The couple missed them occasionally, but were mostly glad their sons had moved away for college. After a long and delicate discussion, wife Mary and husband Pete reached an agreement. When she travelled to New York for business two or three times a month, she could do whatever she wanted with whoever she wanted, and Pete was free to do as he pleased in southern California. They still loved each other, but their twenty years of monogamy had gone stale.

Mary said, “Pete, I don’t even care if you pick up hookers. Just don’t divorce me, don’t catch a disease, and don’t let our friends or family find out.”

He agreed to give his wife the same freedom. “Have fun and do what you want. Just keep using birth control and be careful with strangers.”

“I will. See you in four days.” She kissed his cheek before she left for the airport.

They were quite well off and the idea of paying for sex intrigued him. He’d never been with a prostitute and wondered what it would be like. He looked at a call girl website an acquaintance mentioned once, and was happy to see most of the ladies were only college-aged or a little older. His penis slowly grew as he looked at the young beauties on the ‘escort’ website. They all wore high heels, swimsuits, and masks to conceal their faces. He was shocked to recognize one of them. One who was only fifteen, instead eighteen. He immediately booked an appointment and paid the fee of two thousand dollars up front.

Sadie checked her makeup in the bathroom mirror. She was so nervous her left hand shook slightly, unless she made an effort to stop it. She’d get her driver’s license in a few months. There was no way her single mom could afford to help, and cars were very expensive. She wanted to save up for college, too.

She sat on the hotel bed and impatiently waited for her first client as a whore, the first man she would fuck for money. Guilt and anxiety nagged at her until there was a knock at the door.

“You’ve got a smudge of lipstick on your chin, Sadie. Right there.”

The voice didn’t belong in a hotel room. It belonged in a living room with a floral sofa and a collection of vintage jazz records. Sadie froze, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She turned slowly, the cheap lace of her lingerie feeling suddenly like a shroud. Standing by the door, looking confused and slightly breathless, was her Uncle Pete, her mom’s brother.

She didn’t scream; she bolted. She lunged for the door, her heels clicking frantically on the hardwood, desperate to vanish into the anonymity of the hallway. But Pete was faster, his hand catching her shoulder, not with violence, but with a firm, grounding pressure that stopped her momentum.

“Sit. Please,” he said, his voice dropping into a register of forced calm. He guided her to the edge of the bed, the silence between them heavy with the scent of hotel soap and mutual catastrophe. “God, Sadie! What in the world are you doing here?”