Chapter Text
Aaron had never done anything like this before – he’d never even rung a chat line – but here he was, sitting on his bed with his phone in his sweaty hand, about to punch this number in. He’d rung it several times before, but always lost his nerve as soon as it was answered. He was determined not to bottle it this time.
After things had gone tits up with Ed, and all that with Adam, he’d come home with his tail between his legs, in trouble with the police, in trouble with his family. Donna had died and a kid was motherless, but he’d gone right back to his old life like nothing had ever happened. The only other gay in the village wasn’t exactly his type, though that hadn’t stopped him from sleeping with Finn, but it didn’t mean he wanted anything else. Finn was a nice lad, but he was soft and anxious in a way that set Aaron’s teeth on edge.
Still, Aaron was lonely, frustrated, and bored. He’d spent two years living with Ed, and even though it hadn’t ended well, he still missed the companionship, and the sex. He’d been to Bar West a couple of times and he never had much trouble picking guys up, but he didn’t want a quick fumble and he wasn’t sure he wanted to get into anything long term either. He just wanted all the nice parts with none of the commitment.
A guy he’d met at the bar had given him this number, said if he ever wanted something without strings, guaranteed. An escort agency. Aaron had scoffed at the idea at first, but he hadn’t thrown the card away and the thought of it had grown so large in his head that he couldn’t see past it.
He held the phone tighter as it clicked through.
“Harewood Dating Agency,” a pleasant female voice said. He’d thrown by that the first couple of times, until he realised it was a cover.
“Er,” he murmured, and cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’d like to, uh, use your services…?”
“Of course,” she said. “Male or female?”
“Me?”
“For your date, love.”
He felt heat bloom in his cheeks. “Oh. Um, male.”
“All right. Do you have any preferences?”
“What, like small, medium, large?” he said, edging on hysterical.
She laughed a little. “Well, we do have bears and twinks.”
“Huh,” he squeaked, a high-pitched sound. The thought of going out with some Hercules looking bloke, while the occasional stuff of his fantasies, seemed way too attention-grabbing. “Uh, just average. Um. Lean.”
“Okay. Any preferences on race, age, hair colour?”
He swallowed. That sounded awful, like he was asking Marlon to make him some kind of custom dish. “Uh, not older than… thirty five. Definitely not younger than twenty. Between twenty and thirty five? I’m good with… the other stuff.”
“Okay,” she said, and paused for a moment, the sound of a keyboard clacking in the background. “What kind of things are you looking to do on your date?”
“Er… just something nice,” he mumbled. “A meal.”
“All right,” she said, “I think I have someone in mind. Are you looking for the full package?”
He almost asked what the full package was before he got the idea. Was he looking to pay over the odds for a date or did he want to go head first into full on prostitution?
The woman laughed softly again. “I’ll put you down as ‘undecided’. Now, how this works is I’m going to pass your number onto your date and he’ll get in touch. Your number’s come up here on my caller ID. Your membership fee is £300, you’ll pay on the day. Do you want to go ahead?”
“Aaron!” his mum called from downstairs, and he almost threw his phone across the room with fright.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I do, I--” Mum called again and he bit his lip. “Is that everything?”
“That’s everything,” the woman said, her tone light and amused.
He ended the call with a sigh of relief and leant back against his pillows.
“Aaron!”
“I heard you the first time!” he yelled back.
-
He was getting ready for bed, gone midnight, when his phone buzzed on the bedside table.
Hi, this is Robert. I’ve been referred to you. Can I get your name?
Aaron stared at it for a second, in faint horror, then picked up his phone carefully, like it was going to blow up in his hand.
aaron
The phone buzzed again a second later.
Great! There’s a restaurant in Manchester I know. Unless there’s somewhere you want to go?
Manchester was a bit of a drive, but less chance of him running into anyone he knew. no that sounds fine
Robert sent him a link to the restaurant’s website a second later, followed by another message. When do you want to go?
Aaron sat with that for a while, turning it over in his head. If he made firm plans about this, he’d have to go – for all he knew this guy would take exception to being stood up and not getting paid and start harassing him. Nothing Aaron couldn’t handle, but still wildly embarrassing if it got out. Which it would, because he couldn’t have a wank without half the village knowing about it.
It took him at least fifteen minutes to get the courage to text back – as quick as Robert was with replies, he hadn’t prodded Aaron at all.
friday 6pm? It was the early hours of Monday morning now, so that gave him the week to agonise over this to its fullest extent. The phone predictably buzzed in his hand again.
OK. I’ll be in a paisley shirt and leather jacket. Unless you have any requests.
Aaron squirmed a little. no requests. i’ll be in jeans, white t-shirt, brown jacket
See you then! Robert texted back cheerfully.
Aaron threw his phone back on the table and covered his face with his hands. What a saddo.
-
The week raced by. Robert didn’t text again, but Aaron read the messages he’d sent multiple times. The restaurant was part of a hotel, which Aaron assumed was on purpose – he was ‘undecided’, after all. It looked fairly pricey, on top of the £300 he’d be forking out, but between the garage and living rent free at the pub, he had some spending money; not much after this trip, but enough to get by. He had to google what paisley was, because he couldn’t get an image of the pattern in his mind. It was a poncy looking design he’d never be caught dead in. He did a bit of research too, and realised that ‘Robert’ was probably a fake name and that he should have used one too.
Friday arrived quicker than it had any need to and he took off work early, despite Debbie’s complaints. He told his mum that he was going to Manchester to see friends and might not be back till morning.
“Which friends?” she asked across the bar as he fiddled with his backpack. He wasn’t sure what he’d need, but he’d packed a change of clothes and some condoms.
“Friends,” he repeated.
She raised a disbelieving eyebrow and he sighed, swinging the bag over his shoulder. “Adam isn’t my only friend,” he said, although, really, he was.
“Are you going on the pull?” Mum said, grinning at him as he groaned and walked away. “Good luck!”
He arrived half an hour early because he’d been worried about the traffic and generally wanted to get it over with. He regretted the time he’d chosen, now; it made him seem like some old dear who needed to have their tea in time for Coronation Street.
He parked across the road from the hotel, a trendy looking place that he probably wasn’t dressed for, and waited, listening to awful pop music on Capital FM. He probably looked like he was casing the joint, the way he was watching the street, but no one came over to move him on.
At five to six, a guy strolled past the car in sunglasses, earbuds in, looking down at his phone. It was a nice, reasonably bright day, but it was still October in the north and the guy looked like a bit of a wanker in them. He crossed the road, hardly looking up from his phone at all, and went towards the hotel, turning on his heel to lean against the wall. He had slightly shaggy blond hair – proper blond, not light brown – and was wearing black trousers, a black leather jacket, and a crazily patterned shirt. Aaron heart thumped against his chest; that was him, Robert.
The minutes ticked by and Robert hardly moved a muscle, engrossed in his phone. The clock on the dashboard went six and anxiety flushed through Aaron anew. He could drive away right now and hope for the best, not risk this being some kind of sting or whatever. Robert didn’t look like a cop, though, and Aaron knew enough of them.
He was going to look like a bit of a creep, hopping out of the car after sitting here for so long. He cast another look at Robert, who still hadn’t looked up from his phone, and opened the car door carefully, as quietly as possible. He had his wallet in his back pocket and six fifties in the pocket of his hoodie, leaving his backpack stuffed under the front seat. This place didn’t look like somewhere you walked into with a raggedy bag over your shoulder.
He closed the door gently and locked the car, then moved out from behind it to an open part of the pavement and stepped off the kerb. The traffic was reasonably heavy, so he waited for a break in it to cross. Robert finally lifted his head and looked up and down the street quickly.
Jeans and a t-shirt were hardly the most unique outfit, so Aaron didn’t expect to be spotted, but maybe he’d been staring too hard, because Robert looked at him dead on and pushed his sunglasses down his nose. He looked like all of those fit bad guys in American eighties movies his mum liked so much. Aaron had never been so openly checked out, and looked away at the force of it, conveniently as the traffic slowed and he was able to dart across the road.
Robert pushed his sunglasses into his hair, revealing a slim, slightly soft face, and tugged his earbuds out one at a time, his eyes still fixed on Aaron. Aaron almost faltered, the thought of spinning around and taking off growing large in his mind, but straightened his back instead and walked the couple of feet over to his brand new escort.
“Aaron?” the man said.
Aaron cleared his throat and nodded. “Robert.”
Robert looked him up and down again. “You’re younger than I thought you’d be.”
“And?”
A wide smile spread across Robert’s face and he shook his head. “And nothing.” He held out his hand to shake Aaron’s and when Aaron took it, he reeled him in and murmured, “Money,” in his ear.
Aaron fumbled it out of his pocket and pressed it into Robert’s other hand. Robert thumbed through it quickly, the two of them still pressed almost chest to chest, then slipped it into an inside pocket of his jacket and let Aaron go. Aaron took a step back in surprise and Robert leaned back against the wall, still smiling like he could eat Aaron alive.
“So, how this works,” he said, “is you’ve got me for two hours, hundred per hour after that, fifty more for extras. You pick up the tab here. No surnames. You can tell me whatever you want, make it up, whatever, but I’m not going to tell you where I live or my NI number or anything like that.”
Aaron thought it over for a moment. “Make it up?” he repeated.
“A lot do,” Robert said. “I’ve had more than a few James Bonds and Angelina Jolies.”
Angelina Jolies? Aaron had just assumed that Robert would actually be gay, but maybe he was, like, gay for pay?
Robert tapped him on the arm. “Don’t look so nervous, we’re gonna have fun.”
“Yeah,” Aaron said, shaking himself a little. He was here, kind of hard to back out now. He turned towards the hotel entrance. “Should we go in?”
“Sounds good,” Robert said, and pushed himself away from the wall. They walked up the steps together and the doorman nodded to Robert in a way that made it obvious he’d been here before.
The foyer was wide and lit by chandeliers as nice as the ones up at Home Farm, not that Aaron had managed to get in there that many times. To the right was the check in desk, straight ahead was a hallway with lifts along the sides, and to the left was an archway, which Robert headed straight towards. There were clusters of chairs with coffee tables where men and women in suits were sitting, drinking coffee or from wine glasses. No one gave him a second look, despite the hoodie.
“Did you book a table?” Robert asked at the entrance to the restaurant.
“No,” Aaron said, and glanced around. The place looked pretty full. “Was I meant to?”
“It’s all right,” Robert said. He approached the guy on the desk – the maître d', Aaron remembered Marlon calling them – and took his sunglasses from his hair, tucking them between the buttons of his shirt. “Table for two, please.”
“We’re fully booked, I’m afraid, sir,” the man replied.
“Are you?” Robert said, and rested his elbow on the table. He looked the man up and down, not as intensely as he had Aaron but still pretty openly. Aaron tried not to look too out of place standing beside him. “Not a single one?”
“Well...” The man looked down at his reservation book and tapped his fingers on the page. Robert was watching him with slightly hooded eyes and the man glanced up and back down again. “There is one table, near the kitchen.”
Robert looked at Aaron, his eyebrows raised in question. Aaron shrugged.
“Get the food quicker,” he said.
Robert laughed, looking almost surprised, and turned back. “That’ll be fine.”
They were led through the full restaurant, filled with all sorts of corporate types, to the back, where there was a table tucked away near the kitchen door. It was noticeably hotter, the heat drifting over from the ovens, but Aaron didn’t mind. The guy offered to take their coats, but Robert turned it down and Aaron followed suit.
A waiter came over as soon as the maître d' had left, and handed them menus. “Are you ready to order drinks?”
“Glass of white,” Robert said, off the cuff. The waiter stared hard at him for a moment before writing it on his pad and turning to Aaron.
“And for sir?”
Robert looked at the back of the waiter’s head, his expression hard.
“Sprite,” Aaron said, “I’m driving.”
The waiter wrote that down as well and looked between the two of them. “Is this attached to a room number?”
Aaron guessed it was a reasonable question, but the way he said it made it sound like some kind of accusation. Robert smiled coldly.
“No, just the drinks, thanks,” Robert said, then looked down at his menu in dismissal.
The waiter stayed a moment longer, then walked away without a word.
“Did he…?” Aaron murmured.
Robert shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. We’re not doing anything illegal.”
Yet, Aaron thought to himself. He looked down at the menu and tried not to cringe too much. These were not Emmerdale prices.
“Do you want to talk?” Robert asked, the hardness gone from his face, all smiles again.
“Okay. I… this is my first time, doing this.”
Robert nodded, still smiling, looking amused. Yeah, it was pretty obvious this was his first time.
“I just came back from France, broke up with my boyfriend. I guess I’m pretty… bored, being back.” He almost said lonely, but that felt like too big an admission to this complete stranger he was paying to be nice to him.
“I used to live in Spain,” Robert offered. Aaron wondered if that was true or just a story for his clients.
“Do you miss it?”
Robert looked away for a second, then tipped his head. “Yeah, I do, but it was time to move on. Do you miss France?”
“A little. I was pretty cack-handed with my French, though, so it wasn’t that easy to get around.”
“They love us with our primary school French, eh?” Robert said. “I lived in one of those expat communities. Locals hated us.”
Aaron laughed a little, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. Robert was looking at him like he was the only person in the restaurant, and he met his gaze with as much confidence as he could muster.
“So, what do you do for work?” Robert asked.
“I’m a mechanic.”
Robert raised an eyebrow. “I bet you look great in the overalls.”
Aaron pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. “I do okay.”
“I used to be a mechanic. Wasn’t very good at it, though.”
“Yeah? How did you look in your overalls?”
Robert tipped his head to the side as the waiter approached with their drinks. “Never had any complaints,” he said, picking up the glass put in front of him and taking a sip all without letting his gaze leave Aaron.
“Are you ready to order?”
“Give us a minute,” Robert said, still without looking at him. The waiter huffed slightly and walked away. Finally Robert broke his gaze, looking down at his menu and Aaron did the same.
He twitched again, getting a closer look at the prices. There were thirty quid steaks on here and he only had a couple hundred left in his current account. God, he had not thought this through at all. He risked a glance at Robert, who was looking at his own menu with disinterest. He obviously had expensive taste and Aaron would feel like a right idiot asking him to get a salad (which was already more expensive than some leaves in a bowl needed to be).
When the waiter returned, Aaron ordered first, their cheapest burger and held his breath for Robert, but Robert asked for one of their pasta dishes, which was only £12. Aaron tried not to sigh too openly, but Robert still smiled at him like he could read his mind.
After the initial awkwardness wore off, he found that it was easy to talk to Robert; he was funny and sarcastic, a little pretentious, and made Aaron’s hard beat a little faster every time he gave him that look through his eyelashes. He’d been living in London before this, he said, and Aaron chose to believe that he wasn’t lying. They talked about films and music and how rubbish the Metrolink was, and Aaron thought he was from Yorkshire, the way Robert’s accent thickened sometimes, though he didn’t ask. Aaron didn’t say where he was from either, or where he lived.
When the waiter came back with the dessert menu, Robert waved him off and suggested they get the bill instead. Aaron left a good tip and Robert stood up, stepping over to Aaron’s chair and looking down at him. He had really long legs.
“I need to use the bathroom,” he said.
“Okay,” Aaron replied.
Robert leant his hip against the table and tapped his fingers on the arm of Aaron’s chair. He didn’t say anything, but Aaron twigged a second later.
“Yeah,” he said, scraping his chair back. “Me too.”
Robert led him to a bathroom deeper in the hotel, in a quieter area. It was spacious, with wide stalls and only one other guy inside, at the sinks. Robert went into one of the stalls and tipped his head towards the urinal. Aaron wandered over and dithered by it until the guy finished washing his hands and left.
When the door swung shut behind him, Aaron looked towards the occupied stall. It wasn’t the first time he’d had a fuck in the gent’s, but all those other times he’d been drunk and hadn’t been paying.
Robert whistled. Aaron pushed his shoulders back and followed him in.
“Hey,” Robert said, when Aaron stepped inside. He leant into him and pushed the door closed, pressing up close to Aaron as he latched it. He was a little taller than Aaron, so Aaron had to tip his head up, just in time for Robert to kiss him, thoroughly and soundly, one knee pressing between his legs.
Aaron groaned, the hard lines of Robert’s sunglasses digging into his chest. Robert took his liberties, sliding his hands up Aaron’s chest, but that was what he was paid to do and Aaron wasn’t complaining. He wrapped his hand around the back of Robert’s neck, his fingers brushing short hair, and resisted the urge to ride Robert’s knee – not yet, anyway. Robert slid one hand down the length of Aaron’s torso, then back up under his t-shirt, his palm cool against Aaron’s warm skin.
Outside the stall, the door creaked open and they both heard footsteps. Aaron’s heart dropped into his stomach. Robert stilled, though he kept his weight pressed against Aaron. Aaron held his breath while the guy hummed to himself, but Robert just smiled slyly, tipping his head to the side as piss hit ceramic. He spread his hand flat over Aaron’s heart and brushed his mouth against Aaron’s ear.
“Relax,” he murmured, hardly louder than a breath. That didn’t relax Aaron at all.
The pissing stopped, then footsteps and the sound of the door opening and closing again.
“Didn’t wash his hands,” Robert said. He rubbed Aaron’s chest a little. “Maybe we should move this upstairs.”
“Uh.” Aaron swallowed heavily. It was hard to think with Robert wrapped around him like this. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Do what?”
“Pay for sex.” He grimaced a little. “Sorry.”
“You sure?” Robert said, lifting the hand not occupied with Aaron’s chest to his face, stroking his fingers over his cheek and down his neck.
“Yeah...” he said, then again, more firmly. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Robert pulled away, taking a whole step back. “That’s fine,” he said, though his voice and his eyes had gone flat. He straightened his shirt and patted his hair down while Aaron tried to sort out the discomfort in his trousers; not very successfully, mind.
Once he’d done his best, he unlocked the toilet door and stepped out, followed by Robert. He didn’t know what to say as they exited to bathroom, but thought he should offer to drop Robert somewhere.
“I’m going to stay here,” Robert said, gesturing towards the bar nearby. Stay and pick up some extra work, Aaron guessed.
“Okay.” Aaron stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders a little. “Sorry again.”
“Yeah,” Robert said tonelessly and started towards the bar. Having clearly been dismissed, Aaron turned away without another word and made a beeline for the exit.
Once he was back in his car and pulling out into traffic, he knew that his mum was going to peck his head about coming home so early, but all he could really think about was the feel of Robert’s mouth on his.