Chapter 2
Freddie
As I closed the bedroom door behind me, my phone pinged with a text from my BFF Benji. We had met at catering college, and after a very weird attempt to seduce me and me being the nice guy I am, I told him in exquisite detail about how incompatible we were and we decided friends would be best.
Benj-O: Sure you dont want to? I promise I’ll stop being pushy if you tell me to fuck off once and for all but I think you’d love it tbh
Ugh. Benji is a sex worker. He loves what he does and has been trying to convince me to become one too.
Unlike what people assume, he didn’t have trauma to make him do it, and no, I’m not against it or biased or whatever.
Just… unsure I wouldn’t get attached or something.
Like, what if I found my soulmate but they were all like, “no, I just want my cock sucked”, or “yeah you’re cute but I won’t date a sex worker”.
See why I’m so conflicted?
Freddie: Why? You offering to be my first customer? :P
I knew that would get a rise out of him.
Benj-O: God no. I’ve seen what you’re packing and I like my men a little more… girthy
Freddie: Fuck you. I have girth
Benj-O: Do you? Maybe I don’t remember because it was so long ago since the locker room days
The fuck? Well, let’s correct that.
Freddie: Look at that? What’s telling you I have no girth?????
Benj-O: Fuck sake! My gran is sitting right next to me, she could have seen your dumb cock!
Freddie: Don’t call my cock dumb
Benj-O: That's your concern?
Freddie: Fine
Freddie: Sorry Benjis gran
Freddie: Unless she liked it and then, hello granny :P ;)
Benj-O: Take it back, I’m not offering you a job at all. Get fucked
Freddie: Is that last part from your granny?
After 5 minutes without a reply, I tuck into the last of my breakfast, knowing Benji has blocked me. Dramatic cow that he is.
I sit my empty food plate on my side table and hop in the shower which, thankfully, has an en-suite attached to my room so I don’t have to share it with the Spice Girls upstairs.
Wearing ripped black jeans and my favorite oversized red jumper with aesthetically pleasing holes, I plan my day around the 20-minute health walk we are allowed during lockdown.
I tap my chin, plotting. I occasionally write for myself and I have been writing a mini-series that I share with Benji for something to do while bored.
It’s mainly dumb stuff about clothing, or this one I’ve been working on is about some sex worker stuff I had read about in an article and made into a fictional comic. Maybe I could make use of that?
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go back to hospitality, but after seeing my college friends and work colleagues sign on for benefits or start side-hustling their baking skills, I wanted something that I could commit to even once the lockdowns ended.
Plus, there was no certainty when that would happen, and I didn’t want to still be in the position I was in a year from now.
Hell, even six months from now would leave me feeling hopeless.
Maybe I couldn’t suck cock for a living, but what about another type of sex work?
I had the internet. I had nothing but time.
Grabbing some pens and a notepad, I start doodling and writing some ideas.
I’d always been creative and drawn to problem solving, it’s what had made me such an excellent chef.
With a small seed planted and a fuck it attitude, there was nothing to lose and everything to gain. It was time to get writing.