Caroline was admittedly very new to this, but her understanding of the supply-and-demand dynamics in the sugar-baby/sugar-daddy market had been that he was going to suck up to her because he wanted her to pay him large sums of money. And yet she got the impression that he was the one auditioning her, not the other way around. His skepticism—and that heated, assessing stare—had thrown her.
Maybe she didn’t understand the forces affecting spot availability of hired dates? Maybe there were a lot of people who, like her, couldn’t manage a social life without going to the market? Or maybe there was a deficit of broke artists? Could Adrian really set the transaction terms from the supply side?
He was obviously intelligent, moving easily between topics whenever Caroline drew a blank. He had a lovely silky voice. And he smelled nice, like Lava soap instead of abrasive men’s cologne. This much she’d expected for someone who thought their company could command a thousand dollars a week. She was sure he did very well for himself when dating recreationally; he probably had significant boyfriend experience. Standard sugar-baby qualifications, she assumed. But perhaps she’d stumbled on some kind of exclusive, high-quality sugar baby only available to VIPs?
He wassohandsome, in a way she’d only ever seen in advertisements for expensive wristwatches. He looked like an old-fashioned movie star with his square chin and thick auburn hair combed back behind his ears. Even better-looking in person than in his profile photo, though when she received his message, she’d given more consideration to the beautiful painting behind him than the tall unsmiling man in a tux, looking down his Roman nose at whoever had taken the photograph.
Nobody looked that good in real life, she’d thought. Hisface was a product of AI. A computer-generated fantasy of sculpted lips and piercing blue eyes. That was fine; she knew about marketing. She wouldn’t have blamed Adrian for using a filter on his profile even if he’d arrived looking very little like his picture. She hadn’t been prepared for the reality of him: speaking, breathing, absently tracing the coppery stubble on the edge of his jaw with one angular hand. Her own trembled on her highball glass when he leaned back in his chair to think about something and his shirt stretched tight across his chest. Jesus.
Was hetoogood-looking for what she had in mind? Movie-star looks were what her supply-chain management professor might calloverly specified for the projected use. There were probably cheaper sugar babies who looked more in her league. She wouldn’t be able to attract someone whose cheekbones looked like they could carve diamonds on the traditional dating market. She couldn’t afford to get used to men who looked like this.
Caroline took a deep breath, frowned, and purposefully shoved that last thought out of her mind. Her grandmother wouldn’t have expected her to economize onthistransaction. She might as well enjoy the upgrade to first class as long as she was flying. If she was paying for a boyfriend, why not get ahotboyfriend?
“So, what did you have in mind for this arrangement?” Adrian asked when he’d decided it was time for a segue to the reason for their meeting. He lounged in the velvet armchair, knees spread and ankles crossed. His dusty-blue eyes studied her, surrounded by long, thick eyelashes the color of fox fur.
Caroline nodded and refocused, taking her phone out of her purse. She’d written down some bullet points in her Notes app. She pulled them up.
“I’m basically contracting out the position of my boyfriend,” she said.
Adrian gave her a slow blink. That usually meant confusion. But how could she have been clearer? Oh.
“I guess technically it’s employment, not independent contractor status,” she rushed to explain. “I can withhold taxes and everything if you want me to.”
“Okay,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll do my own taxes. I meant what you wanted me to do as your... boyfriend.”
Right. Job duties. It was important to get those straight.
“So, you don’t have to do, you know, the sex part. Or text me about my day or anything like that. I meant you would be my boyfriend in terms of the amount of time involved. I was going to propose we go out Friday and Saturday evenings, maybe once during the week, and either of the weekend days.”
“That’s a lot of time,” he said.
“A thousand bucks a week is a full-time job,” she reminded him. It was a lot more than she’d earned flipping burgers during college for roughly the same hours. “You’d even have time for a second job during the week, while I’m in class, if you wanted one.”
“I meant for you,” he said, shifting his weight in apparent discomfort.
“What do you mean?”
“You want to spend that much time with me? You don’t even know me.”
“I just moved here,” she said defensively. “I don’t know anyone.”
That was a little white lie of omission that suggested that she’d have people to go out with somewhere that wasn’t Boston, and it made her nervous that he’dsomehow know and call her out on it. Adrian’s sculpted mouth twitched as he seemed to ponder whether he could handle so much time with her. It wouldn’t be too bad for him, would it? About fifteen hours? Her stomach clenched with the fear he’d decline. She didn’t want to have to audition someone else—it had taken her fifteen minutes of breathing exercises to get out the door forthisdate.
“Got it,” he said. “And what specifically did you want to spend that time doing?”
On firmer ground, Caroline slid through her bullet points.
Adrian was an artist. That hadn’t been the only good option from the website she found him on. There had been a slightly older man who owned a little boat and liked sailing, and a girl her own age who liked yoga and community gardens, and a guy with a lot of interesting tattoos who played the bass guitar in a cover band. All of those lives had sounded vastly bigger and more important than the one she’d been living. But Caroline had liked the idea of an artist, and patronizing the theater and the symphony and museums had sounded like an appropriately important thing she could do with her grandmother’s money.
She’d picked up the Sunday edition of theBoston Globethe previous weekend and looked through the arts section before getting overwhelmed. There had been a lot of ads for different performances and exhibitions, and she had no metrics for evaluating which she ought to prioritize.
Delegate, that was what good managers did when subject matter specialists were better equipped to make decisions within their area of expertise. Adrian’s credentials looked good. She’d leave it up to him to decide which of the dizzying array of artistic experiences she ought to explore first.
“I want to go to the theater. Museums. Concerts. Andhave dinner after or brunch before. Whatever you usually do. You pick.”
“And that’s it?”
“Can you not do that?” she asked, confused. His profile had included a collection of candid photographs at places like that, apparently taken across a number of years, and in every one, he’d been with other people in party clothes, talking and laughing. It looked like a nice life, one she was eager to figure out.
