She watched him, sitting on the edge of the bed as he always did, buttoning his shirt and then tying his tie. There was always a point, as he put his street clothes back on, at which he became all business and the man that she had been getting to know each week for seven months went away again.

She had always wondered if this was the way that her regulars rationalised that they were visiting her when their managers thought that they were playing squash or golf, or dining a customer or meeting a prospect to try and close a very different kind of deal. She knew that she had her own tricks, her own mental sleight of hand that helped her forget that she was not just having sex because she wanted to.

She was not developing feelings for him; that had happened once when she started out, but she learned from that experience. She had been hoping that he would make it easier on her, allowing himself to be happy with what he was doing. Just smile at her before he left, instead of the cold face that offered her the cash…

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.