The air conditioner to the fourteenth-floor hotel room hummed. It was unnaturally cold, considering the weather outside. The sea of human invention lay outside the window, buzzing. Cars and lights flickered. A bottle of Veuve Clicquot rested in a tin filled with ice.
From the balcony of his hotel room, Roger leaned against the railing, thinking about the day of gambling, drinking, and shenanigans behind him. He inhaled deeply, breathing in a breath from his menthol cigarette. Some of his friends, also in the hotel, insisted they go to Vegas. They had been talking about going for a couple of years, and some of them even saved up. Roger didn't have to save up because the money came easy to him. Everything came easy to him.
The noise below the window made him smile. It reminded him of home, New York.
Just a couple of hours before he ordered the bottle of champagne from room service, his friend Monte, told him they to expect an escort. Roger wasn't the type of guy who needed an escort. During college, Roger Miller had modeled. It wasn't something he was passionate about, but it came about naturally because he was brutally handsome. The money paid for him to go to college and during the pinnacle of his modeling career, there was a billboard of him in a pair of boxers on the freeway.
Although his modeling career had gone to the wayside, the body hadn't. Roger had worked hard in the gym to maintain a decent physique. He wasn't as shredded as he had been in college, but his muscles were big enough to earn him looks from women in passing. He had a thin, sharp face with the tan of a man who worked outside, but the wallet of a man who owned his own business.
Monte had called a group of escorts from the same service, all part of what he called "the Vegas experience." Originally, Roger didn't think it was necessary to order prostitutes, no matter how high end. Roger called Monte and the other guys several times, but they didn't pick up. Roger didn't want a random woman in his hotel room, then. Now, he thought about it a lot, anticipated it. His change of heart had pushed him to order a bottle of champagne.
The expensive blazer came off his shoulders and dropped onto the bed. Even at night, Vegas was hot. Nervously, Roger rubbed the creases from his suit pants. There was a pool of sweat gathering in the center of his palms, which had never happened with a woman before. Naturally smooth, Roger was surprised he was nervous.
A subtle knock on the door jerked him from his thoughts. Suddenly the door felt a million miles away, and he was self-conscious about how quickly he was supposed to open. On the one hand, he didn't want to come off like he was too eager, but on the other hand, he didn't want to leave her in the hall.
This is your moment, Roger said to himself.
Roger walked across the red carpet, inhaled a deep breath before opening the door. He stepped out of the way, allowing the blonde woman in the red dress inside. She walked slowly with the confidence of a porn star and the glimmer of a model.
"Hello," she said softly. "I am Ashley Venom."
Ashley Venom, Roger thought, interesting name. The fact that it was a stage name, like strippers, hadn't even crossed his mind. Naive to the ways of escorts, Roger didn't understand the need for a fake name. What he did notice was how perfectly symmetrical her face was. She had the whitest set of teeth and a sharp but beautiful nose.
"Please, come in."
Ashley, with the flowing red dress, walked into the expensive hotel room. There was a bottle of champagne chilling on the table, which was now a cliché: almost all the expensive hotel, John's bought champagne.
Roger couldn't believe how genuinely beautiful she was. It wasn't like the girls from the strip clubs, who looked good when the lights were low, and the makeup was heavy. There were little traces of makeup on her face. The beauty was natural.
Ashley walked to the edge of the queen sized bed, flattened her dress, and sat down. "Do you have a name? Or do you prefer I don't know?"
That seemed strange, not knowing each other's name. Roger supposed she had seen all kinds of things in her career. "My name is Roger," he said, gulping after. His nerves were electric.
"You're nervous, Roger. You shouldn't be."
The fact that she noticed how nervous made him more nervous. It was his first tryst with a prostitute, so he thought being nervous was normal.
"Why don't we start with a glass of champagne?"
The bottle was forgotten until she mentioned it. It was embarrassing how nervous Roger was. She wasn't the first woman he had ever been with, but certainly the first one he purchased.
