Mark’s apartment was a lot nicer than Christina expected after seeing his car. There was hardwood flooring. The countertops were marble, the appliances were sparkling stainless steel, the sofa was leather, and the plants were real. 

Christina sat down on the couch and said, “You must make a lot more money than I do.”

Mark shrugged his shoulders. “This isn’t really my place. It’s my brother’s. He’s just not living here right now. It’s not even my style, but it’s a dang sight better than living in the type of place I could afford. The biggest bonus is that I don't have to have roommates.”

She nodded.

“Are you disillusioned about me?” Mark asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t got a fancy car. Surely you saw the Jaguar Dominic drives. No? And this place; sure, it’s nice, but it’s not mine,” he said dryly. It was like he was trying to pull the wool off Christina’s eyes in the same way she was trying to disenchant him. 

“Do you think I’m impressed with money?” she questioned.

“You could be. I can’t get the way you talked about your escort service job out of my head. You really did it for the money, so I thought it was a given that you care about that sort of thing.”

“I only took that job because I was practically starving. Come on, I told you before I don’t harbor any little dreams of becoming a model or an actress. I want to be an administrative assistant and build off that. I don’t want to live a glamorous life and live continuously in the spotlight.” She paused. “Actually, this place is kind of intimidating. You need to know that my kitchen has lino flooring and the fridge and the stove are different colors? We don’t even own a dishwasher.”

“But doesn’t that make you aim for something better?” Mark asked as he sat down on one of the arms of the sofa.

“No. Actually, I didn’t realize how mismatched my apartment was until I saw your arrangement. Most of the stuff in my apartment isn’t even mine. It belongs to my cousin. So, you and I are in a similar situation. You just have a wealthier relative,” she said with a smile. “Besides, I think I’m even more comfortable with you knowing that this stuff isn’t yours. This is a pretty sterile place, isn’t it?”

Mark smiled and moved to a chair exactly adjacent to where Christina was sitting. 

“Now it’s your turn,” he said. “I’ve shown you mine. You show me yours.”

Christina bit her lip. He was right. For men, it often seemed like their appeal was based on their purchasing power instead of themselves. She couldn’t blame him for being a little nervous when she was the type of girl to sell herself for a hundred dollars an hour, which made her too expensive for his blood.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a mirror, which she propped on the coffee table between them and tilted toward her face. Then she crossed her legs and prepared to get started. 

“The first thing to come off is the wig,” she said pulling the claws out of her hair. Once it was off her real hair (though short) was pinned down in the front. It was terribly flattened, because wig hair was worse than hat hair. “Look at this,” she said, showing Mark the inside of the wig. “These claws go into my real hair to hold the wig in place.”

“Are they uncomfortable?” 

“They feel okay for the first couple of hours, but I can’t wear it for more than eight hours or I’ll have a legendary headache. But it also depends on how heavy the wig is. This is a heavier one because of its length. The wig is the last thing I put on before I leave for a job." Christina combed it before she put it away in its bag. “Next thing to come off is all this jewelry,” Christina said as she started stripping her ears of their dangling earrings. “None of this stuff belongs to me,” Christina explained. 

“Whose are they?” Mark asked.

“My cousin Mindy’s. She’s the one who got me into escorting. She owns a lot of clothes, a lot of jewelry, and a lot of makeup. She could probably start her own agency just on her personal stash. The wig is borrowed from the escort service though. Mindy has beautiful hair and would never degrade herself by wearing a wig. She’s more like the real-meal-deal whereas I’m just a substitute for when she’s got too many clients.”

“I didn’t realize you thought of yourself that way. You might be prettier than she is,” Mark commented.

“I might be, but I think that depends on what you think is beautiful. So, once I’ve got all that crap off me, then it's time for the false eyelashes to come off,” she said, getting enthusiastic. 

“You wear fake eyelashes!” Mark exclaimed. 

“Yup. Not only am I sort of fair; I don’t have dark eyelashes, but mine aren’t very long, so fake eyelashes are an absolute must." She looked extremely different once they were removed.

Christina couldn’t stand to look at Mark during that phase of her transformation. It was too much. No woman likes to be wiped completely clean of all makeup in front of the guy she likes. Besides, even Christina wore eyeliner and mascara on a regular basis. Without those, her face was all the same color.

She reached into her hair and pulled out the pins. She shook her hair out and said quietly, “Now there are only the clothes left. Oh, and these,” she said, reaching into her shirt and pulling her inserts out of her bra. It would be a meaningless exercise if she didn’t go all the way. She dropped them on the floor between them and was aware her shirt was considerably looser. 

She couldn’t look at Mark. It was just too hard. 

“I’m going to go change my clothes now,” she said, getting up and grabbing her bag. She disappeared around the corner and found the bathroom. She closed the door behind her noisily and tried to slow her pounding heart. What had she just done? What Mark said in the car made so much sense, so why was she panicking at the finish line? Well, once she came out, she was certain he wouldn’t be confused anymore about whether or not he was attracted to her. That would be the end of it, but she might still be able to salvage their work relationship.

Christina reached into her bag and pulled out the clothes she decided would represent what she normally wore. As Tina, she was wearing a black off-the-shoulder top and a brown corduroy skirt. She brought baby blue capris and a white fitted t-shirt. It was plain and ordinary and exactly her style. 

She looked in the mirror. Her hair was horribly flat. Well, there was no reason why Christina couldn’t be pretty after her own fashion. She started the water running in the tub and put her head under the stream. At least she could easily give her hair volume when it was short. She towel-dried her hair and then rooted around in Mark’s medicine cabinet until she found his gel. Sure, she’d smell like him, but it was better than letting her hair dry without any product in it at all. When she was finished, it wasn’t so bad. It was just herself and she didn’t think she was ugly.

She clicked open the door and came out into the hall. Mark was in the kitchen. He was cutting up vegetables on a glass cutting board.

“Can I help?” she asked, coming into the room.

Mark turned and looked at her. 

Christina wasn’t sure how to read his expression. Was he disappointed in her and trying really hard to hide it? What was he thinking? “So, what do you think?” she got up the nerve to ask.

He smiled and then he started to laugh. “You know, this isn’t what I expected at all.”

“What do you mean? How could you not expect this?” Christina asked, indicating her appearance. “This is how I look every day at work.”

“That’s not what I mean. When I said that I wanted to see you change from ‘Tina’ to ‘Christina’ I was honestly expecting was for you to stand in front of your bedroom door, curtsy, go inside and come out again looking exactly like you normally do. But then when you said that you wanted to do it over at my place, I was really confused. From what you said, it almost seemed like you were going to try to seduce me, but what you had in mind was… different. I never expected you to practically throw your bra stuffing at me,” he laughed.

“How is that funny?” she scowled.

“It’s extremely funny. I don’t have any sisters. I didn’t see a crowd of teenage girls first thing in the morning after a slumber party. My mother is a very pretty lady who doesn’t think it’s her son’s business to know anything about her morning routine. And to top it off, most of the girls I’ve been friends with would have died of embarrassment if I had seen them without their makeup. What you just showed me was… really eye-opening for me. I had no idea makeup did that much. Now I’m suspicious everyone looks completely different without it.”

“So, you’re not horrified?” she asked.

“No. I’m not horrified. I’m hopelessly intrigued that you manage to pull it off because you’re right. You do seem to have a different attitude when you’re ‘Tina.' Come here and cut up the cabbage,” he said, giving her a knife. 

They shared the same cutting board. He cut up the onion while she cut up the cabbage.

“So, which one of us do you like better?” she asked nervously. 

“Well, my apologies to Tina, but she’s too cool to be real. You’re perfect when you play her. Honestly, men drool over you from across the room. There’s yet another reason for me to kiss you without breaking on New Year’s Eve. Do you think I wanted every guy there trying to score a little time with you? No, ma’am.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” Christina said, blushing.

“I’m very thoughtful,” he said, jabbing her playfully with his elbow. “But, I don’t know if a person could really be as fabulous as Tina in real life. Something about it doesn’t ring true; like a part of your personality is missing. You do an excellent job, but you turn yourself into a dream for a guy, like an actress or a poster girl. I guess that’s why Dominic is trying to make you a model.”

“Or something like that,” Christina said clicking her tongue on her teeth. She noticed he left out what he thought of her—Christina—but she’d have to let that slide. It would be too humiliating to ask him about it twice. But she could ask him something else, “So, what was the deal with you and Laura anyway?”

“Nothing much. She chases me and I keep running. That doesn’t mean I haven't got stuck going on dates with her once and awhile, because I have. It was just never as meaningful for me as it was for her.”

“Why don’t you like her?” Christina asked.

“I don’t know. She’s a nice person. She’s smart, successful, well-connected, and sort of pretty, but I can’t force myself.”

“Why not? If she’s all that?” 

 Mark thought for a moment before he answered, “Laura is very disciplined. She eats the way she is supposed to, works out as much as she is supposed to, votes, and visits her parents. I don’t know how to describe it. She lives on a tight schedule. I can’t live that way. If I were to get close to her she’d slide me into the appropriate time slots, and I’d just become another thing on her ‘to do’ list. I’d hate that. I don’t want the woman in my life to hand me a number and ask me to wait in line.”

“Makes sense,” Christina agreed.

“The truth is I asked her to go to the New Year’s party with me and she turned me down because she had an offer to go with someone else the January before. The guy who asked her completely forgot about it. He asked someone else in the meantime and he wasn’t willing to break his date when he realized his mistake. I don’t know why she believed him in the first place. Who’s going to remember something like that eleven months later? So, after she found out her date had fallen through, she came and asked me to take her two days before the event. I was insulted she was using me as her last-minute life-line, so I lied and told her that I already had a date so she was on her own. Then I called your escort service.”

Christina nodded. Yeah, that explained why Mark had called her agency. She smiled. It was cute that Mark’s boss, Collin, had been the one to suggest it in the first place.

“Laura surprised me that night,” Mark continued. “I didn’t expect her to be so childish when I introduced the two of you. She must have been threatened. That made me think she liked me a lot more than she’d admitted, but I was still mad about being second fiddle to a loser.”

“So, that’s how she lost her chance to be with you?”

“I guess. I’ve tried to stay friends with her. She wouldn’t be a good person to cross, but if she’s really set on getting me then she’s going to be disappointed,” Mark said, scooting the vegetables off the cutting board and into the frying pan. 

“What are we having?” Christina asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Oh! So fancy! I’m making you a stir fry.”

“Yum!” Christina said enthusiastically.

Mark gave her a sideways glance. “You don’t have to act so hyped up. Surely you’ve had men cook for you before.”

“Actually, I haven’t,” Christina said as she checked on the rice. “Is there anything else I can help with?”

“Wash the bean sprouts, Princess,” he instructed.

“Okay.”

“You mean you’ve never had a guy cook for you before?” Mark asked.

“Nope,” she said.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, when I’m working as an escort I’m seldom at anyone’s home. I’m usually out with lots of people. None of my dates would dream of doing anything as nice as make supper for me. They’re all worried that if they don’t show up with a woman on their arm they’ll look like losers in front of their friends. They’re not actually trying to win me over,” Christina explained.

“What about before the escort service? When you lived at home, one of your little boyfriends must have done something for you,” Mark persisted.

“What boyfriends are you thinking of? You mean someone more significant than a nervous boy approaching me at my locker and asking timidly if he can be my boyfriend. If you mean something more than that; I haven’t had one. No grand passionate love for me, and to be honest, I don’t really see something like that in my future.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, because I’m more like the girl-next-door than a hopelessly unattainable escort, so I don’t think it will be possible. I’ll probably date an average-looking guy who works in accounting for a respectable year, get married six months later, have three kids and die old and happy. Nothing special.”

“Accounting? Do you already have someone picked out?” Mark suddenly flared. His back was to her as he flipped the contents of the frying pan.

“No,” Christina denied. “I just mean I don’t have any extraordinary plans for my life, but you’re very sweet, Mark. You’re the first man to cook for me.”

“Put the spouts in." He sounded weary.

Christina did.

“So, where did you get the idea to go work for an escort service?”