I wish I could say that the wild Christmas Party was as far as things went with regards to my escort work. Unfortunately, that was just the start. The deal was for me to work as an escort until Steve hit his goal, and then I could stop. Stan Harper won my services in the raffle, and luckily, we made sure Steve (my chaperone) was able to come too. It turned out to be much more than I bargained for.
We spent two days on a huge yacht off the coast of Mexico with Stan, Edwardo (Eddy, the client), his client's girlfriend Francesca, and Larry of course. I was the source of their entertainment the whole time. First off, I was topless from the moment I stepped onto the boat. Most of the time, I wore nothing but sheer beach wrap, or a bikini bottom. I got laid a lot. I mean, a whole lot. The client, one of his associates, Stan, Larry, Steve, even the girlfriend with a strap-on, and the boat captain once. I spent the night in the largest cabin with Eddy and Francesca taking turns with me half the night, then spent the remaining hours before dawn in the crew quarters with Stan, Steve, Larry, and Aaron (the captain). I think I may have had three hours of sleep that night.
I woke up late the next day and they had me again as many times as they could until we returned to port. Eddy and Francesca gifted me with some very expensive jewelry... which turned out be all we got from the ordeal! I couldn't believe it! Stan didn't close the deal, so Steve didn't get a commission, and we didn't get me any closer to freeing myself from being an escort!
Leaping ahead a bit, I worked for the next few months with Steve and two other partners at random each month. This resulted in four to six clients each month, all of them ending in sex, and less than half getting a contract.
Now I know how that all came about. You see, once the senior partners knew about our arrangement with Larry, and the promise he made to Steve, they started to manipulate the situation to keep him from reaching his goal. They saddled him with the hardest deals, knowing he'd probably fall short... which he did.
Steve was in the worst mood I'd ever seen him in. He was furious, disappointed, disillusioned, and just miserable for weeks at a time. If I managed to help land a contract, he'd cheer up for a while, but as soon as another fell through, he got into his funk again.
Oddly enough, the only thing that did sort of cheer him up was our continued participation in the Montauk Club. We still hadn't become full members, but were invited to gatherings anyway, either as a guest of a member, or one of the owners. I think it kept him happy enough. I hoped it would at least.
Well, after the deadline came, and Steve missed the mark Larry set for him, I thought it would be over. He didn't get his promotion, but I survived the months of escort work with my marriage intact. Take the L, and move on, right?
Not so much. As I mentioned, the senior partners had a plan to manipulate Steve (and me) to keep us in the arrangement longer. You see, Steve had been keeping up our lavish lifestyle with money he wasn't earning anymore. He counted on my stellar track record with the clients to keep the money coming, but since getting handed the hardest ones, my record dropped from 90% to about 30% or less. In short, we were broke and in debt!
So, in his desperation, Steve let them move the goalposts!
They set another goal for him and gave just six months to get there. Six months!
He came to me one night almost in tears, and we literally cried together as we tried to decide what to do. It was a lot worse than I thought. We were looking at losing the house, the apartment, and pretty much everything of value if he couldn't start bringing in better commission checks. I suggested going back to Yowzah to dance, but that would have been a drop in the bucket.
Then he gave me the proposal Larry offered. He would offer me for use as the corporate escort for six more months. In that time, I could take as many or as few clients as I wanted. Just as before, if I was at all involved, and they got the contract, I would get a bonus for Steve. I was inconsolable for a long time. I didn't want another six months of this madness! And what if they gave him the hardest contracts again?
It was my turn to pout for days, and Steve let me have that time to think about it. Then, late one night, I woke up to find Steve missing from our bed. I crept out of the bedroom and found him in his office pouring over the bills and the accounts, looking for an out. The next day, while he was off at work, I looked through the stuff he left on his desk and found that in his desperation, he had tried gambling to win some money. Horses, sports, online casinos. And sadly, he was sort of shit at it. He lost even more money. Not a lot, but enough for me to realize he was getting scared and would try anything.
A few days later, he came home enraged about some contract he was sure would be his, and Larry handed it off to someone else because Steve had been coming up dry too often (or maybe because I wouldn't be Escort Barbie for him). He stormed off to his office without so much as a kiss for me, and it really broke my heart. That night, when he finally came to bed, I took him in my arms, and said to tell Larry I would do it. I'll be Escort Barbie again. The look of both relief and regret set me off crying again, and we had a really tender bit of lovemaking that gave me some confidence that I could do it. Six months. The blink of an eye in the long run. For Steve, I'd do it.
I went into the city the following day and met with Larry personally. If I was going to do this, I wanted to stack the deck in my favor as much as possible. I wore something hot, because I knew it would help, and we met behind closed doors in his office.
"This is what I want." I said even as I took my seat. "I want assurances. Not maybes, could-be's, or possibly's. I want to be absolutely assured that if I'm going to be Escort Barbie again, Steve gets his promotion! Do you understand?"
Larry smirked, sat in his big comfy chair behind his desk, and sipped a cup of coffee. Then cool as a cucumber, he just pointed to the door. "Get out." Was all he said.
I blinked. "What?"
"You seem to think you have a bargaining chip." He scoffed. "I can assure you, you don't."
"I'm serious!" I raised my voice at him. "I'm not going to play this game anymore."
"Interesting you should put it quite like that." He grinned. "Because it is sort of a game. And it sounds to me that you want to be sure you win the game, no matter what. That's not how competition works, and this is the most cut-throat competition in the world. And you, little lady, are not the whole damned team. You're just one of the players. You want to be sure we win, then do your part or get the hell out of the game."
I felt like he just sucked all the wind out of my sails. "You need me!" I said, less forcefully than I wanted to. "I'm your silver bullet, remember?"
He laughed out loud. "Barbie, Doll, let me explain something. You're good. No, you're GREAT at what you do, but you aren't as important as you think." He huffed and shook his head. "The day you stop working for me will be like pulling your hand out of a bucket of water. The hole will close up."
I just sat there, a little stunned and if I'm honest, a little scared. I thought I could do this; demand more and get it. Now I just felt like a fool... because I realized for the first time, he was right. Steve and I both needed this much more than he needed either of us.
"You want to be sure you're getting the best deal you can get." He continued. "I can respect that. But you have to respect that I'm doing the same. So, do you want to talk about it?"
I gulped and nodded. "Yes. Okay."
He nodded and took out a pad for notes. "Six months is the mid-year fiscal quarter end. That means halfway through the fiscal year. Show's how much we've earned in the first half of the year. Now, Boy Wonder came out breathing fire, but lately he's just puffing a little smoke. We need to get him back in his A game!"
"How do we do that?" I asked.
