Buying Thyme

by TJ Hamilton

  “Do you always have to be crude about my chosen profession?” I grab the foam takeaway cup from the tray in Charlie’s hand and gulp it’s contents down in one quick breath, “Oh my goodness… You have no idea how much I needed that!” I splutter as I exhale.

  “So tell me. What type of man orders an escort and then gets her drunk? What use are you then huh?” He sits down delicately on the floral armchair along side me and grabs the remaining takeaway coffee cup in the tray.

  Charlie looks his usual smart self in his dark grey suit with a light blue shirt and pink and purple paisley tie. My gorgeous little Italian friend is always dressed immaculately, even to go to the gym. I do notice the unfamiliar addition of more than a five o’clock shadow across his face. Being the marketing manager for one of the top restaurants in Sydney sees that Charlie is constantly well groomed, and never has a hair out of place on his short black head of hair.

  “What’s with the beard?” I start to wonder if I’ll regret asking as soon as the question has left my lips.

  “It’s for the up coming bear pool party at Cook and Phillip Park. Wait for it… you will love the name… it’s the annual Wet Fur Party.” He raises his perfectly manicured eyebrow at me with great amusement.

  Charlie has recently discovered his love for a niche community amongst the gays known as ‘bears’. Consisting of a group of heavy-set gay men who have full beards and their motto seems to be, the more hair encompassing their body, the better. Despite the fact that Charlie has recently affiliated himself with the movement, he is far from overweight or heavy-set and keeps himself well ‘manscaped’. I assume he enjoys the added attention he gets from attending these bear parties because of these characteristics.

  “I love it! I love how your people are always making fun of yourselves, no matter what walk of life you may come from. So does this mean that you’ll never have a back, crack and sack wax now that you’re a bear?”

  “Hell no doll! You know I’m way to pretty to do that to myself. I’m happy staying a cub.”

  “Cub? As in a baby bear?” I break into fits of laughter, “Oh wow. Why am I never surprised with you Charlie?”

  “Anyway doll face. I must head back to work. Do yourself a favour and get some more beauty sleep. We have an industry night on tonight. We’re showcasing some of our catering to clients down at the Opera House. I want you to come. I’ll pick you up at six and we’ll head down together. Then we’ll go for a night cap at our favourite afterwards.”

  “Oh Charlie. I’d love to but I really just want to stay in.”

  “I’m coming to get you at six. You will be ready… It’s no big deal. Just some good food and a nice view for an hour or so. Now off to bed sleeping beauty.” Charlie is already walking towards the front door before I’m able to argue any further.

  Such a bossy bitch sometimes. I tear myself from the sofa and stagger towards my bedroom… and finally to the comfort of my own bed. Flossy prances behind me and curls up on her usual spot at the foot of my bed. The familiar feeling of being back home again aids my speedy decent into a deep sleep.

  I’m woken yet again to the sight of a disgruntled Charlie loitering over me, “It’s ten past six! And you’re not even up or dressed!”

  “Oh Charlie. I didn’t set an alarm. I’m sorry. I really have had a full on few days.” I struggle to focus on his lovely Italian face.

  “Very well. I’ll be back around at nine then to take you for a late bite and a drink. I am dying to hear all about whoever it is that has done this to you.”

  “Okay. I can do that. I promise I’ll be ready. Enjoy your night.”

  Charlie rolls his eyes at my last statement, “Gaah… Industry bullshit. I really was hoping you would come to keep me amused with our usual bitchy comments about everyone there. It always makes the night so much more enjoyable. See you later doll.”

  I’m pleased that I have a few hours to myself to reflect on the past six days of work. They were so unlike any other working block that I have experienced with clients, and I’m still not quite sure what to make of all of it. I head into the kitchen and turn on my Nesspresso machine to make myself a coffee. I take out a Ristretto pod and pop it into the top of the machine. The harsh angles of the pod’s shiny black casing immediately reminds me that the black diamond necklace is still sitting in my suitcase. I forgot I had that! I rush straight to my suitcases at the front door and wheel them into my bedroom. Launching the Prada bag onto my bed, I quickly unzip it open as fast as I can. It was all a dream. It was all a dream. I try and convince myself. Wildly flinging out the contents of the bag, I finally stop at the hard surface of the box. I feel myself frowning in frustration at the sight of the familiar box but I’m not ready to touch it, or even open it up to view the magnificent piece inside. I’m still so confused about the meaning behind it. Maybe I should tell Charlie about it later. Maybe a male’s perspective is what I need on this, albeit a gay male’s perspective. No. That is probably not a good idea. Or maybe it is? Maybe I should just sell it. It’s not like I need the money though. What if it’s stolen? I put the box on top of my dresser, deciding to just leave it again until I know exactly what to do about it. As I wander back into the kitchen, I decide to message Sally to see what she’s doing tomorrow for lunch. I guess she is probably the best person to talk to about this. I send a text message to her phone:

  Are you keen for lunch tomorrow?

  I continue pouring my long awaited coffee and tend to my grey furry friend who’s circling hungrily at my feet. Flossy hasn’t left my side since I walked through the door. I totter back into the lounge room with welcomed coffee in hand when my iPhone buzzes. The message from Sally reads:

  Absolutely! I need to hear all about this new guy! Should we meet at the usual spot around 1pm?

  I message back:

  See you then. X

  I already feel a sense of relief about my situation with the prospect of seeing Sally tomorrow. I finish my cup of coffee and head off for a shower, ready to meet up with Charlie.

  Charlie rolls up to the front of my building with a squealing halt in his Audi TT Turbo. He calls out to me as his electric window slides down, “How much per hour hot cheeks?”

  I quickly look around the vacant street to make sure none of my neighbours have heard him and shake my head as I sit myself down in the passenger seat of his black sports car.

  “You couldn’t afford this sweetheart! A night with me is enough to make you never look at another man again!” I lean over and kiss Charlie’s hair covered cheek.

  “Ha! Better put your window up before your tickets fly off love!” Charlie laughs obnoxiously as his car catapults swiftly down the street.

  We manage to find a park right outside our favourite late night diner, The Rocks Café, in the old heritage area of Sydney known as The Rocks. The southern sloping angle of The Harbour Bridge is beautifully illuminated at the end of the street. It’s teeming with circling seagulls which is usual at this time of the night. Across the street the Modern Contemporary Art museum stands tall and proud on the water’s edge. The familiar sights give me a warm feeling, despite the cool wind that’s blowing straight of the harbour. The diner is a fabulous European style diner, and serves the best pasta in the city. We both walk towards our favourite booth at the front window and the happy young waitress bounds towards us with menus in hand. I already know what I’m ordering and so does Charlie. He rolls his eyes at me when he sees she has the menus in her hands.

  “She never gets it does she?” Charlie tilts his head toward the waitress as she approaches us at the booth.

  I shrug my shoulders to try and soften Charlie’s frustration with a giggle.

  “Hi. Are you after coffee or would you like to see a menu?” The waitress asks her usual line of questioning.

  “We’re going to eat, but we already know what we’re having thanks, so no menus required. We’ll have two of the Pumpkin and Ricotta Raviloi, and two glasses of Pinot thanks.” Charlie takes command
as usual.

  I’m completely used to Charlie’s controlling nature and for once, I quite like a man taking control, not that Charlie is very manly, but he’s my favourite man. The waitress politely smiles at us both as she bounces back off towards the kitchen, “Seriously doll. Does she not recognise us at all?”

  “They obviously get a lot of customers in here.” I try and reason.

  “But we’ve been coming here for how long now? Five or Six years… and we order the same thing every time!”

  “Five years? Gosh has it been that long already? Where has the time gone? Have I really been in the sex industry for five years?” I say, feeling a little sorry for myself.

  “Yes madam. We came here the night you told me about what you were doing for work. Remember? We were over the road at the MCA for the launch of that god-awful handbag collection with the company I was working for at the time. You were so so young back then! I could have died when you first told me that you were prostituting yourself. You are so not the type!”

  “What is the type? The game is not the same any more. The girls aren’t your usual stereotype of ratty looking streetwalkers, with crazy track marks up their arm and a controlling pimp hiding out around the corner. It’s not like that in this city anymore. It’s all legal now, so there’s no reason to hang out on the street waiting for the next John to give you his left over change for a head-job!”

  “Okay Okay young lady. Don’t get you knickers in a knot. It’s just a figure of speech.”

  “No but seriously, what does a hooker look like nowadays? I hate that whole ‘Oh you’re not what I was expecting’ bullshit.”

  “Well she doesn’t look like you… Which is a good thing! I was just saying! Now tell me about your fucking weekend before I implode with curiosity!”

  “Where do I start…” My mind tries its best to control the urge not to tell him about having more feelings than I’d care for, not just one, but two of my clients, “Well I spent a couple of days with that Joe Tench again!” Charlie’s eyes shoot straight to mine and his left eyebrow lifts towards the café’s ornately decorated ceiling.

  “Ah… that guy is so fucking hot! Why are all the hot ones straight?”

  I laugh at Charlie’s twisted humour.

  “Well, this is the thing, it wasn’t like his usual bookings. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I actually don’t think I’ll be seeing him again though. I think it was his final goodbye for me.”

  “That’s a shame really. Probably a good thing though. He doesn’t have the best reputation around town does he? So what did you do? Apart from the obvious!”

  “The sex was amazing Charlie! Not like the usual either. Softer. Less I’m-going-to-fuck-you-like-a-whore and more I-want-you kind of… love making… If you could call it that.”

  The words love making sound just as ridiculous out aloud as they do in my head,

  “He set up the most amazing dinner on his terrace at his house, and he took me out on his boat to an island in the middle of the harbour that we had to ourselves for the day… and he gave me this ridiculously stunning black diamond necklace.”

  Charlie stares at me with eyes the size of golf balls, his gaping mouth wide open with astonishment. The bubbly waitress places our glasses of wine down. Before the glass even taps the table, Charlie snatches it, gulps its contents down, and puts the empty glass back on the waitress’s tray before she has even left our booth.

  “Another thanks…” He says without taking his eyes off of me, “Are you telling me he gave you his black Shadow of Love diamond?”

  “What’s that? The necklace? Yeah?”

  “Errrr… The Shadow of Love diamond, is only one of the rarest black diamonds in the world!”

  “What?” I can’t believe what Charlie is telling me, “How do you know this and I don’t?”

  “It is well known that Joe Tench is the owner of the necklace. He was in the press with it a few months ago.”

  “But he told me he won it in a poker comp in Vegas.”

  “Well he lied doll! Where did you put it?”

  “I… I just have it at home… on my dresser.” My mind is fragmenting from anger, to disbelief, to anger, and utter confusion over the news, “I have been so angry about it! What do you think it means?”

  “Well… I think he was definitely telling you something, and I don’t think it was goodbye! You had better get that hundred and fifteen carat diamond in a safe ASAP!”

  “A hundred and fifteen carats!” I yell.

  “Shhhh… Don’t let people hear you for fucks sake! Just take it back to him if you don’t want it.”

  “I have thought about that don’t worry. I can’t take it back until I see him again at work. Agency rules.”

  I replay over in my mind whether I should just pay Tench a visit. If I didn’t know the necklace was so valuable, then I would just drop it off to his henchmen at the front of his gates… that way I’m not exactly breaking the Agency rules. I still don’t get why he wanted me to have it. I couldn’t even wear it anywhere if it is so well known. Is that what he wants? For people to know I’m associated with him? Like he’s staking his claim on me? Hmph… The whole thing just makes my head spin!

  “Anyway, forget your fucking necklace for a moment… You never guess what happened to me the other day! The worst thing ever… That’s why I was trying to call you…” Charlie abruptly changes the subject, and thankfully interrupts my rampant mind, “So… I was having dinner with this guy the other night, and afterwards we went for a drive and parked down a dodgy alley for a quick gobby…”

  Oh god, where is Charlie going with this? His stories are always shocking,

  “You know, the usual after dinner mint for me… anyway… the guy started forcing my head down on his cock.” I frown in anticipation for what I’m about to be told, “and before I could even tell him to go easy, because I’d just eaten a big steak… I threw up all over his lap! Aaaargh… can you imagine the embarrassment I was going through at the time? It was fucking awful! So I just looked at the guy and said ‘Well would you like me to clean that up for you?’ The guy just shook his head and did his button fly back up and ordered me out of the car! Can you fucking believe it?”

  I cannot control the rumble of giggles that exit me. Partly laughing out of shock and partly laughing because only someone like Charlie has this happen to him! I wonder if my outrageous friend is prone to every sexual disaster known to man. Most of his stories are equally as shocking, and surely not something us ‘hetros’ ever go through!

  “Charlie my darling… I believe with you… the impossible is possible.”

  “Except sex with a woman! That my love… is never possible.”

  Charlie joins in the hilarity of the moment and we laugh together at his crazy situation until our dinner arrives. Thankfully, my self-absorbed little friend takes my mind off anything currently causing havoc in my life for the duration of our meal.

  As soon as I’m through the doors of my home, I rush to my computer to google Tench and this Shadow of Love black diamond. I type Shadow of Love into the query bar. Instantaneously images of my necklace pop up. A string of news stories about it are listed, and there amongst the stories, is Tench. I click on a story in the listing titled ‘Joe Tench snaps up rare black diamond in hope of love’ a piece covered in the Daily Telegraph at the start of this year. What the fuck is this all about? I read the content of the story:

  Sydney nightlife identity Joe Tench has spoken publically about being the lucky bidder of a rare black heart shaped diamond necklace known as The Shadow of Love Diamond. Won in a recent bidding war at a charity auction during an A list event in Brussels, Belgium. Tench, the owner of Sydney’s largest casino, stated that he bought the diamond because one day he will find the right person to give it to. “When I find a woman as rare as this diamond, it will be hers. You can quote me on that.”…

  My heart races as I read back over the last quote taken directly from Tench again and again. I
decide that’s enough reading and click the icon to close the page down. My head is in disbelief about what Tench’s intentions are. Why didn’t I know this? Why did he tell me he won it in a poker game in Las Vegas? I don’t understand what he wants from me. Could I really be with a man like Tench? Do I have much choice in life anymore given my chosen profession? Who else would want a relationship with someone who gets paid by various men to have sex with them? My head feels light and I need to lie down. The remnant of my hangover draws me back to the memory of Tom Smythe. I make my way slowly to my bedroom, registering the black box containing the necklace in the corner of my eye as I enter. I choose to ignore it, stripping down to my underwear, I get straight into bed and into the comfortable space between the sheets. My eyes feel heavy and the throbbing at the front of my head beats a slow rhythm until it sends me into a sleep, forgetting my troubles of the waking world.

  I feel a pressure on my chest and my breathing struggles to force the air in and out of my lungs. I hear a sound that sounds like a loud humming bird… or a motorbike. My unconscious mind struggles to locate what the sound is. My chest makes a writhing attempt to expand as wide as possible, but fails. I’m ripped from my dream. Panic awash over me. I gasp as I wake and see the bright green eyes of Flossy in front of me, lying on my chest and purring intensely into my face.

  “Oh Flossy! I love you too. What time is it?”

  I roll over. Flossy casually slides off of me. She leisurely stretches out and lies back down again next to me. I grab my iPhone from the bedside table… it’s only Twelve minutes past seven in the morning. It’s earlier than I would’ve cared to be awake on a day off, but I decide to make use of my early morning wake up. I get up out of bed and put on a pair of shorts, sports bra and faded pink sweatshirt, deciding to go for a run. My Nespresso machine buzzes and hums as it squeezes the contents of the coffee pod inside it, delivering a strong smelling brew into my mug below. I decide to forgo the addition of milk in my coffee, so that I can just get my caffeine hit. I head for the front door, sunglasses on and caffeine kicking in. Pulling my hair back, I slide my baseball cap over my head as I walk out the front door. Flossy scuttles past me as I close the door behind. Putting my headphones in and hitting ‘shuffle’ on my iPhone, I pound the pavement with my bright pink and purple Pumas carrying me in the direction of the coast. The band Kasabian sings about being on Fire in my ears. My legs stride to the beat of the music. All I feel is the open air, my music… and my lactic acid building up in my quadriceps… perfect! It takes me quicker than anticipated to get down to Bondi beach. I continue running straight towards the outdoor gym at the northern end of the beachfront. A regular route I take for almost all of my runs. The gym is swarming with strong athletic bodies as usual. I pull my hat down and turn my music up to block out the numerous bodies around me. I start my regular circuit on the equipment with the dips section. Children Colide are now singing Jellylegs in my ears. I chuckle as my own legs struggle to keep me balanced as I dip up and down across two bars with my legs stretched out in front, still shaking slightly from the six kilometre run. Once I’ve completed that exercise, I head over to a low bar and start my pulls-ups. I think I recognise the back of a man standing in front of me when I stand up. He turns around and we instantly lock eyes, his piercing blue stare stuns me in my position. Tom Smythe flashes his amazing smile at me. I feel my legs weaken further. I have never seen a client outside of work. Thankfully, I have avoided that situation all together until now! Why do I have to bump into Tom Smythe… of all clients? The music now becomes distant as I pull my headphones out of my ears by the cord around my neck.