He placed one of his legs on the knee of the other and leaned back on the chair giving her his full undivided attention. He was a man with an irresistible sex appeal. His sky blue eyes were like the beauty of the space as he studied her.
"So tell me about yourself Ana." He called her. It was an epithet with which nobody addressed her except her mother. Goosebumps crawled on Ana's skin for the first time after years, she was hearing love for her in a man's tone rather than lust if her ears were not wrong in understanding the person.
"Are you sure you came all over here to find out about me rather than spend the night?" Ana asked slightly suspicious and lit a cigarette. "I do not have any beautiful fairy tale to tell you and you will most probably run away from here after listening to my sad story."
"If I was the man to run away I would not be here to talk to you. Come on, I am all ears." Maybe it was only her intuition but Ana felt Jacob had a hidden meaning behind his words. He encouraged her to speak. His eyes gravely stare at her, arresting her in his looks.
"And you need not worry that I will demand back the money I paid you just because I came here only to talk." He stood up from his chair and walked towards her with his hands in his pant pockets. His aura radiated power and poise accompanied with extreme virility. She was sure many girls would have died of copiousness earning just a glance from him.
"But I have a few conditions here that I want you to meet. First of all, no smoking. The other name for cigarettes is cancer stick. Do you know that?" He gently pulled out the cigarette from between her lips and nipped it into the ashtray.
"You are the first man I am seeing in my two years of being a whore who does not want me to smoke. Initially I had an aversion for cigarettes but the manwhores who came here forced me to smoke and that's how I became a smoker." Ana replied sorrowfully. Somehow she felt a feeling of protection and love in his company unlike other men who were only after her body.
"Now this has become a habit." She plays with the cigarette case in her hands. The moment the words left out of her lips there was a flash of sorrow in the eyes of Jacob Ana did not know why.
"Tell me what you like." Ana looked at him with narrowed eyes. The man was weird. Why would this man find out about her tastes rather than sleep with her and finish the job? She was already running late to meet her mother.
"I mean your tastes, your most relished food, your favorite color etc.." He cleared his throat suddenly feeling a little reticent.
"None of your business." Ana shouted at him. The man was too creepy and she had no interest in such sort of men even if it was just for a one night stand. Nobody is for her in the world to solve her problems. They are only after her body.
"I paid for this meeting. Do you remember?" He raised his brows in a drawl, he was having fun teasing her. Walking closer he pushed away the hairs falling on her face so tenderly like he was handling a porcelain doll. Every movement, every action of his had an abstruse effect, an affection and care she did not get to experience from a man since she realized her existence.
"So why did you join here?" His voice slightly trembled and eyes in an unregistered rage if she was right in understanding the whirlpool of emotions edging in him.
"My mother. She suffers from a heart disease. My step father does not spend a penny on us and on the other spends money I earn like water for his drinks and sex. He stopped my education and made me a whore to earn for his requirements." Ana said with disgust.
"One day my mother found out what he did to me and both of them had a frightful altercation during which he hit my mother with an iron rod." Ana wiped her tears recollecting the incident. "Since the day my mom stopped recognizing me."
"She does not recollect anything about her past?" Jacob asked with positive anticipation but to his regret Ana only shook her head, restraining her eyes to the floor. He was holding the dressing chair on which Ana sat earlier so tight with temper that his knuckles turned white.
"Excuse, just give me a minute." His sudden interruption shocked Ana. He took the phone from his pant pockets to dial a number and the call was lifted instantly after the second ring. "She is admitted in the hospital because of memory loss." There was clearing of the throat heard from the other side as if restraining a sob.
"Continue" was the only word spoken in a rasped breath. "What's the more ruinous truth awaiting you is Ana was forced to work as a sex worker." There was a breakage of glass heard on the other line. He obviously turned vulnerable and disturbed. Jacob could understand his pain but was in no better state to console. No words came out of him for the heaviness his heart was already suffering.
He walked back to Ana's room much against her intuition who thought he would abandon her like trash much similar to all males she came across previously. But she was wrong.
"Can you take me with you to meet your mom?" He spoke restless and vulnerable like a little boy craving for an ice-cream.
Anastasia was alarmed at his sudden sullen temperament. This man was here with her for her or for her mother?
Who was he?