Page 7 of The Senator

The party that night was for a well-known lobbyist, Sean Fitzpatrick. I’d met the man six months ago at another fancy hotel downtown. I was there as the companion of a judge’s widow, and part of my job was to allow my client to interact with her friends without my interference. I was patiently waiting on the peripheral of Mrs. Symington’s group of friends and enjoying a club soda, when a strong hand touched my shoulder.

I turned to see a gorgeous man with a big grin. He was slighter in build and height than me, but he oozed confidence. “I’m Sean Fitzpatrick. You’re quite handsome. Are you here with Georgia Symington?” I would later learn his ego was even bigger.

I nodded and allowed Mr. Fitzpatrick to lead me away from the group a few steps where the two of us talked about nothing in particular. I got the impression he wasn’t in Mrs. Symington’s circle of friends, but he was eager to be, so during a break in the action, I introduced the two of them.

It turned out that Mrs. Symington was on the trustee’s board of a charity from which Sean was seeking support for one of his causes—I was shit with details—and Mrs. Symington was eager to jump on board with whatever Sean wanted.

Sean didn’t seem any more comfortable with the guests at the party than me, so we had time to talk and get to know each other. I found him to be much more down-to-earth than I’d initially thought, and I gave him a little background into my life and escort job that I generally didn’t share with strangers.

Later that night, Sean slipped me his business card as the party was breaking up. “I host a lot of events around town, and we always have issues finding bartenders who don’t steal the liquor. If you’re interested, call me. I’ll put you in touch with my catering manager, Naomi Chu.”

I called him the next week, and an hour after we hung up, I got a call from Miss Chu, a woman I would later come to respect very much. I was grateful to have more jobs as a waiter or bartender, which allowed me to turn down many of the lower paying escort jobs. I owed it all to Sean Fitzpatrick.

“Nash! Delivery!” I turned to see Naomi motioning in my direction.

I quickly closed the coolers and hurried toward the back of the venue, seeing boxes of liquor. “All of this?” I had no idea how big a party on a Monday night could be, but considering it was DC, there was no logical answer.

“Here’s the order sheet. Can you do the inventory and sign off for the delivery driver? That means if anything is unaccounted for, you’re on the hook—but you know that. I need to go deal with those decorator people.”

The expression on her face told me she was pissed, so I took the paper and nodded, going to work. Head down, eyes focused straight ahead.

A young Hispanic guy I’d worked with before named Jorge walked from the back and grinned. “Hey, Nash. I wasn’t sure if you’d be working tonight, but I’m glad you are. I almost ditched. The political parties Fitzpatrick hosts are one thing, but personal shit is another.”

I chuckled. “What? You don’t like the idea of a bunch of gay guys ogling your ass on a Monday night?” Of course, none of my catering coworkers knew I was bisexual, nor did they know what my other job entailed. I was grateful to Fitzpatrick for not fertilizing the grapevine.

“Hey, I’m not homophobic. Some of my buddies from the neighborhood were gay when I was growing up. A lot of the families were funny about it, so many of my friends left as soon as they were old enough, but I still see some of them from time to time.”

“What’s your beef, then?”

“No, I’m not worried about the ogling. It’s the fact nobody tips, man. It’s like they think because they’re friends with Fitzpatrick, they ain’t gotta tip us. I need the extra scratch. My girl told me she wants to get married, and I better be saving for a ring or no more panocha. I gotta have it, two, three times a day, man.” Jorge’s girlfriend withholding the candy made me want to laugh.

“Yeah, I feel ya. So, are you waiting tables or slingin’ drinks?” That damn Texas twang was there in my voice, much to my surprise. Jorge must have heard it too, because he started to laugh and began pointing at me with both index fingers.

“Hey, what can I say? Grew up in southwest Texas, near the border. Creeps in from time to time.” I shrugged. I didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about me or my accent—or so I kept telling myself. I’d tried damn hard to rid myself of the telltale twang over my adult life. Sometimes it worked, but when I least expected it, it crept back in.

Jorge laughed. “Hey, man, I’m just bustin’ on you. I ain’t got room to talk. My parents immigrated from Juarez before I was born. I grew up in DC, but my abuela doesn’t speak English, so we learned both languages at the same time. Comes in handy in this job. Somebody’s an asshole? I pretend I don’t speak English, and they usually leave me alone and stomp off, mumbling like a fool.”

We both laughed at that one. Avoiding confrontation was a great way to keep my job, or so I’d learned, though, at six foot with a muscular build, I could intimidate my way out of a jam, having learned the technique growing up in foster care around southern Texas.

Jorge and I talked about football as we stocked the bar. He went to get supplies from the kitchen while I cut fruit for the garnish. The decorating crew was in full swing, and everywhere I looked, there was black, silver, and pearly white. There was a banner hung at the front of the room near where a band was setting up, and it read, Happy 40th, Sean! I wasn’t sure if the man was going for classy or creepy, but both worked for the occasion.

An hour later, the guests started arriving, and we became invisible. A few of the power players in town I recognized from previous parties and events, where I’d been on the arm of a woman or a man, depending on the type of party and the guest list. Of course, they didn’t recognize me because the help was generally faceless and nameless beings in the world of Washington society.

After six months in DC, I wasn’t sure if I liked it yet, but I’d been subletting a place from the owner of the escort business, Caroline Bering, of Monumental Promotions, Inc. She was giving me a hell of a deal on the fully furnished apartment she kept in Georgetown, which I truly appreciated.

It was decorated in an eclectic style with lots of flowery, overstuffed chairs and shabby chic tables—or so Caroline told me when she showed me the place and offered it as a sublet. It was comfortable, and if I ever had time for a love life, I’d have a nice place to fuck somebody. As it stood, that was a pipe dream.

I had planned to give the town a year, so the clock was running, and since I had no idea what I wanted to do next, I was biding my time. I’d made a promise not to get involved with anyone until I knew what I wanted out of life. I damn well didn’t need any sort of entanglement. I had too much shit to figure out on my own.

I had no skills beyond fucking or mixing drinks, but both got me where I needed to go. No attachments. No regrets. Those were words to live by that I’d learned from my only friend, Clint, who had been my roommate at the group home where I’d been placed until I phased out of the foster system and took control of my future at eighteen. Clint and I took off together, and we had a good time until he went his way, and I went mine. It was a relief to have someone I could trust back then.

I’d been on my own for nine years, traveling the country and finding shit jobs along the way to keep me from starving and sleeping on the ground. I’d been homeless a few times, and I hated it, which prompted me to find new and different ways to make money.

Hustling was something I’d dabbled in after Clint and I separated, finding it provided a decent living, but I had to stick to my guns—no condom, no suck or fuck.

When I arrived in DC with my trade ready to be plied, a woman stopped me outside of the Hamilton Hotel, where I’d stopped to wash up after fucking a businessman in a nearby alley for a hundred bucks—he wanted me in his ass bad because he suffered from low self-esteem. He kept telling me he couldn’t believe someone as gorgeous as me would fuck him, and he cried when he jizzed all over the dirty ground behind a dumpster. I felt bad for the guy, but then I decided maybe I was providing a public service. I still laughed at my naïvety.

Anyway, the lady said I was handsome and asked if I’d thought about modeling. As far as I knew, DC wasn’t known for its modeling industry, so I suspected there was more to it. Caroline Bering bought me breakfast, and I signed up to be a member of her elite escorts. Fast forward a few months to when I met Sean Fitzpatrick, and that was me in a nutshell. Nothing more, nothing less.

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