HELPMEHELPYOU.COM

The website was called HelpMeHelpYou.com and Achilles had discovered it one bored afternoon almost a year earlier. It was aimed, it said, at sugar daddies and sugar babies, the former being men who, through pressures of work and an on-the-go lifestyle, struggled to form romantic connections but longed for the company of a younger woman, or man, for a night, a weekend or a holiday. Pictures on the homepage portrayed men who, in real life, would have had absolutely no trouble whatsoever in finding a romantic partner, for they looked like Brad Pitt’s better-looking younger brother, while the girls who clung on to them pressed an index finger seductively against their lower lips, as if they were trying to remember exactly what took place at the Diet of Worms or how many different chancellors had served under Harold Wilson when he was prime minister.

Achilles felt the whole thing might be a bit of a lark, so he set up an account and posted a few photos of himself, one with his shirt open to the waist and the top button of his jeans undone, revealing a whisper of pubic hair, and waited to see whether anyone might get in touch. An hour later, when he logged back in, there were twenty-three messages, most of which came from men over the age of forty who were not shy in suggesting the things they would like to do to. These he deleted right away, focussing his attentions instead on those who disguised their lust as indifference, pretending to be interested in him as a person while making subtle suggestions about their disposable income.

The first man he met was a married father of two from Battersea, the indent on the fourth finger of his left hand making it clear that he’d removed his wedding ring on the journey to the pub. Achilles went for a drink with him several times before asking whether he could help him out with a ‘loan’ of £1,000 because, he claimed, his landlord was threatening to throw him out on to the streets, and when the man proved hesitant to hand over any money, Achilles asked whether he might move in with him if he was made homeless, at which point they made their way to the nearest ATM. It was the easiest £1,000 that Achilles had ever made, but he deleted the man’s number afterwards as he wasn’t interested in any long-term blackmail plots. Anyway, it was clear from the website that there were hundreds, even thousands, of men who would willingly pay for his company and then be equally generous in their desire for him to leave them alone. By the time he worked his way through them all, he realized, he could be old enough to be a sugar daddy himself.