I hadn’t known when I was well off.
“Name?” asked the bouncer. His deep voice matched his massive size, but his tone was perfectly polite.
“Morgan LeFleur,” I said, the fake porn name tripping off my tongue almost as easily as my real one these days.
“I.D.?” the guy prompted.
I froze, caught out. I had my driver’s license in the little clutch purse I was carrying, but that was in my real name—
Something of my dilemma must have shown on my face, because the man had pity on me. “A business card from the agency will do, ma’am,” he said.
“Oh. Right,” I said, rummaging for one. “Here you go.” With a wince, I realized I’d let the seductress persona slip, and was speaking in my normal voice.
The bouncer made no comment, just glanced at the card and nodded. “I’ll let him know you’re coming up.” He entered a code on the pad next to the right-hand elevator doors, and they slid open.
“Thank you,” I told him, grateful for his professionalism. I wasn’t sure I could have handled a leer, or even a knowing look, as I entered the elevator and waited for the doors to close behind me.
Aside from ‘G’ for ground level and ‘P’ for parking garage, there was only one button, for the eighth floor. I pressed it. Like everything else, the elevator was classy—the kind of thing you’d find in an old restored theater building or opera house from the last century.
I fidgeted as it rose, my fingers going to the small pendant hanging at my neck. The jewelry glowed with a sort of inner warmth that I normally found comforting. Tonight, though, it only made me squirm. Hope you’re not watching this from wherever you are now, Auntie, I thought.
In reality, I doubted anyone in my family would be significantly more disapproving of the fact that I’d become a full-blown, getting-paid-for-doing-the-dirty-deed prostitute than they would be of the fact that I’d been getting paid to act out other people’s sexual fantasies over the phone. There was a certain point where you reached ‘maximum disapproval’ from your relatives, and once you hit those dizzying heights of familial reproach, the details no longer mattered.
Not that my Great Aunt Mabel had been one of the disapproving ones when she was alive. Maybe that was why she was the person I was worrying about now, even though she’d been gone for years. The elevator doors dinged open, and I gave her pendant a final rub for good luck before straightening my spine and stepping into the elegant lobby.
There was only one door, and it was open.
“Come on in,” a pleasant male voice called, from somewhere within the suite. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
I tentatively stepped inside, leaving the door open behind me. If I’d had any question that there was some serious money floating around this operation, the club owner’s penthouse apartment would have dispelled it. It was a single man’s residence, free of any hint of the clutter and dirt that came with having a family. The furniture was modern and minimalist, but the sharp lines were softened by the occasional potted plant, abstract sculpture, and painting.
Movement made me glance up as a figure appeared in the hallway.
“Sorry about that,” said my client for the night, as he emerged adjusting the cufflinks on a lavender dress shirt. “I don’t like to keep people waiting.”
Leonides, the mysterious owner of the Vixen’s Den, was a well-built, dark-skinned man residing somewhere in that nebulous age range between late thirties and mid-forties. He was dressed in tailored slacks and a matching vest in dark violet wool, with no suit jacket or tie. His hair was done in short dreads, his beard was elegantly trimmed, and his black shoes were polished to a high shine.
Handsome, but in a serious, sober way.
He raised his eyebrows, and I realized I’d let the silence stretch for too long. I took a deep breath, and reached for the character I was supposed to be playing.
“Oh, don’t even mention it! I’m probably a few minutes early, anyway. And... you have a lovely home. So, what’s on the agenda tonight?” I almost cringed, hearing myself. That had been way too much, probably.
My client didn’t seem to notice, or if so, it didn’t bother him. If anything, he seemed a bit uninterested, his attention elsewhere.
“Nothing too involved, just an evening making the rounds in the club. You know how it is—the whole ‘nightclub owner’ schtick calls for a certain amount of personal branding.” A hint of wryness touched his features. “For several very good reasons, I find it much simpler to hire stunningly beautiful women to hang on my arm in a professional capacity, rather than actually dating them.”
The offhand compliment probably hadn’t been directed at me with intent. I wasn’t bad looking, but ‘stunningly beautiful’ was a serious stretch.
“Arm candy, huh?” I said, trying to relax into the situation now that it was obvious that I at least wasn’t expected to go straight to my knees and get to work. “Hey, for a hundred bucks an hour, I will be the Ferrero Rocher of arm candy. I’m Morgan, by the way.”
The stupid quip earned me a hint of a half-smile, though it was short-lived. There was a sort of melancholy aura surrounding the guy, I couldn’t help noticing—a hint of old sadness hanging over him.
“I’d offer you a first name in return,” he said, “but plain old Leonides seems to be the one that’s sticking these days. I suppose it plays into the ‘rich and mysterious’ mystique that the people downstairs seem to enjoy.”
More of my tension bled away. Maybe
