The Story Collection: Volume One

by Matt Shaw

  “You’re an escort,” corrected Kirk, “you escort people to their functions and, if that’s around their house for a little bit of company, then that’s that.”

  Kim smiled – embarrassed at being corrected. She hadn’t heard anyone describe a prostitute like that before now. When she used to have friends and the conversations about prostitutes came about, admittedly very rarely, her friends never spoke about them in the way Kirk did either. Everyone in her ‘previous life’ looked down their noses at them; dirty disease spreading tramps.

  “You don’t think what I do is wrong?” asked Kim egging Kirk on to say something else positive about her role. Just hearing him put a positive slant on it made her feel better about herself.

  “I don’t think being an escort is wrong. I don’t think offering companionship to lonely people is wrong,” said Kirk. Before, when he was with Tracy, he never gave working girls a thought – he didn’t need to. He was happy. He was in love. He was going to be a husband and a father. There was no need to pay someone to come over and make him feel less lonely. Kim was the first working girl Kirk had ever approached for an appointment. At the time he didn’t know he knew her as there was no picture accompanying the advert in the magazine. He just wanted someone to come over, for an evening, and talk with him. He wanted someone to make him feel a little less dead inside.

  Kim sat back and listened. She liked his positive outlook on what she did, or used to do, as it made her feel less dirty. It made her feel like she was more of a compassionate human being – offering a service to cheer up men who just needed someone to be there for them and offer a friendship that they previously didn’t have. It was a false friendship that was offered but in some cases even that can be better than nothing.

  Kirk continued, “Street girls…”

  “What about them?”

  “I think they are the ones that don’t help the industry. When some people think about working girls, or talk about them, that’s the side they hear of the most. When they drive through city centres, late at night, that’s the side of the industry that they can see – girls of all ages walking the streets because they are forced to or because they are trying to feed a habit. What you offer – and ladies such as yourself – that’s all behind closed doors. It’s private and other people don’t even necessarily know its happening. Eradicate street girls and I think you’ll find most of the stigma attached with escorting would die down too.” It was the most passionate Kirk had got about something, in a conversation, since Tracy had gone. Normally he kept his opinions to himself or expressed himself in one word, simple to understand, answers in the hope that whoever was talking to him would leave him be. The longer he was with Kim, though, the more he felt alive.

  Kim looked away from Kirk. If he suddenly got up and went through her bag he’d find a few more silver wraps from Leon. If he knew what had happened to her hours earlier – and how it happened – she feared that he would perceive her as nothing more than a lonely street girl that he obviously had such strong opinions about.

  Kirk noticed Kim look away shyly, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to get on my soap box. To answer your original question though – you are the first lady that I’ve actually booked.”

  Kim turned back to him seizing the opportunity to move the conversation away from street girls, “And you really didn’t know who I was when you phoned up?”

  “I had no idea, the fact that it turned out to be you was just a bonus,” he smiled and Kim blushed.

  “A good thing for us both,” she said.

  Kirk stood up, “If you’ll just excuse me for a minute.” He left the room and went to the bathroom that was in the hallway. The bathroom was a small room with a tiny sink and small, broken mirror on the wall. He stood by the sink and stared at his reflection wondering, was he really flirting?

  Since being with Kim he had begun to feel emotions again and, although he struggled with it, he had enjoyed the sensations that stirred within his soul and had even enjoyed the awkward conversations that, now, seemed to flow a little easier between the two of them as she was obviously getting more comfortable with him too.

  ‘Was she flirting?’

  It had been a long night. Perhaps the tiredness was getting to them both – perhaps the shock of what had happened to her was making her act differently to how she would normally act as she desperately tried to cling onto someone who was being nice to her and not trying to use her. Kirk didn’t know and although he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation – he also didn’t feel entirely uncomfortable with it either. He closed his eyes tight and tried to put Tracy’s face to the back of his mind. Surely she would want him to move on?

  Kirk flushed the toilet to make it appear that he wasn’t just in the bathroom to get some sanctuary, and did actually need to go, before he returned to the lounge where Kim was still sitting. He sat down opposite her and smiled.

  “Did you want any more soup?” he asked.

  Kim answered his question with a question of her own, “So what really made you pick up the phone this time then?”

  5

  ‘I LOVE YOU’ was Tracy’s last words. A sentence that stuck in both Kirk’s mind and heart ever since. No one could replace Tracy - no one. He knew that, if he phoned the mobile telephone number written on the advert in front of him – this lady wouldn’t replace Tracy. She wouldn’t try and replace Tracy and he wouldn’t allow her to. He knew that the arrangement made between the two of them would strictly be a business deal and nothing else and yet, even with that in mind, he found it extremely hard to pick up the telephone and dial the numbers that were trying to tempt him. Tracy wouldn’t like it. He dropped the magazine, displaying the advert, to the floor and threw the telephone onto the settee next to him.

  ‘Tracy wouldn’t like it,’ he thought.

  “I wouldn’t mind,” said Tracy as she sat down next to Kirk, “I know you still love me.”

  Kirk shut his eyes tight. As much as he wanted to believe Tracy was by his side he knew that she was nothing but a figment of his desperate imagination. A figment of his fragile state of mind convincing him that booking some company would be an ‘okay’ thing to do.

  Kirk ran his hand through his hair. In his mind it was Tracy’s hand that was stroking him and he couldn’t help but smile as he remembered how she used to do it.

  “If you just want to book her for some company then that’s fine,” continued Kirk as though he was Tracy, “but you can’t sleep with her.”

  Kirk didn’t want to sleep with her. He didn’t need to. He just needed someone real to talk to. He just needed someone real to snuggle up to on the sofa whilst they watched whatever was on the television. He desperately wanted them to cuddle up to him so that he could close his eyes and pretend it was Tracy that was there with him for real as opposed to just in his mind.

  “If that’s all you want,” continued Kirk / Tracy, “then that’s fine. I know you’ll be thinking of me.”

  Kirk picked the magazine up again and flicked back to the page with the relevant number. Another couple of seconds passed before he dared to pick up the telephone; scared ‘he’ was going to talk himself out of making the call again. No voice stopped him.

  ‘0-7-8-6-8-6-6-0-3-4-9,’ he thought as he dialled the digits. He waited again for a voice to stop him. No voice stopped him and he pressed the little green telephone image on the keypad. There was a brief delay as he heard the digits, which he had already pressed into the pad, get dialled for him and another brief delay as the line connected with the number. It was ringing. He could still hang up but he didn’t. His heart pounded hard and fast.

  Finally a female voice answer, “Hello?”

  “Is that Stacey?” asked Kirk. He thought he had the wrong number. The female voice sounded faint and timid. The female voice sounded scared.

  There was another pause, “Yes.”

  “I was wondering whether I could see you. You know, for an appointment? Please.” Kirk was embarrassed.
He hadn’t done anything like this before and couldn’t quite believe he was doing it now either. Stacy didn’t reply. “Hello, are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s a bad line,” she lied. “When would you like to see me?”

  “Are you free now?” Kirk felt that, if he didn’t follow it through as soon as possible, he would end up trying to cancel it as his nerves, and guilt over Tracy, got the better of him. There’s another slight pause before ‘Stacey’ agreed to the appointment details and took Kirk’s address from him. The appointment was set and she was on her way round.

  When Kirk hung up he couldn’t help but think about how shy the lady on the other end of the phone seemed. He thought that, in that line of work, the woman would be full of confidence. If anything, she sounded scared about accepting the appointment – scared of Kirk.

  ‘Stacey’ was a different woman when she finally arrived at Kirk’s house. When he opened the front door to let her in she walked in with an air of confidence that wasn’t anywhere near noticeable on the telephone. It was an air of confidence that we now know was induced with the help of cocaine. Her shyness and embarrassment only came back to the surface, temporarily, when she asked for the payment to be handed over and enquired as to how Kirk wanted to do ‘it’.

  Kirk duly handed the payment over, failing to realise that, standing in front of him, ‘Stacey’ was in fact Kim; the daughter of Jackie – the teenager who shared some of his college classes.

  He beckoned her into the lounge where she went in and took off her coat, revealing a red crop top that showed off her toned stomach and a sexy, short black leather skirt. She turned to him and took her top off revealing a black, satin bra that pushed her breasts close together forming an enticing cleavage. Kirk stopped in his tracks.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I thought you offered companionship.”

  With the drugs working her mood ‘Stacey’ approached Kirk and started to unbutton his dark blue jeans, “What do you call this?”

  He pulled away, “This isn’t what I wanted.”

  Stacy backed away bemused, “You called me.”

  “Yes, I wanted some company.”

  “Some company?” she repeated. She was new to this and Kirk was the first man that she had met who didn’t want company to mean ‘sex’. “Some company?” she said again, confused.

  “You know. Talk. Cuddle up.”

  “You want to pay me to cuddle up and talk to you?”

  “I just want some company,” he said.

  Kim backed away from Kirk. He didn’t seem like the other men who had booked her – all perverts in their own way. All dirty men who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves – booking her because their partners refused to do the sordid things they actually got off on. Kirk seemed stranger to her – almost alien.

  “Don’t you have any real friends for that?” she asked as she backed up to the sofa and sat down.

  “No,” he replied without hesitation. She looked at him, as he stood there pitifully, wondering what sort of man would need to pay a stranger to come over and pretend to be his friend for an hour or two.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s just that I don’t get people like you often.”

  “Maybe I misunderstood what you were offering when I called,” he said taking the blame away from Kim, “I just thought that you wouldn’t mind.”

  “So what did you want me to do then?” she asked as she picked up her top and slipped it on again.

  “I thought we could watch a movie together, or something. You know, just cuddle up on the sofa. You could stroke my hair. I could just hold you.”

  “You want to pay me to watch a movie?”

  “If you’d like.”

  “What movie?” she asked half expecting him to pull out a pornographic film containing random acts of hardcore intercourse and sodomy.

  “I have the James Bond collection. On DVD,” he said; proud of his collection like a little school boy who was proud of his collection of insects.

  Kim couldn’t help but laugh. It wasn’t a laugh brought on by the fact that the situation was funny – it was a laugh brought on because the situation was so strange. She apologised when she realised Kirk looked a little upset by her outburst.

  “If you’d prefer to watch something else?” he gestured to the pile of films that scattered the floor in front of the television – a mixture of random film titles and what appeared to be home-made video tapes.

  “James Bond would be fine,” said Kim trying to keep him happy. Kirk smiled.

  “Great. Which film did you want to watch?” a question that Kim couldn’t answer. She had never seen a James Bond film. She had rarely watched movies.

  “Whichever one you are happy with will be fine with me,” she said – keeping him sweet. The way she looked at it, it was going to be an easy appointment.

  Kirk selected a random disk and put it into the player before turning back to the settee where Kim had made herself comfortable. She sat up and patted the cushion next to her – gesturing for Kirk to sit with her.

  “Would you mind if I sat there?” he asked signifying where Kim had sat. “I thought I could stretch out there, at the back of the settee, and you could stretch out in front of me with me cuddling up behind you.”

  He explained himself clumsily but Kim knew what he wanted. Leon and Kim used to cuddle up on the sofa in the same manner - that is, before he changed. She stood up and allowed Kirk to get comfortable before she lay down in front of him. She rested one hand under her head and the other one her leg. Kirk, in turn, rested his free hand on top of hers and pressed in close behind her.

  He closed his eyes and breathed in Kim’s fragrance. Her hair smelt like coconuts. Her perfume smelt like freshly cut roses. She smelt great just as Tracy smelt great when she used to cuddle up to him in the same manner. He opened his eyes again when he realised something wasn’t right – he wasn’t as comfortable as he should have been. His watch was digging into his wrist as he leaned on his head down on his arm. Kirk stopped the film before it had even properly begun and shifted uneasily behind Kim causing her to sit up.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as he moved his watch up his wrist and rubbed where it had dug in.

  “Sorry – my watch was digging in,” he said as he took it off, “I’ll just put it on the coffee table.”

  Kim took the watch from him so he didn’t have to get up, “Allow me.” She was going to pay a compliment about the watch. She was going to say how nice it looked but she couldn’t – not when she really got a good look at it and recognised it. Memories of her mother and past flooding back into the forefront of her mind. “Where did you get this?”

  ‘To my special Son’

  “Where did you get this?” she asked again, knowing the answer. She looked at Kirk again and, with her memory recently jogged, remembered him straight away; the quiet boy in the back of the classroom that introduced himself to her by explaining that he knew her mother and showing her the watch he was given. She remembered the watch perfectly because it was an unusual timepiece and especially expensive looking. The first time she saw what her mother had given a stranger, she was a little jealous. At the selfish age of sixteen she failed to understand how it was easy for her mother to buy a stranger a gift like that and not spend the equivalent on her – her own daughter. It was too much of a coincidence that someone else could have the exact same watch with the exact same message inscribed on the back of it. Kirk sat up and looked at Kim.

  “Your name isn’t Stacey is it?”

  “Where did you get this,” Kim asked again.

  Just as Kim had now recognised Kirk – he too had now recognised her. The pretty girl that sat towards the front of the class and consistently managed to ignore him; even after he had introduced himself hoping that the fact he had known her mum would help them form a friendship.

  “It was a gift,” said Kirk as he took the watch back and put it back onto his wrist.
>
  The answer wasn’t good enough. Kim had to be sure he was who she thought he was, “Who from? What was her name?” She knew the answer.

  “Jackie.”

  * * * * *

  Kirk didn’t want to go into details about why he made the appointment with Kim just as Kim didn’t want to go into details about what had happened to her in her life to make her take the path she was currently on. He felt that, if they continued the conversation about why he originally wanted the appointment with her – she would get angry, just as she had done when she left him earlier in the day.

  To be faced by someone who knew her before she was a working girl added more shame to Kim’s current predicament. When she was having appointments with strangers at least that’s all they were to her – strangers. Kirk knew Kim before she was a working girl. She didn’t want him to suddenly laugh at her for, obviously, failing in successfully achieving her dreams. Kim had felt that, when he made the appointment, somehow he knew it was her and he was only getting the appointment so he could see, first hand, how bad she had fallen. She thought he only wanted the appointment just so he could laugh at how pathetic she had become. Because she believed the whole thing to be a set-up she couldn’t go through with it and had started to swear at him before throwing the money back into his face and running from the house – running from her past that could point her out in the street as the failure that she knew she was. What made it worse for her was that her mum was also mentioned. There she was, on the sofa, acting the part of a cheap prostitute just to try and earn enough money and suddenly she had her mother’s memory thrust back upon her. If her mother could see her now, she would be turning in her grave.