Want It Bad by Melinda DuChamp Page A

her plate away. “I need tiramisu like Bambi needs a mother. You?”
    Carla stared down at her plate. “The chicken was enough calories for me.”
    “Watching your figure, huh? Want to look fuckable for a certain stud next door?”
    “Janet…”
    “Order tiramisu and more coffee. We’re celebrating.”
    “What are we celebrating?”
    “I’ll tell you when I get back from the restroom.” Janet swished away from the table, giving the eye to a cute waiter she passed.
    Carla looked down at her plate. She had to admit, she’d liked having a good story to tell Janet for a change. Something that had even shocked her, at least a little. But the teasing tone in Janet’s voice as she left the dining room made Carla feel uneasy. Carla was not as wild as Janet, and she had no desire to be. She worried her friend was going to bring back some waiter or bartender and try to set her up. Maybe Carla should just order the dessert, pay the check, and leave so she could make a quick exit when Janet returned.
    She waved a hand for their waitress.
    The woman didn’t see her.
    “Excuse me,” Carla said in her best lawyer tone.
    The waitress zoomed to the table as if pulled by a string. “Did you call your hot escort neighbor yet?”
    “What? No.”
    She leaned in. “You scared? Embarrassed?”
    “Neither.”
    “He left his card for a reason. Trust me. I work in the service industry. The stud is interested.”
    “I don’t pay for sex.”
    Their server laughed. “Girl, we
all
pay for sex, one way or another. Whether it’s pretending to be interested in his stupid stories, or dressing like a ho because he likes it, or putting up with all the farting. If you’re paying anyway, you might as well get something out of it. My boyfriend likes it when I twerk.”
    “Twerk?”
    “You know. Twerk.”
    The waitress bent over and began to shake her butt like it was on fire and she was trying to fan out the flames.
    “I do this for him and the little pervert throws Ritz crackers at me, trying to get them to stick in the crack. And you’re telling me we’re not paying for sex?”
    “I’d prefer not to discuss this anymore.”
    She stopped twerking and held up the coffee pot. “Warm up?”
    “Please.”
    “Would you care for dessert?”
    “Hell yeah, we need dessert!” Janet boomed, striding back to the table, hips swinging. “We’re celebrating.”
    The waitress took their dessert order, and Carla snuck her credit card onto the woman’s tray when Janet wasn’t looking.
    Janet held up her coffee. “A toast. To you getting your groove on.”
    Carla grasped the handle of her cup but didn’t lift. “What did you do?” She glanced around, waiting for some guy to focus on her, expectation in his eyes. Janet had no doubt set her up with someone, and it never went well. One time, she set Carla up on a blind date with some Spanish guy who could only speak one word of English.
Titties.
    “You’ll thank me.”
    “There is a slim-to-none chance of that happening.”
    “Life is what you make of it, Carla. Loosen up. Live a little. I want to see you happy.”
    “Janet? What did you do?”
    “Nothing… much…” Janet smiled and slurped some coffee.
    “Janet? Tell me.”
    “I bought you an hour in the Dungeon of Pleasure tomorrow.” She slapped Jake’s card on the table. Carla hadn’t even realized her friend had swiped it.
    Oh no…
    “Janet…”
    “Think of him as your masseur. You deserve good stuff, babe. And if you won’t reach out and take it for yourself, I’ll grab it for you.”
    “I won’t go.”
    “You will.”
    “I’m not going to do this just because you want it, Janet.”
    “You want it, Carla. You just don’t know it yet. And when you get it, I want to know every… little… detail.”
    • • •
    By the time Carla got home that evening, the pressure in her chest bore down so hard it was hard to breathe. She knew Janet was doing this more to dare her than as an act of kindness, but as much as