The Happy Hooker: My Own Story

by Xaviera Hollander

  Still, Georgette’s was where I was working, and she loved to have me because I was hard-working, reliable, and resourceful. I was also the only girl who could get into the Plaza or Waldorf after midnight without difficulty. I would put on a conservative sweater and skirt, white socks and shoes, and fix my hair into pigtails. I hardly ever wear makeup, even to this day, now that I am a big madam, so I already had a fresh, natural look. I’d put a pair of glasses on my nose, and then I would hold a book under my arm and breeze in past the security men like a college girl. Before I knocked on the client’s door I would undo my hair, remove my socks, take off my glasses, and throw the book in the trash can.

  Another thing Georgette liked about me was that I could take care of the big cocks, any length, any width, because I love it.

  So I was an asset for her house, and she knew she could call me any time of the day or night and I’d run over for her.

  This night in February, 1970, Georgette called me to come over and help her with a stag party for a group of five investment bankers. I recall there was a blizzard going outside and I was nearly frozen when I arrived at the Pavilion, where she had her penthouse. I was busy thawing my hands as I stepped from the elevator, but I noticed a little Chinese-looking guy wearing dark glasses, who must have been her previous customer, leaving.

  I went inside and was assigned to Carter Miles, a banker who is famous for his big penis that none of the other girls’ pussycats could take. They call him “the long mile,” for obvious reasons.

  I remember Carter pounding away at me. He took forever to climax, as he was very drunk. His friends were all finished and getting dressed.

  Meantime, I heard Georgette accept a phone booking for another two guys who were coming by, and she asked me to stay on for them. So everybody was dressed now except me, because I am an exhibitionist, and even in my own house I love to walk around in the nude or with a very short nightie.

  I was just sitting, relaxing, one customer’s head in my lap, when the doorbell buzzed. “Let me greet them in the nude,” I jokingly said to Georgette. “What a wonderful reception that will be;” one of the bankers mumbled.

  I stood beside her as she undid a hundred locks. She opened the door, and two guys were there. Both very large men, one was bald and kind of vicious-looking, but I suppose they can’t help being born ugly and their money is as good as everybody else’s. So I jumped forward and greeted them. “Hello, darling,” I said to the big, bald one. “Come on in, let me take your jacket; make yourself at home.” But whom did I notice behind them but the little Asian-looking guy in the dark glasses, whom they’d obviously grabbed on the way out, and the weasel was wetting his pants, he was so frightened.

  The men flashed their badges and said, “Vice Squad, you’re all under arrest.” Then everything happened at once, eight uniformed cops burst through the door, and chaos broke loose.

  The girls were screaming, the customers were having several fits, and only Marianna, Georgette’s maid, kept her cool and hid the books. Even Georgette, the madam herself, was yelling stupid threats at the cops. This for me was a very scary moment, and I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

  Meanwhile, my little black book with my clients all listed was in the next room with my clothes, and I was standing there naked. The first thing I instinctively did was run into the bedroom, rip out the pages with the addresses on them, and hide them underneath Georgette’s laundry while the uniformed cops were turning the place over for drugs.

  One came to the bathroom just as I finished hiding the pages and ordered me to get dressed to go with everyone to the station. But in all the disturbance I couldn’t find my bikini underpants, my panty hose, or my bra (which people were wearing in those days), so I had to go out into the freezing night with nothing under my coat but a light minidress.

  The neighbors were lined up in the halls watching as they herded us out like geese into the squad cars, and off to the precinct.

  It’ seemed we were bumping and circling around the city for hours, and meanwhile the Irish cop beside me grabbed my hand and put it on his huge hard-on. The wagon is dark, my laugh is cynical.

  “What is this nonsense?” I said at the top of my voice. “You arrest us for selling it, and now you want a freebie blow-job in the car!” This seemed such an inappropriate thing to do that I cracked up. “What the hell, we’re going to prison, we might as well give it away,” I said jokingly.

  The other girls were mortified. “Take it easy, Xaviera,” they said; “this is a serious matter.”

  But to me this was the breaking point. We were being pushed around like common whores, we were upset, and my ass was literally freezing off without my underpants, and this cop wanted to get a freebie. Embarrassed, he shifted uneasily away from me, his ardor considerably cooled.

  It, was around one A.M. when we arrived at the precinct house, and we were again herded up a flight of filthy stairs and into a dirty office, where Lieutenant Greenleaf, the big, bald ape who arrested me, took off his coat and sat down to his desk.

  We could make a couple of phone calls if we were quick about it, they told us, but the trouble was that I didn’t have anyone to call except Paul Lindfeld, a straight man I met in Miami whom I’d been going out with steadily since Christmas.

  Even though it was late, I hoped he wouldn’t mind helping me out, because he was my guy.

  “Paul,” I said, “I’m awfully sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I am in some serious trouble. I’ve been arrested, I’m worried, I don’t know what to do.”

  The last thing in the world I expected was his answer. “I don’t want to know about it,” he said. “Don’t tell them you are calling me, don’t mention my name, and scratch it out of your book in case they confiscate it.”

  It shows you how much you can sometimes depend on a man – when you need a helping hand and there’s nothing in it for him, he lets you down.

  Time passed by very slowly at the police station, and nothing was happening for ages except that we were hungry and cold. Finally they decided to interrogate us one by one.

  Georgette whispered in my ear, “Deny you were paid,” which turned out to be true, because we lost our pay for that night. “And don’t tell them who you are or where you live.” When my turn came a young Irish cop sat me down and asked my name. Despite Georgette’s advice, I gave it to him. There was no alternative. “Address, age, and occupation?” he pursued. Occupation? This struck me as a redundant kind of question, so I answered, “Nymphomaniac.” This big idiot said how do you spell that. “N-y-m-p-h,” I began and the girls started to crack up, and even two detectives dozing in chairs started laughing.

  Despite the humor, I was depressed about this whole thing, and it was cold in there. I was very tired, so I climbed on a desk and tried to get some sleep. Behind me as I lay down I heard the cop interrogating Georgette, and they didn’t have to ask her name, because she was already one of the most notorious madams in New York at that time.

  “Hey, you’re typing all kinds of errors on that sheet,” I heard her say to him. So the cop replied, “Yeah, how can I concentrate?” He pointed at me. “Look at that broad there with her bare ass sticking out in my face.”

  Around five A.M. we were once again pushed into the squad cars, and this time we went downtown to the Tombs – my first visit – where we went through the whole rigamatick, filling in forms and making statements all over again. Only this was an even more horrible place than the station house – full of robbers, hoodlums, drunks, addicts, guys in fights, and streetwalkers.

  We had to get mug shots taken and submit to the most humiliating kind of physical examination by a big dykish matron.

  We had to bend backward, forward, and spread our legs so that if we carried anything in our vaginas it would most probably fall out. We were ordered to the bathroom whether we wanted to go or not, and then we were shoved into separate cells. People talking and coughing and vomiting, and altogether a very grim atmosphere.

/>   In the cell next to me, a black girl fifteen years old kept telling me in a whiny southern accent that she had been pushing drugs since she was twelve, and she was dying for a cigarette, and she wouldn’t leave me alone. One of our girls had some, so we passed them from hand to hand to shut up her dragging voice.

  It was terribly cold on the benches, and that night passed slowly, fitfully, without any possibility of sleep. Around eight A.M. we were taken to an even worse cell, full of vicious-looking black street hookers with long boots, colored wigs, and leather miniskirts. Their horrible body odor made me gasp and try not to breathe.

  They started asking us all kinds of questions, as though we made a habit of spending our nights in these stinking jails. One black girl with bruises all over her face took an interest in me and wouldn’t stop demanding information. She was one of those kind of people who thump your arm when they want to know something.

  “Hey,” she said, “you with the blond hair,” thump, “you must be high-priced jet-set call girls, the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour kind.”

  “No, I beg your pardon,” I said, “we’re one hundred dollars an hour.” I was bragging, of course, but we felt like society ladies against those human dregs.

  She didn’t want to appear jealous, so she said, “Hey, buddy,” nudge again, “hope you got your old man waiting outside to get you out.” “What’s an old man?” I asked, because I wasn’t familiar with street-hooker terminology in those days. “A pimp, don’t you have a pimp?” shove, push.

  She was really knocked out when I didn’t know what a pimp was, much less have one waiting outside. I wished she would shut up, because this talk was bugging me, and I kept wondering what had become of my life. A year ago I was expecting to be married and settled down, and today I was in a dirty cell with twenty sleazy streetwalkers.

  “Leave her alone,” Georgette said; “she’s new to this.” And about that time they called us into the courtroom.

  There in the audience was Carter, my banker date – sober now – who had been considerate enough to come down and learn what was happening.

  Then the lawyer Georgette had engaged for us, who was a relative of the judge, stood up and said his piece. I didn’t understand the proceedings too well, but he must have been very competent, because I heard the judge say, “Case dismissed.”

  We all went downstairs for a milkshake and a sandwich and met the lawyer and Carter. I thanked them both, and I engaged Carter as my banker, which he is to this day.

  Then I went uptown to collect my torn addresses from Georgette’s laundry, and on to my house, where I drew the curtains and slept for fifteen hours to forget what had been one of the worst nights of my life.

  8. PUERTO RICO

  It was February, and New York was bitter cold and buried in slush. I was in no mood to work. The arrest was still on my mind and had left me feeling low.

  I was fed up with the whole business of johns, madams, and cops, and the professional environment in general.

  I was also lonely, to tell you the truth, because I had split with my last boyfriend, Paul, and everybody else I knew was off to Puerto Rico for Washington’s Birthday. I needed to hang loose, breathe free, get lost, take a trip. To hell with it, I’d go to Puerto Rico, too.

  I’d never been there before, so I called Pan Am, and they could squeeze me on a flight that was leaving JFK in two hours if I could make it. I didn’t even bother to pack properly. I put on a summer dress under my winter coat, and a few essentials in my hand luggage – toothbrush, face creams, diaphragm, and vibrator. I could easily buy what else I needed there.

  There was enough cash in the house for a round-trip ticket, with $300 left for three days, which was all I expected to stay, at the time.

  I paid for my ticket at the airport, and the minute the plane took off I felt better. I looked forward to having some groovy experiences, because I mix easily and have no trouble communicating with people. I believe that’s one of the reasons I don’t need to drink or smoke cigarettes or grass – I get naturally stoned on good company.

  I was looking forward to a weekend of fun. Work, thank God, was the farthest thing from my mind.

  It was hot when we landed in San Juan, people walking around suntanned and everything looking sensational. I took a taxi from the airport to the Racquet Club, where some friends were staying, and tried to get a room.

  “Forget it, miss,” the clerk said. “We can’t even rent you a phone booth.” This was one of their biggest weekends, and every New York Jew and his uncle Max was in town. So I located my friends, and they invited me to sleep over on their sofa, which was cramped, and slightly uncomfortable, but what the hell, it was for a few days only.

  Next day I bought a dress, some sandals, and a bikini at the boutique and arranged myself near the pool. The place was overrun with pretty people, mostly couples, but plenty of Jewish American Princesses in their wigs and false eyelashes stalking the few single men around.

  Still I had a lot of fun meeting people, swimming, sunbathing,. and joining the crowd in the afternoons at Fiddler’s Green bar for piñas coladas, gossip, and dinner arrangements.

  For the entire three days the pattern was pleasant, but so far I had not met anyone who turned me on, and the hot sun was making me hornier than usual. I realized we were near the Virgin Islands, but this celibacy was ridiculous.

  On the last afternoon I met a man named Henry Carter, a nice blond Christian gent from New Hampshire, who had just gotten off the plane and planned to spend a whole week in Puerto Rico. Being half-Jewish myself, I usually prefer Jewish men as straights, but with so many of them around, Henry made a nice change.

  He was tall, attractive, intelligent, sensitive, and charming; and after we talked and walked for a while, he invited me to have dinner with him.

  That night he took me to romantic Old San Juan, where we ate a delicious Spanish meal, walked through the narrow cobblestoned streets, and stopped in a quaint little bar to listen to flamenco guitar music. Then Henry took me home to his room in Carmen’s guest house, and we made marvelous love, after which he suggested I move into his room and spend the next week with him.

  That night I brought my things from the Racquet Club to Carmen’s cozy guest house and fell madly in love with Henry, forgetting all about returning.to New York.

  The next week was beautiful. We rented a little Volkswagen and drove all over the island together. We made love whenever and wherever we could. On isolated beaches, in the woods, under trees, everywhere.

  Henry’s cock was tremendous and constantly pulsing with desire. We would make love three and four times in a row, and I would want to do for him things I won’t do for every man. I would eat him and swallow his sperm all the way, and I even wanted to have him Greek style, except he was simply too large for that.

  After lovemaking we would always talk and laugh and really feel we were in love. It’s the most beautiful thing there is, and it’s a pity it never lasts forever. When you’re fantastically happy, time passes too quickly. Suddenly it was Monday again, and Henry had to leave.

  It was time for me to go back also, because it had now been ten days since I impulsively set out for a long weekend, but I wasn’t ready to leave. I liked it in San Juan, I felt good, and I looked good. I was as brown as a little walnut, my hair was streaked gold from the sun, and I was enjoying my life for the first time in months.

  Why should I exchange the sea and the sun in San Juan for the cold and the hassle of New York? I could work just as easily here. I was lucky that I was in a profession which allows me employment no matter where I am.

  Although I had been straight since I’d been in Puerto Rico, I had noticed all the potential business hanging around the casinos, the beaches, and the bars.

  There was only one obstacle. I had never approached a man on my own before, having always worked through a madam, but I figured there couldn’t be anything too difficult about putting together a good sales pitch.

  That’s one thing I c
an do well, actually. No matter what business I’ve been in when I was straight, I’ve always been a good saleswoman, and actress.

  So I sadly said good-bye to Henry, and before he went he paid another week’s rent for me at the guest house. We made plans to meet again in New York. He called me twice but somehow we never did get together.

  That morning I got into my bikini and went over to the beach in front of the Americana Hotel to relax and think about my plans. I would have liked to leave a respectable amount of time between farewelling my lover and getting down to business, but I had to be practical because I was down to my last few dollars.

  I was tossing up whether I should try to make some money that night when luck came my way out of the clear blue sky.

  It was Mr. Schwartz, sitting not twenty yards away from me, sunning himself with Mrs. Schwartz. I could tell it was Mrs. Schwartz because they looked identical, the way two people do when they have lived together one hundred years.

  I recognized him immediately, much to his distress, and when he saw me striding toward him he turned purple. Three weeks before, in New York, Mr. Schwartz had stiffed me for $150 with a bouncing check, and when I tried to call him up, the telephone number was a phony. It was divine justice that I ran into him now. But as I approached the couple, the craziest thing happened.

  Mr. Schwartz, who was about five years younger than God, whispered something hurriedly to Mrs. Schwartz, who is his approximate contemporary, and they both got up and started to jog!