Author: Akiko

← Back

“Again,” I said. “Properly. I want you again.”

She grinned and pushed me onto my back. “Then you’d better be quick, Mr Whitlock.”

I was not quick. That was the problem.

She went down on me first, slow and devastating, until I was hard as iron, and then rolled a fresh condom on and turned around and lowered herself onto me facing away, her pale freckled back arching, her hands on my knees. The view was ridiculous. I held her hips and watched myself disappear into her, over and over, and she rocked harder and faster and started to moan, and I was close, God, I was so close.

Her phone alarm went off.

It was a cheerful little xylophone tune. It played three times. Vivienne stopped moving.

“Ah,” she said.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m so sorry.” She was laughing, and trying not to, and failing. “I’ve got another booking at eleven across town. I genuinely can’t.”

“Five minutes. I’ll pay for five minutes.”

“The agency doesn’t do five minutes.” She climbed off me, kissed me on the forehead, and started gathering her clothes. “Next time,” she said, “maybe book three hours.”

The door closed behind her. I lay there alone, rock hard, staring at the ceiling, while the xylophone tune played on a loop in my head for the rest of the night.

I booked three hours next time.

Ending 3 of 16: Time’s Up. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

I asked. Badly, with a lot of ums.

Vivienne just smiled. “Anal,” she said, helpfully. “You can say the word, Graham. I’m not going to faint.”

“Is it, er…”

“It’s on my list. With the right man, slowly, with lots of lube, and with me in charge of the pace.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “You’d be my first client in a while. I don’t offer it to people who are rude in emails.”

She fetched a bottle from her bag and showed me, step by step, like a very patient teacher. Fingers first, then one more, slick and slow, her face in the pillow, her breath coming harder. Then she rolled a fresh condom onto me, lubed me herself, and knelt on the bed with her back arched.

“Slowly,” she said. “I’ll push back when I’m ready.”

I held still and let her. She pressed back onto me a little at a time, gasping, until I was all the way inside, the heat and tightness of it almost unbearable. She reached between her own legs and touched herself and told me to move. I did, carefully, then less carefully when she asked.

She came first, shaking. I lasted about four more seconds.

Afterwards she lay on her front, grinning into the pillow.

“Five stars on the website, please,” she said. “Under the bonus clause.”

Ending 4 of 16: The Bonus Clause. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

“I think I’m falling for you,” I said.

I watched it land. Something closed in her face, very gently, like a door being pulled to so it doesn’t bang.

“That’s lovely, Graham,” she said, and kissed my cheek, and got out of bed.

She dressed without hurrying. Green dress, heels, pins back into her hair. She was kind about it. She said it happens. She said the extra hours make it feel real, and that it was real, in its way, and that I should go home and find someone who could give me the rest of it.

“Can I see you again?”

“You can book me again,” she said at the door. “That’s different.”

I booked her the following month, when I came back up for the contract signing. The agency said Vivienne was unavailable. I tried the month after. Unavailable. I sent a careful, embarrassing message through the website and got a polite automated reply.

In March I walked past a little gallery in Leith and saw a poster for an exhibition. Isla Rennie, paintings. I stood outside for ten minutes like a teenager.

I didn’t go in. Some rules, I’d finally understood, weren’t hers to break. They were mine to respect.

I still have the hotel receipt for the chips. It’s in a drawer. I don’t know why.

Ending 2 of 16: Ghosted. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

“Stay,” I said. “No clock. No money. Just stay, if you want to.”

Isla looked at me for a long time. Then she picked up her phone, texted the agency that she was home safe, and turned it off.

“I never do this,” she said. “It’s my number one rule.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know. You’re guessing.” But she slid back under the duvet and curled into me, and we talked until two, and fell asleep with her leg hooked over mine.

I woke at seven to grey Edinburgh light and her mouth on my neck.

“Morning,” she whispered. “I’m breaking rule number two now.”

She kissed down my chest, slow and sleepy, and took my cock into her mouth until I was gripping the sheets. Then she climbed on top of me, rolled on a condom, and sank down with a soft groan. No performance this time. Just her, hair wild, freckles bare, moving on me slow and deep while the city woke up outside. I held her hips and watched her face as she came, trembling, her forehead pressed to mine. I followed a moment later, saying her real name.

Afterwards she lay on my chest and drew circles.

“Rule number three,” she said, “is never give a client your number.”

She took my phone and typed it in herself.

Ending 1 of 16: Off the Clock. You found the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

I went back inside. I don’t know what I was thinking. I think I was thinking I was on a roll.

Jade was at the bar. I sat down next to her and asked for a dance.

She leaned in to kiss my cheek, then stopped an inch from my neck and sniffed.

“Vanilla,” she said.

“Sorry?”

“You smell of vanilla and cigarettes.” She sat back and looked me up and down: the rumpled collar, the stain on my shirt I hadn’t noticed under the alley streetlight. “And that’s Scarlett’s lipstick on your ear.”

“I can explain.”

“Babe, I don’t need you to explain. I’ve worked here seven years.” She laughed, properly delighted. “You went out the fire door to go home, got a handjob off my mate in the alley, and came back in for seconds. That’s actually impressive.”

At the end of the bar, Scarlett had come back from her break. She saw the two of us together and her smile vanished.

“Oh, she’s going to kill you,” Jade said happily.

She didn’t kill me. She walked over, took my drink out of my hand, finished it and said, “I said pick me first. Not pick me, then her, then whoever’s free.” Then she walked away.

Jade gave me one song on the floor, out of pity, and told Dez the whole story, loudly. By the time I left, the bar staff were calling me Vanilla.

I didn’t go back for a month. When I did, they still were.

Ending 24 of 25: Wrong Perfume. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

Next Friday I walked into the Velvet Room, paid my cover and didn’t even sit down. Jade drifted towards me. I smiled, apologised and walked straight past her to the redhead at the end of the bar.

“I’m picking you first,” I said.

Scarlett looked up, and the grin she gave me was worth every penny I didn’t have. “Took you long enough. VIP?”

“VIP.”

In the booth she pulled the curtain and pushed me down onto the couch.

“Bryony,” she said. “That’s my real name. You’ve earned it.” Then she glanced up at the corner. “And the camera in this booth’s been broken since Tuesday.”

She stripped slowly, black lace on the floor, then knelt and unzipped me with cold, eager fingers. She sucked me deep for a full song while I gripped the velvet, then climbed into my lap and rolled a condom down me from her garter.

“No rules,” she whispered, and sank onto me.

She was hot and soaking, and she rode me hard, my hands finally on every inch of her, her freckled tits in my mouth, her nails in my shoulders. The couch thumped the wall. Somewhere down the corridor Dez coughed pointedly. She didn’t care. She came grinding on me with a sharp little cry, and I came hard right after her, holding her down.

She stayed in my lap, forehead to mine.

“Next week,” she said, “you don’t pay. You pick me up at two and take me for chips.”

“Deal.”

“And Owen? Always pick me first.”

Ending 23 of 25: First Pick. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

I woke at six with a crick in my neck and the cat sitting on my chest. Priya’s bedroom door was half open. I could hear her breathing, slow and deep.

And I panicked. I don’t know why. Something about the daylight. Something about her real name and her real flat and her real cat, and the job centre, and the kettle, and the whole week landing on me at once.

I found my shoes. I left a note on the back of a takeaway menu: Thank you for last night. You were amazing. Owen. No number. I didn’t even think about the number.

The front door was double-locked. The key wasn’t in it. I stood there for a minute and a half rattling it as quietly as a door can be rattled, which is not very quietly.

“Top drawer,” said Priya, behind me.

She was in the bedroom doorway in an oversized T-shirt, arms folded, hair everywhere. She’d read the note. It was in her hand.

“I was going to…”

“Make coffee?” she said. “Wake me up? Stay?” She shook her head, opened the drawer and handed me the key. “Seven years I’ve been dancing, and the first man I bring home tries to sneak out at six in the morning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not a bad guy, Owen. You’re just not ready.” She opened the door for me. “Friday’s still twenty a song.”

I walked home along the canal in last night’s shirt, past joggers and dog-walkers, smelling of red wine and her perfume, feeling like the stupidest man in the city.

Ending 21 of 25: The Walk of Shame. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

I found the kettle, two mismatched mugs and a jar of instant, and carried them through to her bedroom at half nine like a man carrying the crown jewels.

Priya was tangled in the duvet, hair everywhere, one bare shoulder out. She opened one eye.

“You made coffee.”

“I made coffee. You’ve got a very good kettle.”

She laughed, sat up and let the duvet fall to her waist, completely unbothered, and took the mug. “Get in, talker. It’s freezing.”

I got in. The coffee lasted about four sips.

Then she was kissing me, her mouth hot and bitter, pushing my boxers down, and I was finally, properly touching her. Her full tits, the swallow tattoo, her smooth olive thighs opening for my hand. She was already wet. She pulled a condom out of the bedside drawer and rolled it onto me herself.

“Last night was the warm-up,” she whispered.

She climbed on top and sank down slowly, eyes closed, a long shuddering breath. Morning light through cheap curtains. No sequins, no menus, no buzzer. She rode me slow and deep, then pulled me over on top of her, wrapped her legs round me and dragged me in harder. She came with her head thrown back, loud enough to make the cat leave the room. I came with her, buried deep, kissing her neck.

We lay there sweaty, the coffee going cold on the side.

“Seven years I’ve been waiting for a man to bring me coffee,” Priya said.

“I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling into my chest. “You will.”

Ending 20 of 25: Morning Coffee. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning