Secrets of a Gigolo

PROLOGUE                                  Los Angeles, California…               Zachary Cooper knelt, cradling his bruised ribs on his hands and knees in the alley. The metallic taste of blood was on his tongue, and he spits the crimson fluid out onto the concrete as his attackers wandered off with his money and shoes laughing at his inability to have defended himself. The odds were against him six to one. It wasn’t fair. Once he was alone, Zachary struggled to pick himself up and brush himself off after kneeling in the mud. The rain was coming down hard, and he was freezing. Those damned thugs had to take his entire paycheque, his runners, and his jacket, leaving him frozen and battered in an alley four blocks from his apartment building. He was beyond angry. He’d worked a lot of overtime to get that money to feed his family and now it was all gone. Zachary wiped the blood from his lips and started out of the alley to make his way home. What was he going to do? He had two hungry siblings and his mother to feed. They had nothing and were behind on the rent because his alcoholic mother drank all their money away. They were starving and were three days away from eviction. He’d dropped out of school to work full time to pay their expenses, but he was getting nowhere. Even working full time, he only pulled in five hundred dollars, and now he didn’t even have that. He needed money, and he had no way of getting it. He was eighteen and useless. The bastard son of a used-up prostitute, he was nothing with no prospects or hope of being more than another statistic. Zachary was walking down the empty street when he looked to his side and saw a flashy Lincoln Town Car slowly pull over to the curb. It was a fancy car to be driving in these parts. Zachary came to a stop and watched the tinted rear window roll down to reveal its passenger. It was a very beautiful older woman in her thirties. Her platinum blond hair was curled, and she was painted up in a red cocktail dress with what looked like thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds draped around her neck, coming to rest on her ample bosom. He was young, but he recognized wealth when he saw it. Her ruby lips curved in a smile as she looked him over. Zachary was young, but he’d hit puberty early and had filled out sooner than most boys his age. He stood six-two and weighed a hundred and eighty pounds. He was thin but broadly built. His ebony hair wasn’t long but was long enough that wet it hung in his blue eyes. His wet clothes clung to his body as he shivered in the rain. “Excuse me.” The woman addressed him. “My driver seems to be lost. Do you know how to get back to Bel-Air?” Zachary looked around. She couldn’t be more lost. Bel-Air was nowhere close to where they were. They were standing in the projects. “You’re lost. It’s about fifty blocks that way.” He said, pointing down the street. “You got to go back the way you came before someone carjacks you.” The woman looked back over her shoulder and out the rear window. “Oh, dear. That far? My driver was so off base.” She then raked her eyes over Zachary once more and smiled. “Would you mind getting in and showing us the way. I fear he’ll get us further lost.” Zachary knew better than to get into a stranger’s vehicle. “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you can just get me back to Bel-Air.” She offered. Twenty bucks were more than he presently had. He was a big boy. He could handle this woman if she were a nut job. “Ok.” He said, coming to the car. He opened the door, and the woman slid across the seat so that he could get in. He shut the door, and the driver made a three-point turn, pointing the car in the right direction. “My, you are so wet,” she observed and looked down at his socked feet. “What happened to your shoes?” She asked. “I was robbed.” He confessed. “I assume they took your coat too?” “They did.” The woman looked to the front seat. “Emilio, do be a doll and turn up the heat. My friend is cold.” She instructed the driver. “Let me introduce myself.” She said, offering Zachary her perfectly manicured hand. “Joyce McCoy.” “Like McCoy Industries?” He asked. McCoy Industries was one of the biggest commercial construction companies in LA. He’d heard on the news that Robert McCoy had just landed a contract with the city to repave the city freeways and ring road. It was a multi-billion-dollar contract. Joyce frowned. “Yes, that’s my husband’s business.” She said with annoyance. “You’re married?” “Unhappily married. My husband’s been sleeping with his assistant for two years, that dog. Oh well, he can screw anything he wants so long as he doesn’t cancel my credit cards.” She then ran her eyes over him again, and a new smile came to her face. “What’s your name?” “Zachary Cooper.” “And what were you doing on the street at this hour in the rain?” “I was trying to get home with my paycheque, but the local thugs figured they needed it more than I did and relieved me of every dollar.”  Joyce giggled and placed her hand on his knee. “Poor boy. Look at you; you’re so skinny, are you hungry?” She asked. “What do you like to eat?” “I’m fine.” “Please, you are making sure I get home safely the least I could do is buy you something to eat.” She insisted. Well, he was hungry. “A burger would be nice.” “You got it.” She instructed the driver to stop at the first burger joint they came across. They stopped at a McDonalds and then proceeded to Joyce’s home. They pulled up to a large million-dollar house in Bel-Air fifteen minutes later as Zachary polished off the fries he’d gotten with his burger. He placed the last fry in his mouth as he looked at the incredible house. “Come in.” Joyce insisted as she got out. Zachary tossed the trash back into the bag and left it on the seat as he got out of the car and followed Joyce to the door. She unlocked the door, and they went inside. He was still wet and shoeless. She walked over to the round table with flowers in the middle of the lobby and placed her purse on the table and took out her wallet. She took out twenty dollars and offered it to him. Zachary reached for the money, and she pulled it out of his grasp with a playful smile. “What do you say you let me run your wet clothes through the drier and then I’ll have Emilio take you home so you don’t get robbed again?” She offered. She then looked down at his feet. “Perhaps I can find you some shoes to wear too.” Before he knew it, he was standing in her bedroom wearing nothing but her husband’s robe while she took his clothes and threw them in her drier. He was snooping around the room. The closet was open, and Zachary was checking out the many fine tailored suits and polished shoes. He opened a drawer and looked inside to see some men’s watches. This man had a tone of money. He picked up a gold Rolex and draped it over his thin wrist, admiring the way it looked. “Do you like that?” Joyce startled him, and Zachary returned the watch to the drawer and shut it quickly. “I wasn’t stealing anything.” He swore. She just smiled and sat down on the edge of her bed and pat the space next to her. “Come to sit with me.” Zachary walked over and sat down next to her. Joyce ran her fingers over his hair, brushing it out of his eyes. “Such a handsome young man. How old are you?” “Eighteen.” He said, clearing his throat nervously. There was a fire in her eyes that was unmistakable. “A fine young man.” She purred against his ear. “Do you like nice things?” She asked, gazing into his eyes. “Yes.” “Do you think I’m beautiful?” She asked, placing her hand on his inner thigh. “Yes.” “Kiss me.” She breathed, leaning in so close, her lips hovered over his. “I’ve never…” He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He’d never been with a woman before, and this was strange and awkward. “That’s ok.” She said and then kissed him. “I’ll teach you.” She pushed him back against the bed and proceeded to kiss him and touch him. They burnt the night away in each other’s arms, and when they were done, she got up and took a shower. Zachary sat on the foot of the bed in his shorts, thinking about what he’d just done. He was still sitting there when she came back in wearing nothing but a towel with his dry clothes in her hands. She placed them in his hands and kissed his lips. “You should come around and visit me again.”  Zachary got up and started to get dressed. He’d just pulled on his shirt when Joyce took out a chequebook from the nightstand and then wrote something out and tore one off. She offered him the cheque and put it in his hands. Zachary looked at the cheque in his hands. “This is a thousand dollars.” He said, offering it back to her. Joyce smiled, and she sat down at her vanity as she began to brush her hair. “You earned it, baby.” She smiled at him through the mirror. “You come back and visit me, and there will be a lot more where that came from.” He didn’t know what to say. He just looked at the cheque in his hand. Part of him said he should give it back, but he needed the money. If he took, it did that make him a prostitute? “You’re going to pay me for s*x?” He asked, not sure how he felt about it. “Don’t consider it as payment for s*x. Consider it a gift between friends.” She put her brush down and turned to face him. “You want to be my friend, don’t you?” He looked back at the cheque and then lifted his eyes to meet hers. “Are you this generous to all your friends?” “Only the cute ones.” She said, standing up and coming over to him. She brushed his hair out of his eyes and smiled. “I have a few friends you might want to meet. Generous friends with money to burn who would love to spend some time with you.” He wasn’t sure he could do this. “It’s prostitution.” “No, it’s just wealthy women giving a young, handsome man gifts.” He tilted his head slightly in thought, trying to justify taking her money. “Like a sugar momma?” She smiled and caressed his face. “You want to be my sugar baby?” It was a lot of money for not much of his time. If girls could do it, why couldn’t he? “Why don’t you come back tomorrow and I’ll take you shopping. We’ll get you a nice haircut and some nice clothes, and then maybe we will get lunch, and I’ll introduce you to some of my girlfriends.” “Do I have to sleep with them?” “Spend some time with us and see where things go. That’s all just some of your time. You tell me how much your time is worth? So, what do you say?” Zachary looked back at the cheque in his hands. How much was his time worth? Zachary smiled at Joyce. “When do you want me to come over?”