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We check out the menu while the waiter gets our wine, and I scan through the options in a daze. Some of the dishes I don’t even understand the names of, but they all look, um, amazing, so I pick my courses at random. Salmon with an exotic sounding salad, and pork belly with posh potatoes and sauces. Mission accomplished. And then, when the waiter returns with our wine and is done with our orders, I look down at the table, and register the multiple sets of cutlery. A lot of them. The look on my face must say it all.
“Work from the outside in,” Josh says, smiling. “Don’t worry, I had no idea until I started visiting these kinds of places.”
I look back down at the cutlery. Yeah, cool, that works. I can handle it.
“Do you visit these kinds of places a lot now?” I ask.
“A bit.” He pauses. “Not so much lately. Sometimes Tiff will come along for a night out. That’s always fun.”
“I’ll bet.”
My eyes flit around the room again, at all the people, clearly loaded. It gives me a weird tingle.
“Have you ever run into any clients? They must come to these kinds of places.”
“Twice, actually. It’s happened to me twice.”
“Whoa.” I try to imagine myself here with the exhibitionist from last night. He’d probably be wanting me screaming what a whore I am from the top of the balcony. “Was it awkward?”
He laughs. “You could say that, yeah. A little. It’s weird to give a couple a polite wave in a restaurant when you were fucking them senseless in their living room a few nights earlier.”
“So, they were a couple? These clients?”
“That pair were, yes. Husband and wife. Happily married. The other was a single guy, out with his family. Parents from the look of it. He gave me a look of pure horror when I walked on by.”
“Shit. What did you do?”
“Ignored him. We laughed about it when he booked me next.”
I try to imagine some of my clients sitting in view of me. I’d probably baulk and run.
“How about Tiff?” I ask.
“She’s had it happen more than me. One night there was a sales team party in the same restaurant as us, celebrating some big deal or something. She’d fucked all of them, all at once. Every single one of them.”
I picture my own experience of taking a crowd like that. The thought of running into them in a random location is intense.
“Oh my God,” I say.
Josh nods. “Yeah. It wasn’t quite so awkward for her, though. She doesn’t give a shit. They put in an emergency last minute proposal before we even got our starters, and she accepted and blew them a kiss. I was in a cab on my own on the way back home.”
I laugh at that. I can imagine Tiff doing it.
Josh’s eyes lock onto mine. “What would you do? If one of your clients walked in right now and put in an emergency proposal, would you go?”
I don’t break eye contact. “While I was out with you? Not a chance in hell.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Not any of them? Really? What about a thirty grander? That’s a hard one to turn down.”
I shake my head. “Um, no. No way. How could I? I’d rather be here with you, whatever price they put on it.”
Oh shit. Too much, too soon. I feel like I’ve just dive bombed into a swimming pool naked in front of him. How embarrassing. But he doesn’t flinch, or look awkward, just keeps his eyes right on mine with a smirk.
“That’s nice to know.”
“That you’re worth more than a thirty grander?” I laugh, then figure I’ll dive bomb in some more. “You’re worth way more than that any day of the week.”
“That’s also nice to know,” he says.
