Charlie waved Bob a cheery farewell, clicked off his car’s alarm system and sank contentedly back into the driver’s seat. Involuntarily he checked the pocket of his leather jacket, fingering the thick wodge of twenty-pound notes which nestled there.
Charlie was a male prostitute, a rent boy — although the term more usually referred to the gay trade and that was not Charlie’s game. He preferred to be called an escort and, after all, he worked for a rather upmarket agency — Bristol’s Avon Escorts, which still operated under the vague pretence that it provided escorts and nothing more. He was also undeniably straight — well, more or less. A few times in the past, when the price had been right, Charlie had serviced wealthy businessmen. But he didn’t enjoy gay sex. He didn’t feel demeaned by it or anything like that. It was just doing a job after all and there were aspects of every job that didn’t appeal to you much, Charlie reckoned. But he liked to enjoy his work. He took a pride in it. He looked after his body. Worked out. Kept himself clean. Never had unprotected sex with anyone. Charlie knew what he was doing.
Charlie had a smart flat in a recently redeveloped part of the old Bristol city docks. The three-roomed apartment in Spike Island Court, a red-brick residential complex of strikingly contemporary design, overlooked a marina full of satisfyingly expensive yachts — and Charlie had read all the home and design magazines he could lay his hands on before he had furnished and decorated his home.
A series of lively nights with an extremely well-preserved and very wealthy widow at her big country house had all but paid for the fashionable pale oak flooring he had laid throughout. Charlie remembered her with pleasure and affection as he did all his best clients. He suspected she had been in her early sixties, although she didn’t look it, but Charlie wasn’t ageist. By and large he actually preferred mature women, albeit with a few flaws. He certainly had little time for girls his own age. Compared with him, he felt, they knew so little about life and even less about sex.
Charlie pushed the button which lowered the roof of his car. It was still warm. He was playing Beethoven loudly on his state-of-the-art CD player. He had discovered Beethoven when he watched a pirate version of A Clockwork Orange — the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film which he had been surprised to learn was still banned from British cinemas and television. A Clockwork Orange was about mindless violence and Charlie had no violent tendencies at all that he knew about. The one thing he wouldn’t have anything to do with was sado-masochism — the very thought of it made him sick and they knew that at the agency. Nonetheless the excitement generated by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the film had got to him and it was because of it that he had begun seriously to listen to classical music.
He parked the BMW in his allotted place in the covered area beneath Spike Island Court and erected the electrically operated roof again. He couldn’t be bothered to wait for the lift. Instead he bounded up the concrete stairs to his third-floor flat, with Beethoven’s Ninth still reverberating within his head.
Inside the front door he allowed himself a small sigh of satisfaction. He slipped off his highly polished Gucci loafers and removed his socks as well. He liked to feel the coolness of the polished wood on his bare feet. And, as he often did, he thought about the floor’s provider. That arrangement had ended abruptly when the woman’s daughter had returned home uninvited after a broken marriage, naturally expecting that her widowed mother would be lonely and therefore grateful for her company. The woman was neither of those things and had been extremely irritated by an untimely interruption to an immensely well-ordered and satisfying life. She had her garden, her bridge parties, her dog, her books and Charlie. And she once told Charlie that she was much happier than she had ever been when her dull and rather grumpy husband had been alive.
She had never really enjoyed sex before either, she confessed. And, as Charlie had run a finger tantalisingly across her naked belly, she had gasped in pleasurable anticipation, then said crossly: ‘This is going to have to be the last time, damn it. We will have to end our little arrangement.’ Adding in a rather more amused understatement: ‘My daughter would never understand...’
Charlie smiled at the memory. He often knew more about his clients, their hopes and their fears, their true feelings, than their closest family and friends. But, he thought to himself, his mind switching to his most recent client, that certainly was not true of Mrs Pattinson.
Lost in thought, Charlie padded across the floor into his bedroom. The big double bed with its deep cream linen bedspread and black silk scatter cushions looked inviting. Charlie hated to admit it to himself, but he was a bit tired. That woman was demanding. He gave in, stretched out on the bed and lay gazing at the pale cream painted ceiling. The whole flat was painted in pale cream, but while in the unimaginative little rooms at the Crescent Hotel such choice of decor was simply utilitarian, here the effect was striking.
Charlie did not like the new trend for garishly bright colours. He didn’t think they were stylish. He also couldn’t quite get over the feeling that it was exactly what would be expected in the home of a young black man. Therefore he didn’t want to know. He never dressed in bright colours either. His clothes were mostly black, white or various shades of beige and cream. Even his car, although in every sense dashing, was an understated dark grey, and not even the metallic kind.
Charlie’s clothes lived in a fitted wardrobe at one end of his long narrow bedroom. His bed was at the other end. The wardrobe doors were made of a fine pale oak that matched the floor. The only other furniture in the room was a bedside table, also of pale oak — upon which stood a large cream ceramic table lamp — and a big squashy black leather armchair. There was no mirror visible. Charlie had spent too much time with people who liked to watch their own sexual activities strategically reflected.
The long side of the room opposite the door was almost entirely window and the view from it was a sweeping one out over the marina in the foreground and across the stretch of water branching off the River Avon known as the Floating Harbour, with Bristol Cathedral in the background. The window was framed by pale cream muslin curtains which almost blended with the walls.
The light was fading now although it was still a beautiful evening. Charlie always found his bedroom so relaxing. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to sleep, just to rest. He was still thinking about Mrs Pattinson and the sensational few hours he had spent with her. Apart from her sexual preferences — upon which he was something of an expert — Charlie knew nothing at all about Mrs Pattinson, even though he had been her regular for almost two years.
That was unusual. Charlie had begun to understand what women prostitutes had known for centuries. Their clients often treated them as therapists. Charlie had looked after a number of clients, some regulars, some just one-offs who kept their identity secret. In fact they almost all did and he automatically assumed that most of them used false names. The widow who had entertained him in her own home had been one of just a handful of exceptions to this rule. But even those who hid behind some fictitious personae were inclined to confide in him — this stranger who had brought them whatever release it was that they so eagerly sought.
Not so Airs Pattinson. Mrs Pattinson occasionally liked Charlie to talk about himself. He had told her all about his new apartment when he acquired it and she had applauded his plan to keep it simple and minimalist.
She had listened to his description and then told him: ‘I like the sound of it, Charlie. Very dramatic. Don’t clutter the walls either. Just one or two good paintings. Better one decent original, if you can afford it, than a dozen prints.’