about how it might affect my time spent with Melanie.
‘You had a good day at school?’
‘You don’t really want to know that, do you?’ she laughed.
She was right in one. The trouble was that I wasn’t sure where to turn from there.
Because there was so much we couldn’t talk about when it came to seeing Alison. It was difficult to even mention Melanie because of the discomfort I felt about being out meeting Alison instead. But it was also because I had to conceal so much about how I had come to know Melanie in the first place.
‘You due for another night out clubbing with the girls any time soon?’
She nodded: ‘Hope so. But you know how it is. Teaching takes up so much time. You’re at school during the day, then after that you’re at home marking books until the early hours. We’re certainly due a break.’
‘I like it that you go out as a gang,’ I admitted. ‘Teachers on the prowl!’
I chose not to mention Melanie by name, as I suspected Alison was trying to avoid doing too. I knew I felt that asking Alison out betrayed my friendship with Melanie, and I wondered if Alison might somehow feel she was cheating on her friend? But then again, why should she?
I was getting paranoid. I’d made it quite clear to Alison and in my own head that Melanie and I had nothing going on, so the three of us were each free to date whoever we chose. Yet somehow Melanie was still getting in on the act, demanding to be noticed. It made me shiver.
‘“Out on the prowl”? I like how you put it,’ smiled Alison. ‘But sometimes I think I’d like to break out of that mould. I love the clubbing, but being surrounded mostly by teachers can feel a bit claustrophobic at times. I guess like you Aussies!’ she teased.
That got my attention. I thought back to me and the lads out on the pull.
‘Used to be,’ I reminded her. ‘My mates are back home. I’ll be returning too pretty soon.’
Alison sucked in her lips and I realized I might have said the wrong thing. I’d just signalled that if anything was going to happen between her and me, it wasn’t going to be anything long term. Not that that bothered me. But I could see it might not be what she wanted.
To be honest, due to my guilt about Melanie, I couldn’t see whatever I had going with Alison lasting very long at all anyhow. Even as I was trying to concentrate on the girl in front of me, I was mentally arguing with Melanie to shut the fuck up.
I haven’t let you down, for God’s sake. You’re only my fucking client, Melanie. I owe you NOTHING. Except to turn up on time and give you what you want for the duration. The rest of my life is entirely my business.
But the trouble was that there was a quieter voice at the shoulder of my inner Angry Person, reasoning with me that, even so, I was still sitting here, wasn’t I, and having a drink and a date with a good friend of Mel’s. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was betraying her.
The truth was that I wasn’t quite sure how to play my evenings spent with Alison. With Melanie and any of my clients I was ‘Escort Luke’, a friendly, happy-go-lucky bloke with a perpetual smile on his face. They could never see me having an off-day.
When not working, I was able to be more myself, though even with my flatmates I could never tell the whole truth. But because of who she knew, Alison fell between the cracks. Which meant that I needed to come up with a third persona to fill that gap. Just finding something to talk about over a drink while not letting on too much was proving exhausting.
Alison picked up her glass of wine and drank from it, watching me as she did so, as though she was mulling something over in her head.
And then she spoke. ‘Luke, how and where did you and Melanie meet? I’m curious.’
Aren’t you just?
I played for time. ‘You really want to know?’
She nodded, and there was a quizzical look across her face.
‘It’s just I can’t make out how or where a teacher like her would meet an Aussie working shifts.’
I had nothing to fear after all. She’d tossed me a damn easy ball. ‘It’s not that difficult!’ I laughed. ‘I was a barman and she wanted a drink. Simple as that. We just hit it off. That’s all.’
I stressed that the subject was effectively closed with that final ‘all’. Alison took the hint.
‘That makes sense. And it doesn’t surprise me. Anyone could hit it off with you, Luke,’ she teased, and reached out to squeeze my wrist.
I couldn’t help wondering if she realized what she was actually saying. That as regards my sex life, I could indeed hit it off with anyone. That’s what made me a damn fine escort, wasn’t it? And I couldn’t help wondering too if she was hinting that she had continued suspicions about my real relationship with Melanie. She presumably hadn’t guessed about any money changing hands between us. But when she referred to us ‘hitting it off’, she seemed to be saying that me and Melanie were still somehow linked up.
She’d hit the nail on the head there. To be honest, try as I might to get Melanie out of my mind as no more than just another one of my clients, I couldn’t. Perhaps because of her illness, I was very aware that I was betraying our professional relationship by getting close to a friend of hers. It shouldn’t have mattered, but somehow it did. I enjoyed having Melanie as a client. I didn’t want to chance losing that.
I finished off the dregs of my pint and observed Alison through the glass. Yes, I’d ask her out on another date, but I could still guess where we were heading. Nowhere fast.
Like the Princess said, there were three people in this relationship.
Tash
May Day
It wasn’t as if I had a clue what Tash looked like. But I couldn’t help creating a mental picture of my clients, sketching out the life they might live even before I’d seen them. It was based solely on what they’d told me over the phone.
She had introduced herself as Natasha when she’d picked up the phone, ‘But everyone calls me Tash,’ she’d said. She’d called me out for an eleven o’clock session on a Monday night in Luton. That struck me as odd. Most other people were in bed at this time because of work the next day. It suggested she didn’t want the neighbours to know. I figured that that likely made her a thirty-something housewife whose hubby was away on business.
I was standing on the forecourt of Luton railway station waiting for a cab to take me to her place. The station was almost deserted and then a car swung off the road, the light box on the roof advertising Ace Cabs, and I relaxed. The car drew up and the driver leaned over to the passenger window.
‘Where to?’
He drove me out beyond the town centre, where the housing was less crowded together. We turned off the main road and up a side street to the address Tash had given me. I was dead in the middle of Thirties suburbia, and Tash’s was one of the middle houses in the row with a little tiered garden out front. The wooden gate clicked shut behind me, and I hurried up the path and rang the bell.
Minutes later the front door was opened and Tash hovered in front of me, a nervous, close-mouthed smile across her face.
She didn’t look anything like I’d expected at all. Her feet were bare, which only added to the vulnerable air that wrapped itself around her. She must have been all of twenty-one. She had long straight blonde hair that looked like it had been ironed. Her slight frame was dressed in hipster jeans and a loose pale pink silk top and she had delicate, pretty features. To be frank, she was gorgeous.
So, what is