The Maestro's Apprentice by Rhonda Leigh Jones Page A

did, sitting on her hip with her legs curled behind her, watching him unsheathe his penis from the condom. He tied the top and put it aside to move toward her on all fours and kiss her on the lips.
    “Did you like it?” he asked.
    Autumn gave him a shy smile and nodded, lowering her head submissively. Strands of red hair fell toward her face. She put it behind her ear. “I liked it,” she said.
    “I liked it too,” he said. “If you ever want a repeat performance, just ask anyone in any Bourbon Street bar where to find me. It isn’t hard. I’m always around.”
    She nodded. Then, on a whim, she moved toward Bill and kissed him, slipping her tongue into his mouth. She could tell it surprised him, but he kissed her back enthusiastically before she pulled away and smiled. “I have to go now,” she said.
    “I guess you do,” he said, and got up. “Don’t go anywhere.” She watched him curiously as he opened the door and walked naked into the next room, running her eyes down his back and rear, musing that that body had just been all over her and that she probably smelled like him now. She was mostly dressed when he came back.
    “This is actually all the cash I have in the house,” he said, handing her a stack of twenties. “It’s five hundred.”
    She looked at it, then shook her head. “I…I can’t…”
    “Don’t think of it like that,” he said. “Think of it as us helping each other out. If I see you again, by the way, I’m not paying for it. In fact, you’ll owe me dinner.”

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    She looked at him. His expression was earnest.
    “For your friends,” he said. “To help get you far away from that guy.”
    “Thanks,” she said. “But really. I can’t. I know we talked about it at the bar, but…I just…it’s not me.”
    “Yes,” he said. “You can.”
    She stood there for a moment, holding the stacks of cash. It was an awful lot of money for someone in her position. She and the others needed all they could get at this point. Promising herself that this would be the only time, she nodded, accepted his hug, grabbed her little pack and ambled out the door.
    Downstairs, Autumn stood blinking in the afternoon light. He had let her go. The only reason she was standing outside at that moment was that he had decided to let her go. He could just as easily have decided to make her stay, and that thought made her too weak to stand on her own. She leaned against the building and closed her eyes.
    At some point, unsure how long she had been there, Autumn decided to start walking.
    It was two in the afternoon, and she figured the biscuits and cheese had probably melted into an unidentifiable goo by now, as she headed back to the hotel. She had been too excited today to feel hungry and her stomach was only now starting to twinge.
    She wondered if part of that twinge wasn’t because she felt really odd about having just sold her body.
    Then she forgot about it again in favor of wondering if Tina would brag to her friends about meeting a vampire, and if they would believe her. There were so many things to feel anxious about today. Either way, Autumn reasoned, it was probably best for them to leave and find a safe place. There had to be some refuges for vampires who were out on 54
    their own, she thought. And she could probably Google them. The Internet café Tina had pointed out to them the night before wasn’t far away.
    A well-dressed man walked behind her with the unhurried assurance of a master predator.
    The Internet café was an oddly shabby place full of old computers, but Autumn was only planning to be there for a moment. She paid a young guy with a long, wispy forelock and lip piercings for an hour and sat down, then looked around to make sure no one was standing nearby. In a room of about fifteen computers facing two bright yellow paint-peeled walls, there were only about six people, including herself and a chubby girl who had pulled up a chair near a pot-bellied, middle-aged man Autumn