My skin looks like silk and my hair isn’t the colour I always think of it as being and I had no idea the gap in my teeth was that prominent.
But none of these things jump out at me half as much as …
‘Look at your eyes, Soph. Look at the way you’re looking at me.’
I can’t think what to say. Instead, I laugh self-consciously. ‘Velociraptor.’
‘No, not that. Well, partly that. But there’s something so …’
‘I need to tone up my arms.’
He puts the photograph on the desk and stares at me across the broad walnut surface. ‘That’s not all you need,’ he mutters, picking up the envelope full of proofs and emptying the rest out.
‘What do you mean by that?’ I pick one up, one of me masturbating, and cringe at myself. ‘What do I need?’
‘A reality check.’ He snatches the snap from my hand and waves it in front of my nose. ‘What are you seeing here, Sophie? I don’t think it’s the same as what I’m seeing.’
‘You really want me to answer that?’ I feel sulky, as if I’m being told off. I slump in my chair and push out my chin.
‘Yes, I do. Tell me what this is a picture of.’
‘Me, wanking.’ I say it aggressively, trying to make it as crude as possible.
‘I need more detail.’
‘Me, reaching my delicate fingers down to my slick intimate folds and manipulating them in order to achieve orgasm.’
‘Forget the masturbation part. Who’s the woman?’
I click my tongue and huff at him. ‘What the fuck, Lloyd? I don’t have time for bloody riddle-me-ree. What do you want from me?’
‘Describe her.’ His voice has got louder and more strident. He’s going to shout at me in a minute. I’m preparing my walking-out-in-a-huff reflex.
‘Describe her? Not as young as she was, not as tall as she’d like to be, flabby arms and thighs plus too much round the middle, hair needs cutting, pulling a really stupid face.’
Lloyd holds my eyes for a moment then turns the picture round to look at it.
‘It’s weird,’ he says after long ruminations. ‘I always thought you were really confident.’
‘Nobody’s really confident though, are they? Everyone puts it on.’
‘I don’t. I really am. I think I’m a pretty stand-up guy. I mean, I acknowledge that I have faults, principally my filthy mind, but I have an outlet for that. No, I mean, I would never describe myself in the terms you just used.’
‘What, you’d say you were a handsome, buff stud, would you?’
‘I think I’m looking pretty good these days, actually. Better than I did when we met. And do you know why that is?’
‘No.’
‘Because I think that’s what you deserve. A man who takes care of himself, who you can look at and think, Give me some of that.’
‘Well, good for you. Thanks for your efforts, and all that. Much appreciated.’
‘I know it is, Sophie. But why are you so down on yourself?’
‘I’m not! I’m just modest and self-effacing, you know, like people are meant to be. I’m not in a black hole of self-loathing or anything like that.’
‘I wish I could be sure of that. I had to trick you into getting these pictures taken. What is it about your own image that frightens you so much?’
‘Lloyd Freud.’ It’s my ‘shut up now’ phrase whenever he gets too close to the bone.
‘Don’t. I’m not messing about. I want to know you, and I don’t feel I really do.’
‘Trust me, you’re better off that way.’
‘Why would I trust someone who won’t let me know them?’
‘So you don’t trust me?’
He shrugs, flips the photograph aside. ‘I do, in many ways. Most ways. I don’t think you’re sneaky or dishonest. But you’re hidden, and there can only be one reason that you hide, and that’s fear. What are you afraid of?’
‘Monsters.’
He smiles against his will. ‘I’m not a monster. Do you think I’m a monster?’
‘Only in a good way.’
‘Speaking of monsters …’ He pushes another photograph towards me, one of the pair of us in the throes, but this one has something else paper-clipped to it. A business card.
‘What’s this?’ I hold it up and read. ‘“Yours For the Night. Sexy, sophisticated brunette, new to escorting, will service your every need. To discuss rates, call –”.’
I put the card down, eyebrows raised. ‘You want to pimp me out?’
‘What are you worth, Sophie? How much should I charge?’
‘You know the answer to that. You know what I used to charge the guys in the hotel bar.’
‘Yeah. Nothing. Is that what you’re worth?’
‘I’m not a commodity. That’s why I didn’t charge.’
‘Well, for this task, you have to commodify yourself. So how much are you going to be worth?’
‘I don’t think I can say. Isn’t it a buyer’s market?’
‘What are you selling?’
‘My cunt.’
‘No, you aren’t. Not for escort work. You’re selling a service to the purchaser’s ego. He wants to be seen with a bright, smart, attractive, sexy woman. That’s what he’s paying for. If he wants cheap meat, he’ll go to a cheap meat rack.’
‘That’s a horrible way of putting it. I haven’t said I’ll do this.’
‘So a fail then?’
‘No.’
‘Right then. Put a value on yourself.’
‘What’s the market rate?’
‘I don’t know. Sky’s the limit. I believe the average for an overnight is around seven hundred pounds.’
‘Go for that then.’ I shrug, not wanting to prolong the conversation.
‘Sophie, are you thinking about this? I want you to really think about it.’
‘I don’t want to really think about it. Just line up the schmuck and I’ll screw him. Task over.’
‘No, that’s not what the task’s about.’
‘It’s about sex, isn’t it? Like they all are. Lead me to the sex and I’ll have it.’
‘You really think sex is always about sex? Just that? The meeting of genitals?’
‘I’m an uncomplicated girl.’
He laughs. ‘That’s the last thing you are, my love. Come on, now. Figures. Name your price. What’s a night with Sophie Martin worth to a man so tragic that he has to pay for female attention?’
‘What do you think? What am I worth to you?’
He shakes his head. ‘Don’t you dare.’
‘You can’t answer that?’
‘No, I can’t. And I don’t pay for it. Never have, never would.’
‘Well, look, I’m going for the market average. The seven hundred pounds. Though I can picture the guy asking for his money back. You can get one and half iPhones for that.’
‘I wish I knew that you were joking.’
‘You really want to do this?’
‘Yes. I think it’ll be … enlightening. Look, come around here.’
I wheel my chair round to his side of the desk, where he is firing up a website. I gasp and drop my jaw, as a large photograph of me naked – scanned from one of Sash’s pictures – appears on screen. My face is pixelated, but the body is definitely mine.
‘What the fuck, Lloyd?’ I look around wildly, as if expecting a legion of sex-crazed punters to burst through the office door at any minute.
‘Relax, it isn’t live yet. This is the preview. When you give me the OK, I’ll unleash it on to the World Wide Web and see what happens. Take a look at the site and tell me if you want to make any changes.’
I scan the text, but find it hard to process. I’m reading an advert for myself, essentially, but I don’t really recognise the goods described.
‘“Sophie is a classy, stylish young professional woman, able to hold her own in any social situation. She is well informed on a wide range of conversational topics, holding a university degree and possessing a dry sense of humour. Scratch the smartly suited surface, though, and you will find an uninhibited slave to pleasure.”’ I make a face at Lloyd. ‘Did you write this?’
‘What? I thought it was quite good.’
‘“Sophie’s sensual nature will delight and impress you. You will be back for more.”’
‘I just need to add in the rates.’ Lloyd taps away on the keyboard. ‘Overnights only. I’m not doing any hourlies. Not for this task. It’s important that you do the full escort schtick, including conversation. Though probably the man will just want to talk about himself, if I know my high-end johns, which I do.’
‘How?’
‘That gambling den I used to work in was always full of them.’
‘Right.’ I squint at the screen. ‘Have you airbrushed that picture?’
‘Nope. It’s one hundred per cent Sophie.’
I bite my lip. ‘It’s actually quite nice.’
‘Yes, it is. Isn’t it?’ He turns to me and smiles, as if in pity. ‘I’m almost sorry to give you this task. I think it’s going to be ten times more difficult than any pure sex game would be. But I’m going to have a question for you at the end of it, and I want you to keep it in mind throughout.’
‘What is it?’
‘I charged seven hundred pounds for this. What should I have charged?’
‘Is there a right or wrong answer to it?’
‘Yes. And if you answer wrong, you fail.’
***
‘His name’s Conrad.’
Lloyd has cornered me on the third-floor corridor, where I have just emerged from the room of a guest hysterical about the lack of park view from her west-facing window.
‘Conrad? German?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s his name, and he wants you.’
‘Do I want him, though?’
‘It doesn’t matter, does it? He pays for you, he gets you.’
‘So, where, when?’
‘You’re meeting him here, in the bar. He’s a delegate at the Futures for Futures Traders conference.’
‘A banker.’
‘I suppose. Or a gambler. Actually, I have a feeling I might know him from the casino. Anyway, the cocktail bar at seven, then dinner at eight, then …’ He gives me a knowingly grotesque wink.
‘That’s only an hour from now.’
‘I know. Better get ready, eh? He asked for a businesslike look with sexy underwear beneath. High heels, pencil skirt type of thing. Maybe put your hair up.’
‘Did he have any other requests? Besides dress?’
‘He gave me the impression he expected his money’s worth.’
‘Oh. And what’s that? What’s included for seven hundred pounds?’
‘You decide.’ Lloyd’s hand lands on the small of my back. He doesn’t exactly pull me close or hug me, but it’s still a reassurance.
‘I can say no?’
‘Of course you can. But it’ll probably mean a fail, that’s all.’
‘I might not tell you about it.’
‘Conrad will tell me. My agency values feedback and offers partial refunds for clients who give it.’
‘What a great agency.’
‘Yeah, I think so. And I’ll be in the room next door, OK? There’s an interconnecting door. So if you need me …’
‘I won’t need you.’
We knock foreheads, bump noses. It seems like the prelude to a kiss, but at the last moment he ducks to the side and whispers in my ear, ‘One day you might.’
Then the lift pings and he hastens off to the ground floor, leaving me to contemplate my whoredom.
I go to change in Lloyd’s apartment, a suite of rooms behind the ground-floor office. I have plenty of my own clothes and belongings there – I am an almost-resident. I wonder, while I select scant silky stuff from a bedside drawer, why this isn’t enough for Lloyd. What difference would a formal change of status from frequent guest to cohabitee make? How long would it take for one or both of us to get complacent? At the moment we see each other because we want to. If I moved in properly, we would see each other because we had to. Surely living and working together would incur that kind of contempt-breeding familiarity I dread.
I choose an oyster shade for the basque and thong, having read somewhere that men find this ‘classy’ as opposed to the more obvious red and black stuff. But then, if he is paying for a whore, will he not expect me to dress like one?
I put back the oyster silk and bring out a truly tacky basque with scarlet satin and cheap black PVC panels. The matching knickers are crotchless, shiny and black, with a garishly red strip of lace running along the top. I snap some seamed stockings to the suspenders and pose, hands on hips, looking like a two-bit hooker, not that I understand what ‘two-bit’ means. To which two bits does the phrase refer? If it’s T&A, then I am giving plenty of that. I twirl, impressed by the amount of flesh I flash, surprised as always at how much more naked than actual nudity really bawdy underwear makes you look.
Over this I don the aforementioned pencil skirt with crisp white shirt, pearls and three-inch-heeled black patent pumps. I twist my hair into a chignon and reapply my make-up so it is a little less subtle, the lips redder, the cheeks glowier, the eyelashes thicker and blacker.
Pouting in the mirror, I suddenly realise that I am going to be wining and dining with my purchaser in full view of my staff. While many of them know me of old, and remember the days when I used the hotel bar as my own personal pick-up joint, this is still a strangely squirm-inducing thought.
I have the feeling Lloyd will be partaking of an early evening libation in the cocktail bar, and I am right. As I swan in on my spike heels, I spot him in a corner with two off-duty waiters, drinking bottled beer and playing games on their phones.
I avoid eye contact and instead scan the bar, looking for likely woman-buyers. Almost immediately a man in a dark-blue suit rises from his barstool and nods at me. I walk towards him, taking in the swept back dark hair with its scattering of silver, the expensive tan, the watchful eyes. Between forty and fifty in age, well upwards of 100K in salary.
‘Sophie?’ He puts out a hand.
‘You must be Conrad.’
We shake, like colleagues, business partners. Essentially, that’s what we are. I try to view it as an equal relationship, but his next words undo my optimistic imaginings.
‘Not bad,’ he says, and those two words are like a deluge of cold, dirty water. Not bad? ‘The picture was quite accurate for once.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ll get you a drink, but I know you girls like your money upfront, so let’s get that out of the way first.’
Somewhat to my alarm, he reaches into an inside pocket and pulls out an enormous wad of twenty-pound notes tied up with an elastic band.
‘Oh God! Couldn’t you have paid with a credit card?’
He stares, then sneers. ‘Give my details to your pimp? I think not. Here.’
He hands me the money. I make to put it in my handbag, but he waves his hand and stops me.
‘No, no, Sophie. You’re new to this, aren’t you? You count it. Make sure I’m not trying to fleece you. Here, come and sit at the bar to do your adding up and I’ll get you a drink. What do you want?’
‘Mineral water.’ I snap off the elastic band and begin riffling through the notes. The barman is watching me from the corner of his eye. I shoot him an evil glare and he goes back to filling the glass washer. ‘It’s all there. Thanks.’
Again I reach for my bag, and again I am stopped, this time by Conrad’s hand on my elbow.
‘No. I have something I like my girls to do with that.’
My girls. I am one of many, a disposable cunt. I feel a little wet, perversely relishing the exquisite humiliation of my situation.
‘With the money?’
‘Yes. I want you to go to the ladies’ room and stuff it into your underwear. Bra, knickers, stocking tops – I want them filled with notes. Go on then.’
I am mute for a moment, considering his outlandish request, but something about it appeals to me and I obey without question.
In the stall, I put the lid down on the toilet, fearful of flushing away a considerable sum, unbutton my shirt, take five twenties and arrange them, fan-shaped, in the left cup of my basque. The paper corners catch on my nipple, the notes being new and crisp, as if fresh from the mint. Was it good manners on his part to give me unused notes to put next to my most intimate areas? Perhaps I should take it as an act of consideration. Another hundred adorns my right breast. Five more to dispose of.
A circle of queens peer over the top of my left stocking top, while I reverse the notes on the right side and give five Michael Faradays a view of my skirt lining. The stripperish look this gives me is somehow satisfying.
I still have three hundred pounds to distribute. They will have to go in my knickers. That is what the money is going on, ultimately, after all.
I put five notes in the front elastic, the dry paper crackling over my shaved pubic triangle. The penultimate hundred flaps over my buttocks, the central twenty creasing into the crack of my arse.
There is only one fitting destination for the final hundred. I weave it inside the gaping PVC split, creating a kind of DIY money gusset. I will have to make sure none of it works its way back out and falls between my feet, but the initial feeling is that the notes are secure, covering my pussy lips like prissy purple guardians of my virtue. I think this will please Conrad, and I know it will enhance the effect he wants – of my never, for one minute, being able to forget that he has bought me.
Between the front, back and bottom nests of money inside my knickers, my entire sex is papered with filthy lucre. Now I feel like a whore.
While the room is still empty, I emerge from the stall, walking carefully, rustling with each step, tiny prickly darts from the bill corners piercing my skin every time I move. I feel the notes inside my knickers shift, rubbing against my labia and my clit, while my nipples grow harder, pushing against the sharp edges.
The door bangs open and I hurriedly make a show of washing my hands, bending low over the sink, trying hard not to look turned on.
When the new arrival disappears into a stall, I put back my shoulders and prepare for my return to the bar.
Conrad watches me walk over, approving of my extra-careful sashay. If my thighs get too close, the notes rub together and threaten to pull each other out of their stocking-top cradle. I mustn’t hold them too far apart, though, because that will threaten the delicate set-up in the crotchless part of my knickers. As for my breasts, their purple-stamped covering almost shows through the light silk of my shirt.
With a leafy shushing sound, I mount my bar stool, sitting down squarely on a couple of hundred quid.
Conrad smiles. ‘Where did you put it?’
‘Two hundred in my bra. Two hundred in my stockings. The rest in my knickers.’
‘Nice. How does it feel?’
‘Stiff, papery, dry. The corners are a little bit sharp.’
‘Good. What about the money in your knickers? Do you have any inside, or is it all around the waistband?’
‘Mostly around the waistband.’ I pause. ‘A hundred interleaved around the crotch. Because my knickers don’t have one.’
He raises his eyebrows. When he speaks, his voice is very low. ‘You’re wearing crotchless panties?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Why did you choose those?’
‘They seemed appropriate.’
‘Why? I’m paying for an escort, Sophie. For the company of an attractive woman. You seem to imply that I’m paying you for sex. If that’s what you think, why don’t you work in a brothel?’
‘What do you think this place is?’ But I feel deflated even as I make the wisecrack. He is playing mind games with me, determined to make me feel as trashy and low as possible.
‘Maybe, Sophie, I should swap you for a sophisticated lady. I’ll hand you over to those sweaty-looking boys in the corner. They look as if they could use a good rummage in a willing cunt. What do you say?’
He indicates Lloyd and the waiters.
For that moment, I’m enormously tempted to say, ‘Go on then. Give me to them.’ Then I can disappear with Lloyd and fuck him raw while this entitled tosser talks bonuses and braggadocio with a real working girl.
Lloyd’s half-smile when I look at him gives me nerve though.
‘Who says I’m wearing them for you? I just happen to like a bit of fresh air, that’s all.’
Conrad likes this answer. He laughs. There is a telltale lump at his crotch.
‘Are you ready for some sophisticated dining then?’ I wave a hand towards the Michelin-starred restaurant.
‘Yes, I think I am. And I’m ready to start getting what I’ve paid for, Sophie. In full. Are you ready to start giving it?’
‘Absolutely. Just say the word.’
He proffers an arm and we glide out of the bar, causing everyone we pass to look after us and mutter curiously about what’s making that strange rustling noise.
In the restaurant, I sit with my knees half a foot apart, trying as hard as I can to minimise the noise of commerce emanating from my groin.
‘Tell me about your other clients,’ Conrad requests, though it’s not really a request, more a sort of command. ‘What was your last one like?’
I have to think. Before Lloyd, there were so many men. Which should I choose?
‘My last one? My last two, I should say. A pair of clients. Professional footballers.’
‘Misers. Couldn’t they splash out on one each?’
‘They weren’t Premiership. Pretty low down the league, I think.’
Conrad puffs up his chest. ‘I could afford a much more expensive girl,’ he hisses, as if I have implied that he’s poor. ‘But value for money is what I’m all about. It’s how I make my cash and it’s how I keep hold of it. So, your two footballers? How did that play out?’
‘They were strong, powerful men, but not very bright. They made me talk about The X Factor and other TV shows I don’t really have time to watch. Frankly, it was a relief to get to the bedroom.’
‘And when you got there?’
‘You want the full post-match report, or the highlights?’
‘Highlights will be fine.’
‘Champagne, Jacuzzi, then they took turns. Oral, straight sex, bit of sixty-nine.’
‘No double penetration?’
‘There was some talk of it, but they were both too drunk to get it up again.’
‘I love the way you talk about it. As if it’s just another boring night down at the local. I could listen to whores talk shop forever. It turns me on.’
‘What expectations do you have for tonight?’
The waiter appears, pours a good wine and takes our orders. Once he leaves the table, Conrad leans forwards. ‘I expect to fuck you. Tell me now, are your nipples hard?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your pussy – is it wet?’
‘A bit.’
‘Are you creaming all over those twenty-pound notes? They were pristine when I gave them to you. Bet they aren’t now.’
‘Can I ask you about the other girls you’ve paid?’ I feel a need to turn the tables on him. Does he expect his girls to desire him? Does he think my wetness is for him? I want to tell him that it isn’t – it’s for the situation, purely and simply.
‘No. But you can tell me what you like doing in the bedroom.’
‘Aren’t we supposed to be making light conversation? Dinner table chitchat?’
‘I’m calling the shots, Sophie, or had you forgotten? He who pays the piper …’
How is getting fucked for money the same as taking requests for a tune? But I don’t challenge it.
‘You name it, Conrad, and I’ll do it. If it’s legal and won’t result in illness or injury, I’m probably up for it.’
‘That’s good to know. Sometimes I can be a little … unusual in my tastes.’
‘What are your tastes? Costumes? Kink? Role-play?’
‘I think I’ll wait until we get to the bedroom, if you don’t mind.’
‘It doesn’t matter if I do mind, does it?’
‘No.’
I finish my wine and make to pour myself another, but he puts a hand over my glass, shaking his head.
‘Can’t have you getting tipsy, Sophie,’ he says lightly. ‘That’s not what I’m paying you for, now, is it?’
So what is he paying me for? If it isn’t for sex, or companionship, or pleasure? What is it?
***
In the bedroom, I am ready to find out.
Lloyd is next door. I am not in any danger. I repeat this to myself when Conrad sits himself on the bed and makes me stand in front of him. He stares at me for so long that I feel distinctly spooked.
‘Still nice,’ he says to himself. ‘Very. Take off your shirt, Sophie.’
I unbutton it and pull it from my waistband, shrugging it over my shoulders until it falls on the floor. The garish basque with its topping of twenties is revealed.
‘Nice, I like the way you’ve arranged the money. I like it even better when I make the girls crumple it up and stuff it in like that. The last girl’s tits looked huge and there was a big spare-tyre effect where her knickers were full of balled-up paper. She was so embarrassed.’ He laughs. ‘Some of them went right up her cunt. Take off your skirt.’
The pencil skirt slips down. Black PVC, scarlet satin and purple paper clash together over my pale skin.
‘I like that. And you put it in your crotch, you say? Come over here and show me.’
I move closer. He motions me around so I turn my back to him then bend over, exposing the money-patched split to his view.
‘That’s superb.’ He reaches out and runs his fingertips over the paper, pressing it against my hidden clit. ‘I’m going to ask you to get on all fours on the bed, just like that. No, keep the heels on, they’re fine.’
I watch Conrad through my arms and legs as he picks up his briefcase and opens it. He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to undress. Is he not going to fuck me?
From a fabric pocket in the case lid he withdraws a long thick dildo. He did ask about double penetration – it seems that must be an interest of his. I tighten my sphincter in anticipation. Should I charge more to be fucked by two cocks, even if one of them isn’t real?
Lloyd’s question: How much should I have charged?
As Conrad approaches, dildo in hand, I notice that the bulge in his trousers has flattened somewhat. Where is his erection? Why am I posing here with my arse up and money stuffed down my knickers if it doesn’t even give him the horn?
He reaches over and removes the money from my crotch, exposing my pussy to his gaze. I wait for a finger to touch me or pinch my clit or penetrate my vagina, but that doesn’t happen.
I look over my shoulder, curious to know what he is doing.
He is wrapping the money around the dildo, securing each note with the next one, until the entire implement is plastered with purple and images of the Queen’s head. Then he takes a condom and slides it over the top, holding the money tight in place, keeping it clearly visible through the transparent latex.
‘Head down,’ he growls, noticing my interest. ‘Bum up. Thighs wide.’
He joins me on the bed, introducing the tip of the dildo to my widespread labia, rubbing it around in my juices, lubing it up ready for the long journey into inner space.
I want to talk, very badly, to make some remark about this being the ultimate metaphor for capitalism, but something tells me he doesn’t want to hear my opinion. I take it in silence when the broad rubber-clothed invader is shoved none too gently up inside me.
‘This is what I like, whore,’ he says in a low hypnotic voice, sending his thick hard representative up to the hilt. ‘I like to watch your cunt used for money. By money. Watch you getting fucked with the dirty cash you’re going to take from me. You won’t be able to spend it without thinking of what it did to you.’
He thrusts hard and I start to pant. I can’t work out whether or not it feels good. At the moment, it feels so strange, so disconnected, that I don’t think my nerve endings have worked out whether they’re meant to be experiencing pleasure or discomfort.
‘Touch yourself.’
My nerve endings know how to play when I put a finger on my clit. They veer happily over to the pleasure side of the street. While I flick, Conrad speaks again.
‘This is the only thing that gets me hard these days. To buy, to pay, to watch my money fucking a whore. To have, to own, to take, to possess. Do you know how that feels, Sophie? Of course you don’t. You’re a whore. You get had, owned, taken, possessed. You’re the item on the shelf. I choose to take you or leave you. Choice is such a turn-on, Sophie. Choice, power. You’ll never know how sweet it can be.’
His dildo slides over and over my G-spot, pushing me beyond the capacity for speech. If I could speak, what would I say? Fuck you is all that springs to mind. Perhaps it’s just as well I’m mute at the bottom of my familiar path to orgasm.
Fuck you, asshole, tattoos through my mind as the combination of clit-strumming and dildo-fucking does its damnable work. And then I realise that there is something I can do to take some power away from him. An easy thing, a passive thing, a thing he won’t even know about, but will make me feel happier.
I can fake it.
‘I’m going to keep doing this, Sophie,’ he says, ‘until you come. You’re going to come, right there, full of a wad of my money, come all over it. Dirty, dirty whore.’
I shout, then sigh in a creditable imitation of how I sound when I’m coming on all fours with a dildo in my cunt. I have a large bank of memories from which to draw.
‘Ooh, hard, fuck me hard, you banker.’
I hold my breath for a moment. Too much? Will he cotton on to my dramatics?
No. He chuckles, obviously pleased with himself. ‘Think of that when you’re handing a twenty over at the bar later. Think of what else it bought. I love watching whores come with my money inside them. Love it more than anything. Get up and suck me.’
The dildo is withdrawn. Still tense and tight with the need to come, quashing it down as hard as I can, I get up on my knees and face Conrad.
He’s hard now all right. Apparently, this is what it takes to get him there.
My resistance turns, for a moment, to pity. What a stunted person he must be. But then I wonder how I can have the brass neck to judge another, given my own limitations in the field of normal human behaviour. He’s just a cock. I’m just a mouth. So, let’s have oral sex.
He frees his cock, puts his hand on my head and pushes it down.
I suck and lap at it while, overhead, a commentary on how he amassed his fortune bores me enough to make me concentrate hard on giving a truly A-grade blow job. My tongue tip flits and glides; my throat opens to accept his full length. I perform a full-scale ravaging of this dick’s dick until, somewhere in the middle of a story about ripping off another trader, his voice breaks and he spurts into my mouth, filling it with salty cream.
I’d like to say his semen tasted of wealth or power or something, but it didn’t. It tasted like spunk.
I swallowed it and looked up. ‘Was that to your satisfaction?’
‘Not bad. You can do it again later.’
I remove the money from my bra and throw it down on the bed. ‘Actually, I won’t.’
I repeat the action with the notes – not so neatly arranged now – in my stockings. Money drifts and floats around the duvet.
‘I beg your pardon? I’ve paid you for the whole night.’
‘I’m giving you your money back.’ I relieve my knickers of Her Majesty’s disapproving face.
‘You can’t do that. Don’t you need it?’
‘No. I don’t. Sorry to disappoint – better luck with the next woman you buy. Only please don’t kid yourself you’re buying the woman. You’re buying her cunt, her mouth, maybe her arse. That’s all.’
I hum a few bars of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ as I pick up my clothes from the floor.
Conrad, still post-coital and visibly flabbergasted, doesn’t move from his station on the bed.
‘That thing with the money in the underwear, though,’ I tell him, turning from the interconnecting door, which I’m about to knock on. ‘That was good. Creative. Turned me on. I might do that one again. Bye.’
‘I’m going to have strong words with your pimp!’
I knock on the door. ‘Please do. He’s right here, as it happens.’
Lloyd answers the door. I’m never exactly displeased to see his face, but I could kiss it all over fifty times right now.
‘Is there a problem?’ he asks, peering out at Conrad, still kneeling on the bed with his deflated prick on his thigh and a beet-red face.
‘She’s walked out on me. I won’t be recommending her. I’m going to put a one-star review on your website.’
‘I’m very sorry, sir. I see she’s refunded you. May I recommend Especial Escorts if you still want company – here’s their card.’ He tosses one over and shuts the door on the outraged banker, locking it behind him.
‘Sophie, Sophie, Sophie,’ he says softly, holding me at arm’s length, his eyes bright with all kinds of things. It occurs to me that I’m still tautly pre-orgasmic. I hook an ankle around his calf, trying to bring him closer. ‘Do we have a fail?’
‘Never mind that,’ I whisper, rubbing my head against his shoulder. ‘Something started that didn’t get finished.’
‘Was he lousy?’
‘He was bad. The situation could have been hot, but he took it too far. You would have done it so much better.’
‘Would I?’
‘Yeah. Do it, Lloyd. Pretend to pay for me.’
‘What’s pretend about it? You’ve just lost us seven hundred quid. You’re going to be paying that off, starting now.’ He spins me round and gives me a gentle shove towards the bed.
I can’t get there fast enough.
I bounce on to the bed in my basque, stockings, heels and crotchless knickers – all minus the money now – and kick up my legs.
‘Fuck me!’ I implore, flinging out my arms like an operatic diva. ‘How many unnatural acts add up to seven hundred pounds?’
Lloyd, undressing a few feet from me, his eyes trained on my lewd display, simply curves one side of his mouth upwards, calculating. ‘That’s going to take years to pay off,’ he says. ‘I’m very mean, you see. I won’t pay more than a pound for any given act. Perhaps you should seek a better-paying client?’
‘Nah. I’m cheap as they come.’
‘Good.’ He notices something. ‘Crotchless? Classy.’
‘He didn’t like them. He didn’t even fuck me. Well, he used a dildo, but does that count?’
Lloyd positions himself above me, looking down the length of my tackily attired body. ‘What else did he do?’
‘He made me put all the money in my underwear. Not in the bedroom – while we were downstairs in the bar.’
‘Really? That’s why you were walking in that weird way. I like it. Proper kinky.’
‘Can you fuck me now, please?’
‘I’ll fuck you when I please. Since I’m the buyer. First, I want to inspect my purchase.’
He pulls down the cups of the basque, before running fingers and then tongue over my tight, hard nipples. I shudder and arch my back underneath him, spreading my legs in silent, urgent invitation, but he takes his time, assessing the span of my waist, the curve of my hips, the angle of my collarbone, before moving lower.
‘So far, I’m impressed,’ he says.
He lifts my legs to better explore my most intimate spots, makes me keep them bent with pussy and arse on display.
‘Was the dildo big?’ he murmurs, digging three fingers inside my vagina. ‘Did it go all the way up here?’
‘Yeah,’ I gasp. ‘And there was money wrapped round it.’
‘Money? What the fuck? Weird.’ But his fingers are so smooth, so sensitive, so perfectly attuned to my quivering, pulsing cunt that I feel the first surges of orgasm again.
‘Lloyd!’
‘I know. It’s OK. Come.’ He adds a slowly circling thumb to my clit, ensuring that I can’t do anything else.
I toss and turn energetically, while his hand continues coaxing the climax out of me, not releasing me until the very dregs of ecstasy have leaked from their source.
‘Don’t go to sleep,’ he chides, tapping my cheek until I open my eyes.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble, lifting my arms to wrap them around his neck. ‘You’ll want your money’s worth.’
‘Are you going to answer my question now?’ he asks. He lifts my bum and opens me wider, ready to penetrate.
‘Your question?’ My mind is blurred, full of heat and skin and lust and satisfaction.
‘How much should you have charged for that?’
‘I think I answered that, didn’t I? When I gave the money back. Oh, please.’
I try to push myself on to him, but he holds back.
‘So you think you’re worth nothing? Is that what you were saying?’
‘You know it isn’t. I was saying that no money was worth what he wanted from me.’
‘You’re worth more than that?’
‘I suppose.’ Suddenly, I am doubtful. Am I? Is that what I meant?
‘So you should have charged more?’
‘No. I shouldn’t have charged anything. I’ll only do it if I want to. And if I want to, I won’t charge. That’s always been my way, Lloyd, you know that.’
‘I know that. I just needed to know if it was because you thought you were worthless … or priceless.’
‘I don’t think I’m priceless, but …’
‘Don’t argue about it. It’s the right answer. I’m going to pass you on that. Even if you did fail the rest.’
He smiles down, looking so idiotically proud of me that I want to slap him. It’s hardly a Nobel-winning achievement, is it?
‘Thanks, so can you get on and fuck me now?’
‘Your wish is my command.’