The Girlfriend Experience Ch. 30

Chapter Thirty

After shutting the door and clicking the lock in place, Lindsay's muscles relaxed for the first time since the afternoon. When they did, exhaustion pulled at her as she crashed from the adrenaline that had been spiking for so many hours. She brought a forearm to her head, leaned against the mahogany, and her ribs collapsed in an exhale.

"Honey, what's going on?" As was customary following the majority of her parties, Colt was right there once Lindsay and her trick parted ways, and he reached for her wrist. "Are you okay? Talk to me."

Moving a hand to her nose, Lindsay breathed in through her mouth and turned her attention to Colt. And though she had to blink multiple times to sidetrack the tears, a smile emerged so big it split her face. "I ... I'm so happy. Umm, I don't think you could've written a better script for a party and, umm, I ... I really don't know what else to say."

Lindsay swiveled and eyed the door for an instant, wishing she could run out and continue her evening with Donald. "I think, I don't know, but I think that party kind of brought me full-circle. This past year, with everything that's gone on in my life, both positive and negative, partying with someone from my past, from Citronelle - to have that love, to know I made such a tremendous impact on Donnie's life, one he'll never forget - it was so rewarding." That sweet boy gave his virginity to me! Tears won out, squeezing from the corner of her eyes. "I ... I don't know what else to say. I'm happy." Lindsay tilted her head, sniffed her nose, and showed Colt a full rack of teeth. "I'm happy."

She reached down, unbuckled her high heel shoes one at a time, took them off, and placed them neatly in the foyer. "Donnie kept thanking me, but I feel as if I should be the one thanking him. That party ... that party was the best ever, hands down. My absolute favorite. It was magical."

"I'm glad you and him enjoyed yourselves."

Reality sapped the arch from Lindsay's spine. "I'm sorry, Colt, but I'm done for the evening. I'm done. No more parties for me tonight. I know we're shorthanded with Thanksgiving tomorrow, but I don't think it'll make much of a difference. No one else is showing up tonight in this blizzard anyway." She undid the first few buttons of her minidress and a breast popped out. "I'm going back to my room to lay down and think about things."

"Tell me if you need anything. Some coffee, a soda, some ..." His head bobbed to the side, Colt eyed Lindsay with winged brows as she whizzed by without a word and disappeared behind the curtain on the right side.

Just like that, Pamela emerged from the one on the left. "Hey, Colt. What was all that about?"

He squared his shoulders and took a purifying breath. "I don't know. I think partying with Donald struck a nerve in Lindsay or something. I've never seen her act that way."

"Being with your first virgin monger is always special. That type of reaction is normal." Pamela offered a dismissive wave of the hand as she closed the distance and hugged her husband. "Every virgin party is special, of course, but the first is monumental. I can recall every detail of mine: February 2007, Aaron from Ohio." A smile eased wide upon Pamela's lips. "He was an Asian kid, nineteen, and the most well-mannered, soft-spoken guy. I'll never forget that night." Pamela shook her head as if to clear the cobwebs. "Don't worry, Colt. I'll talk to Lindsay in a few minutes and see where her mind is at."

Once in the same bedroom where she and Donald had their fun, Lindsay retrieved her smartphone and thumbed out a text message. The two teenagers had exchanged personal numbers without Colt's consent nor knowledge.

>> i miss you already baby and i promise next time im in Citronelle, im gonna come find you, and we're gonna have that daylong date in Palm Springs youve always fantasized of.

During his journey home in the morning and with the highway still in poor condition, Donald's vehicle spun out of control on an icy spot and slid off of Route 93, unfortunately, and wrecked into a snowy ditch. ...

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Four Months Later

Friday, March 20, 2020

Flagstone, Nevada

"Fuck this place. I'm not risking my health, maybe even my life, to continue working here. I'm going back to Vegas, if not Puerto Rico." Once reaching her bedroom, Kenzie resumed tossing her personal belongings onto the mattress. But following an emotional back-and-forth, she was so distraught that some items fell to the floor. Kenzie heard Jim enter the room and felt his hands from behind. She hesitated for a moment, then spun and wrenched away.

"Don't touch me, Jim! You know I don't want anyone touching me." Her tone cast a vicious swath through the air. "I've saved my money and don't need to be working here like the other girls do. I always said I'd never let this brothel define me or get its clamps into me so deep that I could never get away. I'm not Pamela or Kayleigh!" Kenzie gathered her clothes and shoes, all mish-mashed together without any rhyme or reason and stuffed them into a pair of pink suitcases.

So unlike her.

"Cierra, wait. Let's talk about this."

She hooked her purse with a finger and turned to face him. He stood with a limp posture as if all his bones had dissolved away, leaving only his skin to make do with standing. This man was her best friend, the only person other than her mother Kenzie trusted. How could she leave him like this? What's worse, this could be the final time she would ever see Jim. He had been there in her darkest hour and helped guide her out of the abyss that had been her failed marriage. He has always been there for me. Without his assistance, where would Kenzie be nowadays? Probably nothing more than a sad statistic.

But no matter how much she cared for him, she couldn't stay in the brothel any longer. The world is too fucked up. She had to leave.

Pain funneled through Kenzie's heart as she gripped both suitcases and held one against her front - a shield between them - and when she spoke, she barely recognized the sound of her own shattered voice.

"You need to get out of here, too, Jim. It isn't safe. It's not safe anywhere. I'm sorry, but I know this brothel is your life. You've been working here for thirty-seven years, and you're stuck the same as the others. I wish you'd leave with me, but I know you won't." She reached for the bedroom door just as Jim again touched her shoulders.

He rested his forehead on the back of her head. "Please don't do this, Cierra. Ride it out some more, okay, and let's see what happens. Don't rush to any decisions like this. No one knows what is going on right now or what's going to happen tomorrow, next week, whenever. I love you and want you to stay. I need you to stay."

She clenched her eyes, damning all her tears to Hell. "I can't."

"Let her go." Seconds later, Colt held a forearm to Jim's chest, stopping him in his tracks as he attempted to follow Kenzie through the hall while pleading with her to change her mind. "Let her go, man." And then, without so much as even a goodbye to anyone else, Kenzie exited the house and cried all the way down the block to the Twin Tops Motel, where her car was located.

"Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Goddammit!" Jim's angry gaze sliced Colt's face before he stormed off to an empty room and slammed the door in his wake - a monstrous bang to add to his uncharacteristic outburst. "Fuck! I love that girl!"

Behind the bar, the color had drained from Lindsay's cheeks. "What's happening, Colt?" Her voice was so quiet that one could probably drown it out by whistling. "The house is falling apart. Amelia and Kerri left earlier too. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know." A panicked expression filtered across his features. "I don't know, honey."

"Colt, I just received some horrible news." Pamela bristled into the parlor from the opposite corridor, holding up a piece of paper. "This is an official notice from the Nevada State Legislature. Our worst fear is being realized." Pamela stabbed her fingers through her hair. "According to this, Governor Sisolak has ordered a mandatory shutdown of all strip clubs, massage parlors, and brothels throughout the state of Nevada, effective at midnight tonight." Pamela's words made the hairs on the back of Colt's neck stand at attention. "It says the shutdown is for thirty days, but both you and I know it's gonna be longer than that. Much longer."

"What?" Air stalled in Lindsay's lungs. "A shutdown?"

"And it says if any venues don't close - if they try to fight it - they will, quote, face appropriate civil and criminal penalties as a result of their inaction, end-quote."

Colt's bloodless lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. "Oh, that's great. That's just effing great. Let me see that."

"Open up! Sheriff's Department!" A series of incessant knocks accompanied by the ominous sound of Tony Spaeth's voice - Sulaco County's sheriff and Happy Ending Ranch's biggest adversary - as it broke through the front door. "Open up, McCarron, you piece of shit!" The smarmy little bastard was using his trusty megaphone. "Sheriff's Department! We finally have orders to shut your ass down once and for all."

Colt's face turned ashen. "Oh, dear."

Horror stung Lindsay's eyes and she sniffled, wiping her runny nose with her forearm. "Fuck the Coronavirus!"

(End of Chapter Thirty / Book Two - to be continued)