It was hot in the hotel room where Cole Benson sat, hunched on a ruffled bed and tugging at the collar of his designer shirt. The curtains were drawn tight in the late afternoon heat while a sweltering sun beat on the windows demanding entry. A weird orange glow seemed to diffuse the room as the light filtered through. But this was the way he liked his living space: as insular, intense, and overheated as his own fevered mind. The small disordered space was an echo of the inside of his head. He was long accustomed to the sterility of these places; for the past few years he had shuttled across the country as a salesman of corporate insurance, using his formidable hustling skills to climb the ladder of his company and become one of its senior …show more content…
Some time before - what was it, five years now? - he had been reveling in the life of a maths teacher at a well-run high school buried in a leafy, trendy suburb. It had been good, almost too good - a nice wife, lovely home, a garage where he wasted the weekend tinkering with things. He had grown so accustomed to it all, that when it was pulled out from under him, he had started falling and never really stopped. All because some casually cruel, idle girl falsely accused him of harassing her. The vindictive blond with an angel's face and demon's body had destroyed his world purely because it amused her to do so. That wife, home and garage all disappeared as quickly as the booze he began to down in serious …show more content…
That had led to an interview with his current employers, which to Cole's amazement he had managed to pass. In the new world of legalized gambling that was insurance, he discovered a latent gift for salesmanship which saw him thrive. He became something of a corporate Mephistopheles, negotiating Faustian bargains which saw numerous firms selling their financial souls to the greedy behemoth he served. It felt like a vindicating triumph to Cole - not quite a second chance, more like an opportunity to enjoy all things he had previously denied himself on principle. Such as, the unbridled sexual favours of a girl half his age. Even as a disciplined married man, Cole had never quite shaken some infatuations for his students, even the doe-eyed bitch who ruined his life had indeed drawn his attentions. Now that had grown into a particular addiction to escorts which he indulged regularly on his sojourns. Not just any streetwalkers either; his tastes in women had grown more expensive along with the rest of his indulgences, and when in Los Angeles he called on the services of an elite agency known as