Gigolo: Inside the Secret World of the Super Rich

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Sturdy, hard-working, a former trawler-man, he uses the small inheritance from his Gran to qualify as a masseur and acquires one client, Rufus, whom he meets while giving free massages for a gym membership. Rufus’s mother, Lady Catherine, is a member of what is mysteriously called the Committee, a group of society ladies who have one thing in common: they adore sex and don’t mind paying for it. While Mr Perkins used the pseudonym Ben Foster for the book, which was written by a ghost writer, he has today decided to reveal his true identity in the hope of gaining more local support. With his dark hair, blue eyes and robust appendage the ladies dub Big Ben, the shy, self-effacing care worker is offered a position as a masseur at a luxury spa and is drawn into a world of private jets, Parisian sex clubs, state secrets, lines of cocaine and orgies in country houses with a Who’s Who of celebrities, actresses, top models, MPs and the international super rich.

Fact or fiction? Whichever, this is an unputdownable read as nice, married, father-of-three Ben Foster inadvertently falls into the life of a male 'escort' and sex worker.Ben Foster is married with 3 children and poor. His wife works in a laundry and Ben works with disabled boys. To help ends meet he does massages for extra money, not realizing that this job would take him inside the world of the rich that include celebrities etc. It all started when he met Vivienne whom gave him a new car and wardrobe and then he is soon referred and making a lot of money. This turns into massage, sex, and money. Soon Ben is addicted to life with money and possibly a debt free one. He leads his wife to believe it's "just massages." Time goes by and soon his wife finds out it's not just massages her husband is doing. Since his early 20s, Mr Perkins has been working as a gigolo - a role that sees him sleep with women for money. So by total chance, one day Ben meets his clients’ mum and the “committee: a circle of her rich and bored friends. Ben Foster’s true life story explores the overt extravagance of old and new wealth in today’s Britain. It reveals how the wealthy share a secret unimagined by working people: that they are easily bored and relieve their boredom with multiple partners and through sex that becomes ever more kinky and erotic. You root for Ben from the very beginning: he is a good man, hard working and a loving father to his three kids for whom he wants to do better, give them more opportunities in life than he’s had.

You get a picture of the hardships he faces to make ends meet on a minimum wage job and when you meet his only paying customer who definitely exploits him by paying him very little for his services, especially considering the wealth he lives in. The narrative voice is a compelling one and Ben is a nice guy: self-deprecating, charming without being insincere, and all-round good guy (apart from the fact that he's 'cheating' on his wife, of course!) Thurlow is known as 'one of the best ghostwriters in the UK,' according toPenny Wark of The Times. His recent books are:Typhoon: The Inside Story of a Fighter Squadron at War, for WingCommander Mike Sutton (Penguin, 2021);Operat...There are other points where it's hard to accept the story at surface value: that Ben has sex with around 2000 women in two years, including periods where he's servicing up to five women a day (he's in his thirties, and has what he describes as a physically tiring job as a masseur, as well as a family life - come on!); that his wife never really queries his sudden influx of designer suits, new cars, weekends away, even newly shaved genitals (and saying that they only have vanilla sex in the dark really doesn't explain the latter). It's actually not a bad read for "this kind of thing" with a bit of politics,bit of social history,the odd observation on society and an in-depth introduction to massage thrown in for good measure which I found very interesting and hadn't expected. At that point, my life was 'this is what we are going to do and this is how you are going to do it'," Mr Perkins said. Ben does seem to grow from his experiences. He thinks about class differences, and the perils of being limited by one’s “station in life” or labeling oneself as “people like us” vs. the rich. As his fortune rises, and he provides more for his family, even his sweet, unassuming wife begins to change and see a future for herself. Ben weighs it all and concludes that it’s ok to try to improve yourself.

One of his regular clients was a rich man, and Ben would see him once a week in his state. The guy wasn’t very friendly and looked down upon Ben, but one day there was a group of rich and powerful ladies visiting the client’s mother and they all took interest in the dark-haired, blue-eyed masseuse. Details about his encounters are covered in his book 'Gigolo: Inside The Secret World of the Super Rich', which is up for a People's Book Prize. With his dark hair, blue eyes, and robust appendage that the ladies dub Big Ben, the shy careworker is drawn into a world of private jets, Parisian sex clubs, state secrets, endless lines of cocaine and orgies in country houses with a Who’s Who of celebrities, MPs and the international super rich. Love is like being burned in flames then plunged into icy water. Love leaves scars and broken hearts. Your emotions change from one second to the next.” With a small inheritance from his gran, Ben qualifies as a masseur and is introduced to the mysterious ‘committee’ – a group of society women with one thing in they adore sex and don’t mind paying for it.

By Ben Foster

I started this book thinking it was a book based on a true story. As it progressed I became more sure that that was the case, and in the end I belive it all is fiction. It might be a book based on true events, and in a business hard for most of us to understand who is to say that extraordinary things do not happen? So, he has to lie to his wife to keep up the pretence about his new profession and choices are made that make us share the dilemma if by selling his services and his body, Ben will end up losing his soul and everything else he held dear before being caught in this whirlwind of wealth and opportunities. Ben doesn’t describe himself in much detail but from the way women reacted to him, I picture him as tall, well built and good-looking. Ben does share more of his internal life with us, and he comes across as positive, sincere, caring and someone who is adept at examining life. I could smell her perfume. It was light and airy, a scent I didn’t know, and seemed personal to her. She was so beautiful, I couldn’t bear to look at her.”

He’s used his gran’s inheritance to get a qualification as a masseuse and throughout the novel you can see how conscientiously he does that, how he approaches it philosophically and as a healer. Jim Perkins aka Ben Foster has spoken about his life as a gigolo. Picture: Neil Didsbury (Image: Archant)Jim Perkins, 44 from Bradwell has spoken about his life as a gigolo. Picture: Neil Didsbury (Image: Archant) All the same, even if this is a fictionalised version of some underlying truth, I couldn't stop reading this book. It is explicit about the sex so beware if that offends you, and is a rivetting story of the rise and fall of a very modern male sex worker. Worrying about what ‘people are going to say’ and ‘what the neighbours might think’ is always in the minds of working people. They aren’t afraid of failure. They are afraid of success and how they would have to make excuses to their friends if it ever came their way.”