Ben Foster - Gigolo: Inside the Secret World of the Super Rich

GIGOLO

BEN FOSTER WITH CLIFFORD THURLOW

All Rights Reserved

Copyright Ben Foster, Clifford Thurlow 2018

This first edition published in 2018 by:

Thistle Publishing

36 Great Smith Street

London

SW1P 3BU

www.thistlepublishing.co.uk

CONTENTS

PREFACE

T he man was watching over half-moon glasses as I slipped my oiled hands over her narrow back, through the cheeks of her bottom and down her long slender legs.

He was wearing a white linen suit with a striped tie from some school or club. On the table in front of him was a single line of cocaine and a pair of gold earrings like two miniature wind chimes.

The plane banked and I almost toppled over.

Dont stop now, the woman said, her voice deep, commanding.

I grabbed the side of the table to regain balance and started again, working out the knot clusters in the area between her shoulder blades, releasing the pressure as she breathed in, applying it again as she breathed out.

Yes, there, thats better.

Ten minutes to landing. It was the pilots voice over the speakers.

Five more minutes, she said firmly.

I continued making thumb circles over her shoulders, my legs braced during the descent. We were in an 8-seater Learjet, the interior pale cream with polished oak trim.

The man watching the massage removed his glasses and tucked them into a circular silver case that he slipped into his jacket pocket.

Time to put some clothes on, darling, he said.

She took a long breath through her nose and rolled over. She swung her legs around, sat on the edge of the table and fluttered her hand towards the closet at the rear.

Get a dress for me, the white one, she said, and I did so.

As I turned back, she was leaning over the table, trim and girlish in the amber lighting. She removed one of the thin tubes attached to the earrings, snorted the line of cocaine, reattached the tube and hooked the earrings in place. She dabbed her fingertips in the white dust left on the table and ran it over her gums. I held the dress as she stepped into it and ran the zip up her back. She went up on her toes as she swivelled round to face me.

What would we do without you, Ben? she said, and kissed me twice on the corners of my mouth. Now, what have you done with my shoes?

I reached for them under the seat, white toeless pumps with red soles. She slipped them on, sat beside the man and took his hand.

Two minutes to landing.

I buckled up. I could see the Thames below snaking its way through the warren of steel and glass buildings. We landed at London City Airport and taxied into the zone marked for private jets. The exit door opened. The woman fluffed up her hair. The man straightened his tie, then pointed at the ministerial red box on the floor next to where he had been sitting.

Bring the box for me, theres a good chap, it weighs a ton.

We were waved through immigration and I followed them to the car park where a man with cropped greying hair and muscles bulging from a black tee-shirt stepped from a Range Rover with tinted windows.

Ill take that, mate, he said, and took the red box.

The driver opened the door for the woman, placed the box on the passenger seat and they purred quickly and silently into the distance.

I made my way back through the airport and got a ticket on the Docklands Light Railway. In my pack, I carried a present for Kelly, a box of Baci Italian chocolates wrapped in love notes.

TWO JOBS

I t all began in 2006.

England was knocked out of the World Cup on penalties by Portugal. No surprise there. X-Factor winner Shayne Ward was top of the charts with Thats My Goal. The Daily Mirror reported that chocolate was good for you; now I wouldnt have to feel guilty buying it for the kids. The temperature that summer hit 36 C (thats 97 F), and Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, had given away $44 billion to health charities.

If I had that kind of money, Id probably do the same. Dont they say what goes round comes round? Id buy a new car first, though, mine was a piece of junk, a ten year old ex-postal van that had already done 127,000 miles when I bought it from a mate for a hundred quid. It ran more on prayer than petrol.

The radio was all right though and I sang along with Shayne Ward as I drove the 15 miles along the A 305 from our council house in Twickenham to Egham, where I began the evening shift at six at a place we called The Lodge, a gloomy grey building remodelled as a secure unit for young adults with learning disabilities.

I was a support worker on minimum wage. Kelly, my wife, did three afternoons a week in a laundry, and we had three little-ones aged two, four and five who broke my heart when I thought about all the things I wanted to do for them. It was hard enough trying to make a living now. What was it going to be like for them when they grew up?

You cant get by with only one job and I had spent the small inheritance from my Gran completing the Level 3 Diploma in Body Massage. I was a qualified masseur with a certificate, insurance and one client I had met in a gym when I was given six months temporary membership to provide free massages, which worked out very well for the owners of the gym.

Massage was a strange profession for someone from my background, but when I read about the course in the brochure from St Marys University, the thing that jumped out at me was that the qualification was recognised in Canada. I had a sort of daydream, not a plan, just a vague idea that one day we might emigrate. I had never been to Canada, I didnt know anyone in Canada. But I knew it had lots of space and seemed like a great country to bring up kids.

As a teenager, Id worked out of Lowestoft on a beam trawler catching herring, cod and plaice. Its a good job for a youngster and I thought Id probably be going out to sea for the rest of my life. Then the fish dried up, the laws on fishing permits changed and most of the boats went into dry dock. That was in 1996. I was twenty, and there was still plenty of work if you went out and looked for it. After forty years laying tarmacadam, my grandfather had just died at sixty-eight, of exhaustion, my mum said, and I moved to Twickenham to look after my Gran.

After being a fisherman, I wanted to work outdoors and got a temporary post with the council planting trees. Then the council ran out of trees, or money, or both, and I started with a contractor laying paving stones. When that came to an end, I found work as a labourer, a job with good money until the developers started using gang bosses who only employed East Europeans. You hate the foreigners when they take your job. Then you find out theyre paying inflated rents to live in old caravans so they can send home twenty quid a week to feed their families. Thats when you realise its the system thats wrong and you dont hate them anymore.

But you still have to go and find another job.

I had always used my muscles to earn a living. Massage is physical, you have to be strong, but also gentle, intuitive. It is a form of meditation, not only for the person receiving the massage, but also for the one giving it. The movements are rhythmic, repetitive, calming. It had certainly calmed me down. Id always had a tendency to leap before I looked, Id jump into anything. But when you have a family, you start to be more cautious. Id left my twenties behind me. I was thirty now. I jogged ten miles a day, avoided the drink, and was as fit as I had ever been.

That was probably why they had taken a chance at The Lodge and employed me without the relevant qualifications. The work was mentally gruelling. Few blokes lasted three months. Id already done six. I had no other prospects and needed that regular wage packet. We got by. But one little thing, like the fridge giving up or the van breaking down, and Id have to take on extra shifts until wed paid off the bill.