Mr & Mister Danvers: Initiation - 11. EPISODE 10: COVENT GARDEN

EPISODE 10: COVENT GARDEN

Shimmering lights gleamed from the ceiling by the husband and bride’s entry and mottled into an explosion of sunlight like particles raised from the breaking of a tomb.

The bride stood for a moment, letting her eyes grow into the blasting lights, then walked slowly forward, anticipating all the cheers and praises of their invited friends and relatives.

I thought perhaps the groom was planning on running away; his eyes casting about in every direction was a sign he was searching for an exit.

Though it might be too late, we’re already at the reception, not the wedding per se.

Watching the bride’s halting progress as she posed and flaunted her engagement ring in front of the cameras flashing her face, she traversed the large stage and walked around like a pageant queen waiting to be crowned.

Tucking my white dress shirt into my black pants, I said to Danny while pushing a trolley, "Did you say anything to your boss about me?"

"Yeah, I texted them." He dropped a plate of roast chicken, peas, and mash on table 34 to a lady who gestured for him to move away as she watched the bride cry and do air kisses.

"Them?" I said, wondering if I misheard the pronoun used.

"Yeah. I haven’t really seen the boss mate. Who knows, the boss might be an it. We just communicate through text, and that’s it."

"How convenient."

He asked me, "Are you having second thoughts, bruv?"

"Well of course," I said, refilling a glass with powdered iced tea diluted in water. I lowered my voice as I looked around me. "I would be selling my body, for crying out loud. Of course, I’d be having second thoughts."

"Yeah, in exchange for loads of money. But that depends on the client. Not everyone wants sex."

"Geezus mate. You told me it’s only for hand jobs and a bit of petting."

He turned to me as he pulled the cart.

"Stop whingeing. If I had your face and your body, I’d be the highest-paid straight escort by now, bruv. I’d be drowning in pussies, and that’s a fact. Not everyone’s lucky to have your gifts, bro. And if I were you, I’d be using that to my advantage to get out of this fucking hellhole."

Average-height, thin dark eyebrows, dyed blonde hair, and brown eyes with skin glazed with a hint of melanin, Danny’s offsetting disproportionate feature lies in his crooked nose and misplaced eyes, with one eye a teeny bit higher than the other.

He’s still a great-looking guy.

But then again, that’s just me.

He did say I have no taste in the same sex after he saw this bloke I had dated who had a lazy eye.

I mean, I’d like to think I don’t discriminate considering that Marc, the one with the lazy eye, gave an amazing toe-curdling jobby.

I gently pulled Danny around and asked, "You told your boss I’m gay, right?"

"Heck yeah," he said, tossing another guest their dinner plate. "They need you to have a boner bruv. You don’t want to be wapping pussies with a shrunken willy."

"Didn’t you mention that your employer also has a non-sexual escort site? Maybe you could tell them I’d rather be in that than the other thing. I really don’t want to be selling my body for sex. I’m ok with accompanying men and women to weddings, or attending their nan’s birthday, or something like that."

We went on to the other table as soon as the bride and groom were in their seats.

Announcing her baby bump, the groom downed a glass of champagne and gestured to the nearest waiter, "More please!"

"Sure mate," said Danny, pouring gravy onto a gravy boat. "You can tell them that you wanted the no-sex escorting. You’re definitely going to get in, I promise."

I smiled and was discerningly worried about this.

But I trust this man.

He’s been a great mate ever since I got out of the police force, as he was the one who hooked me up with this waitering gig.

I found out about this whole escort thing when I saw Christian talking to Danny.

Christian was a meek, carrot-laced bear of a bloke.

At six-six, he towered over almost everyone except those freakishly taller than he was.

Pretty and gingerly broad-chested, he stood intimidatingly unless he spoke, and you’d ask him twice what he’d said with how soft and provocative his speaking voice is, like the stroking of a lover just before you hit the sheets.

I’ve had the biggest crush on him ever since he became a part of my shift.

With a 16-year-old teen and a 9-year-old girl, his kids loved Brady, and they’ve had awesome playdates in the past.

The only thing that had stopped me from going to a motel with him for a night of unforgettable fun was that bloody ring on his finger and the presence of this annoying thing called his wife.

Henpecked as he was, I had a feeling he’d swing the other way if she was dead or she was out on a trip to the Bahamas with a gardener or a husky fireman.

He and I nearly kissed at the New Year’s Eve party last year.

Before the idea of locking our lips had possessed his spirit, he heard his wife calling for him, and he said, "I gotta go. You’re a lovely guy, Greg. But I, er, I love my family. See you around."

He did say he loved his family, but he never said that he loved his wife.

Such a shame.

We never spoke again about that night.

At one bar mitzvah, I overheard the two of them in the stockroom behind the kitchen.

And Christian had asked Danny if he could speak to the boss about the job, as he had requested that Danny put in a good word for him.

I confronted them separately.

Both denied that what they discussed in secret wasn’t drug-related or anything of the criminal kind.

He’d quit a few weeks after that.

Months later, Christian dropped by the head office of the waitering company to get his last paycheck.

To everyone’s astonishment, he had come in looking like a Hollywood superstar with his opened polo shirt, his black vest, his double-breasted pastel suit, and his £88,000 Porsche 911 S, which he had parked in front of the office for everyone to see.

The one major change in the overall aesthetic he’d had was his new teeth, formerly a bucktooth now set with a perfect smile glistening with a white sheen.

He appeared more daring and alluring, and the lubricious looks of the female staff members and my envy that I wanted him more for myself were reflections of his altered personality.

He had grown more certain, boisterous, and, most importantly, confident, with a dash of arrogance.

I had heard from the grapevine that Christian used to work as an offshore finance manager at some bank in Manchester.

The bank had filed for bankruptcy, and he wasn’t able to bounce off unemployment; thus, he’d been left with no choice but to work as a waiter.

His alibi was watertight, supported by evidence and a phoney online company profile that I personally reviewed and verified, and it was explained by the fact that he was an investment banker at the Square Mile, which also explained his attire, the automobile, and the suspicious swagger with which he had boasted about his career and contacts.

Everything about his new job was impervious to any doubts or questions we had thrown at him.

It was as though he was playing a part, and we were all fools who had paid for a ticket to watch him act.

And it was more than enough to tickle my curiosity about what he really did.

I confronted Danny about Christian while Ryan and I were visiting him at his flat.

Danny and Ryan were already good friends before Ryan introduced me to him.

Danny often assumed the role of an uncle, picking up his nephew after work when his sister left her child off at the daycare that Ryan manages.

Informally keeping with each other's circle after discussing toddler-related issues and their shared love of trademark-branded shoes, Ryan became close friends with the small, chatty Persian.

Then, Ryan was invited by Danny to attend his nephew's second birthday, and Ryan came with a plus one—me.

That night when the three of us were having drinks at Danny’s flat, I blurted first the topic as a joke, like an icebreaker, chivvying in his ear that Christian might work in insider trading or he might be a drug mule for the London drug cartels.

After an hour of constant barrage and playing a guessing game regarding Christian’s occupation, the floodgates opened, and he began spilling everything to us.

Apparently, Christian was not just a mere escort; he was an exclusive, high-class escort, one of the top-paid escorts in the whole of London, earning more than £5k to £10k per session, where he got to see around ten to twenty clients per month.

Confessing to me that there were even escorts who were paid £50 to £100k, even £200k a night, it floored me to assume that the clientele of whoever Danny was working for were multi-millionaires to whopping billionaires.

Danny’s real job, apart from busing tables and serving guests their soggy meals at random events, was to recruit eligible men and women who have the face and body to serve at the pleasure and satisfaction of those who can afford it.

They had people doing the recruiting in every industry, those moonlighting for a specific job, until they gave a business card that led to a secured and encrypted online portal about the nature of this endeavour.

The recruiters got around thousands of pounds, depending on the quality of the hire.

The nature of the work was legal, even recognised by the government, and clients were vetted by a three-point system: those who do not cause harm, those who do not enjoy physical harm, and those who enjoy suffering and cause suffering as a big no-no to the occupation.

Slave and master, or S&M, were allowed, so long as the escort was comfortable with the agreed practises, and whatever was agreed upon was not deleterious to the escort’s life.

Accompanying the male escorts at every meeting or service were two large husky men brought in as a safeguarding measure to ensure the escort’s safety and well-being—with female escorts having at least four.

Lastly, everything was rooted in a non-disclosure agreement to keep the identity of the clients who acquired these services.

There was no paper trail.

No online transactions.

Everything was done the classic way, with a point-drop system where clients would leave the payment at specified locations only known to ‘fetchers’ assigned by the big boss, and that was the extent of what Danny knows.

After he had told us everything, I tried to process the nature of his work.

Ryan seemed aloof with the notion, telling himself that he’s very aware that he’ll never be on Danny's radar to be a high-class escort for looking like a gay chav who’ll beat you up in an alley for eying up their man because you said excuse me.

There was this bias that formed in my head that whatever Danny’s real job was, I had to stay away from it and distance myself from him.

And he noticed it as we talked less and began to spend time apart.

I even heard him leave voicemails on my phone to ask me if we wanted to hang around his apartment.

That lasted until my hypocrisy bit me last week when I called him out of my desperation and hopelessness, saying that I wanted in.

That I needed this job.

That I want a better life for my family even if it costs me my dignity—whatever the fuck this dignity truly means.

In this world that would spit on you if you didn’t have a name, property, or money, how far was I willing to go to earn these things in exchange for my self-respect?

I wondered, will everything be worth it in the end?

On my way home from walking through Covent Garden’s Apple Market at 2:49 AM, a man in a winter coat was on an aerial platform cleaning the giant disco ball hanging in the centre.

Several of them dangled across the market along with ornamental fig leaves that were as tall as three grown men.

Large floating chandeliers strung across the ceiling illuminated the entire market and its empty food court seats.

They looked like christmas ornaments set in the middle of spring.

At this hour, the place was dreary and a bit spooky, if you ask me.

I felt a slight comfort seeing a person in motion as one store employee pulled down the 'We're Closed' sign, then turned off the lights and locked the door.

As I continued my walk through sleepless London, the night was chilly, and I may have forgotten to bring a coat, relying on a knitted-sleeved shirt and some pants to keep me warm.

I rubbed my arms, but not entirely from the cold.

The last time I saw Nathan was a few days ago.

We would be having dinner tomorrow night, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Last week, we went to the movies to watch a depressing movie about violent explosions and retribution, but what really happened was that we became so bored that all we did for the most part was make out in the empty cinema and do some heavy petting at the last showing.

Idly arising from my curiosity to see his facial expression during a blowjob, an idea popped into my head.

I pondered if he would be as expressive and growling as a bear as I had pictured him to be, or whether he would be completely quiet and timid, shrugging everything off and keeping to himself.

Therefore, as we kissed more turbulently and it got too heated for that, when I started to gesture that I would go down on him, he pulled my chin up and stated, "I don't want our first time to be in this sketchy-looking movie theatre. It has to be special. I want this to be special for the both of us."

His words were magic—it instantly turned me on, so much so that I could suck him dry in his seat.

How could he think of me when I was planning on sucking the shit out of his dick and probably giving him the best blowjob of his life?

He was being more than considerate; he was being romantic as hell.

I kissed him more passionately as we both continued our make-out session, gushing over the fact that he had genuinely thought of me like a true gentleman.

And that only made me want him more.

Debating whether to text him or call him, I pulled out my messenger bag and fished out my phone.

In my mind, I could not stop picturing Nathaniel Worthington without feeling his warm lips touch the corners of my mouth.

Not so much because of what he had done for me.

But because of the person that he was.

A unique specimen; one whose thoughts and words seem to stir something inside me, may it be slightly tinged with madness or the gentle stirrings of a sagacious giant.

Perhaps I was narrating in my head the possibilities of a future with him, as with all aspirations conceived by a lunatic.

And as with the rational and logical part of my brain pushing into my thick-headedness, ‘you and he are like heaven and earth; he’s living in the clouds, and you’re stuck grovelling for dirt; know your place child, and forget about him,’ I slipped my phone into my pockets, assuredly hesitant to call him.

The wind seemed suddenly very cold, and I shivered.

I looked around, and I was alone.

Then, just like clockwork, he called my phone to video call me at 3 AM in the morning right after my shift had ended.

‘Hey there, sweetheart.’ He sounded as though he had just woken up.

"Stop with these terms of endearment, Nathan; we just met," I said seriously, then I twisted my phone to the ground so that he wouldn’t see me shaking my head with a smile beaming up to my cheeks. I turned the front facing camera towards my face. "Greg is fine."

‘But Greg is so boring. The assumption that I’m similar to everyone who’s obligated to call you by your first name steers away from the fact that I’m dating you.’

"We’re about to go on our third date, so your premise that we’re more than just dating is wrong."

‘That’s not germane to the progress of our relationship. We’ll be seeing each other tomorrow anyway. Alright then. How about I call you darling. My father used to call my mother darling, and I’ve always liked how my mother would smile afterwards.’

I lifted the phone closer to my face. "So you’re comparing me to your mother?"

‘It’s not a pejorative statement. But yes. I am...’

“I ought to punch you right now.’

‘You’re moody and very stubborn. My mother is also moody and very stubborn. But I do like that feature about you.’

"I’m ending the call now."

‘I’m kidding. Very touchy are we? Are you tired? Should I be concerned about your levels of serotonin from feeling exhausted? Is that what people usually say when they’re trying to sound invested?’

"Geezus. You’re hopeless."

‘Don’t give up on me now. I am trying to do better—emotionally speaking."

"Try less. You sound more genuine just shirking this conversation from your rational side. No need to force sympathy through this.”

‘But I’m genuinely concerned. You can’t fault me for being thorough. So, tell me about your day, darling.’

I didn’t want to admit it, but I really liked the way he called me darling and asked me how my day was.

He was getting into my nerves—the nerves attached to my mind, my heart, and my dick—so that’s a good sign or a bad sign, depending on how you view it.

I said, "Well, I woke up at five this morning because Brady had to go to school for his soccer practise."

'Perhaps you’ve been working too hard. Fatigue can prevent the body from stimulating actin and myosin which can cause depression. Are you depressed?’

“No, I am not depressed. I’m just tired.”

‘Very well then. Nothing that a good 8 hours of sleep can fix.’ I love it when he randomly gives me these nuggets of knowledge I have no idea how to process. ‘I assume Brady has been wearing the fireman sam’s shirt that I bought him?’

"You betcha. Don’t tell me about it. I had to drag it out of him and change him into his school uniform. He was so upset last night cause he didn’t sleep with his bear. I had it soaked in—”

‘—you shouldn’t allow your son to sleep with bears. Do you have any idea how many fatal bear maulings occur around the globe every year?’

“You’re not serious are you?”

‘I’m very much serious. This is highly dangerous Greg.’

“Ok. Calm down Steve Irwin. My kid was sleeping with a stuffed toy.” I didn’t know if he was being serious or not. I sensed that he was with that frown on his face. I couldn’t believe my parenting skills were being judged by allowing my kid to sleep with a stuffed toy. I steered the topic to something much lighter. “Anyway, er, how about you? Did you have any surgeries today?"

‘I did. One patient needed urgent evacuation of his small intestines. I had to unplug an aubergine—a very large aubergine.’ And just like that, Nathan had become a part of my life that I hadn’t expected. The part where listening to his day grew out to be the most important feature that I awaited to listen to by the end of my shift. Then something happened, and our conversation was cut short.‘...and then the mitral valve of this patient was...’

Someone was watching me.

I looked over my shoulders to see if there was someone out there.

Pulling my feet to hasten my gait, I hurried to get out of that dark road.

I have no problem dealing with humans, but ghosts—I ain't got no time for that.

In the next few steps, my life was about to change.

An unwelcome change I never dreamed of having.