Page 17 of Hired Help

“Sure.” Anything to keep her talking.

“Well, we tried like… missionary and me on top, facing him and turned away…” Another deep blush turns her face into a buffet of strawberry and cream. “I’m not sure of all the right words… the terminology…”

“Descriptions are fine,” I assure her. “If I don’t understand something, I’ll ask.”

She nods again, this time staring at the wall while she regains her composure. Her posture uncurls a little, relaxing into the soft stability of the luxurious chair. “I guess we haven’t been all that adventurous but… I’m not sure…”

“It sounds plenty adventurous to me. At your age, I’d tried a standing up fumble and a lying down fumble and neither of them went well. And that was from my perspective. I’m sure it was even more disastrous from the girl’s point of view.”

Brooke tilts her head towards me, a signal for me to keep talking.

“I used to practice kissing a lot, in between practising other things with any magazine I could lay my hands on.”

There’s a fluttering laugh. “Magazines? How old are you exactly? A thousand?”

“My parents kept the family computer in the lounge and it’s hard to watch porn in full view of your mum.”

She mouthsfamily computerand rolls her eyes.

“Hey, we didn’t have your advanced technology, okay? Not everyone was raised plugged into the internet, twenty-four, seven. We didn’t even use laptops at school and a mobile phone was something you could call or text on and it cost you twenty cents a pop.”

Brooke resolutely fails to look impressed.

“And once your minutes were up, you had to wait till the following month before you could contactanybody.”

“Steady on, grandad. If you get too worked up, you’ll have a heart attack.”

“My phone didn’t have a backlit screen or a proper keyboard. If I wanted an S, I had to press the seven keyfour times.”

“All that after trudging three hours on gravel roads in the snow to get to school?”

I level a finger at her. “You know, polite people allow others the space to tell their own, ‘back in my day’ stories.”

She sinks farther back into the chair, openly laughing now. “I’m far too rich to be polite. There are people I can pay to do that if you need it.”

“Wow. Should you send in your understudy and once we’ve finessed the shit out of potential treatments, you can deign to join in the process again?”

My voice is teasing but for a second, I still think I’ve gone too far. Then she breaks into a grin. “My understudy,” she scoffs. “If my life were a play, I’d have the writer and director out the back, preparing to be shot. They’ve completely forgotten to add jokes.”

A cloud drifts across her face, then her lips twist with frustration.

“And here I am complaining when most of the world would much rather be in my position than me be in theirs.”

“You’re allowed to be upset, independent of how everyone else in the world is doing. If we weren’t, only one person would ever be able to complain at one time.”

“And nobody would listen to them when they did.”

“Exactly.” From her expression, the idea hasn’t found the most fertile soil, so I give it another try. “I’ve met plenty of rich women and with most of them I wouldn’t ever want to swap lives.”

The flashy grin re-emerges. “But you’re a gorgeous man who gets paid to have sex with people for a living. Of course, you wouldn’t want to swap.”

“Escorting isn’t all I do.” I arch an eyebrow and lean forward, smiling. “I also dance, so there’s the Velcro trousers and cash getting stuffed in my G-string to contend with. I could get a shoulder injury with the number of women I manhandle around the stage. It’s not all dark-haired beauties in penthouse suites, you know.”

She lays the back of her hand against her forehead, feigning a dizzy spell. “Oh, the humanity.”

“Get a few hundred worth of plastic notes shoved into your skimpiest underwear and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Those edges are sharp.”

“And I’m sure there’d be no shortage of grabby handed women ready and waiting with a sticking plaster.” She lays her head back against the headrest, smiling sideways at me. “Do you have battle scars?”

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