The Arrangement: A Love Story

David Winkler

Description

Everything in author David Winkler’s life reads like a “Once Upon a Time in Beverly Hills” fairytale. A film producer of titles such as the Creed franchise, the fifty-three-year-old sits on the top tier of his profession, enjoys a wonderful relationship with his two children, and even gets along famously with his ex-wife. But seeking to avoid the drama and disappointment of dating and with his belief in “radical honesty” and ethical non-monogamy, David reasons a shortcut through modern courtship: he becomes a sugar daddy. 

Using a website that connects successful older men with younger women for romantic/financial relationships, David meets Jordan, a beautiful Instagram model and influencer who harbors dreams of launching her acting career in Los Angeles. After the relationship begins magically, shadows begin to form and dark secrets take their toll. In the jaw-dropping tradition of Californication and Valley of the Dolls, The Arrangement takes us down the Hollywood rabbit hole of sex, power, and money, leaving readers in delightful disbelief…because it’s all true.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Biography
• Sugar daddy
• Addiction
• Autobiography
• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Bird Books
• Date de parution: 14 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781644283066
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

this is a genuine rare bird book
Rare Bird Books 6044 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042 rarebirdbooks.com
Copyright © 2022 by David Winkler
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address: Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department 6044 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042
Cover Design by Lisa Brewster Cover Floral Arrangement and Photography by Camilla Vergani Author Photo by Next Exit Photography
epub isbn : 9781644283066
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.


Contents
1
Once Upon a Time in Beverly Hills
2
A Genuine Arrangement
3
The Rare Gentleman
4
Daddy Fix-It
5
Ghosted Feelings
6
Finding Sanctum
7
Kissing Bruises
8
Soft David
9
Beauty in the Details
10
Shitty Hooker
11
Negotiating Love
12
Broken Foot
13
The Grand Gesture
14
The Halves of My Heart
15
The Graduation Surprise
16
Happy Places
17
The Picture of Health and Wellness
18
The Quest for TMS
19
Role Playing
20
Nice Country Jewish Boy
21
The Snow White of Bel Air
22
Hot Thirty-Year-Old in My Back
23
My Side of the Bed
24
Speaking to Me
25
Yes Day
26
Looking at Me, Too
27
The Bloody Body Bag
28
Where Relationships Go to Die
29
Of all the Things
30
The Stories We Tell
31
The Top Lock
32
Bel Air Burns
33
The Gift of a Lifetime
34
The Magical Allowance
35
The Healing Diagnosis
36
Talk About Happy Endings
37
The Last of Daddy Fix-It
THE END
38
The Words After



1
Once Upon a Time in Beverly Hills
I spilled a little champagne in the Uber!
Jordan’s text lit up my iPhone on the bed as I dressed for the evening.
Well, there’s an amusing start to a first date , I thought.
I laced up my black Prada sneakers, the final touch of my characteristically casual outfit—slim fit Levi’s and a black cashmere crew neck—then picked up the device.
Started without me, did you?
She responded with a laughing face emoji. Swear I’m not an alcoholic! I just get nervous meeting men this way.
Can’t blame you for that! I answered. After all, we had met—virtually speaking—on a dating site, and if that wasn’t nerve-inducing enough, it was on SeekingArrangement.com, where beautiful young women and successful older men seek “mutually beneficial arrangements.”
(That collective gasp of shock would be coming from most of my family and friends, because on the night of January 9, 2019, few knew this fifty-two-year-old, divorced Hollywood film producer was, as they say, a “sugar daddy.”)
•
Dampened paper towels in hand, I pulled shut the front door to my house—a rosy, cream-plastered two-story with that maroon Spanish tile roof common in my neighborhood of Westwood, California.
Finally stopped raining! I thought. It was such a nice, warm night, I didn’t even need a jacket, a welcome change after a winter so wet that Southern California meteorologists were calling it “drought-ending.”
I walked to the curb and looked west. I’d ordered the Uber for Jordan, so I knew it would be coming from Venice. (Lux option, of course. Can’t be cheap when you’re a sugar daddy! ) But not seeing a single car approaching, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly—I made a practice of stealing moments to meditate and reflect.
I felt gratitude wash over me. This wasn’t uncommon. I often joked to friends that I’d been “born lucky.”
In fact, in many ways, my life had been a veritable fairy tale. Once upon a time in Beverly Hills, there lived a prince …it might have been written.
I certainly looked like the embodiment of the phrase “Jewish American Prince.” At five foot eight and 170 pounds (on a good day) I kept the remains of my brown hair clipped so its recession blended with my tan forehead. Perched below my hazel eyes was that ancestral crook in my nose. (As a teenager, while all my friends were having rhinoplasty, I proudly refused to have my birthright straightened.)
And the royal family was admired throughout the kingdom…
My parents were often called “Hollywood Royalty.” My father, one of the most successful and respected film producers in the industry, and his wife of nearly sixty years raised my two brothers and me in an eight-bedroom Beverly Hills mansion. With nearly three acres of sculptured gardens, a tennis court, and an Olympic-length pool, all surrounded by a tall stone wall, it was a moat shy of a castle. More impressive still, my parents had forged a harmonious clan—especially in the fame, fortune, and ego-plagued lands of Beverly Hills. My two brothers and our families got along famously, often traveling to Europe and spending weekends together at our Malibu beach house.
But the prince had prospered in his own right… the fairy tale would have described my own royal quests.
Though I’d recently partnered with my father to produce a few critically acclaimed and financially blockbusting movies, I was just as proud of the screenplays, independent films, and television movies I wrote and directed on my own. I’d traveled the globe, flown airplanes and jumped out of them, surfed giant waves, become an ace tennis player, reached near-scratch golfer, and rode motorcycles to my heart’s content. And, of course, I’d embarked on the biggest adventure of all—marriage and children. The former ended in disappointment—come March, it would be four years since my divorce—but the latter was my greatest accomplishment. My two beautiful children were the pride of my royal existence.
So the prince again sought true love’s kiss… would be the next logical passage in this fairy tale.
If I were in any hurry to turn the page, that is. Which I was not. Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t consider myself that cliché man in the crush of a mid-life crisis, chasing young girls to avoid the pain of divorce or of facing mortality. In fact, I considered myself a happy, content, and vibrant man. And I’d emerged from my marriage with relatively few battle scars—my ex-wife and I were not just amicable; we were great friends. But I was truly enjoying this new world of internet dating. The last time I’d been single, I was in my late thirties, and people were still embarrassed to admit they dabbled on the one site—the dial-up version of match.com. But, like a romantic Rip Van Winkle, I’d emerged to discover a world where everyone and their mother were proud to be on Bumble, Tinder, Hinge. And with so many options, who could blame me for not wanting to settle down and get married again so quickly?
As if on cue, I felt a buzzing in my jean pocket. I pulled out my phone and saw that Jordan had texted, Minute away!
Ready for ya!
Standing there like a teenager with first-date butterflies, I decided to refresh myself with Jordan’s Instagram. Nearly a month had gone by since we first matched on Seeking and shared social media; our meeting delayed by a trip I took to Costa Rica with my ex-wife and kids for the Christmas holiday. (Yes, that amicable.)
Naturally, I’d peeked at her Instagram a few times since, but even tonight I was impressed by it. Fifty thousand plus followers strong, Jordan called herself a “Wellness Warrior.” This tall dirty blonde’s posts were unfiltered and un-Photoshopped pictures of her practicing yoga, modeling fitness clothes, and eating at organic restaurants around Manhattan. (In our messages she’d told me she just moved to Los Angeles.) And, unlike so many women who called themselves “influencers” but only swayed people with bikini shots and flattering selfies, Jordan’s pictures were downright modest.
But there’s something else about her pictures , I realized. I struggled to define what that “else” was, but the best words I could come up with were, Jordan just fits… where or how, I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t shake the thought.
I heard a quiet buzzing and looked up to see a white Tesla Model S pulling up the street and into my driveway. I dashed forward to open the rear driver’s side door.
“I’m so embarrassed,” Jordan gushed as she ducked out, miniature champagne bottle in one hand, plastic cup in the other. She unfolded her frame that was an inch taller than my own and shuffled so that her blue and white-striped silk romper settled on her lithe, natural curves. Long naturally dirty blonde hair that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be curled or straightened bounced past her shoulders, and she wore only the thinnest sheen of makeup. She had clear blue eyes unafraid of contact, and a small, charming bump protruded from her nose—nearly matching mine, but daintier. But it was her smiling lips that captivated me. Without even a trace of gloss or lipstick, they were invitingly full and pink.
Unable to contain how captivated I was, I blurted out, “Jesus, you’re even more beautiful than your pictures!”
“Hah!” Jordan exhaled with a breathy laugh. “Thank you. And you have such an infectious smile!”
“Glad you think so.” I gave her a quick hug. “Let’s see what kind of mess we have here.”
“Oh, right.” She stepped out of the way with a conspiratorial nod to the driver’s window and a whisper. “The guy’s a little annoyed. But I swear, I hardly drink—this stuff’s been sitting in the fridge for ages.”
“I believe you,” I reassured her, then whispered, “And don’t worry about him, I tip big.”
She laughed. “I bet you do.”
I climbed into the back to find the smallest circle of spillage on the seat—certainly nothing that warranted the death stares the grumpy driver shot