Page 5 of Sugar Baby
I drop my phone and quickly take the bowl with the fork hanging out of the top, words of protest dying on my tongue as the scent of garlic, soy sauce, and spices assail my nose. “Oh my god, this smells amazing.”
Oakley falls back onto the couch next to me, at some point having ditched her jeans and corset shirt for sweats and a tank. “Well, eat up. I had a bunch of things in the fridge that were either cook or toss, so there’s enough for at least one more lunch and maybe dinner each.”
I stare at her for a moment, and she doesn’t even bother to play coy. “I know what you’re doing.”
She shrugs. “Look, you can either eat the food or toss it in the trash. No skin off my nose, either way.”
“I’m paying you for this,” I mutter stomach cramping at the thought of warm food.
She shrugs. “I don’t remember asking you to.”
As I stare at the food, my mouth waters. Am I really prideful enough to toss out this food and wait to eat at the dining hall tomorrow?
No, no, I am not.
Besides, this is the most we have spoken to each other in the last two weeks, and the human interaction actually doesn’t suck too bad. Not going to jeopardize that by letting my pride stop me from eating her cooking.
I scoop up a healthy amount of food and stuff it into my mouth and have to physically withhold the groan. Holy shit, I’m starving. I force myself to go slow—one, because I don’t want to throw up after having basically starved for the past two days, and two, because I don’t want Oakley to know how dire things have become.
“So, what did you think of SugarLife?” she asks casually, eyes glued to the screen.
I keep my attention on the TV as the first teen mom does her wrap-up interview for the current episode. “Seems okay, I guess. I can’t believe how many accounts are on there.”
Oakley laughs. “Yeah, I usually limit mine down tomeet-cuteandkiss and don’t tell.That usually weeds out most of the profiles. Same for the invitations. I don’t mind kissing a guy to make him feel special and to say thank you, especially if the gift boxes are right. Even if he makes my skin crawl.”
“How does the money stuff work? Like, how do you actually get paid?” I ask, not at all thinking about the way my heart is beating a little harder at the idea of having three figures in my bank account.
“Well, once you both accept an invitation, their account is debited half the fee, and you can see it sitting in your wallet as a pending transfer. Then, when you actually turn up to the date, the daddy confirms you are there and that first amount transfers. At the end of the date, you both mark it as complete, and the rest of the money gets transferred. Then you just transfer the money, minus a small fee, into your regular bank account. The higher-paying invitations can have a different payment structure to make sure the sugar daddy or mommy isn’t getting scammed.”
I nod, scraping up the last bit of rice onto my fork as the credits begin to roll. “Thanks for dinner.”
“No problem,” Oakley calls out as I head to the sink to wash and rinse off my plate before leaving it in the drying rack.
With every step from the kitchen to my bedroom, all I can think about is SugarLife and the fact that Oakley is making bank without selling herself.
Which begs the question—how much do dates that include sex pay?
Chapter 2
Emery
As soon as I’m alone in my bedroom, I pull SugarLife back up on my phone and go straight to the invitations, quickly adding in all the filters I didn’t want Oakley to see.
The chick doesn’t appear to be judgy, but with her only doing the non-sexual dates, I’m hesitant to let her see me assessing my true options.
When I get toDate Type, I unselectmeet-cute,kiss and don’t tell, andstay the night, leaving the three other options. While pretending to watch the end of the show with Oakley, I’d had plenty of time to contemplate what each of the options might mean, and this is what I came up with.
Meet-cute: completely platonic.
Kiss and don’t tell: kissing only.
Getting handsy: hand jobs.
Just a taste: blow jobs.
A quickie: a fuck and run.
Stay the night: sex and spend the night.