Diary of an Escort: Josh

I was hiding under the bed like an affair partner in a porno, and for the first few minutes, I thought it was funny.

"See?" Josh said to his wife on FaceTime. "There's no one here. Just me."

From the carpet, I watched his shoes move across the hotel suite as he slowly panned the phone from one side of the room to the other. The angle gave me his ankles, the hem of his trousers, the occasional flash of white bedsheet above me.

"Why do you look so nice?" his wife asked. Her voice had that careful tightness people use when they are trying not to sound suspicious.

"I had dinner with clients."

This was a lie. Josh had dressed up to meet me at a nightclub. He had two kinks, as far as I could tell. The first was being seen. Josh called it public kissing, but kissing was a generous description. What he liked was pawing and licking and grinding himself against me in crowded places, preferably somewhere other people had to notice. We had barely finished introducing ourselves before he leaned toward me with glossy, drunken eyes and told me I was the most beautiful and interesting woman he had ever met.

So I took him by the tie and dragged him onto the dance floor. Then I kissed him hard enough for strangers to look over and think, Jesus Christ, get a room. We eventually did. Now I was underneath the bed in that room, pressed flat against hotel carpet, trying to remember whether I had left any lip gloss on his collar. I was pretty sure I had kept to his neck. Pretty sure.

"Show me the bathroom," his wife said.

Josh hesitated for half a second, then walked away. His voice changed when he reached the tile, taking on the hollow echo of the bathroom.

"How are the kids?" he asked brightly.

Then, before she could answer: "See? No one here."

There was a pause.

"Fine," she said. "The kids are fine."

He came back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress. The bed dipped above me. His ankles settled into my field of vision.

I checked my phone again, though I had already checked it twice. Silent. No vibration, no alarm I had forgotten about. Nothing that might suddenly begin singing from beneath the bed and ruin Josh's marriage several months ahead of schedule.

Josh's second kink was less social. Josh could not finish unless he jerked off to little videos of Japanese cartoon women bouncing around on his phone. I assumed porn addiction. I was a bit shocked that a man with as many employees as Josh had somehow ended up unable to come without hentai. Slippery slope, I guess. I also assumed he and his wife did not fuck very often, because how, exactly, do you explain that one to the mother of your children?

Could you hold this for me, sweetheart?

Can you make the cartoon girl full-screen?

I was easier. I was low-stakes. I was paid. So I appreciated the break for my jaw, licked his balls while he took care of himself, and held the phone at the right angle while the hentai played. Above me, his wife exhaled.

"I'm sorry," she said after a while. "I just worry."

Josh's voice softened.

"It's okay."

Another pause.

"Can I go to sleep now?"

"Yes."

The call ended. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the mattress shifted. Josh got down onto his hands and knees, and his face appeared upside down at the edge of the bed. He was grinning.

"You are seriously the coolest."

I stared back at him from the carpet.

"Yes, Josh," I said. "I am the coolest."

I crawled out, pushing my hair away from my face.

"But if you ever do this on an overnight, make the girl wait in the hall. Seriously. Send her out there with her whole suitcase. Shoes, purse, everything. And make sure she takes every single beauty product out of the bathroom. A smart woman asks to see the shower. And the closet."

He blinked at me. I brushed dust from my dress.

"You're welcome."

"Can we fuck again?" he asked, after a moment.

"Sure," I said.

"Maybe we could take a shower?"

I laughed.

"Okay. You can rub soap all over my tits in the shower. But we are at time, so I expect you to clear out my wish list when I get home. Deal?"

"Deal."