Steve Welker hated his job. He had learned quickly that the promise of a good job after college was a myth that fooled the 1.5 million graduates each year. Fortunately he had received his degree in accounting, which gave him far better prospects than the poor bastards graduating with a degree in History or English. Still, it could be better; recruited by a mid-sized auditing firm, and with no other options, he had settled for life as a "floater." After a year at the head office, which gave him enough time to pass his certification exams, they sent him on the road. He bounced from office to office, filling in where extra help was needed and occasionally flying out to meet clients alone.
Their financial logic was sound, if not a little harsh; since he spent 230 days out of the year on the road, they cut his pay significantly. Steve had always thought it was supposed to work the other way around, but was desperate enough for a job that he didn't fight it. Instead of trying to maintain an apartment on his meager salary, he simply slept wherever he could when not on the road: at a friend or family member's place, or in a hotel if he had collected enough chain loyalty points or frequent flyer miles to swing it without too much of his own money.
When the plane touched down in Dallas, he sighed and collected his carry-on from the overhead apartment. Making his way through the crowd towards the baggage collection area, he waited for his small suitcase to come around. Tucking both straps over his shoulder and smoothing out his suit jacket, Steve walked outside and turned. The dusty, humid air hit him like a wall; pulling on a pair of sunglasses, he could already feel a thin layer of sweat forming on his forehead. Stepping away from the crowd jostling for taxis, he moved down the line and nodded to a driver leaning against his hood smoking a cigarette. Tossing his bags into the backseat, he shut the door and felt the car rumble to a start.
Steve surfed the web on his phone while the cab rambled south on 360 towards Arlington. He settled on a La Quinta Inn, figuring that the $49.99/night rate plus tax would fit into the $60/night accommodations budget that he was allotted. Usually, if he got away from the airport and closer to the edges of town, there were plenty of chain motels that would fit into his price range. Giving the cab driver the address, he kept his eyes down and scanned through the emails he had received while on the flight.
"You here on business," the cab driver asked with a glance in the rearview mirror.
"Mmhm," Steve mumbled.
What gave it away
, he wanted to ask.
Flying in to hell's hotbox in a fucking suit?
Dallas, in his experience, was an exceedingly boring place. When anyone thinks of Dallas, the immediate next step is the events surrounding JFK...and when a presidential assassination is what you're known for, all bets are off. One of his first trips on the road had been Dallas, nearly a year ago, and he had spent what little free time he had exploring it with gusto. His second visit to the city had been a little less exciting...the third had bordered on mundane, and he expected the fourth to be no less than agony.
When the cab swung into the hotel parking lot and stopped, Steve pulled out his wallet and handed the cab driver $40.
The front doors to the hotel were closed, he hoped in an effort to keep the inside cool against the stifling heat outside. The second set of doors was propped open by a stack of phone books; Steve suspected that they were broken, the hinges probably worn from years of disrepair. Stepping up the desk, appraised his selection; as expected, the lobby had the smell of cleaning solution; everything seemed clean, if not a little worn. Between the front desk and elevators was a small seating area, comprised of mismatched furniture that had probably been purchased in the 90s, and already used at the time.
Seated on one of the small sofas was a rather thin woman, texting on a pre-paid cell phone and kicking around a small bag at her feet. She glanced up, her lips curling back in a smile that displayed an unfortunate set of crooked teeth. She probably wondered what someone like Steve was doing in such a place; he had stopped asking that question months ago. Her dark hair was lusterless and unkempt, her clothing as new and well-cared for as everything else in sight: a shirt that seemed one size too large, and a pair of cotton and spandex pants that hugged her pockmarked body and had seen better days. She certainly wouldn't win any beauty contests, but it was nothing a few hundred dollars couldn't fix.
Already feeling out of place in a suit, the desk clerk's faded and cigarette-burn covered "uniform" shirt did little to ease his apprehension. Having gone through the check-in process countless times before, he let his mind wander while the clerk booked him into a king-sized room with a desk.
Taking the small card-sized folder she offered him with "507" written on the outside, Steve picked up his bags and walked towards the elevator. He took another look at the woman seated on the sofa, wondered what she was doing, and immediately forgot about her as he rode up to his room and dropped his bags at the foot of the bed.
Changing into a t-shirt and shorts, he flipped open the hotel guide and looked at the list of nearby restaurants. Killing nearly an hour by slowly rereading the guide, and figuring that no one ever went wrong with Applebee's, he retraced his steps back outside and down the street.
After a salad and a beer, he sat and nursed another draft to postpone returning to the hotel. Finally squaring up the bill, he headed back to his room. The walk felt like one he had taken a hundred times in a hundred different cities: the sound of a nearby interstate, the smell of exhaust fumes, and the occasional bit of garbage that blew across the dusty sidewalk in front of his feet.
As he padded down the silent hall, thumbing his keys, the woman from the lobby came into view. She was leaning against the small alcove by the room across from his.
"Hey baby," she said with a snaggle-toothed grin, slurring her words a little.
Shifting from one foot to the other, she hooked her index finger into the collar of her shirt and pulled it aside, exposing a few inches of equally pale skin and the edge of a small tattoo.
"You look like you could use some company."
There it is,
he thought to himself. It was one of the two phrases he had come across too many times to count. "You look like you could use some company" and "Are you looking to party" were virtually interchangeable, both putting forth the same statement: I'll fuck you if you pay me.
He had been with his fair share of escorts, usually one every few months when he was in the mood and couldn't pick someone up at a local bar. But the streetwalking type he had avoided, each reason for doing so as good as the next. He didn't bother to question whether she was at the hotel to actively seek out clientele, or if she just decided that she could use a few extra dollars and saw him as a potential candidate.
With a chuckle, Steve shook his head and turned to go into his room. He heard her step across the hallway, but didn't have time to turn before she pressed into his back. Reaching around, she grabbed at his crotch.
"Come on baby, I'll make you feel real good."
"Yeah, I bet," he said with an uncomfortable smile as her hand fumbled down the inside of his thigh.
Shrugging his shoulder to try and get rid of her, Steve opened his door and walked in. When he turned to shut the door, he found that she had pushed her way over the threshold. Shutting the door, he turned and watched her walk into the room. Staggering away from him, each step more unstable than the last, her hands reached back to bunch up her hair in a poor attempt at seduction. When he had followed her past the end of the bed, she turned and smiled at him.
"My name is Rose," she whispered.
He could smell alcohol on her breath, and lots of it.
Curious as to whether she would ask his name, and already scrambling to come up with a fake one if she did, Steve watched as she reached out and hooked her hands around his neck. The feel of her fingers playing with the back of his hair made him a little uncomfortable. Licking her lips, she looked up at him.
"So what are you interested in, baby? You want me to suck your cock?"
What the hell
, he thought.
She can't want more than a few bucks
. He figured that he would be able to get rid of her with the $10 bill in his wallet, provided he didn't let her see the rest. He also thought that it would be more trouble than it was worth to try and get rid of her now, and assumed that was part of her modus operandi.
Steve grunted a response, and she took that as a yes. Rose pushed him lightly on the chest; feeling the bed hit the back of his legs, Steve sat down.
"I bet you got a huge cock," she whispered, running her hands down his chest and over his thighs.