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Free Story: Platonic (Part 1)
Chapters: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 (Conclusion)
Platonic
Rumson, New Jersey
Friday Afternoon
Terri made herself swallow her bitterness as she slowed the BMW to a stop in the brick driveway of the residence. She always wanted to get mad when she came to a nice place like this, because it wasn’t fair.
Her mother should have lived in a nice house like this one. She shouldn’t have died alone in that rat trap apartment in Jersey City with nothing but roaches for company. A woman who gave so much love should have had the best things life had to offer. She should have lived in a nice house like this one.
If only you’d listened to me, Mama.
She could have gotten her mother out of that disgusting apartment, because in the end she’d been sick enough for the Army to qualify her as a military dependant. Base housing on Fort Bragg wasn’t fancy like this place, but it would have been a step up from that hole her mother had lived in – that they both used to live in. But Mama had been so stubborn. She didn’t want to leave New Jersey. And she’d said that the day she got so low that her daughter had to take care of her was the day she didn’t need to live anymore.
Damn it, Mama.
Terri choked down her bitterness and her hurt and checked herself in the Beemer’s visor mirror. She freshened up her lip gloss, snapped on a sultry, sexy smile that she didn’t feel and slid out of the car.
All right, time to go get paid.
As she stepped to the front door of the fancy house Terri smoothed down her backless little black dress and added a little sway to her stride. The owner might not be watching her out here, but you never knew. That’s why she’d rolled up in an agency BMW instead of her Ford Focus. It was all about illusion.
———-
Brandon checked himself in the hall mirror on his way to answer the door. For the third time that afternoon he wondered if he should have shaved off his new goatee, because it hadn’t grown long enough yet to be much more than stubble.
Okay man, it’s not that serious.
When he opened the door and saw the young lady standing there he wondered if not only should he have shaved, but if he should’ve worn a suit instead of a pullover and jeans.
She was gorgeous, absolutely stunning; a milk chocolate vision in a black dress and heels. She looked like she ought to be walking the red carpet at some Hollywood premiere as cameras flashed because everyone wanted to capture and preserve her exotic Nubian beauty.
Her hair was pulled up to highlight her slender neck and beautiful features; her dark, doe eyes, high cheekbones and full, sensuous mouth. Right now that sexy mouth was smiling at him.
“You’re Jewel?” he asked. Damn man, who else would she be?
“And you must be Brandon,” she smiled.
Brandon stepped aside and said, “Please, come on in.”
———-
Okay, she hadn’t expected the client to be a brother. And she definitely didn’t expect a man so fine. As Terri followed the hot hunk of chocolate into his house she wondered why a man who looked like him and who lived in a place like this needed to call a service. He had to have women beating down his door and climbing up the walls of his crib like cat burglars trying to find a way into his life. She wondered if he might be one of those guys too busy making money to have time for a social life. They did get clients like that sometimes.
He led her into a spacious but cozy sunken den with a fireplace and ceiling high windows overlooking a flagstone patio.
The space had a definite masculine vibe to it. Terri figured that if a woman had ever lived here, she was long gone.
“Have a seat, please,” he said, indicating the leather sectional.
Terri sat. She crossed her legs to give him a better view of part of what he was paying fifteen hundred dollars for.
He sat down too, but at a respectful distance from her on the sofa. Some guys were hands on right away. Those were the type who had the attitude that if they paid for it, they didn’t need to waste time on niceties. They were the type who only saw her as a pussy and a mouth and a body they’d paid to use.
She kept her eyes and her professional smile on Brandon. That was part of the illusion too, to make the client think that he or she was so appealing that she couldn’t keep her eyes off them. That wasn’t a problem with this brother. It would have been harder for her to not look at him.
He leaned forward and placed his forearms on his knees. His sleeves were pushed up, exposing his hairy forearms. She liked hairy arms. Sexy. He wore a simple leather banded watch on his wrist. It wasn’t fancy and flashy by appearance, but Terri bet the timepiece cost some serious money.
He clasped his hands together and looked at her.
Was he nervous? How cute. Maybe he was one of those guys who needed a little push to get things started.
Terri was about to go into her standard fake flirt when he cleared his throat and said, “So Jewel, how does this normally work?”
The money was already paid, direct to the agency, so they didn’t need to talk about that. But since he’d asked the question, Terri knew she needed to get one thing out of the way first.
Still smiling she said, “Brandon, are you a member of a law enforcement agency in any capacity?”
For a moment he looked surprised. Then he smiled. White teeth. Sexy lips, framed by a mustache and a shadow of chin hair that made him look kind of rugged. Damn boy, why do you need to pay? Please don’t be a cop.
He said, “No, I sell money for a living.”
“Wall Street?”
“Yes. But my father was a police detective. I hope that won’t count against me.”
“Not unless he’s hiding in the closet.”
“We’re all alone, Jewel.”
The way he was looking at her with his sexy eyes when he said that made Terri wonder again why the hell this man had to pay for it. She said, “Well then, to answer your question Brandon, your fee covers our night together. I’m yours until morning, for whatever you desire. The exclusions are anal penetration and any rough stuff.”
“Aren’t they the same thing?” he smiled.
Okay, he was trying to be clever. “It depends on the perspective of those involved. But we won’t be finding out tonight.”
“Duly noted. Oh, forgive my manners, Jewel. Can I get you anything – maybe a glass of wine?”
“If you’re having one.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Terri checked him out and assessed his vitals from the rear as he walked out of the den. She guessed he was in his mid-thirties, maybe forty. About five-ten. Nice body, on the slender side but fit. He was dressed casually but tastefully in a V-neck cashmere pullover over pressed Levis and Rockport loafers. He dressed like he had money but didn’t need to show it off; like he didn’t need to use bling as a personal billboard; like he rode and died on who he was, not on what he could buy. A truly self-confident brother was sexy, too.
Terri thought that tonight might be kind of fun. When they got into it she could pretend that she wasn’t working, but that she was with somebody she wanted to be with, doing it because they cared about each other and wanted each other.
She was good at illusions.
———-
She was frowning at him. Even when she frowned she was fine.
“Okay, so let me get this straight, Brandon – you don’t want to do anything?” she asked.
Brandon was a little surprised that Jewel was surprised. He’d figured that there were probably some people who just paid for time, not touch. He said, “Going out to dinner is doing something.”
“Right, but I mean after. You paid for the entire night.”
She really looked cute all frowned up. He couldn’t help smiling at her cuteness. “Well, I thought we might come back here after, maybe hang out, talk…”
She was looking at him like he’d just stepped out of a spaceship and had green skin. Brandon thought he’d better explain himself.
“Okay Jewel, it’s like this: I don’t have a problem dating. I meet ladies. We do things, if you know what I mean. But I don’t really know any ladies.”
“How are you dating if you don’t know them?”
“What I mean is that I know plenty of women, but I don’t know any who are just friends. I know the women I date, but that’s about dating and all that entails. I have female business associates, but I only know them because we’re trying to get paid. We have no association outside the office, so they’re not really friends. But I don’t have a single woman in my life who I just know, who is just a friend to me. I never have. Even when I’ve met someone who seems like she’ll be nice to know, one of us eventually wants to take it to another place, either emotionally, physically, or both. It makes me wonder if it’s even possible for a man and woman to be platonic friends.”
“So you’re paying for me to be your friend tonight.”
“When you say it like that it sounds desperate. I’m not desperate for friendship, Jewel, or female companionship. I just wonder what it’s like to have a lady for a friend and that be all it is.”
He watched as she studied him for a long moment. Then she took a sip of wine. And then she said, “You know, if you weren’t paying, I’d tell you that you were full of it. I’d have no doubt that you were trying to get over by playing nice.”
“I am nice,” he said. “I think I’m a nice guy to know, even if I have to pay to prove it.”
———-
He took her to dinner at a nice restaurant down in Avon-by-the-Sea. As they dined Terri asked him the standard questions about himself. They were the questions she’d normally ask a client to pretend she cared, or if things were going slowly, or if a customer wanted to talk first. But this time she was actually curious about who Brandon was.
When he told her where he was from she chided, “I didn’t know people actually lived in Delaware. So when you left the state did you close the door and lock up?”
“Oh, is that supposed to be funny? Now I’m really hurt.”
He dabbed his napkin at his eye as if he was crying. He looked totally silly with his face all scrunched up, and a laugh burst from her mouth before she could stop herself. People at nearby tables cut glances their way.
Okay, she didn’t usually break character when she was working, but he’d caught her off guard with that fake crying act – a grown man with his face all scrunched up like a little boy. “Is this how you get when one of your stocks starts to lose value?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s much worse then. When a stock drops my office is like a day care center with all the tears and runny noses. But hey, so far you’ve asked me a bunch of questions about myself, but what about you? Where are you from?”
Ordinarily she’d make up something about her background for a client. One reason was to protect her privacy. But also, most men liked hearing that she was from a small town somewhere, and that she had no real life experience until she got into the business. They liked to feel that they were worldlier than she was, and therefore smarter…and therefore superior. Since she’d spent time in Fayetteville, North Carolina when she was in the Army, she usually used that as her fictional home town. “I’m from Jersey City,” she said.
Okay, she was just playing friends with Brandon. It didn’t really matter if she told him where she was from.
———-
“You don’t look like someone I’d picture being in the Army,” Brandon said.
“Why not?”
He was driving her back up the shore after dinner. He thought he’d take her to a cocktail lounge in Long Branch called Off Broadway before going back to the house. That would extend their evening a little, since he didn’t imagine that Jewel would be staying all night. A new female friend wouldn’t be spending the night.
“I don’t know; I always pictured military women as being kind of um…ruff around the edges.”
“You mean butch?”
“Okay, yeah.”
“Well, I always pictured Wall Street types as white men with no social life and high blood pressure who got rich and died of heart attacks at fifty.”
Brandon looked over at her as he pulled into the parking lot at Off Broadway. “No you didn’t. You’re just saying that because I said I didn’t know that a woman in the Army could be as beautiful as you are.”
———-
Okay, how was she supposed to come back from that – argue that she wasn’t beautiful? Terri clicked her tongue and tried not to smile and said, “Whatever.”
She watched Brandon as he slid out of the driver’s seat of his CL63 AMG and walked around to her door. He’d already thrown her off her game by being so chill, acting like they were just hanging out. She had to remind herself that no matter how he acted, this was still work. And just because he’d said that he wanted to play some kind of friend game, it didn’t mean that as the night wore on he wouldn’t become just another man wanting to get some.
She liked the idea of getting paid while keeping her clothes on. Still, as Brandon opened her door, took her hand and helped her out of the car she wondered would it might be like to experience the total package.
———-
The club was nice, an intimate little place playing jazz at a volume low enough for them to enjoy it while still being able to talk without raising their voices. They sipped wine and talked more. Terri was shocked at herself that she told Brandon so much about her real life. But he had a laid back personality and a sense of humor that put her at ease. She didn’t feel like he was some horny customer, or that he was looking down his nose at her. He acted like what he said he was paying for, like they were just a couple of friends enjoying a nice evening out.
She learned that he went to Monmouth University here in Long Branch and liked the area, so he stayed after graduating. He did as much work from home as in the city. He liked playing racquetball.
“I like playing too,” Terri said. “But I haven’t since I was in the Army.”
“Well hey, if you want to play sometime, I usually go to my club on Saturdays. We can go tomorrow if – if you’re not busy.”
“You mean if I’m not working?”
“Right.”
“Your time is up at nine o’clock, Brandon.”
“Oh, okay…right. I understand.”
Terri actually thought it would be fun to play racquetball again. She missed that. But she wanted to keep this about business, even if she was having a nice time.
Brandon said, “So what if I want to play racquetball next Saturday, instead of going out at night?”
“You’ll have to call to schedule that.”
“You can’t pick your own dates?”
“I work through the agency. They screen new clients and set things up.”
“But now I’m not a new client.”
“Still, everything is through the agency. You have to pay them and they schedule.”
“Oh, right.”
Okay, this was weird. Clients often wanted to see her again, but it definitely was never about wanting to play racquetball. She really did want to play. But this was business, and she wanted to get paid, too. She said, “But if you let me know when you want to see me again I can let the office know to leave that time open.”
“All right, I’ll do that then,” he said. “So let’s plan for next Saturday morning, say ten?”
“Okay.” I’m going to get paid to play racquetball. Damn.
“So why did you join the Army?” he asked.
Okay, here was another personal question. She’d never been asked about her Army experience by a customer because they never knew about it. But she’d opened that door with Brandon, so she didn’t see any point in lying now. “I wanted to get out of Jersey City; find something better to do with my life.”
Okay, that was enough. Terri had no intention of telling Brandon that she joined the military out of high school because she wanted to escape the inner city environment she’d grown up in. It wasn’t his business to know that she’d wanted to find a place in this world where she and her mother could live a decent life and just be happy. And she had no intention of telling him that after her mother passed away, for a while she’d lost the ambition to want to do anything.
In her last year in the Army after her mother died she’d just gone through the motions of being a soldier, biding her time until her four-year enlistment was up. She got out two years ago and came back home to New Jersey, and to nothing. Even with her military experience, finding a job was tough. The country was in the beginning of the recession and more people were losing jobs than were being hired. She’d ended up working as a clerk in a ladies clothing boutique in Newark, barely making enough to pay her bills and eat.
She been at the boutique for six months when one winter morning a gorgeous brunette who looked like a movie star who’d wandered across the bridge from Manhattan came in to look around. Terri had trailed the woman around the boutique, helping her with her selections. The woman was about her age, and Terri had had to swallow her envy as the cost of the goods the chick selected neared two thousand dollars. She kept her bitterness in check by mentally adding up the commission she’d get off the sale.
As the customer handed over her Gold Card at the register she’d said, “I’m sorry – you look so familiar. Do I know you?”
The chick did look familiar, but Terri couldn’t imagine that she could have been in the Army. She looked and carried herself like she was born filthy, stinking rich.
“I don’t know,” Terri said. “But you look familiar, too.”
“Wait, did you go to Ferris?”
“For a couple of years, yes.”
“Well that’s it then. I was on the cheerleading squad my junior and senior years. I’m Lindsay. Lindsay Buchannan.”
Terri remembered the face but didn’t know her. She hadn’t run with that crowd in school. She figured this Lindsay chick couldn’t have come from money if she went to Ferris High, but it sure looked like she was doing well now. Terri checked her finger but didn’t see a wedding ring.
“When did you graduate?” Lindsay asked.
“In ’04.”
“I escaped in ’05,” Lindsay smiled.
That’s right, she’d thought, rub it in. A year younger than me and doing ten times better.
“I was a blonde then,” Lindsay said. “But in my business there are too many blondes.” She touched her hair. “Thus, this color.”
“What business are you in?” Terri asked.
Instead of answering, Lindsay handed her a business card, looked at her nametag and said, “You’re beautiful, Terri. If you ever want to do something different and make a lot more money, give me a buzz. We’ll talk.”
Terri called Lindsay that night.
Two weeks later she had her first interview at the mansion in North Jersey with a woman named Marita. They did a background check on her more thorough than the one she’d gone through joining the Army. Then she was called back for a second interview with a lady named Michelle, who ran the house.
That was a year and a half ago. Now she made more money in a month than she’d made in the boutique and the Army combined; a lot more money, and for a lot less work. Rare were the times when she had more than three customers in a week, unless she wanted to. She never wanted to.
———-
Terri woke up just after sunrise in one of Brandon’s guest bedrooms. It was a weird feeling. She was working, but she woke up feeling clean, pure. It almost didn’t feel real.
She sat up and looked toward the closed bedroom door. It was still locked. If Brandon had tried to get in last night she’d slept through it. But she didn’t think he had.
They’d come back to the house just after one in the morning. He acted ill at ease, like he didn’t know what was supposed to happen next. He’d been so cute as he stumbled over his offer to her to sleep over if she was too tired to drive.
She hadn’t been that tired because she’d slept most of the day getting ready for this appointment. But she hadn’t been anxious to leave, either. He was a nice guy. It had been kind of nice just hanging with a man with no expectations between them.
The nightstand clock said that it was almost seven. She was thirsty, so she decided to run down and get some water and then take a shower and go home.
Terri slipped out of bed and into the robe he’d given her last night. It was one of his, and it swallowed her up. The thick cotton and velour felt nice rubbing against her skin as she padded to the door.
She eased the door open and peeked out. She didn’t see or hear any signs of life. Walking quietly so as not to disturb him, she crept downstairs and found the kitchen.
Brandon was already in the kitchen, sipping coffee and reading the paper. He looked up, smiled at her and said, “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
“I did, thanks. Good morning to you, too.”
For just an instant it struck Terri to wonder what it might be like to do this every day – to come downstairs to find her man in the kitchen sipping coffee and reading his paper. Before the question could turn into desire she pushed it out of her head.
She was good at illusions, but some were too dangerous to play with.
———-
Rumson, New Jersey
Saturday Morning
Three Months Later
Terri got out of her Focus in Brandon’s driveway and headed for the front door. It was chilly out so she wore faded jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and Lady Tims. She carried a gift wrapped box in her arms – Brandon’s Christmas present. She hoped the shape of the box wouldn’t give away what it was – a new Head Black Jack racquetball racket.
She’d worked last night so she was tired. But she figured if she really started dragging she’d just crash on Brandon’s sofa or go up to one of the guest rooms and pass out for a while. She’d done it before.
Terri smiled to herself as she rang the doorbell. When Brandon opened his gift on Christmas she had a few jokes she could use about the racket manufacturer’s name: I got you some Head for Christmas, or Here’s some Head for you to play with. Maybe, Would you like your Head under the Christmas tree?
If he answered yes, she had no problem hooking the brother up, no charge. But she knew he wouldn’t say yes. In three months he hadn’t made a move on her, not even a little flirt. Terri admired Brandon for being a man true to his word. But it wouldn’t bother her a bit if he broke his damned word.
She was thinking about not having Brandon pay any more for their time together. She didn’t feel right letting him pay when she really enjoyed spending time with him. She liked having him as a friend, and his paying for them to hang out made their friendship feel fake. It wasn’t fake.
He was a cool guy. She liked him a lot.
That was no illusion.
———-
“There’s nothing sexier than a man who can cook,” Lisa cooed. She was smiling across the breakfast nook table at him. Under the table she had her foot in his lap.
“It doesn’t take much to pour batter into a waffle iron,” Brandon said.
“Well, much of it is that you would even bother to try. That’s sexy.”
Brandon thought that Lisa had sex on the brain, because everything was sexy to her. She’d just started at his agency last month. They’d hit it off right away, but it had nothing to do with a relationship or liking each other as people. It was about fucking. He liked what he saw. Lisa liked what she saw. They weren’t trying to pretend it was about anything else.
They’d started out getting a hotel room for a lunchtime quickie and a longer after work session when he worked in the city. Last night was the first time she’d come to his house. From almost the minute she stepped into his foyer she’d had her clothes off.
This morning she was wrapped in a bath towel as they ate. That was convenient because when breakfast was over the fucking would begin again.
Brandon was trying to decide if he was going to fuck Lisa on the den sofa or on the kitchen floor when his doorbell chimed.
“Expecting someone?” she asked.
“No.” Brandon pried Lisa’s foot out of his crotch and pushed away from the table.
As he left the kitchen Lisa said, “You have five minutes to get rid of them. After that I’m coming out there…and this towel is staying in here.”
TO BE CONTINUED
