Phoenix. There wasn’t anything that you could possibly want that you couldn’t find there.
I thought that After Dark was as wicked as it got.
* * * * * *
My innocence was in part the product of my personality and in part the product of my past. I really do believe at some level that people are fundamentally good and that, given the opportunity, they do the right thing. My observation of and occasional participation in thoughts and actions that are less than pure haven’t completely tarnished this fundamental belief.
My experience – well, that’s something else altogether. If I went by my experience, I’d probably be as cynical as they come.
I grew up in the South, where ladies are ladies, “sir” and “ma’am” are common, and when people ask you how you are, they wait for an answer. That’s a far cry from the brisk how-ya-doin’? of the Northeast. I really do believe that there’s a little of Scarlett O’Hara in every white woman who grew up in the South, a fundamental belief that good manners can get you through just about any situation. For a very long time, I expected people to behave well – just because they should.
That was not exactly the best upbringing for my line of work, but I’ve also found that it tempers the cynicism that is part and parcel of my profession and makes me – or so I’m told – reasonably pleasant to work with. Perhaps not the most overwhelming of compliments, but there are days when I’m willing to settle for reasonably pleasant.
It also means that I smile and acknowledge toll collectors as people, am overwhelmingly polite to telephone operators, and am, of course, kind to dogs and small children. Or is that children and small dogs? I never seem to get that one quite right.
In any case, what the South did give me, besides that take on life and an accent I still cannot entirely get rid of, was a wealth of literature. I love to read; I read everything that is ever been set in front of me, from cereal boxes to VCR instructions, but the voices of the South are what echo the loudest in my world, then and now.
Though proper Southern ladies might blanch at the thought of running an escort service, I haven’t really gone overboard after all. For many of these writers are the same ladies who embrace sexuality with gusto and imagination, who write obsessively and far into the night of breaking free from the oppression of white society (and, some of them, of male society), who tell of awakening to a world where they can be managers of their own destinies. I think that, in the end, some of them might even have applauded me.
It was perhaps under their guidance that I made the final decision about my new business – choosing a niche, an area of specialization, if you will. And when I chose it I was completely aware of the ladies’ voices telling me that it was the right thing to do.
I decided to focus on guys who wanted more than just sex. I know that may sound odd, coming from a madam; but while sex is the blanket under which we sleep, so to speak, it’s not all about sex. Far from it.
It’s about power, and it’s about loneliness, and it’s about a media that constantly tells people that they can Have It All, then springs Real Life on them like some cruel joke. Sex is the battlefield. Sex is the forum where all this stuff gets negotiated, worked out, and practiced. We make so much of sex because we make it mean far more than it was ever supposed to mean. It is only we Americans, with that puritanical past that we can’t seem to rid ourselves of, who see sex in terms of its excesses: as everything or as nothing.
So it’s not surprising that all of our issues either have to do with, or get worked out via, our sexuality. It’s a pity, but it’s a reality; and a business that aims to take advantage of Americans’ hang-ups does well to note that.
In the end, what I decided to do was provide girls who were educated or on their way to being educated, girls who could talk about politics or literature or current events and keep up with the conversation, girls who could do more than just be blonde. Those were the girls, I thought, who would bring in the clientele that I wanted – middle-class guys who want vanilla sex and a chat.
That’s not as crazy as it sounds. It wasn’t just that I wanted the distinction of running a literary escort agency, though there’s something to be said for that – it evokes images of people reading erotica to each other while getting undressed, which is an image that I have to say I rather like.
No, my decision was completely practical. I wanted those clients, first and foremost, because they are the lowest risk around.
They weren’t going to get too weird and hurt somebody. They weren’t going to threaten me with exposure because they would mostly be married (or at the very least, in a career of some sort) and in no position to seek exposure themselves. They were going to order up their entertainment like they ordered takeout – and I planned to be their favorite restaurant.
It was a great plan. Has it worked out? More or less.
And therein, I suppose, lies the rest of this tale.
I placed my first ads in the After Dark section of the Boston Phoenix and waited with some trepidation for them to come out.
One of the ads was advertising for girls to come work for me (“education required,” I had written), and the other was for the service itself. Both had a boudoir-lace edging and stood out, if I do rather smugly say so myself, among all the screaming ads urging readers to “try out my tits” and to “cum all over my ass.”
I had already hedged my bets. During my transition between the suburbs and the Bay Village, I had been doing more than just decorating (although I have to say that my new apartment, with its skylights, exposed brick walls, and claw-footed bathtub, had indeed been absorbing quite a lot of my energy). I had also been talking to my former colleagues, asking them if they knew anyone who would like to work for me. That wasn’t stealing from Laura, I rationalized. I was employing a network, something altogether different. And of course I got names.
To tell the truth, I don’t always run the employment ad these days. Not every week, anyway. Maybe one week out of the month. The reality is that from the beginning I’ve had the most success getting potential employees through a network – friends, acquaintances, cousins, colleagues, fellow students.
It makes them happy, since they are referred by someone who knows how I work, who knows that I won’t be weird or dangerous or take advantage of them. It makes me happy, too, because referrals aren’t very likely to be cops.
So the first Thursday that the Phoenix came out with my ad, I was ready. The phone lines were set up: one for clients to call in on, one for my outgoing calls, another as a strictly personal line. I had voice mail, I had call waiting and call forwarding, and, just for security, I had my Yellow Pages. I had my textbooks. I had a stack of mindless magazines, a pen, some scrap paper. I was sitting in the middle of my canopied bed with my television on to keep me from getting too nervous, and I was ready.
My voice mail message implied much more than it said. “Hi, we’re busy right now, but someone can talk to you if you call us back after five today.” I could imagine what the caller might think when he heard those words, filled with a breathy double entendre. He probably was fantasizing that the place was filled with women, maybe having sex with each other while they wait. (That, I have discovered, is a premiere fantasy for most of my clients, the idea that women just can’t wait to rip each other’s clothes off every chance they get.) I know what callers had assumed when they called Laura’s place. Of course, in her case, they were correct – minus the jumping on each other part of it: a lot of beautiful girls, scantily clad, each one sitting patiently, just waiting for that one caller to ask for her. Well, chez Peach, it was a little different. It was just me.
But they didn’t have to know that.
I had hoped for some modest business. Maybe a couple of calls on my first night, some contacts for future