“So, how was the weather out in San Fran?” she asked me. I don’t know if her intention was to break my concentration from Andrea or what, but she was beginning to irritate me.

“Sunny as usual,” I told her. “It doesn’t change much out there.”

I found it ironic that I had made up a trip about San Francisco to keep them from thinking about our shared associations in L.A., just for an old San Francisco fling to contact me. It would have been crazy had they all known each other. The thought did pop into my mind. Stranger things have happened. But I let it stand as just a coincidence.

“So, getting back to us, how do you two really feel about it?” I asked them both. It looked as if I had no way out.

“What, a threesome?” Brazil stated nonchalantly. She said, “We’re grown women.”

“How do you feel about it?” Andrea asked me.

I wanted to tell her I didn’t want to do it anymore. I wanted to tell her that I wanted us back together again. But instead, I backed down and said, “I still can’t believe you both agreed to it.”

“Why not? You asked for it, didn’t you?” Brazil stated. “Why would you ask for something you didn’t believe you could have?”

She had a point, and I had another opportunity to end it. But what did Andrea want? I still didn’t know. She was letting Brazil do all the talking. So I asked her, “What do you think, Andrea?”

I was looking for a way out. But it was all up to her now.

Brazil and I both looked at Andrea, and she nodded to us.

“I wanna do it,” she answered. That was it. She had sealed the deal. So I agreed to pay them what they asked, two thousand dollars on a “friendship bargain” was what Brazil had called it. She said their normal rate could be as much as twenty thousand depending on the client. You believe that?

ANDREA DROVE US back out to my airport hotel in near silence behind the wheel of their copper-toned Nissan Altima. We listened to the radio instead of talking. Alicia Keys was on. She was singing about real love, old-school style. And her song only made me feel more meaningless.

“What do you think about her?” Brazil asked me. She sat in the passenger seat and I sat in the back.

I nodded. “She’s a talented girl with a bright future ahead of her.”

“You think she’s attractive?”

“Of course,” I answered.

Brazil looked at Andrea and grinned. I didn’t know what that exchange was all about, and I didn’t care. I was only thinking about our predicament.

We arrived at the hotel and headed straight for the elevators, where I began to feel apprehensive.

How old is this girl Brazil, anyway? Is that even her real name? I asked myself. She didn’t act like a woman in her twenties, that was for sure. But it’s funny how I didn’t ask many questions about Tan. I didn’t know her either. However, I got to learn a little bit about her at the party.