Reputational Notoriety

I stood in line at the Harmonstown Post Office, waiting for my turn to be called to the counter. The State Pension Day queue was always a pain in the arse; that's why I only collected it every four weeks. It was also a nice little few bob sitting happily in my back pocket to supplement the three days I worked every week, checking energy losses in houses for NSK Energy, a large multinational Energy Auditing company operating in Ireland. I was busily minding my own business when I overheard two men arguing about the current state of their love lives and the steps they are taking to override the conventional.

"You know, Gerry, if I had the money, I'd go to a pro a couple of times a month, but do you know what they're charging now?"

"How would I know that, Pat? For fuck's sake!"

"A couple of hundred Euro. For two minutes work."

"Is that all it takes you, two minutes?"

"There was a time."

"No, there wasn't. You were always quick out of the traps."

"You've got that wrong, Gerry."

"How do you know so much about prostitutes anyway?"

"They're not called prostitutes anymore, Gerry, escorts they are now. Escorts! There's websites you can go on now. It's all there for you to see."

"Do you want me toescortyou up to the counter and count your money? I'll only charge you a ton."

They wandered off to the counter to collect their winnings. I watched them arguing as they left and thought, "I wonder."

My name is Billy Byrne. I reached retirement age less than a year ago, and it's a bit of a pain on weekends when you live alone. It's also very frustrating to talk to younger women socially, in case you're thought of as a dirty old man or something similar. Unfortunately, I don't retain the vigour of manhood as I once did in my youth and middle age. This is not of great concern to me, since I do still have the ability to perform adequately for shorter periods of time, on, perhaps, a couple of occasions a week given the opportunity. Lately, though, I've been struggling with the fact that my optimum time for attracting attractive younger women seemed to have passed.

I don't mean those in their twenties, thirties, or forties, although I wouldn't say no, but even women in their fifties and sixties showed no interest in 'hooking up', as they say in America, with an older, more experienced man. I've tried all of the preferred and suggested options, such as pubs, activity clubs, singles clubs and organisations, singles nights, singles holidays, bus trips, and exercise classes, to no avail. I had, basically, given up. I was very active, though. I worked a three-day week, with the other two days spent back in my home office, collating the paperwork required to process the collected data from my surveys. I also did a little bit of coaching for a friend of mine who is involved with the local soccer club, which kept me loose and a bit fitter than I would normally be.

On this particular day, I returned home and to work from my home office, and I found my mind wandering to Google and searching for escort sites. There were loads of them in every country and city all over the world. They showed pictures of the girls with a full breakdown of their stats, nationality, everything. They also showed the prices and, I must admit, Pat was correct. In fact, in many cases, he was vastly under some of the prices. Curiously enough, I was booked to attend an Energy Exhibition in Belfast three weeks hence, so I Googled the Belfast Escort site. There were a lot of interesting profiles, so I went down the rabbit hole, so to speak.

There were women, and men, of all shapes, sizes, ages, nationality, and expertise. They all mostly listed the service they provide and, to be honest, most of them didn't interest me. One thing that did was a thing called, 'Reverse Oral'. There was a handy link to click that explained what that was, and it was what I thought it was.

Giving oral stimulation to a woman was always my favourite activity. I loved every second of it. It was such a blessed thing to hear a woman moaning in pleasure instead of moaning about where one threw one's socks on an evening. It is such an intimate and beautiful experience when you know your way around a woman's genitalia. It is an even more blessed thing when you can coax an orgasm from her using your tongue, lips and, sometimes, your fingers. Unfortunately, during my life, I knew only two women who appreciated this particular skill, but on this website, I would guess that over fifty percent of the ladies had it listed as a favourite. I rubbed my hands together and dug deeper.

After several hours, I had a list of ten ladies ranging in age from 29 to 42. They all wanted £180 - £200 for one hour, they all liked reverse oral, and their pictures looked great. They covered the map of the world. Hailing from Ireland, Britain, Spain, Eastern Europe, Brazil, France, and Italy.

I homed in on an English lady who called herself Penelope VIP. She was 36 years old, had nice pictures and an impressive range of services. I found her number and called her.

"Hi, my name is Billy. I'm enquiring about booking an hour of your time in Belfast next month, please?"

I think I must have caught her off guard.

"How old are you?" she asked, abruptly.

"I'm sixty-four."

"Have you booked an escort before?"

"No, I'm a virgin in that respect."

"I'll only do an outcall to your hotel room. It's £600, and I want a fifty percent deposit to hold the booking," she said in a supercilious fashion.

"That's a little more than I had bargained for."

"That's not my fault, sir. I'm doing you a favour. I don't normally take novices or anyone your age."

"It's a long time since anyone called me a novice," I said, "but ok, let me think about it, please."

She hung up abruptly without comment. I was decimated. I felt that this age thing was going to ruin my life. I pulled up her picture again and looked closely. She did have kind of a hard look to her face, possibly because of her chosen profession. She was English, so it might just be a cultural thing, although Irish women could be just as bad. I decided to pass on Penelope VIP. I switched the computer off and went to watch TV instead. As I watched, I couldn't focus and, as usual, took the easy path down the pit to self-blame and self-recrimination as I focused on my own problems and not on how rude that fucking bitch had been on the phone. I was closing the computer screen when my phone rang. I answered it on the second ring.

"Hi, I'm looking for Billy Byrne, please?"

"This is Billy."

"Hi Billy, I'm buying my father's house, and I need a survey done. Is that something you can do?"

"Yes, where is it please?" I asked.

"On the Kilmore Estate in Artane, near the school."

"I know those houses. What's your name please?"

"Yes, it's Deirdre Conaghan."

"I went to school with a chap calledRitchieConaghan, is he any relation to you?"

"That's my Dad. He built this house."

"I know it well," I said. "I remember him building it."

"I've been living here for a couple of years, and he's letting me buy it."

"Great. I can do that on the day after tomorrow if I can do it at 8:30. Otherwise, it'll be two weeks."

"I'll take that," she said, "any idea of the cost?"

"€250, including the tax."

"Perfect. I'll see you the day after tomorrow. I'll text you the address."

"Thanks, Deirdre; tell your Dad I said hello."

The morning after the next, I was outside Deirdre's house at 8:30, my survey kitbag over my shoulder. Deirdre opened it and welcomed me in. We had a quick chat about what she was doing, and I started to measure up the house. Halfway through the survey, Ritchie let himself in through the front door. We shook hands, and he looked at me questioningly.

"You said you went to school with me?" he asked.

"Yes, I did," I said.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Because I don't remember you."

"We may have just been in the same year," I said, "I was in 'A'; you may have been in the 'B' or 'C'."

Deirdre laughed out loud when I said that.

"I think you might have been in Ray's class. He's my younger brother."

"Are you sure?" I said, thinking I was going senile.

"Yes, I'm sixty-six," he said. "You couldn't be any more than fifty."

I knew then that I was right. Ritchie had always been a bit thick, but I hung on to the fifty estimate like a life preserver. I had always been told that I didn't look my age, and this was another backhanded way of saying that. I decided to take the win.

"You could be right, Ritchie. You're a brickie, though, aren't you?"

"Retired now," he said.

"Ok, and how are you finding that?"

"It's ok, Billy. Plenty of time for a few pints, when your daughter leaves you the fuck alone."

"Well, I'd better get on with this," I said. "Was Mick Thorncastle in your class in school?"

"Yes, we were next-door neighbours when we were kids."

"That's right, I remember that. Good football player. He was a brickie, too, wasn't he."

"Yes, he was."

Mick Thorncastle sat beside me in school, we played football for the same team, and I fancied the arse off his sister, Janice. Ritchie must be suffering with dementia, but he thinks I'm only fifty, so I gave him a pass. I completed the survey, got paid and left the house to go to my next appointments. I finished surveying at lunchtime and returned to the office and the Belfast Escort website with a fresh perspective.

I opened it up and began a new search. There weren't many that jumped out as desirable. They all looked great, but pictures can be misleading, so I drilled down into the bios and reviews to get a feel for them, so to speak. I eventually cut the list down to two ladies, one Irish girl, aged 29, and the other, a Czechoslovakian girl, aged 32. Both were beautiful in the pictures, but I noticed an anomaly in one of the Czech girl's photos, where she looked about ten years older than in the rest of them. This raised a flag with me, so I dismissed her from my list, leaving me with one, a girl called, Irish Rose. She had a website, and I hit the highlighted link.

The website popped up and it was pretty detailed, if a little childish in construction. It charmed me, however, and, having gone through it meticulously, I decided to give her a call. She didn't answer, but the website told me that I could email her my enquiry if the phone was busy, so I did. I gave her the details she requested, including my age at 50, along with when I needed the appointment and the duration of it. I received an automatic reply telling me she would be in touch with me soon. I went about my business and began to do the calculations for that day's surveys. I got lost in the work for a few hours and was planning my evening meal in my head when I noticed a reply from Irish Rose.

"Hi Billy, love. Thank you for your wonderful enquiry. Yes, I can accommodate you next week. Will you text me a confirmation that you'll be coming, no less than 1 hour before the appointment time, please? I'll send you directions to my location at that stage. I look forward to meeting you then, XXX Your Wild Irish Rose."

This was how one must feel when being released from prison. I had a skip in my step and a smile on my face, so I decided to celebrate by ordering a Chinese instead of cooking my own dinner. As I waited for the food to arrive I felt that some research was advisable on the requirements for hygiene and the avoidance of any unwanted health implications. I perused several various websites, and it became clear that hygiene was as important, if not more so, to the girls themselves. Nearly every profile included a requirement for the client to shower immediately upon entering the setting for the appointment. I assumed it would be good policy to only visit girls with this proviso in place, upfront and highlighted, on their profile pages.

Dental hygiene was also high on the list, and this would have been a concern of mine. I visited many sites offering information on good dental hygiene and ways to improve it. I had always been conscious of periodic check-ups at the dentist and had been using an antiseptic and antibacterial mouthwash for several years. Irish Rose's website actually alluded to the clients breath beingminty freshand mine usually was. With all of this in mind, I decided to put a kit together that included everything I'd need for showering remotely. Although several of the sites mentioned that they provided products for showering, I thought it best to get the items that I was used to.

The next day, following a meeting at the offices of NSK Energy, where it was mentioned that I would be required to increase my workload and also consider expanding my network countrywide, I decided to withdraw my services. On my way home from the meeting, the phone rang in my car. It was Liam Gallagher, my contact in NSK.

"Billy, you're an awful man, what's the read?"

I decided to be a little bastard.

"Who's speaking please?" I asked.

"It's me, Liam," he said, then added, "Gallagher."

"Ah, Liam," I said, "are you still not talking to Noel? You two need to cop on."

"Yeah. Fuck off."

"What's wrong with you, Liam?" I asked.

"Did you just jack, in there?" he asked.

"I suppose I did."

"But, what the fuck, Billy? Why?"

"Liam, my agreement with them, initially, was to only work in Dublin north and to do no more than five jobs per week," I said, "that changed to include the rest of Dublin and then ten jobs a week."

"I know, but you never complained about it before," he said.

"I didn't complain because I still only did the five jobs. I left anything that was not on the Northside alone. They just didn't notice."

"I still don't get it."

"For fuck's sake, Noel, you were in the meeting."

"So you pull your ticket? Just like that?" he said.

"Yes, they're a shower of cunts anyway."

"I know that, but what'll you do now?"

"I'll take a few days to consider a few things. I've had a couple of interesting offers; I might jump on one of them."

"Well they asked me to get you to reconsider."

"Tell them I had my phone switched off."

What I didn't tell Liam was that I had recently committed to work with a company that were piloting a deep retrofit insulation program for one of the larger local government Social Housing bodies in Dublin. This work was based totally on the Northside of the city and each job paid twenty five percent more than NSK were paying. Also, because it was being funded by the European government, every job had to be done twice; once before works commenced, and once after works were completed. It was a complete slam dunk, financially, and too good to refuse. The houses were less than half the size of the ones that NSK did and there were no other extraneous audits or backup survey work involved either. The deciding factor for me was that the scheme was monitored and managed by a good friend of mine, Richard Davis, or Ritchie D, as he was known to his friends.

Ritchie was fifty five and had taken advantage of a decent early retirement package from the Local Government housing department to get out and do some real work. He was a decent enough chap. He had a good-humoured way about him, but he wouldn't think twice about telling you to fuck off if it was warranted. He knew about the meeting in NSK and was convinced that I wouldn't leave them. I knew differently. I was a private contractor and was not beholden to them in the same way as I would be if I were a direct employee. So it didn't surprise me that my phone rang with a call from him.

"Ritchie D," I said, "what's the craic?"

"What time is your meeting, Billy?" he asked.

"Twenty minutes ago."

"That was fast."

"In certain instances, speed is not all that highly appreciated," I said, "especially by women."

"I wouldn't know anything about that."

"Says the man who thinks a one minute fuck is a wasted thirty seconds of talking time."

"That's purely by choice," he laughed, "why waste thirty seconds having an in-depth conversation about her emotions? By the time she catches her breath that comes down to twenty eight."

"Longevity isn't your strong point, I take it."

"If one was really interested in dragging it out, there's nothing to stop one having a couple of quick shots at the shooting range beforehand," he said.

"True, but what if one only had one shot in one's gun to begin with?" I asked.

"Speaking of taking a shot," he said, "did you take one at NSK?"

"Yep! It's done."

"How did they take it?"

"I don't know, but Liam wasn't a happy camper."

"Ah well, into every life a little rain must fall," he said, "what's your plan?"

"I'm going home to finish up a few surveys and then I'm a free man."

"Are you available to do some work?"

"Yes, what have you got?"

"I've a few voids I need you to do for DCO."

"What's a void?" I asked.

"They're empty units that have been upgraded."

"Before and after?"

"Pres and Posts. Yes, where they're needed only."

"Same rates?"

"Yep."

"Are you under the gun to start them?"

"I'll email you twenty addresses, can you start a few of them tomorrow for me?"

"What are they?"

"Flats and apartments," he said.

"When do you need them?" I asked.

"What time is it now?"

"Gotcha. How do I get into them?"

"I'll drop the keys in your door tonight."

"Sounds good, where are they?"

"Ten in Kilbarrack and ten in Ballymun."

"Grand. I'll need account numbers too."

"All in the email."

"Jesus, Ritchie, it's not like you to be well organised."

"That'll change soon enough," he said.

"If I can get the keys today, I can do a few after lunch," I said.

"I'll be in the house for a while if you want to swing by and collect them," he offered, "what's the hurry?"

"I'm going to Belfast on Tuesday for the Energy Show," I explained. "I'd like to get them sorted by then."

"The fucking Energy Show. I get tired just thinking about it," he said, "if I'm not here, I'll leave the keys in the green bin nearest the door."

I drove to his house, collected the keys from the green bin and went directly over to Sillogue Green in Ballymun. I was curious about what lay ahead of me. The first on the list was a ground floor apartment of relatively recent construction. I took out my tools and set to work, finishing the survey up in less than fifteen minutes. With nobody to distract me, I had completed all ten a couple of hours later. I decided to head home for the day, have lunch and process the paperwork for them. I had everything completed at 5:20. Of the ten units, eight needed pre-surveys so I tackled them first. I emailed the certs and the invoice to Ritchie. An hour or so later, I received a text from him.

"Are you awake?"

"It's 7:00 at night. What do you think?"

The phone rang.

"What's up?" I said, "am I too quick for you?"

"Let's not go there again, Celtic is on in a minute."

"Ok, what do you need?"

"Thanks for those, but can you hold the invoice until you have at least ten addresses on it?"

"Why?"

"Admin costs. It costs us €100 to process an invoice, whether there's one address on it or a hundred."

"Ok, I'll publish the two that don't need a pre, that'll make it ten. I was trying to keep the pres and posts separate."

"Yeah, I gathered that. Don't do that. Did you do ten this afternoon?"

"Yes, but that won't happen again. I was just getting that NSK shower out of my system."

"Great, thanks for jumping on it so fast, though. Come on the hoops!"

I decided to watch Celtic too. It was a boring game, so I pulled my laptop over and opened it up. I wanted to check out Irish Rose's gallery of pictures on her website. I enjoyed scrolling through them and tried to imagine what she looked like, since her face was obscured in the photos. Scrolling further, I noticed that she was on Twitter. My heart leapt.