The Male Escort

There's a healthy demand for more of this story. So I'm going to do my best to keep writing it. I hope you all enjoy it!

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The next day I spend with Kelly. We went to my gym around 11, went to breakfast and then we got dressed (we showered up at the gym), and caught a silly movie in the afternoon. Dinner, this time on Kelly, and then we went back to my place and had some great sex together. Sounds pretty great, doesn't it?

Eh. There were problems already, and we'd only been seeing each other a short period of time, and I was finding my mind wandering. I met Vanessa the night before when we worked together with one of my clients. She was a call girl, high end like me, and after we had a threesome with Sam (my client), we went for a few drinks, a bite to eat, and pleasant conversation. We found we had a lot in common in our backgrounds as well as cultural interests, plus we were both baseball and football fans, while Kelly didn't like team sports.

I was calling Vanessa once or twice a week, or she was calling me, though we hadn't been out socially so far. I liked talking to her, as she was the only woman (or man) I knew that I could talk to openly about my work and know there was no judgement on her part. She was doing the same thing, except she was a woman working with men. So we could easily relate to our work problems, along with other issues. I wanted to take her out, but between each of our schedules, there wasn't a lot of time where we had the same days off. The only day we did have in common was Tuesdays, and I had those reserved for Kelly at night, assuming she didn't work late. I really did want to get together with Vanessa.

My biggest problem with Kelly was she kept saying how it was too early to make any sort of commitment to each other, which would almost certainly require me to stop working as an escort/gigolo, a 'job' I was very well paid for and from which I was saving quite a lot of money. Kelly, who was rich (we met through her very wealthy mother; read Part 1) didn't understand the appeal of making a lot of money for me, a middle-class guy from Brooklyn. When I started working in this field, I was facing the prospect of going to grad school for psychology and taking on tens of thousands of dollars or more in debt. I was undecided about a career in psychology, but I would be able to pay easily if I went back to school now. Her inability to understand this was annoying. And then, that Sunday night, she pissed me off.

We were lying in bed at her place after sex, very relaxed and slipping towards sleep, when she said "You know, Paul, if you stopped working that awful job, it wouldn't cost you any money out of your pocket. I could easily replace however much you needed each week. I'm rich on my own. My father left me a lot of money when he died. I could make up what you'd lose every week for as long as you need until you find proper employment."

I sat upright in the bed, very quickly. "Kelly, what do you think I am? Some sort of kept man? I'll just sit around, waiting on your beck and call, run your errands and then fuck you when you want? Until you decide when I can go out and find a job?" I was furious and she could see it.

"No, Paul! You wouldn't have to do anything! Just stop screwing around with all those women. I don't want to share you." Her eyes were welling up with tears. "Paul, darling... I love you." The tears were falling down her cheeks, along her neck and one, improbably, fell along her left breast and clung to her pink nipple, just hanging on.

Gentler now. "Kelly, look, I appreciate how you feel. But I'm not just going to take money from you. First of all, I don't need your money. I have money set aside. I wouldn't take money to just be someone's personal gigolo. Not yours, not anyone's, not even your moms. I work with whom I want, when I want. You called my job "awful". I might have thought like that before I started. But honestly, I like what I do. Sure, sex is a factor, but that's not why. I've met some wonderful ladies over the years, and I am a help and a comfort to them. I listen to them in a way their husbands never do or did. And I'm sorry to hurt you this way, but I don't love you, Kelly. Not in the way you want. I love you as my friend, I care about you, and I want you to be happy. But I don't love you like I think about my future with you. I don't feel that way, and I don't know if I ever will. This is the first time I've had a personal relationship with a woman in a long time, and it feels good inside. And to be honest, I really hate what you said about my job. I like what I'm doing. I'm living a life I never thought I'd have. Maybe that makes me shallow. I'm comfortable with my life, for now." I looked at her with some defiance.

She was crying hard now. "Sure, you like your life! You fuck every piece of ass who can afford your fee! You're just a low person, selling yourself! A fucking whore!"

"Kelly," I said very softly, maybe so it would sting, "we met because you hired this "whore" to do something for you no other man was able to do. Maybe because you were such a closed-up bitch." Shit, not my proudest moment of my life, exactly. But she really hurt me and pissed me off.

I got out of bed and got dressed quickly. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" she challenged, pure venom in her voice now.

"I'm leaving. I don' t think we should see each other for a while. I've seen what you really think of me, and I don't exactly like it." I buttoned up my shirt and sat on the bed to put on my socks and shoes.

"If you leave here, I'll tell my mom what we've been doing behind her back! She'll drop you like a bad habit! Your best 'customer'!" She looked positively manic. And like she wasn't kidding.

"You do what you have to do. I'd hate to have to stop working with your mother. She treats me with respect in a way you seem to be incapable of doing. You know what I think? I think you can cum with me, something no other man has been able to do for you, and you're terrified of losing that. That you won't be able to find it with another man. You shouldn't worry about that, Kelly. I think you can if you want to. In any case, you and I are done. I won't be coming back. I'll send you your things on Monday."

"Go, get out! You're nothing but a whore! Go fuck your old ladies! You're incapable of loving anyone! You want to know why your relationship with your parents is shit? Because YOU'RE shit! A shitty person! You cheap son of...." I didn't hear the rest; by then the door to her apartment was closed behind me and I went into the middle of the night and called for an Uber.

On the ride home, I thought. A lot. Some of what I said to Kelly needed to be said; she was treating me not like a boyfriend but as a personal employee, paid to be at her exclusive call. And calling me a 'whore' really hurt, maybe because there was some truth to it. But the word is so pejorative. She could have made her point in a nicer way. So could I. I hurt her. I don't like hurting people in any manner.

Tired as I was when I got home, I didn't get much sleep that night. I was bothered both by Kelly's behavior as well as my own. I decided I would call her at work when I woke up and try to at least make things friendly between us. I set my alarm for 10 and eventually drifted off to sleep.

I didn't make it to 10. A little after 9 I got a call from Kelly, who was crying. "I didn't go to work today, Paul. I didn't sleep last night and I'm a wreck today."

I felt bad right away. "I didn't get a lot of sleep either. I said some pretty horrible things to you last night...well, early this morning, actually. I'm sorry for how I spoke to you, Kelly. I'm not proud of myself."

"I started it all, Paul. The fact is, I don't like what you do for a living, even though it's how we met. I get jealous of you being with all those other women. Especially my own mother. It's just too much to deal with. It would be hard enough if you had a traditional job and were just dating other women. My feelings are getting strong for you. I mean, you made me feel something I thought I'd never experience. And I think I got over-attached because of it. But I don't think we should see each other, Paul. You and your job, you and my mom.... it's just way too much. If we kept seeing each other, it would turn into a fight every time. If you want to stay as friends, that's good for me. But I can't have an intimate relationship with you." She wasn't crying anymore, but I could hear her breathing deeply. Nervous.

I closed my eyes and sighed with relief. She was thinking much like I was. "Kelly, thanks for being so kind about this. I was going to call you a little later at work and say much the same things, from my side of course. As things are, I don't think this makes for a good relationship. But I would like to be friends. Maybe get lunch sometimes or have a day together when I take some time off. I think it will be better for us."

"And don't worry, I'm not going to tell my mom about us, aside from being friends. There's no point anymore, and I don't want to take anything away from her. You make her happy, Paul. It's still strange to me, but I just care about her being happy."

"You're a gem, Kelly. Really. We can meet later for dinner if you want to return each other's things. I'm buying."

"You're damn right you're buying!" She said it with a laugh, and that made the ache in my chest go away. This would be better for us. If we could keep things friendly, of course. And that opened the door for me to call Vanessa. From that one evening, I felt a real chemistry between us. But I wasn't going to call that day. It could wait a few days, after I considered it carefully.

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So you know by now, I'd been working for Diana Royce for over three years at that point. I was her most reliable and trusted employee (I heard that from her own lips), she raised my rate to all new clients, though the existing regulars were paying what they had been, for the time being, at least. Inflation hits all businesses sooner or later. I wasn't worried about my regulars objecting when the time came. None were on a tight budget.

Most of my appointments were with regulars or semi-regulars by then. I had a few openings when a new client came along, and Diana always checked with me before I took on anyone new. I got a lot of respect from her, which I appreciated greatly. So I listened when she called me Tuesday to see if I'd be willing to take a new client, a potentially trying one, for Wednesday afternoon. "She might be difficult to deal with, Paul. From what she told me, she's a fairly bitter woman and I can understand why she feels that way."

"Ok, Diana. You have me intrigued. What can you tell me about her?

"Her name is Rivkah Liebowitz. She used to be a member of one of the Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, until six years ago. A couple of years before that, she was married and a mother to six children. Living as their community requires, a loyal wife and mother and strict about observing her faith. Then she had a horrible accident in the kitchen of her home. She got burned, all over her left arm, up her neck and to some extent, her face. I didn't see her, so I don't know how bad the scarring is at this point. Anyway, after she recovered, her husband all but abandoned her. Some of the men in those communities aren't exactly the most loving and warm husbands to begin with, and he just stopped caring about her. But he wanted the children. In that world, the men get what they want. He presented her with a religious divorce and took their kids. That was by far the worst thing. She doesn't see her children, not for years now. And then she was so sad, no one wanted to be around her. She was 'encouraged' to leave. Her husband was a wealthy jeweler and he paid her a sizable amount to go away. She's 52, she lives on the Lower East Side. She's never had a good sexual relationship in her life and she wants to see what it's like, and if a man can be attracted to her."

I closed my eyes and ached for that poor woman. Growing up in Brooklyn with friends of all faiths, I had heard some pretty awful things about the Ultra-Orthodox and how they treat women, including their wives. This was a terrible story to hear.

"Diana, I feel horrible for her. I've read some things about life in that community, so I know a little about how she was raised. Go ahead, make the appointment. Don't charge her the new rates, but don't give her a discount either. She might feel it's being done out of pity, and that would only hurt her worse."

"She doesn't have an account, so she'll pay you directly. You know what's appropriate. Do whatever you think is right. You're not the only one who feels awful for her." So Diana set the appointment for 2 on Wednesday at Rivkah's apartment on Clinton Street off Delancy, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. There was still a Jewish community there, though not a strict Orthodox one. Rivkah could feel like she was among her own people to some degree, as I found out when I met her.

I was prompt, as always, when I knocked on her door. Rivkah opened the door and said "You must be Paul. I'm Rivkah. Please come in." Very polite, but very reserved. She didn't smile, didn't extend her hand. She turned and walked into the small apartment, and I followed. "Please sit down" she said, again with little animation.

"Thank you, Rivkah. It's nice to meet you." I offered my hand, but she didn't reach back. We both sat down, and I got a good look at her. She looked her age, at the least. Almost all the women I met did what they could to look their best. Some were heavier than others, some were plainer. They all used make-up, all got their hair styled regularly, got their nails done, etc. Even when we weren't going out in public, looking their best made them feel good about themselves and they liked looking good for me, like they had been doing for men since they started dating years ago. There was no such attempt by Rivkah. How much of that was a cultural thing and how much was her giving up on herself, I don't know.

Her hair was uncolored and not styled, giving it a mousy brown look, though it was clean. No make-up, so her face was very pale because she didn't go out much. She relied on deliveries for most of her needs. Her clothes kind of draped over her body. From her face, she looked like she was kind of thin, maybe skinny. She just wasn't taking care of herself. And there were the obvious scars. The left side of her face had some of that melt-look you see on burn victims, but not nearly as bad as her left arm, which was badly burned and scarred. Why she didn't get plastic surgery, I couldn't imagine. Like Diana, I felt awful for her. Her family, her community treated her like shit. I was determined to do what I could for her, to show her that her life wasn't over.

I tried to engage her in conversation, but she answered in mostly one-word answers. I thought for a minute and said "Rivkah, it's a nice warm day outside. What do you say to going out for a bite to eat? Maybe some pizza or a cafe where we could get a sandwich or a salad. Come on, I'm treating."

"No, I don't go out, Paul. I'm kind of hideous. I don't like to be seen."

"Rivkah, you're hardly "hideous". You have some scars. I won't lie to you and say they're hardly noticeable. But Rivkah, we all have scars. Every one of us. Yours are just on the outside. Most of us carry ours on the inside, where they hurt worse. Come with me. Some children might look, but most people won't give a damn." I stood up and held out my hand.

She tossed it over in her head for a few minutes before she said "Only if I pay. You're my guest, Paul." She even tried to smile a little, which brought out a big smile on my face.

We went to the street, where there were a lot of private stores and small restaurants, nothing even close to fancy. It was a nice day, warm and mostly sunny, and I convinced her to walk about six blocks with me to Katz's Delicatessen, famous for their hand-cut pastrami sandwiches and for the famous scene in the movie "When Harry Met Sally" where Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm and the old woman nearby says "I'll have what she's having." We ordered our sandwiches and talked. And we talked. And talked. Years of suppressed conversation came spilling out from Rivkah as we ate. I asked a few questions here and there to keep her talking. Some of it was bitter resentment over how her husband, to whom she devoted herself, left her after her accident, how he took her kids. I encouraged her to look into hiring a lawyer.

"I would think a good lawyer could argue before a judge that you were coerced to give up custody of your children at a time when you were at your lowest. I know judges here give the religious courts a lot of leeway. But if you got a fair-minded judge, you might have a chance to get your parental rights restored, at least for your children that are still minors. It's a chance, at least."

She shared a small smile, more than she shared all afternoon. "They don't even know me anymore, Paul. You're so sweet to listen to me go on and on. You're a fine young man. You remind me of my oldest, Moses, who's older than you. He's 32 now. Working for his father." She got sad and I held her hand across the table and gave it a gentle squeeze. I left the subject of her children alone after that.

By the time we walked back to her apartment, it was after 4, the time our appointment was supposed to end. I didn't have a later appointment that night. And we hadn't done what I had been primarily hired for.

In her apartment, Rivkah said "Paul, this was such a nice afternoon. A little painful, but mostly pleasant. And you're such sweet company. Let me get you your money so you can be on your way."

I took her hand and stopped her. "Why? We haven't done what you hired me for, Rivkah. I'm not in a rush. And I haven't earned any money yet."

She paused, unsure what to say next. Finally, "Paul, you don't have to do this. I had a very good time with you already. And I know I'm not an attractive woman. I'm plain and I've got these scars..."

"Who says you're not attractive? I didn't. I think you could be lovely. Beautiful." I stepped closer and touched her cheek, her scarred cheek. "Sexy, even. Desirable." I moved to kiss her lips and she pulled back a little.

"No, I'm not. I appreciate what you're trying to do for me, but I know what I am, and who I am."

"Rivkah, I firmly believe every woman is beautiful in her own way, unless she has a cruel inner self. And that is certainly not you. I wish life was better to you. I don't understand a man like your husband. I won't even try. Now, if you still want to go to bed with me, I'm more than willing. I want us both to have a great time." I took her hand and gave it a nice, firm squeeze, and then I kissed her lips, which were trembling. "I know you're nervous. I know this can be a little scary for a woman who's only been with one man in her life. And that was more than a few years ago. But trust me. There is nothing about sex that's changed since you last slept with a man. We'll go at your pace."

"That's not true for me. I have done some reading since I was divorced, and there's a lot I wasn't even aware of. I read about... oral sex, and I barely ever heard about it. I don't think I want to try it. I don't think I've ever had an orgasm. I never tried it for myself; the Bible forbids it. I just want to have sex with a man who will try to make me feel something." She was beet red, ashamed about even talking about it. The way some men treat women they're supposed to love.

"We won't do anything you don't want to do, Rivkah. And I understand what you're talking about. My name, Paul Miller, is actually a pseudonym. I don't share my real name, but I'm from Brooklyn and I have a number of Jewish friends. So I know a little of what you're talking about." I took her hands in mine and made sure we were making eye contact. "We'll take things very slow. It's called foreplay, building up..."