At Your Beck & Call

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  “That’s great, Mum. He’s a real prince.”

  “Your father wasn’t the saint you think he was,” she hissed, her temper flaring. “I gave up everything for my family. Why shouldn’t I have a little fun now?”

  “Is that what this is? Fun?” I gazed around me at the filthy floor and overflowing garbage can. “Because you could have fooled me.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Why are you here?”

  I looked right back at her. “I don’t know.”

  “Your mum tells me you’re an actor.”

  I was just about to take a drink from the bottle of Moosehead I was holding. Instead, I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

  Mum and Todd had been invited to a neighbor’s for the big Christmas meal, and I was dragged along unwillingly. As soon as I walked in, I suspected that Mum had set it up to get rid of me for the rest of the holidays, because she immediately introduced me to her friend’s daughter, a college student named Sherilyn.

  “This is my son, Hallen. I’ve told you all about him.”

  Sherilyn smiled while I frowned and shot an irritated look at Mum that she pretended not to see. Even before we’d finished shaking hands, she’d hurried off to get a beer for Todd. Sherilyn and I were left trying to make small talk. And she was still waiting for my reply.

  I shrugged.

  “She thinks everyone who lives in California is automatically an actor.”

  “Oh, so you’re not?”

  She looked confused. I couldn’t blame her. Mum had a habit of embroidering the truth—or making things up if she was short on facts. Yeah, you could call it lying. Mum had no idea what I did out in LA, and she hadn’t asked. She’d been glad to get rid of me at 17. But now I was back, she had to make up a history to share with the neighbors. She didn’t bother asking me, just threw in her own fantasies.

  I realized that Sherilyn was still staring at me.

  “No, I help a friend with her entertainment agency—not as glamorous as acting.”

  “I never think acting sounds particularly glamorous,” she admitted, with a shake of her head. “I had a friend who was in rep, touring around provincial theaters. It sounded horrid—grim little boarding houses and apathetic audiences.”

  It couldn’t have been any grimmer than my brush with acting. But I didn’t think Sherilyn—or my mum—needed to hear about my very brief stint in the adult movie-making business either. And as far as ‘entertainment’ went, I wanted to bleach the recent sex party from my brain. Mostly, I managed not to think about it during the day, but at night, suppressed flashes of memory came back, making me nauseous.

  I caught Mum’s eye and she smiled at me innocently. It confirmed what I’d suspected. Then I heard her announcing to her friend in a loud voice that she couldn’t wait for me to bring home ‘a nice girl’ and produce some grandchildren for her to spoil. What a load of bullshit. She hated kids. Or maybe she’d just hated me as a kid. What sort of fantasy world was she living in? I guessed she’d tried to reinvent herself as a homemaker. For fuck’s sake. It wasn’t going to happen.

  Sherilyn was attractive enough, smart and quite interesting, but it still felt like work. Maybe that was why I didn’t date anymore—every woman I met, it felt like work.

  It occurred to me that I was in more trouble than I thought.

  The rest of the lunch was awkward and I wondered what sort of promises Mum had made to Sherilyn, because she kept angling for a date, and saying she’d love to see LA.

  I couldn’t do it. How could I date a girl and carry on working as an escort? I mean, yeah, I could cut out the whole post-date activities, but still—any girl dating me would have to know that I was taking other women out to dinner, and I couldn’t imagine that would fly. I couldn’t imagine how that conversation would go once they found out what I did.

  I could lie. But what basis was that for a relationship? I guess I was already lying to Mum, although it was more a sin of omission. And I really didn’t give a shit about that.

  Or I could find another job. Just not one that paid so well. Yeah, and be stuck with my student debts for the next two decades.

  Sherilyn left the lunch with dissatisfaction painted on her face. Mum wasn’t much happier as I drove us home. Todd was slumped in the back seat, snoring loudly.

  “She’s such a lovely girl. Pretty, too. Why didn’t you ask her out?”

  “What’s the point, Mum? I’m leaving soon. Why start something?”

  I parked outside the house and opened the car door while Todd swayed unsteadily, leaning against the passenger window.

  “Told you the kid plays for the other team,” he slurred.

  Todd really was a grade A asshole, and because he was from Alaska, he’d also made a lot of off color remarks all through lunch about the softness of all other Americans and people who lived in California in particular. Then Mum mentioned that I’d played hockey for the UCLA team and he’d seemed surprised. I guess she hadn’t told him much about me, but at least he shut the fuck up for five minutes.

  I ignored the dumb bastard’s latest comment but Mum gritted her teeth and stared at me.

  “Are you gay?”

  “For fuck’s sake, mum!” I laughed, coldly. “Did I not grow up in the same house as you? How many times did you try to ground me for fucking around with girls. No, Mum. I’m not gay, just happily single.”

  She shot me a look like she wasn’t sure she believed me. No surprise there; or maybe she sensed that I wasn’t being entirely honest with her.

  “Don’t you talk to your mother like that!” Todd yelled. “You should be grateful after the way she took two jobs to pay for you to go to that fancy college in the lower 48.”

  I stared at Mum, disbelieving the crap I was hearing.

  “Really? That’s what you’re telling people. We both know my scholarship paid my tuition, and I worked my ass off to pay for everything else. Better watch your back, Todd—I hope you haven’t loaned her any money.”

  Mum went pale and Todd’s change of expression was comical, going from confusion to anger to panic in a few seconds.

  I left them arguing in the snow.

  I flew home to LA that evening. I didn’t have any appointments and didn’t plan on telling Eloise that I was back in town. I wanted to take some time for myself to figure things out.

  I didn’t get it.

  Eloise tracked me down, catching me outside my apartment on the way home from a run.

  She informed me that as I was in town, she needed me to work. I have no idea how she found out I was back—for all I knew she was ex-CIA. Nothing would have surprised me about her.

  Every day running up to New Year’s was busy, and Eloise’s business was really taking off. As well as me and Marco, she now had another six full-time escorts on her books. Every lunchtime and evening had been taken up with work get-togethers, lunches, dinners and private parties. I used my newfound skills of how to tie a bow tie, and spent more time in a tux than out of it.

  By the end of the week, I was sick of champagne, and sick of the people who bought it for me.

  That’s probably unfair, but I’d wanted a break and didn’t get it. Eloise had a way of making me feel like I owed her—probably because I did. Not only that, I was anxious about money since I’d lost my bartending gig. I missed the sense of having a legitimate job. It left me feeling exposed.

  But Eloise made me realize something, too. With the escort work, I’d finally found something that I was good at. Art wasn’t going to make me rich—that was a pipe dream, but I could make a damn fine living giving women my time. I didn’t even have to be me—I’d be whoever and whatever they wanted. As soon as the clinic gave me the all-clear, which would be any day now.

  I didn’t have anything to lose.

  Carl had persuaded me to come out and party with him on New Year’s Eve. I was working till 1AM, but he said that the club he’d chosen would be open till dawn. I was looking forward to letting loose.

 
My date had been spectacularly rude to me when I’d left at the end of the evening. I suppose she thought if she paid for an appointment I’d be a sure thing. But as I hadn’t gotten my test results, Eloise had made it completely clear that sex couldn’t be on the menu.

  Denise wasn’t unattractive, but her ugly words twisted her face, revealing her inner hag. She reminded me of a Breughel painting—Pieter the Younger and his visions of Hell.

  “So, baby,” she whispered, in what she assumed was a teasing voice.

  It was fifty minutes after midnight, and I was looking forward to being off the clock and meeting up with Carl. It hadn’t been a bad party but my date had drunk steadily throughout the evening, pawing at me in a way that should have embarrassed her work colleagues, although they seemed to be cheering her on.

  I’d already had to make a grab for her hand three times, to stop her feeling me up, and I’d given up on trying to stop her groping my ass while we danced.

  Just because I’d gotten used to it, didn’t mean I liked it.

  We were in an upscale hotel in West Hollywood, and she’d left me with no illusions as to what she wanted when she told me she’d reserved a room.

  “So, baby, how about taking the party upstairs?”

  “That’s a great offer, Denise,” I lied. “But I really have to get going now.”

  “What?” she snapped, her good mood vanishing long after her manners had left the building.

  “I’ve got to get going,” I repeated firmly.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Her voice had risen an octave and the few people who were still sober were beginning to stare.

  “No, I’m serious.” I said, quietly but firmly. “I simply offer escort services. My agent made that clear to you when you made the booking.”

  “Fuck that! I know what guys like you do!” she shrieked, all restraint gone. “I paid three fucking grand for tonight and I expect some fucking satisfaction!”

  “I’ve got five minutes,” I said, glancing at my wristwatch. “Enough time to get you off in the bathroom. But you could probably do that by yourself.”

  That’s when she tried to hit me.

  “You bastard! You’re just a cheap gigolo—a dirty little whore—a prostitute. You think you’re so fucking wonderful!”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d been spoken to like that, but I was losing what little was left of my patience.

  “This date is finished,” I said, coldly. “Thank God.”

  I turned on my heel and left her ranting in the middle of the dance floor.

  So I was in a serious drinking mood when I got to La Cita, a new, Mexican themed place in Koreatown.

  I wasn’t the only guy there in a tux, but most people were more casually dressed. Well, the guys were—the women were on fire. I hadn’t seen so much bare flesh in public since life drawing class freshman year. In private? Different story. But this was a young crowd and for once I was able to be myself.

  I ripped off the bow tie and ordered two shots of tequila, throwing them down my throat quickly, enjoying the bite. The bartender passed me a beer chaser, and I tossed some bills down to pay for my drinks.

  The place was packed and I ended up having to text Carl to find him. He was holed up in a small booth with two girls who were giggling over a pitcher of Sangria. He had his arm around a brunette who seemed very pleased to have it there.

  I restrained a grimace—I’d been hoping for a guy’s night of drinking beer and talking shit. Damn, this job really took a toll on my social life. It was definitely on the critical list.

  “Hallen! Get your lame ass over here and meet these two beautiful ladies.”

  He didn’t introduce them so I guessed he’d forgotten their names already.

  “Hi! I’m Tessa and this is my friend, Paige,” said the brunette.

  I smiled, said hi, and slid into the booth.

  “Nice tux,” said Paige. “Where’ve you been partying?”

  “Just a work thing. Nothing special. So do you know Carl … or?”

  “Oh, is that his name? No, my friend just started talking to him. They seem to have hit it off,” she laughed.

  We watched them as some serious face-sucking started.

  “God, I’m glad you’re here or I’d be seriously pissed!” Paige said, with an accompanying eye roll. “I hate feeling like a third wheel.”

  “Yeah, I know that feeling.”

  I didn’t think I could sit there watching my buddy getting it on with the brunette.

  “Would you like to dance?”

  She smiled happily. “Yeah, I would!”

  I got rid of the jacket, rolled up my sleeves, downed a glass of the too-sweet punch, and held out my hand to her.

  The dance floor was packed and we were forced together, the heat and alcohol working us up. After two songs, Paige was practically wrapped around me. It felt almost normal. None of the agency dates had ever wanted to go to clubs, and the pounding bass matched my mood, driving my sense of anger and frustration.

  I think that was the reason for what happened between me and Paige.

  I went back with her that night. I know that was low, bearing in mind I didn’t know if I was clean. But I used condoms—I was careful.

  Paige didn’t have any family in California either, and that sense of loneliness during the holidays drew us together.

  I went home briefly the next morning to change my clothes, then we spent the day together eating pizza and watching cheesy holiday movies. She got a text from her friend Tessa. Seems like she and Carl hooked up, too. They both had family commitments for New Year’s Day but she arranged for us all to double date again the following night.

  I badly wanted to do normal things and have a normal relationship. I didn’t realize how much I missed that sense of connection with another person. Not that Paige and I connected that much—other than in bed. She was kind of self-involved and shallow and really seemed to be working the whole model-actress-whatever stereotype.

  When she asked, I told her I was in the entertainment industry. She dug just enough to see if there was any way I could help further her career. As soon as she realized that I didn’t have those sort of contacts, she lost interest in finding out more about me. That should have been a loud damn warning note, but once again I ignored it.

  Seeing my mum had rattled me, and Paige was my chance at having something normal in my life. I cut back the extra-curricular part of my work to the bare minimum, only sleeping with regular clients who expected it. Everything else was strictly hands-off. I know I lost quite a few bookings because of that, but it seemed a fair trade.

  I honestly didn’t see it as cheating on Paige.

  Until the afternoon I took her to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to see Sanford Roth’s photographs of Henry Moore’s sculpture.

  We’d been dating about six weeks and she was already getting annoyed by the number of evenings that I was working. I hadn’t even been that busy, but Friday and Saturday nights were scheduled frequently. I was sick of living in my shithole apartment and Eloise knew it. She’d been bugging me to look into real estate and getting my own place. Long story short—I needed the money, so I did the dates.

  Paige pretended to be interested in the museum’s collection for about five minutes before she announced she was heading for the gift shop. I could tell she was irritated when I told her I’d meet her at one of the cafés in half an hour. She muttered something under her breath about a “crappy date” and stalked off.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when she left. Our differences were patently obvious, but I could see that Carl and Tessa were getting really close, and I wanted that, too.

  But even though I’d cut out the extra-curricular sex, it would be fair to say that Paige didn’t get the best of me. It was tiring always being ‘on’ for appointments, having to be upbeat all the time. I was trying to be like a real boyfriend, but sometimes I’d rather have just been by myself.

  Paige seemed to
be in a better mood when I found her at the museum’s Stark Bar drinking a glass of chilled white wine.

  “There’s my gorgeous boyfriend! I missed you, baby!”

  She insisted on sitting in my lap which was cute but kind of annoying, too. And she took my phone then started taking like fifty pictures of us together. It seemed pretty lame but she was enjoying herself. Or so I thought.

  She slid into her own chair and started deleting the pictures that she said made her “look like a troll”. I did the boyfriend thing where I said she always looked beautiful. That felt like work, and I was starting to feel on edge.

  Either she got bored of looking at the photos or she’d meant to find my calendar all along.

  “What’s this?” she snapped.

  I squinted at the screen.

  “My schedule for the next week,” I said calmly, although I knew that an epic shit storm was about to make landfall.

  “Is that all you can say?” she spat. “Cindy on Thursday and Maddie on Saturday? What the fuck, Hallen!”

  “They’re appointments, not dates. That’s my work, Paige.”

  “What do you mean, that’s your work? Do you think I’m dumb or something?”

  I thought it was best not to answer that.

  “That’s what I do. I’m an escort.”

  “What?”

  “I’m an escort. Women pay me to accompany them to business dinners—anywhere they don’t want to go by themselves. That’s all. It’s not that big a deal.”

  Yeah, I know that was one of the worst things I could say. I thought her head was going to start revolving. Any projectile vomiting and I was out of there.

  “Not a big deal! Are you fucking insane! You’re like dating two other women as well as me and you think that’s not a big deal!”

  By now her voice was loud enough for people at other tables to turn and stare.

  “I’m not dating anyone except you,” I said, trying to remain calm. “It’s work.”

  “Do you sleep with them?” she hissed.

  “No,” I lied, quickly.

  She sat back in her chair, breathing hard.

  “And you’ve never slept with them?”