Page 65 of Three, Two, One [321]

God, I’d love for him to fuck me. Not with JD, but alone.

“If you’re from Montreal,” Ark says, putting me on high alert, “why don’t you have a French accent?”

“I went to school in the States.” And I did. That’s not even a lie.

“Where?” JD asks. And now I feel like they are tag-teaming me for info.

“The East Coast. And that’s all I’m gonna say about it, if that’s OK.” I wait for an objection, but JD is silent and Ark just shrugs. “What about you guys?”

I’m looking at Ark, of course, since I’m facing him, but JD is the one who answers. “I went to North. But I dropped out in eleventh grade.”

“Really?” I turn my head to look at him. “I’d never have guessed.”

“Really,” he affirms with a smile. “It’s pretty cool to say that, and know it never made a difference. I’m a millionaire high-school dropout. But, if I could do it over, I’d have stuck it out. Maybe gone to college instead.”

“How come?”

“Because all I do is act. And really, you can’t call what I do acting. I stand there and let girls suck me off.”

“JD,” Arks says, annoyed with the talk of work.

JD shrugs behind me. “It’s true.”

“It’s not true,” Ark says. “He’s a natural salesman. Not many people could charm strange girls into doing what we need them to do.”

“What will you do tonight?” I ask.

Ark takes in a breath, holds it for a second, and then lets it out. “Meet the girl at the club. Wait for the show to get going. Let people get nice and drunk. Rowdy. Then take her on the floor, put her on her knees, and say action.”

“Don’t people say anything? Like try to stop you?”

“We have verbal contracts with the club owners. Management, security, the bands—they’re all in on it.”

“So you pay them to let you film there?”

“Yup. Every palm gets greased.”

JD grabs the soap and starts rubbing it up and down my arm. I look back and him and smile. “That feels good.”

“It’s supposed to,” he says.

“So, if you won’t talk about school growing up, let’s talk about college,” Ark says.

I squint my eyes at him. “OK. You first. Where’d you go?”

“I didn’t. How about you?”

“Me either.” I’m lying, but so is he. So fuck it.

JD’s chest rumbles with a laugh behind me. “You two are something else. Why waste so much energy being hostile?”

“We’re not hostile,” I say, feeling very hostile.

“Whatever.”

“OK, then,” Ark continues. “I’m a Gator. University of Florida. Your turn.”

And this rings true for some reason. He does have a slight southern accent to his speech. “Columbia,” I say.