“Rachel and Diana?” Thinking of the two women he’s been juggling, with both women knowing of the other, now I know why he’s been able to do it. They don’t look like what I would expect, hard, plastic women who would sign over their body and life for a price. Rachel is a sweet, tiny, Vietnamese woman with big black eyes and long black hair, who is nothing like the tall, thin, blondes Marshall usually goes for, like Diana. Flipping through every encounter with the women, there isn’t a single thing I can pinpoint to indicate the relationship between the women and Marshall was based on cash. It’s also hard to believe Marshall would pay for a woman, he’s the blond hair, blue eyed, package that had him turning down pussy left and right.
I shake my head, the idea just doesn’t appeal to me. “That’s crazy, I never would have figured it out. Rachel and Diana don’t seem like hookers to me. Naw, man, paying for it isn’t something I’m interested in.”
“Dude, fuck you. They aren’t hookers any more than Caitlyn was. You’re already paying for it and have been paying for it. How much money did you spend on Caitlyn a month over the last year? And Heather, before her? You told me you broke up with Heather because she spent too much money every month, and by the time you broke it off you she would only let you hit it once maybe twice a month. Caitlyn, you just broke up with Caitlyn because of money. But do the math and she got a shitload more out of you than she was worth. You were bitching you were lucky to get some more than twice a week for the last two months with Caitlyn, right when she started spending more money.
“With a sugar baby, it’s all clear from the beginning. How much money they get a month for all the stuff they say are necessities. How much time they spend at your place, whether they spend the night. These women, yeah, the last girl before Diana admitted when it was over she was hoping to meet a husband, but most of them have their reasons and don’t want marriage any more than we do.”
A court opens up and we move inside, toss our bags in a corner, and Marshall serves. For a long time we don’t talk. I’m digesting what Marshall told me. The longer the game goes on, the more the reasoning has cut my earlier objections. Marshall beats me soundly and grins knowingly.
“Changed your mind, didn’t you?”
“Definitely. In the first few months it’s always been the same thing with women. Anything I wanted whenever I wanted but by the third or fourth month they get comfortable and are too tired, they don’t want to mess up their hair and it’s excuse after excuse. Do you know, Caitlyn actually offered to suck my cock more often if I didn’t break it off with her last night?”
“You won’t get that with these women. I’ve been with Rachel going on nine months now, and it’s still as good and often as the first night. Diana is more for going out and looking good when I have to do the red carpet thing. I’ll send you the contract I use so you can take a look at it, and also the link for the site I use. There are dozens of them out there, it’s the best one by far. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth every penny.”
Marshall’s phone goes off. We are close enough I know the ringtone is his work. Since his longtime secretary knows of our weekly game, she wouldn’t be calling if it weren’t important. It is. “Sorry, I have to go in. My dad is going to blow this Glasgow deal if I don’t.”
“No problem. I thought you sent him off to France on a useless errand last week?” Harrison Channing, Marshall’s father had built a staffing company from secretaries and day labor to one of the largest multibillion dollar firms in the United States. Marshall hadn’t wanted to take over for his father. He liked running his own smaller, exclusive firm of headhunters for the million dollar salary bracket.
Then Harrison had a stroke. While it was a small stroke, he had lost the fine motor skills on his left side. Harrison’s request for Marshall to take over before the board unseated him was something Marshall felt he couldn’t turn down. Only the last seven years hadn’t been easy, since the old man still had a kick to him. Harrison had his own ideas about where he wanted the company to go. Marshall’s expansions into other countries were always a point of contention between them.
“So did I. It was supposed to keep him there until next week. I have no idea when he got back into town.”
“Now that’s he’s figured out you tried to keep him out of the way, he’s going to be more of a jackass. Good luck dealing with him.”
“I’m going to need it. Hey, don’t you dare go home. Take your lazy ass upstairs and go for a run or walk or something on a machine. You aren’t missing out on your only exercise this week because of my dad. I’ll send you the link once you send me picture of your proof of a workout.”
“Fucker.”
“That I am. If I’m going to be old because I’m rich and take care of myself, I’m not doing it alone—you have to keep me company.” With a peace sign Marshall walks out of the gym.
Asshole. Marshall and his stupid juicing, vegetarian diet, and five days a week workouts. It was exhausting listening to him go on about his healthy living crap. Stomping up the stairs, I’m on the second floor, a place I do my best to avoid.
I hate exercising, loathe it. I weight train because I have since I was a teenager, to attract girls and not be the stereotypical computer geek. The few times I’ve gone longer than a week without it I felt like shit. One of my rooms in my condo is dedicated to weights, free and two machines to break up the monotony, and a heavy bag for stress relief. But this whole running, sweating, rowing, shit isn’t for me. The weekly squash game with Marshall was something I only gave into after listening to hours of harassment.
Finding an empty treadmill, I plug in my ear phones, and bring up my workout mix. I hit play and start. Normally, I would be thinking of the project I just finished. Running through possible flaws, how to find them, and then how soon before the project would go live.
Right now, all I can think about is the new project that will be finding my own sugar baby. I shake my head to clear it, those aren't words I ever would have thought I would be thinking, let alone doing. Yet, as Marshall said, the arrangement was perfect for me.
Marriage is not for me, not now, not five or ten years from now. I’ll be forty next year, and making my first million at sixteen then hitting a billion
before I was thirty has spoiled me by enabling me to live my life on my terms for too long to change. My work is more important to me and has given me more satisfaction than the hour or two of pleasure I’ve found in a woman’s body. Determined not to repeat the shitty history of my parents I make sure all the women I’ve dated know my stance on marriage and that they would come second to my work. If they weren’t okay with that then they needed to exit the relationship immediately.
My father had been the same way about his work. Except he’d been an asshole and married my mother and gave into her wish for a baby. I was barely a blip on his radar, he’d look at me as if he could barely remember my name. He treated my mother as an afterthought, if he thought about her at all. Watching my mom become a bitter, twisted woman while she tried desperately to get his attention in any way she could made me resent him.
When she committed suicide only a week after I left for MIT. I hated him. She felt like she had nothing once I was gone. He blamed her suicide on the weakness of her heritage, with her father a member of the Yakama tribe of Native Americans and her mother a French Canadian. He said the best thing she had done for me was to only give me her blue eyes. I hated the fact I looked nothing like her and everything like my father, only the light olive tone of my skin hinted I was her son. Then, when he acted as if her funeral was as an inconvenience I knew I’d never have anything to do with the man for the rest of his life and I didn’t. At the time of his death three years later, from a heart attack, I hadn’t spoken to him since my mother’s funeral.
Then there were the lessons learned once I hit billionaire status. I started making lists and getting press I didn’t want or respond to. The lessons about women and what they were willing to do for money. For my money, not me, my money. Hell, as Marshall had pointed out, I was already paying for sex.
Caitlyn had cost me almost a half million in dresses, shoes, and jewelry, and it hadn’t even been a year. Sure it was my own fault for giving her a credit card for her use without giving her any conditions. The few relationships with women who had their own day job was just as costly in aggravation from their arguments of what they were giving up for me.
This sugar baby thing was the basic equivalent of a mistress, a fair exchange of money for time and, of course, sex. The more I thought about it the more appealing it became. Especially picking a woman out who was more than willing to be available for sex on my schedule. She would be well-versed in how to give a good blow job, too. Shit, I look around and frantically try to remember the time I found Marshall’s dad using Marshall’s hot tub completely naked.
It works. A quick look at the treadmill display tells me it’s been thirty minutes. Close enough, I hit stop, take a picture and send it to Marshall.
I’m walking home
But I’m stopping for breakfast and I’m having bacon