“Fifty thousand dollars. For one night!” She exclaims.
Silence rings loudly in my ears as I process Angela’s words.
“Fifty thousand… for one night? What? Why?” I ask, stunned. Angela told me when I first signed up as an escort that I could expect around two thousand for an overnight gig. Five, max, if the client is extra eager and extra wealthy. Who would offer to pay fifty thousand dollars for a night with me? That’sinsane.
“I know, right! This guy calls me up and he says, ‘I want G’. And I said, ‘so she’s really hard to book, has to be really worth her while.’ And he goes, ‘I’ll pay fifty grand for one night but it has to be her’.” Angela’s excitement has her words rushing out so fast I can barely keep up. I stay with my back to the glass facade of the cafe, lest Mum see the absolute terror on my face.
“And what did you say?” My voice comes out surprisingly steady considering I’m feeling anything but.
“I obviously said I had to check with you, but SURELY you won’t say no?”
I stay rooted to the spot, in the middle of the busy sidewalk, while people tut and tsk as they’re forced to move around me. A woman precariously balancing a stack of shoe boxes smacks me with a shopping bag as she passes by, not even bothering to apologise, but I barely register it as I let the offer sink in. Fifty thousand dollarswouldgo a long way right now, especially as the money from my last designer bag sale is dwindling faster than I’d like to admit…
“I have to think about it, Angela.”
“You’re joking? You might not even have todoanything, you know that, right? Some of our clients just like the company!”
I can’t help the scoff that huffs past my lips. “No-one is paying fifty grand for my company alone.”
“I don’t know why you stay on our list if you never plan on accepting an offer!” she snaps.
I don’t know why I do, either.
“Look, I’m not saying no this time. Yet. I just need to think about it, okay?”
I cut the call.
I can’t concentrateon a word my mum says for the next hour. Who on Earth would offer to pay fifty thousand dollars to spend the night with me? For that amount of money I actually dread to think what would be expected of me.
Visions of bondage and swings and whips try to enter my mind but I force them away quickly.
I thought when I refused the boudoir photoshoot and opted instead for a headshot that the offers would be scarce, but they have been rolling in at least a couple times a week. I’ve refused them all. This career choice was a spur of the moment decision that followed an unexpected separation from my husband and a drunken encounter with a high class escort (separate incidents, surprisingly). I was out with my best friend Anna one night when we met Cherry, which I’m assuming isn’t her real name, sitting at a bar where she was waiting for a client. She told us she was about to make one thousand dollars to spend three hours with a man, and that she was doing this three times a week. Considering I’ve barely worked a day in my life, and I was now facing the reality of becoming an unemployed divorcee with no job prospects, I waited for Anna to skip to the loo and askedCherry to sign me up. It was from there that I connected with Angela. That was three months ago. I’ve been meaning to ask Angela to remove my picture from the website, but for some reason I haven’t yet. Maybe I’m keeping it as a backup plan until I figure out what the hell to do with my life. Who knows? But I can tell Angela is getting tired of me rejecting every offer that comes my way, and it’s not like I couldn’t use the money. On paper I look like a very wealthy woman, married to an AFL star.
In reality, not so much.
My estranged husband has always made sure I never had access to any funds, so you can safely say that since we separated I’ve been up shit creek without a paddle. Lucky enough we own an apartment in the city that I’ve moved in to, and I’ve been flogging off the designer bags and shoes I had stored there to keep me going. But there’s only so much time until I deplete that stock.
My throat burns with the taste of acid at the thought that soon I might have to ask my parents for money, or apply for another job. Doing what? God only knows. I’m qualified for nothing.
“Are you feeling okay,cara mia?” Mum interrupts my thoughts, eyeing me sympathetically. “You look a bit pale, and I swear you haven’t taken in a word I’ve said to you.”
I look into her familiar green eyes. Familiar, because they are almost exact replicas of my own, with their almond shape and thick, black lashes.
“Yeah I’m fine, Mum. Just a bit tired,” I lie, a little easily if you ask me. I finish off my latte with a shaky hand, my mind still on my mystery admirer.
“Tired?” Mum laughs lightly. “From what? You’ve hardly worked a day in your life.”
The quip stings, probably because it’s true.
Well, maybe I’m about to, Mum.
Instead of confessing that thought to her, which is about as appealing to me as sawing off my right arm with a nail file, I roll my eyes.
“Has Danielcontacted you at all?” She asks then, all fake nonchalance, while she takes a sip of coffee and avoids my gaze. Mum is fishing. She’s as transparent as a spotless glass window.
“No, Ma. And I don’t want him to.” My tone is firmer than I usually take with my mum, but she needs to let go of any notion she has that my husband and I will “sort out our differences” and get back together, because it’s never going to happen.
“Okay, okay,” she says in mock surrender, throwing up her hands for good measure. “Now eat your cake, Gianna Morello,” she scolds me, using my full name for emphasis. “You’re too skinny.”
