LOVE MANAGEMENT [story 90322 new version]

Remember your joke Steve? ‘What’s the difference between a wife and a prostitute? One’s Contract and the other’s Pay As You Go’.

You know what? I think that was the gag that set me off on this nightmare. Not that I’m laying anything on you. But you know what they say: ‘Loose talk costs lives’. ‘Cost’ being the operative word. I think I owe Love Ltd three grand and the boys at the Management don’t fuck about. You’re lucky with a broken leg.

We’ve not spoken for a while. Most probably that was about the last thing you said. That gag. And now Facebook reunites us. Aren’t we too old? Think I might be. By a decade. Two. Three…

You asked me how things are. You must have meant ‘are you getting laid yet?’ or ‘have you got a new boyfriend?’ or am I just projecting?

By last summer I was sick of all this being alone in my ivory tower bullshit. I got sex at sauna’s but I was bored of the lucky dip. I never knew what might be bobbing round in the cum scummed jacussi. If anything. I wanted something steady, something a little bit regular.

I don’t know why but true love just hadn’t come knocking. We’re talking about last summer mind. Things have changed. Or rather they had changed. But now they’ve changed back to not having changed. Or at least that’s what I’m worried about. Well actually everything’s changed and it’s all much worse than before. But I’m running away from myself here.

It’s last summer. Which, if you remember Steve, consisted of about six days of sun. Anyway. You remember. Cloudy. And I just started thinking to myself,

‘Enough!’

Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. Especially on Facebook. They own us, don’t they?

The point is it occurred to me that I could simply find love ‘pay as you go’. Get a nice lad out of Boyz and run up a tab with him. Twice a month. More if I had the money. A nice steady rent boy. Good plan I hear you say.

At first it went well. Morizio. Done time in Milan for drug dealing. Left him a bit bitter. But in September he got pneumonia and they put him under heavy sedation for seven weeks. I know Steve. It sounds a bit… I dunno. But basically they keep you sleeping till you’ve recovered. Less a cure and more just switching you off and switching you back on again. It works for computers.

So anyhow. Morizio had been switched off so I didn’t have my ‘pay as you go’. What to do? Buy another of course. I was following a natural logic, except I hadn’t thought it through.

This one was more pushy. This ‘pay as you go’. He started buzzing me in the middle of the night and asking for sex. Rather he wanted money for which he’d bend over any which way. Sorry Steve. I promised not to be graphic. But you know: take it up the shitter. That kind of thing.

The trouble was this: the more I said ‘no’ the more Dobby would start slashing prices. It was like DFS in January. What would you do? £20 doesn’t buy much sofa but if you’re faced with a desperate rent boy at four in the morning. Take it from me. After that first night I didn’t shit straight for a week. I got quite a bang for my buck. But you didn’t want to know that, did you?

So I’m starting to make sure I have a spare twenty tucked away under my pillow. I just can’t say ‘no’ to someone in need. unless they’re cold and hungry. But I suppose that’s city living.

The point is I’ve got Dobby. He’s Russian or Baltic or something. Lots of J’s and other low use consonants all pushed together. He said he didn’t mind being called Dobby. Don’t think he’s read Harry Potter. Not sure he can read. Anyhow. I’ve got him popping up like some strung out jack in the box at all hours when what should happen but Sleeping Beauty reawakens. This is the beginning of November. I’m thinking to myself:

‘I’ve got Dobby. I don’t need this shit.’

To be honest with you Steve, I’d forgotten how beautiful the beaut was. Suddenly I could see Dobby for what he was. Drug addiction close up lacks a certain glamour, like the veneer coming off a kitchenette.

Desperation might make you affordable but worthless too. Is that harsh? I despised him.

So I’ve got Dobby and then, ding dang dong here’s Morizio again. Another ‘pay as you go’. And suddenly it hits me: You only have one contract at a time but with ‘pay as you go’ the sky’s the fucking limit. Dozens of them why not? Hundreds and thousands.

Well. Maybe not the sprinkles but there’s no ceiling. And what’s more, it doesn’t seem to matter how often you say ‘no, no, no’. They just… you just can’t turn them off or send them away. They are always there. Just coming round uninvited swinging from my doorknob.

“What about the neighbours?” I hear you ask.

In the end I had not only both of them turning up willy nilly, but also their friends and fucking relations. I was like a brothel in reverse. Twenty whores. One client.

If I don’t pay those uber pimps at Love Management £800 by the weekend things could get very sticky.

This isn’t a begging letter. I’m just saying I’m in a scrape. I’m up to my fucking neck in scrape.

Apart from that everything’s fine. How about you?