Page 13 of Forgive Me Father: For I Have Sinned

IRECEIVED A TEXTfrom Mitch the next day, asking if everything was alright and if we were still on again in two weeks. I needed to grow the fuck up and just accept it for what it was and do what I could with it. Mitch was safe, if he was going to hurt me physically, he’d already had the opportunity to do so but didn’t. Instead, he treated me with more care than anyone in my life ever had. The only one who had the chance to hurt me, in this case, was me by letting my heart get involved. A trick was a trick, and I needed to treat it as such. Make myself numb, and just go through the motions. Though Mitch, he was different, which left me reminding my heart to stay the hell out of it.

After returning the next night to the club, I used the extra money I had and picked up my first box of hair dye having decided a change was due. I’d never colored my hair before but had grown tired of the blonde I’d been born with and opted for burgundy. It was all part of my self-proclaimed “revitalization of Jamie” that was currently underway.

Little by little, with the help of Mitch’s money, I began adding to my wardrobe. I’m not talking traditional male garb, but more feminine accentseven if others couldn’t see them. Silk and lace made me feel pretty, feel whole, feel like…myself. Something I’d not been in touch with since that life-altering day in my room so many years ago.

Mitch and I continued to hook up for a couple of months. I never showed him my femme side, never felt confident enough in not only myself but in his perception of me to do so. That was far too personal and not something you shared with a job. Things were going great, or so I thought, but then he ghosted me. We’d texted a few days before his next trip, and everything was set up per our normal schedule. When he didn’t text me with his room number that day, I knew something was off. I messaged him multiple times, but only received silence in return, so I gave up. The bright light in my dull existence had been extinguished.

Far too often with Mitch, I found my mind would wander to thoughts of a different life while lying in bed after one of our trysts. Dreams of me lying in the arms of a boyfriend on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the sounds of the rain bouncing off the window panes surrounding us while we made love. Watching mindless hours of tv, cooking together, doing everything and yet nothing at all but feeling perfectly content. Whole. Then, that dream was gone right along with him. I’ll admit, Mitch himself never appeared in these delusions of grandeur, but my times with him drew me to thoughts of a better life. One filled with trust and love. One so far from the hell I’d been living.

With the loss of income from Mitch’s disappearance and the nights I’d lost at the club from putting him first, I once again reached the same crossroads as I had when Jason died. Sure, I’d had other men proposition me, some were all right, but others actually frightened me and set off warning bells I knew better than to ignore. I still refused to be fucked in that filthy place I worked in and would never allow any of them to see where I lived. So, I set off to build my brand, so to speak. My rules, my choices, and if they wanted me, they had to secure a place for the act itself. No alleyway, no cars, no public places where the risk of being arrested was present.

I started off with a couple of guys who’d propositioned me at the club, but all too soon Doug found out and fired me. Reluctantly, I started working the area of Seattle referred to ashotel row. However, the seedy areas only produced seedy clients, so I decided to switch it up to the club scene. It didn’t take long to get noticed in the first underground joint I’d slipped into. I’d spent my laundry money on a fake I.D. and had to return to washing it by hand at home as opposed to in a laundromat. The bouncer at the door carded me, as expected but took his sweet ass time looking back and forth between me and my I.D. I didn’t have a driver’s license, never learned how to drive and went everywhere on foot in the city.

Reluctantly, he handed it back to me. I went inside and straight to the bar and ordered a beer. I hated the taste, but it was cheap, and I could milk it for as long as I needed. Plus, there was always a risk if someone else bought me a drink of them drugging it and I needed to make sure I stayed as alert as possible with my faculties in check, so I rarely drank. Feeling well outside of my element, I was thankful that I wasn’t at the bar fifteen minutes before my first potential struck up a conversation.

“You don’t look old enough to be in here,” he said, sitting in the stool beside me.

“Yet, here I sit.” I turned, sizing him up. Not too shabby, probably a bit of a tool but as long as he had cash…

He ordered a beer as well, taking a long pull from it before he spoke again. “You come here often?” I had to laugh, even I knew that was a corny ass line. “What’s so funny?”

“You use that line on all the girls I bet.” I turned, cattily batting my eyelashes at him.

“Ha-ha, sorry. I didn’t mean it as a pick-up line. It’s my first time here, and I was actually wondering if you came here a lot.”

I had to give him that one. “Um, no. This is my first time as well,” I answered honestly, holding the neck of the bottle between my fingers while spinning it on its edge.

When he finished his beer he stood, I thought he was going to leave, but then he asked. “Care to dance?”

It’d been so long since I danced, and that was always by my lonesome. Yet the thought of doing it again sent the butterflies of excitement fluttering through me. I stood, and he took me by the hand guiding me onto the rapidly filling dance floor. Surrounded by bodies, I suddenly felt like I was in my element moving to the beat ofTechnotronic’s,Pump Up the Jam. The strobe lights were blazing through the crowd, heating up an already overpopulated area. Once I started dancing, I couldn’t stop, and I lost count of how many men ground up against me. The release I felt while dancing was like no other. In my opinion, it superseded sex on multiple levels.

As closing time neared, the stiff suit, who’d spent the last three songs feeling me up finally made his move. “So, you wanna get out of here?” he asked, grabbing a handful of my ass.

“Depends.”

“Oh yeah, on what?” he said, nipping my ear with his teeth.

“If you’re willing to pay for it,” I put the offer out there. Now to see if the fish takes the bait.

“Really?” he stared down at me, a blank look on his face.

“Really, a boy’s gotta pay his rent.” The sad part was that statement was one hundred percent true.

“How much to fuck that tight little ass?” he asked, grabbing another handful like he owned it.

“Well, if you don’t bruise it you can have it for a hundred and fifty bucks, but no kinky shit,” I warned him, wearing my best scowl.

“You better be worth it, sexy.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd and out the front door, flagging down a passing cab.

“Where to sir?” the cab driver asked through the half-open window.

“The Sheraton on fourth,” he told him as he opened the door for me. I wasn’t quite sure where that hotel was, obviously nowhere near the motel six-six-sixes I was familiar with. I paid careful attention to my surroundings as we drove through town, hoping to map out my way home ahead of time.

We were dropped off in front of the Sheraton moments later. He paid the driver, and we headed straight for the elevator. Once inside, he pinned me against the wall, his hands gripping mine tightly above my head. “You’re gonna be a fun ride, aren’t you, little one?” He took my mouth in his in a scorching kiss, one I felt all the way to my toes. When I moaned inside his mouth, I felt him smile before he released me as the bell dinged, alerting us we’d arrived on his floor.

After we stepped inside his suite, he took off his suit jacket, folding it over the back of the chair in front of the window. I stood motionless just inside the doorway. He made a show of slowly removing his cufflinks before rolling up his sleeves. “What do you want me to call you tonight?” he asked, pouring himself a drink from the bar. I stepped further inside, the lunch box sized studio apartment I lived in would fit inside the restroom and entryway of his room. This guy had money, no wonder he didn’t balk at my price.

“Um, Jamie.”

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