The Happy Hooker: My Own Story

by Xaviera Hollander

  One thing I liked about doing jobs for Madeleine was the discreet way she asked me on the office phones. “Xaviera, I’ve got a Scotch meaning $50 customer] or a champagne [meaning $100]; will you be available for a drink around noon or one P.M.?’

  She would often crack up because she had never known a little secretary who made a few hundred extra dollars a week in her lunch hours. The idea of running down and performing a complex slave scene amused her even more.

  However, some of my customers were not so diplomatic when they called up, which is what led to the beginning of the end at my new job. My biggest problem at the mission turned out to be the aging spinster switchboard operator, who, I later learned, listened in on all my calls. And some of them weren’t what one would call very subtle. “Xaviera,” they would say, “I want to get laid at one P.M. Meet you at your house. Okay?”

  The fifty-year-old spinster didn’t suspect it was for money, and started spreading the talk that Mademoiselle Xaviera was “the greatest courtisane of the mission permanente de Nations Unies. Scandale! Horrible!”

  I sensed imminent disaster in the air and figured the only way to save my head was to seduce the horny little ambassador. If the heat really was on, it would help to have him on my side.

  On a Friday afternoon the bespectacled little ambassador came to my place for drinks and, in his mind, a slow Continental-type love scene. But I couldn’t spare the time for romance that day because a couple of stockbrokers were expected around seven P.M.

  I poured the ambassador a cognac and sat him on the sofa. “Xaviera,” he began, “how long I have dreamed of this moment.” As he launched on a tale of romance, and desire, I removed his coat, tie, shirt, and shoes, and by the time he got around to how he was going to gently kiss my hair, my ears, my throat – ad nauseum – he was clad only in his birthday suit.

  I quickly made love to him, giving him my best efforts, considering the time available. He must have enjoyed it, because for the next couple of weeks, as I sat on his knee taking dictation, he would ask me, “Xaviera, are you free for an hour after work?” He would have had cardiac arrest if I told him I was rarely free these days, but I didn’t charge him, so he didn’t know the truth. “Oh, Mr. Ambassador,” I would answer, “you’re invited to my place this evening at six P.M.”

  Things, however, were getting so unfriendly at the office that soon not even his intervention could help me. Certain staff members, whipped along by the narrow-minded spinster who was by now getting wise, demanded an investigation into my ability to dress so well on a secretary’s salary, and the meaning of all the “obscene” phone calls.

  One morning when I breezed into work my desk had been opened and my little address books, which I stupidly kept in the office, had been commandeered. So, within three months of starting at the mission, my legitimate life as a secretary was over forever.

  6. SHAKEDOWN

  I was still working at the United Nations mission when I discovered what a vicious racket there is in New York in blackmailing vulnerable girls and married women who might try to make a little extra money in prostitution. These blackmailers are even more dangerous to part-time hookers than the police.

  I was living in my new studio apartment in the low East Fifties when the blackmailers, who had obviously been watching me for some time, paid me a call.

  It was a raw, cold evening toward the end of November when I came home from the office and found an envelope stuck under my door. My first thought, when I opened the door and stooped down to pick up the envelope, was that it was a rent notice from the landlord. It was only two weeks since that hood moving man, Murray, had put my furniture in the apartment, and as yet I had not paid any rent besides the deposit.

  My name was written on the envelope in very scribbly, more or less childish, uncontrolled handwriting, and with a pencil, not a pen. I opened the envelope as I walked in and took my coat off. And all of a sudden an intuitive feeling told me that this little envelope contained dangerous news for me.

  Only one thing came out of the envelope – a Polaroid picture, which shocked me tremendously. Someone had put the pictures, which Mac the so-called cop, who I later learned was a phony, stole from my old apartment, into a group and took this Polaroid shot of them. There I was in one photo sucking a huge cock, and in the others, playing with myself. There was no letter with the pictures.

  I was badly scared and immediately ran out of the apartment and took the elevator down to the lobby. I went up to the doorman on duty and said to him, “Listen, I’m in trouble.” I trusted this doorman. He was a kind of fatherly type, a father image to me.

  He knew I was hooking, of course, but I was paying him off. I didn’t show him the picture or tell him exactly what had happened. I just said that some person came up to my apartment and put an envelope under the door which shouldn’t have been put there.

  “Did you see anyone going up unannounced?” I asked.

  The doorman scratched his head and finally said, “Let me think. Yes, now that you ask me, I remember seeing a young guy this afternoon. I thought he must be drunk or doped up. I don’t know what those kids take nowadays, but he couldn’t walk straight. He needed a shave, his clothes were dirty and ragged.” The doorman frowned to himself. “He, was a young punk with long stringy blond hair hanging in his face, and he said he had something to deliver to you.”

  The doorman grinned now. “He mispronounced your name something awful, so I told him I’d take the message to you. But he said he wanted to deliver it himself, and he would just push it under your door. So finally I let him go up.”

  I couldn’t think of anyone who answered the description, but I thanked the doorman, gave him five dollars, and went back to my apartment. I knew this was no joke, and as though to confirm this thought, the telephone rang. The voice on the other end was heavy with that low-class New York accent. It said, “Miss Xaviera?”

  I knew the call was to do with the pictures. “Yes,” I whispered.

  “So, Miss Xaviera, I hope you found your little letter.”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to stop my voice from quivering.

  “Miss Xaviera, we want you to think our proposition over seriously, and we want an answer by Wednesday. In fact, we are going to call you tomorrow night at seven.” This was already Monday. “We want you to have five thousand dollars ready for us, or else…”

  Upon which I said, “What do you mean? Five thousand dollars for this little picture?”

  With a sneering voice the man said, “Yeah. We know you don’t have your immigration papers. We can get your sexy little ass kicked out of the country in forty-eight hours by proving to the Immigration Department that you are posing for pornographic pictures.” He had a mean laugh.

  “We can give the pictures to the people where you work, and you’ll be fired and be in big trouble with immigration. Think about it. We’ll be back to you tomorrow at seven in the evening.”

  The man hung up, and in my life I never remember being so upset. I had been on my own for less than a year since Carl Cordon left. Apart from Sonia, I didn’t have any real friends because of the wild life I had been leading. I knew some lawyers and influential men who were customers, but all of a sudden I was faced with the problem of raising $5,000. I looked through my address book wondering whom I could call.

  For about four months I had been “dating” a lawyer named Martin Joffrey, a very sweet, very uptight Jewish boy, whom I had met just after Carl went away. He knew what I had suffered and that I was basically a very sensitive person. Martin had seen me going the way down, as he put it, ever since I was introduced to Pearl. He hated to see this happen to a nice Jewish girl from Holland. But Martin and I had a tender, almost loving relationship. I really cared for him and knew I could call him anytime for advice.

  So the first person I called was Martin and he really didn’t know what to say. The one thing he did say was, “Don’t pay them. Once you pay a blackmailer, he’s on your payroll for life.” This answer
didn’t help me, and I called other people I knew, but nobody could help me.

  Finally I started asking if I could borrow $5,000. “I’ll work it off, even if it means I have to leave my job and screw it off,” I begged.

  Some of the men I had been dating were really rich, but now, very early in the game, it was driven home to me that a man who goes to a prostitute doesn’t want to be bothered with her private problems unless he really gets involved with her.

  So I was on the phone all night, and no help was coming.

  The next morning I was in almost a state of nervous collapse when I found in my pocketbook, just before leaving for the office, the piece of paper on which Murray the Mover had written his name and phone number.

  I remembered how he had know instinctively I was working as a prostitute even though I had a daytime job. Murray, being a mover, wasn’t exactly a sweet pussycat, and I thought this is precisely the time to call a rough boy instead of all those nice, sophisticated jet-set people who are full of words without any action. So I called Murray just before leaving for work and explained what had happened. He said if this blackmailer was going to call me tonight at seven, he would be at my apartment at six-thirty. Murray told me not to have any dates and not to plan on going anywhere until this thing was settled. “I just want you to be with me, and that means that I will be with you, and you will do what I tell you – that’s all.”

  This was an order, and right after five o’clock I went home. I had made a date for nine that night with a lawyer from Canada to go to dinner, and I had no way to reach him. He was recommended to me by my stockbroker, and when I called Wall Street, my broker didn’t know how to find the lawyer. I just had no way to cancel this nine o’clock date.

  I was home before six and canceled every person I was supposed to see before nine that night, and I was so nervous I barked at the men who called me on the phone. “Leave me alone; don’t bother me for the rest of the night.”

  At six-thirty sharp, Murray rang the doorbell. I had not seen him since he moved me in three weeks before. He is a very tough-looking man and has a dark, pockmarked face and bushy black hair.

  Murray seemed nervous himself when he came in. He looked around my studio apartment, first into the bathroom, where I had a phone so I could call people while I was in the tub. He said this was good, and as he looked around, he was talking.

  “Xaviera, I want you to do exactly what I tell you. If anything happens tonight, we will be together. Just don’t be afraid. I know what I’m doing.”

  Murray told me not to be frightened, but I was frightened and trying to keep from shaking. I was not really intending to do anyone – even Mac, who stole the pictures – any harm. All I wanted was to have a man with me when I met the people who were blackmailing me, somebody powerful who would maybe smack them on the nose a little and say, “Listen, give the pictures back to the girl and stop the bullshit!”.

  “Okay,” Murray said, “now remember, usually blackmailers are not there to hurt you, they just want money, that’s all. When they call at seven, you answer in the bathroom and I’ll pick up in the living room. We’ll pretend that I’m your uncle. The only living relative you have in this country. I’m representing you, see? I have a car, and if they want to meet us we’ll meet them.”

  Exactly at seven o’clock the telephone rang. I answered, and it was the guy who asked me for the money the night before. Murray picked up in the living room, and with the door open I could see him from the bathroom. He is nervous, too. I told the man that my uncle was with me and would handle the matter.

  Then Murray started talking. “Hello, this is Mr. Arkstein, I’m Miss Xaviera’s uncle and only living relative she’s got here. I’m representing the girl. I know it is a very bad thing you found those pictures of her. I don’t want my niece to be deported.”

  Murray really sounded like a meek, worried uncle. “Tell me how much you want, and we’ll meet you,” he went on. “I want to meet you tonight and get this thing over with, because the girl didn’t sleep last night, and I don’t want her to go through any more of this aggravation.”

  Finally the man said, “Okay. We want five thousand dollars. We will meet you in front of the monument entrance to the Queens cemetery at eight o’clock tonight.” It was past seven already.

  Murray agreed, and after we hung up he said to me, “Xaviera, why don’t you get me a beer? I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  I went into the kitchen and poured Murray’s beer, and came back just in time to hear the last part of the conversation, which sounded more or less in code. I heard him say, “Be ready to pick up the bag of potatoes at the monument in the cemetery in Queens at eight-fifteen.”

  I didn’t know what he meant, but I was petrified with fright, because it sounded like gangster talk. Murray drank his beer, and at ten minutes after seven he said, “Okay, let’s get moving. The car’s outside.”

  “What’s going to happen, Murray?” I asked. It was a horrible, cold, sleeting, and raining night. No way did I want to go out.

  Murray said, “Xaviera, do what I tell you and don’t ask questions. We’ll drive out to Queens, and I’ll tell you about myself on the way. Bring your umbrella.”

  I took my umbrella along; it had a long spike at the end. We left the apartment. My hands were perspiring, something that never happened to me before. I was perspiring all over, and I never in my whole life have experienced so much nervous tension as that night. Out on the street we got into this old, smashed-up car.

  “Couldn’t we go in a better car, Murray?” I asked.

  He told me not to worry, and we started out for Queens. It was pouring rain, and we could hardly see through the windshield. I don’t know how Murray found the way. And as we drove, Murray told me some things about himself.

  “Xaviera, you should know that I’m not only a mover. I’m involved in many other things. I’m sure you’ve heard about the Mafia. Even though I’m Jewish, I work with them.”

  I started to tremble when he said the word.

  “What do you mean, the Mafia?” I practically shouted. “I don’t want to get involved with the Mafia.”

  I had seen movies and read about the Mafia, how people get killed, and disappear from the face of the earth. And up till then I had been so careful not to get involved with the Mafia.

  “I’ve done ten years in jail,” Murray went on. “I’m thirty-seven years old now. I have survived so far, and now I’m sticking my neck way out, taking a lot of risks, but I hate to see a nice little girl like you getting pushed around and in trouble.”

  He turned from the windshield and looked straight at me. “I’m doing this for you, but you’ve got to do one thing for me. This is no kid’s game we’re in. This is dangerous, serious work tonight. You’ve got to do just what I say every minute, and you’ll be all right. Don’t be afraid, and do exactly as I tell you.”

  I think my eyes were as wide as the ocean. “What do you mean, Murray?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you, Xaviera. Whatever you see tonight, you’ll forget. And don’t ever mention my name or tell anybody what happened.”

  I looked out the car window at the wet streets and the rain, and I was cold yet perspiring at the same time.

  “Murray,” I asked after a while, “why do we have to meet in front of a cemetery in Queens, of all places, which is a very scary place, especially on a gloomy night like this?”

  Murray answered me as though I was a dumb child. “Xaviera,” he said, “that’s the idea. What do you think? They’re going to meet you in front of Saks Fifth Avenue, or in front of Maxwell’s Plum? They’ve got to meet us where there will be no witnesses.”

  At fifteen after eight Murray stopped in front of the cemetery. There was a highway right next to us with traffic buzzing by. To our right was the monument, and beside it, with an arched roof, a little dead-end alley maybe fifteen feet long.

  There was no other car to be seen when we parked. “Murray,” I said, “this is a phony-ba
loney deal. It’s a quarter after eight, and why aren’t they here?” I wanted to go home in the worst way before something terrible happened.

  Murray looked at me fiercely. “Do as I tell you. Get in the back of the car and shut up. And for Christ’s sake, don’t shake like that, like some little bird freezing to death.”

  So I took my umbrella, my weapon for the evening, and climbed over the front seat and sat in the back of the car. But nothing happened. We saw cars drive by, and nobody stopped. And the rain kept pouring down, and I was freezing. Murray smoked one cigarette after another, and I saw he was getting more and more nervous. He opened the window, and you could hardly see out.

  Then slowly, from nowhere, a car pulled up behind us with its lights on. “Murray, they’re here,” I said. Looking out the back window, I could see that there were two men in the front seat of the car. “Murray, that’s unfair,” I said. “We talked to only one man.”

  Murray kept saying, “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” The car pulled up and passed us, and we could see the men looking into our car to see how many of us there were. Then the car kept going and stopped about four car lengths in front of us. The two men lit cigarettes and smoked them. Then a fellow stepped out of the car and came close to us. Under the street light I could see he was dressed in a white rain jacket and blue jeans. He had long blond stringy hair and a three- or four-day-old. beard. He was definitely a punky guy, and looked exactly like the description of the person who put the note under my door. He knocked on the window next to Murray, who cranked it down and said, “Hiya. I’m her uncle.”

  The guy said, “Can I talk to you, buddy?”

  Murray opened the door on the passenger side, and the messy guy walked around the car. He was talking and babbling to himself and he finally got in. Obviously he was stoned out of his head.