He wraps his arms around me, runs his nose over my hair, my neck, my shoulder. “Mmm….dee-li-cious,” he says.
I push him away, shaking my head. “Stop it. I’m only here to bring you this.” I reach into the front pocket of my jeans to hand him the thumb drive. As he takes it, I wonder briefly what my mom is working on. My mind flashes back to the stories she mentioned on our phone call.
He eyes me up and down, surveying my jeans, t-shirt and sneakers. I touched up my make-up before I left my mom’s. Applied mascara and a fresh coat of lipstick. “What’s up with the outfit? You slumming it today, Layla?”
I sneer at him. “Oh ha ha. It’s called casual Friday, Cam. Ever heard of it?”
“I had no idea you owned sneakers.” He gestures to the couch in his office. “Sit for a minute. We can catch up, my baby doll.”
“I believe we are fully caught up,” I point out, giving him a saucy stare, and I love everything about being with Cam, because I can say these things. I can sass and tease and be as snarky as I want. I can toss out barbs and heated remarks, and it’s like tasting freedom and power on my tongue, like little sugar crystals are dissolving, leaving behind a wonderful flavor that only makes me want more of them.
That makes me want to lap up more of this secret life of mine.
“Then stay standing, because I want to show you what I might have for you.”
“I told you I needed a week. Don’t make me walk out of here. If you’re going to be pushy I will walk so fast. Wait. I will run,” I say and it’s true because I can speak the truth to him. I can say all my truths that I can’t voice to my mother. “And I don’t feel like sitting.” I jut out my chin, and back up against the bookshelves stacked with his law tomes. He slinks over, like a smooth, agile cat.
“Sit. Stand. Run. It’s all good with me, baby. Don’t you know that? With me, you can be whoever you want. You can be anybody. You can do anything. And I will always love you.”
“What? You don’t love me. This isn’t about love. Don’t say love. Love is a dirty word,” I tell him.
“I love you in my own way and sooner or later just accept it. I’m proud of you and I always will be, and I will always take care of you. So listen, I got a businessman coming in from California. This is easy. So easy. I slide you back in, baby, with the simplest of jobs. All he wants is dinner. He’s the honored guest at a swank charity dinner. A tux and evening gown shindig on the town, five hundred bucks a plate kind of thing. And he wants the most beautiful woman at his side. All you have to do is wear a gorgeous dress and smile and say you’re his girlfriend. He wants to introduce you to everyone as his girlfriend. That’s it. An easy one. I told you we’d get back in nice and smooth.”
“How much?”
He rattles off a four-figure number as he stalks closer.
“For that? Just for the girlfriend experience? Seriously? Where do you find these men?”
He shrugs and grins. “What can I say? When you are known for having the best, all the men pay top dollar.”
Cam is a foot away from me now and he leans in close, pressing a hand against the wall, half-pinning me. “You’ll do it, won’t you?”
“I have to think about it,” I say.
“C’mon. What do I have to do to convince you? You know you love it. You know how much you f**king love the way they fall at your feet. Even the freaks. You love all my freaks.”
He’s right. He knows he’s right. I love his freaks because they own their freakish ways. Because they know who they are. They might be f**ked up fifty ways to Sunday, but they let themselves have their freak. In the most honest way. By buying it.
When you live with someone and she is a freak in front of you but paints her ways as normal, that’s how love becomes a filthy thing.
Maybe that’s the truth about love. It’s only for sale. It’s only an exchange.
“So you’ll do it,” he says and puts his other palm against the bookcase. Now I’m not half-pinned. I’m all pinned. But I’m not scared, because he’d never hurt me, never ever in my whole life, and there’s a part of me that’s still bewitched by his promises, that’s still drawn to all that we were together. “I’ll beg you if I have to, babydoll,” he says playfully. “I will, I swear I will. I will get down on my hands and knees for you.”
“Stop,” I tease. “You’ve never begged for anything in your life, Cam.”
“I’d beg for you though. Say yes.”
He wants what I have. My words, my yes, my no, the permission slip I was never allowed to sign with my mom is what Cam presents to me, always has, always will. Never changes. He is the rock. He is solid and steady and reliable, and he will always be there for me.
And I love him – a dirty and filthy, a true and pure kind of love.
But I also love what he gives me.
He lets me hold the cards for the first time. Holding them feels so good, so unusual, so f**king great. So I play them. “Tell me what the story is my mom is working on. She said she was working on a blackmail story.”
He twines a strand of my hair around his finger, and raises an eyebrow. “This file she sent over is for a congressman tip she’s looking into. But blackmail? Isn’t that your thing?”
“Yeah,” I admit.
He shoots me a quizzical look. “You don’t think she’s looking into something involving you?”