It is only 15 minutes into the date and already I feel the urge to cry. Actually, it is 20 minutes into the date, but my man, being a cad, is late. When he arrives, he looks like he has just walked out of art college, with greased-back hair, white shirt, glittery skull cuff links, black waistcoat, black drainpipes and winkle-pickers.

“Hello, darling,” he announces with Noël Coward flamboyance, kissing the back of my hand and giving me a beautiful bouquet. He says: “Darling, what would you like to drink?” and, as I am telling him, he suddenly grabs the bouquet back, plucks out a yellow rose and walks over to the bar to present the flower to a petite, red-lipsticked woman.

I hadn’t wanted “Wade Crescent” in the first place. London’s newly launched Cadogram Agency has nine rakes on its books, and a brochure that states its aim is to provide “an antidote to the wimpish nature of the modern male”, with a minimum charge of £500 for two hours. I have taken them up on their offer of a cad for the night, not because I have much interest in hooking myself a cad, but because I am wondering exactly what a modern cad might be.

I much preferred the blurb for “Ollie HP”, who apparently throws a “sophisticated whirlwind of attention” at you. But he was unavailable, so instead, I have Wade, a 29-year-old model who also runs a club night called The Rakehell’s Revels. His cad role model is Christian Bale in American Psycho.

“Sorry about that,” Wade says, returning from giving the woman my rose. “Don’t you think she’s beautiful, though? Totally my type.” Then his mobile rings, and he says to the person at the other end: “Sorry, darling, I can’t speak now.”

I start to feel irritated. When we sit down for dinner and he starts going on about the blonde waitress (“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”), I snap. “She’s too skinny for me,” I say. “I’ve dated more women than men, and the chicks I go to bed with have much bigger butts.”

That shuts him up — though, in fact, his prankster interludes are not unwelcome, so limited is his conversation. He has obviously been places — this is his 12th Cadogram date — but he can’t seem to remember much about them. “I was in Mexico with this older lady, and we were in a bar, and Courtney Love was there. You know, it was amazing.”

By the time we start our main course, Wade has asked very little about me, yet I already know his life story: his dissolute Irish father, his squatting days in London, his tragic 10-month marriage, his years in Miami hanging out with ritzy older women. But the endless performance-art cadderie turns him into a cardboard-cutout figure, and I’m not convinced by anything he says.

Wade excuses himself and goes off to the loo yet again. When he returns, he is sporting a smudge of red lipstick on his mouth. I pretend I haven’t noticed, and inquire whether any of his ladies take offence at his behaviour. He shakes his head. The other week, he says, he went out with the blonde singer from a famous 1980s pop-punk band. “She had a great time,” he says. “She gave as good as she got. When I whispered to the waiter, she pinched his arse. It’s a way of flirting. Women don’t like you to be too nice.”

So, it appears that rudeness is what the modern alpha female lusts after in a cad. Perhaps she hopes to return the favour. Wade insists the “American hedge-fund ladies” are very unbashful. “They will grab your balls under the table. America is where we think our biggest market is.”

Sometimes, clients ask for “extras”. He’s up for it if they offer enough money, though he has to “fancy them a bit first”. He admits that sometimes he feels “like a woman” when he is being bossed around by a client, but “if you do caddish things, you get the power back”.

Then I slap down a credit card to pay for the bill and the power is back in my court. By the time we adjourn to the bar Wade has confessed that, actually, he is more of a hapless Jo Buck from Midnight Cowboy than an American Psycho-type escort. He has had some scrapes — one of his exes stabbed him, for instance. “She was high on drugs. I stayed with her afterwards. How crazy was I?”

As with the rest of Wade’s stories, I don’t believe this, but he undoes some shirt buttons and reveals a knife scar under his heart. He sighs and looks downcast, and the mask falls for the first time. Poor Wade. It turns out that his job is really getting to him.

“Since I’ve been doing this, I’ve started to like only good-looking women. And it’s getting that even when I’m not working, I don’t feel the night’s over until I’ve had sex.” He shrugs. “I plod on because I’m actually a hopeless romantic.”

Oh, dear. Now, Wade is sounding like the worst type of modern cad, as exemplified by Robbie Williams: the needy cad who ends up losing his shadow, but can’t resist whingeing about it. Luckily, he remembers another reason for plodding on.

“One of the cads at the agency had a cool date recently,” Wade says, his face lighting up. “An American hedge-fund lady. She flew him to New York in her private jet and took him round the stores — Marc Jacobs, Dior. He said that every time she bought him something, he got a hard-on.”

THE RAKES' PROGRESS

The loveable cad

We don’t care about the shagging, we don’t care about the bragging, we don’t even care about that hair — we still want a bit of Russell Brand

The despicable cad

Eddie Murphy allegedly got Mel B up the duff, denied paternity, dumped her on a chat show, and found a hotter model. His least funny act by far

The rent-a-cad

You can’t be a real C-list celebette if you haven’t done Calum Best. Just ask Rebecca Loos, Bianca Gascoigne, Jodie Marsh and Alicia Douvall

The suburban cad

Chris Tarrant’s love drama has so far involved his wife, a teacher, a woman he met over the frozen peas in Tesco, and a former EastEnder. Classy

The cut-price cad

Darren Day dated Tracy Shaw, Anna Friel and Isla Fisher. He left Suzanne Shaw with a baby and the words, ‘Idon’t do family’. Nice

The Cadogram Agency: www.rakehells.com

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