in a variety of ways, and that is my usual response when someone – and someone will, inevitably, in any conversation about the profession – says something judgmental about the perceived degradation of exchanging sex for money. Because, in my experience, that doesn’t make sense.
You think I’m just manipulating semantics here, don’t you? I’m not: hear me out, and you’ll see that it’s not mere spin. Many people in a number of professions are paid by the hour, right? Employers hire consultants, for example, on the basis of certain areas of expertise that the consultant can offer, and that the employer wants to have, use, leverage, whatever. The employer – or client – pays for the consultant’s time by the hour. The consultant performs certain pre-arranged and mutually agreed-upon tasks for the client during that time.
The consultant is using his expertise and experience to create something for the client; he is not “selling” his expertise. He is a skilled professional possessing an area of knowledge for which there is a demand and for which the client is willing to pay a pre-determined rate per hour. What he is selling, in point of fact, is his time. He keeps the expertise; the client keeps the product; but the hours put into the project are gone.
A callgirl is a consultant, using her expertise and experience in seduction and giving pleasure to fulfill a verbal contract with a client who is paying her by the hour to complete an agreed-upon project. She is a skilled professional possessing an area of knowledge for which there is a demand, and for which the client is willing to pay her a pre-determined rate per hour. She is using her expertise and experience to create something for the client; she is not “selling” her expertise, or the tools that she uses to implement her work.
If there’s such a gulf between these two people, if there is more degradation in one than in the other, I’d like to have you explain it to me, because frankly I don’t see it.
I have women friends who are waitstaff, waitstaff in so-called sophisticated restaurants on Newbury Street and Columbus Avenue and on the waterfront, and I’m sorry, but I would never put up with what they have to endure every night. Not for any amount of money.
Speaking of the money, it’s a pretty good hourly rate. Remember that what we get, we don’t have to share with anybody – no state or federal tax, no social security. I take that back: it’s a damned good hourly rate.
Occasionally there is no sex. Lonely men sometimes are just looking for company, for someone to listen to them: that’s worth the fee. I remember an early scene in Frankie and Johnny, when Al Pacino, newly released from prison, hires a woman to “spoon” with him – allow him to fall asleep curled into the curve of her body, her arms around him. I always found that scene incredibly touching.
Some clients use the time for public appearances at restaurants or concerts, either because they genuinely want company for these activities, or because they want to show off their ability to date a pretty girl. Some clients mistake us for therapists and use the time to talk, to have someone listen to them, to their problems, to their emptiness.
However, the reality is that most clients do want sex. Some want it quickly and efficiently, after which the girl is free to go; others want it as part of a date-like interlude and argue if they think they’ve received a minute less than they paid for. And there’s every imaginable situation in between.
* * * * * *
I’ve changed all the names in this book, except my own, for a number of reasons that I’m sure you can appreciate. But it’s not make-believe. These people are real. I am real. This all happened, in Boston, in the mid to late nineties. Promise.
So … are you one of the curious, the inquiring minds who want to know? Do you want to know what we think, how we feel, who we are?
Then welcome to my world.
“Mind the gap … Mind the gap!” I was standing on a subway platform in London, in the Underground, listening to a disembodied voice telling me in the tones of a not-too-friendly nanny to watch my step. I appreciated the concern, if not its delivery.
So I stood there dutifully minding the gap, and I thought about the newspaper advertisement folded into the shoulder bag I carried. It felt conspicuous, as though everyone else on the train platform could tell exactly what was in there, and what it said.
I had picked up the Phoenix just before leaving Boston, on an impulse that wasn’t really an impulse but was disguised as one anyway. My impulses usually are. I was in London for a week, lecturing at the London School of Economics, and my mind wasn’t exactly on my work.
It should have been, of course. It was an honor and a privilege to be here, and my professional life shouldn’t be impacted just because I was having problems in my personal life. But that’s the way that it always works, isn’t it? You think you can separate it all out, put your life into neat little compartments where nothing overlaps with anything else. You think that, and you’re wrong.
My personal life was screaming for attention. Loudly. I needed money. I needed a lot of money, and I needed it quickly.
I needed the money because Peter, my most recent boyfriend, had not only decided to fly to San Francisco to meet up with some ex (whom he had been fucking behind my back the whole time we were together, as it turned out), but had also emptied my checking account before leaving. A prince among men.
Rent was due. The decimated bank account had held all the money I had to live on until the end of the semester. That was when the two community colleges where I taught sociology elective classes would be paying me. I had to live within those parameters, with budgets planned well in advance and no extra or surprise expenses allowed.
Peter’s desertion decidedly qualified as a surprise expense.
In any case, the end of the semester was two months off. Which was why I needed a lot of cash.
I dealt with the crisis in my usual way. I spent one night getting very drunk and feeling very sorry for myself, and I got up the next morning, did what I could to deal with my hangover, and made a list. I love lists, I always have. Lists give me the illusion of being in control. I listed every possible way I could get the money I needed.
It was a depressingly short list.
The one thing I was not going to do was ask for assistance in any way. Not from my family and not from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I had been the one to make the bad judgment call, it made no sense to ask anyone else to pay for my mistakes. So even though I had written down the words “government assistance” on my list, I ignored them and moved on.
I frowned at the remaining items, crossed off “childcare,” both since I’m really incompetent with children and also the pay was too low to make much of a difference, and frowned again at what was left.
I was going to have to try one of these options. I didn’t have a lot of choices left. I took a deep breath, and I went to work.
I called a number I had found in some campus newspaper, Boston University or Northeastern or something, the ubiquitous one we’ve all seen, the one that is looking for people to sit in cubicles and respond to sex chatline calls. Talk sex, convince them that you’re hot for them, that sort of thing.
Well, the rat bastard boyfriend had told me that I had a sexy voice, so I figured it was worth a try. I’d only do it this once, of course.
I clearly hadn’t given the idea enough thought, because I was totally unprepared for the sleaziness of my interview. I hadn’t imagined ahead of time the really scary visuals: the rows of tiny cubicles, with women sitting in them wearing headsets and talking; they never stopped talking. Lights were flashing on their phones. Mostly they were middle-aged, with sagging flesh and garish makeup and an air of indifference that might have been cruel if it hadn’t felt so hopeless.
And I hadn’t visualized the way-too-young greasy guy with way too many piercings who never even looked