“You’re twenty-eight, 36-25-35, new to the business. You can be in graduate school or something. I told him you’re getting a friend to drive you up there. I said your car is in the shop.”
So that meant she was charging him extra without telling him where it was going. That wasn’t unusual: some clients didn’t like the feel of a “professional” driver; it took away from the fantasy that the girl really wanted to be there. If this guy was in Marblehead – way up on the North Shore – it was really going to cost him.
None of my business: that was how Peach earned her fee. All I had to say was that my car was in the shop. Stick to the truth whenever possible: the liar’s greatest secret. “Okay.”
“Call John on his cell phone. It’s 555-3948. He’s been there already. He’ll cost you sixty dollars round trip. You’ll be getting three-twenty from the client. Give John directions to your place and an ETA, and talk to the client, and call me back.”
“Okay.”
I put down the phone, feeling both satisfied that I had a call and was going to make some money, and at the same time wishing that I could just stay home and hang out with Scuzzy and Frasier at the Café Nervosa. A double mocha latte here, please.
Scuzzy was glaring at me. He always knew when I was about to leave, presumably deliberately ruining his evening. I sighed and picked up the phone again. “Hello, may I please speak with Jake?”
“Yeah.” Scintillating conversationalist, I could tell right off the bat. I’m perceptive that way.
“Oh, hi, Jake. This is Tia, I’m a friend of Peach’s. She asked me to call you.”
“Uh-huh.” He wasn’t going to make this easy.
I took a breath. Why the hell do you think I’m calling, asshole? “Peach thought you might like me to spend some time with you this evening. Would you like me to come over?”
“Well, that depends. Tell me a little about yourself.”
I was getting good at this. When a potential client asks this question, take it from me, he isn’t interested in learning about my favorite author or my thoughts on the political situation in Yemen. “Well, I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m five feet seven, I weigh 126 pounds, I measure 36-25-35 and wear a C-cup bra. I have medium-length wavy brown hair and green eyes.” Slight hesitation, slightly more breathless voice. “ I’m very pretty. You won’t be disappointed.” On the television screen, Niles was jumping up and down. Hard to tell if it was frustration or glee. I wished I could turn the sound back on.
“Uh-huh.” There was a pause. Great: this was apparently one of the ones who wanted to get off on the phone – on my time. A control freak, usually. Or maybe it was just his version of foreplay. “Gee, Tia, I don’t know. What are you wearing?”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. You’re going to say you want me, you already told Peach that you did, based on the identical information you just asked me to run through. This is a really stupid game. “Right now I just got out of the shower, so I’m just wearing a towel. How would you like me to dress?”
“Hmm.” Jake had all the time in the world, apparently. Well, he could: it wasn’t his dime. “How do you like to dress?”
In baggy sweats and woolen socks and my old Rykas, if you want the truth. “I always feel best in black lingerie,” I said into the phone, as sweetly as I could manage. Remember, Jen: the car payment is due next Friday. This asshole is your car payment. “A lacy bra and panties, and of course a garter belt and stockings.” I giggled, a little breathlessly. “With seams up the back. I don’t understand why women don’t wear stockings anymore. They’re so… femi-nine….” I let my voice drift off just enough so his imagination could take hold. Either I had him now or he was gay.
“Umm, yeah, that sounds great.” Ten to one he has his dick in his hand. “Um… okay, uh-huh. Uh… That’s okay. When can you be here?”
Finally. Once we got down to specifics, I could relax. Thank God.
I took another breath. “My car isn’t working, so I’m getting my friend to drive me. I need to call him, and I need to get directions from you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” To soften the blow, I added, “I can’t wait. I like your voice. It’s so warm and… and intimate. I wish that I could be with you… now.”
“You like how I sound?” Later, he’ll tell people that I was crazy about him from the beginning. If I give him any compliments at all, he’ll say that he should have charged me for sex. “She was so hot for me, I’m telling you, she was getting off on my voice on the tele-phone…”
Can you spell projection?
I rolled my eyes for Scuzzy’s benefit (I wanted, after all, to retain at least his respect) and did the husky sex voice thing again.
“Yes. You sound… nice. Warm. Sensuous.” Again the sexy sous-entendre. No subtleties here. “So, Jake… where do you live?”
Long set of directions. I repeated them back, then gave him an hour and a half estimated time of arrival, to be on the safe side. He grumbled, but he had already known it would take that long; he knew that I was coming from the city. He just wanted some leverage, something he could use to make me feel bad. It was amazing, the number of clients who liked that kind of control, who liked to put you at a disadvantage, make you feel from the onset that you needed to work even harder to please them, to make up to them for something. I was already tired of him by the time I hung up the phone. It had taken me ten minutes just to confirm the call. He was a pro at this.
John answered his cell phone on the second ring. British accent.
“John here!”
“Jen here,” I answered, bemused. “Peach says you can take me to Marblehead.”
“Right you are. Where do you live?”
“Allston, just off Brighton Ave. I need a few minutes to get dressed.”
“Be there in twenty minutes, then.”
Final call to Peach. “It’s all set.”
“Of course it is,” she said calmly. Peach always expects the world to conform to her plans. “Call me when you get there, and tell John to give me a call, too. I want him to pick up some cigarettes for me while you’re seeing the client.”
I turned my attention to my closet. Great. One of the hottest nights of the year, and I’ve just committed myself to Full Hooker Jacket. Such is life.
I made it in the twenty minutes, putting a reasonable slightly short but not too cheap print dress on over the much-discussed lingerie, brushing out my hair and putting on makeup, earrings, bracelets, and perfume while trying to watch the end of Frasier. Honestly, that Maris. What a bitch.
I hovered uncertainly in front of the entrance to my building until a Corolla pulled up and the driver leaned across to open the passenger door. “Jen, right?”
“Right.” I slid into the seat and shut the door, thanking all the gods within hearing that the man had air conditioning. My brief wait outside had been enough for sweat to start clinging to my neck and trickle down my upper thighs. The stockings weren’t helping.
I pulled out my set of directions. “Not him,” John protested as soon as I started reading them. I glanced up sharply. “What? Why? What’s the matter?”
“Gives different directions every time. The girl’s always late and he always uses it against her, and when she says it was his directions, he says she’s stupid and is the one who got it wrong.”
Wasn’t that special? And I was going to have to have some form of sex with this idiot in the near future. That’s why they pay me the big bucks. “Don’t tell me this,” I protested.
John was cheerful. “Don’t you worry,” he said, taking the entrance ramp to the Pike inbound. “Been there enough, haven’t I? I’ll get you there in no time, surprise the hell out of him.”
I smiled. “You’re my hero,” I said. Obviously still in flattery mode.
“No problem,” he said. “Just remember when it’s time for my tip.”
Sixty dollars, and I was supposed to tip him on top of that? I managed to keep my surprise silent, but just barely. Thank God, I thought, for my
Civic. I was loving every rust spot and frayed bumper sticker on it. This Driving Miss Daisy stuff was way too expensive.
He didn’t ask about my musical tastes, just flipped on WFNX, and so we listened to alternative rock all the way to the North Shore.
It was an educational experience. I am here to tell you, yes, there is a band called the Butthole Surfers. Frightening. I spent quite a few miles wondering how I could reference the group in one of my classes, give the students the impression that I was cool. Not a chance. So after that I just relaxed and listened.
After that, I figured, he could tip me.
We made it to the oddly pillared colonial (who said that rich people have taste?) nestled above the harbor behind a mile of grass, trees, and driveway, in thirty-five minutes flat.
“The poor fellow will be disappointed,” commented John.
“I’ll help him work through his pain,” I said flippantly. “Don’t forget to call Peach. I’ll see you in an hour.”
He waited, his headlights on the door, until Jake answered the doorbell and I walked in. Gallant. Or maybe just practical. If there were a problem, he didn’t want to have to turn around and come right back for me.
If I didn’t get paid, he didn’t get paid.
I went through the motions with Jake. For all his posturing, for all his selectiveness on the telephone, he himself was five foot three, had to weigh two hundred and fifty pounds, and was one of the most unattractive men I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Thus was justified what I liked to think of as my Second Law of Prostitution: The least attractive are always the most demanding.
And even as I played the slut for Jake, I wondered what it must be like for someone like John to drop a woman off at a house, knowing that he’s leaving her off in order to have sex. Possibly unpleasant sex. What does he think about while he’s waiting? Does he imagine what we might be doing? When he picks the girl up, later, does he smell the sex on her? Does he think about it? Does he see her as more desirable, or less desirable, because of what she’s been doing?
All in all, an odd occupation, it seemed to me.
He was right on time to pick me up, which was a relief, since Jake and I had run out of things to say to each other within the first five minutes. “Everything all right?” John asked. “Yes, thanks,” I said, a little surprised. It was nice of him to ask, almost a comfort.
Like someone knew that it was an act, a game, an occupation. After an hour with Jake, I needed that. Clever man, John.
“God, you try finding a place to buy cigs in Marblehead at night,” he said. “Place closes up tighter than –“ He thought better of continuing that thought. “Anyway, Peach says I’m to take you home; she’ll call you if anything else comes up.”
“Fine.” I recognized the code. That was Peach-talk for this is probably it for the night.
That was perfectly all right with me, to tell the truth. Jake had not had air-conditioning, and sea breezes had been notably absent during our brief bout of gymnastics on his bed. “Wife’s at her mother’s house,” he smirked, making a production of dramatically turning her picture facedown on the dresser. “Can’t have her watching us, can we, now?” A little late to show feelings for her, asshole.
“I’ll call her when I get home,” I said noncommittally to John. I had been running numbers in my head, not as easy as it sounds, arithmetic never having been my strong point. The call was three hundred twenty: sixty for Peach, sixty for John; that left a total of two hundred for me. That probably meant that Jake hadn’t been able to find any other service willing to send someone all the way to Marblehead for him, and that Peach had had no problem asking (and getting) whatever she wanted.
I thought about him turning over his wife’s picture with such drama, and wondered briefly why he hated her so much, to intentionally and deliberately make her so much the center of what we did there. And then I dismissed the thought. If I started thinking about the wives, I wouldn’t be able to work again.
The money was okay and John had been nice. I slipped him an extra twenty, wondering if I was being a total idiot in doing so.
There were no more calls that night. I pulled off the dress, stockings, garter belt and fuck-me shoes, and slipped gratefully into a pair of ripped shorts and an AIDS Ride sweatshirt, and tied my hair back with an elastic band. I spent the rest of the evening happily reunited with Frasier and a bowl of Haagen Daz frozen yogurt, signed off at midnight, and went to bed.
The next night I found out why John was worth the extra twenty I’d decided to give him.
Peach called around seven. “Work,” she said, briefly, all business.
I’d divided my day between sleeping in, working out at the gym, and thinking about my first lecture for the new class. Well, my second lecture. The first lecture was always housekeeping stuff – how you get graded, what I expect, what books you’ll have to buy. The second lecture was when the relationship really began.
“Okay, what’ve you got?”
“Mark in Chelsea.” My smile was immediate and spontaneous.
Too cool, a regular client, one of my regulars in fact. The good thing about a regular is you don’t have to play games … well, that’s not quite true. You always play games. With a regular, at least you’re familiar with the rules of the games you do have to play. It’s the unknown element that’s always unnerving.
Mark in Chelsea was pretty straightforward. I could run the program through in my head, even time it to the minute. We would sit and drink a really awful wine (my money was on it coming out of a box) and look at his view of Boston’s skyline across the river (admittedly beautiful) for exactly fifteen minutes. While we were doing this, he would complain about his work and how everything and everyone conspired to keep him from the raises and advancement that were rightfully his. The fact that he was a whining weasel who, by his own admission, would sell out his mother if the price were right apparently didn’t enter into it. It didn’t matter. I would make dutiful and sympathetic noises at appropriate places in the monologue and think about my grocery list, or whether it was time to change Scuzzy’s litter.
He would then kiss me, passionately and a little clumsily, and we would pretend that we suddenly couldn’t bear to wait another moment, and mutually undress each other quickly in the darkened living room. We would have sex on the carpet, the only dialogue here being his grunt, “You got it?” as I handed over the condom. He would last as long as he could, he’d come, roll off me, and head off to take a shower. Premature ejaculation may be distressing in a husband or boyfriend; but, believe me, callgirls love it.
The other extreme – and we see a lot of that – is tedious beyond belief.
I would dress and be back on the balcony with the rest of my glass of wine by the time he reappeared. “Great view, huh?” he’d ask. “The whole evening was lovely,” I’d assure him. He’d say, “Whenever you’re finished…” and I’d say, “Oh, I really shouldn’t have any more…” and he’d pay me and I’d leave. Thirty-five minutes, start to finish. Consistently. Yes: Mark was one of the good ones.
“You know I need a driver?” I asked Peach that Sunday.
“Oh, sure, no problem. I’ve got Ben coming by. Tell me your address, again.”
I gave it to her, and she said, “Okay, I’ll have him call you when he’s downstairs.”
“Okay, and Peach, remember: Mark doesn’t go the full hour.”
“Yeah, no problem. Just tell Ben when to come back. He’s thirty-five dollars.”
Rapid calculations. Mark paid one hundred eighty. “Peach, that leaves me making eighty-five for the call.”
“Oh.” I could hear her running the figures. “Okay, why don’t you call Mark and tell him you have to get a driver, so it’ll be an extra twenty-five.”
No, Peach. That’s why you get sixty dollars a call, no matter what I make: so I don’t have to say things like that to a client.
Many – if not most – of the services in Boston charge by the event, so to speak. Say it’s
sixty dollars for the girl to walk in. Then you and she negotiate the rest of the evening, a little like an à la carte menu. A blowjob adds fifty to the base price. Fucking adds a hundred to the base. And so on through the more exotic options, with prices that are set both by the agency (general guidelines) and by the callgirl (specific to the situation). It is assumed that the client will have one orgasm. If he wants a second one, it gets negotiated. Nothing is left to chance, and nothing is given away.
If I had worked for one of those services, I’d have starved within the first week. There’s something really Rabelaisian to me about arguing prices with a guy in an obviously stressful and adversarial way, and then opening your legs for him two minutes later.
One of the things I liked about Peach is that she took care of all that. If the client complained, I could purr, “Oh, baby, you know that if it were me setting your rates I’d help you out, but I can’t help it, you have to talk to Peach.” So at least there’s a pretense that he and I have a little respect for each other, that we’re in this together. It helps the fantasy.
Well, it does for me, anyway. Maybe it’s just my issue. It’s been my experience that men have never had problems fucking women they hate or with whom they’re angry. Sometimes they even prefer it that way. Another difference between the genders that I will never understand.
Besides, I liked Peach’s premise. The client isn’t paying for sex, for specific acts or games or behaviors. He is paying for an hour of the callgirl’s time. He can come as many times as he is able or wishes. He can talk, or request a fantasy, or fuck. He can play games, he can maintain at some level the illusion that the girl is there because she likes him. It’s a valuable commodity. Clients went to those other services – clients were consistent only in their fickleness when it came to escort agencies – and most of them returned to Peach in the end. She gave them what the others couldn’t. Validation. Dreams. Fantasies. Illusions.
In any case. I wasn’t about to forego this benefit of working for Peach. I cleared my throat. “No, Peach, I can’t call him, I have to get dressed.”
Callgirl: Confessions of a Double Life Page 12