Chapter Text
Nile was home.
She’d dreamed about coming home, being home so many times, and every so often she caught herself wondering if this was another dream, that she’d wake up back in Afghanistan.
I’m a veteran now, she remembered thinking on the plane back to the States. I don’t feel like one. In fact, she felt like more of an impostor than she did before she’d left; she’d seen what bullets and bombs could do to flesh, she’d woken up every day with the possibility nothing would be the same at the end of it, but she was whole; unscarred. She’d yet to shoot to kill. What was she now then?
She felt unmoored from herself, wondering how she’d changed, scared that she might have changed too much, that after months of looking forward to going home she might fail at it somehow. She felt impossibly strong and fearfully fragile. She desperately wanted something—someone—to lose herself in, a space safe and selfish; a clean break with everything and everyone that had come before, one she could leave behind without regret when she inevitably had to go.
Submerged in the colour and chaos and diversity of civilian reality, she found herself looking for it on the domestic flight to Chicago, hungrily eyeing off middle-aged businessmen, outdoorsy looking dads, and a tanned and broad-shouldered silver fox who Nile was mortified to hear greeted on arrival by a woman her own age as Grandpa. She needed to get laid again; her options on base being limited to not her type, married, or superior officer. For now, family came first and the broad smiles of her mother and brother swept all other considerations from her mind.
The little family celebrated, invited friends around, cooked favourite meals, had quiet conversations, hugged and hugged and hugged, and God she was touch starved, too.
Her family could only do so much to help with that.
Nile’s leave was limited, and the last thing she wanted was emotional entanglement; she didn’t want to break a heart, but the disappointing potluck of casual dating hadn’t improved while she’d been overseas and quickly started to feel like a waste of precious time. She’d had months to think about what she wanted, and was now both desperate to get laid, and not inclined to settle.
The trouble was, you couldn’t order a man like a pizza.
Except you could.
She’d come home after a night out, feeling older than she looked and oddly dislocated from the things she used to be able to lose herself in. Songs she’d had on repeat while she’d been overseas brought it all back when replayed in a club; the heat, the dust, the pop pop pop of gunshots in the distance. She wanted to fuck, but the bodies she liked belonged to people she couldn’t bring herself to trust with her own.
At one point she found herself complaining to some strangers in the ladies’ bathroom, and someone had told her, “Girl, you’re looking for something you’d have to pay for.”
Now she was home she wondered if that was true. In a spirit closer to prurient curiosity than genuine hope or expectation, or any intention of following through, she sequestered herself in her room and started browsing escort services.
The men available were discreet and skilled and there for her pleasure, and while Nile wasn’t against those things, that wasn’t really what she was looking for; if that was all she wanted there were much cheaper battery-powered options. The men on offer were mostly a bit younger than she really liked, too. Maybe she should filter for age.
Are you a Daddy’s girl?
She nearly threw her phone across the room. Nope.
Still, it was all sort of interesting, a glimpse into another world and an appropriate way to end a disappointing evening.
Oh.
She stopped scrolling. Those were pretty eyes, Sebastien Le Livre. That was a ridiculous fake name too, but Nile was inured to those by now; they seemed to come with the territory.
She went through to his personal page. His age wasn’t listed, and she couldn’t see any grey in his artfully tousled hair, but he was far from young, and his skin crinkled at the corners of his slightly sad blue eyes and laugh lines bracketed his faint, inviting smile. In these professionally-taken photos he had the charisma of a minor celebrity. Nile thought he was cute, if not as outrageously hot as some of the other men she’d window-shopped that evening. Give him a few more years, she thought, although there was no way of knowing how old the pictures were.
She scrolled further. He was bisexual. He was versatile. The latter term was a link, and Nile prodded at it without even thinking.
The link took her to a page with two photos a little different from the professional shots. There was something much less polished about them, which didn’t mean she liked them less. Not at all.
The first was of Mister Le Livre in a suit and no tie, taken from a suggestively low angle. He gazed down into the camera with a commanding look, and Nile found herself grinning, even as she admired the cut of his clothes and how they fitted him as her eyes were drawn down his body.
In the second photo, she initially thought he was completely naked. He was on his knees, his hands behind his back, and the camera was now above him. He was well-muscled but not ripped the way so many of the army guys were, and Nile took her time admiring his shoulders and chest before her attention slipped past his stomach to just the barest glimpse of bright red cotton, the edge of a bulge carefully obscured by the rest of him.
Nile flushed, feeling genuine heat spread across her chest for the first time that evening. You tease, she thought. He’d made her a voyeur; she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been looking for it. There was something playful about both pictures she kind of liked.
Anything you want me to be, was the caption, and then the only thing left to look at was his prices.
Jesus, therapy would be cheaper, Nile thought as she took in the hourly rate. And he was on the other side of the country. Well, that was that, she told herself; a weird rabbit hole to waste an hour on, and now it was very late and she hadn’t even taken her makeup off. But at least she had some pretty eyes to fantasise about when she finally made it to bed.
In the cold light of morning his eyes were just as pretty, and over the next little while Nile indulged in a kind of non-celebrity celebrity crush, inventing meet-cutes in idle moments, and meet-fucks in less idle ones. She wondered what it would be like to be his client, to hand over a wad of cash and oblige him to satisfy her every whim. It was kind of hot, the idea of buying the attention of a white, older man. It was the kind of power that made something inside her very happy.
And if she was being honest, she could afford him. It wasn’t like she’d spent much of her wages overseas. She’d been raised to be prudent and careful with money.
She approached it—him—obliquely. A week on the west coast, just being a tourist sounded fun, and her mother agreed.
“I don’t want you feel you have to spend all your time here,” she said. “You do what you need to do. What you want to do. Go wild a bit.” Nile realised she was speaking as an army wife and then a widow, and she understood that for a soldier coming home could be as difficult and dislocating as leaving it. That Nile had finally decided on a specific indulgence seemed to cause her some relief. Nile doubted she’d feel as sanguine if she knew the whole story.
By the time she’d booked modest accommodation and flights she still hadn’t committed to anything—anyone—expensive. She could chicken out at any point and still have a great holiday, she told herself, but as her plane left the tarmac her insides felt buzzy with anticipation despite her attempts to lower her expectations. He’s mostly in your head, she reminded herself, you invented him. But the real thing will play along, and wasn’t that the point? He promised to be anything she wanted him to be and given the amount he charged, he better be pretty good at it.
She was going to give herself a couple days innocent holidaying first but it occurred to her on the flight that Sebastien might be booked up more than a week in advance, and so her bag was still unpacked on the bed when she found herself opening up his enquiries page, and less than twenty-four hours later meeting the man himself.
The air-conditioning chilled the sweat on Nile’s forehead as she entered the foyer of a hotel much nicer than the one she’d just left. She’d thought about arriving early, but didn’t like the idea of sitting there waiting and so instead she was exactly on time. Nile hadn’t dressed up for the occasion, but she’d given her outfit some thought; she wore a tshirt and jeans and minimal makeup, her braids tied back. She could have been anyone going almost anywhere, but for the wad of cash was burning a hole in her handbag. She didn’t think she’d ever held so many actual notes before, and it was enough to make her feel vaguely criminal.
It was mid-afternoon, and the hotel bar was almost empty. Nile automatically swept the room as she walked in. It was just second nature these days to check for exits. The instant anything felt off or uncomfortable, she was out of there. She noted the escape routes, a middle-aged woman in the corner talking on her phone, a bored bartender polishing glasses, the TV playing music videos turned down to little more than a whisper, and sitting at a little table by himself, in full view of the entrance, was Sebastien Le Livre.
He was wearing the same grey suit as in the photo, and it fitted him just as well. He was tall enough that he had to hunch a little to put his elbow on the table, his long legs stretched out beneath it. He was reading a book, but there was something studied and artificial about his posture; he’d put himself on display, and Nile did him the courtesy of taking a good long look at him before she approached. The photos had to be recent; he looked almost exactly the same, but they hadn’t captured his physical presence, and when she walked up and said his name, oh, they hadn’t caught a real smile either. She saw him give her a quick once-over with an expression of pleased interest, and some curiosity; she got the impression she wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
“Hello, I’m Nile,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Sebastien,” he said as he shook it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nile.” To her surprise he did sound European, although she couldn’t tell what accent she’d detected. His handshake was firm without being overbearing, and didn’t outstay its welcome. Nice hands though, nice voice, nice everything, she noted, now he was up close and three-dimensional.
“I’ll buy you a drink,” she heard herself say. “What are you having?” It came out more abruptly than she’d intended, but he took it entirely in stride. It looked like a half-finished club soda next to his book, which at a quick glance appeared to be in French, but he requested scotch on the rocks. Waiting to follow her lead, she thought, as she went to the bar to order. When she turned around, his scotch and her mojito in hand, he’d moved to a more secluded table and tucked his book away in a little satchel. He pulled out her chair for her when she joined him.
He raised his glass towards her before taking a drink. If he found anything about this awkward it didn’t show.
Begin with the obvious, she thought.“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything you like, please.”
“How old are you?” she asked. “And if you’re going to lie, I’d rather you inflate the figure.”
He laughed a little at that. “Well, let me ask you something first. Do you want the truth, or what I think you want to hear?”
It was a strange concept; that everything, including honesty, was on the table for her to decide.
“Truth.”
“Forty-two.” The question had ceased to be relevant a while ago; he was to her taste regardless.
She nodded and took a deep breath. “I’m not really sure how this is supposed to go,” she confessed. She’d never had to interview someone for a job before.
“It doesn’t have to go anywhere,” he said. “We can just have a drink together, if that’s what you want. It’s all up to you.”
She frowned. “I know that, and I don’t just want a drink—you’re my type, I think.”
He acknowledged the compliment with a smile. “I’m glad to hear it. May I be a little presumptuous?” At her nod of assent he continued, leaning forward to hold her gaze. “Nile, you’re beautiful, and you lack neither courage nor charm. I think you want something that you haven’t been able to find elsewhere, and you think it’s something I can give you.”
“Wow! Nailed it!” she said brightly and somewhat sarcastically, feeling slightly too seen.
“I’m not going to judge you, even if I can’t help you.” He leaned back a little to give her space to think.
“It’s not anything too weird, I don’t think. It’s hard to describe,” she began, looking around the room for inspiration. She actually found it. “Something like that,” she said softly, nodding towards the TV above the bar. On the screen Lana Del Rey was draping herself slightly drunkenly over a rather sleazy looking man twice her age as she sang to the camera about how much she loved him, and what a bad idea that was. “Like the guys in her videos, only I want to treat them the way they treat her.”
“Like a sugar baby?” he asked. He was smiling, Nile could have sworn he was genuinely into it, turning the idea around in his head as he watched the TV. “You want to be wanted for your money?”
“It’s not really the money, it’s the, uh, power I guess. And because I’m beautiful and courageous and charming,” she reminded him.
He grinned, his attention back on her again, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I think that can be arranged, Nile.” He spoke quietly, with promise, and Nile took him in one more time before making her mind up.
“Is it okay if I pay cash?”
“Very much so. Half upfront. In private,” he added, when she reached for her handbag. “You want me to ask for it, don’t you?”
Oh, he got this. Suddenly sitting around in the bar seemed like a huge waste of time, and Nile picked up her drink and finished it.
“Let’s go.”