6.
The words haunted me.
They clung to me like the stale cigar smoke from the booster party, a noxious residue I couldn't scrub away.
Maybe this is how you can raise the money for me.
They formed a toxic, radioactive cloud that hung over me like a sick fog and followed me back to my dorm, into the lecture hall, onto the practice mat.
The bastard had meant it too. Tyler had looked at my mouth, still wet and sticky with his cum, and seen a solution to all his problems. His desperate, cruel suggestion followed me back to my dorm.
I heard it in the quiet of the university library, the words whispering over the rustle of turning pages.
I heard it on the practice mat, the rhythmic slap of my sneakers against the foam echoing the phrase.
I tried to dismiss it, to bury it under a mountain of flashcards and tumbling passes, but it was no use. The seed had been planted.
And the pressure kept mounting. The universe seemed to be conspiring to prove Tyler right.
My beat-up Honda Civic started making a high-pitched, grinding noise every time I turned the wheel.
I took it to a cheap mechanic off campus who looked at it for five minutes and told me the power steering pump was shot.
"Eight hundred bucks, minimum," he'd said with a greasy shrug, as if he were talking about the price of a coffee.
Eight hundred dollars. I almost laughed in his face. It might as well have been a million.
Then, the textbook for my political science seminar—the one I absolutely needed to pass the midterm—wasn't available at the library.
The campus bookstore wanted $180 for a new copy.
I stood at the register, my debit card in my hand, doing the frantic mental math.
This book, or groceries for the next two weeks.
I bought the book. That night, for dinner, I ate a stale granola bar from the bottom of my gym bag.
The final straw came on a Tuesday night.
I was huddled on the sofa with Jessica, a single thin blanket pulled over our laps, trying to study.
The apartment was freezing because we'd turned the heat off to save money.
Jessica was staring at her laptop, her face pale in the screen's glow.
She let out a small, defeated sigh and pushed the computer toward me.
It was her credit card statement. The balance was a staggering $7,432. The minimum payment due was $250.
"They're going to raise my interest rate to twenty-nine percent if I miss this payment," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I'll never pay it off. I'll be in debt for the rest of my life."
"Jess, I..." I started, but there was nothing I could say. I didn't have two hundred and fifty dollars. I didn't have fifty.
She closed the laptop, plunging us back into the gloom.
"I keep thinking about what Maria said." Jessica’s voice was barely audible. "At the park. About that website."
My heart gave a painful thud. I had been thinking about it too. Every fucking night.
"Don't," I said, a weak protest.
"Why not?" she challenged, her voice gaining a sharp, desperate edge. "Why the hell not, Sloane? What are we protecting? Our pride? My pride isn't going to keep the debt collectors from calling my parents. Your pride isn't going to fix your car."
She stood up and grabbed the laptop again, walking back to the sofa. She opened it, the screen illuminating her determined, terrified face.
"Let's just look," she said. "We don't have to do anything. Let's just ... do some research."
It was the "research" that got me. It felt academic. It felt controlled.
We huddled together on the floor, the laptop between us, sharing a cheap bottle of two-buck chuck we'd bought with couch-cushion change. We typed the name into the search bar: SeekingArrangement.
The website was slick, professional, designed to look like a high-end dating service. But we weren't fooled. We knew what it was. We spent the next hour clicking through profiles, our initial revulsion slowly giving way to a dark, magnetic fascination.
The girls were all smiling, all beautiful, all our age.
They posed on yachts we would never board, in front of cars we would never drive, holding shopping bags from stores we couldn't afford to walk past. And the men were older, silver-haired, their profiles listing their net worth in the millions, their interests as "mentoring" and "providing. "
"It's a fucking catalogue," Jessica breathed, scrolling through the faces.
"We could be in that catalogue," I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
Jessica looked at me, her eyes wide. "Are you serious?"
"I don't know," I admitted, my heart racing. I took a long swallow of the cheap, acidic wine. It burned my throat. "But look at them, Jess. They look happy. They don't look like they’re stressing about their electric bill."
The wine was making me bold.
"It's not really cheating if it's for money," Jessica rationalized, voicing the exact thought that was swirling inside my own head. "It's just a job, really. We can set boundaries. We can say 'dinner dates only.' We don't have to do anything we don't want to do."
We were building a case. Creating a narrative that would allow us to do this without feeling like whores.
"Let's do it," I said. "Let's just make one profile. An anonymous one. Just to see what happens."
We decided to do it together, as a pact.
It felt safer that way. We created a new, anonymous email address—[email protected].
We chose a fake name: Chloe. It sounded sophisticated.
We wrote a generic, classy profile, stealing phrases we'd seen on other girls' pages: Art history major with a passion for museums and new experiences.
Seeking a mature, intelligent mentor to share conversation and laughter with.
It was all bullshit, but it sounded good.
Then came the picture. We scrolled through my phone, looking for something that was pretty but untraceable.
We found a selfie from last summer at the beach.
My hair was long and sun-bleached, I had a good tan, and I was smiling.
I cropped it tight, just my face, nothing that could be reverse-image-searched back to the university cheer squad roster.
We uploaded the photo. The profile was complete.
My finger hovered over the final button. "Create Profile."
"Do it," Jessica whispered, her breath hot on my cheek.
I closed my eyes and clicked.
The screen refreshed. "Welcome, Chloe!" the bright, cheerful text read.
I felt a dizzying wave of nausea and exhilaration wash over me. It felt like jumping off a cliff in the dark. We had crossed a line. We were officially on the market.
We sat there, staring at the screen, waiting. For thirty seconds, nothing happened.
Then, a small notification bubble appeared at the top of the screen.
You have 1 new message.
"Oh my god," Jessica breathed, grabbing my arm. "Someone already messaged you."
My heart hammered against my ribs. I clicked on the small envelope icon. The message was from a user named "BigSpender69." His profile picture was a blurry shot of a gold Rolex on a hairy wrist.
Hey sexy. How much for an hour?
The crude, direct nature of it was like a slap in the face. The carefully constructed illusion of "mentorship" and "companionship" shattered instantly. This was what the market was really about. The market was a meat market.
"Delete it," I snapped, my cheeks burning with shame.
Jessica deleted it. But then another notification popped up. And another.
Within five minutes, Chloe's inbox was a digital garbage fire. We were flooded with dick pics, one-line propositions, and creepy messages from men who clearly hadn't even read the profile.
You look tight.
Are you into older men? I'm 62 and generous.
Let me spoil you baby.
We spent the next hour laughing at the sheer, pathetic sleaze of it all. It was a coping mechanism. If we could treat it like a joke, it didn't feel as real, as degrading. We were just two girls on a Tuesday night, drunk on cheap wine, reading insults from strangers on the internet.
But then, a message came through that was different.
The profile name was "MarkP_Exec." The picture was a professional headshot.
He was in his mid-forties, handsome in a bland, corporate way, with neatly combed hair and what looked like kind eyes.
A wedding ring tan line was clearly visible on his left hand.
His profile said he was a "senior VP of logistics" looking for a "discreet, intelligent companion for occasional dinners and conversation. "
His message wasn't crude. It was polite. Articulate.
Hello Chloe. You have a beautiful, genuine smile. I travel to your area for work once a week, and I often find myself eating alone. I'd love to buy you a coffee and see if we have a connection. No expectations.
"No expectations," Jessica scoffed, reading over my shoulder. "That means he has all the expectations."
"He seems normal, though," I argued, my heart starting to race. Desperation was starting to override the cynicism. "He looks ... safe. It's just coffee. In a public place. What's the harm in just talking to him?"
"He's married, Sloane," Jessica pointed out.
"They're all married, Jess," I countered. "That's the point. They want something their wives don't give them."
We exchanged a few more messages with Mark. He was charming. He asked what I was studying. He complimented my (fake) interest in art history. He told me he liked my profile because I seemed "classy." He said he'd be in town tomorrow afternoon and could meet around three.
Then he added a line that made my skin prickle.
By the way, I've always had a thing for a girl in a simple sundress. So much more refreshing than all the tight, black cocktail dresses you see these days.
It was a test. A subtle command disguised as a preference. He was already trying to dress me.
"He's a creep," Jessica said flatly. "He's telling you what to wear on the first date."