Nobody's Baby but Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips Read Free Book Online

pertinent details, and doing her best to retain eye contact throughout the process. “You’re probably from the old school, Mr. Bonner, that still believes women in my profession can only get their training in one way, but that’s not true any longer. I, for example, am not promiscuous.”
    His glass stalled in midair. “You’re a hooker.”
    “True. But I think I mentioned that you’re my first client. Up until now I’ve only been intimate with one man. My late husband. I happen to be a widow. A very young widow.”
    He didn’t look as if he were buying any of this, so she began to embellish. “My husband’s death left me in terrible debt, and I needed something that paid better than minimum wage. Unfortunately, with no marketable skills, I didn’t have many choices. Then I remembered that my husband had always complimented me on the intimate aspects of our marriage. But please don’t think that just because I’ve only had one partner, I’m not highly qualified.”
    “Maybe I’m missin’ something, but I don’t rightly see how somebody who claims to have had—What’d you say? One partner?—can be well trained.”
    He had a point. Her brain clicked away. “I was referring to the instructional videotapes my agency has all its new employees watch.”
    “They train you by watching videos?” His eyes narrowed, reminding her of a hunter looking down a gun sight. “Now, ain’t that interesting.”
    She felt a little surge of pleasure as her child lost another few points on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Even a computer couldn’t have picked a more perfect match.
    “They’re not ordinary videos. Nothing you’d want an impressionable child to see. But the old methods of on-the-job training aren’t practical in our current era of safe sex, at least not for the more discriminating agencies.”
    “Agencies? Are you talking about whorehouses?”
    Each time she heard that repellent word it stung a bit more. “The politically correct term is ‘pleasure agency.’ ” She paused. Her head felt as if it were floating off her shoulders. “Just as prostitutes are better referred to as sexual pleasure providers or SPPs.”
    “SPPs? You sure are a reg’lar encyclopedia.”
    It was curious, but his accent seemed to be growing thicker by the minute. It must be the liquor. Thank goodness he was too dull-witted to realize how outlandish this conversation had become. “We have slide shows and guest lecturers who discuss their various specialties with us.”
    “Like what?”
    Her mind raced. “Uh . . . Role playing, for example.”
    “What kind of role playing?”
    What kind, indeed? Her mind shuffled through various scenarios, searching for one that didn’t involve physical pain or degradation. “Well, we have something we call Prince Charming and Cinderella.”
    “What’s that like?”
    “It involves . . . roses. Making love on a bed of rose petals.”
    “Sounds a little too girly to appeal to me. You got anything spicier to offer?”
    Why had she mentioned role playing? “Of course, but since you’re my first customer, I think I can give you more value if we stick to the basics.”
    “Missionary stuff?”
    She gulped. “My current specialty.” He didn’t look too excited by the prospect, although his face showed so little expression, it was hard to tell. “That, or—I think I might have a talent for being the—uh—the partner on top.”
    “Well, I guess you’ve just about overcome my prejudice against hookers.”
    “Sexual pleasure providers.”
    “Whatever. But the thing of it is, you’re a little old for me.”
    Old! That really frosted her. He was thirty-six, but he had the nerve to regard a woman of twenty-four as old! Maybe it was her floating head, but the fact that she wasn’t really twenty-four no longer made a difference. It was the principle that counted.
    She mustered a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood. I assumed you were able to handle a grown