What Goes Around

by Rollins, Jack

  Demi pulled her head away and shifted back in her chair. “You can put it away now.”

  Luke zipped himself up.

  “It’s a hundred an hour, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “The money’s waiting for you on the kitchen table. Was that considered an extra? I know I’m paying for your time only.”

  “No, my time alone is fine today.”

  Demi looked him up and down. “I’ll be in touch with the agency again soon.”

  Luke returned to his car. The moorland around him was cast in a wonderful orange glow as the last vestiges of the winter phase of afternoon sunlight washed the countryside and tinted the metalwork of his vehicle. He considered the woman living all the way out here on her own. Carers checked on her four times a day, as it turned out, but that only amounted to about two hours of contact time on most days, with extra time for shopping and domestic duties on two separate days in the week. Luke wondered why Demi hadn’t just sunk a couple of bottles of oramorph and finished herself off in a fit of sheer boredom.

  He was about to step into the Ford when a sudden snort startled him. He spun on his heels, crunching the gravel beneath him, and turned to the source of the noise. A bay stallion stood at the corner of the left-side north face of the house. The animal’s eyes were fixed on him, as though weighing him up and forming an opinion of him.

  Even standing perfectly still, the power in the creature’s musculature was plain to see. Its tightly braided chocolate brown mane and tail set against its latte-coloured body perfectly. He knew nothing of horses, but he could see that this creature was exquisite.

  The stallion snorted once more and turned away, disappearing out of view around the corner.

  Luke drove to the console by the gates, wound down his window and pressed the button to open them. He glanced in the mirror and could see all along the north face of the property, but the horse was gone.

  ***

  Luke’s next appointment was not until the evening: one of his regulars, a woman in her sixties whose husband had suffered a stroke and couldn’t get it up anymore with all the blood pressure medication he took. She was attractive in her advanced years; he thought of her as a MILF who’d turned into a GILF. Sometimes, when servicing older clients, he had to make use of Viagra to ensure a performance. With her he had no such problems, and he preferred that, preferred to find something he liked about the client, something natural that would give him the ability to perform. She was a good tipper, and all she wanted was to lay there and be fucked by someone she found attractive. Missionary, bareback, and he had to come inside her – that’s what made her happy.

  He trained at the gym for an hour, working his back, knowing he would need his arms and chest for the night’s activity. Once his workout was done, he showered and wrapped a towel around his waist, collected his Speedos from the locker and slipped them on before entering the spa.

  Resting the base of his skull on the lip of the Jacuzzi, he let his body float up to the surface of the water. The bubbles tickled his body, soothing his tired muscles. He closed his eyes, passing into a perfect state of relaxation. Focused on the bubbles surging against his flesh and the blackness behind his eyelids, he blocked out his troubles and let the moment take over.

  The moment, however, was short-lived. Rough hands grasped Luke’s head and pressed him beneath the water. The surface of the water erupted as his arms and legs thrashed. The downward force relented and Luke burst from the water, gasping for air, coughing and retching. He cleared his eyes and saw before him John Kelly, clad in a fine charcoal suit and pale blue shirt. Kelly’s condescending laughter echoed around the tiled spa. A couple of curious patrons peered out from the steam room and showers, but ducked away when they saw the most feared and notorious member of their club.

  “Sorry, pal, I thought you’d nodded off. I thought it safest to wake you,” Kelly said, sneering.

  “You’re fucking unbelievable, John. Really you are,” Luke managed to whine between gasps.

  “Well, it doesn’t do you good to rest for too long. Work’s good for the soul, my friend. It’s good for getting me the money you owe me, too.”

  “You said I had ‘til the end of next month.”

  “You do, pal, but I don’t think you’re setting aside as much as you should be. Maybe you need to go and bang some more old women or something, eh… or maybe you’ll need a good plastic surgeon to fix up Luke Sharp, when I’ve finished with you,” Kelly said, almost singing the taunt. “Nothing quite like being debt-free, my friend, but some folk… well, the more they earn, the more they want. Isn’t that true?”

  Ignoring the question, Luke climbed out of the Jacuzzi and snatched up his towel, patting his body down, pleased to hide his almost naked form behind something while Kelly was present.

  “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. I saw you come up here and couldn’t resist. It’s been so long since I last saw you, I absolutely had to come and have a little catch-up.” With that, Kelly gave a patronising wave and left the spa, his message well and truly delivered.

  Luke ended his spa session prematurely, his relaxation time spoiled. A flash of panic tore through his concentration: the car!

  The chill air cut into his damp hair as he raced across the car park, his suit jacket crumpled over his left arm, gym bag flapping against his thigh. He paced around his cherished vehicle, braced for a dent or scratch in the paintwork to break his heart. To his relief, Kelly’s spite, it seemed, did not extend as far as vandalising vehicles. Then it occurred to Luke that the reason may be that it would reduce the value of it should Kelly see the need to relieve him of it when the day of reckoning arrived.

  He ran a hand over the rain-streaked roof and climbed in, throwing his jacket onto the passenger seat as he settled behind the wheel. He slammed his hands against the steering wheel in anger and frustration at Kelly catching him off-guard like that. The thing was, Kelly was right: he hadn’t been setting aside enough to get the debt cleared. He hadn’t been working as hard as he should. He’d been picky about taking on new clients, preferring instead to milk those he was established with. He’d taken on Demi purely because he’d known her age – she was mid-thirties – and if his luck was in, she’d be an attractive woman he’d happily fuck anyway and the money would just be a bonus. His luck was in, as it turned out, and he hoped he’d hear back from her soon. In all likelihood, he reckoned she needed companionship as well as sex. That could lead to lots of additional hours and a lot more money made with his dick alone.

  Being an escort meant Luke made his money off the books, with no tax or national insurance payments, no student loan repayments and no paper trail with which to impress upon a bank his ability to repay a loan. When he had decided to take advantage of the property boom, he’d formed a limited company with his uncle Phil, who’d put in five thousand pounds. Luke had added the same amount, borrowed from the shark. They had then used the money as deposits on two homes, one of which they had let out immediately and the other which they’d discovered had serious foundation damage not highlighted in the initial survey.

  Any money they had made from the rental had been quickly swallowed in the cost of the underpinning work on the other building, along with legal costs accrued from suing the surveyor for negligence.

  And that was how in three months a five-thousand-pound debt had swelled to over twenty-thousand pounds.

  ***

  Three days later, Luke received his usual email offering him some work. He knew immediately that the three-hour visit was with Demi, and he was correct in his assumption. This meant three hundred pounds basic, and whatever was negotiated for any sexual contact in that time. Had he not been so desperate for money, he might have given her that for free to secure frequent business from her, but time was of the essence and he needed to take as much as he could as soon as he could.

  Everywhere he’d went, whether it was the shops or the gym, Kelly or one of his lackeys had seemed to be there, hovering around,
watching him. Sometimes he had caught a glimpse of a knife, a club, and once even a power drill in their hands. A sense of desperation had risen like a flood tide within him – he couldn’t even masturbate, which was, in his trade, most concerning. The urgency for money might just eradicate the only means he had to make it.

  Stress burned in Luke’s veins, tensing his muscles, making him push the car a little harder than usual on the moor road. Even on the track approaching Arion House, he sped along, sending gravel clattering up beneath the chassis to clank on the panels and his precious paintwork. He didn’t care. It’s Kelly’s fucking car soon, anyway!

  The speed rendered the hedgerows translucent as the gaps merged into one, opening up a view into the field to his right. Keeping pace with him raced the bay horse he had seen on his previous visit. A determined eye peered through the hedge, and although the animal must have been looking ahead as it ran, Luke had the odd sensation that the horse was observing him, or had at least recognised him.

  The offside wheels of the Ford Focus thumped up onto the grass verge and Luke wrenched the wheel around to force the car back onto the track. His heart thudded in his chest as adrenaline sent his body and mind into overdrive, flooding him with thoughts of what would have happened had he crashed the car.

  He didn’t mind putting a few scratches on the paintwork for Kelly to inherit, but it would be no good if he wrote the whole thing off. Then he’d really be in trouble.

  Demi opened the gates remotely. Within moments, Luke stood before her in the lounge. She sat with a table similar to those found in hospital, with a frame forming three edges of a rectangle so it could slip over her chair, with the main surface positioned over her lap. Upon the table stood an easel, a pack of charcoals open and at the ready.

  “Strip,” was all she said.

  Luke smiled and did as he was told.

  The first thing Demi did was photograph him as he lay across the sofa in a classic pose for a still-life drawing, with one hand supporting his head and the other arm draped over his midriff. “In case I don’t get to finish while you’re here,” she informed him.

  “I didn’t know you were an artist,” Luke said.

  “I’m not a very good one, but you’re such a nice thing to draw, I thought I would take advantage.”

  “I see.”

  “I used to draw my horse a lot.”

  “I suppose it’s difficult if you don’t get outside much. Plus, from what I’ve seen, he’d take some keeping up with.”

  Demi frowned and looked up from her work. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s bloody fast. He was racing me on my way in.”

  “Couldn’t be my horse. Conquistador died not long after our accident.”

  “Oh. You’re right then, it must have been another of your horses.”

  “I don’t have any more.”

  “There was a horse bolting along the field out there – it must be one of your fields. Right next to the road approaching this place.”

  “Yes, that’s my field, but I don’t have any horses at all. Not since the accident.”

  “Bloody hell, then someone’s missing a lovely bay racehorse.”

  Demi continued to work in silence for a long while. Eventually she said, “It’s funny, you know, how you saw that bay horse. My Conquistador was a bay stallion. He was beautiful. Such an intelligent animal. He understood me more than any man could.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t tried the right man. I think I understand what you need. Probably better than any horse could. I’d stake money on it.”

  “Really?” Demi grinned at him and wiggled her eyebrows. “Would you stake your fee for today on it?”

  Luke groaned inside. “How do I know you’d be honest with me?”

  “I’d be honest with you. If you can make me come, you’ll be worth every penny. Not even my husband could make me come.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Demi slid the table away from her chair and grabbed her walking stick. “Right, then. Let’s see what you’re made of.”

  Luke excused himself and snorted a quick line of coke in the bathroom. Then he hurried to the bedroom where Demi had positioned herself in the centre of the bed. He undressed her gently but quickly. Her ex-husband had been an idiot, Luke decided. Even after a disabling accident, her body was toned and tight. Excitement coursed through him and he traced his fingers up her legs, working upwards slowly, deliberately. Demi shivered with the anticipation of one never touched sexually, or one who had gone without such contact for a long time.

  Luke pulled Demi’s legs apart and positioned his shoulders beneath her knees. She pushed her hips forward, squeezing his neck with her thighs, her shaven pussy only inches from his face. She giggled and so did he, finding her girlish excitement both funny and something of a turn-on. He slid his tongue along her right thigh, sending shivers of pleasure through her. As he reached the top of her thigh, he turned his head and listened as Demi took in a sharp breath, holding onto it, probably waiting for his tongue to make contact with her lips or clit. Instead he worked his tongue up her left thigh.

  This time, he didn’t make her wait. As his mouth moved closer to her opening, he found himself salivating and unable to resist a second time. He pushed his tongue inside her, making her gasp and squirm. He withdrew and brushed the tip upwards over her clit, tracing circles, altering the pressure, shifting to the blade of his tongue and back to the tip.

  Demi came within two minutes, covering his mouth and chin with hot juices.

  “Now,” he said, shifting his weight on the bed as Demi released the pillow she had clutched throughout the trembling orgasm she’d enjoyed, “get on your hands and knees.”

  After her third orgasm, Demi doubled up on the bed. Luke slid his cock inside her again, but she moaned and wriggled away.

  “Please – I’m sore. I can’t do any more.”

  “Have I hurt you?”

  “No,” she whispered. “It’s my pains. I should’ve known this would happen. Should never have done this.”

  “God, Demi, I’m sorry. I really am. If I’d known…”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  For a couple of minutes, she rolled from one side to the other, onto her back, over and onto her front. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Please, Demi, let me get you something for the pain.”

  “Can you bring me my morphine and one of those little medicine cups, please?”

  Demi described the location of the morphine in the kitchen and Luke hurried to collect it, still naked. He was glad she lived so remotely and had no little old lady neighbours to shock.

  When he opened the cupboard where Demi’s medication was stored, his eyes bulged. Six bottles of oramorph sat in a row before her blister packs of tablet medication.

  He took the already opened bottle with a medication pot up to the bedroom and placed them on the bedside cabinet. “I see you’re well-supplied. Plenty of morphine in that cupboard to keep you going, eh?”

  She chuckled as she shifted into an upright position and twisted to see the medication. “What, those six bottles? That’s a fraction of what I’ve got.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, they’ve been trying to get it off me for years because they’re saying the pains are all imagined. They say I’m just an addict, so I’ve been trying to take only tiny amounts over time to build up my stockpile. You know, just in case they eventually do stop prescribing it to me.”

  “So how many bloody bottles of this stuff have you got?”

  “On your way out, have a little look in the old tack room in the stables. Then you’ll see what’s been going on. It’s not all from the doctors, though. One of my friends is a pharmacist. Every now and then they claim a spoiled delivery box of them, break some of my empties, and give me a few bottles on the side.” She poured herself 5ml of the liquid and knocked it back.

  “Very clever.”

  “Well, they don’t do it for free, but it beat
s dealer rates, put it that way.” Demi lay back on the pillows once more and closed her eyes. “Hopefully that’ll settle things down. Not a word about that stuff to anyone, okay?”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “Your lips have done quite enough for one day. Well… I suppose you’ve earned your fee. I forgot to ask, what do you charge for the extras?”

  Luke ignored the question. He had a question of his own, and the coke seemed to insist that he ask. “What happened to you, Demi?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What happened to you when you fell off the horse?”

  A long sigh escaped her and she shook her head. “Did you take some of this when you were downstairs?”

  “That? No! God. no. I had a little line before we got started, but that’s it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I swear.”

  Demi nodded, eyeing him with distrust. “If you really have to know, I lost a baby. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. My period hadn’t stopped or anything, but when I fell… that was that. Conquistador… he turned around in the middle of the track and stood over me, blocking the other horses. They collided with him, and one of his hind legs was broken. He collapsed next to me, but somehow pulled himself past my head to protect me. I was on my way to hospital, screaming the ambulance down. I remember them bringing the screen around him, and that was that. He was no longer worth keeping, as far as my dad thought, and… they killed him. My beautiful Conquistador.”

  Demi descended into a flood of tears, pressing her palms firm against her eyeballs. It occurred to Luke that the loss of the horse meant everything. The loss of a baby she hadn’t known she’d carried meant nothing.