Richard was a 16- year old son of a rich businessman of the New York, Mr. Willis. Richard's mother had died in an air crash when he was 5 years old. Since then Mr. Willis had been giving him the love of a father and a mother and loved him dearly. Although he was a very rich man, he openly used to claim that his son was his most valuable possession. Still, due to his expanding business empire, he could spend with his son the quality time that he had always desired. Although, he managed to take a 15-day leave every winter and go abroad for a vacation with his son.
Now Richard was old enough and he understood his father's problems. He was now out of the age of being looked after by nannies, so his father decided that he would rather arrange for a butler for his son and gift it to him on his 17th birthday which was a week later.
As Mr. Willis had always been busy in his official work, meetings, business delegations, foreign business tours etc., he had no idea about his son, although he had provided every means of comfort to his son. His son had had no shortage of money, was never devoid of anything and got whatever he wanted at a snap of the fingers.
Due to all this, his son had fallen a prey to bad company in high school. He had lot of money at his disposal, so he had begun smoking and also started on hard drinks, but had still not been exposed to drugs. His father knew this and tried to stop his son from doing so and after a lot of counseling and repeated lectures, Richard gave up cigarettes. His father was happy and told him that he could moderately and occasionally take alcohol.
Mr. Willis was relieved that his son had stopped smoking and was now improving. A week passed by, and it was Richard's 17th birthday. His father thought that now his son had grown into an adult virtually, and should be treated like an adult man, so he decided to gift his son a personal butler, who would look after all his needs.
Mr. Willis told his assistant to publish an advertisement in the newspaper and there were many replies from anxious and qualified men who needed a job and would be overwhelmed to work for one of the rich businessmen of New York. The candidates came for the interview and two of them were short-listed. The final decision had to be made by Richard, who was going to have one of them as his butler.
The two short-listed candidates were Edward and Laura. Without any hesitation, Richard chose Edward. His father was a bit startled as Laura was more experienced in her work than Edward. He thought that his son might be more comfortable with a man than a woman as he had grown up now.
The manager of the house gave Edward his appointment letter and told him the date and day to join for work. He was taken to a room where the measurements for his uniform were taken and he was also given his agreement, which he was told to read carefully, sign and get back when he would come for his first day of duty three days later. Edward took his appointment letter, greeted Richard who was sitting in the lounge room and was escorted out of the house by the manager.
Richard had an immediate attraction towards his new to-be butler all of a sudden, maybe because he had never seen a handsome, young man before and also because till now he had been taken care of by the ladies working in the house, i.e. the governess, the nannies, the housekeeper and the lady tutor who used to come and teach him his lessons on weekdays.
Richard immediately went to his room and called up his best and only friend, Phillip and gave him the news. He was delighted as well and told Richard that he would come to his house three days later in the evening to see his new butler. Phillip was actually a gay. It was a hush-hush secret absolutely. Richard knew that but he was not like his friend. He did not have that much of attraction towards guys, although he always adored handsome and well-dressed men.