The Escorts in Avari Hotel Lahore. It smells of polished marble, faint jasmine from immense floral arrangements, and the expensive, discreet perfume of old money. It’s a climate-controlled bubble, separate from the chaotic, fragrant heat of Lahore just beyond the rotating doors. Here, time moves differently, measured not in minutes but in the soft chime of fine china and the murmured transactions of the global elite.
He watched it all from a deep leather armchair, a half-finished cup of Darjeeling going cold on the low table beside him. He was a professional observer, a writer, or so he told himself. His notebook lay open, but it remained blank. The real story wasn’t in his head; it was unfolding in the plush theatre of the lobby.
And then there was her.
She didn’t make an entrance; she conducted a seamless merger with the atmosphere. She was seated near the grand piano, a vision of calculated elegance. A navy-blue sheath dress that whispered rather than shouted. Pearl earrings that caught the light with a soft glow. She wasn’t scrolling through her phone with the frantic energy of a guest waiting for a delayed companion. She was still, a portrait of perfect patience, her eyes calmly scanning the room without seeming to search for anything at all.
He knew, of course. One develops a sense for these things in the interstitial spaces of five-star hotels. She wasn’t a wife waiting for her husband down from a business meeting. Wives have a different kind of patience, often laced with a subtle, familiar irritation. She wasn’t a businesswoman herself; there was no laptop, no folder of documents, no aura of preoccupation.
She was an event. An experience, waiting to be claimed.
He thought of the word people used: “escort.” It was such a functional, transactional term for a role that was, in this context, anything but. This was high theatre. She wasn’t just selling companionship; she was selling a fantasy of normalcy, of beauty, of effortless class. She was the missing piece for a lonely executive who didn’t want to dine alone, for a wealthy traveler who desired an arm ornament for a gallery opening, for a man who wished, for one evening, to feel like the kind of man who belonged with a woman like that.
A man in a impeccably tailored suit descended the sweeping staircase. Mid-fifties, salt-and-pepper hair, the confident stride of someone accustomed to ownership. His eyes found her, and a small, private smile touched his lips. It wasn’t a lecherous grin; it was the smile of a connoisseur appreciating a rare piece that had arrived exactly as ordered.
She rose to meet him. There was no awkward wave, no fumbled greeting. It was a smooth, practiced convergence. She offered a smile that was warm but professionally calibrated—never too much, never too little. She took his offered arm, not clinging, but resting her hand there as if it were the most natural place in the world. They exchanged a few quiet words and moved towards the doors of the Towers Grill, not as client and service, but as a sophisticated couple heading in for a dinner reservation.
The writer watched them disappear, the bubble of the lobby sealing behind them. He looked down at his blank page. He had come here to find a story about the city’s pulse, about the clash of tradition and modernity. Instead, he found a perfect, silent vignette of a different kind of commerce—one built not on goods, but on aura, on illusion, on the profound human need to not feel alone in a crowd, even in the opulent, perfumed silence of the Avari Hotel.
He finally picked up his pen. The story wasn’t about scandal or morality. It was about the art of the performance, the unspoken contracts made in soft light, and the beautiful, lonely architecture of temporary connections. He began to write.
