Wes slid his leg away from the heel and it came back in under three seconds, so he gave up on his shin and finished his wine while Camille watched him over the rim of her glass like a catalog page she hadn’t finished reading.
Nobody in this place actually came to eat.
The plates went out untouched, the wine moved slow, and eventually Mrs.
Fenwick caught the waiter’s eye and the check arrived on a little silver tray that Reggie paid without ever glancing at it.
Then the women stood to leave, and Mrs.
Fenwick leaned down toward Reggie first with one hand on his shoulder, her pearls swinging.
“What room is your friend in?” said Mrs.
Fenwick.
“714. He’s the best we’ve got, you know,” said Reggie.
The number went through Wes like a current.
Not a suite.
Not a floor.
A name people could ask for.
A thing that could be spoken across tables by women wearing pearls, and it had taken the Company one night to start calling him by it.
“Well, we’ll see about that later, I have to go now,” said Mrs.
Fenwick as they said their goodbyes.
Camille leaned in to kiss Wes on the cheek but dragged her lips across his skin until they grazed the corner of his mouth, slow and deliberate, taking her time like she was checking the stitching.
Then Mrs.
Fenwick wasn’t shy at all.
She took his face in both hands, kissed him straight on the lips, and lingered just long enough that he felt the heat of her mouth and her perfume and her age all at once.
“See you later,” said Mrs.
They walked away and Wes sat frozen in his chair with his napkin still in his lap.
“What the hell was that?” said Wes.
“This restaurant is part of the job, man. You think I’d spend my own cash on you because I missed you?” Reggie leaned back and waved at the room like he was showing off a display window.
“I bring the fresh stock here so the customers can see it. And relax, I’m not paying for this anyway, I’m short lately since I started a new business and invested everything I have. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“You brought me here to show me off,” said Wes, and his stomach twisted.
“Like I’m merchandise.”
“Of course, kid, because there are two ways to make money in this game,” said Reggie.
“First, they find you. Your face and your photos are already in the company catalog, so when women check the menu they can pick you. But if you just sit and wait, you’ll only book once or twice a month, and that’s not real money.”
He took a final sip of his wine and leaned forward with his voice dropping.
“If you want the big payouts, you go to the right places, places like this one, and you give out your number, because you have to hunt. The catalog pays the rent. Hunting buys the building.”
The disgust came up fast and hot, at the word stock, at kisses that had been appraisals, at his best friend telling him to go hand out his number in the dark like it was deer season.
“You’re sick, bro,” said Wes.
“I’ll stick to the catalog, thanks,” he added, and it came out harder than he planned, a wall he built out loud so he could see where it stood.
Reggie just laughed and stood up, tossing some bills on the table.
“Sure you will. Come on, I’ll take you back, you need to sleep.”
The sedan hummed through the streets with the city smearing past the windows while Reggie talked about ratings and rank, about how the machine would start feeding him bookings now that night one had come back green, and Wes watched the streetlights slide by and felt the number in his account pulling at him like gravity.
They pulled up to the house and Reggie killed the engine halfway, the headlights cutting two long cones across the lawn.
“Don’t say a word to anyone, and start hitting the gym, here,” said Reggie while he handed Wes a small black card.
“This place is pure fire, you’ll thank me later.”
“What is it?” said Wes.
Wes got out and watched the car disappear down the street, then walked up to the front door with his heart feeling heavy, because behind that door was the kitchen where Walt counted bills, and upstairs a family he had spent all day being paid to betray.
Inside the lights were all off, the house dark in that specific way houses get when everybody’s home and nobody’s speaking, so he let out a long sigh and started walking toward his room.
He was halfway down the hall when he stopped, because he heard something, muffled choked-out noises coming from somewhere deep inside the house, soft and rhythmic and completely wrong for a house where everyone saved their screaming for daylight.
He followed the sound to Paige’s room at the end of the hall where the lights were out but the door was cracked open just an inch, and he leaned in, peering through the gap.
His cousin was on the bed on all fours, naked, her back arched, working a black dildo inside herself with shaking hands while her moans came out messy and desperate, and then she whispered it, breathless and cracked.
“Yes, fuck me harder, Wes.”
The sound of his own name hit him like ice water and his hand slipped, and his keys hit the hardwood floor with a loud metallic clatter that filled the whole hallway.
Inside the room she froze and spun around with eyes wide from pure terror as she saw him standing there in the shadows staring right at her, and she let out a muffled scream and tried to cover herself with a pillow.
“It’s not what it looks like!” said Paige.
The old Wes would have died right there in the doorway.
The old Wes would have turned crimson, stammered an apology for existing, fled to his room, and spent six months unable to lift his eyes at dinner while Walt made it a joke.
Wes felt all of it arrive on schedule, the hot flood of shame, the kid from the motel with the laughing girl, and then he stood there and watched it drain out of him like water finding a crack, because he had spent one single day being priced and photographed and inspected, and shame turned out to be nothing but fear, and fear needed a victim, and tonight he wasn’t one.
He didn’t run and he didn’t blush.
He stepped closer to the doorway with a calm face and looked at her over the pillow.
“It doesn’t look like you’re masturbating while thinking about me?” said Wes.
“It’s not you, it’s another Wes from school! You’re a damn pervert, a spy, get out!” said Paige, her voice shaking and high-pitched from panic.
Wes didn’t argue.
He let out a short dry laugh and turned away, walking down the hall toward the kitchen, and behind him the door slammed shut so hard the frame rattled.
He bent without hurrying and picked his keys up off the floor where they’d fallen, slid them into his pocket next to the Ledger, and kept walking.
A strange surge of confidence moved through him, a coldness he hadn’t owned that morning, and under all of it his stomach growled, because he was actually starving, which surprised even him after the day he’d had.
He had money in his pocket and his aunt’s taste on his lips and now his cousin’s secret in his back pocket, and the shame he’d carried for eight years like a second skeleton sat somewhere behind him on that hallway floor, lighter with every step, because for the first time in his life, he wasn’t the one who was afraid.