Kept Man: Firsts and Forever Stories

“I can’t do that, for two reasons. First of all, I’m famous—not to people under thirty, apparently.” He gestured at me as he said that. “The last thing I want is for stories to hit the tabloids like ‘my one-night stand with Micah Mazari, and how he’s as big a douche as everyone says he is.’ That would suck.”

I mulled over his full name for a few moments. It definitely sounded familiar. On an unrelated note, the way his last name was pronounced made me realize he was of South Asian descent, not Italian like I’d thought—which was neither here nor there.

He continued, “The other thing is, I can’t stand sharing my sex partners. It’s just how I’m wired. That’s why I need this to be an exclusive contract.”

“Does that mean you’ve never had a one-night stand?”

“I’ve had several, and they all left me feeling lonelier than ever. That’s how I know they’re not for me. Sex is so much better when I have a connection with my partner,” he said.

“I get it.” I didn’t really, but I could imagine.

“If you have a boyfriend, obviously this isn’t going to work. But if it’s just a question of cancelling your other clients for six months, I’ll make sure you’re well-compensated.” He paused before saying, “I guess I should have asked that first. Do you? Have a boyfriend, I mean?”

“No, but you’re asking for a huge time commitment, and I—”

He blurted, “Name your price. I’ll pay anything.”

“You shouldn’t do that, Micah. You’re just begging for someone to take advantage of you.”

“I don’t care. Take advantage of me all you want, as long as you stay.”

This seemed like a bad idea on multiple levels, but the desperation in his eyes delayed the “no” that was on the tip of my tongue. I chewed my lower lip, and after a moment, I said, “I can cancel the rest of my clients and spend the next week with you. I just can’t commit to six months.”

“How about this? I’ll give you two hundred grand, divided up into weekly payments, plus an additional hundred thousand dollar bonus if you don’t walk out on me before the six-month mark. Just to be clear, I don’t expect you to be locked down here like I am. You can go out whenever you want, but I do want you to move in and spend every night in my bed. I also need you to promise me you won’t sleep with anyone else during our time together.”

Good lord, that was a hell of a lot of money. I broke it down in terms of months, then weeks and days. It actually ended up in the ballpark of what I normally charged for a twenty-four-hour session, but it just seemed absurdly high when it was added together like that.

I asked, “How would you know if I slept with anyone else? It’s not like you could check up on me to see what I was doing when I went out.”

“I just have to trust you, not just with that, but with everything. That’s the only way this can work, since I’m letting you into my home and into my life.”

“But you don’t know me at all,” I said.

“So, call it a leap of faith.”

“If that works for you, great. But I don’t know you, either. How can I commit to six months with a total stranger, when I don’t know the first thing about you?”

“Hand me your phone.”

When I did as he asked, he typed his name into a search bar, then scrolled down and clicked on one of the links. He handed the phone back to me and said, “Might as well start at rock bottom.”

A Time Magazine cover was on my screen, with a close-up portrait of a younger Micah and the caption, “Crash and Burn—the Micah Mazari story.”

I asked, “Is this real?”

“Sadly, yes. I guess you must have been about twelve or thirteen when that was published.”

I clicked into the accompanying article, which began, “This time last year, Micah Mazari was on top of the world. As lead singer of the aptly named alt rock duo Fallen, he and his brother Arlen had just recorded their second album, a follow up to their multi-platinum debut Evermore, which smashed sales records and propelled the pair to super-stardom virtually overnight.”

I glanced at him and murmured, “Now I remember.”

“Almost everyone does. The end of my career, coupled with the end of my relationship with my brother, was very public and extremely messy—exactly the type of thing the gossip rags love.”

Even though I’d been pretty young at the time, this article brought it all back to me. It had been an absolute spectacle. The breakroom at the diner where my mom worked was always filled with gossip magazines, and I used to read them cover-to-cover, since I spent every day after school there. I remembered wondering why this particular story dragged on for months, when most of the others were old news in a matter of days.