We were eating our meals and I was watching people walk through the casino outside the café, when James started to speak.
“Melanie, we need to talk about a few things.”
Oh no. When a guy starts out with that sentence, it’s usually not good.
“Yes dear,” I said, smiling at him.
“Tomorrow, after your classes, I need you to do a couple of things for me.”
I gave him a puzzled look, “All right, what do you need me to do?”
“Here is my business card,” which he handed to me. “It has the address and phone number to my LA office. When you get out of class, I need you to fax me statements for all of your credit cards and the balances of your student loans.”
My jaw dropped open in stunned silence when I realized the reason behind this request.
“I also need you to go to the main office at UNLV and have the clerk put my business address on your account. Once your grants and scholarships have been applied, I want you to have them bill me for the remaining balance each semester.”
“James, I don’t know how to react to all this,” I said quietly, as I tucked the card into the front pocket of my jean skirt.
“There are some conditions, Melanie.”
I looked into his eyes, hanging on his every word.
“The first condition is that your GPA does not drop. I’m investing in your future. You have so much talent and potential, but everything hinges on your grades and you can’t let your social life interfere with that.”
That really wasn’t an issue. I breezed through high school and a year and a half of college without really being challenged, and keeping my GPA up, especially if I didn’t have to work a part time job, would be easy.
“The second condition is when I’m in Las Vegas, I’m your priority. I’ll always give you time to make sure your class work is complete, just as I’ve done this weekend. But, when I’m here, I take precedence over your friends. Usually, I’ll only be in town one weekend a month, so you’ll have the rest of the time to spend with them.”
This would be easy too. I love being with you James, don’t you see that? You could spend two or three weekends a month with me and I’d gladly choose you over my friends.
“Are we okay so far?” he said, hesitantly.
“We are,” I said, smiling at him.
“What other conditions do you have?” I asked, thinking that this had been pretty easy so far.
“When I’m not in Las Vegas, I don’t want you having sex with other men,” he said slowly, gauging my reaction.
My jaw dropped open and a million things started swirling through my mind at the speed of light. James started speaking, and broke me out of my trance.
“Any time you’d like to speak would be fine with me, Melanie,” he said, smiling.
“This brings up a lot of personal issues for me James. You said we could always say anything to each other right?”
“Of course,” he said, reassuring me.
“I got into bed with you only hours after we met, so I’m sure you must think I am some sort of slut. Trust me James, with men, I’m not. You’re only the sixth man I’ve had intercourse with.”
I watched as his mouth dropped open, a refreshing change.
“My best friends and I tease each other about our ‘number,’ the number of men we’ve had sex with. Six may seem like a lot to you, or maybe it doesn’t, I don’t know. My best friend Sue, the girl who was with me the night we met, her number is in the 30’s. My roommate Rachel, her number is in the 40’s. And my other friend, Samantha, is in the 60’s. Keep in mind, they are all about my age, so in my book, that makes six look pretty respectable.”
“Yes it does Melanie,” he said quietly, contemplating what I revealed to him.
I also felt a tinge of regret because I hated revealing such personal information about my best friends to him just to make a point, but in this case, I felt I had to.
“In the interest of full disclosure, if you counted oral sex as sex, and I know some people do, my number would be pretty similar to my friends.”
James smiled, and I felt my face grow red in embarrassment.
“I’ve just always enjoyed giving blow jobs, and as I think you can attest, I’m pretty good at it,” I said smiling, looking down, and knowing my face had to be as red as an ember.
“Melanie, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you could give a Pro a run for her money.”
We both laughed and I squeezed his hand across the table.
After our laughter subsided, I continued.
“As you probably gathered last night with our waitress at your restaurant, I’m bi-sexual,” I said, looking seriously into his eyes.
He nodded his head, and I could see the wheels spinning in his mind after I confirmed what I had alluded to, when I spoke of Gianna and I in the bathroom the night before.
“Again, in the interest of full disclosure, when it comes to sex with women, my number would be comparable to my friend’s numbers with men.”
His eyes widened in shock, “Really Melanie?”
“My best friend and I were lovers in high school. But I really became active once I moved to Las Vegas. Between the girls on campus, and the girls in the clubs, I’ve done a lot of bed hopping. I’m telling you all of this James because I want you to know me and I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
I was starting to tear up. I was feeling very emotional and I knew it was from the way we had sex earlier, and unburdening my soul to him concerning my sexuality.
“You were the first man I’ve been with in well over a year James, so I’m all right with the idea of not being with other men,” I paused and tried to choose my words carefully, not knowing how he was going to react to my next statement.
“But I’m not going to give up women and have sex only with you. If I meet a woman in a club, or on campus, or in a restaurant, and I want to hook up with her, then I’m going to, and if that’s a problem for you, we need to start discussing it now.”
We looked into each other eyes without speaking. I needed to make him understand that there were some things I’d fight for, if I had to.
He smiled at me and it felt like those deep blue eyes were piercing my soul.
“I don’t have a problem with you seeing women Melanie. But my cock is the only one that goes inside you,” he said possessively.
I felt a twinge of excitement between my legs.
“I can live with that James,” I said smiling, my eyes never leaving his.
We both took a drink of our orange juice as we continued to look at each other.
“Now that we’ve got all of that straightened out, this is yours.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card and then handed it to me. I saw that it was a Visa debit card.
“This is just a temporary one, in about a week, another one will be mailed to you with your name on it, but you can start using that one tomorrow if you like. There is $5000 on that card and on the first of every month there will another $5000.”
It was my turn for my jaw to drop.
“Thank you James,” I said sincerely, as I thought my heart was going to thump out of my chest.
“You’re welcome Melanie. That means there is only one problem left to fix.”
My mind was racing as I held the card in my hand, “What problem is that?” I asked.
“Let’s find you a new place to live.”
I felt the sun on my face as we drove down Tropicana Avenue to meet a real estate agent James had contacted. I discovered, as we drove, that we had a one o’clock appointment. I didn’t have time to go back to the room and put my hair up, so it was blowing everywhere as we drove with the top down in the Mustang, and it was driving me crazy. There was a reason I chose a Land Rover instead of a convertible.
James was in such a good mood. I could see he was relieved that we had worked out the details of this relationship, or whatever it could be classified as. I was feeling good too, because I didn’t like thinking that there were things I was hiding from him.
I still had questions he needed to answer. I thought since I had laid my soul open in the cafe, I had a right to ask him questions about his family in LA, the part of his life that I knew very little about.
We pulled up in front of a two bedroom condo close to UNLV. A small, older, feisty looking woman was waiting for us at the front door. As we walked up to her, I could tell she was sizing us up.
“Good afternoon Mr. Moretti,” she said in a boisterous voice that I didn’t think could come out of a woman so small, “I’m Vera,” she said curtly.
She looked up at me and then back to James.
“Looking for a discreet love residence are you?”
I burst out laughing as James shot her a dirty look. I liked her already.
She took my hand in hers and we entered the condo.
“Melanie, you’ll love this place dear, it’s very cozy: large rooms, big kitchen, and a big back yard, everything you both will need to be happy,” she said smiling at me, and ignoring James.
“How old is this place?” James said sternly.
“About 25 years old,” she said, realizing that she hadn’t sold James on it.
“This isn’t it, let’s keep looking,” he said.
We looked at two other places and James hated them both. All three of the condo’s she had shown us were nicer than the apartment I was living in with Rachel. It was hard for me to be as picky as James because each of the places she had shown us was a step up for me and were all close to UNLV. James thought proximity to the campus would make it easier for me to get to my classes.
“Would you be willing to look at something out of this area dear?” Vera asked me. “It’s only a few miles from here; it’s downtown, but I think you’ll love it,” she said, squeezing my hand.
We agreed to look at it, we followed Vera to a 40 story building in historic Las Vegas. The parking lot was underneath the building and James loved the fact that it had 24 hour security. We had to pass through two security guards, one to enter the parking garage, and another to go up to the apartments.
We took the elevator to the 39th floor and she led us into a spacious, two bed roomed apartment. There were two bathrooms, one in the master bedroom and the other off the living room presumably for guests. It had a large kitchen and it came furnished. The furniture was modern and sleek and went with the apartment perfectly.
The real selling point however was the floor to ceiling panoramic windows that faced south over the Las Vegas strip. It even had a glass door to walk out onto a balcony. The outside wall facing the strip was also glass and about chest high so it didn’t obstruct the view from inside the apartment. I instantly fell in love with the place.
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