I Am Not A Prostitute

He’s been wanting to meet me in person for a little while now.

I said no.

I said no three times.

“No!”

“No.”

“No...”

Three and a half if you count the disconnected phone call.

“N-”

Truth be told, it’s never really been a choice for me. It’s never been a matter of whether or not we meet, if I cave, or when I became desperate enough. I was as desperate on the days I said no as I was on the day that I agreed.

It was only ever a matter of weeks, a matter of time. He knew it too. He’s played the waiting game with me. A perfect gentleman—waiting for me to stop lying to myself that this isn’t exactly what I signed up for, what I expected, wanted, needed for months.

But what if he kills me?

It’s unlikely. Or is it?

I wait for him at the hotel bar like some kind of prostitute. Maybe that’s what I am. Maybe that’s what this is. Is it?

I never agreed to that.

A man who looks no younger than sixty enters stage left in a beige Burberry coat. The watch on his wrist could be a Rolex, could be a Movado, could be an amazon dupe. Like mine. Is it?

I took it on and off this morning, before the flight. It would make me look fancier, classier. Then I put it back on my dresser. Wealthy people don’t use words like “classy.” Besides, I didn’t need to look affluent; he already knows I’m not. What kind of expensive woman would need money so furiously?

I am not an expensive woman. I will become worthless in order to obtain value.

So, I picked the watch up from my dresser and reattached it around my wrist. Knowing that he will notice it tonight, that he will see so plainly that it was bought for less than fourteen dollars, knowing that it will invoke something like a fatherly-pity, a disgusted awareness of just how pathetic I really am, knowing that this feeling from him will get me further in seconds than if I were to be wearing an authentic Cartier. It will fuel that dirty, slutty, hiding a scandalous affair, doing the help, meeting the waitress back behind the restaurant kind of connection that brews between us already.

The older man walks past me and to the furthest chair from where I sit. Five down. False alarm.

I said that I wasn’t a prostitute, but look at me now.

Knee high boots—a gift from my ex-lover—and a black and white dress that only goes halfway up my thigh. I sit with my feet propped on the stool’s rail. The dress inches up further and I don’t bother to tug it down because I need money more than I’ve ever needed dignity.

Meeting a man I’ve never met in a country I’ve never visited in a hotel I’ve never seen in a city I’ve never heard of before.

Could common sense be subjective? Is it?

A man and his wife enter stage right. The woman is wearing that wet-dry top that’s popular right now along with a white skirt that reaches her ankles. She looks effortless. Maybe she’s a social media influencer.

My hands are too shaky and my nerves are too unsettled. I look at my watch but I don’t check the time because it didn’t come with batteries.

“Anna?”

The voice comes from behind me, and he sounds exactly like how he did on the phone.

I don’t want to turn around; I have to turn around.

He doesn’t make me turn around. He walks forward so he’s beside me, ignoring the bar stool completely. My peripheral tells me that he’s much taller than I expected. Probably right under 6’5. He could crush my throat.

I sit up straight, force myself to look at him.

He’s dressed nicely—considerately, even. Like he spent more than ten minutes picking what to wear. His polo button up is outrageously unwrinkled and his slacks have been pressed.

 When our eyes meet, I find myself nervous in a different kind of way. The color of his pupils are strikingly blue and they match with the color of his shirt appealingly well. He’s clean shaven and doesn’t look older than fifty. He’s tanned, and muscular. If money doesn’t buy happiness, does it buy good looks?

“William?” I ask. Is it?

He grins, a smile that lights up his entire being and takes another five years off his age. Suddenly I want to hide my cheap broken watch from him.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person, darling.”

 Darling.

He can tell that I’m nervous and bashful, and he does his best to set me at ease.

“You look stunning, Anna. I’m so glad you used the tickets I sent.”

I nod and say “thank you” but now I’m distracted by his face. It’s so vaguely familiar, like something I’ve seen in a forgotten recess of my mind. Which actor does he look like? Which politician?

I can’t place it.

“Have we met before?” I ask.

He tilts his head. “I would certainly remember that, darling.”

Darling.

“Have you eaten?” he’s asking.

I shake my head no.

“Let’s go someplace nicer,” he says, extending an arm to me. “I know a charming restaurant less than a block down—if you’re comfortable with it.”

If you’re comfortable with it.

I don’t know what I expected, really, for a man in slacks to sit at a common bar?

His face is like a ghost I’ve seen in a dream.

In a thousand dreams that elude my memory.

I slide from the stool gracelessly and take his arm. I’m tall for a woman but I’m short in comparison to him. He’s on the brink of majesty.

If I allowed any remaining self-respect to impact me, I imagine that I would be disturbed at my attraction to a man at least twice my years. Rather, I’m flooded with relief and a newfound sense of hope.

I can do this. I could live this way. Maybe I could even be happy.

He asks if I’d prefer to take a cab rather than walk, even though I can see the place from where I’m standing.

The menu is grandiose and a glass of wine costs more than my entire outfit put together. There’s candles in the centerpiece and roses on the tablecloth and he sits beside me instead of across from me so he can put his hand on my thigh.

I have butterflies in my core and I feel like an idiot, but I know that it’s unladylike to shove my arm down my throat and smash them between my fingers. I look at him as little as possible because he is beautiful, and I know that I know him from somewhere and every glance convinces me further that I have seen this man somewhere if not met him in person.

I try to order a salad but he begs me to order the steak or the fish.

He makes me laugh a few times throughout dinner, and I relax quickly. His laugh is so familiar, so comforting to me. And because I’m convinced that common sense is subjective, I’ll even declare that he makes me feel safe.

This could be so normal. I lift the champagne flute to my lips and he smiles at me so widely as my nerves diminish further.

His smile. Like something I’ve had memorized since I was born. Even his mannerisms are familiar.

His hand higher on my thigh. I know what he wants; I’m not stupid. I knew that from the second I texted him back for the first time. I just didn’t know that maybe I could want it too.

He guides me back to my hotel and walks down the hall with me to my room. I’m on the first floor.

His strides are long but he walks slowly with me. His hand is on my lower back. Our conversation lulls as I reach my room and retrieve my keycard.

He doesn’t look at me like he expects an invitation, and for some reason that fact in itself makes me want to extend it. Those sharp blue eyes, like a museum duplicate of my own. They belong in the archives for most impressive forgeries.

I’m not sure if it is that thought specifically that sparks the realization, or if it’s simply the way he’s gazing at me that caused it. Either way, the impact is instantaneous.

I want to scream at first, I want to shove his hand off of me and declare the transgression to the world, the impossible coincidence of this horror, the absolute shock that is nailing my feet into the floor.

I know him. I know him and I’ve known that I’ve known him and I’m so indisputably aware of the identity of this man who I’ve practically sold myself to that I could collapse.

I recognize him from the pictures, the photo album that Grammy showed me every year for my birthday. They were the pictures she would flip through the fastest, but when I got older, I would stand on the sofa and pull the book down from the shelf, carry it down to the floor and kneel over it, studying those images the most diligently.

The celestial-eyed angel holding the bundle in his arms, the newborn that was me. He gazed down at me then; he gazes down at me now.

“He was a no-good lazy boy,” Grammy used to say. “He left your Momma that very day.” Her bony finger jabbing at his face before she closed the book.

The pleasant pressure of my father’s hand at the small of my back. The butterflies that refuse to die.

He doesn’t know because he couldn’t know. He still resembles the man in the picture, but twenty -five years later I don’t look like the doll in the white bundle. I look like a young woman frantic to make ends meet.

And the man before me can still help with that.

He is looking at my watch. I’m looking at him like he is a star-studded savior. Because I realized—at the same time that he studied my accessories and realized I am living in more desolation than a waitress—it doesn’t matter who he is. He’s an opportunity for contentment and maybe even love. And as I said before, I am willing to become worthless in order to gain a reward. And I need a reward more than I need dignity.

“Are you okay?” he asks, tearing his eyes away from my physical declaration of desperation, gradually up my body, and finally to an intense stare at my face.

 I nod my head. “Yes.”

Then I take his hand from my back and slide my fingers in his. “Would you like to come in?”