On Tuesday, Beeks messaged her to say the three men were going out for dinner, meaning she wouldn’t have to cook. The opportunity was too perfect to ignore. Before she could think about it too much, she texted Gavin to bring their usual meeting time forward.
Wearing a bikini top under a plunging kaftan shift dress that was shaped and short enough to show most of her thighs, Shyla put a condom in her clutch next to her phone. While waiting for the elevator, she took one last look at herself in the mirror. This was it. The day she was going to lose the burden she’d been dragging since her teenage years.
“You can do this,” she whispered to her reflection and nodded once before blending into the elevator when it opened.
Gavin was waiting on a stool by the bar and got up to kiss her cheek when she joined him. “Wow, you look incredible.
“This old thing,” she joked and hopped onto the stool beside him.
Her bikini was white. The dress was a shade of pale olive. Dressing casual took the pressure off, but it was an important night, so she’d made the effort to weave some skinny white ribbon through her loose, messy braid.
Shyla had worried her hair might not be sleek or sophisticated enough. Although she’d had it tidied up at the salon, she hadn’t taken the plunge to get it cut short.
Gavin ordered their usual drinks and then second guessed himself. “Would you like something different tonight? Maybe something stronger?”
“The next one,” she said, some Dutch courage might not be amiss.
Seduction wasn’t in her repertoire of skills. Sitting there almost overcome by nerves, she began to see Score’s point. Why would he want someone who didn’t even know how to initiate intimacy?
Hoping Gavin understood why alcohol was on the cards, she took his smile as a positive sign. If he took the lead, there would be less pressure on her. They could both just accept where the evening was headed and get the deed out of the way.
As Gavin talked about his day, all Shyla could think about was Score. Doing something so amoral wasn’t like her. Her plan involved being intimate with Gavin, not because she wanted to be with him, but because the man she wanted to be with needed her to be.
Score seemed to think that sex was a big deal to her when that wasn’t the case. Her lack of experience was just something that had happened. She’d often cursed it, especially in recent years.
As a teen and in her early twenties while adjusting to looking after two elderly men, she’d assumed there would be time. But with no one else available to look after Bernard and Stan, there hadn’t been the respite for her to go out into the world. Nightclubs were foreign to her and she’d missed the college experience.
Sometimes it bugged her. Most of the time, she just pushed it to the back of her agenda. Monday became Tuesday, January became December, and before she knew it years had passed.
She’d wanted to have sex. To have normal, modern relationships. It didn’t matter that there were scores of articles written about how common it was for people to be virgins in their thirties, forties, and beyond. Shyla wanted to know what it was to be touched by a man.
That being said, she wasn’t a floozy interested in grabbing any old stranger in an alley for the sake of getting it on.
Gavin was still talking. It wasn’t like him to go off on a tangent. Anxiety crept in, she wondered if he was nervous. It would be hilarious if he too had little experience. If he was hoping she’d take the lead, he’d get a surprise.
Her clutch buzzed under her hand, so she interrupted him with a finger.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry,” she said and popped open her clutch. “I’m sort of on call.”
“Oh,” Gavin said. “No problem. I’ll order more drinks? Would you like a cocktail?”
“Sure, just anything,” she said, slipping her phone out of her clutch to read the text message she’d received. “Upstairs. Now.” That was all it read, but it was more than she’d got from Score all week.
Shyla hadn’t expected him back, so she bounced off her stool assuming he needed a shirt or a tie or something.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” she said, tucking her phone away and grabbing her purse. “Can I abandon you for just a minute? I have to run upstairs.” She held up a finger and began to back away. “Just for a minute. Don’t go anywhere.”
Although he appeared flummoxed, he nodded. “Sure. No problem.”
Having a bar in the building worked out for her again. Rushing to the elevator, she went inside and used her fingerprint to select the right floor.
It took less than a minute to get to the apartment. When the doors opened, she was loose and eager to get back downstairs. That optimism lasted until she was faced with a fuming Score.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, having never seen him so tense. “Is it Beeks? Or Fish?”
Peeking past him, she saw no sign of anyone else. Either of their friends could be ill or injured.
Her attention was still on the body of the apartment when he stole her purse and yanked it open. Upturning it, he sent her gloss and phone clattering to the floor, the condom fluttered down too.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she exclaimed and began to duck with intentions of checking her phone wasn’t broken, but he seized her upper arm and hauled her up. “Score!”
“Just any damn cock will do, is that it?” he asked, kicking the condom across the floor. “You didn’t miss a fucking beat, you jumped straight onto the next guy. No one
