There was a place for us to leave comments that were visible only to other Gentlemen. That was how we tipped each other off if someone was rougher than his profile let on or if he had some obnoxious attitude that wasn’t enough to get him blacklisted, but warranted a heads up to anyone he hired in the future. I always checked those when I was booked by someone new.
This client had just joined the app, though, so he didn’t have any comments. From his profile, he seemed nice enough. A little vague, but he didn’t set off any alarms. Looking for some company. Not into anything particularly kinky. Preferred if someone was willing to kiss on the mouth (good—nothing made me feel dirtier than “I don’t kiss whores on the mouth,” Scott).
Okay, this guy sounded all right on paper. Now what did he look like?
As most guys did, he’d uploaded a couple of photos. No face pictures, which was again not surprising. What he did show was sexy as hell, but something about his physique sent a prickle up my spine, and not a pleasant one. I mean, that wasn’t an unusual reaction. I was a sex worker, and I wasn’t a big guy. A client who was built like a brick shithouse could be dangerous. Any guy could be, especially if he had a weapon, but I had a healthy respect for physics. There was a reason we’d all been segregated by weight class when I’d wrestled in high school.
It wasn’t just that this guy was obviously big, fit, and strong as hell. There was something familiar about his build that raised the hairs on my neck.
I shook myself and kept looking. I was just edgy because I’d had some questionable clients, and some of the passengers I picked up working as a driver made me suspicious of everyone. That was all it was.
God, I can’t wait to graduate college and find a job where I’m not worried about being robbed or assaulted.
Or my parents finding out what I was doing when I was robbed or assaulted.
Shuddering, I continued through the client’s profile. He was good-looking, I’d give him that. Obviously someone who kept himself fit, and he had some sexy ink. On his upper arm, he had an abstract tattoo. On the other, there was a design I couldn’t quite see. Something jutted out in a way that was oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place it, and it wasn’t helping with that prickly feeling.
Was I overreacting? Developing an itchy trigger finger when it came to clients? Associating him with a bad experience, even if I couldn’t quite recall which bad experience it was?
I swiped to the next photo. In this one, he’d turned, giving me an excellent view of his ass in a snug pair of jeans, and that was when the piece clicked into place.
Blood turning cold, I stared at the photo and swallowed.
The ass and thighs gave him away—this was a hockey player. The tattoo I hadn’t quite been able to make out? It was almost identical to the one on another client’s forearm—the Breakers logo.
Aw, fuck.
Not another hockey player.
I closed my eyes and pushed out a breath. Not all hockey players were assholes. I knew this. The fact that I’d been with two—one being a semi-regular client—didn’t mean they were all jerks. But twice bitten…
It wasn’t like I’d ever been assaulted by them or anything. Everything we’d done together had been consensual. They’d never been coercive or particularly abusive—they’d just absolutely never let me forget that I was a whore. A sex toy. A conduit between their fantasies and an orgasm. I always walked away from them feeling like I was dirtier than the money they gave me, and rational or not, the experiences had left me with an aversion to hockey and the men who played it.
So tonight, my first instinct was to reject the booking, but I hesitated. For one, I needed the money. I literally couldn’t afford to be choosy. For another, just because this guy played hockey didn’t mean he was an asshole like the other two. He could be perfectly nice. And he wasn’t one of the other guys.
And… I mean, fuck. It seriously wasn’t like I could afford to turn anyone away unless there was something horrifically wrong with his profile, like the guy who’d detailed some incredibly disturbing sexual fantasies and had proudly shown off his white supremacist tattoos. That dude was banned from Emerald City.
But this client was just a hockey player. There was nothing threatening about him. All my alarm bells were because of guys who weren’t him. The one guy was long gone, having retired and moved away. Scott was still an active player, someone this new dude undoubtedly knew, but that didn’t mean they’d compared notes.
I swallowed. At the end of the day, I was broke. I really, really couldn’t afford to reject a client.
So with my heart in my throat, I tapped Confirm booking.
And I hoped like hell I was overthinking this.
The email told me to take a specific parking space in the garage below the tall, gleaming condominium complex. Unsurprisingly, the car next to it was exactly the kind of car a highly-paid professional athlete could afford. In this case, a sexy black Audi R8 sports car.
I parked my decidedly less expensive sedan next to it. Emerald City preferred it if we had luxury cars of our own, but most of our clients were more interested in sex than an actual escort. Escorts who were hired by women were expected to look the part of a high class gentleman, complete with designer clothes, top-of-the-line watches, and rides with six-figure price tags. Sometimes that was what male clients wanted, or sometimes they just wanted someone to go clubbing with them. More often than not, we could get away with not being as flashy and impressive as our counterparts who mostly worked for women. Which was good, because I did not have the budget to impress a pro athlete.
Ignoring my nerves, I got out, and I paused to give myself a once-over in my reflection in the window. The suit was black with a dark gray shirt underneath. No tie. First couple of buttons undone. Hair carefully arranged to look mussed.
Then I headed for the elevator. He’d given me a code to enter, and when I did, the doors opened.
I took a deep breath and stepped inside. As the car took me up to the fifth floor, I squared my shoulders and reminded myself to breathe. Just because I’d had a bad experience—okay, repeated bad experiences—with hockey players didn’t mean I’d have one with this guy.
There’s no guarantee I’ll have a good experience either.
I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. That was part of this job. I loved what I did most of the time (when I was actually getting booked), but there were risks that I accepted every time I went to see a client. It was part of being an escort, same as possibly getting robbed was part of being a driver.
The elevator dinged.
Fuck. No more hesitation.
I stepped out into a warmly lit hallway and followed it to the condo he’d said was his. At the door, I paused for another deep breath.
Then I knocked.
When the deadbolt clicked, I gulped, but by the time the door opened, I’d put on a smile. Not an overly bright one—nothing that would come across as phony—but enough to hopefully mask how nervous I was.
On the other side of the doorway was a white guy who was definitely taller and broader than me, which I’d expected. His face wasn’t hard on the eyes, that was for sure—he had an “eh, I’ll shave eventually” beard kind of like mine, light brown hair that was long enough to curl, and a nose that I was pretty sure had been broken a time or two. He was definitely built like a brick shithouse, but he immediately gave me the impression that he was a teddy bear. His hazel eyes were soft, and his smile… Hell, was he nervous? I was pretty sure he was.