Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
Jasmine
W e stayed only an hour. It didn’t take long, or much it seemed, to tire Eric’s parents out. They were far more lucid than I had expected them to be. Though it was odd interacting with them like we had met each other before, they didn’t seem to realize that I was a new person introduced in their lives, just as Eric had said.
They were sweet people. I had braced myself for any number of unfavorable outcomes, from his parents having an outburst to them potentially asking questions I had no idea how to answer, to them not liking me and upsetting Eric because of my presence there.
None of those things happened.
As we rode back to the hotel in silence, I wondered how Eric felt about our time with his parents. He hadn’t said a word since we’d left them peacefully napping in their apartment in the care facility, only giving instructions to the driver to take us straight back to the hotel.
It wasn’t particularly late; too soon for a dinner, but it didn’t seem like he wanted to do much of anything at the moment but return to what probably felt like the safety of obscurity within the confines of the hotel’s walls.
Maybe he needed a break, and I think I did, too. We went our separate ways once we got back to our suite, the both of us beelining for a shower. The hot water and the sounds of it trickling down and hitting the tiled bathroom floor proved calming, even if my curiosity about this entire situation hadn’t waned. The only problem was, would Eric be up to talking about it? Allowing me more insight to the personal life that he had just let me witness? In all honesty, I wished that I had gotten to see more of it. There was so much to Eric’s story that I felt had yet to be discovered.
When I came out of the shower into our main room, Eric was already seated on the bed. He had his towel around his shoulders and wore nothing else but his boxers. I had my own oversized t-shirt on, bra-less. For people who had been naked and intimate with each other already, this felt more vulnerable.
Before I could figure out what question I needed, or wanted, to ask first, Eric spoke.
“You were really good with my parents today,” he said softly, meeting my gaze, his own grateful. “I didn’t expect them to be so coherent and social. That doesn’t always happen.”
I eyed him a moment and, deciding it was probably okay, sat beside him on the bed.
“Were they a little more back to normal today?” I asked.
Eric let out a small laugh that had a sad tinge to it. “Somewhat, though my father was never so openly emotional or so light-hearted when I was growing up. I get my serious personality from him, and Mother was always more proper. Today, they were very different from how they used to be, which was nice to see. But in terms of them being better, it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen them happy like that, or able to recall small things about the past without it causing them distress.”
He glanced over to me. “I know that it likely won’t last. Things like dementia don’t have a reversal, only treatment that gets progressively more and more specialized and focused. But today it felt like I had parents again for the first time in a long time. So, I thank you for that.”
I swallowed, not expecting such an answer, and had no idea how I was supposed to respond to something like that. As if my being there made some sort of monumental difference. I was only a stranger, really, to them. Less of a stranger to Eric, but certainly not the figure of his wife that I pretended to play today for his father and mother.
“I don’t think it was all me,” I said, placing my hands in my lap. “I think they were really happy to see you, and your presence probably helped boost their spirits. I just needed to be there so they didn’t ask too many questions and get upset, right? So, it worked.”
“Hmm.”
Then, he did something unexpected for a man so proper and in control of his actions. He flopped inelegantly onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “This feels strange,” he murmured. “To have expected the worst and to now be so confused by the fact that it actually turned out alright.”
“Parental baggage is strange,” I conceded. “I don’t think it’s supposed to make sense.”
“Fair.” He hesitated, before turning his head toward me and continuing. “You understand because of your own parents, don’t you?” he guessed, his expression astute. “You said you lost them your freshman year in college. You haven’t said explicitly how you lost them, but I feel like it’s the reason you can relate to my situation with my parents, but on a different level?”
Other than that one time, the morning after our first sleep over, I’d never mentioned my parents again, and he hadn’t asked specifics. I was honestly shocked that he remembered, and even more surprised he was bringing up something so personal now. Then again, we’d just been through something very emotional together, a bonding of sorts I never would have anticipated.
Normally I’d tell a client this was strictly a no-fly zone when it came to our arrangement, but it seemed unfair to withhold my own past when he’d shared so much about his parents. Besides, some things couldn’t be put back behind walls once there weren’t any more walls to speak of. And the ones between us were slowly, inevitably, crumbling the more time we spent together, and I was helpless to refuse this man anything, I realized.
“Yes…I dropped out of school because my parents died. They were killed in a car crash my first year of college. A hit and run, and they’ve never found the person responsible,” I said, feeling that anger and frustration I’d suppressed over the years swirl to the surface. That someone had basically gotten away with my parents’ murder, without facing any consequences. “I had a full ride scholarship, and I’d barely started my first semester when I received a call from one of my dad’s co-workers that they were in the hospital.”
Eric moved so he laid on his side, facing me, his expression compassionate. “Were they in the hospital long?”
I shook my head, my chest growing tight as I recalled all the horrifying details I’d been faced with. “My mother was in a coma for about a day. My father died about two hours after arriving at the hospital from internal injuries. I didn’t…I didn’t get to say goodbye to them. They were already dead by the time I was able to get back home.”
“I’m very sorry,” he said in a soft, understanding tone. “So you lost your parents. But mine aren’t dead.”
“But they’re not the same as they were,” I countered. I resituated myself on the bed, moving up onto the mattress and sitting cross legged in front of him. “I know what it’s like to lose parents, but I know what it’s like to lose them swiftly, in an instant. I don’t know what it’s like to watch them diminish in front of me, not knowing what I might come back to when I see them again, but I can imagine that’s an equally painful way to lose a parent.”
He nodded, and a beat of silence followed before he asked, “So, because your parents died, that’s how you started doing this?”
This , being an escort. “It’s how I started camming,” I corrected, giving him a faint smile. “I was so lost after they died, so overcome with grief and anger that whoever slammed into the side of their car and drove them off the road and into a ravine was never found or held accountable. I didn’t know what to do after they were gone. Didn’t have the support that I would have had. Emotionally. Financially. Neither of my parents had life insurance policies, and they didn’t have a lot of money in general.”
Swallowing hard as the terrible memories swamped me, I absently reached out, brushing my fingers through Eric’s hair, which was so soft and damp. “My life…it felt like a train wreck and at some point I needed to find a way to support myself. But the places that did hire me quickly realized I was shit at the job because I was so out of sorts and distracted and trying to process my grief over my parents and how they’d died, and they fired me just as fast.”
“Assholes,” he muttered, his lips tight with anger on my behalf.
“It was difficult at the time, but I get it now. They had a business to run and I was more a liability than a productive employee.” I shrugged and continued on. “When I dropped out of college, I only had a few weeks before I had to move out of the dorm and find a new place to live. My parents didn’t own our house. They rented the same place for years and always made payments on time, but the landlord didn’t care that I was now homeless. He’d had a steady stream of income for years, and now he didn’t. It didn’t matter to him that I was going through one of the worst things a teenager could ever experience in their life.”
Another inarticulate, irate sound from Eric, but he said nothing, letting me finish without interrupting.
I exhaled a breath, my fingers now picking at non-existent lint on the comforter between us. “So…I started looking around for a way to make quick money while I crashed on a high school friend’s couch. They’d stayed in the area, hadn’t gone off to college, and lived with four other people in a small apartment. They sold weed and did gaming livestreams. I’m not exactly great at video games, but Tamara made the joke about doing something a little less PG. And down the rabbit hole I went,” I said wryly.
“Did you actually like camming?” Eric asked carefully.
It was as though this was the first time that he seemed to consider that I might not be doing this line of work because it was something that I enjoyed, because now he knew the extent of the negative context to it all. That he cared enough to ask, to even have this discussion when we’d never really ventured into this realm of my life before, felt as though it was changing the dynamic between us once again.
“Did I like it? Not initially,” I replied honestly, giving him even more of a deep dive into my past. “At first, it was just a temporary thing so I could get on my feet and not have to always crash on someone else’s couch,” I said, opening up even more. “It probably didn’t help that I didn’t feel much of anything right after my parents’ deaths. I was completely numb, so I didn’t feel shame. I didn’t feel apprehension. I’d locked down my emotions, because if I tried to feel, I’d have to feel their loss, too. And some days, considering the person that had killed them had gotten off scot-free, it was just too much for me to bear.”
Eric nodded, and now it was him that reached out to touch me, his fingers gently stroking along my leg. Not in a sexual way, but warm and comforting. “Have you gotten to the point where you’ve accepted what’s happened to your parents?”
I hesitated before responding but didn’t look away from him.
When it came to clients, I’d learned it was best to tell them what they wanted to hear. The answer that would make them feel good in the moment because my problems weren’t really theirs to worry about or be burdened with. But Eric was no longer a typical client, and this was not a typical situation. I had never been with a person who had brought me this far into their personal life, let me see behind the layers of bravado that were often put up by the kind of wealthy, pretentious men that bought my time.
He deserved more than just what Escort Jasmine would say to ease that crease that had settled into his brow, and that’s what allowed me to be even more open and honest with him. “No, not completely,” I said. “The anger and grief of losing them, and how I lost them, comes and goes. It’s rarely ever there all the time like it used to be, and mostly it’s just a little thing in the back of my mind. There are still good days, and bad days, but I think at some point the good starts to outweigh the bad. It’s not always easy, that’s for sure. The good thing for you is even if your parents aren’t who they used to be, you still have time to make moments with them, even if they aren’t the moments that you would have expected to have, you know?”
“Yes…and thank you for the reminder to cherish the time I do still have left with them,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “I forget to appreciate days like today because of my own guilt.”
I smiled at him. “You’re welcome.”
I laid down beside Eric on the bed and dared to scoot a little closer to him. I tucked myself into his side, cuddling against him, and when he anchored an arm around me and pulled me closer, I sighed contentedly. I didn’t push for anything more, and neither did he, even with the touch of skin against bare skin with how little we were wearing.
All I wanted in that moment, all I needed, was to feel like I mattered to someone—something that had been lacking in my life for so long. And with the way Eric stroked his hand along my back and just held me without any expectations, I felt cared for, protected, secure.
There didn’t need to be anything more.
“You wanna order in again instead of going out to eat?” I asked after a while had passed, lifting my head to look into his beautiful blue eyes. “We could carb load and get really fat on garlic bread and pasta and soda. It’s early still, but it’s been a long day, you know?”
Eric considered my suggestion for a moment, an indulgent grin gradually forming on his lips. “Yeah. I would like that.”