Author: Akiko

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“Can I book you again?” I typed. “Properly. I won’t panic this time. I promise.”

The dots went for a long time.

“You want to book me. Knowing it’s me.”

“Knowing it’s you is the whole point.”

Another long pause. I imagined her on the other side of Manchester, in bed, staring at her phone with her eyebrows up.

“That’s either the most romantic or the most mental thing a client’s ever said to me. Possibly both.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a let me think about it.” Then, ten minutes later: “Here’s the thing, Ben. If you book me, you get Sienna. Sienna is great. Sienna is very, very good at her job. Sienna does not cry at Toy Story 3 with you or tell your sister anything.”

“And if I don’t book you?”

“Then you get Tess. And Tess is a lot more complicated, and she has opinions, and she might not want to be paid by someone she’s known since she was twenty-one.”

I read it four times.

“So which one is it?” I typed.

“Your choice. You booked. You decide. Tomorrow night, same time. Or I can just say goodnight and we’ll pretend this conversation was a dream.”

I looked at the ceiling. I looked at the envelope, still on the kitchen counter, still full.

→ I tell her I want to book her for tomorrow night

→ I tell her I’d rather wait for Tess

← Back

I went. Obviously I went. My mum would have driven to Manchester and collected me personally.

The Hartley family home in Stockport was full of tinsel, my dad’s terrible jazz CD and the smell of roast potatoes. Gemma flung her arms round me at the door. Behind her, in the hallway, wearing reindeer antlers and holding a glass of mulled wine, was Tess.

Our eyes met. Something happened to my face. Something happened to hers.

“Ben!” Tess said brightly. Too brightly. “Long time no see!”

“Ages,” I squeaked. “Literally ages. Months. Since. The barbecue.”

Gemma looked between us. “Why are you both being weird?”

“We’re not being weird,” we said at exactly the same time.

Dinner was a nightmare. Mum seated us opposite each other. Every time I looked up, Tess was looking at me. Every time she looked up, I was looking at my sprouts. At one point her foot brushed mine under the table and I knocked over the gravy.

After pudding Gemma announced it was time for Secret Santa. She’d drawn the names, she said, and she’d made sure nobody got their own.

“Ben,” she said, handing me a small wrapped box with a wink, “you’ve got Tess’s present. And Tess has got yours.”

Across the room, Tess turned the colour of the cranberry sauce.

I could survive this by avoiding her for the rest of the night. Or I could go and sit next to her.

→ I avoid her for the rest of Christmas

→ I go and sit next to her for Secret Santa

← Back

I shut up and let her lead.

Tess took my hand and walked me into my own bedroom like she’d been there before. She sat me on the end of the bed. Then she stood between my knees and unbuttoned my shirt very slowly, one button at a time, kissing each inch of skin she uncovered.

“You’re shaking,” she said.

“It’s cold.”

“It’s twenty-two degrees, Ben.” She laughed and pushed the shirt off my shoulders. “It’s all right. I’m nervous too. Isn’t that funny? I’m never nervous.”

She turned around and I unzipped her dress with fumbling fingers. It slid to the floor. She stepped out of it in black lace and heels and turned back to face me, and I genuinely forgot how to breathe.

She knelt and unbuckled my belt. She looked up at me through her lashes, then took my cock into her warm mouth, slow and deep, until I groaned and gripped the duvet. Then she climbed onto the bed, rolled a condom on me with expert fingers, and straddled my hips.

“Ready?” she whispered.

She sank down onto me. We both gasped. She started to move, slow and deep, her hands on my chest, and I held her hips and thought, this is the best night of my life.

Then my phone started ringing on the bedside table. Loud. My ringtone. The screen lit up.

GEMMA CALLING.

→ I ignore it completely

→ I answer it, because she’ll only keep ringing

← Back

“Can I take you for a drink?” I typed. “Not a booking. No money, no agency. Just a drink. Like normal people.”

The dots went for a long time.

“Normal people who’ve seen each other in a doorway at 9pm with an envelope of cash?”

“Yes. Those normal people.”

“Saturday. The Marble Arch. 7pm. If you’re late I’m leaving.”

I was early. Forty minutes early. She was ten minutes late on purpose, she told me afterwards, because she’d wanted to see if I’d wait. She wore jeans and a green jumper and her curls were piled on her head, and she looked so like the girl from the barbecues and so unlike the woman on my doorstep that my brain kept short-circuiting.

We talked for four hours. About everything except the doorstep. Then, at last orders, with her third gin and my fourth pint, about the doorstep, and we laughed so loudly the barman looked over.

“I thought you’d never speak to me again,” she said.

“I thought you’d think I was a creep.”

“You booked a woman who likes old films and honest men.” She smiled into her glass. “That’s not creepy. That’s kind of adorable.”

Outside on the pavement it was raining. She stood under my umbrella, very close, and looked up at me.

“I’m literally two streets from here,” she said.

→ I kiss her under the umbrella

→ I walk her to her door and say goodnight

← Back

“Maybe we should keep it professional,” I said. “For both our sakes. Otherwise it gets complicated. Gemma, Christmas, all of it.”

Tess nodded slowly. “That’s sensible.” She didn’t sound like she thought it was sensible. She sounded a tiny bit hurt, and was hiding it, and doing a very good job.

“Not because I don’t like you,” I added quickly. “Because I do.”

“Ben. Stop talking.” But she was smiling. She stood up, smoothed down her dress, and became somebody slightly different: straighter, more confident, the version of her I imagined other men got. “Right. Professional. Then here’s how professional works.”

She walked to the kitchen counter, picked up the envelope and weighed it in her palm. Then she put it down again without opening it.

“I’ll tell you what I’m comfortable with,” she said, “and you tell me what you’d like, and we meet in the middle. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m comfortable with most things. Not kissing on the mouth, because that’s personal, and we’ve just agreed this isn’t.” Her eyes flicked to my lips and away. “Anything else, you can ask.”

My mouth was very dry.

The envelope sat between us on the counter like a third person in the room. I realised I had no idea whether she was going to take it.

→ I push the envelope towards her and insist she takes it

→ I ask her, very politely, for just her mouth

← Back

“Promise me first,” I said. “That it stays between us. Not just Gemma. Everyone. I’ll promise too.”

Tess held out her little finger, completely seriously. “Pinky promise. Like when we were kids and you swore not to tell your mum I’d broken the greenhouse.”

I hooked my little finger round hers. “I never told.”

“I know. That’s why I trust you.” She didn’t let go of my finger. She used it to pull me closer. “Nobody. Not Gemma, not your mates, not my agency, not your diary.”

“I don’t have a diary.”

“Liar.” She kissed my jaw. “This is ours.”

Something about the word ours went straight through me. She felt it, I think. She smiled against my skin and slid her hands under my shirt, her palms cool on my stomach.

“Here’s a confession, since we’re doing secrets,” she murmured. “I’ve been thinking about this since I saw your face on the doorstep. Not the job. You.”

She stepped back and unzipped her dress and let it fall. Black lace, curves, a little tattoo of a swallow on her hip that I definitely hadn’t seen at any barbecue.

“Now,” she said, eyes sparkling. “I could just give you exactly what you paid for. Or I could make you wait for it. Really, really wait.”

→ I let her make me wait

→ I ask if I can see her again after tonight

← Back

I took the plate. I said thank you. I said goodnight.

“Seriously?” Tess said.

“I just think it’s complicated. With Gemma. And the job. And the whole doorstep thing.”

She looked at me for a long moment, snow in her curls, red coat, pink nose. Then she nodded, slowly.

“Okay,” she said. “Your loss, Ben Hartley.”

She walked off down the corridor. I closed the door. I ate the leftovers standing up at the counter. They were delicious. Mum’s stuffing is always delicious. I didn’t taste any of it.

At New Year, Gemma had a party. Tess was there, in a silver dress that made every man in the room forget his own name. She was perfectly friendly to me. Perfectly polite. She danced with a tall guy called Viktor, thirty-four, who worked in finance and laughed at everything he said.

At midnight, when everyone kissed, she kissed Viktor.

At ten past midnight, she walked past me on the way to the kitchen, leaned in very close and whispered in my ear.

“For the record,” she said. “I’d have stayed the night.”

Then she went back to Viktor.

I went home at one. I ate the last of the cold trifle. I have never in my life regretted a plate of leftovers so much.

Ending 16 of 16: Cold Turkey. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

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“I noticed you too,” I said. “At Gemma’s twenty-fifth. You wore a yellow dress and danced to Abba with my dad. I thought about you for a month. I told myself it was weird because you were Gemma’s friend.”

Tess put her wine down very carefully.

“Ben,” she said. “That’s not fair.”

“Why not?”

“Because now this isn’t a booking anymore.” She looked at the envelope on the counter, still sealed. “This is something else.”

I kissed her. Or she kissed me. It was hard to tell, afterwards. It was soft and then not soft at all, her hands in my hair, my hand on the warm curve of her waist, years of barbecue glances landing all at once. She pulled me down onto the sofa and climbed into my lap and kissed me like she’d been saving it up.

“I’m not charging you,” she breathed against my mouth. “Just so you know. Not for this.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. If you try and give me that envelope I’ll hit you with it.”

I slid my hands up her thighs under the black dress. She moaned softly and rocked against me.

Then my phone buzzed on the coffee table. And again. And again.

GEMMA, said the screen. Then a message preview: “Are you up?? Need to tell you something about Tess.”

Tess saw it. We both froze.

→ I turn the phone face down and tell Tess it’s just us tonight

→ I pick up the phone and reply to Gemma

← Back

I went and sat next to her on the sofa.

“Hi,” I said quietly, under the noise of Dad trying to work the karaoke machine.

“Hi,” she said. Her knee was touching mine. “Open yours first. Please. Before I die.”

I unwrapped the little box. Inside was a single business card, matte black, with nothing on it but a phone number and a hand-drawn little red heart.

On the back she’d written: This one doesn’t go to the agency. No envelope required. T x

I looked at her. She was bright pink.

“Your turn,” I managed.

She opened my present. It was a pair of fluffy socks. I had panic-bought them at a petrol station.

She burst out laughing. “Socks. Ben. I give you my private number and you give me socks.”

“They’re very good socks.”

“They’re hideous.” But she was smiling.

Later, while Gemma made everyone sing Fairytale of New York, Tess caught my eye and tilted her head towards the hallway. I followed her out. She pulled me into my parents’ utility room, pushed me against the tumble dryer, and kissed me hard, her hand sliding inside my jeans and stroking me until I had to bite my own fist.

“Merry Christmas,” she whispered, letting go.

She walked back to the living room wearing the hideous socks.

Ending 14 of 16: Secret Santa. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

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“Come in,” I said. “Please.”

She came in. She put the plate of leftovers on my counter. Then she took her red coat off, and her scarf, and her jumper, and kept going, standing in my kitchen with snow melting in her hair, until she was down to a pair of Christmas pants with puddings on them.

“These were a joke present from Gemma,” she said, scarlet. “I did not plan this.”

I kissed her. She tasted of mulled wine and cold air. I picked her up and she wrapped her legs round me and I carried her to my bed, still in my dressing gown, both of us laughing.

There was no envelope. No rules except the important ones. She rolled a condom onto me herself and pulled me inside her, and we went slowly, so slowly, foreheads pressed together, the snow falling outside the window. She came with a soft cry and her nails in my back. I came with her.

Later we ate Mum’s leftover turkey in bed, cold, with our fingers. Then the trifle. She fed me a spoonful and licked the custard off my chin and that turned into round two, faster and messier and far louder.

At midnight Gemma texted us both. “Is he alive?”

Tess texted back from my pillow. “Very.”

“Good. Say happy Christmas from me x”

Tess put the phone down and grinned. “Happy Christmas, Ben.”

Ending 15 of 16: Leftovers. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning