by Val
As if on cue, the front door opened and Manolo came in, wearing the same pair of shorts with loafers. This time, his bumbag looked empty.
‘Don’t say anything to him,’ Susana warned me. ‘I’ll talk to him.’
‘What’s going on here?’ he complained. ‘I don’t want any secret meetings.’
‘Nothing’s going on, Manolo. We’re only talking.’
Susana’s voice was quavering, and she was lying so unconvincingly anyone could have spotted it. It was obvious she was terrified of Manolo.
‘Well if nothing’s going on, why don’t you get back into the kitchen, idiot!’
This made me feel very sorry for Susana. He was treating her like a dog.
As she ran into the kitchen, Isa and Sara came out.
‘What are you two doing in there anyway?’ Manolo wanted to know.
‘Can I have a word with you, Manolo?’ Isa asked him.
She glared at me, and I realized she was going to tell him what had happened. I decided to keep my mouth shut and await the outcome. Isa disappeared into the small bedroom with Manolo. They were in there for quite a while before the two of them reappeared.
‘No problem. I’m glad you told me in plenty of time. Of course you can have a fortnight off over Christmas,’ Manolo said to Isa, before saying goodbye to us all.
Isa hadn’t told him a thing. She simply said she wanted to go and see her family in Ecuador in December. But she had put on this whole show just to frighten me. As Manolo left, she looked at me as if to say, ‘Next time, you’re for it!’
Plastic Fantastic
15th September 1999
THE BARBIE DOLL doesn’t speak, doesn’t have any opinions, doesn’t smile, and doesn’t look at anything around her. All she does is see to her hair. For hours on end. David, the Australian client I was with on the first night I met Angelika, came to the brothel. He came because he had been out on the town with some friends and after all the discos had closed he didn’t want to go home on his own, so decided to come and offer himself some pleasure.
He had never been with Barbie, because she had never been available when he had called. But tonight she was. So Barbie paraded in front of him, her hair immaculate after all the hours she had spent grooming herself in front of the mirror. He chose her straight away.
‘She’s fascinating,’ he confessed to Angelika. ‘I’ve never seen tits like it!’
Proud of herself, the Barbie doll disappeared with him into the suite.
Ten minutes later she came running out, stark naked, and crying her eyes out. Seeing her like that unexpectedly, our jaws dropped. Curiosity about what happens to any of the girls is what gives spice to our lives in the apartment, so we all wanted to know what had happened to her. Had the client tried to harm her? I sincerely doubted that, because, at least when I was with him, David had shown himself to be kind and considerate. Had he changed his mind, and got suddenly scared of being smothered by those two huge breasts? Did Barbie do a Cuban with him and squash his prick without meaning to, thanks to all that silicone? All these unsolved mysteries . . . the atmosphere was electric.
A few moments after Barbie had appeared, David came rushing out, demanding his money back.
‘She’s not a woman!’ he shouted. ‘She’s a transvestite!’
He was beside himself.
‘What are you talking about, David?’ Angelika challenged him. ‘She’s not a transvestite. She’s a real woman, I swear.’
‘And I tell you she’s a transvestite who’s had an operation. And besides, her tits are as hard as rocks! They’re disgusting. I bet she’s had a sex change.’
‘Well yes, she’s had operations. But on her breasts, that’s all. I swear to you Sara is a woman.’
‘She’s a transvestite. Give me my money back right now!’
‘But . . .’
Angelika tried in vain to convince him. David would not budge, and Sara started to insult him, then burst into tears.
‘How dare he say my tits are like rocks? The best plastic surgeon in Spain operated on me. And it cost me a fortune!’
That was the first and only time I heard Sara’s voice.
20th September 1999
I’m beginning to feel more and more at ease in the brothel. All the girls apart from Isa have accepted me. She is as foul to me as she is to everyone else. And apart from my good relations with the other girls, I am starting to have regular clients. I’m happy, and all the nervousness of the first days has disappeared.
I feel good about my body, and above all about my mind. The truth is, the work is no harder than any other job. After the first stormy days, I am getting used to a routine which allows me to enjoy what I do and to live my liberated sexuality as best I can.
After the episode with the Barbie doll, David only wants to be with me. Well, that’s what he says. I know he calls other agencies and sees other girls. He enjoys sex, and I know the rules of the game. Twice a week with me is not enough for him. And even though he’s not my kind of guy, I get a lot of pleasure from doing it with him.
I have also got another regular. At first he was meant to see another girl, but she wasn’t available. His name is Pedro.
21st September 1999
I was with an American in the Princesa Sofia Hotel when Angelika called to say that as soon as I had finished I was to take a taxi to a hotel on the outskirts of Barcelona. She had already sent Gina, a blonde girl who occasionally works in the agency to help pay for a new Mercedes she bought, but when she arrived, she discovered the client was . . . her boss! She could hardly believe it! Gina ran off, got into her brand new Mercedes, and drove at a hundred and eighty kilometres an hour back to the apartment in a state of shock. Fortunately there was only a dim light in the corridor, so her boss had not recognized her when he opened the door, and he had no idea what had happened. But the poor man was left frustrated, and was waiting impatiently for a replacement.
When I first met Pedro, he struck me as a nervous, almost neurotic guy, with thinning hair. I tried to be sympathetic, and he took an immediate liking to me. They say opposite poles attract, but that was only true in his case. Pedro lives in a hotel five days a week, near the company he runs. At the weekend he goes home and plays the role of the good father and husband.
That night when we went to bed he was very insistent I give him a blow job without protection. He said he hadn’t been near his wife in four years. When I refused to do anything unprotected, he started to bawl like a baby and then, when he got inside me, he came in five minutes. I felt no pleasure at all. He was very sweet, but a disastrous lover. I consoled myself with the thought that at least I’d had a profitable day.
23rd September 1999
Pedro is becoming obsessed with me. He called to find out if I was free, then came early to see if I could spend the whole night with him. First he paid for a few hours and we went to the suite. He told me he wasn’t really that interested in sex. What he wanted above all from me was a kind of psychologist or counsellor. And if it was someone with their legs open, better still!
I felt a special affection for him. Of course I preferred to be with him because he treated me well, rather than with some degenerate who could ask me to do revolting tricks. Pedro said he thought he was doing it for my good, because that way I didn’t have to go with other men. Afterwards, he decided to take me out to dance, warning me in advance that he was a poor drinker. I on the contrary can drink whatever’s thrown at me. I think it’s because I am just being reborn, and have an inner strength that helps me overcome anything. Tonight I decided to use that to my advantage. He took me for a drink in a bar in the city centre, and all of a sudden declared that he was thinking of proposing to me. He even wanted to give me a white-gold ring. I turned him down flat.
‘I don’t want you to propose to me. I don’t want to marry anybody. Besides, at the moment I’m not capable of loving anyone. I want to make some money, pay my debts, and move on!’
‘I’ll do everything I
can to make you love me, I promise.’
‘Don’t you get it, I don’t want to fall in love! And anyway, you’re not my kind of guy at all. I’m sorry.’
The more I rejected him, the more eager he became. It was a challenge to him, apparently the first he had ever had to face. My rejection only made him cling to me all the more, because, as he said helplessly, what he most wanted was an authoritarian woman at his side. I think that deep down he was delighted with the idea that he could be a good Samaritan and save a desperate girl from her misery. That flattered his vanity and gave some point to his boring existence. But I was physically revolted by Pedro, and I wanted to make sure we did not have any further sexual contact. His prick is like a thin strand of spaghetti whose only real function is to hang down limply between his legs. Nothing more.
We began to dance, and just seeing him jigging around on the dance floor made me feel sorry for him again. He was stiffer than a block of wood. I kept asking for more whisky, and then pouring it into his glass. He didn’t seem to notice. I had decided not to give him my body: I was already doing more than enough by putting up with all his moaning. Then suddenly he announced, ‘I’m going to get a divorce.’
‘Are things so bad at home?’ I asked.
I couldn’t believe he was being serious. Apart from anything else, by now he was completely drunk.
‘I feel such a fool there. Ever since I met you, I realize how much I have been duping myself all these years. I can’t bear my wife any more, and my marriage is a complete farce.’
‘Well, if that’s the way it is, be brave and change your life. But do it for yourself, not for me. Don’t ask me to help you any more than I am doing. I don’t want to be your lover and have no other ties.’
‘I don’t want you to be my lover, I want you to marry me!’
‘You’re only fooling yourself again, Pedro. You’ve fallen in love with someone you met in a very special context. You know you’re free to come and go as you please. You pay, and that’s all there is to it. But in real life it would be different, you’d soon get fed up with me.’
‘What are you saying? You can’t imagine how much I love you! I love you more than my own son!’
This sounded so extreme and worrying that I decided to make sure he had some more whisky. I can’t bear that kind of talk, and couldn’t imagine what kind of love he might have for his son. He really wasn’t in his right mind. I didn’t want to hear another word on the subject.
‘I don’t know what a woman like you is doing in a place like that. You shouldn’t be there. Why do you do it, when you’ve got a university degree and everything?’
‘I do it because people like you exist!’ I retorted angrily.
What’s wrong? Was it so wrong for someone with a degree, someone who had held down an executive position, to work as a prostitute? Did it make me a criminal or a bad person or something? Pedro was staring at me, but apparently didn’t understand a thing.
A short while later he began to feel very ill, and I had to drag him out of the nightclub while everyone looked on in surprise. I almost had to carry him out. Pedro does not weigh much more than me, but we must have looked very comical.
When we were out in the street, I faced another huge problem: how to persuade a taxi-driver to take us back to Pedro’s hotel. What made it so difficult was the fact that they took one look at him and were afraid he would throw up all over their cab. Finally a good-hearted plump old man agreed to take us, probably because he had not realized how bad Pedro was, since I had left him slumped on a bench while I found someone. En route, though, we had to suddenly pull over to the hard shoulder when my companion threatened to bring up everything he had drunk that night all over the seat. Fortunately he didn’t do so, but the driver started shouting insults at me, insisting I had tried to trick him. I was so embarrassed I could do nothing but excuse myself.
When we reached the hotel, I steeled myself to make Pedro vomit at all costs. If I didn’t, I was going to have to spend the night awake, keeping an eye on him. By now he was threatening to throw himself out of the window because he was in love with a woman who didn’t love him. This melodramatic attitude was the last straw, so I took hold of him from behind in the bathroom, pushed him towards the toilet with my arms round his stomach, and squeezed as hard as I could until he started to bring everything up. He was sick as a dog, then staggered off to bed. Eventually I managed to get to sleep too.
The next morning Pedro woke up with a hangover to end all hangovers. He was chain-smoking cigarettes until I woke up. I had succeeded in escaping from the sexual relation I found so repugnant, and I felt proud of the little game I had played. I went back to the agency happy and fresh as a daisy.
‘You like that client a lot, don’t you?’ Susana asked me as I came in.
It wasn’t so much a question as an affirmation. There was no way I was going to tell her I was so happy because I had earned my money for nothing. I knew by now that she was quite capable of telling Manolo and Cristina, and that would only cause problems. Susana had turned out to be not only nosey, but an informer.
‘I bet you have a great time in bed with him.’
In response I smiled sweetly, took my money, and went home.
My Turn To Pay . . .
25th September 1999
WHEN SUSANA CALLED I was in the gym. Fortunately as ever I had my mobile with me. The ringing tone echoed round the walls of the huge room I go to several times a week. I had to answer in a whisper so as not to draw attention to myself: the other members already looked annoyed that their exercise had been interrupted by the noise.
‘You have to come at once. There are no girls here, and the client has chosen you from your photo.’
‘Susana, I’m in the gym. I’ll get ready, but it’s going to take time.’
‘Hurry up then!’
I always take a change of clothes with me in case something like this happens, and today I was glad I had thought ahead, because it meant I didn’t have to go home first. I got dressed in the changing room, found a taxi, and went straight to the agency.
It had rained a little in the morning and it was a grey day, so I wasn’t feeling too bright, but work is work.
Susana was waiting impatiently for me. She always gets nervous: she takes her work so seriously she could never accept that a client had slipped through her fingers because a girl had taken too long to get to the agency. So she lives on her nerves, and as a result suffers badly from psoriasis. She’s also permanently frightened they’re going to throw her out, and so she never helps us feel relaxed. This attitude of hers was partly responsible for my feeling much closer to Angelika, who is capable of being much more flexible than her.
‘Come on, go in and meet him before he disappears . . .’
‘All right, Susana. I was at the other end of Barcelona; I couldn’t get here any faster.’
I tidied my hair in the mirror, then went into the living room. The client was watching TV, with a glass of rum and Coke in his hand. He gave the impression of having already drunk several of the same. When he saw me, he smiled, but said nothing, so I had to start the conversation. It turned out he was an aeronautical engineer, married with a family (they all are), but he felt very lonely. He was not in the least good-looking, in fact he was positively repulsive in appearance, and yet there was something charismatic about him.
When I sat down next to him, I was amazed at the effect I produced: he started literally to tremble. He confessed he felt very scared, which I found endearing, so I did my best to help him relax, and we went into the suite. He took off his clothes shyly, then got into bed and covered himself completely so that I wouldn’t see him naked. Not exactly promising! I thought this was bound to be another sexual disaster, but . . . in fact it was fantastic! I came without even having to fake it. I loved the way he caressed my whole body. He was such an expert in female anatomy I could hardly believe this was the same gauche man I had met a few minutes earlier in the living room.
>
When it was over and he had gone off for a shower, I took my purse out of my bag, and offered him fifty thousand pesetas.
‘What’s that for?’ he asked, rubbing his body briskly with the towel.
‘I’m giving you back what you paid Susana to be with me,’ I said in a whisper, to make sure the microphones did not pick up my voice.
‘What . . .?
‘You heard me . . . please, take it!’
‘But why?’
‘To thank you for what you gave me. Today, it’s my turn to pay. But don’t expect the same every time . . . and don’t say a word to Susana,’ I said, smiling at him.
I had to insist to get him to take the money, but he finally accepted it, saying, ‘I understand women less and less.’
As he was leaving, I murmured to him, ‘There’s nothing to understand.’
In reality I was telling myself that, because he wasn’t even my type.
State of Siege
30th September 1999
THIS MORNING, MANOLO and Angelika had a big row. I was asleep in the small bedroom until the lorry driver’s shouts woke me up. I could also make out Angelika’s voice raised in anger, so I went to see what was going on. I knew I was in a madhouse, where anything could happen.
None of the other girls had batted an eyelid. When ‘the boss’ gets angry, it’s out of their league, they say. Or ‘mind your own business’, as Mae put it to me one day. But this time I couldn’t help myself: it sounded as though Manolo was about to hit Angelika, and I felt I had to do something.
In the kitchen, Manolo was taking Angelika to task. Amongst other things, he claimed that the previous night she had not been doing her job, but had gone to sleep. The proof, he said, was that when he had called at four in the morning, I was the one who had answered.