It had been cool at first; sexy, naughty and cool - this idea that she would be naked for the whole week - she had laughed and giggled and blushed and demurred, and they had play argued and had great sex and he had told her it was non-negotiable and she had attacked him, giggling, and he had fought her, so much stronger than her, until, breathless, she had begged him to free her - which he did at once.
She had pretended to be in a huff, then, gone into the bathroom and stayed for an hour.
But that evening, in the lovely restaurant where they had had so many flirty and seductive dinner conversations, she had said;
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’ll do it. Be naked. For you.”
He hadn’t reacted, and when she made a fuss, he said;
“Oh - that was settled when I told you.”
She considered getting angry again, but somehow there seemed no point. Instead she pouted and said;
“So, when do we start? Here? Now?”
It was meant as a tease - a challenge, but, as usual, she lost;
“Of course.”
She tried to laugh this off, but there was a directness in his voice she knew meant business.
“Off you go to the ladies, and when you come back, you’ll give me your panties and your brassiere. That’ll be the start.”
She realised he was trying to shock her, and decided to be calm; stood up without a word and did as he had said, dropping the scraps of lace onto the table in plain view on her return - acting carefree for all she was intensely aware of the eyes of many diners on the way her breasts moved in the slinky dress, the obviousness of her erect nipples.
He had her strip in the lift, until she wore nothing but her choker, stockings and heels. She had to force herself not to run, shamed, through the hallway to the apartment door, but as soon as he entered she leapt onto him and again the sex was unbridled and ecstatic. How could it just keep getting better?
But now it was day five and his business partner - the investor, a much older man - was having dinner in the apartment.
She had heard her lover inform him that she would be naked, that she might hide in her room or be brazen - it was her choice.
And so here she was, hiding. Wanting desperately to go to the closet, pick out some loose jeans, a chunky, heavy sweater - sexless, defensive clothes, and simply leave. Walk out.
Knowing she won’t do it. Strangely conscious of a sort of fear of wearing clothes that has crept up on her over so few days. Real, neverthless. She is naked. She should be naked. It feels right.
In a minute, or maybe a few minutes, though, she knows that she won’t be able to bear it any longer - that she is going to go out and sit down to dinner in nothing but her stockings and her heels, that she is going to walk elegantly, not run, that he - the partner, a man she has never liked, will have time to look at her breasts, her sex, that she will do her best not to cower, but will instead do as she has learned to do - to hold herself so that she looks good, naked - keep her shoulders back, her thighs slightly parted, her chin up.
That she will sit down to dinner and let him ogle her breasts. That when they move to the sofa afterwards, she will not clamp her thighs together. That when she is asked to fix drinks, she will walk like a catwalk model, feet on an imaginary line, hips switching - that she will lean to hand him his drink, display her breasts for him, just as she does for Robert - will wait, posing, until he lets her move away.
And it wasn’t cool at all, now, or naughty. Because somehow, without anything having been said, she knows that Robert will offer her, sexually, to the older man. And she will comply, without a fuss - do her best to please. She doesn’t know how she knows this, but she does - it’s a certainty. She doesn’t like his soft fatness, his wet lips, his moist hands, but she is going to let herself be whored to him, will ‘perform’.
And she doesn’t know why.
Except that she is going to do it. Right now; and do it, if she can, with style.
She has to blink back a tear and suppress a shudder, but she makes herself smile.
So, she had finally found out what she was going to do with her life.
She would be a whore.
