Three days later, on the morning of his first date with Colin since his surprise ass-fucking, Henry was picking out his suit for the evening when his phone rang.

It wasn’t Hamilton’s Skype number ringing, but his personal line. He almost didn’t answer when he didn’t recognize the number.

“Mr. Davis?”

“Who’s calling?” Henry asked tartly, ready to hang up on a sales pitch.

“This is Alice from Tate Charleston’s office.”

“Oh. Oh! Hi.”

“Tate loved The Recluse. And he’d like to talk to you about the project.”

“Oh, wow. Yeah, definitely. Where are you guys located?”

“We’re headquartered in Portland. But, Tate is actually in New York right now. Well, he’s about to fly out of Teterboro. And he moves fast on things. So he’d like to meet with you. Right now.”

“Oh, sure. Where do I…”

“Your address was on the screenplay, so I’ve taken the liberty of sending a car to your place. It’s downstairs. Don’t worry about what you’re wearing, Tate doesn’t care. Casual is actually better. Can you come down now?”

“Yes,” Henry said. “Yes, I can.”

* * *

He put on his running shoes and bolted downstairs, where a Town Car was waiting to take him to Teterboro Airport, across the Hudson River. He held onto his laptop so hard he was afraid he’d crush it; he’d been so agitated that he hadn’t even put it in the bag.

This was every writer’s dream. To submit something, and get an answer, any answer… NOW. He’d heard all the horror stories of people who’d even secured agents, only to sit by the phone for months without a response on their script or book, and then to be told by seasoned pros to “give her six months and then reach out to her.” Six months! That was… one half of one percent or more of your life, lost, to waiting for… nothing, maybe. You could spend a huge chunk of your potential career just standing by. And that was with representation. He shuddered to imagine it.

Instead, he’d had the great good fortune of submitting to an Internet billionaire, a man who moved at Internet speed.

If Charleston bought his script, and if he was also hired for any rewrites... It wasn’t enough to quit his day… his night job, but still. It was a start.

The car whisked him onto the tarmac, where a Gulfstream G650 awaited him like a royal carriage, engines idling low.

He swallowed as he went up the steps and into the cabin.

“Henry!” Tate Charleston said, jumping up from his seat. Two assistants caught the flying papers and electronic devices upended by his leap. “Awesome!”

Like most Internet billionaires, Tate Charleston had a simple idea. For Jeff Bezos, it had been, “buy books online you can’t find in your home town,” which then expanded to “buy everything online.” Mark Zuckerberg’s had been, “hook up with your college friends online,” which then expanded to “hook up with everyone in the world online.”

Tate’s had been just as small to start. “Find a tutor in your area for any skill” was the original idea. But what Tate had seen was that people were not just hiring tutors to teach them how to play the guitar, but were willing to pay by the hour for like-minded people to go to concerts with them. Lonely people, Tate discovered, were not averse to paying for interesting, intelligent, non-sexual companionship. Nor were people who didn’t have any friends or spouses with the same interests, or people who traveled on business and didn’t want to go to a play or a concert alone.

In short, TutorMate.com became a geisha-like service, providing… well, services not unlike Hamilton’s minus the sex: cultured people, skilled conversationalists, who could make a bit of money on the side doing what they liked to do anyway. It didn’t pay nearly what Hamilton made in a night, of course, which is why he hadn’t pursued it. But he loved the idea.

Tate still looked like the acoustic guitar tutor he’d started out as, though now his t-shirt was made of a fine organic cotton, and his leather sandals were custom made by a cobbler in Italy. He was tan, with crinkles developing around his wide and startlingly clear blue eyes, and his sun-blond hair was shoulder-length and would be flying wild if not pulled into a ponytail.

“I fuckin’ love your script, man,” he said, pulling Henry into a bro hug.

“Thank you, Mr. Charleston.”

“Oh shit, don’t, no sirs or misters. I’m thirty-something, dude, I’m not ready for that.”

“No problem.”

They sat down and Henry was offered a variety of teas. He picked a strong black tea, ready to get caffeinated and get down to business.

“So. You ready to make a movie?”

“Absolutely.”

“I mean, literally. Ready now, to make a movie. Like, start pre-production next week.”

Henry blinked. “Umm. Doesn’t… isn’t there… won’t you need time to line up a director, and stars, and…”

Tate waved all that old world bullshit away. “Oh yeah. But I’ve already sent your script to a guy, Nathan Gergen, he’s done some great shorts.”

“Yeah, he won at Sundance. That guy, really?” Gergen had done a short, bittersweet gay romance film that had made Henry cry when he’d seen it online – not something many films could do. Gergen was gay, and he was perfect for Henry’s script.

“He’s on board. Here.” Nate’s assistant handed Henry a folder. “I know you’ll need some time for a lawyer to go over this, like, twenty-four hours? That’s as long as I can wait, sorry.”

Henry browsed the contract, wondering if he knew a lawyer he could get to drop everything and go over the wording today. That wasn’t possible, was it, this was all moving too…

Then he saw the number.

$100,000.

For the first draft. Payable on signing by wire transfer. No fucking around, no trying to skim another nickel of interest by paying as late as possible.

And another fifty grand if he signed on for rewrites, to work on the movie on set. Which was highly unusual as well; most of the time studios wanted writers, especially the original writer, far, far away from the set.

He looked up, astonished, to see Nate’s satisfied grin. “That’s right, man. In your bank account the minute you sign.” He fidgeted in his seat like a man who wasn’t used to sitting still this long.

“I’m starting an online content channel. Like, as soon as I’ve got content. And I need an identity that Amazon and Netflix don’t have covered, you know? I need voices. I need LGBT content, I need content for people of color, for disenfranchised poor whites, and I want it all done by the people I want to reach. See what I’m saying? Gay content by gay people, and so on. But not you know, all somber shit. Some of that but lots of popcorn, too.”

“And you need it now.”

“Yeah, I can’t launch without content and I’m fucking ready to launch. I want to do this. And I’ve got deep pockets.”

“So I’d need to…”

“We’ll be filming in Vancouver. It’s cheaper. And I want you on set, for rewrites and… well, because it’s your story. You’ll have to stay in Vancouver, I don’t know, maybe a couple months from end to end?”

Henry thought about it, glad he was sitting down because he was getting dizzy. This was it! Freedom! The life of a screenwriter!

“Oh, and I hope you don’t think it’s creepy, but I vetted you.”

He got up and Henry got up too, instinctively, and Tate bear-hugged him. “Working as an escort to put your niece through school, man, that’s fucking commitment. That’s family. When I found that out, I was sold on you, dude.”

Henry was a bit disturbed by that, but then he realized, it wasn’t really rocket science for anyone with hacking skills to find out anything about anyone any more. And besides, he thought pragmatically, all’s well that ends well.

Tate pulled back, smiling. “And another thing.” He opened his hand like a man used to having his needs anticipated, and one of his assistants put an envelope in it. Tate handed it to Henry.

“I’m having my Ellen DeGeneres moment right now. This is for your niece, even if you don’t sign the contract.”

Henry opened it and gasped at another six figure amount. The cashier’s check covered the tuition (at the new, higher rate) at the Rainbow School until Christina graduated.

The engines began to whine, and an assistant discreetly cleared her throat.

“Hey, I gotta jet! Ha ha ha!” Tate walked Henry to the steps to the tarmac. “Listen, have your lawyer look this over. It’s as short and simple as I can make it, no catches. But I do need an answer tomorrow morning, dude. I need to move on shit.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll have your answer by then.”

He got back in the Town Car and watched the jet take off, then turn and bank to the west, like a fairy godmother floating back to heaven. He literally pinched himself, hard, to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Everything was already different. The Bill was settled, forever.

Colin, swept across his internal landscape. This would be the end of his escorting career. And therefore the end of his time with Colin.

“Shit,” he muttered as the car zipped back to Manhattan. He liked Colin. How was he going to tell him that it was all over, that Hamilton Dillon was retiring, this week?

Because he was. Hamilton was a skin Henry felt he’d already shed, the minute Tate handed him the check to the Rainbow School.

He shook his head. He had a busy day. He pulled out his cell phone and called a lawyer friend of his who specialized in contracts, who agreed to cancel her lunch date to look over Henry’s papers.

He had the Town Car take him straight to the Rainbow School, where he handed the gigantic check to Jake. Jake raised an eyebrow at the sum, and the name on the check, but he hadn’t lasted as long as he had in the world of finance without an instinctive discretion.

Then it was off to lunch with his lawyer friend Carrie. She read over the contract with laser focus, ignoring her food. Henry ate everything on his plate, if only for something to do, and then started picking at hers.

“It’s fine,” she said, coming out of her trance. “I’m not an entertainment lawyer, but it’s short and sweet. It’s a straight purchase of your intellectual property, there’s no profit percentage points or residuals, but, there’s no language in it that binds you with chains of iron for a billion years and a thousand additional scripts, or anything like that.” She smiled. “Congratulations. I know this is your dream come true at last.”

“It is,” he said, still dizzy at the speed at which it was happening.

He called Tate’s assistant with his acceptance, then logged on to the site she gave him where he could digitally sign the contract. Then he started compulsively refreshing his banking app, and lo and behold, two hours after that, his bank balance was suddenly $100,750.

Now he could focus on his main quandary: How should he tell Colin, and when, that this was it, over, done? Should he give him this last night, as if it was just another night, and then pop it on him… when? How? Part of him, the cowardly bit, wanted to have Sunita call him and tell him, but he shook that off in a second. No, he’d have to man up and do it.

Then Henry went home to prep for his evening. And his last date with Colin O’Neill.