Ember Rogerson closed the door behind her to the two bedroom apartment she shared with her roommate Liza Samuels and leaned against the door for a few moments to let the strain of the day roll off her shoulders. It had been a bear of a week at SRK Marketing Solutions where she had been employed for almost a year since she’d graduated from Syracuse with a degree in Business Administration. It was funny, but she had always pictured herself doing something interesting with her degree… like Business Administration… or at least something exciting. At the very least she figured she would hit the ground running and graduate from the gofer grunt work of entry level and be assigned a job with a lot more responsibility by now.

She sat her bag down on the small kitchen table and grabbed a beer from the fridge. She’d been craving this one all day long ever since the first of many meetings she’d been forced to sit through all day. The powers that be were all in an uptight uproar as the bigwigs from the main corporate offices in St. Louis had arrived to go over the new plan for next quarter. Profits had slumped slightly this quarter and they demanded to know why. Ember had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing as her “holier than thou” bosses squirmed with nerves as they tried to answer the questions laid before them. Welcome to my world, Ember thought.

Of course this meant they were going to be pushing everyone there to work harder for the next few months, when they were already killing themselves. She often wondered if a job that required a college degree and only paid twenty-four thousand a year was really worth it. Was this what she’d struggled and studied hard for?

But it was a job and she knew she was lucky to have one. That was probably the most depressing part. Ember sat down at the table and sipped her beer while she sifted through the mail she’d picked up from the mailbox downstairs. It amazed her in this day and age how people still did get real snail mail.

And she’d noticed the pattern that all snail mail tended to be advertisement or bad news—bills she did not want and probably could not afford. Right now she could not afford much. Her jalopy of an automobile had just soiled itself and she’d had to pay almost four hundred dollars to get it fixed. Just like that her paycheck was spent before she had even received it. And they were coming upon the first of the month; rent was due.

Oh, why didn’t anyone tell her that this adult thing was going to be so hard?

Most of the mail was junk mail and she quickly tossed it in the waste basket. But the last item was her student loan bill. Ugh! She ripped it open expecting to see the same familiar logo and the same amount she’d been paying the past year and would continue to pay for the next twenty, but something was different right away. The logo had changed to a different company. The amount was the same but the due date was not. Since she’d graduated and started to pay on her student loan debt it had been due around the fifteenth of the month, but now it was going to be due around the fifth of the month. Her previous company had just sold out to a different company. Was that legal? Could they do that?

As she read the accompanying letter she began to see that they very well could do that. And they just had. She did not have the money to pay this on the fifth, not with the unexpected expense of her car repair bill.

“This is just what I needed,” Ember moaned before gulping the rest of the beer down in one gulp. She stared at the bottle for a second. “I might need something stronger than beer after all.”

She grabbed her phone and called the company. Surely they could understand her plight and work with her to allow the payment to be a few weeks late. As she waited on hold she started to wonder if she would even be able to make the payment before the end of the month. But she was going to try to swing for the middle for starters.

When the girl came on the phone Ember explained her situation, listening to the “Ok… I understand… I see…” typical responses customer service reps who have heard every excuse ever given will utter on the phone as they pretend to listen and care about your problems and why you are a special customer and should be given preferential treatment. This was going to be fine…

Except it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry, but there is no way for me to change the due date of the bill this late in the cycle. After the bill prints then I can’t change it. If you want to alter your schedule it must be done after you pay this bill and before the next billing statement generates.”

Ember tried to keep her cool.

“I understand what you are saying, but I really don’t have this money. My billing cycle has always been the same. Why did it change?”

“Your previous lender was bought out by us and we have decided to alter the billing cycles for all of our loan recipients. Your previous provider sent out a letter about this two months ago.”

Ember took a deep breath.

“No, there is a mistake. I never got a letter,” she said. But truthfully now that the lady mentioned it she did remember seeing a small insert that she thought was a loan consolidation offer and she tossed in the trash. That was probably it. Oh, she was so stupid sometimes.

“I apologize, but there is nothing I can do,” the representative reiterated.

Ember’s rage suddenly got the better of her. “This is a load of crap! I want to speak to your supervisor right now!”

“Ma’am you have to calm down. There is no one else here right at the moment who can assist you in ways that I can’t.”

“I want to speak to a manager. I need to get this changed. There has to be a way!”

Ember was now yelling into the phone.

The line went dead as the rep disconnected the call. Ember stared at the phone in disbelief. No way! Customer service reps were not allowed to just disconnect a phone call like that. Oh, that lady was so going to be fired!

She started to call them back but figured it would be useless. She would not get that same woman on the line again and it would be futile and time consuming to even try. She was not speaking to a manager and she was not going to get this changed.

Ember hung up the phone feeling crushed and hopeless. If she was late with her payment then there was a fifty dollar penalty fee and according to this company’s new policies that would be all the excuse they needed to raise her interest rates.

And of course she had no say about this at all. How could a company just do what it wanted like that?

Ember changed out of her work clothes into her moping sweats and tank top. Then she grabbed tub of ice cream and sat down in front of the television. She hated feeling helpless and dejected; it was not her style at all. Ember had always been a tough, stand tall, go-getter, but lately she’d felt like just coasting through life and seeing where it took her. The problem was it did not seem to be taking her anywhere. She could just envision herself working at the same boring entry level job for the next ten years and still struggling under a mountain of debt.

It was a bit depressing and for the moment she was going to indulge in her ice cream and watch the pain melt away.

Just then the door opened and her roommate Liza Samuels walked in humming a jaunty tune as she usually did. She was wearing her jogging sweats as per her typical routine. Liza worked in advertising for the biggest radio station in town. She had a degree from Syracuse in communications and she spent most of her day trying to advise the radio station on how to make the most of its usable ad time. At least this was what she told people. Truthfully if pressed she would tell you she spent the day as an assistant to the head of advertising at the station, which meant she mostly ran errands, got coffee, lunch take out, typed up memos, etc.

But Liza was always a happy camper. She was one of those people that was just able to let any sort of horrible news roll right off her back. Somehow she was able to not dwell on things and turn everything into something light hearted and hilarious.

Ember and Liza had been best friends since they were roommates in college freshman year. The two girls were very different but somehow they just hit it off right away. It was probably because of the great way they complimented each other. Ember was able to inject a little bit of grounding into Liza and Liza was able to inject a bit of carefree craziness into Ember’s personality. The two fit perfectly that way.

“Hey Ember,” Liza said grabbing a Gatorade from the fridge. She popped the top and took huge gulp, then took several long, deep breaths.

“Hey, good workout?” Ember asked. She used to work out with Liza but the girl was in far too good of shape and Ember lost the motivation a while back. But she was thinking about getting back into it. Of course she was not about to adopt the two workout a day routine that Liza did. She would get up at dawn and run five miles. After work she would jog to the gym, hit the weights for an hour, and then she would jog back to the apartment.

She still usually beat Ember home because the radio station was only six blocks away and Liza happily walked it. Ember on the other hand had to spend up to an hour and a half a day in rush hour traffic trying to get over to the east end of town to work.

“Usually is,” Liza said with a big smile.

“What’s his name?” Ember asked.

Liza feigned shock. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean, what is the guy’s name you met? You are the happiest person ever but even I can tell when you are extra giddy, which only happens when you meet some great guy.”

“You know me too well,” she replied. “His name is Daniel. I met him at the gym. He is so hot and he is funny too. That is my kryptonite one-two punch of hotness that I can’t resist. You know this!”

“Wait, what happened to the other guy? Troy?”

“Troy was nice but he was a bit clingy. I was starting to think he was about ready to pick out a house in the suburbs for us to move to.”

“What was wrong with that? He was gorgeous and he was a successful attorney.”

“Yeah, on paper that sounds nice,” Liza grinned. “But deep down I love a bad boy.”

“Aren’t you ever going to outgrow that? You aren’t in high school anymore.”

“I’m not old either,” Liza replied. “I like fun, excitement. Troy was boring. He was fun at first, but ultimately boring.”

“This is like the seventh guy you’ve dated in the past six months,” Ember marveled. “Where do you find the energy?”

“Are you implying that I have loose morals?”

“I did not say that,” Ember replied.

“Well, I don’t sleep with all of the guys I date. I actually have very high standards for sealing the deal,” Liza said.

“Really? Care to tell me more about these standards?” Ember teased.

“Maybe. I’ll let you know when I decide exactly what they are,” Liza cackled.

“I wish I could just not take life seriously like you, but unfortunately I have to live in the world of reality.”

“I prefer to think I create my own reality,” Liza joked. “So, why are you so down tonight? I see you wearing the ‘my dog just died’ sweat pants and tearing up the Rocky Road. What’s up?”

Ember told her about the student loan debacle and her dissatisfaction with her financial status.

“Wow, that is rough,” Liza said. “Are you going to be able to put up your share of the rent? You know I’d coast you through but I am all tapped out this month myself.”

“I know. Besides I would never ask that,” Ember replied. “I just don’t know what I am going to do.”

Liza was silent for a few moments. “Well, I do have an idea…”

“I’m all ears?” Ember replied scooting to the edge of the couch as Liza leaned against the doorway.

“You would never do it,” Liza said.

“What? How can you just rope me in that way and not deliver? Come on. I’m dying to know. You just heard how desperate I am.”

Liza thought a moment. Then a devilish grin spread across her pretty face.

“Have you ever heard of Club Privaat?”

“No… what is that?”

“Well, it’s a new upscale night club downtown. It opened a few months back. Anyway, it’s not like any other club. You see every night they host auctions.”

“What kind of auctions?” Ember asked. This was not clicking so far.

“They auction girls as paid escorts,” Liza said.

“What? You mean like prostitution?”

“No. Not at all. An escort is not a prostitute. Basically, these wealthy guys—and I mean super rich—are paying beautiful women to spend the evening with them. Whether sex happens or not is between you two and what you want to do, but they are only paying you for your time.”

“Why would wealthy men need to pay women for their time?” Ember asked.

“Well, wealthy men like to think they can buy everything. Funny thing is the more money they have the more easily things just come to them for free. But there is no excitement in that. So they love the idea of buying a beautiful woman’s time like they buy an insanely expensive bottle of wine. They love everything fancy and they love to pay top dollar for something they could have had for free. It’s a weird mental satisfaction. I don’t fully get it either.”

Ember smiled. The idea was ludicrous, but interesting…

“Wait… have you been doing this?” Ember asked.

Liza smiled. “I haven’t, yet. But I did go with a friend of mine—Tracy at work, that’s how I found out—and I was very intrigued. I got to watch the whole thing go down. I’m going to do it. I’m going to sign up to be auctioned tomorrow night actually.”

“I don’t believe this! This doesn’t make you feel weird? Or cheap?” Ember asked.

“Not at all,” Liza replied. “If you get a high enough price tag then it will be well worth the time. The girls get twenty percent of the price. I saw one girl get auctioned off last night for twenty grand. That is a pretty nice pay day for being taken out for a lavish night on the town.”

Ember shook her head trying to wrap her mind around it all. She’d never considered anything like this. But she had to admit she was intrigued.

“So, are you in?” Liza asked slyly.

“What?” Ember replied. She wasn’t suggesting—

“Are you in? You would be perfect for this,” Liza said.

“I couldn’t,” Ember said shaking her head violently. “There is no way.”

“Come on. You are hot. You do realize that, right?”

Ember felt a blush coming on. “I am not!”

“You don’t see the way every guy coming and going stares at you in total shock? I see guys hitting on you all the time, yet you ignore them. When was the last time you had a date?”

“I had a date two weeks ago, with Matt,” Ember replied indignantly.

“And why has he not called back?”

“He has, like eight times,” Ember replied.

“What was wrong with him?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t feel the spark.”

“That’s what you say about all guys. But the point is that guys find you to be hot. Admit it,” Liza said with a goofy grin.

Ember groaned. She hated to admit it, but her friend was right. Guys had always found her to be rather attractive. She had a lot of offers from guys for dates and whatever she wanted them for, but for whatever reason she had always been so picky.  She would meet a guy she liked and then on the first date he would say or do something that would totally turn her off. And she was aware most of what she saw was probably imagined. But that was the way she’d always been; when it came down to a man she wanted to spend time with she was just very picky.

She’d always been that way. It was something she knew she had to work on, but it wasn’t a pressing concern for her right now.

“Ok, I guess. But I still don’t think I could go through with this.”

“Why not? You need money. It’s really just dating, only on this date you get paid. And again, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But when you see some of these guys you might want to do a lot more than you think,” Liza said. She gave a little giggle to emphasize her point.

Ember thought a moment. The idea sounded intriguing, and not just because she needed the money. It was interesting because it sounded so wrong. Her whole life she’d kind of gone forward into the world with a sound head on her shoulders, been seen as a girl who was up and coming, only to be heading nowhere fast it seemed. She was sure she was just being impatient. No one started out on top, but if she could make a few thousand dollars for one night’s work then why wouldn’t she go for it?

No one else would ever have to know, would they? This could be a whole other side to Ember Rogerson. She was tired of doing what was expected of her. It had kind of run its course. Maybe this was something new she might actually have fun with.

“Well, you think on it,” Liza said. “I’m hitting the shower.”

By the time Liza came walking back into the living room wearing her bathrobe and waiting for her Ramen noodles to cook Ember had made a decision.

“So, what should I wear?” Ember asked.

Liza giggled and punched her playfully on the arm.