Luke Bradbury - For Hire - The Intimate Adventures of a Gigolo

‘Oh, I can assure you I came in last night!’ I grinned.

‘Clubbing, were you?’

‘Oh, I had a night of it, y’know,’ I lied.

I decided to shift her focus away from me. ‘What about yourself, Carrie? Were you and the girls out larging it?’

‘You bet,’ she moaned, clutching her head in mock pain.

‘The others are still paying for it, I’m afraid, so no bashing any pots and pans when you’re putting together your fry-up, thanks.’

‘No worries,’ I replied, focused on the two eggs crisping round the edges just the way I liked them.

I sat down opposite Carrie with my breakfast and poured myself a mug of tea.

‘Anything happening in the world today?’

I was more interested in the back page, but I knew that the girls never read that far. Carrie flapped the front pages back and forward.

‘No X Factor scandal today, I’m afraid,’ she mused.

‘God, I don’t know what the world’s coming to!’ I spluttered. ‘What, have they got a blank front page or something?’

She flipped a wry grin across at me: ‘Might as well be, eh?’

None of us took the paper seriously. It was light relief of a Sunday. Hangover reading. But then again, the tabloids did help me keep in touch with who was in and who was out in celeb land—and that couldn’t but help me in my work. Especially some of the circles I found myself in. If only to massage some famous person’s ego by not looking blank when they told me what TV show they’d been on or pop group they were in. Not that I could let on to my new flatmates about that .

I let Carrie get on with reading and laid into my fry-up. God, there was something about a good English breakfast that set the world to rights whatever was in the news.

Carrie got up from her seat. ‘I need to shake the girls up. We’re off shopping this afternoon. You want to read the paper?’

‘Thanks,’ I mumbled through my full mouth.

She left me to finish off my breakfast alone.

I pushed my empty plate away and dragged the paper across the table towards me. I turned the pages without looking too closely at anything. My mind wasn’t ready for any proper news. I wasn’t up to looking at much more than the pictures, to be honest.

I stopped at the celeb pages. They snapped people coming out of the same nightclubs and restaurants that a good number of my clients hung out at. I focused on the photos, though I wasn’t taking a lot in. My head was still throbbing. And then a picture of a young woman and a guy managed to get my attention through the haze of my half-asleep brain.

Those two last night! Shelley Yates and Guy Raynor.

That brought me to my senses quick-smart. I took a closer look. They were standing in front of the Dorchester. For a second, I was back leaving the foyer through the glass door to be met by the paparazzi shield.

Oh fuck. No.

The thought hit me before I saw the truth in the photo. If they were being shot just as I was coming out, then chances are the paps had caught me too.

Panicking slightly, I smoothed out the page to take a closer look . Right first time . There was me at the back of the photo, heading out of the doors to my scooter round the corner. Only from where anyone else was sitting reading the paper at this time of the day, it appeared that I was part of Shelley and Guy’s entourage.

A wave of cold fear swept over me. Suppose someone out there who knew me—one of my clients, say, who definitely knew what I might be doing coming out of a top hotel around midnight—saw this picture, put two and two together and made five? And then all they needed to do was phone up the same paper and let them know about The Celeb Couple’s Appointment with The Hooker.

Oh God.

It wouldn’t take too many steps for the path to lead to my door. And my cover to be well and truly blown. And, God knows, in those sorts of stories it was always the escort or call girl who came off worst.

I closed my eyes for a second, half hoping that the picture would have disappeared when I opened them again. But it hadn’t, and Kirstie was breezing into the kitchen.

‘Morning, Luke,’ her voice rang out, crashing into my dread.

I rallied, turned over the page, and greeted her with a sunny, ‘And a good morning to you too!’, silently praying that she hadn’t spotted my unease when she entered the room.

I sipped at my tea and tried to read the rest of the paper as she busied herself around me. My mind was elsewhere. Even the sports pages didn’t do it for me. All I could think of was the photograph and me hovering in the background, just asking to be identified.

Kirstie sat down with her bowl of cereal. She ate a spoonful, and reached across for the paper.

‘You finished with this?’ she asked, her mouth full of cornflakes.

‘Yup,’ I replied, ‘not that there’s anything worth reading this morning.’

I felt sick with nerves. There was nothing I could do. The morning paper always did the rounds of the flat of a Sunday. It wasn’t my paper to snatch away and hide in my room—its absence would have been noticed. And if I’d simply removed the celeb spread, that would have been noticed too. It was the page we all turned to.

That hit me. Carrie must have seen the pages before I’d even entered the kitchen. Had she seen me? Surely not. If she had done, she’d have mentioned it to me, wouldn’t she?

My mind was a mixture of horror and worry. The shock of seeing myself in the paper. The fear of my cover being blown. The trouble that would cause. The Girls recognizing my picture. The questions they would ask. What if, what if…? All I could hope was that Carrie hadn’t seen the photo, and Kirstie wouldn’t. If any of the Girls did pick me out, then all I had to do was lie.

They had no idea of my business, so all I had to do was say I was there because I was visiting someone from home. A distant relative, or someone like that.

I would have to think on my feet, but sitting here, fearing the worst, was no help to me. I stood up from the table.

‘I’ve got to sort myself out for the day,’ I smiled. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’

I left the room only hoping that all the damage that picture could do would remain in my imagination.

Early March

Gray had his hand around his pint and was staring intently at the picture in the paper. He looked across at me and screwed up his eyes as if he was really taking me in, looked back down again and shook his head a couple of times. Then he picked up his beer and took a couple of gulps. Gray was playing for time, keeping me in suspense, in that way he had.

‘Come on,’ I laughed. ‘Give it to me. What do you think?’

‘It’s definitely you, all right,’ he teased, setting his glass back down on the table.

I rolled my eyes in mock exasperation. ‘I knew that ! But do you think I’m likely to be found out?

That was the crux of why I’d called him up. The paparazzi shot had got under my skin, and the only person I knew who’d help me make sense of it was Gray. As the manager of my ‘Satisfaction with Luke’ website, he knew exactly what I was about. There was no having to explain myself with him .

He half whistled out of the side of his mouth. ‘That’s a hard one. It’s a possibility, of course.’

‘Isn’t everything?’ I countered, as I picked up my beer glass to take another swig.

‘True. My point is, there’s a strong chance nothing’ll happen.’

‘And if it does?’

‘Cross that bridge when you come to it, mate. And never admit guilt or shame. That’s what the bastards want, y’know.’