AN: So here we go. This came from the Tumblr prompt that wanted Michonne and Andrea as client and prostitute. It was an interesting one to do.
I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think!
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Michonne was surprised that a woman in the blonde's profession could look so surprised. She assumed that, honestly, someone like her had seen it all.
Still, she was trying to handle it professionally. That, of course, only made Michonne wonder if there was some sort of code of conduct—some list of professional and personal rules—by which this type of business was run.
Of course, Michonne wasn't accustomed to this sort of thing either. She sat at the table in the hotel room and turned the card over and over in her hand while sipping on the wine that she'd ordered to be brought to her room before she'd ever even called the raised up number on the card. Maybe that was what was making the blonde uncomfortable.
Michonne suddenly realized that, following their brief introductions and her pulling the woman—her name was Andrea, Michonne needed to remember that—into the room, she'd failed to say anything else at all to Andrea and now Andrea was reduced to awkwardly standing there and staring at Michonne.
But this had all been an accident. It had been—it was never meant to happen. Michonne had never done this sort of thing. She'd never intended to do this sort of thing, on so many levels, and she hadn't meant to do it tonight.
She'd been niave. Stupid even. She was a lawyer. She was a very good lawyer. And yet? She'd still been stupid enough to misunderstand entirely what the man had said to her when he'd offered her the card near the door of her very nice hotel. He'd offered the cards to everyone. She'd taken it when others had refused—but that's because she'd misunderstood entirely.
But now? Now she was asking herself if she'd really misunderstood or if she was simply telling herself that was the case because she didn't want to admit that she'd brought Andrea here and now she had no idea what to do with her—now she was uncomfortable.
Michonne sighed and tapped the long edge of the card against the table. She glanced at Andrea again. Andrea was standing, at this point, stone still and glancing around the room like she was looking for fire exits from the high floor. Michonne kept forgetting that she'd said nothing to the woman.
"Andrea..." Michonne said, testing the name of the woman on her tongue. It must have been her real name. Either it was her real name or it was one that she was accustomed to being called by because Andrea's head snapped in her direction. She was no longer wearing the smile that she'd worn at the door. She didn't look comfortable at all. But, of course, she'd been standing there for some time in silence so she probably had lost any of the comfort that she carried with her. Any courage that she had to gather up within herself for just such an occasion had been given plenty of time to fade.
Accidentally, Michonne had done the same thing to her that she'd seen cops do to people that they intended to interrogate. She'd given her time, in silence and left alone with whatever nerves she might have, to think about her sins. All she needed now was a hot light bulb and she could probably press the woman to confess just about anything.
But that had never been Michonne's intention either.
"Andrea," Michonne repeated, this time clearly and boldly, enough to let Andrea know, for sure, that she was actually being addressed.
The bright, wide smile that she'd been wearing when she'd come to the door returned to Andrea's face. Already, though, Michonne doubted the sincerity of just such an expression. The smile was a learned reaction. It wasn't real. Andrea had beautiful eyes—but they were sad, and they didn't go at all with the smile. They didn't even go with the short, skin tight black dress—possibly proper attire for a woman of her profession that wanted to work in a hotel such as this.
"So..." Andrea said, apparently feeling that Michonne was finally ready to be addressed. "What—uh—what do you want?"
She finished the last part of her question with a higher pitched tone of voice than the rest. She waved her hands, folded across her before, at Michonne in question. She raised her eyebrows. She wasn't offering to take a drink order.
"Sit down?" Michonne asked.
Andrea raised her eyebrows once more.
"You want to—try this sitting down?" Andrea asked. She was restructuring the question. That way it wasn't a direct rejection of the statement, but it was seeking clarification, thus signaling that she'd possibly detected something about this request that she found problematic or even impossible.
Damn. Michonne needed a vacation from her job. She needed a vacation from her life. And yet, here she was, having accidentally acquired a prostitute and she was trying to quickly psychoanalyze her to some degree to stay one step ahead of her at all times. She brought her work with her.
"I want you to sit down," Michonne said, gesturing toward the chair on the other side of the table.
Andrea looked at the chair, but finally she did sit. She was, clearly, already thinking about what they might be doing with the chair. Michonne hadn't corrected for her the reason that she was there.
"I want to talk," Michonne said.
Andrea tried to conceal her surprise, or maybe it was curiosity, but there was still a slight rise and fall of her eyebrows.
Michonne wondered—how did such a beautiful woman end up in such a profession? Clearly her beauty would probably help her rise up the so-called corporate ladder, if such a profession had a corporate ladder, but it seemed like she must have had other options. She was classically beautiful, after all. The kind of woman who could have, even if she'd desired not to work, found for herself a steady husband who would have been more than willing to keep her from working at all.
Husbands weren't all they were cracked up to be either, though. Michonne knew that first hand. It was part of the reason that she'd dialed the number on the card for companionship.
"You want me to—talk dirty to you?" Andrea asked. "Or—talk about what you want? Because I'm really quite flexible, but I do have a few things that I...don't do."
Michonne frowned. Andrea was trying to understand. She was trying desperately to understand. And why shouldn't she? Michonne still hadn't brought herself out of her head enough communicate her desires to Andrea. That was one thing that Dean had criticized her for. It was one of the reasons that he'd used to justify his infidelity. She didn't communicate with him. He felt like he was alone. He'd sought that with someone else.
He'd sought companionship in a woman that was, truth be told, probably not even comparable to the woman that sat across the table from Michonne, even if the woman across the table declared her profession while the woman that had cheated with her husband—and she knew with many other women's husbands—called herself a bank teller.
"There are things you don't do..." Michonne said.
Andrea nodded.
"Do you talk?" Michonne asked.
Andrea laughed to herself.
"I'll say anything you want me to say," Andrea said.
Michonne hummed.
"How about you say what you want to say?" Michonne asked.
Andrea shrugged and nodded simultaneously.
"Can you listen?" Michonne asked.
A slightly confused look and Michonne sighed.
"I just want to talk to you," Michonne admitted, finally feeling that she couldn't leave the woman in the dark any longer. "That's all. I just—I just want to talk. I called the number for companionship. I guess—I knew what kind of companionship they were advertising, but it wasn't the kind I wanted. Selective hearing?"
Andrea put her elbows on the table and folded her hands in front of her face. She didn't respond for a moment.
"So this has been a mistake?" Andrea asked.
"Has it?" Michonne asked.
Andrea raised her eyebrows.
"It hasn't?" She asked.
"I want companionship," Michonne said. "You're supposed to be a companion, aren't you?"
Andrea stared at her.
"Listen—I'm on the clock. I've got bills to pay," Andrea said.
Michonne waved her hand.
"You misunderstand," Michonne said. "I'm going to pay you. I'm still going to pay you for your time. For the hour—for two hours. Three even. However long it takes. I don't care."
Andrea looked shocked.
"Do you know—how much it costs an hour?" Andrea asked.
Michonne frowned. Of course she knew how much it costed per hour. When she'd "ordered" her companion—someone who was contracted by the hour and available to her until she was done, when she assumed the woman would be sent to someone else—she'd been told how much she was expected to pay the woman in cash.
"We'll take a trip to an ATM," Michonne said. But sensing that money was an issue with Andrea, she got up and got her purse from her earlier trip to the ATM in the "lobby" on the third floor. She'd made the withdrawal—far too much, perhaps—as soon as she'd hung up the phone and been searching for things to keep her mind and hands busy while she waited for the person she'd spoken to on the phone to find her a suitable match. From her purse, Michonne pulled the pile of money—enough that her bank had already called her to confirm that it was she who had made the withdrawal—and dropped it into the center of the small table. "Money I've got," Michonne said. "It's one of the few things that I have. A house. Daughters. A good job. Money I have. Friends? Companions? I don't."
Andrea stared at the money and then she looked back at Michonne. There was something else in her glass green eyes now—sympathy? Sadness?
"You want to pay me—to talk to you?" Andrea asked.
Michonne swallowed and nodded.
"I pay a therapist," Michonne said. "Six hours a week. Sometimes more. I've been doing that for almost three years. She hasn't helped me with a single thing. Every time I see her? I sit. I tell her everything that I feel like I need to say. And she asks questions and she reminds me that I'm responsible for my own happiness. She reminds me—she reminds me that I decide how I handle things in life. I decide how I come out from them, on the other side."
Michonne shook her head and tasted her wine.
"She never once just—just says that sucks, you know? Life sucks and that sucks and Dean's an asshole for what he did and he's a—he's a dick for what he said," Michonne said. "She never says that. She wants me to grow. And I want to grow. But, sometimes? I just want someone to say—boy what an asshole."
Michonne laughed to herself.
"Is it the dumbest thing you've ever heard?" Michonne asked.
The look that was in Andrea's eyes before, was still there.
"You've got beautiful eyes," Michonne offered, surprising herself because she'd never meant for such a compliment to come out. She thought that kind of thing, all the time, but she never put it to words. As far as she could remember? She'd never complimented another woman on how she looked. She'd barely complimented any men on how they looked.
She hadn't meant to tell Andrea that her eyes were beautiful, but she did mean what she'd said, so she let it go.
"Are you sure you don't want anything?" Andrea asked, raising her eyebrows.
Michonne didn't immediately respond, but she wasn't sure why she didn't. She stretched a finger out. The pile of money had been carefully sorted, by her. They were all crisp bills. She'd turned them all the right way. She couldn't stand the untidy way that money got piled. She moved the stack enough with the tip of her finger that it fanned out on the table. It revealed, for Andrea, just how much was there—crisp, and clean, and freshly printed money. Enough for whatever bills she might need to pay.
"We can take a trip to the ATM," Michonne said. "If we need to. Money I've got. It isn't money that I need."
Andrea looked at the money and then she looked back at Michonne. She rested her head on her hands, her elbows still resting on the table, and she nodded.
"Tell me about the asshole," Andrea said. "I've known a few of those in my life."
Michonne smiled.
"Do you want a glass of wine? Or I could order champagne. Whatever you want, really," Michonne said.
Andrea smiled and gestured toward the wine glass.
"We'll start with the wine," she said. "There will be time for champagne—from the looks of it? We've got plenty of time."