”“He insisted.”“Yeah. And I guess he’s supposedly one of the more expensive escorts, maybe in the world.”“But not anymore. Eddie told me...a john brought them here on a private jet. Some famous jock supposedly who’s not supposed to be gay. Eddie had to convince Trevor to fuck the guy. And I imagine the guy was pretty scary. He wanted Eddie too, but Trevor defended him.”“True love.”“Yeah.”They laughed.“I want to see the writing,” said Joanne.“No Contest is done.”“Not going to work on it?”“I’ve. .."She smiled as she said this, making clear that it was a joke, that inducing paranoia was not one of her management strategies, and I apologised for ruining her day off. Not at all, she said, it had been interesting - and she was now curious to know more about this strange world of international business that I seemed to be getting into. So I offered to make the pub a reality, satisfy that curiosity over a drink. I really did need to talk to someone objective about it, I realised, and May. .. date?”“Well ... yes, are you interested?”“Mister, do you know how long I have waited for those words to come out of your mouth? Do I need to dress up?”“Karen, you look just beautiful, get Beth and come on. The girls are going bonkers at what I am up to. And if I don’t hurry, they will have notified the FBI to find out.”Karen got Beth, who was wondering what was going on. As they were walking out to the car, the look on the girl’s faces was priceless. Tom opened the door as Karen and Beth got. His eyes were drawn to the sky outside the plane now. They’d fallen from the sky. They should have all been dead. At the time he believed that maybe he and Victoria had been saved for each other. Now he just told himself it was a crush, an emotional reaction to an intense experience. The plane ride ended inconsequentially, but he was still emotionally spent. They were all to stay at the same hotel, and meet in the morning. He signed in and spent the evening watching mindless television, not.