Milked

Meghranush | cilantro and deceit.

Richard had asked when he was going to see me again, and I'd told him I didn't have any homework due until Friday, so midweek would work best. He'd given me the address to his home, asking me to come over, saying he was planning to cook a nice dinner for his family, who would love to meet me.

After his first text, I was a little put off by him inviting me over to his house, but when he mentioned his family would be there, I knew I had just been being paranoid. Richard didn't seem to be the kind of guy that Skylar was trying to convince me he was: an old lecher (that's what she had called him, and I'd had to look up the definition) expecting me to give him sexual favors in exchange for paying for my school and rent and taking me to Fashion Square.

When I had told Skylar she was probably just dating a lecher, too, she told me I was "way off base." "I can read people way better than you can," she'd told me, "And Phil seems really cool. I'm sure he wants sex. But he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would ever want me to owe him sex. He seems like the kind of guy who wants me to want it first." She'd only gone out with him three times, and still she claimed she could read him. Yeah, right.

I'd told her that she hadn't met or even seen Richard, so how could she know. And she would never know. I wasn't going to introduce them. Skylar was most definitely the kind of girl that Richard would look down on.

Then she'd told me that all she needed to know was that he was a lawyer for her to make the assumptions she had. "Lawyers don't give you anything for free."

I wasn't going to listen to her, though. All that Richard being a lawyer meant was that he was passionate about justice and that he had a good job that would support him and his family for a lifetime.

On Wednesday evening, I followed the directions he had given me to a gated community in Fountain Hills. Well, I had thought it was a gated community, until I realized only one very long driveway led to one very large house, a house I felt sure must be considered a mansion...or was it? What qualified as being a mansion? The question made me feel momentarily stupid, because I aspired to work on houses, preferably very nice houses; shouldn't I know this? Pulling into his roundabout driveway, which enclosed a shimmering fountain, I sat in awe. Then I was ashamed, feeling like my car—a 2008 Honda Civic—had no place here.

At least I didn't feel out of place. Wearing a GUESS dress I'd gotten at a resale shop with some Gucci heels my ex best friend's mother had given to me (insisting they weren't ugly when she bought them but that they had somehow changed during their brief stint in her closet), I looked like a model. I'd gone to a dry bar to get my hair styled, and my makeup looked like it usually did: perfect. I'd spent many years watching online tutorials to get it to that point, so I saw no shame in boasting about it, and the girl blowing my hair agreed.

Walking confidently, I made my way to the front door and rang the bell. Half-expecting a butler to answer, I was surprised when a young man, maybe a few years older than me, opened the door, and that he was a picture of refinement. His sandy-colored hair was parted on the side, he had matching and neatly trimmed stubble on his chin and mustache, and he wore a salmon-colored polo and white dress pants. With teeth so white they were practically sparkling, he said, "You must be Meghranush. I'm Scott." He held out his hand for me.

I took it, politely smiling and letting him squeeze it once. "Nice to meet you."

"If it isn't the sweetest little honeysuckle!" I heard from behind him, and Richard came to greet me. He came in for a hug, saying, "My dear!" and I could smell alcohol on his breath. I wasn't sure which kind of alcohol it was, because I didn't really drink alcohol, but I did wonder how much he'd had for it to smell as strong as my perfume. "Follow me to the kitchen so you can meet my other sons."