Open Your Heart

Chapter 5

The moment the phone rang coincided with when he stepped out of the shower, unfortunately. Racing across his small studio apartment, Char snatched up the device off his bed and answered. "Hello?"

"Hello. Did you have a good night?" He froze at the sound of the voice on the other end. Arackniss.

"Of course. Did you?" Slowly lowering himself to the bed top, he listened to the arachnid hum.

"You kept him out for a decent amount of time. And he was so distracted that he didn't have time to give orders to anyone. I was completely forgotten about." The slow pacing and low tone was casual and relaxed, and yet some how still setting off alarms in him. "So I thank you for that."

"You're very welcome. Glad I could take the heat off your ass for a while." Moving back into the bathroom, he grabbed his towel and started to pat himself dry. "So, what can I help you with, exactly?"

"Do you have set off days? Or are they random?" He thought for a moment and realized they'd never talked about a schedule.

"They're random. Whenever my boss let's me out." Quickly wrapping his hair in another towel, he started getting dressed for the day. Pulling on the button up shirt dress, he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder. "Is that a problem?" Arackniss hummed.

"A bit, but I think we can work with it."

"I'll simply text you when I'm off." Making sure the dress fell off his shoulders as it should, he tied the waist to accentuate his figure.

"No, don't bother. If you have an off day, simply tell him and go out if he wants. I'll know about it then. I also have a few days coming up that I want you to take him out. If your pimp doesn't give you that day off already, I'll pay off the quota he gives you as extra." Char stopped pulling on his knee high boots in shock.

"Out of what you promised me, right?" He waited for a moment as he heard the shuffling of papers.

"No, extra. I'm not going to take what I'm giving you as payment. Consider this... an expense report. You tell me the amount he wants for the day, and I'll pay it. If he asks, say that you had a very... needy client." He could definitely do that. After all, it wouldn't be the first time that he'd have a client pay for a night; at least to Ruskov it wouldn't. "By the way, I've already paid you for the week." Char froze.

"What? No you haven't." Arackniss chuckled.

"Yes, I did. It's best you not know how, but check in your linen closet. There's a box inside it that's new. It's in there. Could you be a dear and count it for me? I wanna make sure I didn't get it wrong." Looking around him, suddenly very wary, he moved to the closet in question and opened it. Since he'd been in this closet before his shower, he swore he would have noticed a new box then, but sure enough it was there on the bottom shelf when he looked. While alarms went off in his head about the thought that someone was not only in his apartment, but while he was showering, and he hadn't known, he pulled the box out. Moving to sit on the bed, he opened the article to find bank stacks. All were bound with plain white wrapping and neatly packed into the box with the utmost organization. Putting the phone on speaker, he carefully counted the bills to make sure that everything was there. And to his surprise, it was. "Good, thank you for confirming. I wanted to make sure that nothing had happened along the way. You understand, yes?"

"Of course. Can't be too careful." Was his voice shaking? Probably, but he felt okay with that. He hadn't had the chance to hold so much at one time in this profession before, and simply knowing that he was set for a few months made his insides twist. Looking at the time, he realized that he had a bit of time to run some of this money to the bank, to hide in an account Ruskov knew nothing of, before he had to be back to talk to the mosquito. "I'll be sure to tell you when I'm off, if you're sure to tell me those dates. Was there anything else?" Arackniss thought for a moment.