Authors: J.M. Hall
“Please tell me you aren’t trying to get lucky,” I teased.
“Hardly. I’m a married man.”
“Like that means anything? Remember that governor you handled a few years back? Went on and on about how much he loved his wife, then what happens? Gets caught in Punta Cana with a cabana boy.”
“Just trust me, Jesse. If you’re going to go back home, there’s more you need to know. In fact, there’s something about this case I just realized.”
“That it’s a complete disaster?”
“They always are,” Kurt said. “But more than that, I realized something very, very important. I actually think we can win.”
“Why am I not surprised you live in Park Slope?”
Kurt insisted it was only possible thanks to diligent saving, a successful business, and a wife who actually earned more money than he did. We walked along Garfield Place, one of the most coveted blocks in another one of Brooklyn’s most affluent neighborhoods.
“Here we are,” Kurt said. “Home sweet home.”
“Which unit is yours?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “My wife and I own the whole building.”
The foyer was stunning: pristine parquet floors and crown molding on the ceilings, with a row of oil paintings leading up the staircase. The bay windows in the living room looked out onto the rear garden, and I could smell something delicious coming from the kitchen.
I followed Kurt’s lead into a kitchen that looked like something out of
Food & Wine
magazine. It wasn’t just the chef’s stove, stainless steel refrigerator and granite countertops. It seemed that Kurt’s wife, Alexandra, had prepared a meal in preparation for our arrival.
Why was she home at this hour, anyway? If she out-earned her husband, surely she had a demanding corporate career of her own? Then, I remembered: Alexandra was a successful author and illustrator, and had just sold a series of children’s books to Disney PIXAR for a seven-figure sum.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, offering me her hand. “Kurt has had wonderful things to say about you over the years.”
“Has he?”
She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’d love to join you two, but dinner isn’t quite ready yet. Besides, I have a deadline to finish before my publisher kills me.”
“Have some more illustrations to finish up?” I asked.
“No rest for the wicked…” She disappeared, leaving Kurt and I to go into his home office. It was a bit removed from the rest of the home, situated behind sliding glass doors with direct access to the back garden.
I took a seat on the sofa, let Kurt take the lead.
“Do you remember why I started my agency, Jesse?”
“Didn’t you say you got fired from Edwards & Co.?”
“Yes, I did. I wasn’t much older than you are now, actually.”
“And then?” I asked.
“I barely made enough money to cover my rent the first few months, but then I caught a lucky break. A high-profile private school in Manhattan needed my help mitigating a disaster far worse than this.”
“Who was the client?”
“Hunter Morris.”
“Holy shit…”
Hunter Morris was one of Manhattan’s most well-regarded high schools, ranking alongside Dalton and Dwight as an academic destination for the children of the elite. Beneath the surface, however, lurked a terrible secret: systematic sexual abuse of children that happened for decades behind closed doors.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because at the time, Hunter Morris was a long-standing client at Edwards Public Relations. It was also one of
my
accounts. After I got fired, the news of the sex abuse broke. Hunter Morris stayed with Edwards for a bit, but eventually, they called me.”
“And Edwards didn’t try to sue you for violating a non-compete agreement?”
“Oh, they tried. But the case never went to court. I had too much dirt on them by that point. I worked with Hunter Morris to salvage their reputation, and the money allowed me to grow my business. The rest, they say, is history.”
“So, what now?”
“I just want you to be aware of what you’re getting into. Schools are a volatile combination. Thankfully, what happened at the Academy doesn’t involve drugs, alcohol and sodomy -- because that’s what I was up against at Hunter Morris.”
I remembered the case well. If even half of the things I’d read about what happened at the school were true, they deserved all the bad publicity they got. Students beaten, forcibly raped, some left with depression so severe they needed psychological care for years after graduation. And what had officials at the school done?
Little to nothing, of course. They paid off some of the accusers, let the teachers accused of such crimes retire in peace.
I never knew Kurt went up against that, and after being fired from the world’s largest independent PR firm at that.
“I’ll be with you every step of the way,” Kurt said. “But I need to warn you: If you go ahead with this, if you interject yourself into this mess, there’s a chance that the press could go digging into your past.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me, Jesse: If the whole world found out what Bobby did to you, how would you feel about that? Could you handle that?”
It wasn’t something I’d ever considered. To date, none of my close friends knew, let alone either of my parents.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’d have to own up to everything that happened. The statute of limitations ran out years ago, but that doesn’t mean that…”
“What?”
“That doesn’t mean that Bobby is somehow excused for what he did. Not that I put up much of a fight.”
“Why don’t you sleep on this, just for tonight?” Kurt suggested. “I can always send someone else to handle this assignment.”
I shook my head. “I’ve thought about this enough, Kurt. I’m going back to the Academy. You’ve already done more than you had to. More than any reasonable boss should expect to do.”
And how lucky was I to have someone like Kurt in my life? I’d all but bared my soul to him in the course of an afternoon, and he was still here, willing and able to fight alongside me as I tried to keep my personal and professional lives from completely falling apart. He’d always been more than a boss, and after today, I was ready to consider him a friend.
Yet there was one last stone left unturned…
“Kurt?” I said. “There’s one last thing you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“When I said I was an escort, I wasn’t kidding.”
My confession failed to faze him. Perhaps he couldn’t process the idea of me selling sex, or didn’t believe that male escorts existed. It was a common fallacy, the idea that the only men that sold sex were runaway teens hard up for cash, or the occasional transvestite in Greenwich Village. I repeated myself, told him that: “I have sex for money and that’s my primary income.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not.” I got up from my seat, began pacing across the floor of his office. “It started in college. I met a girl, another escort named Autumn. She got me involved in the business, helped me grow my own clients.”
“Jesse…!”
“She’s a ‘madam’ now, has a stable of girls, takes a percentage of their earnings. I know that makes her sound like a pimp, but trust me, there are far greater evils in the world from her. Seriously. Girls in their twenties hate Sallie Mae far more than anyone like Autumn.”
Kurt remained silent, allowing me to continue rambling with no sense of logic or coherence.
“And what I’m wondering -- what I’ve
been
wondering about for years -- is whether or not what happened between Bobby and I somehow influenced my life choices since high school. Did sleeping with him somehow make me more open to selling sex? He didn’t pay me, but it was a lesson, all right.”
“What do you mean?” Kurt asked.
“I used sex to curry favor, basically. At the age of sixteen, I learned that sex could be commoditized and used to personal gain. Boom! Lesson learned.”
It was a startling revelation, one that’d been buried within me for quite some time. The idea of not having free will was something I hated, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility that Bobby had influenced me in more ways than one.
Now, for one last question: Would Kurt still accept me now that he knew who and what I was?
“Of all my years in this business, I’ve never heard anything like this.”
“Is that good or bad?” I asked.
“It takes a hell of a lot to surprise me. I
never
expected any of this. Especially from someone like you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Jesse, I assumed that you never joined our the firm full-time because you had other people willing to pay you top-dollar as a consultant. Why would you give that up? Hell, I remember what it was like at Edwards & Company. Working sixty-hour weeks as an account executive for forty-thousand dollar a year?”
“I guess you could say that having a career in public relations makes prostitution a viable side job as well,” I joked.
“Please tell me you’re safe. That you don’t have any little Jesse’s running around Manhattan?”
“I’ve never had sex without a condom. And to the best of my knowledge, I don’t have any children.”
Kurt seemed satisfied with my responses, and he hadn’t thrown me out of his elegant Park Slope townhouse, either. Both good signs, though even the most liberal of people could turn into sanctimonious pricks when the topic of sex work came up.
“Next steps?” I asked.
“I have a lot of questions. Most of which have nothing to do with the case, but are based in nothing but morbid curiosity.”
“Well, at least you’re honest.”
“Is there actually a market for male sex workers?”
“You’d be surprised…”
Was Kurt really OK with everything? I felt as if I’d dodged a bullet, that I somehow managed to hold onto my sanity, my pride, and a well-paying job all at once. Men, generally speaking, were far less judgmental of one another than women were with their own peers. Perhaps I didn’t have much to fear after all?
“So, there you have it,” I said. “Everything I’ve been keeping bottled up for the past decade or so.”
“I see.”
“I’ll leave if you want. And, if I’m fired…”
“You’re not fired. Not even close.”
Kurt stood up, grabbed me by the shoulders. Though he was glad I was able to get everything off my chest, he didn’t think it was wise I take on this assignment. He could send someone else, even dedicate time to figuring out how to best guide the Academy through this trying time himself.
It wasn’t that he doubted my ability -- far from it. He just didn’t think I could possibly be objective when I had so much to win (or lose) regarding the Academy, and Bobby himself.
“You’re too close to this, Jesse. Let me and the team handle it. Sit this out. Get out of the city, take some time off. Clear your head.”
“You know I can’t do that. I’m going home, one way or another.”
“Figured as much,” Kurt said. “I guess I should know better than to try to stop you. After all, you…”
“What?”
“You remind me a lot of myself at your age. And if we have anything in common, it’s that we don’t like other people telling us what to do.”
An awkward silence grew between us. I knew Kurt wanted what was best for me -- even if that meant letting him and the rest of the team at Victory Associates handle the case while I stepped aside. At the same time, he knew that I had skills and experience of my own, both of which would be valuable to the case.
“Fine,” he said. “Your travel arrangements will be ready by tomorrow evening. I’ll have Jennifer email you your Amtrak ticket and hotel reservations, and you can expense the car rental as well. I’ve already spoken with the Academy; they’re fine picking up the tab.”
“They certainly have enough money.”
“I just want you to promise me one thing, Jesse: If at any time you feel that this is too much, or that your past is clouding your judgment, please tell me.”
“I will,” I said. “You have my word.”
“That’s all I can ask for.”
The idea of leaving the city was frightening, if not a bit liberating as well. Pennsylvania would always be home, no matter how long I’d stayed away.
The opportunity before me was two-fold: To settle what happened to me at the Academy once and for all, and to raise my profile here in New York City as one of Kurt’s most promising associates.
Like it or not, this case was going to get publicity. It’d already been covered at the local level, but whether or not the national media picked up on it depended on a number of factors, some of which were outside of the Academy’s control. If Victory & Associates could minimize the damage -- or even help the Academy elevate their image in the weeks and months after -- it would speak volumes as to the firm’s prestige.
And, more than likely, mean more work opportunities for me.
“All right, this sounds good,” I said. “There’s just one more thing I need to take care of before leaving the city.”
“What’s that?” Kurt asked.
“Seeing an old friend. She has some explaining to do.”