How To Love Him

Chapter One

It was a typical Friday afternoon and as every single one of my closest friends were at home enjoying their summer off of college, here I was sitting at work. Wasting my life away behind the old Mahogany desk in the club. I worked full time at a hostess lounge. Which is basically a polite way to refer to a 'rub and tug' or massage parlour. Mind you, I wasn't a hostess, I was a receptionist.

Not that I wasn't pretty enough to be one of the hostesses.

In fact, I was asked on a daily basis why I wasn't. But it was just the fact that I had high morals and giving massages with happy endings definitely surpassed my own personal comfort level. Don't get me wrong, I had nothing against any of the girls who did work as hostesses, in fact Cassandra was my best friend and she and I met in the club.

It's just not for everyone.

Anyways, I figured I had another hour of work left before my weekend off and I might as well be productive. I clicked on the google chrome icon hoping to book in a few more appointments before work finished for the day. As the browser slowly loaded, I pulled my new iPhone out of my purse and started shifting through piles of emails. Most were sent to my already overflowing trash folder, some sent to my junk folder and very few were deserving of any reply whatsoever. I pushed my phone aside after I had finished up the small amount of effort I put into replying to club emails and quickly typed my password into Appointment Plus. I booked most of the girls straight through the weekend knowing well enough that I'd hear them bitching about that on Monday morning.

I decided I might as well sneak out of there before any of the girls were notified of the immediate shift change via their phones. Just as I was exiting the secured building premises, ID card in hand, I received a call from a number I was unfamiliar with. Shrugging my shoulders I figured I might as well answer anyways.

Let's just say curiosity got the best of me and I was never one to follow the old adage, 'curiosity killed the cat'.

Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.

"Hello, Stephanie speaking, how may I help you?" I spoke into the receiver, clearly still in work mode.

"Hey Steph, it's Abby from the club."

"Oh hey Abby, what's up?" I asked plagued with curiosity. Abby was one of the better hostesses. She was never late for shift, stuck around after hours to help clean up, and usually wasn't in on any drama flowing through the club. Heck, from what I heard she was even still a virgin. Though because of her good girl image, her and I never spoke unless it had to do with work, and even then it was an email not a phone call.

"Listen," she started in a quiet girly tone, "I just got the schedule notification via email on my Blackberry. It says here that shifts have been changed due to clients booking certain hostesses excessively and that it is an exclusive opportunity to gain not only more work experience, but also higher pay come Monday."

"That is correct." I replied, might as well keep it short and sweet I thought as I handed my ID over to security.

"Okay, well I mean that's great and all but it shows here, via the Appointment Plus web link, that I'm on the schedule for a double on Sunday and an afternoon shift come Monday." Abby replied quietly.

"Again you are correct Abigail. I assume you have an ulterior motive as it pertains to this schedule thing so why don't you just cut to the chase and tell me what it is?" I finally asked, throughly annoyed at this point.

"Well I told you this past Tuesday that I had to go to Kieran's sister's wedding on Monday. So I can only work my Sunday morning shift."

"Is that so?" I ground out, my jaw clenched in anger.