You would think I’d never be lonely or have the ability to remember everyone’s names, given the number of people I socialise with within a week. You’d be wrong. I have some clients who are a one-hit-wonder, a flash in the pan. And then there are my regulars who see me on a specific day or week of the month and treat me as they would a long-distance girlfriend. These are the ones I miss and the ones I organise my life around. And one of these gentlemen is Jake.
Jake is American and flies over every month from Chicago. He owns 50% of a web design company that has a studio on each side of the Atlantic, and he takes it in turn with his business partner to fly out every two weeks – which is where I come in. On roughly the 1st and 15th of the month, I get the girlfriend treatment. Jake and I spend one of the days as an in-call (my apartment usually) catching up, dining on take-out and re-familiarising ourselves until the wee hours. The other day is a proper date – we go into The West End, catch a show and dine late into the evening on Steak and Chips in Leicester Square. I always make sure I wear a skirt and heels as Jake prefers the feminine look on women, and jeans don’t do it for him. I came to realise this during a rather emotional solo in Les Miserables a few months back – except Jake’s hand had snaked under my hem, but his eyes were straight ahead!
So anyway – it dawned on me I would be seeing Jake next Thursday, which is a few days earlier than it is usually. Which also made me wonder what I could do to wind him up between now and then. There’s no point in writing him a letter or texting him – but Skype allows for video calling, and I did have a brand new set of lingerie that had come from La Perla’s Vintage Limited range. I know I know, I said I wouldn’t put any more tiny bras and knickers into my underwear drawer… but they were begging me to buy them, and all that black lace came with a matching shrug. It would have been criminal to refuse.
So I sent Jake an email telling him to meet me on Skype at 10 pm GMT (allowing for the six hours time difference), arranged myself on my bed, hair over my shoulders and told him, “I hope you realise what you’re missing…” That man didn’t know what hit him. Thank goodness we were alone on our computers, and he had blinds in his office because things got pretty steamy after that, and I retired to bed with a naughty grin on my face. Poor Jake had to finish a day’s work distracted beyond anything (he said) he had known before.
So now I’m looking forward to our subsequent encounter and I think I’ll meet him at Heathrow Airport as a surprise. It may be a professional relationship when you strip it back, but there’s nothing quite like mixing business with pleasure.
