Head off to Walmart and meet Chloe in person two towns away

You climb into your car, the sedan that screams "family man," the one with the faint stain of juice on the passenger seat from when Kyler was little. You take the scenic route, driving two towns over like a criminal constructing an alibi. You don't want to risk being seen. You pull into the sprawling Walmart parking lot, a sea of asphalt and apathy under the fading orange light of dusk. You circle for a few minutes, a shark with a midlife crisis, before finding a spot near the garden center, facing away from the main entrance.

You watch the entrance in your rearview mirror. Girls come and go, moms with carts, teenagers laughing. Then, you see her. She's smaller in person, fragile almost, with that waterfall of black hair spilling over a thin jacket with a band logo you don't recognize. She's not looking around expectantly. She's leaning against the brick wall, scrolling on her phone, looking bored and utterly unimpressed with the world. She doesn't look like a girl waiting for a sugar daddy. She looks like a girl waiting for a ride after a friend flaked on her. The casualness is part of the act, and it's a good one.

You text her. "Blue sedan. Garden center side."

A minute later, she pushes off the wall, shoves her phone in her pocket, and walks with a sauntering, deliberate gait toward your car. She doesn't hurry. She opens the passenger door and slides in, bringing a cloud of cheap perfume and something else, the sharp, electric scent of youthful rebellion.

She tosses her small purse on the floor and turns to look at you. Her eyes are a dark, bottomless brown, and the silver stud in her nose catches the fading light. "So," she says. Her voice is lower than you expected, a little raspy. "You're David."

"I'm David," you confirm, putting the car in drive and pulling out of the lot without another word.

She's quiet as you drive, just looking out the window, watching the familiar suburban streets blur into highways, then into the tree-lined roads of the next town over.

The age difference between you two get you going. You're over forty as she's 18 years old. The power dynamic of money and experience in your favor over youth and need. And that thought, that raw, transactional power, sends a jolt straight to your groin.

You pull up to a nondescript chain hotel, the kind with clean sheets and a breakfast buffet of scrambled eggs and regret. You get a room with cash, a single crisp Benjamin that the night clerk doesn't even look twice at.

The room is a void of beige and brown. The faint, antiseptic smell of industrial cleaner. You close the door, the latch clicking shut with a finality that makes your throat tight. You turn around. Chloe is already shrugging off her jacket, revealing a tight black tank top underneath. Her body is lean and wiry, all sharp angles and pale skin. She doesn't look nervous. She looks like she's about to take an exam.

https://www.patreon.com/JasonMaster