RP: Whose dick would this be, precisely?

CA: [unintelligible]

DC: Just stop crying!

END RECORDING

Secret Diary of a Prawn Star

Entry #47

Codename: Chaplin

Date: 13 September 2027

Client: Martin Elstree

Payment in advance: Yes

Session Goal: Sexual gratification, client

Location: Trump Metropole, Room 819

Narcolepsy status: Crashed on Tube for 10 mins. Seriously overtired

Nutrition/stimulants: Takeout curry & energy drink

Start time: 2.56 a.m.

End time: 3.27 a.m.

RECORDING DELETED

Material on this recording violated terms of service for the AR provision of Charlotte Aaron.

To store material of this type, please reset your system parameters to include use of power tools for sexual violence, olfactory triggers, penile enhancement and systemic bias.

The first cut

Gah! Only a dream! Only a dream! WTF was that sick business – ugh, can’t unsee, can’t unhear, can’t unsmell . . . eww, got to get a grip.

Pull it together, Charlie.

I’m awake. I’m awake. I’m literally pinching myself.

I think I can safely say I’ve never helped a client build a dream where their kink turns out to be attacking their boss with power tools. Thank god the recording system censored it. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen.

Where am I, again?

Let me think. I did Mrs H-W and then I got that text about Antonio and then I came here. Hotel. New client, Martin Elstree. Sex dream. Well, I think calling what just happened in his head a sex dream is stretching the definition. I need to wake up properly but it’s not easy. My body wants to keep sleeping.

I locate myself in the cushy chair by the TV. I drag my eyes open just in time to see Martin Elstree bucking under the super-king-sized bedspread across the room. He lets out a satisfied groan. All my arm hairs are standing on end and my skin is burning with that fast-creeping-adrenaline sensation you get when you’ve narrowly escaped being hit by a phalanx of e-bikes travelling at speed.

I watch Martin Elstree out of the corner of my eye. He thrashes a bit, then subsides. His breathing settles as he slides into light sleep.

I’m alert enough now to realise that the curry I wolfed at the station was a mistake. I’m going to spew. I put my hand over my mouth and lurch out of the chair, relying on the hum of the air con to cover the sounds of me sneaking into the hotel bathroom. I shut and lock the door, keeping my gaze on the tile floor. There’s a mirror the size of Lancashire over the sink. I lift the toilet seat and kneel in front of it. Complimentary bath products are all lined up on a shelf in the shower. They’re high-end, just like the hotel – even though Martin’s booked one of the smallest rooms in the place. At first he gave me the keys to his posh flat in Convoys Wharf but I am glad now that I held to my policy of no house calls for first-time clients. Now that I know he’s a fucking psycho, I may have to rethink my whole client-vetting system.