The Blue Room Vol. 5 Read Free Page A

have been my friend. If I
had to sell my body, so be it. At least they'd never have my honor. They'd
never have my soul. They'd never have me.
                I
go back to my room. According to the briefing notes Mrs. Walters has left on my
pillow the client, Mr. O., wants to see me “as I am.” No special tricks. No
nice dresses. Just...normal clothes. He'll come visit me in my room tonight.
                Normal.
Just me. I don't even know what that means anymore. I'm so used to playing
a part that I have forgotten who I really am. I go through my wardrobe and
find...something, anything.
                My
eyes fall on the simple jeans and T-shirt I wore when I arrived at the Blue
Room. Not clothes anybody bought for me. Cheap, normal clothes I purchased
myself, because they were what I could afford, because I liked them.
                Is
that what the client wanted? Probably not.
                Finally
I choose a pair of simple silk pajamas and a white lace bra.
                I
guess this is what passes for normal in the Blue Room, I think.
                I
sit in my bed, waiting for that knock on my door.
                I
look at the clock nervously. What if this man is the one who killed Roz? Will
he be violent with me, too? I look around the room at vases, at the poker for
the fireplace – anything I might be able to use for protection if he gets
rough. Or what if this man is nice, gentle? Will I start to fall for him, too,
to get attached the way I'm already more attached than I should be to Terrence
and Xander? All these worries rush through my mind.
                I'm
not really cut out for this gig, am I, I think.
                I
go on thinking that as at last I doze off.
     

 
    Chapter 2
     
     
                I have so many dreams. My mind is on fire. My
body twists and turns, thrashing in the silken sheets all around me. Four
hundred thread count Egyptian cotton might well be something that the Blue
Towers prides itself on, but when you're in the grip of a nightmare, it sure as
hell doesn't do much. Faces appear before me, all around me: faces I recognize.
                Rita.
                In
my mind's eye I can see her, the way she was before she disappeared. Impossibly
beautiful, but her beauty came from more than the perfect arrangement of her
features. Rita has something else about her, something special. She always did.
It's an inner light: an inner purity, that nothing could ever sully. Not even
working here.
                I
didn't know what the Blue Room was, of course, back when Rita started working
there. She had told me it was a gig as a cocktail waitress, nothing more. But I
could see in her eyes that something was wrong. Her sparkling personality was
the same as it was before – she was as good and kind and sweet and unfailingly
helpful as ever. But something had gone out of her. Some light in her eyes. She
had seen things working at the Blue Room: things I was only just now beginning
to understand.  She had been privy to to secrets that hurt her. It wasn't just
the prostitution – that much I was coming to understand. Sleeping with men for
money was just a job like any other. It was the secrecy, the lying, the
rituals. The need to make yourself nothing before the most powerful men in the
world on a daily basis, to give up your whole personality in the service of
someone else's fantasy. Playing the part someone else wanted you to be. That
was the hardest part.
                I
see Rita the way she was in those last months. I see those subtle changes. Her
hair is lighter, highlighted for the first time, with that kind of expensive
sheen that only money can buy. She wears more makeup – she never used to wear
makeup – all the most exclusive brands. Dior lipstick. Creme de la Mer face
wash in the bathroom. Signs I should have realized pointed to a job as