Freak
Authors: Jennifer Hillier
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For my parents,
Nida Perez Allan and Roberto Pestaño
IT TAKES A
dedicated and supportive team to get a book published, and I’m very blessed to work with such amazing people.
Huge thanks to my feisty and fabulous agent, Victoria Skurnick of Levine Greenberg, for always fighting for me, and for always knowing exactly what I need to hear. We’re a good fit, and I hope we work together for a long time.
My team at Gallery Books is incredible. My editor, Kathy Sagan, was instrumental in getting this book as shiny and polished as it is, and I’ve enjoyed every moment of our creative brainstorming. I also need to thank assistant editor Emilia Pisani for her wonderful ideas and line notes, which made the book so much better. I am grateful to have my publicist, Stephanie DeLuca, working so hard on my behalf. Editorial assistant Natasha Simons is always a pleasure to work with. Big thanks to my copy editor, Thomas Pitoniak, for all his hard work. And of course, I’m so very grateful for the continuing support of Louise Burke and Jennifer Bergstrom.
April Gibson, my publicist at Simon & Schuster Canada, is an all-around awesome person, and I’m lucky to have her in my corner.
My friends and family think it’s so cool I’m a writer, and you know what? It is. But it would be very challenging to write full-time if they didn’t believe I could do it, and the love and support I receive every day from these wonderful people means everything to me.
My mom, Nida Perez Allan, thinks everything I do is great, and while I suspect deep down that maybe not
everything
I do is amazing, I love her for being my biggest fan.
My dad, Roberto Pestaño, continues to teach me so many important lessons about love, life, and finding the right balance between the things I want to do and the things I need to do.
My brother, John Perez, isn’t much of a fiction reader, but he’s proud of his little sister and he doesn’t make fun of me, and that’s all I need.
Special thanks to Tim Allan, Liz Perez, and Evelyn Tiu, for being great partners to the people I love the most.
Both my Pestaño and Perez families, in North America and in the Philippines, have been generous with their support, and I love you guys more than you know. I’m also blessed to be part of the Hillier and Philpott families; your kind words have lifted me up many times.
I’m fortunate to have kind, funny friends who’ve been by my side through all the crazy ups and downs of trying to get published (and, hello,
life)
, and if they weren’t keeping me sane and making me laugh, I don’t know that I could have written this book. Big hugs and inappropriate squeezes go out to Annabella Wong, Dawn Robertson, Brian Hanish, Micheleen Beaudreau, Teri Orrell, Lori Cossetto, Jennifer Bailey, Jennifer Baum, Nancy Thompson, Marsha Sigman, and Benoît Lelièvre.
Big thanks to my Twitter pal Jeremiah for lending his name to a character. Feel free to RT this.
I’m also grateful to my lovely friend Mónica Bustamante Wagner, who helped me with the Spanish phrases in this book.
Gracias
.
To all the amazing writers I’ve met through the blogosphere, Twitter, and Facebook: You’re all rock stars! I am so lucky to be part of an incredible community of artists who support each other the way we do.
And lastly, to Steve Hillier: none of this would mean anything without you. You know that.
1
THERE WAS SOMETHING
fucked up about a job where cocaine was overlooked, but cigarettes would get you fired.
In a stall in the bathroom of the Sweet Chariot Inn in downtown Seattle, Brenda Stich (professional name: Brianna) shook out another line of the wondrous white power onto the back of her hand and snorted. It took about three and a half seconds for the shit to kick in, and thank God for it. It had been a long three days with the guy from New York, and she was delirious with exhaustion. The bitterness dripped down the back of her throat and she swallowed. The coke coursed through her veins, and just like that, the world was back in high definition.
Okay. All right. Much better.
She exited the stall, grateful the bathroom was empty so she could fix her makeup in peace. Brenda had been hoping for a night off to recharge, but Estelle’s text didn’t leave room for argument. You never argued with Estelle. You worked when she wanted you to, and there was really no such thing as a night off. The Bitch even had all the girls on that new birth control pill where you only bled three times a year, so forget using your period as an excuse.
You were always on call, twenty-four hours a day, seven
days a week. If you were what the client wanted, and you weren’t available, they’d go elsewhere. And Estelle hated to lose money.
Hated
, of course, was an understatement. They didn’t call her the Bitch for no reason.
Brenda checked her makeup in the bathroom mirror one last time. She’d done a decent job covering her dark circles, but her eyes were still red. No problem. An escort always had five things in her purse at all times—condoms, lube, a cell phone, breath mints, and Visine. And sometimes drugs, though of course Estelle never tested for that. If drugs helped her girls work, so be it. Brenda dug out her bottle of Visine and squeezed a few drops into each eye, blinking to move the fluid around.
Better.
Estelle might not test for drugs, but she did have the girls screened regularly for venereal diseases, and no one was able to work during the seventy-two-hour period it took for the tests to come back. Unfortunately Brenda wasn’t due for testing for another week. Dammit, she should have gotten tested today—at least then she’d have had the next three days off. Her last appointment, which had ended only a few hours earlier, had been a fast-talking businessman from Manhattan, in town for four days and determined to make the most of it. He’d had a voracious sexual appetite, made even worse by Viagra. Brenda had once had a conversation with a veteran escort named Charlotte (real name: Carla), who’d spoken of the pre-Viagra days with longing. “Back then, they’d pop after five, six minutes. Ten if they were trying to impress me. Nowadays? The fuckers’ll go all night, thanks to all the fucking drugs. Pun intended.”
Brenda’s New York client had indeed gone all night, every night, for the past three nights. She’d showed him a good time
and he’d tipped her nicely (a fat wad of twenties was stashed in the bottom of her purse beneath the lining, and no, she didn’t have to share this with the agency), but now she was sore and there was a bruise on her knee from where she’d slammed it into the bedpost during one particularly acrobatic session.
Man, what she wouldn’t give for a cigarette. But smoking on the job was a big fat no-no. The clients could always smell it. And taste it. Estelle didn’t care if you did blow, but if you smoked a cigarette and the client complained, you were done. Unlike cocaine, cigarettes weren’t considered a performance-enhancing drug.
She backed away from the mirror to see her full self. She looked good. Tight dark blue jeans were tucked into sleek black boots, and a thin white sweater showed off everything it was supposed to without revealing any skin. A short fitted jacket completed the ensemble. Her makeup was deliberately subtle, and her long, dark hair was left loose and straight, as per the client’s request. He had specifically asked for a Girlfriend Experience, which meant she was to provide a very relaxed, “date night” type of encounter, with lots of easy conversation, foreplay, and non-kinky sex, topped off with cuddling and sweet talk afterward. Tonight, the sexy tight dresses and five-inch stilettos had been left at home, and that was fine by Brenda. GFEs, as they were known in the business, were her specialty.
She left the bathroom and headed toward the elevators, nodding to the uniformed concierge in the main lobby. He nodded back, looking bored. She’d seen him before, having had business in this hotel several times, but she didn’t have to pay him off—Estelle would have taken care of that. Estelle’s girls never handled money, because the Bitch didn’t trust anybody. In fact, the client would have paid for Brenda’s services
yesterday, by cash or PayPal. Once Brenda got the text that payment had been received, it was on like Donkey Kong.
No background checks were ever done. The clients always preferred anonymity, and that was the risk you took in this business. A little scary, yes, but the job paid better than anything else she could do, like waitressing or retail sales. And it was putting her through school. Besides, it wasn’t like she was working the streets, something Brenda would never do. Even sex workers had standards.