‘You’re meeting him here, in the bar. He’s a delegate at the Futures for Futures Traders conference.’
‘A banker.’
‘I suppose. Or a gambler. Actually, I have a feeling I might know him from the casino. Anyway, the cocktail bar at seven, then dinner at eight, then …’ He gives me a knowingly grotesque wink.
‘That’s only an hour from now.’
‘I know. Better get ready, eh? He asked for a businesslike look with sexy underwear beneath. High heels, pencil skirt type of thing. Maybe put your hair up.’
‘Did he have any other requests? Besides dress?’
‘He gave me the impression he expected his money’s worth.’
‘Oh. And what’s that? What’s included for seven hundred pounds?’
‘You decide.’ Lloyd’s hand lands on the small of my back. He doesn’t exactly pull me close or hug me, but it’s still a reassurance.
‘I can say no?’
‘Of course you can. But it’ll probably mean a fail, that’s all.’
‘I might not tell you about it.’
‘Conrad will tell me. My agency values feedback and offers partial refunds for clients who give it.’
‘What a great agency.’
‘Yeah, I think so. And I’ll be in the room next door, OK? There’s an interconnecting door. So if you need me …’
‘I won’t need you.’
We knock foreheads, bump noses. It seems like the prelude to a kiss, but at the last moment he ducks to the side and whispers in my ear, ‘One day you might.’
Then the lift pings and he hastens off to the ground floor, leaving me to contemplate my whoredom.
I go to change in Lloyd’s apartment, a suite of rooms behind the ground-floor office. I have plenty of my own clothes and belongings there – I am an almost-resident. I wonder, while I select scant silky stuff from a bedside drawer, why this isn’t enough for Lloyd. What difference would a formal change of status from frequent guest to cohabitee make? How long would it take for one or both of us to get complacent? At the moment we see each other because we want to. If I moved in properly, we would see each other because we had to. Surely living and working together would incur that kind of contempt-breeding familiarity I dread.
I choose an oyster shade for the basque and thong, having read somewhere that men find this ‘classy’ as opposed to the more obvious red and black stuff. But then, if he is paying for a whore, will he not expect me to dress like one?
I put back the oyster silk and bring out a truly tacky basque with scarlet satin and cheap black PVC panels. The matching knickers are crotchless, shiny and black, with a garishly red strip of lace running along the top. I snap some seamed stockings to the suspenders and pose, hands on hips, looking like a two-bit hooker, not that I understand what ‘two-bit’ means. To which two bits does the phrase refer? If it’s T&A, then I am giving plenty of that. I twirl, impressed by the amount of flesh I flash, surprised as always at how much more naked than actual nudity really bawdy underwear makes you look.
Over this I don the aforementioned pencil skirt with crisp white shirt, pearls and three-inch-heeled black patent pumps. I twist my hair into a chignon and reapply my make-up so it is a little less subtle, the lips redder, the cheeks glowier, the eyelashes thicker and blacker.
Pouting in the mirror, I suddenly realise that I am going to be wining and dining with my purchaser in full view of my staff. While many of them know me of old, and remember the days when I used the hotel bar as my own personal pick-up joint, this is still a strangely squirm-inducing thought.
I have the feeling Lloyd will be partaking of an early evening libation in the cocktail bar, and I am right. As I swan in on my spike heels, I spot him in a corner with two off-duty waiters, drinking bottled beer and playing games on their phones.
I avoid eye contact and instead scan the bar, looking for likely woman-buyers. Almost immediately a man in a dark-blue suit rises from his barstool and nods at me. I walk towards him, taking in the swept back dark hair with its scattering of silver, the expensive tan, the watchful eyes. Between forty and fifty in age, well upwards of 100K in salary.
‘Sophie?’ He puts out a hand.
‘You must be Conrad.’
We shake, like colleagues, business partners. Essentially, that’s what we are. I try to view it as an equal relationship, but his next words undo my optimistic imaginings.
‘Not bad,’ he says, and those two words are like a deluge of cold, dirty water. Not bad? ‘The picture was quite accurate for once.’
‘Good.’