The Happy Hooker: My Own Story

by Xaviera Hollander

  “Aubrey” – I nudged my escort – “Carl is the most divine man I have ever seen; how can I get to know him?”

  Aubrey was pessimistic. “Don’t waste your time, his Greek girl friend, Elly, sticks to him like glue.”

  How right he was. From seven P.M. when the party started until it was about to break up, she watched him like a hawk, and it was only a wicked plot hatched by Aubrey and me – to spike her Irish coffees with triple shots of whiskey – that made her fade from the picture.

  Carl, I could sense, was also interested in me, but he barely had time to take down my telephone number and make a tentative date for Sunday, before it was time for everyone to go home.

  The rest of the week dragged by. I would sit at my desk during the day or lie in bed at night fantasizing about what a beautiful romance we would have. Sunday could not come fast enough.

  The day finally dawned, and I was jolted from my sleep at eight o’clock to answer the jangling phone. But it wasn’t Carl. It was Jurgen, a German pilot I had promised weeks before to go horseback-riding with that day. There was no wriggling out of it, and even though I loved going to bed with this man, my thoughts were elsewhere that day.

  Around five P.M. I insisted he take me home, and just as I inserted my key in my front door, the telephone rang. This time it was Carl.

  At six P.M. he arrived at my house, preceded through the door by a huge bunch of yellow roses with a cute little poem attached saying he had been calling all day and was dying to see me.

  That evening I found out Carl was just as I had fantasized him. Intelligent, world-traveled, courteous, and considerate. How utterly different from the uncouth run-of-the-mill local male.

  Our first date was dinner and dancing at Johannesburg’s most fashionable restaurant, and I was so turned on when he held me against his strong chest that my nipples were in constant erection throughout the night. That is as far as it went though, because I had just started menstruating, and in those days I didn’t know how to cope with the situation and would have been acutely embarrassed if he had suggested going to bed.

  However, Carl was understanding and didn’t push me, and remained as patient as any man could be as we wined and dined together for the next five nights.

  By the sixth evening when both of us were almost clawing the walls, it happened, and it was – as the kids say – like, wow!

  Sometimes, when you really dig somebody and for some reason have to resist making love, the beautiful torment of restraint can make the act fantastic when it finally happens.

  And it was not that Carl was a very skillful lover. In fact, he was rather clumsy and came one-two-three. But so did I, because I was so overcome with passion and the desire to have him inside me that I didn’t last any longer than he did at first.

  Later on I would teach him how to make love properly, just as I have done with almost all of my men – as long as they had the potentials, which include a good body and a strong penis.

  And Carl was really shaped huge. Even to this day I have seen only two other men endowed like him. However, generous sexual endowments don’t specifically make a man a good lover, but it helps as long as he uses it gently and doesn’t crudely bang away, because that can certainly hurt the woman.

  With Carl that first night I was lucky I was so turned on and therefore lubricated; otherwise I probably would not have been able to accommodate all of him.

  Gradually we became used to each other and each other’s bodies, and as our romance progressed, I let it be known to all the old crowd that I was no longer in circulation. “Don’t drop by anymore, or call me up,” I told them all; “I’ve met my man, and I am in love now.”

  As might be expected, they made a lot of crude remarks, which I chose to ignore, but eventually they at least got the message and kept away. It would have been more convenient for us both had I moved in with Carl, but we wanted our love affair to get off on the right footing. My mother used to caution me about that.

  “Xaviera, I can’t blame you if you don’t manage to keep your virginity until you are married in these modern times, but try never to live with a man,” she said. “You’ll give away the best years of your life if you let him have his cake and eat it too and get nothing in return, because a man never marries a woman who allows him to live with her.”

  Her sentiments seemed quaint at the time, but I was to recall them as being not so old-fashioned, after all.

  We moved in a respectable circle of businessmen and their wives, and our affair was indeed on a discreet basis. We respected each other tremendously, and I was very glad he never got to know about my nymphomaniacal background. The chances were he never would. Within five weeks of our first meeting Carl was to be transferred to the Oceanside city of Durban, eight hours’ drive away.

  In the meantime, after a few idyllic weeks I was dying to hear from him the words “I love you.” It may sound somehow infantile, but when you’re in love these three words really mean something, emotionally.

  The time went all too fast, and suddenly it was Carl’s last weekend in Johannesburg. We decided to spend it in the romantic resort hotel just outside the city called Kyalamy Ranch.

  It rained most of the weekend, but it made our togetherness more intense. Some of the most beautiful moments lovers can spend in bed are when the rain is splashing on the roof and beating against the windows. It was this way, just before dinner on Sunday night, that Carl declared his feelings.

  “Xaviera,” he started, cradling me in his arms, “I haven’t told you how I felt before this because I wanted to be sure myself. I am not like some kid who makes rash statements to every woman he meets so he can get her into bed.

  “The truth is that I love you.”

  I thought I would sail through the ceiling. I was like a teen-ager; I never felt those emotions before. Everything I ever wanted in my life was wrapped up in that moment in the cottage. For me this was the beginning of my life.

  Then Carl went on, “And I would like to ask you whether you would consider becoming my wife.”

  Would I? If it had been up to me, I would have married him that day. That minute. But his idea was to spend more time together and get married, after I came to the States and met his family.

  In order that we would get to know each other better, Carl suggested I join him in Durban, where he was to stay for another two months, and just as soon as I could get free of my job and sublet my apartment, that’s just what I did.

  A few days before Christmas I joined Carl in Durban and moved into his airy apartment that we never did bother to furnish because we wouldn’t be staying there very long. We never even had a gas stove, so we had all our meals in the best local restaurants.

  Durban is a picturesque city with magnificent surfing beaches that are regarded as among the best in the world. I used to love going to them and watching the young, strong boys with their sun-bleached hair carrying wooden surfboards under their arms. Dotted along the beaches were colorful kiosks belonging to the Indians selling hot dogs, pastries, and ice creams. Gypsy women would wander up and down selling their merchandise as well, which was usually dresses, sandals, or flowers.

  The weather was hot and humid, and the strong sun streaming through the curtainless windows would wake us up, bathed in sweat, very early in the mornings. But it didn’t bother us – we would make passionate love, then run across the road and jump into the ocean.

  After Carl left for work each day I would shop for fruits and go back to the beach, where he would join me before lunch for a swim. He had been an Olympic swimmer, and I adored watching his powerful body plowing through the huge waves. Afterward we would stroll along the beach, and I believe people would consider us a happy, good-looking couple. Carl with his perpetual suntan and dark curly hair and me a streaked blond.

  Nighttimes, after we had dined at the most expensive places we would always come home and make love again. We were already becoming slaves to each other’s bodies. Carl was a very strong man and could
climax five times in two hours.

  Time was floating deliciously by. No fights, no hassles, and I was sure this was ultimate happiness. I didn’t even look at another man. All I cared for was Carl, my lover, my life.

  After leaving Durban, we spent a two-month vacation roaming footloose and fancy free all over the east part of Africa, and this glorious country must be among some of the most spectacular on the face of the earth.

  We saw Kruger National Park, with it zebras, wildebeests, elephants, lions, beautiful deer, and I was almost molested by a rhinoceros.

  The last stop on our photo safari was Mozambique, where the weather was so hot that even the swimming pool at the hotel was too warm to be refreshing. It was there that we parted company temporarily.

  Carl set out for America, and I went back to South Africa to tie up loose ends and earn enough money to pay my fare to the U.S., with Carl, the American citizen, sponsoring my visa.

  On the way back to the States, Carl made a detour through Amsterdam especially to meet my parents and officially ask for my hand in marriage. My father had already been smitten by a massive stroke that had left him paralyzed and without the power of speech, but my mother was very impressed by Carl’s gallant behavior and was so proud I had chosen such a fine man.

  For the next six months we exchanged letters of such sizzling passion that I am surprised the pages didn’t ignite. And, two months before I was to leave for America, I returned to Holland to spend the last of my single days with my family.

  I was to leave for America in August, but a week before departure I got a long-distance call from Carl in Jamaica asking me could I possibly delay my trip.

  “Something has developed that necessitates my staying here,” he faltered. And even on the blurry transatlantic wire I suspected from his tone that the development was not exactly office business.

  That night I sat down and wrote him a long letter telling him what I feared, and asking him to let me know if he had met another woman. “I’m not so narrow-minded I would expect a virile man like you to lead a monastic life, but don’t fall in love with someone else,” I implored.

  Carl’s long, loving reply to that letter was reassuring.

  “I promise you, Xaviera, you are the only woman I want in my life, and I am looking forward to being with you for the rest of our lives from next December to forever.”

  4. DUTCH TREAT

  New York’s bustling Kennedy Airport on that December, 1967, morning felt like the most uncharitable place on earth. Stampeding crowds jostled me, and Carl was nowhere in sight. Six A.M. was an uncivilized hour to arrive in the New World, but when you can afford only a cheap charter flight, you have no choice.

  Despair was starting to consume me as the customs inspector chalked my last piece of luggage, when at last Carl’s familiar face came into view. I spotted him first, ran over, and threw my arms around his neck ready for a kiss, but he turned his face away.

  Was kissing your fiancé in a public airport anything to be embarrassed about? What the hell was going on?

  “I’ll get a skycap to carry your bags,” were his only words as he led me from the arrival hall toward his huge. American car.

  “Welcome to the U.S.A.,” he said as we crossed to the parking area. Boy, some welcome! I had no gloves on, my coat was inadequate against the biting winds, and here the man who for the last eight months had sent me passionate letters, cards, and cables was behaving like a stranger.

  Something, other than his conservative hair style and absent suntan, was different about him, and I had to know what it was. “Carl, is there something I should know about?” I asked. He switched on the car radio and answered with an awkward cough.

  “Carl, I have given up everything I had to come here and be with you,” I said. “So, if something has happened between us, I believe I have a right to know.”

  Somehow I sensed if he told. me anything it would be a lie, but I would settle for a half-truth. “Have you met another woman?”

  He shifted uncomfortably on his side of the seat. “There was another woman,” he began clumsily, “a legal secretary I met at an economists’ conference in Jamaica earlier this year.” Her name was Rona, he said. The woman, according to Carl, was the mother of an eight-year-old son, in her mid-thirties, and crazy about him. However, he did not return her feelings and had slept with her maybe three times, no more, guaranteed.

  “Okay, now I feel better,” I said, and changed the subject.

  We arrived at Carl’s penthouse in the East Seventies to refresh and rest. The apartment was impressive, full of French provincial furniture and expensive antiques, but nothing interfered with the orderliness, not even one little flower with a note to say “Welcome home.” It looked as though the decorator had departed only five minutes before.

  We dropped the bags inside and went up to a tavern in Germantown for a quick bite to eat and then back home to take a bath, unpack, and make love – and something certainly was different.

  Carl’s strange attitude was contagious, and he did not turn me on at all, and his huge penis hurt me. We put on our bathrobes and turned on the television.

  Around nine that night we felt more at ease with each other and started our lovemaking all over again. This time the old feelings were creeping back when the phone rang, and Carl pulled away from me abruptly and picked it up.

  And I kid you not – that next twenty-minute conversation certainly sounded as though he would rather be making love with whoever was on the other end than with me.

  I was too deflated to ask any questions, and just rolled over and tried to sleep.

  The next day was Sunday, and I thought Carl would show me the city, but around lunchtime he told me: “Xaviera, I have to go see my mother and give her a hand with an art exhibition she is helping open today. So please forgive me for leaving you alone for a while. Watch TV or write your folks a letter, and when I come back around six, we’ll go out for a nice dinner.”

  Alone in the apartment I was confused and miserable. After all those months, couldn’t he make himself available to take his fiancée somewhere on her first whole day in America?

  The afternoon dragged by; six o’clock came and went, then seven, eight, nine, ten-and still no Carl. There was no food in the fridge, and I was very hungry and feeling sorry for myself, and by ten-fifteen when Carl returned I was lying on the bed in tears.

  Next morning he left early for work, and again by ten that night he had not returned home. When the phone rang, I answered it on the chance that it might be him.

  “Who is this?” a strangely accented woman’s voice demanded.

  “My name is Xaviera, Carl Cordon’s fiancée,” I answered. “And who is this?”

  There was a stunned silence, then her reply: “My name is Rona Wong – and Carl Cordon is my fiancé.”

  The voice started relating a story, some of which I already knew, of how, where, and why they had met.

  “Tell me,” I asked. “How come you’re in New York?”

  “Carl asked me to come here from Kingston and marry him.” Rona told me of Carl’s urging, and under his sponsorship she had tossed up her job, left her son with friends, and come to New York five months before.

  However, since arriving all she had had from Carl were promises, promises, and more of the same.

  “Carl keeps postponing the wedding date, and I have no money, and being an alien, I am not allowed to work,” she said, and started to cry.

  Distressed though I was at her call, I felt kind of sorry for her – and also a little curious as to what my rival looked like – so I agreed to come down to her place.

  The address she gave was Sutton Place, not far from where his parents lived, and if hearing her story surprised me, seeing the woman at her door really amazed me.

  Carl had been among the biggest racists I knew in South Africa, yet this woman I was now confronting – who claimed to be his fiancée – was a black Oriental!

  Not only that, she had protruding
teeth, dumpy legs, and bushy-kinky hair. Some kind of competition I had.

  Inside I admired a potted poinsettia plant. “Thank you,” she said. “Carl gave it to me yesterday.”

  So this was the “mother” he had to neglect his fiancée to see? The more I heard, the more urgent it seemed to demand an explanation from Carl. So Rona and I decided to phone and ask him over.

  Carl answered the phone when I called the house and said he’d been worrying about where I could be.

  “I’m in the Sutton Place area,” I said. “But not at your parents’ home.” And he guessed right away where I was. There was nothing he could do but come down there and face the music.

  As soon as he walked in the door, Rona, who was clearly a very emotional person, started firing questions and hurling accusations, finally demanding he decide which of us was his fiancée.

  “Xaviera is my only fiancée,” Carl declared. At that she became hysterical, picked up a heavy stone ashtray, and aimed it at his head.

  Luckily I was close enough to prevent her from throwing it, but in that critical moment I thought I saw something that I hoped I had mistaken. As my fiancé was threatened with danger, a look of erotic pleasure flashed in his eyes!

  The moment quickly passed, and we left. I felt sorry for Rona, but I was very much in love with Carl and so glad he had chosen me in her presence that I accepted his mumbled explanation and agreed not to bring up the matter again. I can easily forgive when I’m in love. And what else could I do? I knew no one else in New York. I was also broke and didn’t have the fare to go back home.

  Two days after that Sutton Place drama I was in for another interesting introduction into Carl’s intimate life – his family.

  Carl’s parents were both doctors and owned a beautiful duplex cooperative apartment. The inside of the apartment was truly magnificent, and huge enough to have a Japanese and a Greek maid to run it.

  Carl’s father was a psychiatrist, and quite a charming man. His mother was something else again. She was a dermatologist, and from the moment we met, she made me itch to be somewhere else. She was a typical all-American bitch in her middle fifties, with tons of makeup and mini-skirts, a cracked gin voice, and lots of gossipy talk.