Dirty Work Read online

  If Bryan was telling me to do it, maybe I would consider it.

  “You don't think this is messed up? Guys bidding on women? For a date?”

  “I guess so, a little. I mean, it’s not like you ladies are prostitutes, or anything. But don’t you want to be objectified a little bit?” He slides his hand over to mine and slips his fingers around my wrist, pressing gently on my pulse point.

  Damn. I can feel myself blushing. I know what he’s doing. He’s mimicking what he did to me a few hours ago, in his bed, with my arms above my head and his teeth on my earlobe.

  “Bryan,” I whisper with embarrassment. But I don’t move my hand away. Maybe I do want to be objectified. Maybe it feels a little bit...good… to be to desired as a sex object. Maybe I do want to be eaten up and consumed by someone who only saw her as a piece of ass.

  Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.

  “Don’t you?” he asks, pinching his fingers around my wrist a little harder.

  “Not at work. No. Not in a professional environment!” Now I pull my hand away. “It seems a little inappropriate, if you ask me.”

  “I did ask you.” Bryan already knows that I loved to be teased like that. “Anyway, I think you should do it. The money will go to a charity of your choice. Do it for...I don’t know. Do it for all the poor monkeys in Antarctica who need boats to get to New York. Or if you have a better cause that you’d like to have the money go to.”

  “Will you be bidding?” I laugh at Bryan’s joke, even though it feels a little too close to home for me. I do have a cause in mind, and I’m a little annoyed that Bryan is making fun of the idea of charitable giving.

  “If I see something worth paying for.”

  He walks away without giving me anything else. Just like that, he can give to me and he can take away. It almost feels cruel, but the pleasure he can give me is excruciating. As he walks away, I admire how good he looked in his charcoal-colored suit. He’d removed his jacket and was walking around the office with his shirt sleeves rolled up, showing off his tattoos in clear violation of both the dress code and the code of conduct. But he never got in trouble - not even a little.

  I suspect that some of the older men in the office, the partners, are a little jealous of Bryan. Of his youth, of his looks. Of the way the women in the office all loved him.

  Bryan is a little bit inappropriate with everyone. He cracks jokes about anyone, but it’s always at his own expense.

  For example.

  I overheard Bryan and his close pal Greg talking about some girl Greg hooked up with at Bryan’s birthday party. She had been flitting with both of them, and Bryan kept extolling Greg’s dick, and telling the girl that Greg was an amazing catch and that he felt lucky to just be associated with him and hanging out and sharing a beer with him on that night.

  He told the girl that Greg was a legend in their group of friends at the office, that there was no way he could compete with Greg.

  He was a good wingman, and even though Greg was hot, he was too cookie-cutter. He faded into the crowd of all the good-looking finance dudes out at the bar. He almost had a cloak of anonymity, whether he wanted it or not, because he was so good looking and because there were so many other guys in the city, hell, at that very bar, who looked just like him.

  Bryan is different. Bryan knows it. He’s a little self-deprecating, a little outside the type of guy who runs the city, a little better. He isn’t afraid of being a little offensive. He isn’t polite. When he told me to dump her boyfriend the day we met, the fact that Bryan is a little different became apparent. But the fact that he would say anything isn’t the only thing that was different about him.

  He is, apparently, a little richer, too.

  It doesn’t hurt that his body looks like it was been carved from the same marble the walls of his bathroom had been cut from.

  As he walks away, I feel a little surge of jealousy. What did he mean, that he would bid if he saw something worth paying for?

  But I push the jealous thoughts out of my mind. Maybe I would sign up. If anything, to just see what the whole thing was about.

  And maybe a guy would bid on me.

  Chapter Eight

  The dress was a white bandage-style dress, which four years ago fell straight down on my body and skimmed against my hips just slightly. It looked professional and polished, and I felt confident and put-together in it.

  That was four years ago. Tonight, the dress clings to my curves and leaves very little to the imagination.

  “This totally works on you. You’re going to get bid on in like, two second.” Karen starts rooting through a jewelry box she has atop her dresser.

  “I don’t know. I keep going back and forth. It seems a little silly.” I turn to see my ass in Karen’s full-length mirror.

  “It’s not silly. It’s for a good cause. And listen.” Karen lowers her voice as if she’s about to tell me the secrets of the universe, something that has to be handled with discretion and care. Something that not everyone could be privy to. “Guys are always buying us. Buying our attention. It’s what the whole thing is.” She waves her hands around in the air, gesturing randomly.

  I have no idea what this girl is talking about. We just met a few months ago, and even though we click well and have become friends quickly, her opinions sometimes seem a little out there.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I mean,” Karen says as she makes her way to her closet to retrieve a pair of sky-high stiletto sandals for me to borrow, “that our whole society is set up this way. Men pay, we don’t. I’m just saying. Don’t delude yourself into thinking something else. You might as well have fun with it.”

  “Do you really believe some of the stuff that you come out with?” I turn around in the mirror, this way and that, examining my body and poking at what I think to be imperfections. “I can’t tell if you’re a complete genius or totally full of crap.”

  “Why can’t it be a little of both?” Karen stands behind me, beaming. “My little girl is all grown up.” She wipes an imaginary tear from her eye. “Now. Take these.” She shoves the shoes into my arms and swats me on the butt.

  With that, I’m off to the auction.

  Chapter Nine

  I stand nervously around the corner from the Park Avenue hotel where the event is taking place. Between going home after work, having to go through the hassle of finding something to wear, and then taking the subway back into Manhattan from Brooklyn - in those heels, no less - I am already dying to just go home.

  Where are you?

  I text Bryan like he had told me to. As I looked up from her phone, I catch him from the corner of my eye coming down the block with a cadre of women on his arm.

  Shit.

  Who the hell are these women, and why are they with Bryan? I had told myself not to get my hopes up. I told myself that I was being naive and that he was going to hit it and quit it, so to speak. But now that I actually see him with these women, it isn’t that bad.

  They aren’t like me. One is tall and thin and blonde, like a model. In fact, I think I saw her on Instagram with one of the local New York City chefs I follow on social media. Another I know to be a hip Brooklynite in a band that I like. They’re both beautiful, in different ways. And there’s another bored looking blonde thrown in for good measure, walking a few paces behind the threesome and completely preoccupied with her phone.

  That’s fine. And I’m now determined, in spite of my better judgement, to be bid on and sold and purchased for a date with one of the wealthy guys inside the building.

  “Anne! I thought I told you to text me when you got here!” I’m surprised when Bryan breaks away from his harem to talk to me, and even more surprised when he scoops my ass into his hands and leaned down to hug me.

  “I did text you. Just now.” I’m annoyed and perplexed, and unsure of why Bryan is now paying attention to me, given the women he’s with. There is no way they could be jealous of me, but I feel bad, all the same. Maybe
he should just pick one girl and be done with it.

  “Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I just put my phone away for one second and I missed you.” He retrieves his phone from his pocket, pulling an expensive-looking leather wallet out along with it. “Okay. Well. I’m here now. And I’m not letting you go!”

  My heart is set aflutter at his words, just like it had been when he first introduced me to a few people in our office building as his girlfriend. It seemed wrong and inappropriate for him to be claiming me, but I feel myself getting addicted to the attention from him and don’t want to let it go.

  “You’ll have to part with me, at least for a little while. Remember? The auction? Anyone can bid on me.”

  “Yeah, well,” he says, bending down to whisper in my ear, pushing my brown hair aside, “We’ll see about that.”

  His hands move down my body.

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t keep my hands off you.”

  I clear her throat and looking past him, at the group of women assembled by his side. “Don’t you want to introduce me to your friends?”

  “My what? Oh.” He pushes his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels. “These are some old friends of mine. They are some ladies that I brought by for the auction.”

  I peer past him again at the three of them. They all smile and wave, and I no longer felt as jealous or threatened by them.

  Old friends. Here for the auction. That’s no big deal.

  Bryan takes me by the hand and leads the four women through the revolving glass doors and up the stairs into the lobby of the old hotel.

  Chapter Ten

  “We have this beautiful woman here, up next. Her name is Anne and she works at Binder Capital. She is one of their new secretaries. In her free time she enjoys reading, watching TV, and long walks on the beach.”

  Oh, jeez.. Maybe the organizers aren’t taking this as seriously as I thought they would be. I feel a little more at ease, now that I know this silly biography is being presented to the sea of men I’m looking out into. The audience, the bidding crowd, is made up of all the men from the office.

  I see Bryan and Greg there, my boss and a few of the partners. I recognize some people from HR and IT, and follow the faces in the crowd to a few of the partners’ wives, seated together and chatting boredly, not paying much attention to the auction.

  “Anne, here, is having a date auctioned off tonight, so be sure to bid on her.” The auctioneer checks the card that he’s reading from. “And it looks like her proceeds will be donated to the Greenpoint branch of the New York Public Library. Very nice cause, Anne!”

  She smile and smooth the fabric of my dress down.

  “Let’s start the bidding,” the auctioneer says.

  “One hundred dollars!” I see Greg’s arm shoot up from the sea of hot guys in the audience.

  “Sir, okay, that's not how this works,” the auctioneer says.

  Greg laughs and puts his arm down. “I’m just trying to make sure I can outbid my friend here. It isn’t fair that he gets all of Anne’s time to himself.”

  Her cheeks flush and I feel a little lightheaded and funny

  “We are going to start the bidding at, as this gentleman suggested, one hundred dollars,” the auctioneer concedes.

  Bryan raises his paddle to indicate that he is placing a bid.

  “I see one hundred, can I get one hundred and fifty?”

  In turn, Greg raises his paddle and jabs Bryan in the ribs. I looked at the pair in confusion. A bidding war? Both men wanted to go on a date with me?

  I catch myself before going down this line of thinking. I realize that this is just a silly charity thing, that they aren't bidding on me, exactly, that they were bidding on putting some money toward a good cause in the city. It’s not like I wouldn’t be willing or even enthusiastic to hang out with either or both of them at day of the week, either at work or after work.

  But Bryan has a determined look in his eye. As the two men volley back and forth for the bid on a date with me, my heart quickens, and I feel a little gleam of mischief in Bryan’s eye.

  By the time the bid goes up to a cool thousand dollars, I wonder if he is doing this just to impress me.

  It’s working.

  The auctioneer picks up his pace, announcing the level of the bids faster and faster, Bryan and Greg’s paddles hoisting into the air, alternating being swung up high and then swiftly coming down. My heart picks up pace even more, the excitement of being a commodity and objectified taking over and replacing my rational thoughts.

  I’m reveling in it, and my panties are soaked, and I wonder if the people around me know. It’s embarrassing, and I can’t imagine actually know that that know.

  But tonight, I want to be objectified.

  I imagine going back to Bryan’s apartment with him again, even if Greg were to end up winning the date with me.

  “Fifty thousand dollars.” Bryan stands up, pushing Greg’s bidding paddle down.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the highest bid we have had on a date so far tonight.”

  Greg flashed his gorgeous smile and stands up to applaud Bryan. The room erupts in applause as Bryan makes his way up to the stage to claim the prize he’s won.

  “Sir, we usually organize a time to follow up with the women so they can explain their cause.” The auctioneer attempts to clarify the rules for Bryan, but it is clear that if he did already know the rules, he was ignoring them, and if he didn’t, he wasn't interested.

  When he finally gets to the stage, I have to shout to him so he’ll hear over the applause.

  “You already knew that I would go home with you. You must really like the New York Public Library, or something.”

  “Well, if it’s important to you, then it’s important to me. I knew you wouldn’t do this stupid auction unless it was a cause you really gave a crap about,” he says, smiling and crossing his arms across his chest.

  “But fifty thousand dollars? That’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  “I know. You just wiped out my charity budget for this quarter.”

  Damn.

  Maybe Bryan really is one of the rainmakers at work. I never pegged him for that. But between seeing his apartment and this huge contribution, I realize that I must have underestimated him - in more ways than one.

  Chapter Eleven

  Again, I find myself in the back of a cab with Bryan. My heart races like it did the first time he touched me, when I was unclear on what he wanted. But now, even though I know what he wants, I’m as excited as I was when I first felt him: his lips, his fingers, his hands. All of it. All of him.

  He slips a hand into my bra and feels my modest breasts, teasing one nipple between a thumb and forefinger. He brushes aside my dark hair and breathed upon my neck, letting his lips languish there and fill me with anticipation.

  He guides me out of the car and into his building, through the lobby and into the elevator and into his apartment like he had before. But this time, there is something different about his walk. And there is something different about what I feel toward him.

  Before, he was just some guy who came onto me, was hot, had an amazing body and who I thought - okay, let me get rid of my V-card once and for all, and this guy would be the perfect candidate to just get it over with. But now, there is more to him. He is someone who’s given me a gift, a huge gift, even though he didn't have to. He would get nothing in return. He was doing it purely because he felt like doing something for me, something that would matter and make me happy.

  “So, you like books? I know you didn’t just want an excuse to have a few guys fight over you. That's not your style. You’re too strong for that.”

  “You weren’t exactly fighting over me. It was just you and Greg, and you were both just messing around. You knew that you were going to get me.” I wrap my arms around his waist. “You really didn’t have to donate all that money.”

  “Look.” He pushes me away from his body, taking my face in his
hands and strumming a thumb against my cheek. “I wanted to do something for you. Not just so you know I’m serious about us. Something for you.” He puts his hands over my chest, as though he’s protecting me.

  I want to tell him the truth. I want to tell him everything.

  I chose the library as my charity because my grandmother had been a librarian there when she first emigrated to America in the 1930s. That’s where my family had lived, in Greenpoint, and they had struggled as most immigrant families do. But my mom and grandmother instilled a love of books in me - and not just of reading them. Of preserving them, taking care of them. And my father had been an English teacher. She wanted to do something to honor her family.