Page 16 of Priest (Priest 1)
“Yes.”
Poppy
Things went on like that for about a year and half. Between helping Mark with the business end of things and the dancing, I was making almost as much money as I would have at one of those offices in New York. I loved that I got to dance, loved it. Even if it wasn’t ballet or jazz, it was still my body and rhythm and music. And I loved how much sex there was in the job—even if no one was having sex there, it still hung everywhere, this fog of desire, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
But I was lonely. The men at the club kept begging to take me home, offering way more than one night stands, offering penthouses and yachts and stipends, but I refused to be a mistress. I may love sex, but I also have a mind and a soul. I want to have a husband one day and kids and grandkids and the whole thing…I couldn’t bear to have any substitute for it, no matter how good it might make me feel temporarily.
But the trade-off for my self-respect was a cold bed and an over-used vibrator, and it was starting to wear thin. Not to mention all the things I just talked about—the husband and the kids and all that. I began to miss my old life. Not the monotony or the hypocrisy, but the guarantee at least. If I had stayed, I would’ve never been alone. I would have been married by now, possibly pregnant. And what if I’d made the wrong decision? What
if I’d ruined my chances at a happy life, because let’s face it, what man is going to marry a stripper—no matter where she came from or who she is?
And that was when Sterling came to the club.
Sterling Haverford III. Yes, I know it’s a ridiculous name, but where we came from, it was par for the course (especially if your estate had its own golf course.)
I was doodling Mrs. Sterling Haverford in my flimsily locked diaries ever since I could remember. He was my first kiss, my first cigarette, my first orgasm. Of course, I know now that I wasn’t his first anything, and that even while he was dating me, he was fucking other girls. But at the time, I was convinced we were getting married. That he loved me.
I was convinced of it right up until my parents got the invitation to his wedding. To Penelope Fucking Middleton.
We’d been off and on, for sure, but I thought it was the distance and how dedicated I was to school and charity, and fuck, I’m crying now, I’m so sorry. I’m not even sad about it, I’m just pissed still, that I’d given so much time to this asshole, and then when I was feeling so low about everything, he had the nerve to show up at the club.
I assumed he was in town for a business meeting and that maybe a potential client had brought him to the club for a little extra wooing—not an uncommon scenario where I worked, especially when it came to the private rooms in the back. And of all the girls that could have been working that particular room that night, it was me.
It was fucking me.
I had on six-inch heels and a bright blue wig and he still knew me the moment I entered, just as I’d known from one glimpse of his profile that it was him.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, his words carrying like a poisonous melody over the throbbing music. “Is it really you?”
I stood in the door, having no idea what the fuck to do. I knew I could go find Mark, explain to him that I knew the client and couldn’t dance for him—Mark would understand. But even three years after he’d dumped me via wedding invitation to another girl, I still couldn’t force myself to walk away. Or stop listening when he started talking.
He said he couldn’t believe it—everyone had thought I’d absconded off to Europe or someplace exotic and all the while, I had been here. He gestured to me, to indicate the skimpy outfit I wore, to indicate all the things that came along with here, the dancing and the alleged disgrace, but I saw the moment he was done making his point, the moment his pupils dilated and he took in my nearly naked body.
He’d married Fucking Penelope but he was here and he was here for me, and fuck it all, I wanted that. That moment where he chose me over her. No matter how wrong it was.
“Come inside,” he said, and I did.
Will God forgive me for that? Because I could have left. Without any consequences. I could have found another girl and left the club without another moment spent with Sterling Haverford III. But deep down, I wanted to stay. Deep down, I wanted what I knew would happen if I stayed.
I closed the door behind me and crossed my arms, and then told him exactly how much of an asshole he was. To his credit, he didn’t deny it.
He asked me to come closer. It was a command, and Lord help me, I’ve always responded to commands. I walked over to him, and he ran a hand up my flank to where my skirt hung just below my ass. His wedding ring glinted in the low neon light of the room. His fucking wedding ring from his fucking marriage to Penelope Fucking Middleton.
I tried to pull back, but he reached up and grabbed my arm.
And then he said, “You know why I didn’t marry you, Poppy?” He was caressing the inside of my thigh now and I couldn’t help it, I took a tiny step to the side, just to widen my legs the smallest bit.
He smiled and went on. “It’s not because I didn’t want to be married to a Danforth. God knows that with your family and your money and your brains, on paper you would have been the perfect wife. But we both know better, don’t we, Poppy?”
His fingers finally found what they were looking for, my lace thong, and he curled his fingers around the fabric and ripped, the flimsy material tearing easily, granting him access to my cunt.
“Deep down,” he said, continuing his earlier train of thought, touching me, touching me so much now, “deep down, we both know that you’re a little slut. Yes, with a perfect background and a perfect education, but you were made for being a whore, Poppy, not a wife.”
I told him to fuck off, and then he said, “Do you think I just showed up here accidentally? I’ve been looking for you for three years. You’re mine or have you forgotten?”
How could I be his when he had a fucking wife? I asked him that.
And he responded that he didn’t give a shit about her—which is probably the truth. But he told me he married her because he needed someone proper, someone he wouldn’t worry about his clients wanting to fuck.
