“Stuff. Now get your little butt up before I go get a pitcher of ice water and throw it on you,” she said, and smacked me on the ass.
I sat up with a huff and narrowed my eyes at her before I got right in her face. “I really can’t stand you, Polly. You know that?”
Once I’d showered—pleasuring myself twice with the help of my nifty little Crawford bullet—shaved, and, yes, brushed my teeth, I went back out into the bedroom, where Polly had already made the bed and evidently picked out my clothes for the day. I dressed and threw my hair up into a messy bun before I made my way downstairs.
“Polly?” I called, having no clue where she would be.
“In here!” she yelled from the kitchen.
When I entered, I found she already had coffee made and had poured me a cup. “Wow, you almost look human.”
“You may have just saved yourself from getting your butt kicked,” I countered, because the best part of waking up really was Folgers in your cup. However, I highly doubted the rich aroma I smelled was Folgers. Noah would’ve had nothing but the best gourmet coffee known to man in his house.
I took a seat across from her at the kitchen island and started shoveling sugar into my coffee. “So what’s so important that you had to disturb my beauty sleep?”
“We’ll get to that. First of all, I want to know if you tried the deep-throat thing,” she asked, ready to dish.
“Yep. And I do believe you’d make one hell of a Yoda, and not just because you’re vertically challenged.”
“A quick learner you were, young Skywalker. Or should I say, young Streetwalker?” she said in her best Yoda impersonation. We both laughed, but then Polly abruptly stopped and cleared her throat. “Um, sorry,” she said with a ping of guilt on her face.
“For what?” I asked, confused.
“Oh, um, nothing.” She took a sip of her coffee.
“Uh-uh. No way. You spill. Now.” I pointed a finger at her.
Polly set her cup down and heaved a great sigh. “Oh, God. He’s going to kill me. I just know it,” she said as she nervously wrung her hands.
“Who? Noah?” I knew that was whom she was talking about. “For what, Polly?”
She scrunched her face up like she was about to say something she didn’t really want to say. Then she covered her face with her hands and peeped out at me between her fingers. “I know, Lanie. I know everything.”
“What’s everything, munchkin? You’re not giving me anything to go on here,” I said with a roll of my hand, hoping to encourage her to keep the deets coming.
“I know about the contract that you and Noah have. I know that he paid two million dollars for you to come here to live with him for the next two years. I know that you two aren’t a legitimate couple. I know about the sex. Oh, God, Lanie, I know about everything, and I really wish I didn’t because it’s just too much, too overwhelming for someone like me to handle,” she blurted out in one long strand of frantic words.
My hands were shaking so badly I had to set down the coffee mug I was holding, for fear that I might drop it, or throw it across the room at a wall, or whatever. “He told you?” My voice was relatively calm, which surprised the heck out of me.
“No, no, no, no, nooooo. Please, Lanie, it’s not his fault,” she pleaded desperately, like she was trying to fix everything. “See, I do all his household accounting, and I saw the money transfer and confronted him about it. I put two and two together and ascertained that the money was transferred around the same time you showed up. And then, well, you know how I am already. I started to do some digging. But, to be fair, if you had just told me the truth when we first met, I wouldn’t have had to. I mean, you were talking about Elvis, Tupac, MJ, drag queens … And Noah wasn’t any help, either. When I asked him about the money, he said you used to be a man and it was for your sex change operation, and—”
“Ho, ho, hoooo!” I belted out, stopping her. “Wait, what did you just say?”
Polly took a deep breath. “Which part? Or do you want me to start all over again?”
“God, no. I don’t think my brain could take that a second time.” I pinched the bridge of my nose because I had a massive headache threatening to break loose courtesy of all the yammering and revelations that were being thrown at me. “Polly? Did you say Noah told you I used to be a man and had a sex change?”
“Yeah, but he also said he was joking,” she said with a shrug and then her eyes got wide as saucers. “He was joking, right? You didn’t really have a schlong, did you?”
“Yes!” I screeched.
“Yes, you had a schlong?” she asked with an expression of shock—and, possibly, even a wee bit of curiosity—on her face.
“No, Polly. Yes, he was joking,” I clarified. Noah Crawford had it coming big-time.
Vengeance would be mine.
“Good. I mean that’s … good,” she said with a sigh of relief. And then she propped her elbow up on the table with her chin in her hand. “Lanie, honey, why did you do it? Why did you sell yourself for sex?”
“It’s personal, Polly. And I don’t want you to go snooping around to find out. If you do, I swear I’ll kick your scrawny little ass,” I warned. She crossed her heart in a silent promise not to. “Besides, Noah doesn’t even know.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure he hasn’t pressed the issue with you, either, especially since that would mean he’d then have to tell you about Julie. The cow,” she murmured.
“Wait, that’s the second time you’ve said her name. What’s the deal with this chick? Is she an ex-girlfriend or something?” If anyone was going to spill the beans, it would be Polly. She had probably told me more than she was supposed to in the first place.
“I swear if he ever finds out about this, he’s going to fire me for real, and probably Mason, too. You know, the whole guilt-by-association thing. And then we’ll be homeless with nowhere to go, no money to shop with—”
“Tragic,” I muttered sarcastically.
“I know, right?” she said as if it really was. “Okay, look; I’ll tell you, but only after you tell me what the real deal is between you and Noah.”
I thought about the dream, but that was all it had been. Right? Noah could never feel that way about me, no matter how good I was at deep-throating his colossal cock. “The real deal is that it’s a business transaction, Polly. Nothing more,” I said matter-of-factly.