stare straight ahead and try to think about exactly what I’m going to say.

“Hello, Graham,” the membership manager, Nanette, says as I walk into the employee break room. I was so caught in my thoughts that I almost walked past her. Not that I would have stopped. She makes me uncomfortable. But, I always say hello to be polite.

“Hey,” I say with a small wave without stopping.

“Graham, wait,” she calls after me. I suppress my sigh and turn to face her.

A smile spreads across her face as she walks toward me. Actually, walks is the wrong word. Nanette kinda … prowls. Her blouses are always unbuttoned just enough that her cleavage is visible. She wears a pendant with a green stone that nestles right where I shouldn’t be looking. And with each step, her black pencil skirt clad hips sway in time with her blonde ponytail’s swish.

I’ve always thought she looked like a cat. Her face’s oval shape is contoured by high cheekbones and a pointed chin. She has a tiny nose that turns up at the end, and her almond shaped green eyes are either wide with surprise, or at half-mast with … who knows what to call that look. I just know I try to avoid her.

“Graham.” She purrs my name and glances down at her Cartier watch and then looks back at me with a raised brow. “Do you have a session now? I thought you weren’t due in until tomorrow.” Her pale pink lips curve up at one corner as she gives me a smile that always looks more like a suggestion than a greeting.

I feel a flush creep up my neck, and I rub my hand on the back of it as I look at the ground and try to collect my thoughts.

She always makes me feel this way.

Flustered, young, naïve.

“Uh, no, ma’am …” I stammer.

“I’ve told you, don’t call me ma’am.” She slaps my chest playfully, but hard enough that it stings.

I give her an apologetic smile.

“I’m not your mother.” She tinkles out an amused laugh. I almost tell her that according to her client card, she’s actually old enough to be my mother, but think better of it.

“Or your teacher … even though, I’d very much like to teach you a thing or two,” she drawls before she lays a hand flat on the center of my chest and drags her white tipped, long fingernails down my stomach … slowly, until she reaches my belly button.

I don’t like it, but my body always responds to her and the other women. My dick twitches a little, and I adjust my stance to try and disguise it.

I’ve learned to tolerate her touches. She’s never done more than that, and I’ve seen her fire other trainers for not smiling at her widely enough. I need this job, now more than ever. I’m never less than friendly when I see her.

“Uh, no, I came to talk to George about picking up some more sessions or clients. I’ve just had to withdraw from school for this semester, so I have more time on my hands and …” I trail off, too embarrassed to finish my sentence.

“What?” she prods, but she’s smiling like the cat who’s got her canary just where she wants him.

“Well, I could really use the extra money,” I finish, shame forcing my blood to rise, and I know my entire face and body are bright red.

I have the most annoying inability to control my blushes.

Her lemon-scented sigh of regret doesn’t feel sincere. I feel foolish and pathetic, and her casual dismissal of my shameless request makes me feel two feet tall.

“I’m so sorry to hear that, Graham. Unfortunately, I don’t think our membership has the need for more personal training hours.”

My hope withers and sits like a ball of lead in my gut. I close my eyes to try to tamp down my panic. What the fuck am I going to do?

“Okay, thanks, I should go.” I turn to walk back out.

“Wait, tell me what’s wrong, darling?” Her lips are pursed, her eyes are wide with concern.

“Well, my mother’s sick.” I breathe out a sigh and just plow forward. “She needs this treatment, but her insurance won’t pay. So, I used my tuition money for the first month, but I need more, and I want to go back to school so I can finish … I need …” My voice breaks and I stop to collect myself.

“Oh, Graham. I wish I could help,” Nanette says breathlessly, putting her hand on my shoulder and patting it sympathetically.

“It’s okay. I’m not sure the extra hours would have been enough anyway. I’ll find another job,” I say, trying to inject my voice with optimism I don’t feel.

“You know, Graham …” Her eyes dart around the room and then come back to mine, and she waggles her eyebrows. “With your face, that body …” She trails her eyes up and down me. “You could be making real money. Not the chump change you make just working out with clients.”

A few months ago, a client told me her best friend was an agent who she thought I should talk to. I did. But he wanted me to drop out of school to start modeling full time. The money sounded great, but I couldn’t drop out of school. I only had one year left. I had plans for Apollo … but now, I’ve had to drop out. I wonder if I called the agent, if he’d be willing to talk to me.

“I’ve helped a couple of young people I’ve met here get set up in a business that’s given them the kind of financial freedom they could only dream about. But I can tell you’re … a little shy?” She drifts off and looks at me thoughtfully.

“I’m not shy,” I protest, but she only laughs.

“Oh, Graham, don’t worry. It’s wonderfully charming how oblivious you are to your own appeal.” She pats my hand with her heavily jeweled fingers. It takes a huge effort not to pull my hand out from underneath her touch. If she’s got a solution for me, the last thing I want is to piss her off.

I want to correct her, to tell her I’m very aware of it. And of how it’s the only thing anyone ever mentions when they talk to or about me. And how much I fucking hate it.

But, I need this job. So, I just smile like I’m flattered by her words.

“Anyway, if you’re interested in hearing more, you just give me a call, darling.” She winks, smiles, and then turns on the ball of her foot and starts to walk away.

It feels like watching hope disappear, and my pride takes a back seat to my panic. I rush after her, and I put a hand on her shoulder, and she stops, and this time when she turns around, she’s wearing a nearly blinding smile. I drop my hand and cough awkwardly.

“Uh, can we talk now? I mean, if you’re free. We could wait until you come back in tomorrow.”

“Graham, for you, I’m always free.” She comes to stand beside me and wraps an arm around my waist. I look around to see if anyone’s watching. I already get so much shit from my colleagues about how I train all of the MILFs in the gym.

Nanette has two kids. Her son is the same age as Apollo, and her daughter is only ten. I’ve never met them, but she talks about them a lot. Her ex-husband is some big luxury brand tycoon, and all I know is that she doesn’t need to work and can afford the two hundred-thousand-dollar initiation fee and twenty thousand dollar a year fee that it took to be a member here. I hated the ribbing and was careful to make sure no one got the wrong idea about what I was doing.

I don’t plan on being a personal trainer forever, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything to jeopardize my chances of teaching. I just needed a way to take care of my mother and go to school.

“Why don’t we go down to the cafe? I’m famished.” She starts to walk in the direction of the cafe without waiting to see if I’m following.

I fairly reek of desperation I couldn’t disguise, and I’m not trying to. I have everything to lose—my mother, the existence I’d scraped to carve out for myself here. The future I pictured having with Apollo as soon as she was old enough.

Even though the sun was shining, and the club is buzzing with endorphin releasing hot people, I feel a sense of impending doom as I follow Nanette into that cafeteria.

We slide into opposite sides of the booth in the corner of the atrium-like room. There’s a quiet hum in the air, and for a restaurant located in a busy gym, it’s very elegant. The air is even perfumed in here. I sit across from her and before I have a chance to speak, she asks, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one, ma’—Nanette.”

“That’s such a great age,” she says, and without taking her eyes off me, lifts a finger into the air.

A waitress in a white button-down shirt and a royal blue bow tie fastened around her neck appears in a matter of seconds, and Nanette rattles off her order before the young woman can even finish her greeting. Her blonde head bends over her notepad as she writes down Nanette’s very complicated soup and salad order.

“Do you want anything?” Nanette asks me.

“No, I’m okay,” I say and am grateful that my stomach doesn’t growl its protest. A week ago, I wouldn’t have blinked at ordering lunch here.

“It’s my treat.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll just have a burger.”

She nods at the waitress who scribbles on her note pad. She gives me a quick, small smile before she disappears again.

“So, what’s the business you mentioned?” I get straight to the point.

She puts her glass down and dabs her lips and smiles slyly. I pick my glass up, my throat suddenly dry as I wait for her to speak.

“Very simply, Graham, it’s sex.”

My water sprays out of my mouth at her words. I grab a napkin off the table and stand up. I wipe the water from my shirt.

She picks hers up and dabs her brow, but when I look down at her, she’s smiling.

I had to have heard her wrong. I smile back and sit down.

“I’m sorry about that, the water went down the wrong way. For a minute, I thought you said sex.” I laugh, but it dies when she doesn’t join me.

She tilts her head to look at me. Her stare is pointed, and she doesn’t speak.

I stare at her, my relief and humor giving way to surprise and a tingle of panic.

“I didn’t misunderstand?” I ask, hopeful that she’ll contradict me.

She doesn’t. “Our clients, the ones who come every day and stay all day. How do you think they can afford to pay memberships when they don’t have jobs?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it. I figured they maybe had money from their family, like … I don’t know…” I trail off when she starts to shake her head slowly.

“No, no, no.” She shakes her head in disapproval. “You need to start paying attention to the way the rich and famous are structured in this town, Graham.” She tilts her head and gives me a stern look. “Not all money is equal. Old money wouldn’t be caught working out. Sweating anywhere but a golf course, tennis court or racquetball club is gauche.” She says this as if it makes perfect sense.

She sweeps one of her hands in a circle over her head. “Here, we cater to the spouses, mistresses, boy toys, and lovers of men and women who have more money than time. So, while our clients are cash rich, they’re otherwise deprived.” She says the word like it has significance. Realization dawns like a dark cloud on a clear horizon. She can’t mean … Surely not …

“Deprived of … sex?” I ask, reluctant to have my worst fear confirmed. “Exactly,” she says cheerfully.

I’ve stepped into the twilight zone because this can’t be real.

“We offer a service. Discreet, safe sex with the best-looking men and women in Los Angeles. Your annual salary will double, and if you and your client choose to see each other outside of the club, any gifts you receive during those encounters is yours to keep. And you get a company car, just like my 5 series, membership to the California Polo Club. Everything you could ever want, and as your agent, I get fifty percent of what they pay you.”

“Fifteen percent?” I ask, sure that I’d misheard her.

She lifts an eyebrow. “No, I said, fif-ty.” She enunciates so there’s no mistaking.

“That’s a lot … isn’t it?” I don’t much about stuff like that, but all three of my best friends have agents, and I know they only get a fraction of that.

“Maybe, but you’d still make twenty-five hundred dollars a session. You don’t make that in a week now, do you? Five thousand dollars a session,” she repeats.

I consider it because I would only need a few of those a week to earn enough money to go back to school. And at that rate, it wouldn’t take me long to have the first month’s payment for the treatment.

The carrot she’s dangling is tempting.

Very.

My car is a piece of shit. It gets the job done. But, it would be nice to have a car that I wasn’t embarrassed to park next to my friends.

And the polo club. The guys are all members there. It would be nice to walk in there as a member and not just when my friends can swing a visitor’s pass for me.

But all of that is nothing compared to the name that’s ringing in my head like an alarm.

Apollo.

Apollo.

Apollo.

My mind is whirling. I’m so tempted. But, I can’t do what she’s asking.

“I’m sorry. I hate that I wasted your time. I can’t.” I stand up so fast that my chair falls back. I catch it before it hits the ground and look down in to Nanette’s amused eyes.

“You didn’t waste my time. You don’t have to give me an answer now. Just think about it and let me know.”

I didn’t tell her I didn’t need to think about it. Instead, I smiled and apologized before I excused myself.

“Bye, Graham,” Nanette calls after me.

A week later, my mother developed pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital. I’d been at work on the night shift at Costco and hadn’t even been home when she’d called 911 and had been taken over in an ambulance.

Three weeks after she got home, all of the bills from that visit started rolling in. There was one from the hospital, the doctor who saw her, the pharmacy, the company that made the breathing machine she came home with. I called them all and made payment arrangements and paid what I could.

Today, I went to pick up an anti-nausea medication that she needed, and my credit card was declined. I went straight from the store to Talisman and Nanette.

“Is that offer still there?” I’m standing in the door of her office. She smiles as she looks me up and down, her eyes are full of triumph. Worry and working as much as I can has robbed me of sleep. I know I look like shit. But I don’t care. I feel like shit. And I’m desperate. Nanette rises out of her chair and walks slowly toward me. She’s wearing a skin tight white dress with a plunging neckline that leaves very little to the imagination.

“I’m glad you like looking at me, Graham,” she says, and my eyes snap to hers.

“I’m sorry, I’m just tired,” I say wearily.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s a good thing. The job is yours if you want it,” she says, standing in front of me and looking me up and down.

“God, you’re going to make us a lot of money,” she drawled, a satisfied smile on her face.

She reached up and patted my cheek. “Get some rest and then come to my place. We’ll get started tonight.”

In a moment of candor that I soon regret, I tell Nanette I’m a virgin.

She smiles that predator’s smile of hers before she kneeled between my legs. She said she needed to make sure everything worked as it should before she sent me out to paying clients.

When her tongue touches my cock for the first time, it feels good. Really good.

But, I don’t like it.

I stare down at Nanette’s head, and I feel … nothing. I don’t hate it, but I don’t like it either.

It’s not enjoyable in anything more than a physical way. What’s all the fuss about? This is purely a biological function of our bodies. Sure, it feels good, but only physically. Nothing else engages.

My body responds, but the rest of me feels the same as it did before.

I don’t love Apollo any less. Even when Nanette straddles me and lowers herself onto me.

I just close my eyes and let my mind drift. I’m not here. I think about school, my mother, how if this works out, I can get her out of that neighborhood. How this is going to make it possible for me to continue trying to reach my dreams.

Nanette picks up my hand and covers her bare breast with it. She spills out of my hands.

I squeeze, just to see what it feels like.

It’s fine.

I close my eyes again.

If this is all there is to sex, then, really … it means nothing.

I’m not betraying Apollo. There’s no emotion in it. It could be anyone. In fact, I’ve never felt so emotionally detached from myself as I do right now. Hugging Apollo made me feel more stimulated than this does.

Yet, even as I rationalize the action, I know fidelity is important. If Apollo and I were already a couple, I couldn’t do this.

I would just stay dropped out of school.

It’s more than just the fidelity.

I know what I’m doing is wrong. Sleeping with a lot of different women, getting paid for it? I couldn’t touch her. Taint her so until I’m done with this.

We can do everything we always used to do, and I’ll explain that we need to wait until Mama’s treatment is over before I can think about moving and becoming a couple. We’ll just carry on like before. Nothing has to change.

As long as she never knows.

Apollo’s face flashes in my head. Shit. The minute she sees me, she’ll know. Sometimes, I think she only asks me how I’m feeling to be polite.

She’s fucking intuitive. And an excellent judge of character.

I’ll just stop her from visiting. Just until Mama’s better. She’ll understand, and she’s starting college in the fall, too. She’ll be busy.

Much better than me. I feel the tickle of pressure in the base of my spine as my orgasm starts to build. Nanette’s cries grow louder, and she drops herself on top of me and shudders her release. A few small upward thrusts of my hips and I’m emptying my release into the condom.

It was just a transaction. Nothing exchanged but two physical responses.

When we’re done, Nanette and I sit down and talk terms. I ask for a clause that stipulates no kissing or oral. She adds it.

“You’re the prettiest of my new toys. I’m glad I had a sample. You can always come back for more if you’d like.” I smile, but I know I won’t.

I sign the contract, name Nanette as my agent, and go home to take a shower.

Then, I pick up my phone and send Apollo a text that seals my fate.