For Hire: The Intimate Adventures of a Gigolo. Luke Bradbury

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       Tash

       May Day

      It wasn’t as if I had a clue what Tash looked like. But I couldn’t help creating a mental picture of my clients, sketching out the life they might live even before I’d seen them. It was based solely on what they’d told me over the phone.

      She had introduced herself as Natasha when she’d picked up the phone, ‘But everyone calls me Tash,’ she’d said. She’d called me out for an eleven o’clock session on a Monday night in Luton. That struck me as odd. Most other people were in bed at this time because of work the next day. It suggested she didn’t want the neighbours to know. I figured that that likely made her a thirty-something housewife whose hubby was away on business.

      I was standing on the forecourt of Luton railway station waiting for a cab to take me to her place. The station was almost deserted and then a car swung off the road, the light box on the roof advertising Ace Cabs, and I relaxed. The car drew up and the driver leaned over to the passenger window.

      ‘Where to?’

      He drove me out beyond the town centre, where the housing was less crowded together. We turned off the main road and up a side street to the address Tash had given me. I was dead in the middle of Thirties suburbia, and Tash’s was one of the middle houses in the row with a little tiered garden out front. The wooden gate clicked shut behind me, and I hurried up the path and rang the bell.

      Minutes later the front door was opened and Tash hovered in front of me, a nervous, close-mouthed smile across her face.

      She didn’t look anything like I’d expected at all. Her feet were bare, which only added to the vulnerable air that wrapped itself around her. She must have been all of twenty-one. She had long straight blonde hair that looked like it had been ironed. Her slight frame was dressed in hipster jeans and a loose pale pink silk top and she had delicate, pretty features. To be frank, she was gorgeous.

       So, what is it you’re after?

      ‘Luke, do come in,’ Tash half-whispered in a voice that suggested that now she’d got what she’d asked for, she wasn’t altogether sure she knew what to do with it.

      Tash took my coat and hung it on the rack, and asked me if I’d like a drink. I followed her down the hall and into the kitchen. This was all normal stuff I did with any number of my clients, but Tash gave the clear impression from her nervy air and measured, step-by-step manner that she was biding her time, gearing herself up for the session.

      ‘You’ll come with me upstairs?’ she stated, not looking me in the eye.

      ‘Sure, Tash,’ I agreed, hoping that my light mood might put her at her ease at least a little. ‘Just show me the way.’

      Tash handed me my tumbler, and I followed her up the stairs to the first floor.

      ‘It’s a nice house you’ve got here,’ I commented.

      ‘I’ve been here about eighteen months.’

      It wasn’t just small talk on my behalf—it was a nice place. The house looked neat and simply decorated, the walls in pale colours that matched her top. It felt just the right size for a young girl to make a home of.

      ‘I still feel like I’m settling in,’ she smiled.

      ‘It can take a while, can’t it?’

      I noticed she found it easy to talk when it wasn’t about what I was doing here in her home.

      Tash led the way across the landing to her front bedroom. She opened the door, and for a second before she turned on the light, I could see the bed highlighted in the golden glow from the streetlamp outside. She hurried over to the bow windows to draw the curtains and shut out the world, all the while keeping her back to me.

      I went and sat down on the side of her bed closest to her and waited. I ran my hands over the duvet each side of me and flattened it down. I kept my mouth shut and watched her. I knew she couldn’t stand at the windows forever, her hands gripping the edge of the closed curtains.

      Tash turned and I gave her my warmest smile on cue. I patted the bed beside me as though we’d known each other for years. ‘Come and sit down,’ I beckoned.

      Tash could handle that. She walked over to me, and sat down square beside me as if we were waiting for a bus. Her hands held each other on her lap and she stared straight ahead. I could see that I was going to have to take this one real slow.

      I leaned back slightly on my arms so I looked as relaxed and unthreatening as possible.

      ‘You haven’t been here long?’ I turned to her and started the small talk rolling, even though she still wasn’t meeting my eyes.

      ‘No, I moved here for work. I’m in office admin. In the town.’ Tash’s shoulders dropped a little, though her voice remained stilted.

      ‘That’s quite a change, settling into a new job and a new house. Just one of them’s stressful enough.’

      ‘I know!’ she nodded with her smile and, forgetting herself, turned her head and looked right at me. ‘It’s taken me this long to feel at home.’

       That’s better.

      Tash’s hands had slipped on to the bedspread beside her. I weighed up whether to reach for one of them, or to leave things be for a short while longer. I didn’t want to frighten her back inside her shell.

      ‘Have you got to know your neighbours, Tash?’

      ‘Not really,’ she shook her head. ‘They’re mostly young families, and a few elderly couples. There doesn’t seem to be anyone my age around here…’

      She bit her lip. I stretched out my right hand and placed it over hers. I could feel it shaking slightly.

       I’m not going anywhere, Tash.

      ‘I’ve never had sex!’ she blurted out.

      Tash was back to looking wide-eyed, staring straight ahead at the curtains. Though she was biting her lip, it still trembled ever so slightly.

      ‘That’s OK, Tash,’ I said in my most reassuring voice. ‘A lot of girls your age haven’t.’

       Not as many as have—but hey.

      But then, a split second later, I feared I might have put her off and scrambled to reassure her. ‘But you want to, don’t you?’ I spoke softly.

      She turned sharply towards me and spoke clearly and firmly, which I wasn’t expecting at all. ‘I’ve had boyfriends in the past. It’s just that we never went the whole way.’