by Jamie Knight
“I don’t know, that sounds like a bit much,” I said.
“It’s not a normal rate. She’ll pay you $150K for the year.”
“Are you serious?” I whispered. “Why would she pay me that kind of money?”
“She wants someone that’s available on a moment’s notice and she’s insanely rich,” Lidia explained. “I know it’s a lot to ask but think about it and get back to me soon. She might end up picking someone else if you don’t jump on this.”
“Yeah, okay,” I found myself saying. “I will think about it.”
I hung up and dropped the phone in my lap. That was a nice chunk of change for just a year. Plus, I wouldn’t have any expenses during that time. It would be like making $200K really.
Monetarily, it was a good plan, but what about Carina? If I left, would she wait for me?
I went inside the Humidor and found Jim already sitting at a table smoking it up.
“Hey, buddy,” he greeted. “What’s your poison? How about some cognac and a Robusto?”
“Sounds good,” I agreed, sliding into the chair next to him.
“What’s wrong? You looked stressed,” he noted.
“I just got this job offer, but I don’t know if I should take it,” I carefully explained. “I really want to be working at a law firm and in law. This would be nothing like that.”
“It’s funny you mention that,” smiled Jim. “It’s part of the reason I wanted to meet. Howell and Howell is expanding and I need you to be a part of it. You can clerk for us, while you’re studying for the bar. If you pass, you could be a real partner after a year or two.”
“Wow, really? That’s just what I wanted,” I said excitedly.
“So, what’s this other job offer? Can we do better?” he asked.
I looked at him a few minutes. Jim was a good guy. I could trust him. If I told him the truth, he could give me advice on what to do about Carina, too.
“It’s actually a little embarrassing,” I said, unsure if I should say. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”
Jim laughed and sat back in his seat. “Buddy, you can tell me anything, I don’t judge,” said Jim. “I had to take crap jobs until I started to rake it in. Whatever it is, I promise I’ll take it to my grave.”
“I’ve actually, well, I’ve been working as an escort.”
Jim laughed and then abruptly stopped. “Wait, you’re serious? Holy shit! That’s amazing!” he laughed.
“You’re not mad?”
“Nah, I don’t judge, but I’m fascinated,” he said. “Do you have sex with all the clients?”
I shook my head. “No, never, until I met Carina.”
Jim’s eyes went wide. “Wait, she hired you?! Holy shit! Oh, wait, that makes perfect sense. Vicky told me Carina was always a wallflower. You were like her hired…reputation I guess you can say.”
“Yeah it was just to impress her old classmates,” I confirmed. “But something happened and now I think we’re a couple or could be.”
“So, what’s the problem?” Jim shrugged.
“The escort service just offered me $150K to live with a woman for a year, all expenses paid.”
He blinked at me. “Shit, really? That’s amazing. Good luck.”
“No, I don’t know if I should do that,” I admitted. “I mean, I have feelings for Carina. She’s really sweet and special. Plus, the sex has been mindblowing.”
Jim nodded. “Well, Leo, there’s not much of a choice there,” he said. “You can only do the escort thing for so long, right? I mean, we all get old. Then where are you going to be? A job at the law firm won’t pay that much at first, but you can build to that easy. Plus, you can’t be with Carina and be an escort, right?”
“No, I wanted out, but this job… I could always come back.”
“To what? If you leave now, Carina is likely going to be with someone else by the time you get back. You’ve got to go for love now or forget it,” he urged. “Listen, I didn’t think I’d be into being a dad, but I love it. It’s a great feeling. Plus, that’s a normal life. As a gigolo, what have you really got when you think about it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in a real relationship. I’m sensing something with Carina would be long term. Then again, there’s all that money. I could come back after that and…”
“No, no, no, Leo,” he assured. “You gotta jump on this stuff now before it hardens. A girl like Carina? She’s not going to be around by the time you get back. Someone will marry that girl.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying she’s young, pretty and desperately wants to be married,” he explained. “If you don’t want that, don’t get with her, but I’m sensing you are really into her.”
“It’s weird,” I confessed. “We’ve only known each other a short time, but we seem to get along perfectly. She checks off all the boxes for me. I don’t see any reasons why I shouldn’t be with her other than she was a client.”
“Then, you leave the escort agency and come work for me,” he explained. “Then convince Carina to move here. Easy-peasy. In no time, you’ll have your own little James running around.”
“That’s kind of what I’m afraid of,” I laughed. “I don’t know if I’d be ready for a family yet.”
“No one ever is,” said Jim. “But if you want kids, you need to have them early. And as the man says, you need to carry the biggest load while you can. Responsibility gives life meaning.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, still unsure. “But I honestly don’t know what the future holds for Carina and me. And all that money is really appealing too – and guaranteed.”
Chapter Fifteen
Carina
I waited at the hotel for Leo to get back. He came back a bit later than I expected and he was a little tipsy and very tired.
“Hey, Carina,” he said at the doorway. “Sorry it took me so long.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “It’s not like you’re on the clock anymore.”
“Let me just freshen up and we’ll cuddle on the bed. And see where that leads us.”
He winked and made his way into the bathroom. I lay back down in bed, very tired myself. I tried not to doze off.
“Okay, I’m back.”
He took a few steps from the bathroom and then lay down next to me on the mattress.
It seemed we were both so tired.
“How was your night?” I asked him, groggily, feeling like I should at least make an attempt at conversation because it would be lame if we both just fell asleep.
“It was good,” he said, with a yawn. “Sometimes Jim is a little much, I know. But he gets me jobs sometimes so that’s good.”
“Jim gets you escort jobs?!” I asked, shocked.
“No, the other kind,” Leo immediately said, correcting himself. “I’m so tired I’m not thinking straight. And a little bit tipsy too.”
“Wait, Jim offered you a job?” I asked.
“Who told you that?”
“You just did!”
“Oh,” he replied, and if I hadn’t already known he was tipsy, and if he hadn’t just told me, now I would definitely know.
“What kind of jobs does Jim get you?” I asked him. “At the law firm?”
“Maybe,” he mumbled in the pillow. “But I have a big job in Chicago first. Maybe.”
“You’re not making much sense,” I said, mildly frustrated. “Let’s just talk in the morning. I have to go to work on Monday. So I’ll have to fly back to New York.”
“Okay,” he said, as if he was trying to stay awake.
Honestly, at this point, I didn’t even want to have sex. Now that I had spilled my guts to Vicky, I didn’t know what else I could talk about. Plus she would surely pressure me for the details about tonight and they would not be that exciting at the rate things were going.
I told myself to just go to sleep, like Leo was, his arm slightly around my waist and a happy smile on his fac
e as he drifted off, but suddenly I wasn’t even that tired anymore.
I looked around the hotel room and wondered what I was doing there. How did my life bring me to this moment?
Here I was, desperately trying to make conversation with a man who wouldn’t even be here if not for the fact that I had hired him to be here.
If the School Board back home ever heard about this, I’d be done. Fired immediately and trotted out as a bad example for future classes.
Fortunately, with the school system thousands of miles away, I could easily manage the situation including the optics. Maybe I just needed out of this entire weekend so I could think clearly.
Then again, what was clouding my judgment was Leo. There was something about him that made me want to trust him. Then again, perhaps it was all the sex. With all the endorphin shots I’d been getting, I was probably starting to lose focus.
With Leo fast asleep, I decided to leave early. Maybe this was all one big mistake. I felt stupid for thinking it could actually lead anywhere.
Who the hell hires an escort for their high school reunion? I thought. And who the hell thinks she’s falling in love with him?
Ugh, the L word. I didn’t want to think about it.
Grabbing my bag, I placed it on the edge of the bed and started packing. I would get to the airport, see if I could swing an earlier flight and make excuses with Vicky over the phone. This way, the breakup would be clean, and I could just go back to my old life with no problems.
But then I thought, why?
Why would I abandon Leo when he had made me feel so good?
Sure, there was risk in trying to turn this into a relationship, but what was life without risk?
I placed my bag back into the closet and then moved over to the bed.
I looked at Leo sleeping peacefully, with his face halfway into a pillow and tried to imagine myself building a long-term relationship with him. The two of us did look good together.
He was just the right height for me: tall, but not too tall. He was handsome and knew how to dress. Leo was charming and forceful in a kind of sexy way, but not so aggressive it was a turn off.
But how could we explain to people how we met? We would have to concoct a totally fake story.
I guess we could say we met on one of the dating sites. Isn’t that what most people do nowadays?
Once we got past that initial piece of info, people weren’t likely to press us any further. And it’s not like anyone would go digging for the real information.
Neither one of us was famous nor would run for office, right? I mean, certainly Leo couldn’t now that he had been an escort.
Still, being an escort was illegal. Could it be that he was doing all sorts of other illegal things I didn’t know about?
I knew it was a hypocritical question, since I had hired him. Plus, I couldn’t picture Leo being a gangster or a criminal. But a good con artist would know how to hide all that.
A good con artist would know how to charm people and especially the ladies. Did I fall into that trap and not notice?
What would he be conning me out of, though? My heart? More money to keep using him as an escort?
Then there was the distance. Los Angeles seemed to need me, but I had a good job back in New York. I could stay there and get tenure and basically be immune to firing.
Would Leo move to be with me?
Could we make a long-distance romance work until one of us was ready for the move?
I had so many questions and so little answers. But I couldn’t help still feeling attracted to Leo and hoping that this unorthodox arrangement could work out to be a long-term relationship.
Chapter Sixteen
Carina
The next night, I went out with Vicky as planned. My heart wasn’t into it at first. I had become sullen and dreary, thinking about returning home on Monday. But after a couple of Cosmotinis and a few jokes from Vicky, I lightened up considerably.
We were sitting in a Tiki Room in the basement of a large hotel. I probably should’ve been drinking Mai Tais, but I wanted something more girly. The bartender wore an outlandish Hawaiian shirt with a pattern of hula girls and the music was distinctly Hawaiian.
“God, I miss this,” said Vicky, her elbows and back against the bar. “It’s been so long since I had an adult night out.”
“Don’t you have anyone to hang out with?” I asked.
“Everyone’s got a kid now,” she sighed. “You’ll get it one day. When you have a baby, they consume your time and energy. You have to spend those first two years inside, basically.”
“But you love it, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” assured Vicky. “James is a handful, but he’s my handful. It’s just that, I want to have fun once in a while without him. I need to recharge. But you fall into a pattern of taking care of the kid constantly. It’s just easier to stay home and be boring. I watch Netflix and pick out drapery patterns. Snore.”
“But you had tons of friends in high school. What happened to Patricia, Amy and Heather?”
“Patricia got married and moved to Orange County. She has two kids. Amy married a marine and lives in North Carolina. Heather was all about her career for a couple of years,” she explained.
“Does she still work for that movie studio?” I asked.
“She did until she met a movie producer. Now she doesn’t need to work, and she has a kid with another one the way. We keep in touch on Facebook, but it’s not the same,” sighed Vicky. She gave me a sheepish look. “You know if you stayed out here, we could hang out.”
“You know I would love that,” I said, looking down into my drink. “But I’m close to getting a raise. Plus, I was looking into starting my own school. There’s an opportunity with the state’s orphanages, where I could teach disadvantaged kids.”
“That sounds great,” Vicky acknowledged. “When’s that start?”
“I don’t know if I want it to start, now. Something like that, it’s such a big commitment,” I sighed. “If I’m being totally honest, New York is starting to wear on me.”
“What? Being in Manhattan? It’s supposed to be the greatest city in the world!”
“It is, but it’s too intense sometimes,” I explained. “One of my students got kidnapped by his father right in front of the school. The cops chased him down and stopped him, but the kid was traumatized. The whole school was, really. Another time, there was a shooting. None of the kids were hurt, but it was scary. Happened right outside the playground where I was standing.”
“Oh, my God,” gasped Vicky, sitting up. “That sounds awful. But you know that happens here too, right?”
“Sure-sure, it’s just that in New York, I don’t know, everything’s more intense and tough,” I tried to explain. “The crimes seem to be less arbitrary.”
“Not anymore,” Vicky explained. “I’m not trying to worry you, but lots of arbitrary crimes happen here, and everywhere. No place is immune. That’s why I started looking into prepping.”
“I see. But I guess another thing is that in New York, I feel like the city doesn’t need me,” I explained. “Los Angeles needs help right now.”
“What are you? Batman?” joked Vicky. “You going to clean up the streets!”
“Teaching is a powerful tool,” I said. “You teach kids, keep them off the streets and in just a few years, things change.”
“What you have to watch out for here are the gangs.”
“Still?”
“Yeah, you don’t hear much about them anymore, but they’re still around,” Vicky explained.
“The disparity between the rich and poor just seems bigger in big cities,” I noted. “I wish I could do something about that.”
“Yeah. I wish anyone could.”
“I don’t know. These kids, they just seem…different today. But now I sound like Jim,” I laughed.
“Well, it’s the damned phones,” laughed Vicky. “Parents give them to the kids too early. James is not getting a phone unt
il he’s 13. I’ve already decided.”
“What about emergencies?” I asked. “All the kids had phones in the school. All the way to first grade.”
“Are you kidding?” asked Vicky shocked.
“Well, the phones only call their parents,” I clarified. “Just for emergencies or coordinating rides.”
“So, no Internet?”
“Oh, no-no-no,” I laughed. “Well, one kid figured a way to access it. But most of the kids don’t. They’re not allowed at that age.”
“Well, okay, I could see that,” said Vicky, starting to soften. “I guess I would want James to have a phone to call me in an emergency or for me to call him. But definitely no Internet until he’s 13.”
“Actually, we have school assignments on the Internet,” I recalled.
“What? At what age?”
“First grade.”
“You’re not making this kid-rearing easy!” laughed Vicky. “Why would you force us to put the kids on the Internet that young?”
“In New York, it’s part of a drive to go paperless. Most of the kids do their work on a computer at school, but home assignments and over the summer. You need Internet.”
“Summer assignments? Who does homework in the summer?!”
“Do you not remember doing that in high school?”
“Yeah, but I never did them!”
We laughed and I told myself I that I took my job too seriously. Vicky was either teasing me or was too drunk to remember the details of high school.
She was like a lot of parents of the kids I taught. They wanted common sense from the school system, but the system was so stretched out, it often had weird and conflicting rules.
“All right, this is depressing me,” said Vicky waving to the bartender. “I need to get shit-faced.”
“Cheers to that,” I said. “Order one for me!”
Chapter Seventeen
Leo
On Monday morning, Carina was nursing a hangover. She and Vicki had Ubered around L.A. to a few different places. At one point, Vicky finally passed out in the car and Carina had to beg the Uber driver to take them to Vicky’s house before returning here.