Chapter 59: Fantasy With a Payment Button or Harsh Reality

He didn’t answer.

She moved straight to the next hole.

"Say she’s married. Does she tell you that? Do you ask? Do you care? And the second the husband finds out — walk me through it. He sends a strongly worded email? Or is he rich and powerful and finding one eighteen-year-old college freshman is considerably easier for him than you seem to think." She glanced at the laptop. "Your website keeps her hidden. What keeps you breathing?"

That one sat there a while. She wasn’t finished: "Or let’s think of a scenario where a client gets obsessed with you."

Damon almost laughed. Looked at her. The smile died before he could finish it.

"Don’t."

Wise call, and he knew it. She kept going: "So say she doesn’t want it to be one appointment. Starts texting every night. Wants exclusivity. Gets jealous the second she figures out you’re seeing other women. Starts waiting outside Blackwood or anywhere you saw you before or even learns your real name."

He stared at her and her smile widened by the smallest fraction. "Yeah. Stalking is terrible. You truly can’t imagine."

"You’re fucking unbelievable."

"I know. So, say she takes your pictures." His expression shifted at that. She lifted her own phone an inch, just enough to make the point without saying it. "You were worried about me having one photo ten minutes ago, and you’re about to repeatedly get naked around women whose marriages and careers depend on you staying secret. What stops one of them from recording you? A hidden camera in the room she tells you to come to. A video she never mentioned. Proof she decided she wanted afterward because she got sentimental, or crazy, or horny, or vindictive, or all four stacked on top of each other."

He looked at her phone almost on reflex. That was answer enough.

"Exactly. Now she says you recorded her instead. Says you threatened her. Says you blackmailed her."

"Why the fuck would she say that?"

She pointed at him immediately. "Wrong question. What do you do if she does?"

That quieted him and her expression had gone almost clinical now, though enough of that bright, faintly unhinged energy stayed underneath to make the whole thing worse than a clean interrogation. She wasn’t hunting for the questions.

They were arriving faster than he could field a single one.

"You keep your face off the site to protect yourself. Fine. So what happens when a woman looks at that blank space and decides hiding his face means dangerous instead of discreet? What separates anonymous from shady in her head? What if she thinks it’s a scam — that you’re collecting compromising material on wealthy women for later? What if she thinks the website itself is the trap?"

That last one landed and she saw it. "Yeah. Because you’re asking questions in that form, aren’t you. Personal ones. What she likes. What she wants. What she isn’t getting at home. Maybe relationship details. Maybe contact information. Maybe enough small pieces that somebody who got their hands on your database wouldn’t even need to sleep with these women to destroy them." His jaw tightened. She kept her eyes on him. "Where’s that stored? Who can reach it? Your site gets hacked — then what? Your laptop gets stolen — then what? Some psychotic girl guesses your password because you recycle birthdays like a seventy-year-old grandmother — then what?"

He glared. She only smiled. "Current events are educational." She went straight back to work. "Are you keeping client names? Real ones? Addresses? Numbers? Photos?" His face was already answering half of it without his mouth moving. Her eyebrows climbed. "Jesus, Damon. The police ever take that laptop — then what?"

"What the fuck would the police be taking my laptop for."

"Wrong question again."

He exhaled hard through his nose.

She barely registered it. "So how are they paying you. Card. Transfer. Cash. Crypto. Something creative? Electronic means a record exists somewhere. Cash means — when? Before, after? Do you count it in front of her? Are you walking around Manhattan with a few grand from women you’re secretly sleeping with stuffed in a jacket pocket?" She wrinkled her nose. "Refunds?"

He blinked. "Why the fuck would there be refunds?"

She looked almost offended on the business’s behalf. "Because it’s a business. She pays and changes her mind — then what? Changes it five minutes before? After you’ve already booked something? You change your mind — then what?"

That one landed differently, and she gave him half a second before pressing on.

"Do you get to reject a client after she applies?"

"Obviously."

"Then she gets angry about it — then what? She already paid — then what? She’s beautiful in the pictures and you meet her and there’s nothing there — then what? She’s sixty instead of forty-five? Lied about her age entirely?" A finger up before he could interrupt. "And don’t say I only want mature women like mature automatically means safe, sane, clean, or honest. Do you require STI tests?"

He stared. She stared back. "Well? How recent. Do you get tested. How often. What are you even screening for. She says she’s clean and isn’t — then what. You catch something — then what. You give it to the next woman — then what."

"Okay, Jesus."

"No. We’re doing business."

"You’re enjoying this."

"Immensely. Condoms?"

He gave her a look. She kept going without missing a beat. "Every time? What if she doesn’t want one anymore? She offers ten times your rate to skip it? Says she’s on birth control? Lies about it?"

The silence after that one ran long. Her eyebrow rose slowly.

"Somebody gets pregnant — then what."

He stared. Her smile disappeared completely this time.

"Then what, Damon. Because now it’s not a bad review or somebody finding your website. It’s a child. DNA. Lawyers. A family. Inheritance.A husband who thinks that baby’s his. You thought about that part, right?"

He looked distinctly less comfortable now. She didn’t slow down for it.

"So imagine she wants to keep the baby — then what. She doesn’t — then what. She tells you six months later — then what. She never tells you at all — then what."

She let it sit before pivoting.

"What’s your price."

His brow furrowed. "What?"