The Passenger by Daniel Hurst (great book club books TXT) 📕

‘So you really didn’t sleep with any of those men?’ he asks me suddenly.

‘I told you I didn’t.’

‘Not even one? A favourite client perhaps? There must have been at least one guy you actually liked.’

I shake my head to tell him that I did not sleep with any of the men who paid me for a date. But I did have a favourite client once upon a time. We went on several dates together, and he was a pleasant and charming man.

That was until he turned out to be exactly like the rest of the men in my life.

24

AMANDA

ONE MONTH EARLIER

Another night. Another wine bar. But this date is different.

This is going to be my last one.

I’m already seated at the table, and I was actually a few minutes early tonight, which tells me that the nerves I felt when I first started doing this work six months ago have dissipated somewhat. There have still been awkward dates for sure, and there are still plenty of times when I feel like my client is going to tell me this was a mistake and demand a refund, but those have mostly been replaced now by the sense that I am doing a decent job.

I’m friendly and polite. I’m a capable conversationalist. And I look reasonably good, as a quick check on my reflection in the mirror behind the bar confirms.

I’ve even got used to the blonde wig on my head.

I possess all the things I need to be a good escort and satisfy my clients. Of course, there have been a few of them who wanted more than a nice chat over a couple of drinks and tried to tempt me back to various hotel rooms with offers of even more money. But I always turned them down. There’s a fine line between what I do and what a prostitute does. I make sure I stay on the right side of it.

Besides, it’s not as if I’m desperate for money these days. Since I began this unorthodox way of earning cash, I’ve managed to accrue quite the nest egg. I’m not rich by any means. I never have been, and I doubt I ever will be, well, not unless my book actually gets published, but that would require me to finish it first. But for the first time in my life, I’m no longer just getting by. I actually have proper savings now and much more than the five grand I had when my ex-boyfriend took it from my account. I have almost £20,000, a big chunk of it gained in the line of work that I am engaging in this evening, and all of it currently kept locked away in the small safe back at my flat.

The reason for the safe is because of my distrust of the bank after the way they treated me in the wake of Johnny cleaning out my account. They took no responsibility for allowing him to transfer the funds and blamed the whole thing on me for not being more careful with who saw my personal details. I went into the bank on several occasions and demanded better answers from them, but I left after a massive argument every single time. Ever since then, I decided that I would not trust anybody else with my money.

I work hard to make it.

I’m going to work even harder to keep it.

With that in mind, I purchased a small safe online and stored it in the bottom of my wardrobe, using it to deposit the part of my wages I withdraw from the cash machine each month. That was my backup plan in case anything ever happened with the bank again, but when I started escorting, it became a great way of keeping all my extra money off the books.

The agency offered to pay me in cash, and I gratefully accepted. No tax means higher profits, and it hasn’t taken long to start filling up that safe with stacks of fifty-pound notes. My goal was to reach £20,000 before I quit my job, and after the payment from tonight’s date, I will have made it. Tomorrow, I will walk into my office and hand in my one month’s notice, and then the countdown will begin to the day when I will become a full-time writer.

I’m hoping I’ll never have to go back to work, but if I do, it’s good to know that this opportunity exists in the escorting world. I wouldn’t say I enjoy it, but it’s far easier than an eight-hour grind in the office. Drink some wine. Laugh at some bad jokes. Get paid.

If it weren’t for my love of writing, I’d probably just be an escort forever.

Or at least until I was no longer pretty enough to get clients.

I check the time on my phone, which I still position on my leg underneath the table during dates so I can discreetly keep an eye on how long is left. As I do, I notice that my date for this evening is running late. That is very unusual for any client, let alone this particular one. Not many people are late to an appointment for which they are paying by the hour, and especially not at these prices. But a quick glance around the bar tells me that my date is still not here.

Oh well, I’ll just wait.

I scroll through my phone to pass the time and notice a social media update from my daughter as I do. She is asking her followers for the best places to visit in Asia. She is obviously still determined to go backpacking, I see.

I notice that she has already received several comments, most of which are telling her to visit Bali and some beach called Pandawa. It certainly sounds exotic and much more so than the place where I took Louise for her last holiday.

We went to Clacton-on-Sea.

There weren’t many backpackers there.

I’m tempted to write a snarky comment asking her if she has found