The hotel at least, Lexa has to admit, is far cleaner than most she has ever been called to before.
She pulls up in her unassuming black convertible, parking after several minutes of eying the lot and deciding that no, a spot closer to the front entrance will not be opening up anytime soon, and gets out with a quiet sigh of amusement at the utterly scandalized look a harried mother shoots her as she desperately ushers her children into her own vehicle, doing her best to keep Lexa out of their sight.
'Please,' Lexa scoffs inwardly; she's not even wearing her best outfit. She's still in public, after all, and say what you like about her line of work, she still has a sense of class. She isn't Octavia, who would likely walk buck naked into the hotel lobby to pick up a fresh muffin from the free breakfast buffet if her client asked her to.
Still, as she ducks into the back seat to grab hold of her deflated overnight bag – the pay had been surprisingly good, especially in advance, but still wasn't enough for most of her toys – she casts a critical eye at the dark blue fabric currently wrapped around her body, at the heels sharp enough to cause serious damage to a man's body if necessary – she knows; she's tried – and concludes that it was the tattoo on her right arm that made the mother so upset; for all that the pay is so high, she'd still worn the closest thing to 'modest' her closet had to give.
Rolling her eyes, Lexa slaps the car door closed and absently clicks the lock, briskly walking to the door without bothering to look back.
The choice of venue is odd, so definitely not a regular; the pay had been exceptional and upfront, all cash, so someone who was clearly richer than most.
Maya hadn't been much help over the phone when she'd given her the job. "Cute blonde, kinda young, wanted a brunette and a lesbian and: bingo! You're hired, dear!"
Lexa had been fairly rude in her response, but she figured she was owed that, at least; never let it be said that the boss's daughter couldn't be an obnoxious brat when she wanted to be.
Still, she thinks as she walks through the automatic sliding glass doors that her usual haunts would never be able to afford, Maya's descriptions were hardly ever wrong, and as she scans the lobby with an air of detachment on her way to the front desk, she figures that, whatever the circumstances, a full night with a cute blonde can't be too terrible.
The man at the front desk smiles at her far too widely when she gives him the room number. "Ah, Room 237 is on the second floor," he grits out, clearly uncomfortable that, due to Lexa's extensive paperwork and legal manhandling, everything she's here to do is perfectly legal in every way.
The smile she gives him as she thanks him is almost warm enough to be termed 'frosty' as she turns away to find an elevator.
The trip up takes no time at all; by the time she reaches the second floor and finds her room, she's started tapping her bag against her thigh, not exactly a nervous habit as it is a routine; another day another dollar, or perhaps in her case, another night another thousand.
Her knuckle barely even grazes the wood before the door is practically flung open, and Lexa blinks as she's given her first view of sun-gold hair and ocean-blue eyes, her client disheveled and wide-eyed like a cornered animal about to become prey.
"Um," her client starts, licking her lips as if to psyche herself up. "Hi."
"Hello," Lexa returns mildly, feeling a faint beat of amusement as her client stares at her openly for several long seconds before realizing she's effectively trapped her outside in the hall.
"Come in!" comes too loud and a bit too fast, gold and blue suddenly disappearing back inside the hotel room as she retreats back into sanctuary away from prying eyes and listening ears.
Lexa follows slowly, smirk steadily growing wider as she makes a show of plucking the 'Do Not Disturb' sign off of the small table near the door and attaching it to the outside handle, clicking the door shut with a bored twitch of her hips.
With that out of the way, she turns back to the single bed, finding herself meeting a wide-eyed stare as if she'd been challenged to a contest like back in grade school.
"I'm Lexa, by the way," she says, because names are always a good ice breaker for first time customers, especially nervous ones; even if the names don't mean much in the morning when the time is up and the clothes are back on, it's always best to get it out of the way first thing just in case they're not a fan of talking during sex.
"Clarke," blondie croaks, looking somewhere between nervous and resigned, as if she were facing a firing squad and had already accepted her fate. If the pay hadn't been upfront, Lexa might have taken offense to that.
Sighing through her nose, Lexa walks across the room to plop her bag next to Clarke's on a wide cushioned chair before dropping into the one beside it, mildly beginning to remove her stiletto heels.
She tries to keep from sounding too accusing when she says, "You don't seem overly enthusiastic."
"Neither do you," Clarke counters, and, she will concede, the blonde had a point.
The shrug she gives is incredibly nonchalant. "Long day," she admits, and somehow those two simple words manage to bleed most of the tension out of Clarke's shoulders, and the smile she shoots at her is far less forced than Lexa had expected.
"I'm… I'm not supposed to be here." The dubious look Lexa gives her earns her a snort and an elaboration: "My friend Raven talked me into contacting your people, and- well… I'm mostly doing this to settle a dare more than anything. I didn't actually plan to spend my night having sex with a stranger, no offense."
None taken, is what Lexa conveys in her shrug. Plenty of people still find her line of work repulsive, for all that it is perhaps the oldest profession in the world.
Still, money is money, and if she doesn't at least try to make this night enjoyable for her client, she won't be getting any.
So, after both stilettos have dropped to the wayside and her hair has been pushed back out of her face, she stands and steps forward with all the grace of a mountain cat advanced toward her prey, and the unsubtle way Clarke's eyes dart up and down her form as she sits beside her on the bed is rather telling of what she thinks of this arrangement.
Her smile is coy as she asks, "Is this your first time with a woman?"
It's a fair question; she's had many women come to her with no idea where to put their hands, how to move their hips, where to find real pleasure in their bodies without an incompetent man feeling them all over and simply guessing at what feels good.
Clarke's eyes remain resolute, even when pointedly fixed on the far wall over Lexa's shoulder, her face flushing scarlet. "No, I- uh… this is my first time with- well, anyone, really?" the confession is hushed, almost a question, but more than loud enough in the quiet room, and it brings Lexa up short for a moment-
Lexa blinks rapidly in something like wonder as she remembers; remembers another first time, remembers another young woman, remembers hair red like fire instead of golden sunlight, remembers Costia's brilliant smile and flaming red blush that matched the shade of her hair perfectly as she leaned forward to press a sloppy, eager kiss onto Lexa's jaw as an unnecessary thank you for money well spent and a night to be remembered.
Lexa really shouldn't have allowed such a display after Costia's time was up, but-
But.
But she had allowed it, against her better judgement, just as she now allows her smirk to fade into something less judgmental and her eyes to darken as she reaches calmly for Clarke's hand.
Clarke startles when her fingers close lightly around her wrist, ocean-blue flying to sky-blue as Lexa calmly settles the girl's hand against her cheek in a makeshift caress, fingers mere centimeters from her mouth.
"We take this as far and fast as you like," Lexa says lowly, decidedly not noticing the way Clarke's breath catches at her near-commanding tone. "You paid for an entire night, after all. I don't mind if we fuck for half an hour and sleep for a while before we do it all over again, or spend the next eight hours staring at each other. It's entirely up to you how this goes."
And, oh-
That look of purposeful determination, as if she has something to prove to her; Costia had been the same, though far less hesitant about jumping straight into sex.
But.
But, Lexa leans ever so slightly back when Clarke comes forward, their breaths tangling together with their mouths only inches apart. "Are you sure?" she asks, because it needs to be asked, because even with her blasé attitude she knows the importance of this better than perhaps anyone has ever guessed. "Are you sure you want your first time to be with a stranger?"
Her answer comes in blush-red lips pressing to hers in a clumsy, wet collision; it's only Lexa's fingers rising up to carefully cradle the blonde's face and somewhat control her movements that prevents their teeth from clacking together.
Clarke is not one to be deterred, it seems.
She keeps her hands framing the other woman's face as they kiss, strangely alternating between careful, tentative kisses and passionate, heated licks that leave much to be desired.
This isn't the first time she's kissed an amateur, certainly, but something about the blonde's enthusiasm is especially amusing, almost endearing; not like Costia, not like any of the other nameless drove she's satisfied before, yet just similar enough to be grounding.
Her hands don't stray from Clarke's face until she can feel fingers wandering down her shoulders, curious, questing, uncertain; things become a lot clearer for her when Lexa drops her hands away to deftly unzip the back of her dress with the careful ease of long practice.
A muffled sound of surprise against her lips as cloth falls away from her shoulders, and Clarke pulls back enough to breathe heavily, already winded as her eyes trail down to the falling dress and pale blue bra and the winding trail of Lexa's favorite tattoos leading to places unseen.
Lexa's smile is back to coy when Clarke's attention returns to her face. "As fast as you like," she reminds her, and has to suppress a surprised giggle when Clarke all but tackles her backwards onto the queen-sized bed, dark hair fanning out in a halo as lips pressed happily back into hers.
It isn't the best sex of her life, like it would be in the movies.
It isn't the most romantic time she's ever spent with anyone, isn't the kinkiest or wildest night of her career.
All things considered, the encounter was near entirely unremarkable, aside from being Clarke's first time.
But two and a half weeks later, when she gets a call for an appointment at the same hotel, with the same room number, and Maya's gleeful singsong "I think you're somebody's favorite!" taunting her on the other end of the line, she thinks it's safe to admit that her smile is a bit more satisfied as she knocks on the door and waits calmly for it to open.
The door opens, and Clarke is already smiling, and Lexa is all but triumphant as she lifts her noticeably heavier bag above her head. "I brought some things along that I thought you might enjoy."
The devilish grin lighting up the other woman's face does weird things to Lexa's stomach, and it's not love at first sight.
It's not a modern day fairytale.
She's not Costia, whom she might have fallen in love with in one night, but-
But.
It's something different-but-not, and she intends to enjoy every second of it.
A/N: I was writing something else for your birthday Rie, I swear to god, but this whole concept slapped me in my sleep-deprived face at three in the morning and I wrote it in two hours, so I really hope you enjoyed it. Also I wanted to gift you with the smut, but I just couldn't do it, I am but a humble bean :')
I don't know a damn thing about sex workers, so if I got anything glaringly wrong, I'd love it if you could tell me! Leave a review if you enjoyed!
~Persephone