Undercover: The Adventures of a Real Life Gigolo. Luke Bradbury

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       All in a day's work

       For fuck’s sake, how much longer? Ring the bell, you bastard!

      There’s me and this gorgeous girl at it on the floor. Carrie or Emily or something, I can’t remember her name. It’s a bit of a blur by number six. It’s not as if she isn’t good at what she does. She’s been hired, after all, same as me. So she knows all the moves and is fit to boot. It’s just I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up. Literally.

      I’m trying my hardest. And both of us are into our stride. Hammer and tongs, wearing the creaking floor away. It’s like we’re swimming together in our sweat, our damp bodies sawing against each other. We’re barely coming up for air, and a strand of her long blonde hair is in my mouth, and everything else is drowned out except for our panting, heavy breathing and thumping heartbeats.

      And all I yearn for is the tiny silver jingle of the bell, held between Brian’s index finger and thumb. He’s silent. Watching us.

      When he finally shakes it, satisfied, both of us collapse, dead spent. As we catch our breath, Brian comes out from behind the curtain and tosses us both bathrobes. I help the girl to her feet, my arm around her narrow shoulders.

      ‘You okay?’

      ‘Yeah,’ she mouths through a half-smile, catching her breath. She’s pretty. She must be about twenty-three. Same as me.

      ‘Luke, you stay here a while,’ Brian instructs, tightening the belt of his dressing gown. ‘Emma, come with me.’

      Emma. That was it.

      Brian guides her out of the room. I look at her go, her bare legs glistening.

      As they leave the room, Emma turns to me. ‘Nice meeting you, Luke. See you again, maybe.’

      ‘You too, Emma.’

       Maybe.

      I stand there, waiting. A short while later, the front door slams shut, and I head to the bathroom and wash Emma off my skin. The warm jet of water is like a curtain between her and the next one.

       Is that it for tonight?

      I step out of the shower and dry myself down and wrap myself in the bathrobe again. I like the feel of its softness against me. I’m still tying it up when I enter Brian’s lounge again. He pulls his armchair out from behind the curtain and sits low down in it, his legs stretched out before him. He raises his beer bottle to me.

      ‘Cheers!’

      ‘Bloody hell, Brian, I thought you were never going to ring that damn thing!’

      ‘I thought you enjoyed sex,’ he teases.

      I sit down in the other armchair across the room, and pick up the open bottle that’s been sitting there since before Emma arrived.

      ‘Up to a point. It’s easy for you. You don’t have to put the effort in.’

      ‘Guys your age are supposed to be gagging for it!’ he smirks.

      I lift the beer bottle to my lips and knock some back before answering.

      ‘Well, yeah,’ I laugh, ‘but even so. That doesn’t mean I don’t need to come up for air!’

      My muscles silently scream in agreement.

      With Brian, I gave as good as I got. We’d built up a rapport since I’d started working for him. Let’s face it, we’d had to. Because although he hired both me and some girls, we weren’t all there on an equal footing. Because Brian was a voyeur. Which, I suppose, made me his Tester.

      Brian had once hired me as many as twelve girls in one night. He would call me early evening and we’d have a drink together, and then he’d phone for a girl for me. And the bell was his method of communication, of control. If he wanted the sex to stop, he’d ring the bell. It might be after twenty minutes, it might be after five. She’d go, I’d stay, have another break, and then Brian would phone the agency for someone else for me. And a quarter of an hour later there’d be another girl on the doorstep.