by Amy Brent
Matt kept his promise, and my mother was soon provided with a trust fund that would keep her safe and secure for the rest of her life. She eventually moved out of the mansion and into a more modest (though still luxurious) home, saying that she had felt too lonely in such a big place all by herself. She started filling her time with charity work, putting the money she'd acquired to good use by helping others. It made me proud to know that she had found a greater depth than I'd thought she had.
Matt sold his shares in his father's company, keeping the freedom that he needed in his life. Though there was one part of his life that soon changed, adding a wonderful little obligation that he just couldn't deny. A few weeks after our first wonderful night together, I discovered I was pregnant. He took the news better than I could have hoped for, and while we still maintained the wild, carefree lifestyle that we both loved, we started making a place in our lives for the new addition that was coming to our family. I moved in with Matt soon after, and he had the apartment renovated to make room for a nursery. Prepping for the baby soon dominated the majority of our time, but since I didn't have to work anymore, I was able to devote myself entirely to getting ready to be a mother.
A few months later, I stood in the completed nursery, holding my hands over my growing belly. I looked around the room, studying the crib, the decorations, and the sights that would be our child's first view of the world. Matt stood behind me, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my cheek.
“What are we going to tell our kid?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” I twisted around to smirk at him.
“You mean, about us?”
“Of course.”
“Well,” he said, sighing. He paused for a long moment, talking about it. “If you want to get technical about it, we were only really step-siblings for about six months.”
I laughed and shook my head. “So that's the story?”
“We'll just tell them,” he said, pulling me close again, “that our parents introduced us.”
I laughed, held him tight, and kissed him. That sounded like the perfect answer to me.
Game Changer
Jillian was on the phone with her bank when her office clerk, Kate, knocked on her door and told her that her next patient had arrived.
“Tell him I'm with another patient,” Jillian said. She'd been on hold for almost an hour during her lunch break, and she wasn't about to hang up now. She'd been trying to get a hold of someone at the bank for two weeks, and she was tired of constantly being transferred from one representative to another. To make matters worse, the bank closed an hour before she got off work each day, making it all but impossible for her to find time to go down to the branch and deal with her issues in person.
“I don't think he wants to wait,” Kate said. “He was rather...demanding.”
“Well, he'll just have to deal with it,” Jillian said. “It's called the 'waiting room' for a reason.”
Kate left to tell the patient that there would be a short delay. Jillian remained on hold, silently cursing her bank for making her go through so many hoops. Her financial situation was in dire straights, and she desperately needed to refinance her mortgage and consolidate her credit cards and student loan debt. More than half of her monthly budget these days was payments on debt, and it was more than she could handle. But fixing the problem required getting approval from the right people, and they seemed intent on making her run the gauntlet by being transferred to just about every department in the bank before anyone would give her an answer.
Another ten minutes passed before someone finally picked up on the other end. “Thank you for holding, this is Madeline speaking, how may I help you?”
“Yes,” Jillian said, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “I've been waiting for over an hour. I'm supposed to talk to you about my credit analysis...”
“I'm sorry, for that you're going to have to speak to our credit specialists. That's another department. Let me put you on hold.”
“No, please don't put me on hold again!”
Cheesy music was the only answer she got, along with a recorded message telling her that her call was very important and would be answered in the order it was received.
Jillian hung up the phone, wishing she still used an old fashioned land line so she could slam the receiver down in rage. Angrily jabbing the “end call” button just didn't have the same therapeutic benefit.
Kate stuck her head in the door. “Jillian? Your patient is getting, well, impatient.”
Jillian rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “All right, all right. I'm coming. Take him into Exam Room Two.”
Jillian got up and pulled on her white coat, buttoning it over her ample frame. The coat was a must-have when she was dealing with patients. It was a symbol of status and authority, and when dealing with difficult patients, it helped remind them of the proper dynamics between them. She'd dealt with too many people over the years who didn't think a physical therapist was the same as a “real doctor,” as if the mountain of student loan debt she'd acquired hadn't funded a serious education.
She went into Exam Room Two to find her patient already sitting there with his shirt off. He had a decent physique, though considering the number of athletes Jillian worked with on a regular basis, it was nothing she found particularly impressive. Though from the smug grin on the guy's face, he was clearly expecting more of a reaction from her.
“Hello, Mr. Walker,” Jillian said, reading his name off his chart. “My name is Jillian. Why don't you tell me what's bothering you today?” The chart already had a description of the patient's personal information and symptoms: Thomas Walker, age 39, single, suffering from back pain due to a sports-related injury. Though Jillian always liked to hear the explanations right from the patients' mouths. The way they described their symptoms could sometimes tell her more about their condition than the vague explanation on the chart.
“Well, I had a bit of a crash a couple of weeks ago,” Thomas said, stretching his back and raising his arms over his head to work out some kinks. “I'm into extreme sports. Rock climbing, ice climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking. There's this really rough trail in upstate New York, and it had rained the night before. I wiped out on a patch of mud. Rolled down half the mountain before I caught myself. Totally trashed the bike.” He laughed and shook his head, clearly proud of himself for the disaster he'd gotten into. Or maybe, Jillian thought, he was just proud of having survived it.
“And that's when you threw your back out?” Jillian asked.
“Yup. My regular doctor says it's nothing serious, so he sent me to you.”
Jillian bit the inside of her cheek to keep from scoffing at the way Thomas seemed to dismiss her job as “nothing serious.” She was sure that if she said anything about it, he would say that he hadn't meant anything by it, and imply she was being too sensitive. She'd heard it all before.
“Well, let's take a look,” she said.
She ran him through a basic examination and tested how far he could stretch and bend without pain. Then she started working him through some stretching exercises designed to loosen up his muscles. He started complaining about the pain almost right away.
“You need to work through the pain,” she told him. She pressed her hand against a sore spot on his back while she forced him to slowly straighten out. “Take it slow, and respect the pain, but don't let it control you. Otherwise, your body will start to grow weaker because you're avoiding using it.”
“Well, I definitely want to keep using my body,” he said. “In more ways than one.”
Jillian scoffed and rolled her eyes, then deliberately pushed Thomas into straightening his back so that he got a quick jab of pain in the sore muscles. She hoped that would teach him to focus his attention on the therapy and not on flirting.
“Lay face down on the table,” she told him. He did as he was told, and she worked him through some more stretches, lifting his shoulders off the table and a
rching his back to stretch it out. The stretches were similar to some yoga poses and served the same purpose, helping to strengthen his core muscles and restore the body's natural harmony.
“So, Jillian,” Thomas asked as she worked him through the stretches, “what do you do when you're not manhandling attractive men?”
Jillian frowned and gave him another painful twist. He grunted, but chuckled. “I don't usually discuss my social life with patients,” she said. “I'd like to keep things professional, if you don't mind.”
“Hey, I'm just being friendly. The way I see it, I'm going to be seeing you every month for a while now. We might as well get to know each other.”
She had him sit up and stretch his arms overhead with his fingers interlaced. Then she guided him through stretches from one side to the other, designed to help with balance and mobility. She tried to ignore his question, but the awkward silence that started to drag out made her uncomfortable. “I don't get a lot of free time,” she said. “But when I have the time, I like to garden.”
“Gardening, eh?” He shrugged, then kept going through the stretching exercises. “Not really my thing, but at least it's outdoors. You ever do anything more physical? Hiking maybe?”
“Not really,” she said. “I like being outdoors, but I'm not really in good enough shape for something so strenuous.”
“Well, I think you're a pretty good shape.” He eyed her curves, smirking.
She rolled her eyes, though at the same time her face heated up. It had been awhile since a man had looked at her that way. It was almost a pity that he was a patient.
They spent the next hour working through more exercises to get the kinks out of Thomas's back. At the end of the session, she had him put his shirt back on and told him he could make another appointment with Kate for his next session.
“Listen,” he said as he was buttoning up his shirt, “if you're not doing anything later, I certainly wouldn't mind getting to know you a little better. In a less 'professional' context, that is.”
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't really have the time, and it's really best if we keep this completely professional.”
“Well,” he said, eyeing her with a leering smirk, “there might be a way we can get more personal while keeping it professional, in a manner of speaking.”
“What do you mean?” She frowned at him.
He stepped closer, until she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “Come on,” he said. “I think you know what I mean. You're a beautiful woman.” He ran his fingers down her cheek, making her shiver. “Surely you have an idea what a guy like me would want out of a girl like you.”
She shivered and licked her lips. Yes, she knew exactly what he wanted. And he was attractive enough that she almost considered it. But she couldn't afford to get involved with a patient. She could lose her job over something like that, and she couldn't afford to be unemployed.
“I'm sorry, Thomas. But I'm not looking to date anyone right now, especially not a patient. I'm your therapist.”
“Yes,” he said. “You take care of my...physical needs. Like you said, I just need to make an appointment with your assistant out there, and you'll work your magic to make me feel better, right?” His hand slid lower, sliding down her side to her hip.
“Not like that,” she whispered. her mouth suddenly felt dry.
“I'd pay quite a bit more than your usual fee,” he said. He looked deep into her eyes. She licked her lips, trembling. “Name your price.”
“You...you want to pay me,” she said, her voice hoarse. “For...for that?”
He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that. Keeping it professional, like you said.”
She laughed and shook her head, then slipped away from him, moving across the room. “I'm not that kind of girl,” she said.
“Not even for the right price?”
He grabbed his chart and took the pen attached to it, then scrawled a figure on the bottom of the page. He handed it to her.
Her eyes nearly shot out of her head when she saw the price he was offering. Jillian had never thought of herself as the kind of girl who would sleep with a man for money, but considering her financial troubles, and how much he was offering, it was certainly tempting. She'd be able to pay off one of her maxed-out credit cards after just one night with him.
She actually found herself considering it, but she shook her head. “No. No, I'm sorry. I couldn't.”
He shrugged, a confident smile still on his lips. “Well, if you change your mind, the offer stands. And it wouldn't just have to be a one time deal.” His eyes roamed her body once more, and Jillian felt exposed, even with her white coat on. “I'm sure that once I had a taste of you, I couldn't be able to give you up.”
He left the room. Jillian leaned against the table, taking a few deep breaths to steady herself. She'd never had such an encounter with a man before. Sure, she'd had plenty of men proposition her. But none had ever been so...aggressive. Confident.
She looked at the number he'd written down, thinking about how much she could do with so much money. It was more than she earned in a month. Though she couldn't seriously let herself consider such a thing. It was wrong.
Kate let her next patient in, and Jillian got to work helping the young man work through exercising his leg to recover from a hamstring injury. Though the entire time, her mind kept drifting to Thomas, and thinking about their next appointment together.
A few days later, Jillian finally got tired of all the phone calls to her bank, and she took a personal day from work to deal with her financial issues. She sat waiting at the bank for more than an hour while a credit specialist looked over her credit report. When he finally called her into his office to discuss what he'd found, the news wasn't good.
“I'm really sorry, Miss Miller, but there's no way we can approve you for a consolidation loan at this time.”
“But you don't understand,” Jillian said, clutching her purse. “I'm drowning here. If you'll just give me a chance...”
“I wish I could help,” he said. “I really do. But it's out of my control.” He spread his hands apologetically.”
“I don't see what the problem is,” she said. “I've got a job. I can make the payments.”
He sighed and flipped through the pages of her credit report. “First off, you've missed a few payments, and that hurt your credit score.”
“That was over a year ago,” Jillian said. “I haven't missed a payment since. And besides, if you help me consolidate, that'll lower my monthly payments. So you see, I'll be more likely to keep up with them.”
“It's not that simple,” he said. “Plus, there are other factors. You have such a high volume of debt, and you've had too many credit inquiries lately.”
“So you won't give me a loan just because I've been asking for loans?”
He frowned at her and set the report down. “Miss Miller, I'm sorry. But the decision is final.”
She scowled at him, wishing there was something else she could say. But there didn't seem to be any point. “Fine. Thanks for nothing.”
She got up and left, stalking out to her car. When she got into the car she started to cry. Her debt was more than she could handle. She'd been forced recently to take cash advances on one of her credit cards just to keep up with payments on the others. And she was quickly approaching the point that she wouldn't be able to do that anymore.
She thought about Thomas's offer. Part of her was disgusted at the idea of considering such a thing. She didn't want to lower herself to selling her body. But on the other hand, she was desperate. And, she knew, there wasn't necessarily anything to be ashamed of. Her body was hers to do with as she pleased. What right did anyone else have to tell her whether or not she was allowed to earn her living by bringing someone pleasure? It wasn't as if she would be standing on a street corner, offering herself to random strangers and risking disease or worse. She would just do it once, and it would be with a fit, healthy, attractive man.
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, considering it. She couldn't quite make up her mind. But it was starting to seem like her best hope of improving her life.
When it came time for Thomas's next appointment, Jillian walked into the room feeling a cold stabbing in her gut. She could still remember the things he'd said, the way he'd propositioned her. She hadn't stopped thinking about it. And now she was going to try to find a way to bring the subject up again.
“Good afternoon,” she said as she entered the room, trying to keep her voice calm and level. “How's your back been feeling?”
“I've been getting a lot of stiffness, especially in the morning.” He stretched, moving his right arm in small circles to loosen up some muscles. “And I can't move as well as I used to on this side.”
“Give it time,” Jillian said. “It takes a while to recover after an accident like this. I'm sure we'll have you out mountain biking again in no time.”
“God, I hope so. Sitting around all day is getting really boring.”
“Don't you have a day job?” she asked as she consulted Thomas's chart. She knew he must have a lot of money, if he could make her the kind of offer he had. But she didn't really know how much money. She worked at a high-end clinic, so a lot of her patients were wealthy. Some were high-salaried sports stars, while others were simply rich men who liked to do extreme sports, like Thomas here.
“Well, I have board meetings,” Thomas said. “But half the time I'd rather skip out on those and go do something more interesting.”
“Must be nice to be able to shirk your responsibilities and go out to have fun.” Jillian sighed, wishing she didn't have so many financial troubles. She couldn't even afford to take a simple vacation, let alone skip out on work whenever she felt like.