Tease

by Missy Johnson

  Then again, I’m a male escort, living alone, lying to my family. Maybe my life isn’t as perfect as I pretend it is.

  Chapter Two

  I left the hotel just after eight.

  While walking to my car, I checked my messages. There was one from my sister, Nic, asking me to come by after work. She lived just around the corner with her husband and two kids.

  Nic and I had a very close relationship. Losing Dad at such a young age, I’ve always felt like I needed to step up and protect Mom and Nic and be the man of the family. Ten-year-old Coop had taken on a paper route so he could help out with the bills. Getting up at three every Sunday morning had been hell, but it had made me feel like I was doing something positive for the family—even if it was only bringing in an extra twenty dollars a week.

  That need was even stronger now, especially with Mom the way she was. There was a big reason why I pushed myself to work so hard, and it had everything to do with that need to provide for my family. Like everyone, I’d had the “what the hell am I doing with my life” moments where I think to myself I’m better than this. The guilt I feel when I think about how my mother raised me and what I’d become gets to me and the worst part of that is that I do what I do for my family.

  Pulling up outside their house, I got out of the car and walked up to the front door. I rang the bell and listened to the sound of footsteps—too heavy to be either of my nieces—hurrying up the hall. The door swung open and Nic smiled at me.

  “Hey you,” she said, kissing my cheek. “The kids are in bed, finally! If you wake them, they’re going home with you,” she joked. “You want some dinner?”

  “Sure,” I replied, kicking off my shoes.

  I followed her down to the kitchen, passing through the living room on the way. I loved their house. Granted, it was pretty small, especially for a family of four, but it had such a nice feel about it. Toys were scattered everywhere, and every step was a potential deathtrap, but I loved that. It wasn’t about having the newest furniture, or the having the nicest garden; it was all about having a comfortable home where the kids were free to play.

  “How are you guys? How’s Jake?”

  As if on cue, Jake walked in. He grinned. “Hey, Coop.” He slapped me on the back. “Beer?” He grabbed two of them out of the fridge. I didn’t need to answer. I never turned down a beer and he knew it.

  “What’ve you been up to? How’s work?’ he asked, tossing me a can.

  I shrugged as I cracked it open. “Not much. The usual: work. More work.” I grinned. “I just knocked off now, actually.”

  “Ah, insurance. I don’t know how you do it. Damn boring.” He shook his head and I managed a small smile. “You’re working late for a Monday.”

  Yeah. My family thought I sold insurance.

  When your sister is as nosy as mine is, you have to cover all bases if you are going to convincingly lie about what you do. I’d taken my ‘insurance’ career pretty far, all things considered. I had business cards, a registered business name, two separate phones—one for personal use and the other for work. I worked hard to keep everything separate. Emails, laptops, filing—it was all kept well away from my personal life. I worked hard to ensure the two would never overlap.

  I had a post office box where all my work-related mail was sent. Legally, I was registered as an escort. Legally, I did everything by the book, from declaring my income to paying my taxes, but when it came to my family, they’d never know what I did for a living.

  Even after six years, I’d never gotten around to having the “Hey, I’m an escort!” discussion. Not that I thought Nic and Jake would judge me. It was more that I loved Mom too much to have her think I was in some sort of situation that I wasn’t happy with, and that’s exactly what she would think—not that it would be a far stretch from the truth. If mom wasn’t sick would I still be doing this? Probably not.

  I craved her happiness and would do anything to make her proud of me, even if that meant lying about my job. And she was proud of the man I’d become.

  On the days she could actually remember who I was, anyway.

  Mom was only fifty-three, and suffering from advanced stage Alzheimer’s. It had begun very early, at age forty-three, with her forgetting little things, like appointments and dinners. Ten years later it had quickly progressed to significant memory loss, to the point where she needed twenty-four-hour care in a specialized facility.

  Losing Dad to cancer, then Mom being diagnosed with this were big factors in my decision to study medicine. At sixteen, I’d thought if I could stop even one from family going through the pain we had been through, it would make all those years of study worth it. When I’d realized how much money escorting could make me, I realized my time could be better spent raising the money to get her the care she needed.

  Looking at her, she was still my mom, but to not see that little spark of recognition in her eyes when I walked in the room was heartbreaking. Regardless, I had to remain strong for both Mom and for Nic.

  I also had to ensure enough money was coming in that she could remain at one of the best facilities in New York, and to keep her in the clinical trial she was enrolled in. Without my job, there was no way in hell I could afford that trial or her accommodation. Not even close. There was no guarantee it would help her at all, but if there was a chance it could reverse or slow the effects of her disease, then I was as sure as fuck going to take it.

  The fact that Nic and Jake had never questioned the cost of her involvement in the trial made me wonder how well paying they thought insurance was—Jake was a lawyer, and the cost of this trial was even beyond his means.

  It had crossed my mind more than once that they had to have known something was up, and maybe it was an informed decision not to ask me where the money came from. If you don’t ask then you don’t know, and you can continue to go on oblivious to the situation. But maybe that’s just me being paranoid.

  “Yeah, I had a client needing some urgent assistance. Gotta be on the ball, always on call,” I grinned. “Not like law, huh? You jokers never work.”

  Jake rolled his eyes at me, at least appreciating the joke.

  “Oh that reminds me, are you still coming to the cabin this weekend?” Nic asked, setting out a plate for me.

  I laughed. “Of course. You know I love that place. And it gives me time to spend with the two little monsters.” The two little monsters were two-year-old Marlie and five-year-old Tully. I might be biased, but in my eyes they were the sweetest little girls in the country.

  Both girls took after their father. With their blonde hair and blue eyes, they looked nothing like my brown-haired, green-eyed sister—and she hated it.

  Not only did they look like Jake, they were stubborn and argumentative, just like Jake. I could honestly say, based on experience, never get into an argument with Tully because no matter how right you are, you’ll admit defeat just to shut her the hell up.

  “If they were more like me they wouldn’t be such little monsters,” she grumbled, tightening her ponytail. She glanced at my gray woolen suit jacket. “New?” she asked. I nodded. “Shit, they must pay you well. That’s Armani, isn’t it?” She leaned over and rubbed the fabric between her fingers.

  “Yeah. A bonus for signing a big client,” I fibbed. Not that far from the truth. It had been a bonus, but for getting off a big client.

  Even after paying for Mom’s accommodation, I had more money than I could spend. I was fucking loaded and I couldn’t even share that with my family. Even they weren’t stupid enough to think insurance paid that well. I did have trusts set up for both girls. I figured I had a good fifteen years to explain where that cash had come from.

  “Yeah, maybe you should take your little sister shopping sometime, hey?” she joked, winking at me.

  I laughed, knowing that if anyone could wipe out all my money, it was her. That girl had an addiction for anything fashion and could quite easily blow five figures in under an hour. Thank god she had Jake to sup
port her habit, and thank god even more she was hopeless with technology—I dreaded the day she discovered the world of online shopping.

  She and Jake had met in college. He had been dating her roommate, but when that turned sour, he and Nic had just sort of clicked. Some people you can just watch together and just know they were meant to be. That was Nic and Jake. They’d found in each other what I knew I’d never find: love. Could I make my life sound any more like a daytime movie? I swear I wasn’t that bad. Well, maybe it was, but there were people who were far worse off than me.

  At least I had a loving family, that’s what was most important to me.

  I watched as Nic piled my plate high with lasagna. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the smell of the food hit me. Nic, like Mom had been, was a fantastic cook. Those genes hadn’t filtered through to me—I could burn water without even trying.

  She pushed it across the counter where I was eagerly waiting, knife and fork already in my hands. It was fucking hot but I didn’t let that deter me from practically tipping it down my throat. Nic shook her head in disgust.

  “What the fuck is it with men? He scarfs his food down too.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of Jake. “It’s not going to disappear if you don’t eat it all in five seconds.”

  “What?” I shrugged. “I’m hungry. And besides, chewing is overrated.” After I’d polished off the plate, I stood up and stretched. “I better get going.”

  “You’ve only been here five minutes,” Nic protested, her mouth dropping open.

  “And it’s been great, but I’m fucked. I need sleep.” I kissed her on the forehead and walked to the door before she could respond.

  “You only came here to eat, didn’t you?” she accused, a smile on her face.

  I winked at her. “It was either that or cold pizza. Take it as a compliment.”

  She rolled her eyes as she leaned against the doorframe, watching as I walked to my car.

  “Bye, knobface,” she called out, using one of her pet names for me. I laughed and waved my hand.

  “See you later, twat.”

  For me, home was an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I’d explained the cost away by saying I had secured it through work on a lease agreement, and nobody had questioned that. Yet.

  I pulled into my parking spot and took the elevator up to the tenth floor.

  My apartment was huge. There was no other way to describe it. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms plus a study seemed a little excessive for one person, but what can I say? It was the only available apartment in the building, and I loved the view. I walked over to the drapes that covered the floor to ceiling windows and opened them. The city lights peppered the darkened sky, stretching for miles off into the distance.

  Fuck, I loved that place.

  I went to my office and checked my schedule for the following week. As usual, I was booked out. I restricted myself to working five days a week—some days with two bookings, depending on who the client was.

  If I knew a client was into domination and her pleasure, I could safely assume my stamina would be fine for another appointment. Surprisingly, some were more focused on making sure I got off rather than themselves, and hell, that was fine with me.

  The next hour I spent checking messages and emails, confirming bookings for the next week, and then organizing the payments I needed to make for Mom’s care. By the time I’d finished all that, I was wrecked and nearly falling asleep at my desk.

  Shutting my laptop, I turned off the lights and headed toward the bedroom, stripping out of my clothes along the way. I flicked on the lamp beside the bed and tossed the pillows to check for spiders—something I’d been doing since that night when I was twelve and a massive spider had crawled across my face. Life was never the same, and a new obsession was born.

  Once I was sure I was alone, I climbed into bed, asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

  Chapter Three

  My phone buzzed, waking me up. Not a morning person, I yawned, my hand fumbling around on the night table for my work phone, even though I could see light streaming through the curtains already. It was after eleven—which was still way too early. I read the text message from Brittany, my client for that evening.

  Hi Coop, looking forward to tonight. Just confirming 6:30pm. Brittany xx

  I knew nothing of her, except that she got my details off another client, Amalie. That in itself should’ve made me nervous, especially knowing what Amalie was into—but we’ll get to that later.

  Yawning again, I stretched my naked body between the soft cotton sheets. I didn’t want to get up; my bed was so cozy and warm. Besides, getting up would mean my sleep was over, and I wasn’t ready to commit to that yet.

  My five-minute snooze turned into a two-hour nap. Cursing, I pushed back the covers and stood up. I made my way down to the living room and collapsed on the sofa, not yet fully awake.

  Most of the afternoon was spent lazing around the apartment. This was my only time to relax, and I intended to make the most of it. Almost three in the afternoon and I was still lying on the sofa wearing only my boxers and watching TV.

  I wasn’t a naturally tidy person, and glancing around the place, it showed. Thank god I didn’t bring customers home with me; one look at the dump and they’d run. The apartment was huge, but the amount of junk I had lying around the place made it look tiny and cluttered. Not even the modern classy furniture I’d spent thousands on could save it.

  Getting my ass off the sofa, I made my way down the hall to the bathroom and ran the shower. Stepping out of my boxers, I kicked them aside then stepped under the warm water. I soaped my body and then rinsed, not bothering to wash my hair.

  I reached for the towel and began to dry myself. I stared at my reflection in the full-length mirror. There was a reason I was so good at what I did, and it had much to do with what was below the belt. Let’s just say I’d been blessed with the equipment to make women squirm—in a good way, that is.

  At a guess, I’d say eight inches. Ten when erect.

  Women who say size isn’t important are usually lying—if it wasn’t important, they wouldn’t be seeing me on the side or investing in industrial sized dildos.

  But it wasn’t just about that; I was young, attractive, and I made every woman I was with feel special. My dark hair and brown eyes drove women crazy, as did my lopsided grin. Flexing my muscles, I looked over my body. I took care of my body to ensure it was in the best shape it could be, so that I was in the best condition to please every one of my clients. That meant keeping myself fit, toned, and well-groomed…everywhere.

  If you’re thinking I sound like a cocky asshole, then you’re wrong. Isn’t that what they’re paying me for? So they feel like they’re the center of my world? I don’t go to bars to pick up random women and spin lies about how “special” they are just to get in their pants. I’m providing a service, and being charming is all a part of that.

  The funny thing was, Coop “The Escort” couldn’t be more different from the real me. When I was at work, I was a completely malleable person. I became the person my client wanted me to be, whether that was a cocky bastard, aggressive, or just a regular loving guy. Whatever they wanted, right? I mean, that’s why I was getting paid.

  The definition of my life - my existence - is a simple one.

  It's not that I'm the tease, not unless you were paying me to be one. The tease in my lifestyle was never quite being able to get where I wanted to be, or what I wanted for myself. I wasn't the tease. But my potential was.

  I’d do anything for the right price. Nothing was off the table. Well, that wasn’t entirely true; even I had limits. There were things I wouldn’t do; I wouldn’t touch anything illegal or involving bodily fluids, and obvious signs of sexually transmitted diseases or illness were a no-go. I couldn’t afford to lose clients for not fulfilling their needs, but it was even more important for me to ensure my own safety and the safety of my other clients. That was where having
a semi-regular client base was a good thing: I wasn’t sleeping with thousands of women, but even so, it only took one mistake to ruin your life.

  The real me? Well that’s someone not many people got to meet. The real Coop was generous, funny—and modest too—and would do anything for his friends and family. I hated feeling vulnerable, which is why it was easier to create an alter ego who was all the things I wasn’t. Letting people in was hard for me, and I wasn’t just talking about love. Even friendship I found difficult. It was much easier for me to relate to girls than to guys. Maybe something to do with being raised in an all female family? Who knows.

  I arrived at The Benson Hotel shortly after six, taking in its imposing exterior. Bellhops stood outside as people in suits made use of the valet parking, dropping their BMWs and Mercedes off at the door.

  Nearly all of my appointments were in some of the most luxurious hotel chains in the country. Hotels were even ground, and more importantly, inconspicuous. I was less likely to be discovered in a place like this than I was outside a client’s house—especially those who were married.

  I strolled through the foyer confidently, heading for the elevator. I’d been in so many posh hotels by now that nobody blinked an eye. I knew just how to blend in. To act confident, stride forward, shoulders back, head high. To look like I belonged.

  I stepped out of the elevator on the twentieth floor and headed to Room 2001.

  I took a breath and knocked. Yes, even I got nervous, especially with new clients. It was the unknown—that brief moment where even I had no idea what to expect. And I couldn’t show that. I had to be confident. Showing emotion was a big no-no.