Breakfast with Jerry

“It was awkward,” I said.

Missy and I were having our pizza and garlic bread, carbo loading for the night’s activities ahead. I watched her shove a stub of bread into a plastic ramekin, smashing it against the infinite sides to get the last remnants of chunky marinara sauce. She popped it into her mouth then sucked the excess grease off her thumb and forefinger before wiping them on a napkin. I could see now that she was smiling.

“Why was it awkward?” Missy asked with a raised eyebrow. “Was it not what you expected?”

“It wasn’t at all what I had expected!” I lowered my half-eaten slice of pizza to my plate as my shoulders slumped. There were little pools of glistening fat in the crevices of cheese and pepperoni. Normally I would sponge it off with a napkin, but I was too conflicted to care. Full of despair, I forced myself to eat, filling my mouth from side to side with the cheap, baked pie.

“Okay, I need some more details.” Missy set the untouched slice in her hand down on the plate and stared at me. “I haven’t seen you act like this since…I don’t know…I don’t think I’ve ever seen you act like this before.”

“I don’t even know how to explain it,” I laughed at the sheer idiocy of my situation. I almost wished I hadn’t told Missy about it. She was bobbing her head, egging me to elaborate. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”

Missy scooted forward, leaning on her elbows and reaching her head close to me.

“Kelly,” she said quietly and seriously. “You tell me right now. Did he hurt you?”

I had taken advantage of her theatrics (she only called me by name when she was being melodramatic) to steal a drink of my double whiskey coke then almost spit it out. After coughing and sputtering, Missy looking around to see if anyone was watching my purple-faced display of almost chocking, I regained my composure.

“Sorry,” I said. “No, he didn’t hurt me.”

“Good! You scared me.” Missy took a few drinks from her own double vodka tonic and sat back in her chair. “So, what was it? Was he bad? Big? Small? What went wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I answered, laughing softly as I thought about the night in question. “He didn’t do anything.”

“What do you mean?” Missy ripped a bite of pizza and talked through her chewing. “He made you do all the work?”

I watched her drink deeply, wondering how she could keep the half-masticated dough-cheese-meat-sauce mess inside her mouth and out of the cup, holding one finger up towards me. She swallowed. “I understand being frustrated by that, but it’s nothing you haven’t done before.”

“No, I mean,” I hesitated and spread my hands out, trying to grab the right words. “He just slept with me.”

Missy stared at me, blankly.

“Did he hit your head too?”

“Huh?”

“I would love to get paid to have sex and nothing else!” Missy exclaimed with her hands up in the air.

It was my turn to look around to see if anyone was staring. We were the only customers, which was one of the reasons we chose to walk five blocks to this pizza joint when there was one on the block we worked. The real reason was that our employer had started to sit down with us and tell us to go work. There were closer restaurants too, but Missy insisted that pizza and booze were necessary for our jobs.

“It’s our job. How was that awkward?” Missy had settled down and was now staring at me like I had ten heads. “I know it doesn’t happen often, that sex is all they want, but was that the first for you?”

“No, of course not,” I dismissed haughtily.

“You must be very kinky if you thought it was awkward,” Missy laughed and drained her glass.

“No, Missy.” I rolled my eyes at her, annoyed enough to find my words to explain. “I mean we literally slept together. That was it.”

“Oh,” Missy said, clearly taken aback.

I sucked on the inside of my cheek, waiting for her to say something else.

“How much did you charge?” she finally asked.

I shrugged. “I didn’t. It was kind of nice.”

There was one slice of pizza left and two pieces of garlic bread. I nodded towards the pizza, giving her the go ahead to take it. The garlic bread had cooled, making the cheese less yielding, but it still filled my mouth with flavor.

“Why didn’t you charge him?” Missy asked slowly. I could feel her eyes on me.

“He didn’t know…” I paused. This is why it was so awkward. “I didn’t tell him what I do. I told him I work late nights as a bartender.”

“What?” Missy was all excited again. “Where did you tell him you worked?”

“At the District,” I said sheepishly.

Missy blinked with her mouth open, reminding me of a fish on a hook.

“Isn’t that where you were when you met him?”

I nodded, feeling the laughter bubble up inside me. It was much preferred over what I felt before.

“So,” Missy started, emphasizing with pizza in hand, “you told this man that you bartend at the same bar that you actually frequent to pick up guys as a hooker. How in the hell did he believe that?”

Missy started biting and chewing at a rapid pace.

“It worked pretty well,” I said, impressed with myself. “I already know most the employees there and I know a lot of the regulars. I told Jerry it was my night off.”

“JERRY!” Missy folded her knees under her on the chair. “He has a name?”

I laughed and licked my fingers after the last bit of garlic bread.

“Of course he has a name.”

“Yeah, but you know it,” Missy pronounced and thumped back down on her bottom. “That means you like him.”

I drank the last of my drink, mostly watered down by the melting ice now. Maybe I did like him.

Jerry’s green eyes, dark eyelashes and surfer boy hair was vivid in my memory. The lips had been soft and gentle. Once we were at his place, after he asked me to stay the night, he gave me a tour of the studio apartment he owned. It was quaint, homey and simple. He went to his dresser, shook out a folded t-shirt and handed it to me.

“You can wear this if you want to change,” he had said and walked away so I could do so.  After I changed, he had the bed ready and asked if I wanted to watch a movie. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so safe. With his arms around me in the normal spooning position I saw on tv, I fell asleep before I recognized what movie we were watching. It wasn’t until early in the morning that I felt the awkwardness creep over me, knowing that I had slept with the man behind me, but not in the way of my profession.

Was I supposed to tip-toe out? Did I wait for him to wake and tell me it was time to go? I had ended up falling back asleep and waking to the smell of coffee and bacon.

“So?” Missy asked, poking my arm and pulling me back from reminiscing.

“Sorry, what did you say?” I asked, trying not to think of the full breakfast Jerry had made me.

“When will you tell the man you slept with that your job is sleeping with men?”