Anything for Money: A Sex-For-Hire College Romance Read online

“You look terrible,” I said. I put a hand flat on his chest and pushed him backward onto a restored church pew right behind the door. He moved responsively to my touch, which was a little thrilling. He was also unselfconscious about being shirtless, like most men are who have an amazing torso.

  He looked up and quirked a brow. To get away from his striking eyes, I pressed his wadded-up shirt into the cut on his scalp.

  “Why did you want my shirt off?”

  “It was going to get blood all over it,” I said. “And yes, I realize what I’m doing right now.”

  “I don’t care. It’s an old work-shirt.”

  My gaze slid back down his chest. My eyes vibrated with each bump and bulge.

  “Where do you keep your first aid box?” I was proud of how in-control my voice sounded. Then I added, “I want to treat you.”

  I turned away quickly, ostensibly to scan his rooms, but he caught my hips—he caught my hips in both hands and turned me back. “Stay with me a moment.”

  “You won’t bleed to death if I leave for a second.”

  “I know. You just feel good.”

  His hands didn’t leave my hips. I was standing between his legs, my arms wrapped around his head. He sighed and the air hit my cleavage. My knees shook, and I had to shift my weight. You can’t do that in 6-inch heels, on hardwood floors, without making a lot of obvious noise. I shuffled like an epileptic drummer until the sound became more awkward than our silence. I said, “Lucky I was here, huh? What would you have done without me?”

  “Not lacerated my scalp, for one thing. How does it look?”

  I peeled away his shirt and peeked at the wound.

  It looked insignificant, except when the pressure was off. Blood welled out of it quickly.

  “Small but deep, and prone to bleeding,” I told him. “Like a girl I could mention.”

  “Keep the pressure on. Scalp wounds generate a lot of blood.”

  “You’re lucky I like blood. That didn’t come out right.”

  “Shhh,” he said. And I shhh’ed, because his hands slid up my flanks to my waist. I clattered my heels with another balance adjustment, this time moving my feet further apart. For stability.

  I couldn’t see all of his face past my chest. Either my breasts had quietly exploded in size, or his chiseled chin and wide lips were now very close to my torso. I tried not to feel awkward. Situations like this probably happen all the time to caregivers.

  I took stock of what I knew so far. I knew I was close to him. I knew his hands were on me. I knew his shirt was off and I was standing between his legs. I knew my lycra dress was bunching up to my ass with each tiny step I took—though still not fast enough, according to my split personality, Bad Rebecca.

  Yes… my LPD (little pink dress) was about three minutes overdue for one of those thumb-hook-hem, squirm-pull-down, bouncy-chest moves that look like a Zumba workout for club girls.

  Oh, no, I thought. I had gone and gotten gotten myself turned on.

  “Jack,” I sighed.

  His hands slid higher, up my ribs. The insides of his wrists bracketed my breasts, making me feel big and overflowing.

  He whispered, “I told you, shhh.”

  “But what if I want to narrate?”

  “You’re exactly what I need,” he whispered.

  Those words, with just a trace of an accent: wow. His forearms rippled when he moved his fingers. He was exactly what I needed, too. In the sense that we’d just met but he needed me.

  When I make mistakes, I make them big. I have to watch out for myself. I put myself in situations… situations exactly like this… and then wonder how the situations spiral out of control.

  I’m different from most other college girls, you see. There’s a furtive, needy little version of myself that sometimes peeks out, usually when I drink. Okay, maybe I’m not that different.

  Even though I wasn’t drinking right now, there she was, that sleazy version of myself. She was peeking out from under my hemline, right at the nape of RJ’s neck, where beads of sweat were collecting. I call this mini-me Bad Rebecca. She likes meeting new people.

  For sanity, for all that was good and pure, I had to keep Bad Rebecca under control.

  “Uh, Jack—” I said reluctantly.

  He stopped there. His hands slid back down to my waist.

  “I need you too,” I said. “My car, you see… ”

  His hands slid back down my thighs, and then off me entirely. I waited for him to try another sexy move. When he didn’t, I cursed myself for being so compelling.

  “You’re right.” He sighed. “I’m not thinking. I must have hit my head harder than I thought.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just—” I couldn’t find the right words. “There are appearances. I totally get it, though. I mean, I’m totally hot—”

  “I bet this always happens when you run a man over.” He forced a grin, and took over holding his t-shirt against his cut.

  Then a moment later he stood, and we were strangers again.

  “By the way,” he added, “I want to shoot you.”

  “You need to work on how you take rejection, Jack.”

  “I mean photograph you.” He gestured at the pictures that filled his stark house. “I’m a photographer. Or, I will be one. I’m starting at the university next week. I’d like to add you to my portfolio.”

  “Now you sound like my dad’s friends.”

  That one landed as flat as my other jokes. Rather than answering, he simply loomed over me for a moment. I couldn’t help but feel fragile next to him, like a fawn trembling as a lion stalked nearby.

  Bad Rebecca sang in my head, telling me exactly how I could wrest control of the situation. My better half, Good Rebecca, struggled to remember our core mission: Fix the car so I won’t die in it.

  He said, “I don’t have any money to pay a model. Do you think we could work something out?”

  I said, “Why, yes, RJ. I think we can work out a deal.”

  His face opened in a smile, and my heart melted into hot wax.

  So, that was the day I didn’t accidentally seduce a swole latino photographer. On the other hand, I did get a kind of business partner I hopelessly craved, and working brakes for my Ford Escort.

  Avoiding Jack

  I called him ‘RJ’ or just ‘Jack,’ because I couldn’t bear to hear myself saying ‘Ripper Jack’ out loud. During the last week before school, our wires crossed and we didn’t meet for that photography session. I swear I wasn’t dodging him, not after he’d done such a good job on my Escort. In fact, I was strongly curious to see how I’d look in one of those big framed photographs in his house.

  So I wasn’t avoiding him. The restaurant where I worked simply got busy, with the town’s business picking up. Then I got distracted by the kitchen staff. They were older men, mostly, and utterly shameless when it came to flirting with the hostesses. Obviously, I flirted back, as was only polite. Then classes started, and everything got even busier.

  By the first week of classes, RJ and I still hadn’t met. I felt a little guilty, but also a little proud of myself. I knew what I’d end up doing when RJ’s capable mechanic-hands and rippling forearms started posing me in edgy, sexy positions.

  I absolutely wasn’t going down that road, probably. This was my sophomore year. The failures and transgressions of my freshman year, along with my reputation hopefully, were in my forgotten past. This year, I would focus less on boys, and more on classes and myself. The new, re-invented me would resist all temptation.

  Instead, I sublimated all my energy into fashion. Which, lucky for me, is also my major in college. I am dead set on becoming a fashion model, or something else fashion-y, because I love clothes. Admire my willpower, then, that I didn’t simply dive in front of RJ’s camera.

  With fashion majors who want to fashion model, their canvas is their wardrobe. I made it my mission to go 100% every day. The university would be my Paris, and the paths between buildings would be my catwal
k.

  I applied everything I’d learned about fashion over the summer from Pinterest. Based on some of the looks I got, I probably scored closer to Tumblr than Pinterest. Weak, biddable Bad Rebecca received continuous positive feedback. Boys snapped pictures with their phones when I walked past. In every class, at least a few guys asked for my Snapchat, sometimes without making small-talk first. They seemed disappointed to only get my Instagram account. This probably meant I’d missed some subtle cultural shift over the summer. College can be a heady, confusing experience for a girl who can only afford a flip-top phone.

  My Fashion Marketing class was in the arts building, where the photographers also meet. On my way down the hall, I saw the word ‘Ripper’ on the bulletin board and stopped. Ripper Jack, or just ‘Jack’ to girls he groped during medical emergencies, had posted a flyer looking for models.

  Oh, my poor mechanic!

  He was in over his pretty, lacerated head. His flyer was already covered by other, similar flyers for other students. Some of those flyers offered actual money for the models, and the photographers didn’t have “Ripper” in their names. As the photography students built their portfolios from class to class and year to year, they all competed for girls who would pose. They fought, sometimes viciously, for the girls who would pose “artistically.” Female photographers had an easier time cultivating a trusting stable of models, and RJ should really have gone with his actual name, Janice.

  RJ was in my world now, and these people would gut him like one of those cars in his front yard. I owed it to him to take care of him. I tore his flyer off the bulletin board and stuffed it in my bag.

  But I still didn’t call him.

  Bad Rebecca Peeks Out

  When I finally met RJ again, I had a lot of explaining to do.

  It was at a dorm party, a welcome-back-to-school thing. Since these parties were intrinsically uncool, nobody went except the new, gullible freshmen. However, I had a new outfit I needed to road-test for a class, so there I was.

  My class project was a sparkly club dress. I always ended up with club dresses, because fabric is so expensive and the less I need, the better. This one had a plunge neck that hung below my belly button, showed a lot of side-boob, and left my back complete bare. The less sewing the better, too! With the last scrap, I’d engineered a tiny micro-skirt that hugged my ass, and hopefully wouldn’t explode at the seams like a broken rubber band. That had been known to happen with my other creations.

  The drape of the club dress was supposed to show off the glittery fabric, which shimmered like fish scales and even changed colors at different angles. It also, I saw, showed me off in the extreme…

  Nervous thrill as I looked in the mirror. My dress showed a lot. I’d have to be careful bending over, not just from the back of the skirt, but from the plunging front too. Boob tape is for fakers and tourists. Real models don’t tape their daring tops to their bodies, just look at a million Youtube videos on the subject.

  This time I would wear panties. It didn’t matter how daring a model was supposed to be. This stupid outfit barely hid anything, so perforce the panties had to be color-coordinated with the rest.

  That done, I added 6-inch high heels, so that I would tower over the all other girls and loom in the vision of all the boys. Make-up and hair perfect, I blew a kiss to the mirror, and clomped out of my dorm room to the elevators.

  To say I made an impact at the party would not do it justice. I stood out like a disco ball in an Amish cemetery. Conversation stopped, people turned. Everything but that scrrritch sound effect.

  I strode in, hiding my embarrassment. I suppressed my reservations by shouting “Fashion, bitches!” in my head, and moving like I owned the place. After all, I could have worn a pair of torn jeans and a t-shirt, like every single other girl. But then, what would have been the point of coming?

  At a table full of soda bottles, I poured myself a Coke and glanced at the student next to me. He was cute enough, and, added bonus, he couldn’t tear his eyes off my dress.

  “Looks like nobody takes care of themselves, these days,” I said in my best haughty voice. “They could’ve dressed for this.”

  “It’s just a dorm party,” he replied.

  “A first impression is a lasting impression,” I said.

  “Your nipple is showing.”

  “I know,” I said. I quickly covered it. “That’s fashion.”

  “I think I like fashion,” the boy said, with a sly little grin.

  I was proud of him for that. I also felt on firmer footing, now that the conversation shifted into the regular student introduction framework. “Me too! I’m a fashion major. What do you like about fashion?”

  I guided him gently through the conversation, which he said was his first with a “real hottie.” Along the way, I laid some excellent fashion knowledge on him, and eventually he summoned the nerve to ask me on a date.

  “No, Richie, but thank you,” I smiled up at him. “I’m trying to change my reputation, you see. It’s enough that you simply asked. Now let’s split up and meet some other people.”

  The party was a mixer, so I spread myself around. The atmosphere slowly relaxed as everybody, myself included, acclimated to my club dress, and each other too, maybe. As I’d hoped, and as any designer likes to hear, my dress was the frequent topic of conversation. It also helped that someone mixed bourbon directly into several of the soda bottles. I accrued a string of boys who were happy to refill my cup whenever I wanted.

  I think I knew what was happening. Or rather, Bad Rebecca knew, and that version of me was cheering us on. The regular, disciplined part of me was largely oblivious, because in short order, everything got so blurry and distracting!

  At one point I wandered over to a cluster of boys who weren’t mixing with the rest, though I’d seen them eyeing me and a few other girls with unslaked longing. I introduced myself, holding a hand out. The most nervous of the boys leaned over to kiss it! He only stopped when his buddy slapped the back of his head.

  I prattled through the regular where-you-from and yes-I’m-single stuff that was the main topic that night. I modeled my club dress for them, and they said they liked it, like everybody else had. Clearly, this was going to be an A+ project for my class!

  But I had one more trick up my non-existent sleeve, and I’d finally drunk enough to share it.

  “Are you ready for the big surprise?” I asked, grasping the fabric that draped, for the most part, over my chest.

  They didn’t answer, except to nod with owlish stares.

  “Watch closely!” They leaned closer. I ran my hand down the shimmering fabric—and it changed colors! The glittery miniature scales on the fabric had three sides, each with a different color. When you roughed them up, or brushed them a certain way, they flipped over and stuck. In seconds, I’d changed the fabric around my plunge-neck from crystal blue to crimson, and then to purple.

  They were honestly astonished, and forgot their shyness.

  “Can I?” asked one of them, reaching for me.

  “Me too!”

  Before I could do anything but giggle, they were switching the colors all over my dress. It was hilarious! The dress was a fascinating plaything to them, and I spun around with my arms above my head. If I didn’t make it as a model—perish the thought!—I could make psycho cash selling this club dress to attention-loving college girls. I could sell it with a guarantee that it would break every personal distance barrier with any guy they were crushing on. And all of the other guys, too.

  One of them suddenly yanked his hand back, as if burned.

  “Whups! My fault!” I laughed, covering my breast again.

  “I… It was… I’m so… ”

  Jeez, tongue-tied college boys are so cute! I almost wanted to engineer another wardrobe malfunction, just to get them to turn the same shade of crimson.

  “Don’t worry, cutie.” I swooped in to kiss his cheek. “That’s what happens with risqué fashion. I learned to own it a l
ong time ago.”

  Then they all wanted to give me their number.

  “Shh-yeah, right,” I said. “I’m too tipsy to keep track of all that.”

  “But how can we hang out with you again?” the first guy asked.

  The next guy gave a compelling argument: “You’re amazing, Rebecca.”

  The third just looked sad, saying, “You’re the first girl to be nice to us since we got here.”

  Then they wanted to change my dress back to crystal blue. I finally disengaged by telling them my room number in the dorm.

  Warning bells in my ears. Bad Rebecca was raising her disreputable head again. Passing out my room number to random guys was so last year. Thanks to the bourbon, I didn’t worry for too long. I could always just not answer the door, if I wasn’t in the mood for a cute, inept ego boost.

  The next group of guys had seen the trick with the fabric, and it was a repeat performance. Same with the next guys after that. I started to notice that I was only surrounded by guys. The girls either stayed with other girls, like this was high school, or they evaporated when I showed up. I couldn’t feel too sorry for them. I’d disappear too, if I was dressed like a midwestern wife on laundry day, and then I showed up to captivate their men.

  Early in the evening, my escaping nipples were a frequent theme of conversation. The boys learned that pointing them out was the quickest way to make me giggle. As the evening wore on, though, they pointed out my slip-ups less and less. That probably meant I doing better, even as I got more tipsy. A model has to be a quick, adaptable learner, for every kind of garment.

  Another cup of bourbon spiked soda appeared in my hand. I’d lost count by that point.

  “Thank you! But this is the last one,” I said. “This time I mean it!”

  The guys had me closely surrounded, partly because it was noisy in the common room, and partly so they could see the fabric change colors as their hands wandered over it. It was hard to tell where one boy left off, and the next began. I belatedly realized that some of the hands weren’t moving all that much. Two, maybe three hands simply rested on my ass, and their fingers brushed my bare legs where my micro-dress stopped.