"You are not a whore! You saved my life. You are still saving my life. Do you ever think what would have happened to me if you hadn't been in that hospital lobby when they released me from the hospital?"
He thought a minute, then confessed. "I could have gone to a convalescent facility somewhere, in their vehicle, with their attendants, but I was too stubborn to do that. I would have come here, in a taxi, and maybe died here. But I didn't do that. I asked you to come here instead. I didn't even know you were cute then."
"I don't want to be cute. All my life I've been cute. I've stayed alive by being cute. I don't ever want to be cute again."
"But you can't help being cute, or rather beautiful. It isn't something you do, it's something you are."
"And I hate what I am. Can't you understand that? As soon as I took off my clother to help you with your first shower and you looked at me it all came back. I faked it. I faked all of it."
"But that was the practical thing to do. And I didn't think badly of you. I couldn't get past thinking you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life."
"I don't want to be beautiful. I want to clean house, and cook, and do laundry, and learn how to be somebody, anybody, except what I am."
Deke looked at her in her cleaning clothes, the same ones she wore every day, clothes tht covered her entire body except for her face and hands. Somewhere she had found a baseball cap to cover her hair. She had tried her best to look plain. It hadn't worked.
"Do you mind my looking at you?"
"I'm getting used to it. Getting used to not having to do anything about it, not having to respond. Yeah, you can look at me. You don't know how different it is for me to say that, to talk to you like this. I would have been beaten, and starved, if I had talked like that to a client."
"I'm not your client. I'm not you your boss, either. I've always been the boss. I've always hated it. I want to be your friend. I can't help it if you are beautiful. I didn't make you that way. But you are, even now, dressed like you are, you are."
"OK, but enough already. Can we talk about something else now? Like what I did today, and what I saw? And don't stare at me."
"In that case, can we move the chairs a little bit? Angle both of them to face the fireplace. We can talk to the fire. Then you can tell me what you got into today."
Mai moved his chair first, with him in it, turning it to face the fireplace at an angle. Then she moved her own to face the fireplace the same way. Deke was amazed at her strength, for such a small body.
"You are strong."
"Desperate, more like, but the chairs are on some sort of slippery things and weren't that hard to move. And you don't weigh much."
"I need to weigh more."
"I need cleaning supplies."
"Can you get them? There's a car around here somewhere. Maybe in a garage out bac, if it hasn't been stolen. I haven't been out there for months. Don't look for it now, wait for daylight. Can you drive?"
"Yes, but I haven't got a license. Or anything else. Legally, I don't exist. That was made very clear to me at the whorehouse."
"That sounds very funny, the way you say it, but I think I know what you mean. I'll call around, there are stores that will deliver, that's not the problem. The problem is that I want you to be able to pick what you want. I don't know what to ask for."
"And I do?" She smiled.
"No, I suppose not, but you are very smart. You'll learn. You have to be in on it. Experiment!"
"I've never been called that before. A lot of things, but never that."
"What?"
"Smart."
"Well you are. But never mind that for now. Make the best list you can and we'll phone it in this time. And I'll get my lawyer moving towards making you legal. Deke laughed at that. It was a good laugh, and an unusual one."
"I can't pay a loawyer, not on the salary you pay me. She didn't laugh, but had he looked at her, he would have seen a smile."
"I wasn't aware that I paid you a salary."
"I wasn't either."
"Doesn't matter. He's my lawyer. I'll pay him."
"Boy, that's a relief. Does that mean I can keep my salary?"
"Yes, for now."
They both stared quietly into the fire for a whild, letting it all sink in, getting a feel for the new relationship .