I watched in amazement as Sandra devoured every morsel of food on her plate. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, all of it. Gone. She must have felt me watching her because she looked up from her meal with an irritated look on her face.
"What?" she asked with a mouth full of food.
"Nothing. Nothing. You just eat like a homeless girl. I was about to give you a dollar and have you wash my windshield."
Her face twisted into a smirk, or at least what would have been a smirk if her mouth wasn't so full. She swallowed her food and said, "Oh, so we're funny now. An hour ago you were bawling like little girl who had her first period."
Something passed over my face, because hers fell. "Frank, I'm sorry. I was just making a joke. I didn't mean..." I waved her apology off.
"No. It's cool. You didn't say anything wrong. I'm just dealing with a lot right now."
She nodded and took a sip of her orange juice. An uncomfortable silence fell between us.
"Do you wanna talk about it? I may be a prostitute and a stripper, but I'm also a good listener." She said with a self-deprecating laugh. I saw a flash of an insecure little girl in that moment, but it went away quickly.
Something about her made me comfortable. I got her. I felt it that first night we met. Even though every part of our interaction was fake, I couldn't help feel a sense of kinship with her.
"It's a long, boring story. Trust me. You don't want to hear it."
She looked at me and smiled warmly. "Well, you paid me $300, and you bought me breakfast. I'm pretty sure sex is off the table, so consider this you getting your money's worth."
"Wait a minute. You're not paying for this?" I asked with fake shock as I pointed at the meal. Her eyes caught the humor in mine, and we both laughed. Then she looked at me expectedly, like she was waiting for me to tell her everything.
So I did. I went through the entire story, from that first night that Claire revealed that she was unhappy, to the first night I met Sandra. She didn't interrupt one time. When I was finished, things fell quiet for a moment.
"If you don't mind me saying, your ex-wife is a real bitch." She broke the silence with. I felt like I had an obligation to defend Claire, but I didn't. To be honest, it felt good to have someone on my side.
She continued. "I can understand her frustrations with you. But to go and sleep with your supposed best friend? Low."
"She says that I left her no choice. No reason to fight for the marriage."
"Well, in my opinion no one ever GIVES you a reason to fight for something. You do it because losing it will be more painful than the fight you have to endure to keep it. I've seen mothers endure humiliation and pain to fight for kids that don't give them a reason to. Wives will even defend low life husbands who beat them and degrade them, because they feel that being without that person is worse than the shit they have to deal with to be with them. That's the difference between love and everything else. Love is its own reason to keep fighting."
I couldn't help but to be amazed with her. She saw it and once again gave a self-deprecating laugh. "What, a stripper can't be deep?"
I had to laugh at that. "I guess you would know more about life than normal people."
At that her eyes narrowed as she glared at me angrily. Her sudden change in mood caught me off guard.
"More about life than normal people? What is that supposed to mean? So, I guess that I was obviously molested as a child, or abandoned by my father. Why else would I be some
abnormal
stripper?" She lashed out. It seemed that I insulted her, which was not my intent at all.
"No, that's not what I meant. I was just thinking that you see all kinds of stories with the people you encounter. I can't be the first guy to come to you looking to recover from heartbreak. In the room, you knew exactly what I was after, which means that you came across another guy like me before. That's all I meant."
"Whatever."
She looked down at the menu for a moment, halting the progression of this conversation. I didn't want to make a bigger mess of things than I already had, so I simply shut the fuck up. She must have seen something on the menu that she liked, because I saw her lips curled into a smile. Then she looked up at me and playfully asked, "Would you let me get a slice of apple pie if I blow you?"
How does she do that?
Sandra seemed to have the ability to mask herself. She will show small glimpses of the real woman inside, but that would be gone in an instant. She'd built several personas to hide from the world, and she was able to switch effortlessly between them. The sex kitten, the hard-nosed bitch, or the smirking sarcastic girl who wasn't easily impressed. She used them as a suit of armor. She encased herself into them; shield up, sword drawn, and always prepared for defense.
Most people wouldn't care to get past those illusions. The sex kitten makes men only want to fuck her brains out, the hard-nosed bitch causes them to want to stay clear of her, and the sarcastic woman just makes them not want to even try to get to know her.
I decided to not be like other men. Like I said before, I got her. I could see past the exterior shell. Because of that, I would be able to tread those dangerous waters, despite her reluctance to let me in. I found her intriguing enough to try.
"Have you ever been in love?" I asked. She stiffened up at the question, like it surprised her. She couldn't hide the gloomy expression on her face that mirrored her feelings when I asked it. After seeing how she reacted, a yes or no answer was irrelevant. Only a person who has loved, got burned, and lost could feel the emotion that would make such a beautiful face look so sad.
So far, we'd only talked about me. I wanted to ask her about her past. She was right about one thing. I did wonder how a woman like her got on the path to being a stripper who also slept with men for money. She didn't seem like the type. If we check our stereotypes for stripper/prostitutes, then I'm sure we will all come up with some bubble headed nympho who craves cock, or some gold digging femme fatale who would probably kill you to get your wallet if given the chance. Sandra played those parts to perfection. But they were just that - parts; like an actress does for a movie or play. I could see that it was all an act of self-preservation. Underneath that exterior was so much more.
Her eyes glazed over as a memory haunted her. She shook it off, like she did everything else, and changed the subject.
"Well Frank. I'm going to turn back into a pumpkin soon. I have to get home and get to sleep. 5 am is way past my bedtime."
Her redirection of my attention worked, but only because I didn't realize how late it was.
"Holy shit! It's 5?" I asked checking my watch. It was indeed. Where had the time gone?
