"I packed all of my underwear," Casey tells me over the phone. "But I'm still here for another three days."

"Are you telling me that you have to unpack everything?" I ask him as I'm leaning against the hotel bar. It's a quiet Wednesday so Casey can't hear any of the background noise, which is good because he thinks that I'm at work. I mean, I guess I'm technically at work but his version of my work is a lot different than what it really is.

"Yes, I have to unpack," He confirms. "Unless I should just not wear underwear for three days."

"What about the ones that you're wearing now? Just wash them," I suggest.

"I should run the washer every day just for a pair of underwear?" He wonders skeptically. "No, it's fine, I'll just unpack a little bit."

"I can't believe you packed all of your underwear," I say with a small laugh.

"I just got excited," He mutters in defense. "And I packed everything that I could think of. I wasn't really planning ahead."

"You're a dufus," I chuckle again but I notice the clock above the bar is about to strike ten o'clock which means that it's time for me to head upstairs. "Hey, Case, I have to get to work now but I'll see you in the morning."

"Alright, have fun at work," He chimes back. "Love you."

"Love you too," I respond before I hang up the phone and I look down at my dress to make sure that my boobs look good.

This client isn't like Marcus. No dinner or drinks first, my instructions from my boss were to go to the front desk at ten and get the key card under Ben Bishop and then head up to the room where my client will be waiting. It sounds a bit fishy but that's usually how it goes with the high-profile clients and although I haven't met with this "Ben" guy before, other girls have so I know that he's safe.

I get the room key from the front desk and I notice the guy giving me a few judging looks. Based on my short black dress and high stilettos, maybe he can assume my profession. I probably make more in one night than he makes in a month so I don't care if he feels like judging me for my tiny black dress or the fact that I'm about to go upstairs and sleep with a stranger.

At first, when I had gotten into this business, I worried about people like him. I worried about him calling the cops and I worried about what people like that hotel employee thought of me. They think that I'm a whore, that I'm dirty, they think that I'm disgusting and that I'm barely even a person because of what I do.

Maybe I am a whore, maybe what I do is disgusting; that's what I used to think. But I've distanced myself from those labels. I stopped looking at it as giving myself away to men for some money. I started looking at it as me doing what I needed to do to provide for Casey. If I didn't do this, I wouldn't be able to put him into this boarding school, I wouldn't be able to buy him food or clothes or a phone, a laptop. Even the roof over our head.

And I'm not giving myself to anybody, I still own my body. I just rent it out.

Once I get up to the hotel room, I slip the key into the slot and pull it back out. When the little light on the door handle beeps green, I turn the knob and step into the hotel room.

I'm expecting a senator, a top professional or somebody high profile like that because of how secretive he was about coming up to the room separately. Inside the room though, I don't see anybody. There's a small duffel bag in the corner of the room and the bathroom door is shut with the light shining through from under the door.

"Hello?" I call towards the bathroom.

"Hey, sorry, I'll be out in a sec," A deep voice responds from the bathroom. "Just make yourself comfortable... I guess."

He seems nervous which is interesting. It'd been said that he isn't a first-time customer but he seems new to this. Even in just those two sentences he said, I could tell that he wasn't completely comfortable with the situation.

I just go with it though but I do have my pepper spray in my bag ready just in case I need it. I've never had an issue with a client before but I know that it has the potential to be dangerous so I'm always prepared. I make my way over to the bed and sit down on the edge with my legs crossed which will give him a peak of my lingerie when he comes out.

The sink runs for a moment before it stops and then there's a pause before the bathroom door knob twists and the door starts to open.

"Sorry about that," The client is saying as he steps out of the bathroom.

I'm about to tell him that he doesn't have to worry about it but when I look up after he's passed the bathroom door and I see his face, the only thing that comes out of my mouth is a scream. It's not a long scream but it's loud and it startles him.

I guess I just lost a few sex appeal points but I don't really care about that now considering the face that I'm looking into shares my eyes. It's Jay Barkley, my father's 'real' son. My half-brother who probably has no idea that I even exist.

"What? What happened?" He asks me after the scream, looking around to see what happened.

I close my legs as tightly as they can close and I stand back up from the bed. I have absolutely no idea what to do in this situation. "You're Silas Barkley's son," I mutter out the obvious statement as I try to decide what to do. In this moment, it feels like time slows down to a painful halt as I go through my options.

1- Tell him the truth. He'll definitely understand why I can't sleep with him but it would start a whole shit storm that I'm not prepared to handle.

2- Run away. That'd piss off my boss.

3- Pass out and just get taken to the emergency room.

"Yeah, I am," He confirms with a nod but he still looks totally confused and understandably so. "Sorry, I know that I told the lady that I was my dad but I was using his credit card to transfer the money and they wouldn't let the meetup be private if I wasn't a returning customer."

"A returning customer," I repeat and then I remember that a few of the girls had said that they'd slept with him before and if he was pretending to be his father—my father—that just means that Silas has used our services before and not Jay. That explains why he is so nervous too.

"I know, world class Dad, right? Anyway, I know that I shouldn't have lied," Jay looks apologetic. He's really tall. I didn't think that he was so tall but he's a few inches taller than me and I'm wearing these stilettos. I've seen him on TV countless times and he never looked this tall. "But I paid what the lady said and I'm not dangerous, I swear."

"No, I know that," I exhale and I go through my options again. Tell the truth, run, die. "I just need a second."

"We can still do this, right?" He asks me, stepping toward me but I quickly negate that by stepping back.

"That'd be illegal in so many ways," I mutter under my breath. I don't mean for him to hear it but he does and it makes him laugh.

"Yeah, I know. That's why all of the secrecy," He explains and of course, he's referring to the prostitution whereas I was talking about the fact that if we were to sleep together, it would be incest. Sure, he doesn't know that though. "Is this your first time doing this?"

"No," I say coolly and then I get a really good idea. I don't have to have tell him the truth or run away. So I look up at him and I say, "I just got my period. Right now. I'm no good tonight."

"This is because of my dad, isn't it?" He seems to be able to tell that I'm lying immediately. "Listen, I'm nothing like him. I know that he's kind of a jerk but that's not me. I'm not even republican."

"This isn't about your dad. I don't know him, he was never a client of mine," I promise him. "Look, I'll call another girl. I guarantee you that you do not want to have sex with me. She can be here in fifteen minutes."

"Okay," He finally relents. "Sure."

"I'll go make the call," I breathe out, relieved that I've found a way out of this mess. Even if he didn't believe the period story, at least he's not insisting that we do this. Obviously, I wouldn't let that happen. I'd rather tell him the truth if I had to but luckily, I don't have to.

I go out into the hallway and I call one of my friends in the business who I know isn't working tonight.

"Hey, Sammy," Gina greets me. "What's up?"

"Can you take a job for me tonight?" I ask her, crossing my fingers that she takes it because I don't know what I'll do if she says no. "Please, it's important. I'll seriously owe you one."

"Yeah, okay," She decides. "I have an appointment on Sunday but I want to get my nails done. I'll switch you."

"Great. Yes, I can do Sunday. I'm at the Ritz-Carlton, I'll text you the room number," I say to her, feeling a ton of weight suddenly lifting off of my shoulders. "You're my hero."

"Hey, baby, you know me. Saving the world one horny sucker at a time," She laughs into the phone. "I'll be there in twenty."

Gina hangs up the short phone call and I return to the room to tell Jay what's going on and then I'm going to get the hell out of dodge. It sucks that I won't get paid tonight but since I'm taking Gina's client on Sunday, I'm still getting a job.

"She'll be here in twenty minutes, she'll knock when she gets here," I tell Jay once I'm in the room again. "Are we good here?"

"I've never done this before," He states the obvious. "I shouldn't have done this at all, this was a bad idea. I've just been so lonely lately, and bored."

"Yeah, well if loneliness and boredom didn't exist, I'd be out of a job," I respond. I decide that I have to calm him down because Gina won't appreciate it if she comes all the way down here when the client has wimped out. It's happened to me before and it's really irritating. "And you just need to relax. Sex is a natural thing, like eating. And you pay for your food, right? Or at least somebody pays for it."

"Yeah, I guess," He mutters, sitting on the edge of the bed.

And I decide that I've done enough so I start to head back to the door. "Enjoy your night, Mr. Barkley," I say as I'm leaving.

I walk out of the room and he quickly asks me for my name but I pretend not to hear him and I shut the door between us. I get downstairs as quickly as possible because I'm feeling like I might vomit. I'd grown up watching Jay on TV, wondering what he was like. I would wonder what it would be like to grow up with him and his sister. I wondered why I couldn't be like him, getting acknowledged by the father that we share.

And there he was, in the flesh, with everything that I'd always wanted. It's nice to know that he's not perfect which is kind of how I've imagined him. The son that my father had always wanted, whereas I was the daughter he never had.

Instead of going directly home, I stop at the bar for a drink. I don't want to go home until Casey is asleep and after the night I'm having, I need a drink. I order a martini and I just sit there, trying to get over what just happened. I'm also thinking that it's a possibility that somebody around here may assume that I'm a prostitute by the way that I'm dressed and ask for a night with me. And since I don't have a client tonight anymore, I would appreciate the money.

I finish one martini and I start to order a second one.

"I'll have another," I tell the bartender, motioning toward my empty glass.

"That's on me," Somebody says as he sits down on the barstool beside me. "And I'll have a Jack and Coke."

I look over at the guy, wondering if he's hitting on me or trying to buy me for the night. He looks young, about my age, and friendly so I'm going with the fact that maybe he's just hitting on me.

I start to say something but he beats me to it, "Long night?" He asks me curiously. His eyes are dark and so is his shaggy hair. He's handsome.

"You could say that," I say with a slow nod. "Thanks for the drink."

"Yeah, no problem. Drinking alone at a hotel bar on a Wednesday night, I figured that you could use it," He admits with a charming little laugh.

"Well, you're here too so what's your excuse?" I ask him with raised eyebrows.

"Got stood up," He admits as the bartender brings over our drinks and he starts sipping at his.

"That blows."

"A little," The stranger shrugs at me. "What about you?"

My brother, who doesn't know that he's my brother, tried to pay me for sex. Maybe I won't tell him the truth. "I like getting dressed up and coming to places like this to get free drinks from suckers like you." I give him a short red-lipped smile so he knows that I'm joking, he laughs, and then I change the subject so that I don't have to give him a real answer. "I'm Samantha."

"Hi, Samantha. I'm Micah," He responds with a smile and he has deep, adorable dimples. It's been a while since I've found a grown person adorable but he hits the nail on the head. He's also handsome and just all around a pretty guy. "What do you do? A job or a cool hobby? Anything impressive?"

Of course, I lie because the stigma around being an escort is too much for anybody to ever get over. He'd walk away with a disgusted look on his face and he'd probably demand that I pay him back for the drink that he bought me. But he seems nice and he's pretty and I don't really want to stop talking to him just yet.

"I work third shift at a factory," I inform him. That's the answer that I give anybody who doesn't know about what I do. That's what my friends think, what Casey thinks. It's just an easy answer to give. "You?"

"I'm the son of a senator," Micah tells me. "Which doesn't pay but it pretty much feels like a job most of the time."

"I'm the daughter of a senator," I admit to him. "But the love child doesn't get much love so it's not much of a job for me."

He laughs, thinking that I'm joking, and so I just laugh too. I wish that I was joking.

"Which senator?" I ask him curiously. I've slept with a few of them so I'd like to know if I've slept with his father before we continue this conversation. Not that it's going anywhere but it'd just be weird knowing that information as he buys me drinks.

"Harrison Williams," He answers me. I take another drink of my martini. "From Oregon."

"He's a first term democrat," I recognize his name but not because I've slept with him-- thankfully, I haven't-- but because I've seen his name in the news. He's fairly progressive which isn't what Washington likes so he's making noise. I watch the news kind of regularly just to check in on my father or if I'm bored so I'm pretty caught up with the government around here.

"Yeah, you a fan of politics or something?"

"I dabble," I shrug one bare shoulder at him.

"We should get out of here," Micah decides randomly. "Have you ever been to the Columbia Room?"

"I shouldn't..." I trail off, automatically knowing that it's a bad idea to do that. I mean, I have enjoyed our small talk here but making a night of it is just a terrible idea. And what's the point? In the morning, I'll never see him again. I shouldn't make him think that this is the beginning of something bigger. "It's getting late."

"It's not even midnight yet," He counters. "You look stressed, you could use just one night of fun."

"And you're fun?" I raise my eyebrows at him.

"Oh, I'm a hoot," He confirms with a nod.

I start to think about it. I could use just a night to relax. And Micah doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know what I do or what I'm like. It's like I have a blank canvas, like I can make myself into whoever I want to be just for him. And then after tonight, it won't matter because I'll never see him again. Just for one night, I don't have to be Eleanor The Misfit or Samantha the Whore. I can be whoever I want to be, even if it is just for the night.

"Alright, sure," I eventually decide and his smile widens which actually makes me smile because his is so contagious. This night has taken so many twists and turns but I'm pretty excited about where it's headed now.