Free Private Relations by J.M. Hall Page A

work.”
    “Are you ever going to tell me about this other job of yours? I’d really like to know who gets the rest of your time.”
    “I would never work for one of your competitors behind your back,” I said. “You know that.”
    “As long as you aren’t trafficking drugs across the border, I suppose we won’t have anything to worry about.”
    I desperately wanted to tell Kurt the truth. Just as I’d revealed my true identity to Bianca, I felt an overwhelming need to tell Kurt who I was outside of his office. That when the sun went down on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, I was no longer Jesse. I became Matthew: a high-priced escort for any woman or couple that could afford my services.
    Oh, the adventures I could share. Accompanying an Upper East Side divorcee to the Opera, only to have sex in the limo on the way to the Met. Or the time when one particularly adventurous woman   wanted me to pretend to break into her apartment in Gramercy Park, only to be “captured” and forced to pleasure her all night long less she call the police.
    And then there were the women who read Fifty Shades of Grey one too many times, and wanted nothing more than to put them over my knee and spank their asses until they were bright red.
    “I’m a male escort,” I said. “That’s my other job.”
    “Come again?”
    “If they’re lucky. I’ve been doing it since college.”
    “You… what?”
    “I like sex, and I like money. I figure I should do this now while I still can. And I don’t think you’d be surprised to learn that many times, I rather enjoy it.”
    Kurt stared at me in disbelief, then started laughing. It was a deep, throaty laugh that came up from his stomach and shook his shoulders as it exited his mouth. His face turned bright red and tears glistened in the corners of his eyes.
    “Something funny?” I asked.
    “You really had me!” he said. “You might be in the wrong career, my friend. For a minute there you were so convincing I actually believed you.”
    “But…”
    Kurt continued to laugh, convinced that I’d been making a joke. And soon, I began to laugh as well. There I was, trying to come clean to one of the people I respect most, and it’d turned into a comedy routine.
    “I have to run to a meeting,” Kurt added. “But we’ll catch up first thing tomorrow morning, all right?”
    “I’ll be in a bit later,” I said. “I trust you already have the team working on a battle plan for the Academy?”
    “Yes, of course.” Kurt paused, his mouth spreading into a grin. “Don’t let me keep you from your night job.”
    “As a matter of fact, I have a client event to go to later tonight,” I said, my tone dripping with sarcasm. Little did Kurt know, I was actually telling the truth.

 
    Chapter 12

 
 
 
    Rich people loved orgies.
    The limousine pulled up to the mansion on East Eighty-Fourth Street between Fifth and Madison. A stone’s throw away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the mansion was part of Manhattan’s spectacular Museum Mile, a collection of meticulously maintained homes dating back to the early 1900s, if not earlier.
    I got out of the limousine and walked to the front door. A uniformed guard stood at the entrance, but as soon as I gave him the password -- Libre -- I walked right inside.
    Patrons sipped champagne beneath the soaring white columns of the foyer. Others disappeared hand-in-hand up the spiraling staircase, kissing and caressing along the way. I walked to the open bar, got myself a glass of champagne.
    Of all the places in the world, an orgy is where I felt most at home.
    My dear friend Autumn was the organizer behind the event. A former escort herself, she decided that she preferred being a “madam” and taking a cut of her girls’ earnings. She eventually segued into what she called event planning -- that is, planning a series of sexual soirees for Manhattan’s elite.
    She’d been the one who introduced me the world of sex work back when