“I beg your pardon.”
“Let’s see the goods.”
“The goods?”
“Your body. Your bag of tricks. How long you been a hooker, anyway?”
“It’s-Uh… Actually, you’re my first client.”
“Your first client?”
“Please don’t let that alarm you. I’ve been very well trained.”
His face tightened and she remembered his distaste for prostitutes, a fact that made this particular charade all the more difficult to carry off. When she’d pointed this out, Jodie had brushed it aside by saying that his teammates were going to get him drunk, and he wouldn’t be as particular. But although Jane could see that he was imbibing, he didn’t look very drunk.
Once again, she would have to lie. Maybe it was the pills, but she seemed to be getting a better grip on the whole process. It was simply a matter of inventing a new reality, embellishing it with a few pertinent details, and doing her best to retain eye contact throughout the process. “You’re probably from the old school, Mr. Bonner, that still believes women in my profession can only get their training in one way, but that’s not true any longer. I, for example, am not promiscuous.”
His glass stalled in midair. “You’re a hooker.”
“True. But I think I mentioned that you’re my first client. Up until now I’ve only been intimate with one man. My late husband. I happen to be a widow. A very youngwidow.”
He didn’t look as if he were buying any of this, so she began to embellish. “My husband’s death left me in terrible debt, and I needed something that paid better than minimum wage. Unfortunately, with no marketable skills, I didn’t have many choices. Then I remembered that my husband had always complimented me on the intimate aspects of our marriage. But please don’t think that just because I’ve only had one partner, I’m not highly qualified.”
“Maybe I’m missin’ something, but I don’t rightly see how somebody who claims to have had-What’d you say? One partner?-can be well trained.”
He had a point. Her brain clicked away. “I was referring to the instructional videotapes my agency has all its new employees watch.”
“They train you by watching videos?” His eyes narrowed, reminding her of a hunter looking down a gun sight. “Now, ain’t that interesting.”
She felt a little surge of pleasure as her child lost another few points on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Even a computer couldn’t have picked a more perfect match.
“They’re not ordinary videos. Nothing you’d want an impressionable child to see. But the old methods of on-the-job training aren’t practical in our current era of safe sex, at least not for the more discriminating agencies.”
“Agencies? Are you talking about whorehouses?”
Each time she heard that repellent word it stung a bit more. “The politically correct term is ‘pleasure agency.’ ” She paused. Her head felt as if it were floating off her shoulders. “Just as prostitutes are better referred to as sexual pleasure providers or SPPs.”
“SPPs? You sure are a reg’lar encyclopedia.”
It was curious, but his accent seemed to be growing thicker by the minute. It must be the liquor. Thank goodness he was too dull-witted to realize how outlandish this conversation had become. “We have slide shows and guest lecturers who discuss their various specialties with us.”
“Like what?”
Her mind raced. “Uh… Role playing, for example.”
“What kind of role playing?”
What kind, indeed? Her mind shuffled through various scenarios, searching for one that didn’t involve physical pain or degradation. “Well, we have something we call Prince Charming and Cinderella.”
“What’s that like?”
“It involves… roses. Making love on a bed of rose petals.”
“Sounds a little too girly to appeal to me. You got anything spicier to offer?”
Why had she mentioned role playing? “Of course, but since you’re my first customer, I think I can give you more value if we stick to the basics.”
“Missionary stuff?”
She gulped. “My current specialty.” He didn’t look too excited by the prospect, although his face showed so little expression, it was hard to tell. “That, or-I think I might have a talent for being the-uh-the partner on top.”
“Well, I guess you’ve just about overcome my prejudice against hookers.”
“Sexual pleasure providers.”
“Whatever. But the thing of it is, you’re a little old for me.”
Old! That reallyfrosted her. He was thirty-six, but he had the nerve to regard a woman of twenty-four as old! Maybe it was her floating head, but the fact that she wasn’t really twenty-four no longer made a difference. It was the principle that counted.
She mustered a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood. I assumed you were able to handle a grown woman.”
Whatever he was swallowing went down the wrong pipe and he choked.
Feeling decidedly malicious, she gestured toward his telephone. “Would you like me to call the office and have them send out Punkin’? If she has her homework done, she should be available.”
He stopped coughing long enough to level her with a sonic blast from those eyes.“You’re not twenty-four. Both of us know you’re not a day under twenty-eight. Now go ahead and show me what you learned from those training films about warm-up activities. If you catch my interest, maybe I’ll reconsider.”
More than anything, she wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she wouldn’t let her indignation, no matter how justified it might be, keep her from her goal. How could she entice him? She hadn’t given any consideration to foreplay, assuming he would simply get on top of her, perform the deed, and roll off the way Craig had done it.
“What kind of warm-up activities have you preferred in the past?”
“Did you bring any Reddi Whip with you?”
She could feel herself blushing. “No, I didn’t.”
“How’bout handcuffs?”
“No!”
“Dang. I guess it really don’t matter then. I’m open-minded.” He lowered himself into the room’s largest armchair and waved a hand vaguely in her direction. “You go on there, Rosebud, and-whadyacall-improvise. I’ll prob’ly like whatever you come up with.”
Maybe she could do a seductive dance for him. She was a good dancer in private, but in public she tended to be awkward and self-conscious. Perhaps she could do a routine from one of her aerobics classes, although between her demanding work schedule and the fact that she preferred brisk walking as an exercise form, she usually dropped out before the session was over. “If you’d like to put on some of your favorite music…”
“Sure.”He got up and walked over to the stereo cabinet. “I think I might have some highbrow stuff. I bet a SPS such as yourself loves longhair music.”
“SPP.”
“Isn’t that what I said?” He slipped a compact disc into the machine, and as he resumed his seat, the living room was filled with the lively music of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” A piece with such a frenzied tempo was hardly her idea of seductive music, but what did she know?
She performed a few shoulder rolls from the warm-up part of her aerobics class and tried to look sultry, but the quick pace of the music made it difficult. Still, the chemicals surging through her bloodstream spurred her on. She added some side stretches, ten on the right and then ten on the left so she wouldn’t get lopsided.
Her hair brushed her cheeks as she moved in a manner that she could only hope was alluring, but as he watched her with those scorched-earth eyes, she couldn’t see any evidence that he was getting swept away with lust. She thought about touching her toes, but that didn’t seem like a very graceful dance movement. Besides, she couldn’t reach them without bending her knees. Inspiration struck.