Читать книгу Undercover: The Adventures of a Real Life Gigolo - Luke Bradbury - Страница 11

Mid October

Sasha called me out to her apartment in a luxury new development beyond Tower Bridge around about midnight, though I was pretty much ready for my own bed.

I was knackered, but when you’re just starting out you’ve got to accept practically every call no matter what. They could turn into regulars, and obviously that’s what you’re after. Jenny was the start, but if I wanted to succeed I needed more repeat meetings than that.

It was October, and as the cab passed London Bridge Station and made its way along Tooley Street I could see by the spotlighting of the wall-like brick buildings we ran between that this was an old part of town spruced up. The gold haloing cried out about the money that had clearly poured into the area but the night’s darkness couldn’t completely shake off the grime. These stolid, heavy buildings petered out, replaced by brand-spanking-new luxury flats and office blocks with river views. The tilted glass and metal egg of the London Assembly building seemed designed to bask in its reflection in the Thames. Across the way, the ancient Tower of London stood upright and proud. Like it had seen it all before; that all that brashness and cash was wafer-thin, fleeting and not to be trusted.

The cab passed a half mile beyond Tower Bridge to draw up at a brand new glass and metal block. A figure appeared out of the dark. I paid the fare and climbed out of the car, and she stepped forward to greet me.

‘It’s Luke, isn’t it? I’m Sasha,’ she smiled, and shook my hand.

Even in the dim light I could see Sasha was gorgeous, maybe a few years older than me, in her late twenties. And she had the most striking brown eyes. I followed her through the door of the apartment block and into the lift. The doors glided shut behind us.

Sasha turned towards me. As she did her coat fell slightly open, and I caught sight of the curve of her naked breasts. I all but gasped.

I swallowed and focused on her face. It was framed by glossy short brown hair. She was one of the prettiest women I had ever seen. She had almost airbrushed features, as if she’d walked off the cover of a fashion magazine.

Sasha looked back at me, and swung her coat further apart. She was wearing nothing underneath. She was slim and well-toned with wonderful rounded breasts. Like a swimwear model.

This can’t be right. This can’t be my luck.

My jaw tightened and I automatically clenched my teeth.

Aw, man. Keep your cool. Keep your cool.

My teeth had begun to ache.

The lift doors parted and we stepped out. We entered her apartment and she led me into the sitting room. As I stepped through the door, I froze.

Sitting on the chocolate leather sofa in front of me was a naked girl, about twenty-two. Her tits were like little foothills and her svelte body had a bronzed sheen. She reminded me of Bambi.

‘Luke; Chloe. Chloe; Luke.’

Chloe smiled. ‘Hello.’

I nodded, struck dumb.

This is too good to be true. No one can be this lucky and be paid for it.

If Sasha was almost a ‘ten’—and she was—Chloe was more than a ‘nine’. But that was just splitting hairs. Both were gorgeous. Head-turners if you saw them walking down the street. Except they shouldn’t have been walking down the street. They were too perfect.

My God. This isn’t right. This is what some guys pay a grand for. Just let me get home and tell my mates.

‘Do you want your money now?’ Sasha asked, taking my coat.

I hadn’t moved from the doorway.

‘Huh? Money. Oh, afterwards is fine,’ I garbled.

‘Would you like a glass of champagne?’

‘Yes, please.’ I wasn’t quite sure where to look.

‘You make yourself at home. I’ve got some chilling in the fridge.’

Sasha went to the kitchen, and I hovered before making a beeline for the nearest armchair and perched on its edge.

‘Come and join me,’ Chloe beckoned, her hand patting the sofa beside her.

I crossed the room and sat down. My hands sat on my knees. Neither of us spoke for a couple of minutes. I looked around the room; anywhere but at her. The deep-pile cream carpet seemed to go on for miles. A plasma-screen telly filled the far wall. The dark brown of the furniture was broken up by pale pink cashmere throws. A couple of chrome high-end speakers added a sharp modern twist. Like its owners, it all could have stepped off the pages of some style magazine.

‘You didn’t have trouble finding us?’

My focus fell on Chloe. She had long blonde hair and grey-blue eyes and there was a sweet youthfulness about her. And she was deliciously relaxed in her nakedness.

‘No, the cab driver knew where to go. But when Sasha told me on the phone that it was just beyond Tower Bridge, I had a mental block. I know it isn’t, but it’s like that’s where you fall off the edge of London.’

She looked at me, curious: ‘What, here be dragons?’

‘Yeah, just about.’

‘Well, don’t worry, Luke,’ she stroked my denim-clad thigh, ‘we won’t eat you alive.’

‘Not, of course, unless you want us to.’ Sasha had come back into the room. She set down a tray on the coffee table from which she handed me and Chloe a glass of champagne each before sitting down in the chair opposite.

Veuve Clicquot . The good stuff.

‘So, Luke, where did you say you came from?’ Sasha asked, pouring a glass for herself. She was wearing, I noted, what looked like a wedding ring.

‘Out West London way,’ I mumbled, and took a gulp of the drink.

‘Where the dragons don’t roam,’ added Chloe.

‘Yeah, something like that.’

A voice in my head was telling me that it was my job to ask them about themselves and help them relax. I’d just about felt comfortable chatting to Chloe. But the two of them together was too much. Their beauty left me tongue-tied.

The girls chatted, and I sipped my champagne and desperately tried to join in. It was a relief when eventually Sasha rose from her chair, picked up the bottle of champagne, and reached out her hand to take Chloe’s, before turning to me. ‘You’ll join us in the bedroom?’

‘Yes. Okay,’ I nodded, a bit too eager. A good escort was supposed to suggest the next move too, but I wasn’t about to argue the toss.

Chloe stood and, taking her hand out of Sasha’s, slipped her arm around her girlfriend’s waist. It was like they’d melted into each other; you couldn’t have got a card between them. I was like a lost sheep trotting behind. Or a lamb to the slaughter. I wasn’t sure which. I’d seen girls together on the telly of a night with the lads, but those girls weren’t a patch on these two in front of me. I was mesmerised by their naked butts. Yup, Sasha and Chloe were the type who featured in my wildest dreams.

The girls slipped onto the bed together and stretched out before me like a pair of Siamese cats. Sleek, their lithe legs entwined, watching me. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. Like the very fact that I was looking on at this dream scene meant it couldn’t really be happening. I breathed out again and I was too, too aware of myself standing there, fearing they’d caught me out of my depth.

‘Now, Luke,’ announced Sasha, her tongue running across her teeth, ‘it’s your turn.’ She stole a glance at Chloe, and then both of them, heads cocked in parallel, watched me undress.

‘Slowly,’ purred Chloe, tracing her middle finger from just above her cleavage gently up to her top lip and drawing it back down again.

That brought me to my senses. This was first-base stuff. Easy as pie. I peeled off my jacket and placed it on the steel-grey chaise longue in the corner of the room. I turned squarely towards the bed and fixed my eyes on the two of them. With one hand on my hip, I unhitched a button and allowed the seconds to tick away before reaching for the next in line. With the final button undone, I placed the other hand on my hip and let the shirt fall open.

‘Wow!’ Sasha blurted out. ‘That’s one fine body.’

‘You know just how to exercise, and just when to stop, don’t you?’ chimed in Chloe.

I was secretly flattered but kept schtum. All those extra hours at the gym and playing footie had paid off. I unzipped my flies, let my jeans fall to the floor, and stepped out of them.

‘Miaow,’ yelped Chloe, eyeing my dick, which was now straining to be freed from my Calvins.

‘Luke,’ Sasha beckoned with the bottle, ‘get your glass and come right here. Now.’

I grinned, peeled off my boxers, and slid onto the bed beside the girls. We chinked glasses.

‘You enjoying yourself, Luke?’

Chloe was younger than me but she was doing her best to make me feel relaxed. For all my naked bravado, she could still tell that I was winging it.

I could feel myself blushing: ‘Yes, I am.’

It came out quieter than I wanted it to. If they were going to try and get me talking more, it wasn’t going to work. I still wasn’t up to having much of a conversation. It was just enough to sit with Sasha and Chloe, and enjoy being with them. And then a second later, they were kissing, their hands running down each other’s body.

Oh God.

All I knew how to do was to sit there within inches of them and watch. This was heading way beyond any sex I’d had before. My own body yearned to join in but my mind was wondering how to go about it. Sasha’s hand reached out and stroked my leg, willing me to be part of the action. And the next minute Sasha went down on Chloe, and Chloe writhed deeper into the bed—and I felt as if I might as well not have been there. Except, except, there was something almost stage-managed about the sex. Like they knew exactly what they were doing to me.

God, it was working.

I shifted closer and readied myself. But still I held back. They were so caught up in each other.

How do I join in on this without ruining the moment?

My focus shifted from Sasha to Chloe beneath her, and then back again.

Who do I go for first?

I was on the brink of every guy’s wet dream—ready to jump the chasm.

Just go for it, Luke. You’ve just got to get in there somehow.

I felt the lull in my storm. All the attention laser-beamed onto my suddenly limp dick.

NO! Don’t do this to me. Kick in, you bastard. Get your damn act together.

‘You’re not gay, are you?’

Everything else in me stiffened. I looked up. Chloe had spoken but both she and Sasha, embracing horizontally, were now watching me.

‘Oh God, no,’ I laughed.

Beyond them, I could see a sliver of a window through a gap in the burgundy curtain that ran the length of the room. A split-second urge swept through me to dive through the glass and down to the cold stone floor however many storeys below.

I clambered off the bed.

‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I muttered, avoiding catching their eyes. My self-esteem felt like my dick.

I closed the bathroom door behind me and breathed out.

What the fuck’s going on?

I turned on the cold tap and cupped my hands beneath it and looked at myself, tight-lipped in the mirror. The glass reflected back the shiny oxblood tiles behind me, which when I looked from the right angle appeared to line up exactly with the tiles on the wall I faced. Like I was bricked in. I washed my face and gripped the marble washbasin and wondered what Sasha and Chloe were thinking about me. Sniggering, no doubt. Or angry that they weren’t getting what they’d bargained for. I was experiencing what every guy says ‘never happens to me’ when it does.

My dick was making no effort to rejoin the party. I looked down at it, frowning.

What are you playing at? Why NOW?

I gave it a damn hard helping hand.

Come on, come on. Oh, congratulations. About bloody time. Where the fucking hell have you been?

I returned to the bedroom, spirits and cock revived. In my absence, the girls had decided to carry on without me. They were so wound up in each other that they barely noticed me watching their every move as I walked towards the bed and climbed onto it beside them. Sasha was on her back and Chloe sat astride her with one hand behind her as if she was riding rodeo. Sasha bucked in pleasure.

Thank you, God. Fantasy made flesh.

Chloe caught my eye and drew her girlfriend to a canter and then to a gentle halt. Her gaze didn’t waver from my face as she climbed off her mount and made her way on all fours across the bed towards me. Her hand reached out to encircle my prick, and I took a deep breath. She sat back on her haunches to steady herself, and neither missing a beat nor taking her eyes off mine, she stretched out her other hand towards her lover.

‘Condom, please.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Sasha in turn stretch out her hand to fish around in the drawer of the bedside cabinet, pull out a rubber and slip it between Chloe’s finger and thumb. It was a practised move.

They’ve done this before.

It was now Sasha’s turn to lean on an elbow and watch, her other hand between her thighs.

Chloe brought the packet up to her mouth and ripped the corner of the wrapper away with her teeth. With a deft hand she pulled out the condom and placed it between her lips, and this time dropped her eyes. Her hands ran gently down my dick, guiding it into her mouth at the very same time as she drew her mouth up the shaft.

Oh God, yes.

I closed my eyes to both savour and withstand the breakers. My eyes jarred open in shock a moment later. I was losing it. Again.

No, it can’t do this to me. It can’t get worse.

Chloe was doing her utmost to tantalise me. I willed my dick to harden.

What’s wrong with me? With these two and I can’t keep in shape? Of course I’m not gay. Am I? No. No. So what the fuck’s going on? This ain’t supposed to happen. What do I have to DO? God Almighty. Work, damn it.

My dick wasn’t listening to a word of it.

Chloe pulled away, and shot a glance at her lover. They were looking at each other, but not in a good way. I sat there feeling completely deflated.

‘Is everything all right?’ said Sasha.

I braced myself and lied through my teeth. ‘Oh, it’s fine, it’s fine.’ Then bashfully I looked at both of them sitting there, and decided to admit defeat.

‘Look, my dick’s not working for anyone. You two are just too good.’

They smiled back at me and said nothing. My words hung in the air.

‘Would you like another drink?’ Chloe asked, and shifted off the bed to collect the bottle and our glasses.

‘Thanks, love,’ replied Sasha.

‘Yes, please, that’d be nice,’ I said.

I watched the golden elixir fill my glass.

‘Cheers,’ we said, almost in unison, and sunk one and then another.

Whether it was the alcohol, or just that I’d got the worst out of the way, I couldn’t be sure, but my whole—yes, whole—body felt like it was back in the swing of things.

Welcome back.

My prick and I were back on speaking terms.

Sasha pulled herself across the bed towards me and nuzzled my neck, and then we kissed and I could taste the champagne sweetness on her lips and in her mouth. The flute slipped out of my hand. I held her in my arms and savoured her sculpted athletic plains and then laid her down on the bed and rammed into her. Hard into hard. Chloe stretched herself alongside us and watched as she stroked her girlfriend’s arm.

‘Sash…’ she breathed.

As I rode her, Sasha turned her head towards Chloe, and her face was lost behind the blonde curtain of her lover’s hair as they kissed. When I relaxed into Sasha’s arms, Chloe in turn twisted a lock of hair behind her ear and turned her profile to me, and our lips met and my tongue entered her mouth even as I remained inside Sasha.

I felt my way. My right hand journeyed across Chloe’s soft belly and slipped around the curve of her waist. My left hand cradled the weight of Sasha’s right breast, and then swept up to her neck where I let my thumb stroke her throat. Her head was stretched back deep into the pillow, and I could have sworn she purred.

Nothing was said. As I drew myself away from Sasha, Chloe’s hand pushed into my chest and forced me onto my back. I’d barely had a chance to work out where she was going with this before her clasped hands ran a condom down my cock and I willed myself not to come just yet, and she straddled me. Sasha’s hands gripped my jaw, and she thrust her tongue into my mouth.

Chloe orgasmed first, her back arching and both her hands clawed into the back of my legs, my own hands clasping her breasts as she leaned back with the ecstasy and screeched into the night.

Chloe caught her breath and threw Sasha an evil leer and they immediately swapped places. Chloe’s melting softness and Sasha’s angular beauty had fluidly become one and my body could no longer tell the difference. Or wanted to. My nervousness had long fled and the newness of sleeping with two girls together had fallen away. My eyes were wide open and I was completely awake, not believing my fucking luck. Sasha and I climaxed simultaneously.

We took a breather, but the bottle of champagne was almost empty. Chloe climbed off the bed: ‘It’s okay. I’ll go and get some more. I’ll refill the ice bucket too,’ she said, picking it up and swishing it round. ‘It’s all water.’

She left the room. Sasha got off the bed and busied herself collecting our glasses from around the room and placed them on a scarlet lacquered chest of drawers ready for Chloe’s return. I kept quiet and observed her, presuming things would get going again then too.

Sasha turned and looked directly at me.

‘Come here, Luke.’ It was a gentle request but it took me unawares. Yet I found myself standing as she spoke. I stepped towards her, mesmerised.

She’s truly stunning.

I stood there and let her hands play over my chest, exploring. Her fingers traced a trail of pleasure. I stroked her fringe away from her forehead and kissed it, and she leaned back her head and I kissed her mouth and she kissed right back.

‘Hey, you two.’ Chloe’s words bit into the moment as she entered the bedroom and set the ice bucket down.

I turned on my heel taking Sasha with me, so both of us were now facing Chloe. My arms were wrapped around Sasha’s waist, and my chin nestled on her shoulder. Chloe’s face was lit up, and she was holding out two filled champagne flutes. We both took one.

‘Thanks,’ we said.

Chloe picked hers up, and we raised our glasses.

‘To one hell of a night!’ I grinned.

‘I know what I want to do next,’ giggled Chloe.

‘Yeah, do it,’ nodded Sasha beside me. ‘You’ve always wanted to.’

I sensed a conspiracy. I turned my head to look at Sasha, who looked full of deep warmth for her girlfriend. I looked back at Chloe. She looked even more of a dream.

‘’What is it?’

The night had turned and I felt up for anything.

Sasha unlinked herself from me and went to the curtain and began pulling at its cord even as Chloe spoke.

‘I’ve always wanted to make love to a man on the balcony, looking at the bridge and the river.’

‘Consider it done. And Sasha? You want it too?’

She unlocked the glass door and opened it. The blast of cold air was refreshing against the bedroom’s closed-in warmth.

‘No, I’m just happy to watch. It’s more Chloe’s fantasy than mine.’

Fantasy? Okay, I’ll give her fantasy.

I took Chloe in my arms, and lifted her up so I was cradling her.

She squealed. ‘What are you doing? Put me down!’

‘I’m carrying you over the threshold, of course. We’ve got to do this right.’

I stepped out onto the balcony, and the dark and the view hit me.

‘Wow.’

Chloe was looking up at me with her back to the river but she knew what I must be seeing.

‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’

Tower Bridge was edged in lights, and through it you could see the glint of the river and the city’s lights beyond the water’s edge. I set Chloe down, and she leaned against the wall beside me and together we peered upstream. I looked over the balcony. God, it was a long way down.

Sasha hovered by the door with her glass in her hand.

I nestled closer to Chloe and put an arm around her. She turned her head and kissed my shoulder, and I ran my fingers through her hair and we embraced. The pair of us shifted away from the full glare of the bedroom to the subdued corner of the balcony closest to the bridge. It loomed before me as I entered her. Nothing but the two of us in its shadow. And as I kissed the curved length of Chloe’s neck I watched beyond the strands of her hair, the bridge’s pair of pale stone towers, each topped by a hard gold tip that glinted in the night.

My focus shifted with my quickening rhythm to the guns jutting out of HMS Belfast’s shadowed hulk in the waters just beyond the bridge. They had the range of London’s suburbs. I gave Chloe my full force. My cartridge spent, I collapsed against her.

And farewell Uxbridge.

We buried ourselves in each other, holding on until each had regained their breath. The chill air was balm on our hot skin. Sasha had already wrapped up, and handed us each a warmed bathrobe.

‘God, you look like two boxers after a round. Get those on and come in.’

I put mine on, and helped Chloe on with hers. She looked up at me with a Cheshire Cat grin as I gave her myself as an extra layer. As we stepped back inside, I took one last look along the river as far as the eye could see. Far to the east in what for me were uncharted waters, there was a slither of red.

‘Hey, the sun’s coming up. Is it really that late?’ I shook my head. ‘Or early? Or whatever?’

Sasha closed the window behind us and drew the curtain.

‘I’m going to take a shower, and then I’ve got to go home. I’ve got work today,’ she explained.

Sasha had sealed the session’s end. Chloe slipped out of my arms and began to tidy up. That was it then. A wave of tiredness swept over me. It had been a fantastic night but I yearned for my own bed. I picked up my shirt from the arm of the chair.

I was putting on my jacket when Sasha put her head around the bedroom door. She’d showered and had slipped on a dress and heels and touched up her makeup. Our night together really did feel over. The end of a ravishingly hot dream.

‘Look, I’m going in a minute…’

I was as ready to go as she was. I took the bait.

‘We can share a cab if you like,’ I suggested.

‘That makes sense. Make yourself at home in the lounge, and I’ll call them.’

I came out into the corridor and followed her towards the living room. As I passed the kitchen, I looked in. It was chrome and dark marbled slabs and curved edges.

‘It’s been lovely to meet you, Chloe.’

It was code, the business part. She hung up the tea towel.

‘Ah yes, I’ll get you your coat. You just take a seat.’

I sat back down on the sofa and put on my shoes. Everything had a different gloss on it. It still looked like it was out of a colour supplement, but I could see Chloe in it too.

Chloe returned to the room and Sasha was steps behind her, already in her coat. We’d come full circle. Chloe handed me my own coat and slipped me a padded envelope as she did. I put on the coat and put the money in my pocket without looking at it.

‘Thanks, for everything.’ I smiled at Chloe.

She patted my arm. ‘No, thank you.’

‘Hey, love, I’ll call.’ Sasha wrapped an arm around her lover and they kissed goodbye.

We took the lift back down, and walked out into the early morning light. Everything had a crisp glow. I opened the cab door for Sasha and climbed in after her.

‘Notting Hill, please,’ she instructed.

We said nothing. London’s streets filed past in a blur. I was dog-tired, spent. I put my brain into cruise control.

Her words broke the silence.

‘Luke, do you want to come back and stay at my house for a while?’

Aw, man.

I was torn. God knew I needed some sleep. And I was desperate to get home and tell my mates about tonight.

Sasha crossed her leg. Her mule hung off her foot like a hand beckoning me. My eye was drawn up her leg to the hint of floral cotton peeping out from beneath the thick navy wool of her winter coat. Not like last time.

I know exactly what’s beneath all that.

‘I’ll go back with you,’ I nodded.

I looked out of the window. We passed rows of white Georgian terraces that reminded me of wedding cakes.

‘I’ll pay you a thousand pounds for coming over,’ she announced quietly.

Hang on. How many hours is this going to go on? A couple at most, surely?

I’d already been paid for my time, and I sure as hell knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep up that same level of service. For one thing, I was exhausted by the stress of giving the impression I knew exactly what I was doing.

‘That’s not right. I don’t want that much money.’

We looked at each other, neither of us quite sure where to go from there. I decided to take things into my own hands.

‘Look, you pay for my taxi home afterwards and I’m happy.’

We were somewhere behind Portobello Road. The cab edged along two sides of a fenced-off garden square and stopped outside one of the doors of a tall flat-fronted house. Sasha paid the driver and I watched her as she did and felt bad about how I’d dismissed her money and, what’s more, sold myself short.

Get with the programme, Luke. That was damn unprofessional. You’re not giving it away. And neither is she.

Sasha let us in and led me into a small lounge off the hallway. The room felt more relaxed than Chloe’s place with a couple of comfy armchairs facing another massive flat-screen telly above a square fireplace.

We’d barely got through the door before Sasha had stripped me of my coat and I of hers. I tore her dress over her head and raced to unbutton my shirt as quickly as she was tugging it off me. She gripped me by my waistband and flung herself into one of the chairs and pulled me on top of her.

The armchair was made for cramped, hard fucking.

Afterwards, we curled up together, she on my lap with her legs over the chair’s arm, and I held her hand and played with her fingers. I fiddled with her ring.

‘You’re married?’

In for a penny…

She looked into my eyes and nodded.

‘As good as. In March,’ she smiled.

Ah, letting off steam before he puts the lid on it.

The index finger of her other hand traced an ever-decreasing circle above my right nipple.

‘We’re having the wedding in Jamaica—on the beach—and we’re flying out all my family and friends too.’

‘Wow.’

She gazed up at the ceiling. ‘He gave me all this. This house. I’m doing it up. I’ve got the workmen coming in this afternoon. That’s why I had to get back. It’s something to do, you know.’

Gave it to her? He must be loaded.

She looked back at me. She knew what I was thinking.

‘Money drips out of him. I knew that when I first met him, except he didn’t know I knew…’

Eh?

I shuffled on the chair to make myself more comfortable.

‘He’d been seeing my best friend. She’s a stripper at the same club as me, and that’s where she met him.’

My ears pricked up.

A stripper. Can it get any better?

‘But she was also seeing someone else who she didn’t want to lose,’ Sasha continued, ‘so we decided to get him interested in me. We arranged a lunch date, and I paid instead of him, which got him intrigued but also meant I could start pulling the strings. I’ve done it before.’ She shrugged her shoulders.

Sasha had me hooked too. I listened wide-eyed with my jaw on the floor as she told me of her complete set-up designed to snare the poor rich sucker. The plan was to reel him in, marry him, and a couple of years down the line to divorce him for every penny she could get. She told me how, when they’d first started dating, practically all her money went on him though she could barely afford it. Whatever she killed, that’s what she was eating. And when the relationship began to get more serious, she chose to mirror everything he did. The way he brushed his teeth, the way he put his toothpaste on the brush, the way he put the brush back in the cup. Every little thing.

‘And then he bought me this place to keep me interested. Ha! It’s something to play with. I mean, I don’t have to work now. It keeps me occupied,’ she smiled.

I didn’t know what to say.

‘Shit.’

‘I know,’ she went on, revelling in what she was getting away with. ‘He gave me a card to shop at Harrods too. I treat myself to the designer labels, keep the receipt, take it back a couple of weeks later and cash it in and bank the money.’

My mind was spinning with the sheer audacity of it all. I shook my head a couple of times as if to clear it, and put an arm round Sasha’s shoulder.

‘So how does Chloe fit into all this?’

‘Not easily.’ She quietened, looking down at her hands. ‘We’ve known each other since back when she was working at the club.’

Shit! I’ve been paid a grand tonight for sex with two strippers in a lesbian fantasy.

I was quickly brought back down to earth.

‘Look, my fiancé. He’s away a lot on business. He is now, but he has people looking out for me, checking up on me. But he doesn’t know about Chloe. He can’t find out.

‘When he’s here, I tell him I’m going to visit my sister, but go off and see Chlo,’ she continued. ‘I’ve got clothes ’n’ stuff dotted round at friends’ houses and in the car for my Great Escapes, like tonight.’

Sasha’s mood lightened, and her whole body relaxed in my lap, but she couldn’t quite disguise the trap she’d got herself into even while she’d been busily weaving a web of her own for her future husband.

‘He can’t find out about Chloe,’ she repeated, half to herself. She then looked up into my eyes to make sure I got the picture. ‘If he ever found out that I was seeing someone else, he’d have us both killed without giving it a second thought.’

It chilled me how it rolled off her tongue, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I held her closer to me, and for a few minutes we sat together in silence.

‘Are you okay?’ I half-whispered, brushing her arm with my thumb.

She nodded. ‘If I paid you another thousand, could you stay longer?’ she asked, in a quiet voice she was only just succeeding to keep steady.

‘I’m sorry, Sasha, I wish I could but I can’t.’

I took a sideways glance at my watch. It was 6 a.m. An extra grand was tempting, I had to admit. But not tempting enough. I thought of the run of late nights and missed sleep I’d rung up, and wondered how I was to catch up with myself. Tiredness threatened to engulf me, but it was mixed with a fear of all I might get myself tangled up in if I accepted this girl’s offer.

‘I’ve got to go home, Sash.’

I closed my eyes for a second. She slipped off my lap and I rallied myself.

‘I tell you what. You’ve got my number,’ I told her. ‘Call me this evening and we might be able to arrange something some other time.’

I pulled myself out of the chair and we both put our clothes back on. She paid me the grand. In cash. I didn’t challenge her.

‘Luke?’

It was late afternoon and I hadn’t been up long. But I recognised her as soon as she spoke.

‘Hello, Sasha, you’ve had a good day?’

She was standing there sexily in my mind’s eye, her head cocked to her mobile. ‘Yes, I have, thanks. Hope we didn’t tire you out.’

‘Not at all,’ I lied. ‘It was a pleasure.’

It would be an early night tonight, though I decided to be professional about it and not let Sasha know. But the tiredness was mixed with the warm glow of satisfaction of at last ticking off my first handful of sessions.

‘It was a good job you left when you did. The cleaner turned up half an hour later.’

There was more to it, I knew, than the fuel for a bit of idle gossip among the staff. Sasha’s fiancé owned everything. Anything untoward that happened in his girlfriend’s gilded cage would get right back to him. I shivered.

‘I’d like to see you again a few times before I’m wed,’ she continued.

For a split second I considered the danger, but it was swept away by the sheer fantasy made flesh of this girl. And so we made a date.