Cassie hadn’t seen a photo of Roger prior to her visit but she expected him to be like the majority of her clients. Slightly chubby, balding, mid 40s and completely awful at pleasing a woman who wasn’t getting paid.
She checked her face in the rear view mirror of her car one last time before leaving. Her eyebrows looked great, there was nothing in her teeth and she was ready to go.
It took her a few moments to reach Roger’s hotel room and, when she did, she noticed the door was slightly ajar, with the slide-lock that provided extra security propped in between the door and the hinge to allow guests to come in at ease.
Still, she knocked. It was the professional thing to do.
“Come in” she heard a voice say.
Cassie opened the door and saw a pretty nice, but empty, hotel room.
“Hello?,” she said to an empty room. “It’s Alyssa. I’m looking for Roger?”
She saw the bathroom door to her left was open and knew her soon-to-be client was about to come out. The moment she saw him, she couldn’t help herself. In an instant, her “hooker mentality” was shattered, her mouth was opened and the words poured out.
“Oh shit.”
=====
Two profanities. Uttered a split second apart. From two people who both knew why they were in this hotel room but couldn’t work up the courage to talk about it.
It had only been about 30 seconds since Tony walked out of an empty bathroom and ran into his cousin Cassie but those seconds felt like years.
Neither knew what to say next. What could they say? They were both busted. Their secrets that they had spent so much time and effort to keep, gone.
Tony spoke first. Not because he wanted to but because he had to.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
Silence.
“What, what, what are you … why are you … huh?” he stumbled out.
Cassie wanted to cry. She didn’t even hear Tony’s words.
It’s not that she thought she was too smart to get outed as an escort. That was part of the job. But she didn’t expect it to be a member of her own God damn family who caught her in the act.
He must have known it was her. He must have been able to tell from the ad. Or the email address. Or the something. Anything. It didn’t make sense. She was so careful. She made sure to get his name and his referen…
Fuck.
In an instant, Cassie thought back to all the moments she defied her usual screening process in the lead up to this encounter. How could she be so stupid.? Worse, what the hell was she supposed to say now? She was busted. One hundred percent.
“What are you doing here?” Tony asked again, this time more sternly.
Wait.
That’s it.
Cassie finally figured it out.
“Hold on. YOU? YOU ordered an escort?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking that question in a way that sounded like she was shaming him. In reality, that wasn’t her intent but she didn’t know that. She was scared and just trying to make sense of this entire situation.
“YOU’RE an escort?” Tony asked back.
Neither spoke for what, again, seemed like forever.
“I’ve got to …” Cassie stuttered. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
Before Tony could process what just happened, Cassie turned around and bolted out of the room. It took the sound of the door bouncing hard off the hinge to shake Tony from his frozen state.