Do I look like one?”
“Fine, then,” she said, and we went on from there.
I wish that all of life could be that simple.
* * * * * *
Okay, so here is what you learn. The Gospel According to Peach. I don’t know whether it’s true or whether it’s one of those cherished urban legends, one specific to activities outside the law. In any case, the common understanding is that if you ask a person if he or she is a police officer, and he or she answers “no,” but in fact is a police officer, then any subsequent arrest won’t stand up in court. It still sounds odd to me; but Peach knew her stuff, so I assume that she knew about that, too.
She wasn’t one for small talk. She even had a canned speech for this part, too. “If you ever, ever have any suspicions or bad feelings about a client, don’t do the call. There are a couple of ways out of it. If you think it might be a setup, ask if he’s a police officer. If you really are suspicious, then say you think you left your keys in the car, you’ll be right back, and just get out. If it can wait a few minutes, then when you call me to check in, ask me if your sister called.”
I was bemused. “My sister wouldn’t call you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said impatiently. “It’s a code. Hang up and tell the client that I heard from your sister whose husband is much worse, he’s in the hospital, and you have to go. Say you’re sorry, tell him to call me back, that I’ll take care of him. And then leave. I’ll talk with you before I take his call so I know what’s going on. Never, ever do a call that doesn’t feel right. Trust your instincts.”
Think what you will, her system worked. No one from her agency ever was arrested, the whole time that I worked for her.
So we met, and she reassured me that I was attractive enough and young enough (at least in appearance) to make it in her profession, and I went home a little bemused and oddly self-confident. Months later, she would tell me that she had felt intimidated by me at that first meeting, that she saw me as clever, sophisticated, and educated and that scared her; but of course at that time I didn’t know that. All that I was aware of then – blissfully – was that I had passed muster.
The reality, like it or not, is that we are all governed by the dictates of Madison Avenue, by the excesses of Hollywood. No matter how much we want to say that it isn’t true, it is. If you say that you aren’t influenced by Gap posters or twenty-something television programs, if you say that you never compare yourself to them and wonder in your heart of hearts whether you measure up, then I’m sorry: you’re simply not telling the truth. Newsweek talks about youth culture as though it were a distant phenomenon, to be studied anthropologically; but I guarantee you that the reporters working on the study are concerned about belonging to the very group that they write about.
Take me. I had earned two master’s degrees and a difficult doctorate. I was living independently and reasonably happily. I was embarking on a career that I had wanted desperately for all of my life. And yet, that afternoon, I got more pleasure out of the assurance that I was young enough, thin enough, pretty enough, seductive enough to be able to work for an escort service, to hold my own along with twenty-year-olds, than I did out of all of my real, important accomplishments.
So maybe I’m not so smart after all.
* * * * * *
I didn’t work that night after meeting Peach. I gave myself permission, instead, to invest in my new job, to fashion and create and slip into my new persona.
I went to my health club and stayed there for three hours, sweating and straining on the Stairmaster and in the weight room, then rewarding myself with twenty minutes in the whirlpool. I chose a Stairmaster machine next to a woman I knew casually from the gym. She worked for one of the software companies out on Route 128. We saw each other once in a great while outside of the club, but mostly our conversations took place as we were panting and watching our heart rates. We told each other about our love lives, or the lack thereof, depending on what was happening at the time. “Want to come to a barbeque tomorrow night?” Susan asked, her eyes on the glowing red dots of the program monitor in front of her.
I hesitated, then replied. “I can’t.”
That piqued her interest. “Oh, my God, you didn’t tell me, that’s so cool, Jen, are you seeing someone? See, I told you! I knew you’d get over that loser Peter.”
“Nothing like that.” I paused to swallow some water from my bottle. I couldn’t help my thought, I couldn’t help but imagine what she would say if I told her the truth. No, Susan, it’s not really a date; only sort of. How shocked would you be if I told you what I was really going to be doing? That my date will end with him paying me two hundred dollars? I stifled the laughter that bubbled up with the thought.
I couldn’t even imagine what she’d think. If she believed me. That was a big if. “I just need money, I’m doing some tutoring.”
“That’s cool.” She was focused again on her hill-climbing pattern. “I need to do something like that.”
I smiled my Inner Secret Smile and asked, innocently if a little breathlessly (well, I was on a Stairmaster), “Why? I thought you high-tech geeks made all the money.”
“Yeah, but tutoring, at least you meet someone who’s not a cubicle rat. I’d just like to occasionally have a conversation with someone who has some social skills.”
Well, yeah, I thought, the ones I’m seeing aren’t all geeks. The social skills part, I wasn’t so sure about yet.
After showering and drinking some fruit juice at the club bar, I headed out to make some additions to my wardrobe. Nothing fancy, just as far as the Citibank card would allow me to go. New job, new clothes, my mother always used to say. I had a picture of her, the first day at the bank where she was an assistant vice-president, her hat just so and her gloves matching her shoes and… well, different times, different wardrobe.
I went to Cacique and bought matching sets of underwear. Not knowing what might lie ahead, I added a few loose camisoles, lacy tops that could work as either lingerie or real clothes. And then of course there were the dreaded and de rigeur garter belt and stockings; I was hoping that I’d not have to use them too frequently.
Why, you ask? Here’s an insight for the gentlemen in the audience: if a woman ever says that she’s comfortable in those things, she’s lying. She may be lying to be nice to you, because she knows how much that whole outfit turns you on: but she is lying nevertheless. So appreciate her. A lot.
I, on the other hand, was being paid for it. That makes a little discomfort a lot more comfortable.
I went to a couple more shops, buying clothes that were only slightly more risqué than those I normally wore: slightly shorter skirts, slightly more revealing shirts, that sort of thing. Lots of black. A small black beaded handbag. Clothing in layers, easy to take off, easy to put on – the cramped quarters in the bow of Bruce’s boat/bedroom had taught me something about that.
And then I went to a salon and had my hair shaped and blown dry, over-tipped the stylist, and went home. It was ten o’clock. I had a class at two the next day, and was prepared to start my new job in earnest immediately after.
A tale of two careers. I grinned to myself. It doesn’t get much better than this.
The fact is, it was prostitution. You can dress it up however you’d like; but for me to tell myself that earning my living as a prostitute was a situation that couldn’t get any better was at best a little naïve. At worst, a little delusional.
After meeting Peach, I had a week and a half of a remarkably ordinary life. Ordinary classes, ordinary calls through Avanti with remarkably ordinary sex.
I’m not sure what I had been expecting