Luke Bradbury - Undercover - The Adventures of a Real Life Gigolo

I scribbled down her details, said goodbye and hung up.

Yep, we were officially launched, Mark. Well and truly fucking launched…

Late August

I caught my reflection in the tube window opposite but I couldn’t look myself in the eye. I glanced down at my hands, gripped together in my lap to stop them shaking.

I don’t need this stress in my life. I don’t have to meet Jenny. I could get out at the next stop and go right home again.

This was it. My Day of Reckoning. My first time of making a go of the escort work and I was damned sure it showed on my face. I bit my lip and forced myself to look up at my fellow travellers, like what I was about to do was the most normal thing in the world.

I realised I was staring straight at a woman. I’d been so caught up in my thoughts I hadn’t even registered her. I turned my head upwards to view the ad above her head. It told me which number to ring if I wanted to hire some air-con. I slipped a glance back at the girl. She was a couple of years older than me and was engrossed in her copy of Metro . She had dark eyes and smooth shoulder-length brunette hair with a fringe, and was better than average looking. An English rose.

You could, couldn’t you?

That was the crux of the matter. I slipped a glance at all of the women on the seats around me and weighed up whether I would shag them or not. And wondered whether any of them looked anything like Jenny.

The tube drew into Shepherd’s Bush and I got up. I swallowed back my nerves. I didn’t want to think too much about what I was about to do. I turned left out of the station until I reached Jenny’s street.

The further I followed the curve of Jenny’s road, the seedier the terraced houses became. Her address had all the hallmarks of a cheap multiple occupancy. An unkempt front garden that nobody took any responsibility for. Check. Tatty labels taped next to the doorbells. Yup. Makeshift curtains at some of the windows. You bet. Rob had so had the better deal.

This was my very last chance to split. I braced myself and pressed Jenny’s doorbell.

‘Luke?’ A tinny voice came through the intercom. ‘Come on up.’

I pushed open the front door, crossed the scuzzy hallway and mounted the stairs two steps at a time while being careful not to slip on the worn floral carpet.

Jenny was waiting on the first floor at the entrance to her flat. She was dressed in an oversized navy jumper turned back at the cuffs and a calf-length striped cotton skirt.

‘Gosh, you’re a good-looking young man,’ she blushed.

‘Better than Rob?’ I teased.

She looked down at her slippered feet. I cursed myself. Maybe she didn’t want to be reminded that she’d done this before and bottled out.

I was as much trying to relax myself as her. It wasn’t as if Jenny was ugly or anything. But she wore no makeup, and looked as if a harsh life had carved itself into her face. Her hair was short and black with white streaks and her colouring was mixed race, though I couldn’t for the life of me make out where she came from. Yeah, I could do her.

‘I liked how you sounded on the phone,’ she said.

‘What, startlingly handsome?’

What made things difficult was that she was closer to my mother’s age—she was in her forties or fifties, I couldn’t be sure which, and that was a whole new ball game altogether. That kind of business hadn’t been in either my or Mark’s head when we’d decided to get into this lark. We thought we’d be inundated with requests from hot young chicks, desperate for no-strings sex, or busy career women without the time for a relationship. I still hoped we would.

Jenny’s flat was sparsely furnished, aside from piles of unopened boxes. They were everywhere, and getting to the sofa in her living room was like wandering through a maze.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

‘Yes please,’ I said, and stifled a laugh. Within a couple of days of getting here I’d realised that that was the Brits’ answer to anything.

She went out to the kitchen, and I sat down among the cushions on the seen-better-days sofa, stretched out my legs and tried to make myself at home and calm the rising sense of dread.

An ancient tabby cat appeared at my feet from behind a box tower and rubbed itself up against my ankles. It was followed by a younger one, which settled itself on the worn rug in the middle of the room and licked its paw, watching me as if it were sizing me up.

Jenny came back into the room. This was going to be tricky, I could see. It was one thing to talk about sex with my mates down the pub or kicking a ball around in the park. It was going to be quite another to switch my brain into a gear that could talk about such stuff with someone like her.

And then I remembered what I’d advised Rob. To ‘be every woman’s dream’. To do what he always did but just to be a bit more of a gent as he went about it. That wasn’t bad advice, even if I thought so myself. Mind you, it wasn’t as if he’d had the chance to test it out.

Jenny had two matching floral china mugs in her hands, and handed me one with a hesitant smile. She sat down a few inches from me.

‘Thank you. That’s a pair of handsome cats you’ve got there,’ I said.

‘Do you think so?’ she blushed, as if it was a long time since anyone had complimented her on anything.

We drank our tea for a few horribly silent moments, until I placed the mug down beside my feet and gently took Jenny’s hand in mine. She gave me a bashful smile, the lines around her eyes creasing a little, and funnily enough taking years off her. She reminded me of some scrubland creature you could only get up close to if you took it step by step, real quiet and slow.

No wonder Rob hadn’t even got to first base.

I wasn’t quite sure what the next move should be. But at least Jenny and I knew why I was in her home. And though I couldn’t quite see it now, clearly she had a thread of steel running somewhere through her to pick up the phone and make the call in the first place. And not just once. She knew what she wanted, even if the challenge remained for me to move on from the friendly small talk without scaring her off.

‘Shall we go to your bedroom?’ I all but whispered.

Jenny bit her lip and nodded and we rose to our feet together. Still holding her hand, I remained a step behind her and followed her around the wall of boxes into a room off the hallway.

It was a bedroom only in name. There were more boxes but not even a mattress. Just sheets and a duvet and matching pillows set out on the carpet in the corner of the room. In place of a wardrobe were a couple of open suitcases draped with her clothes.

Jenny must have sensed my disquiet, much as I fought to hide it.

‘It’s not as if I get much sleep anyhow. I work all hours.’

‘It’ll be fine, Jenny,’ I replied, and squeezed her hand as I stared down at her makeshift bed and wondered how we’d get from here to the actual sex. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, then took a deep breath and turned to face her.

‘Would you like to sit with me on your bed?’

She nodded and I made an ungainly move towards the duvet and trusted she’d follow my cue.

Head in the right direction and somehow we’ll get there.Surely .

We were sitting beside each other now. I threw her a tight-lipped smile as I gave her the once-over and worked out a plan of action. I didn’t say anything but reached out and took hold of the hem of Jenny’s jumper and raised it a couple of inches.

She looked back at me with her deep, dark eyes for a beat, then took the hint and stretched her arms behind her back and drew the jumper over her head. She shook it out, folded it and placed it on top of the pile of clothes in one of the suitcases. If we kept at this speed, the hour would be up before either of us got naked. Maybe that wasn’t the worst that could happen. For either of us.