Callgirl: Confessions of a Double Life Page 4

She was anything but what I expected. I had been eyeing the brittle, mannequin-like women one sees downtown in Boston, the products of hours spent in the spas and shops of Newbury Street. I assumed she would look like one of them, those women who wear clothes like a challenge, like an armor.

  My friend Irene and I had sat once and giggled about them, feeling quite complacent in our assumed superiority. They fell into two categories, we’d decided. Some of them were wealthy non-working wives in from the suburbs for their weekly dosage of collagen, hairspray, and gossip, trying to convince themselves by this contact with the city that their lives in Andover or Acton or southern New Hampshire had meaning and beauty. The others were middle-management professionals, women from the banks and high-rise offices surrounding the Prudential. These women looked perfect because they had to; it was the unwritten agreement in their job descriptions. (Well, maybe it was the unwritten agreement in the suburban wives’ job descriptions, too, for all I know.) They had less leisure, less time: they hurried into the mall at lunchtime to buy a birthday gift or a necklace to wear on their power-date after work.

  We giggled about it, Irene and I; but there was truth in our observations. These were the women who were downtown Boston. And so of course I thought that Peach would look like them. You don’t get any more “downtown” than a madam, after all.

  God knows I had tried to imagine her. Peach’s voice was light, but intense: she was a woman who made quick decisions and usually stood by them – until somebody like me made her change her mind. She had started her own business, and had run it for the past eight years; so perhaps the suits weren’t so far off. But her business was seduction and pleasure: the softer fabrics of the women from North Andover and Manchester-by-the-Sea might be more her style. Which way would she go?

  There was a voice at my elbow. “Jen? Are you Jen?”

  I hadn’t even seen her coming. She was my age, give or take a few years – she had to be, to have been in business that long, and have gone to school; it seemed obvious that anyone who required an education from her employees certainly had one herself. She had long thick red hair, a pale face, and tremendous green eyes. She would have looked as though she had just stepped out of a Burne-Jones painting were it not for her khakis and leather jacket. The pre-Raphaelites, if I remember correctly, favored ethereal white gauzy dresses instead.

  I offered my hand, and she hesitated before shaking it. “Hi, yeah, I’m Jen, you must be Peach.” Another scintillating remark brought to you by the professor.

  “Let’s go sit outside,” Peach suggested. So much for lunch.

  We sat on a concrete wall in the sun and wind, and she came right to the point. “Are you a police officer?”

  I stared at her. “Um – no. That was why I called you…”

  She was calm. “I just have to make sure. You are not a police officer?”

  “No. Do I look like one?”

  “Fine, then,” she said, and we went on from there.

  I wish that all of life could be that simple.

  *

  Okay, so here is what you learn. The Gospel According to Peach. I don’t know whether it’s true or whether it’s one of those cherished urban legends, one specific to activities outside the law. In any case, the common understanding is that if you ask a person if he or she is a police officer, and he or she answers “no,” but in fact is a police officer, then any subsequent arrest won’t stand up in court. It still sounds odd to me; but Peach knew her stuff, so I assume that she knew about that, too.

  She wasn’t one for small talk. She even had a canned speech for this part, too. “If you ever, ever have any suspicions or bad feelings about a client, don’t do the call. There are a couple of ways out of it.

  If you think it might be a setup, ask if he’s a police officer. If you really are suspicious, then say you think you left your keys in the car, you’ll be right back, and just get out. If it can wait a few minutes, then when you call me to check in, ask me if your sister called.”

  I was bemused. “My sister wouldn’t call you.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said impatiently. “It’s a code. Hang up and tell the client that I heard from your sister whose husband is much worse, he’s in the hospital, and you have to go. Say you’re sorry, tell him to call me back, that I’ll take care of him. And then leave. I’ll talk with you before I take his call so I know what’s going on. Never, ever do a call that doesn’t feel right. Trust your instincts.”

  Think what you will, her system worked. No one from her agency ever was arrested, the whole time that I worked for her.

  So we met, and she reassured me that I was attractive enough and young enough (at least in appearance) to make it in her profession, and I went home a little bemused and oddly self-confident. Months later, she would tell me that she had felt intimidated by me at that first meeting, that she saw me as clever, sophisticated, and educated and that scared her; but of course at that time I didn’t know that. All that I was aware of then – blissfully – was that I had passed muster.

  The reality, like it or not, is that we are all governed by the dictates of Madison Avenue, by the excesses of Hollywood. No matter how much we want to say that it isn’t true, it is. If you say that you aren’t influenced by Gap posters or twenty-something television programs, if you say that you never compare yourself to them and wonder in your heart of hearts whether you measure up, then I’m sorry: you’re simply not telling the truth. Newsweek talks about youth culture as though it were a distant phenomenon, to be studied anthropologically; but I guarantee you that the reporters working on the study are concerned about belonging to the very group that they write about.

  Take me. I had earned two master’s degrees and a difficult doctorate. I was living independently and reasonably happily. I was embarking on a career that I had wanted desperately for all of my life. And yet, that afternoon, I got more pleasure out of the assurance that I was young enough, thin enough, pretty enough, seductive enough to be able to work for an escort service, to hold my own along with twenty-year olds, than I did out of all of my real, important accomplishments.

  So maybe I’m not so smart after all.

  *

  I didn’t work that night after meeting Peach. I gave myself permission, instead, to invest in my new job, to fashion and create and slip into my new persona.

  I went to my health club and stayed there for three hours, sweating and straining on the Stairmaster and in the weight room, then rewarding myself with twenty minutes in the whirlpool. I chose a Stairmaster machine next to a woman I knew casually from the gym. She worked for one of the software companies out on Route 128. We saw each other once in a great while outside of the club, but mostly our conversations took place as we were panting and watching our heart rates. We told each other about our love lives, or that lack thereof, depending on what was happening at the time. “Want to come to a cook-out tomorrow night?” Susan asked, her eyes on the glowing red dots of the program monitor in front of her.

  I hesitated, then replied. “I can’t.”

  That piqued her interest. “Oh, my God, you didn’t tell me, that’s so cool, Jen, are you seeing someone? See, I told you! I knew you’d get over that loser Peter.”

  “Nothing like that.” I paused to swallow some water from my bottle. I couldn’t help my thought, I couldn’t help but imagine what she would say if I told her the truth. No, Susan, it’s not really a date; only sort of. How shocked would you be if I told you what I was really going to be doing? That my date will end with him paying me two hundred dollars? I stifled the laughter that bubbled up with the thought.

  I couldn’t even imagine what she’d think. If she believed me. That was a big if. “I just need money, I’m doing some tutoring.”

  “That’s cool.” She was focused again on her hill-climbing pattern. “I need to do something like that.”

  I smiled my Inner Secret Smile and asked, innocently if a little breathlessly (well, I was on a Stairmaster), “Why? I thought you
high-tech geeks made all the money.”

  “Yeah, but tutoring, at least you meet someone who’s not a cubicle rat. I’d just like to occasionally have a conversation with someone who has some social skills.”

  Well, yeah, I thought, the ones I’m seeing aren’t all geeks. The social skills part, I wasn’t so sure about yet.

  After showering and drinking some fruit juice at the club bar, I headed out to make some additions to my wardrobe. Nothing fancy, just as far as the Citibank card would allow me to go. New job, new clothes, my mother always used to say. I had a picture of her, the first day at the bank where she was an assistant vice-president, her hat just so and her gloves matching her shoes and… well, different times, different wardrobe.

  I went to Cacique and bought matching sets of underwear. Not knowing what might lie ahead, I added a few loose camisoles, lacy tops that could work as either lingerie or real clothes. And then of course there were the dreaded and de rigeur garter belt and stockings; I was hoping that I’d not have to use them too frequently.

  Why, you ask? Here’s an insight for the gentlemen in the audience: if a woman ever says that she’s comfortable in those things, she’s lying. She may be lying to be nice to you, because she knows how much that whole outfit turns you on: but she is lying nevertheless. So appreciate her. A lot.

  I, on the other hand, was being paid for it. That makes a little discomfort a lot more comfortable.

  I went to a couple more shops, buying clothes that were only slightly more risqué than those I normally wore: slightly shorter skirts, slightly more revealing shirts, that sort of thing. Lots of black.

  A small black beaded handbag. Clothing in layers, easy to take off, easy to put on – the cramped quarters in the bow of Bruce’s boat/bedroom had taught me something about that.

  And then I went to a salon and had my hair shaped and blown dry, over-tipped the stylist, and went home. It was ten o’clock. I had a class at two the next day, and was prepared to start my new job in earnest immediately after.

  A tale of two careers. I grinned to myself. It doesn’t get much better than this.

  Chapter Three

  The fact is, it was prostitution. You can dress it up however you’d like; but for me to tell myself that earning my living as a prostitute was a situation that couldn’t get any better was at best a little naïve. At worst, a little delusional.

  After meeting Peach, I had a week and a half of a remarkably ordinary life. Ordinary classes, ordinary calls through Avanti with remarkably ordinary sex.

  I’m not sure what I had been expecting – whips and chains, perhaps? Or nun’s habits, or something? What I got instead was the sort of unmemorable sex that invariably characterizes first encounters. A little clumsy, a little awkward, and the thought occurring midway through that perhaps you don’t really like this person all that much after all.

  It happens in real life all the time.

  Of course, my situation had a certain advantage over real life. I could leave after an hour. In real life, you’re stuck with him for somewhat longer.

  A lot of the clients told me what to do, which I found a little off-putting. I’m pretty creative, after all, and can probably find my rhythm a little easier than I can follow yours. I’ve never dealt too well with being told what to do. Not in real life, anyway. It didn’t matter: in this context it was acceptable. They got off on it. Sit here, do this, take that off. Do that again. Do it harder. Do it some more. Stand up, kiss me here, turn around, bend over.

  Maybe nobody listened to them in real life. Maybe this was the only power they ever felt.

  There was a guy out in the suburbs, up in North Andover, a handsome middle-aged African-American who I saw from time to time. After a semi-successful three quarters of an hour spent on his bed, he would make out a check (previously cleared with Peach, of course; this tends to be a cash-only business), always with something of a flourish. He winked at me as he added on the comment line that it was for “purchase of art work.” I guess that I qualified.

  There was a ridiculously young man in South Boston, nice, who offered me a light beer and then never gave me a chance to drink it.

  There was my first hotel client, a regular who visited Boston once a month on business. He was very busy, he informed me, gesturing toward the open laptop on the coffee table with papers scattered all around it. He was as good as his word, too, loudly encouraging me through an energetic blowjob, offering a ten-dollar tip on top of the agency fee after I’d finished. I was out of there in just under twenty minutes. It was eight-thirty at night, I was well-dressed and feeling attractive, walking down a hotel corridor, with one hundred and fifty dollars that I had made in less time than it had taken me to get dressed.

  I had been firm with Peach when she called me with the hotel job. I had this idea of guys just passing though Boston, sitting in a hotel, looking up an escort service, maybe not being as careful as they should be. The one thing, I knew, that would bring me back down to earth with a resounding thud would be for me to get arrested. I was willing to have sex so that I could make a living. I wasn’t willing to give up my real career, however, and an arrest would do that in a heartbeat. “I only want regulars,” I told her. “I only want to see guys that you know.”

  “It’s okay, Matt’s a regular,” she said, her voice comforting.

  “He’s fine, he’s been with us for over a year.”

  “Okay.” I hesitated. “But, Peach, just for the record – I never want to see a new client. Ever. I just can’t take that chance.”

  “Oh, honey,” she said. “I understand.”

  There was the client in Brookline Village who extended his time to a second hour, and used the extra time to take me out for Chinese food after we’d had sex. Very sweet. Double the money, and an expensive dinner with someone I probably would not have chosen to date under different circumstances – but not altogether unpleasant.

  Certainly not as unpleasant as some of the dates I’d been on in the past.

  None of these men had a particularly scintillating personality. Most of them were, to be honest, incredibly unmemorable. One of them was gruf f and pushy. Another kept following up his remarks with, “Oh, you probably don’t understand that. Like, who am I talking to here, Einstein or something?” I was new to the profession; I let that one get to me and couldn’t suppress a response. “True,” I agreed, the third time he said it. “Einstein’s doctorate wasn’t in anthropology; mine is.” He was pretty much quiet, after that.

  But the reality is that, all in all, they weren’t bad people. Ordinary, marginally attractive, with questionable social skills, yes. Dull, predictable, full of insecurities that they projected onto me, sure. They weren’t unfamiliar, or scary, or detestable. I had dated men just like them, in the past, and for no compensation.

  One Thursday – about one month after I’d started working regularly for Peach, doing about three or four calls a week – I was nearing the end of the On Death and Dying semester. This was my favorite time of all, a time to see what issues I had raised, what ideas I had sparked, what creativity I had unleashed. From the beginning of the semester, students knew that part of their grade would come from a final project, to be done either individually or as part of a group, something that had gripped them, interested them, brought out their passion. I saw amazing things, when projects were presented.

  I was not disappointed on this Thursday.

  Karen, one of the few students in the class who was not in the nursing program, had done a project on her own. She had gone to a hospice and interviewed dying AIDS patients, recording the interviews on tape. While she talked with them, Karen – who was a professional artist – drew their portraits (all of which she later gave to the subjects, a generous gesture that was a whole story in itself).

  I don’t think that there was a person in that room who was not mesmerized by what was happening in front of them. The voices on the tape filled the space around us, strong and frightened, peaceful and angry… We li
stened to their words and stared at these achingly beautiful faces, these haunted eyes, these hollowed cheeks. I looked around the room, seeing tears, seeing entranced attention, seeing compassion, and my own heart swelled.

  T hen – how can I make sense of this? – in this wonderful, sacred moment, suddenly my mind flashed back to the night before, to the apartment in Chestnut Hill and the sleek Scandinavian furniture and the guy who was saying, “You teach a class about death? Man, that’s hot! Death’s the best aphrodisiac of all!”

  I pushed the image away immediately and blocked it out fast, shocked by its intrusion into this moment. I listened to a man talk about losing his friends, about having his mother afraid to touch him, and my cheeks were flaming. In the midst of this important moment, while doing exactly what I knew that I had been born to do, I had left. I had left as surely as if I had opened the door and gone through it. I had betrayed Karen’s beautiful work, and I had betrayed myself.

  I didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.

  I didn’t want to think about it.

  I tried to forget it.

  *

  That night, if you believe in direct punishment immediately after a misdeed, you would be vindicated. I was punished. I went on a call to Back Bay.

  Boston’s Back Bay is old brownstones, old families, old money.

  They are like the apartments of Paris and Budapest – inherited, not sold, and certainly never rented.

  It is Commonwealth Avenue at its tree-lined, sweeping best, not the Comm. Ave. I lived near in Allston, with the sound of the creaky Green Line train and the Hispanic markets and the Russian pharmacies. This was Comm. Ave. down near the Public Gardens, where it was modeled on Haussman’s boulevards in Paris and almost makes one believe that one is there.

  It is Beacon Street, with twisted wrought iron fences and staircases and balconies; it is Marlborough Street, with fanlights over heavy oaken doorways.