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.”
“Do you want me to escort you 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. 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 a couple of occasions a week. Lately, though, I’ve been struggling with the fact that my optimum time for attracting attractive younger women has 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 show no interest in ‘hooking up‘ as they say in America. I’ve tried all of the preferred 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 was working 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 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 honed in on an English lady. 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 caught her off guard.
“How old are you?”
“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.”
“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. 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 a hard look to her face, possibly because of her job. She was English, so it might just be a cultural thing, although Irish women could be just as bad. I decided to pass. 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 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?”
“On the Kilmore Road 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 called Ritchie Conaghan, is he any relation to you?”
“That’s my Dad. He built this house.”
“I know it well; 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 in the morning. 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 kit 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 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 alone.”
“Well, I’d better get on with this,” I said. “Was Mick Thorncastle in your class?”
“Yes, we were next-door neighbours when we were kids.”
“That’s right, I remember that. Good football player. He was a brickie, too.”
“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. 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 28, 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 the rest. 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.
