But Skylar had come out of nowhere. This beautiful, ridiculously smart woman took no shit from anyone. Her dry sense of humor meshed perfectly with mine. My awkwardness worked perfectly with her standoffishness. She had been hurt; I could see that from the very start. I should have backed off. I should have kept things friendly. I should have made sure nothing happened between us.
I didn't expect to come to care for her. To want to share myself with her.
She slipped under my skin before I realized she was there, and it took everything for me not to spill my guts to her. I couldn’t. I had conditioned myself to keep things close to the chest. I was a man with two separate lives and I couldn't let those lives intersect. Not even once.
Skylar had quickly grown tired of my evasive bullshit. There was only so deep two people could go when one of them wouldn’t share more than their favorite color or what movies they watch. I wanted to tell her about Sam. About Mom. About how hard it was to take care of everyone. But I couldn’t.
I didn’t trust that Skylar would want to stick around once she saw the man that existed below the surface. That he was a guy who barely kept things together. That he wasn’t the confident, controlled person he projected to the world.
Tiffany had destroyed my trust in all things.
Most of all myself.
My phone buzzed with a notification from my website. Someone had messaged me asking for a dance. They were willing to pay considerably more than the usual $500 fee. I checked the time. I had to be at Adam and Meg’s in a couple of hours.
I started to feel the fizzing in my veins that slipping into my alternate personality gave me. I had time for one more dance. Especially for the kind of money they were offering.
I headed back to the room I reserved for filming and set up my laptop. I turned on the ring light and positioned myself in front of the camera. I remembered to mute the client this time. I never invited conversation during my dances. This wasn’t about chit-chat and getting to know each other. This was about the money they gave me to show them my body.
I blurred my face, but also standing in a way that they couldn’t make out much above the neck. Most people didn’t care about what I looked like; they just wanted my skin. My muscles. My cock.
I turned on the music then started the live stream for my new customer. I typed a quick message to them, introducing myself as Jared—the made-up name I had given myself. I asked for theirs. I liked to make it as personal an experience as I could for them. It’s what made them come back for more.
The message came back almost instantly.
Call me Darling.
Huh. Okay, they didn’t want me to use their real name either. That was fine by me.
I started dancing, slow and steady. “Do you like this, Darling?” I rasped as I started to remove my shirt.
Then I let myself disappear for a while.
**
“Sorry I’m late,” I apologized, handing Adam a bottle of red wine.
Adam held the door open for me and I stepped inside the home he shared with his wife and son. “I was starting to get worried. If there’s anything Robert Jenkins is known for, it’s punctuality,” Adam teased.
“I was working on the Cambridge deposition. I lost all track of time,” I lied effortlessly.
Adam rolled his eyes. “Dude, you really need to learn when to have a break. All work and no play makes Robert a dull boy.”
I gave him a strained laugh. “All play and no work makes you Jeremy Wyatt.”
Adam chuckled and clasped me on the shoulder. “Well played, my friend. Come on, I’m just getting the meat on the grill. This will probably be the last decent weekend of the year, so I went all out. I have enough food to feed an army, so I hope you brought your appetite.”
“I could quite literally eat a horse,” I told him honestly. I was starving. The show had gone for much longer than they usually did. After the first thirty minutes, the customer messaged offering me more money. A lot more money. They wanted a different kind of show. One that I didn’t offer unless it was to a regular client. But the payment was due for Sam’s residential facility in two weeks. And Mom’s mortgage had yet to be paid for the month. The anonymous customer offered five thousand dollars.
So, I took them up on it. All they wanted was to watch me masturbate.
I laid on the floor and thought about Skylar. It was the easiest five grand I had ever made in my life.
“Good. What’s this?” Adam asked, indicating the bakery box in my hand.
“It’s Tiramisu cake from the Dandelion Bakery downtown,” I told him.
“Oh, you’re about to become Skylar’s favorite person. She would live off this stuff if you let her.” Adam took the box as we headed toward the back of the house to the patio.
“I know,” I said without thinking. Adam gave me a funny look but didn’t say anything. He was a good friend but was pretty much oblivious to anything that didn’t involve his work or his family. He knew that I had spent quite a bit of time with Skylar a few months ago but had never really questioned me about it.
