The Love Hotel

“Oh no!” said Bradley. “You won’t have to leave your job at all. I will just need you to come in once a week. You get two days off a week, correct? Well I just need you to sacrifice one of them for me. I just need you to come and work for me one day of the week.”

“Really?” asked Rochelle. This seemed like an interesting proposal. This would mean that she would have two jobs, and that would mean that she would be earning extra money. She really needed extra money right now. She needed it because she would have to get her own place soon, and it would help a great deal with that.

She wondered, though, would the extra money she would be earning be worth all of the potential trouble she could get into as a result of the secretive nature of this job? Would she be able to handle the stress of a job like this at this stage in her life? She needed money, it was true, but at the same time she needed to keep her head secure. She needed to be able to look life in the eye and tell it that it did not own her. She needed to be able to tell everyone around her that she was doing okay because that would help her to believe it herself.

“That sounds like a really good deal,” said Rochelle. “But I still don’t know. Extra money would be good but still…”

“I will pay you three thousand dollars per month,” said Bradley.

Rochelle felt her jaw drop. “Three thousand? That’s almost as much as I make her! That would…”

“That would allow you to get an apartment right here in Manhattan, yes,” said Bradley.

“But I would only be working for you one day a week,” said Rochelle. “Why would you offer me this much for something that… I don’t know… something that won’t require all that much work.”

“I don’t think you understand,” said Bradley, “your secret will be kept at any cost. That’s what I’m paying you for. I’m paying so that you aren’t tempted to tell anyone what you see in my home, do you understand? That is what I want from you, I want you to be able to come into my home knowing that what I am paying you is worth a lot more than what you could get by spilling the beans. Look, I will add in the contract that you don’t have to continue working for me if you don’t want to. You can stop in the middle of the month and still get the whole month’s pay. That is, unless you tell somebody what you have seen in my home. If you do that, I will sue you, and it will be severe.”

Rochelle was thinking it over really hard. This seemed liked a really good deal. If she felt uncomfortable she could leave and use the contract to ensure that Bradley paid her the entire month’s salary. She would get extra money regardless. What harm could there be in just going there?

“Add a clause in the contract that states that I won’t be harmed,” said Rochelle, “and that if I am harmed after coming to your place I will be owed a large cash settlement. A very large cash settlement.”

Bradley whipped out a piece of paper and said, “That is already done. I don’t think you understand just how seriously I take this. I don’t think you understand just how important this is to me. I will pay you anything it takes. Everything is in here. If you are hurt in any way in my employ, you will be paid five hundred thousand dollars. And even if you have to get a lawyer to prove that you were injured while working for me, I will pay for the attorney fees if it is proved that you did indeed sustain your injuries while you were in my employ. Fair enough?”

“Yes,” said Rochelle. “That makes sense.”

She looked at the contract. “I don’t know if I should sign it now. If I have an attorney look over this can you handle the legal fees? I’m only asking because lawyers are very expensive and I don’t think I’m going to be able to handle a cost like this…”

“Of course!” said Bradley. “Yes, just give him my card and have him call me. Before the meeting, even, I will talk to him personally. In fact, I will give you my personal number, you can call me and have me talk to him before you get anything done. I want you to feel as secure as possible. I want you to feel like everything you are doing is completely safe and I will do absolutely everything it takes to make you feel that way.”

Rochelle felt quite safe now. He seemed very eager to anything it took to make her feel like being in his employ would be in her best interests. What did she have to lose? The contract was airtight. She would just have a lawyer look at it and then everything would be alright. She would be earning three thousand dollars a month, enough to afford her own place in Manhattan. It wouldn’t be an amazing place, but it would be a place of her own and that was something. It was a lot better than living in this hotel at least and feeling like she owed something for staying here.

Rochelle took the contract and put it in her purse. “Alright, I will call you when I take this to a lawyer.”

“Lovely,” said Bradley, giving her another brief, small smile. He seemed very happy that she had taken the contract and Rochelle was glad that she had been able to make him feel that way. He deserved to be happy. He deserved to feel joy. He was a good person, he truly was, and he deserved every little bit of happiness that he got. He deserved it because Rochelle had a feeling that he did not get it a lot of the time. She had a feeling that every bit of happiness that he had ever gotten in his life had been fought hard for, and that meant that she would not be able to take advantage of him. She did not want to. She realized that this was probably one of the reasons that he was the way he was. So that people would not take advantage of him. He had probably formed this personality as a defense mechanism of sorts, a way to make people feel like he was indestructible.

Rochelle had to admit that she was extremely interested in this offer, and she was very interested in him as well. He had a beautiful face, and it was not often that she found a man beautiful. He was beautiful in how he presented himself, but his demure, elegant face was the kind of face that only royalty had, and it really suited his overall look. He had a delicate nose and jaw, he did not look like an uber-masculine person, the kind of man that she had slowly started to get used to after all these years. She liked that he did not feel the need to feel all that masculine all the time. She liked that he was so comfortable with her that he was not willing to do anything that would make him feel like a real man, the way that so many other men tended to do things when they were around beautiful women.

“Now,” he said, spreading his napkin across his lap. “Shall we eat?”

“Oh,” said Rochelle. She had completely forgotten that she was at a restaurant. She had completely forgotten that she was at a place where they were going to order food.