A Daddy for Damian by Joe Satoria

4. KRISTOPHER

Halfway through getting my fingers manicured, I received news of Damian. He’d been to see Marsha, and I knew what she did every time. My phone was filled with images of previous assistants as they tried on a suit. She always told me she warned them about me and how they shouldn’t get comfortable.

I didn’t blame her, I’d warn them to, and I did. I gave them the quit when you want clause. I did that for a few reasons, and mostly because of how close we worked together, something usually always happened, and often, they got attached, and I grew tired.

I was a fast-paced kind of guy, and I liked to have things done there and then. I didn’t like to wait around for change. That’s why I didn’t want to get another assistant so soon after the last one. Although he quit because he was offered a better job. It didn’t bother me.

—He’s cute. Marsha’s text message read.

I watched the messages flash across the screen while the manicurist took care of my hands, and my feet were soaking in a nice foot bath. It was a weekly occurrence. I liked to take care of myself. I also liked to take care of anyone I was with. That was another thing I was, down to a fault, caring.

—But look how innocent he is, Kris. I hope you don’t scare him away with all your sex dungeon talk. I know what you get up to. Her texts continued.

It was followed by an image.

And there he was. Damian dressed in a nice dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a burgundy tie. There was a lot to be said about a man in a suit, especially one who turned up to an interview in something casual. All he needed now was to do something with his hair, and—

My eyes locked in on the socks. Dinosaurs. That was precious. He needed to wear those tomorrow.

Once I had one hand free, I grabbed my phone and message her back.

—Tell him to wear those socks tomorrow.

*   *   *

FRIDAY

Since the club was in Liverpool, an hour from Manchester, I agreed to pick Damian up. While in England, I rented and was chauffeured around, especially when travel meant from Manchester to London, or Birmingham. Those were the hot spots for the clubs I was building my portfolio with.

In a chauffeured Mercedes-Maybach, I pulled up outside the address Damian had given me. The area was all housing. I thought he would’ve been living in a flat, but no, it appeared he was still living with his parents. And now, we would have an hour to get to know each other—or, specifically, me getting to know him a little better.

Awestruck with his slack expression and wide jaw. The typical look for someone seeing a man standing to open a car door for you.

Damian wore the navy-blue suit like he had yesterday. The trousers lifting a little as he walked to reveal pastel blue socks. He had nice shoes, black, very ordinary, and around his shoulder, he carried a brown messenger bag. It looked like he was about to deliver newspapers with it.

“Wow,” his first words as he slipped inside the car. His hands and arms stroking against the cream leather interior. “This is a nice car.”

“I know,” I said. “I always rent one when I’m travelling.” I pulled at the top of the middle console between the two of us, revealing bottled water. “We have a lot to cover before we get to the meeting. So, take water.”

Damian grabbed a bottle of water. “I’m nervous.”

“Right,” I chuckled. “I heard about what Marsha said. She tells everyone. I have a high turnover rate of people. I bet she told you not to get comfortable, and I bet she told you about how I—” I paused, looking him in his eyes as they grew wide, and his pale complexion blushed pink, “—have sex with everyone I employ.”

“Something about it,” he laughed it off as he clipped himself in by the seatbelt. “But it’s fine, I mean the—high turnover thing, and—” he grew redder and redder. “I mean, I’m not saying we—I—I—”

“Let’s go,” I said as the driver waited for my instruction. “To the address in Liverpool.”

“I read the contract, and I’m ok with it. Everything is fine. I’m ready to work any hours you want me to.”

He didn’t know what he was signing himself up for with those words. “Well then,” I said, “I’ll get you to put your signature on the contract itself, but don’t worry, like I said, all you’ll be doing it making notes. And someone I can rant to. Of course, that means I do also need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement because what I say to you can’t be said to anyone else.” That’s the way it always was, especially in business, especially where investing was concerned. If I had an assistant who spoke a lot to other assistants, the news could break and before lunch, everyone in the city would have their offers and pitches in. Another reason not to have an assistant who has been in this line of work before, because they didn’t know anyone, and it made them just that bit more loyal to me. Even previous assistants had their loyalty.

Damian signed whatever I put in front of him. He grabbed a pen from his bag.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“My bag.”

“No, no.”

He presented the pen to me. It was a black pen with white dinosaurs around it. “My—my pen.”

Looking him over, I knew he had dinosaur socks, but a pen to match. This was new. “And did you wear the socks?” I asked, realising the ones I saw were a different colour to the flash I’d caught earlier.

“They were dirty, so I wore some different ones,” he said. He pulled at the knee of his trousers, revealing the pastel blue socks with the diplodocuses printed on them.

“What’s your favourite dinosaur?”

He looked away, looking at the pen in his hand, scanning it almost. “Nobody has asked me that since I was a kid,” he said. “But—but if I had to say, it would be a triceratops, you know, because they’re kinda like unicorns, right, with the horn on their head.”

“What about a T-Rex?”

“They have really weak arms,” he said, almost immediately. “Like, they can stomp and growl, but the size of their arms. They can’t do anything with them.”

“You have a point, and the—diplodocus, on your socks, what about them?”

He shrugged. “They have long necks and they probably walked really slow because of how big they were. So, I don’t really like them that much. I just like the colour of these socks mostly.”

“I’d say the T-Rex was my favourite,” I told him. “Because they’re feared, right?”

Damian paused, almost like he was holding himself back from speaking. “Well—”

“Carl,” I said, “let’s pull into a drive-thru and grab coffees.”

“I think there were more dangerous dinosaurs,” he finally said. “Yeah, we fear them today, but dinosaurs existed at different times in history, they didn’t all exist at the same time.”

Oh. He really knew his dinosaurs. I liked that, but now it made me question why he didn’t have a job or go to university to study this. I wasn’t going to ask; I didn’t want to give him any ideas about leaving on his first day. “So, sign those. Then I want to know more about you. You know, since I invest in kink clubs and such, it would be nice to know if you’ve got any experience.”

Appearing to blush through embarrassment, Damian looked away and down at the paper I’d handed him to sign. There was no better icebreaker than to know where he was coming from. Although I knew from what I’d seen of him, he didn’t have any experience in anything, and I didn’t mind that one bit.

One way or another, I’d coax the information out of him. If not through the promise of his wages, it would be through lunches in expensive restaurants. That’s how all this usually started, lunch, a little under the table footsie, followed by dessert in a nearby penthouse.

He handed the papers over to me.

“So,” I said, “have you ever been to a kink club?”

Immediately, shaking his head at the question.

“Well, that’s where we’re going today.”