H-J
H is for Hobbyist
A hobbyist is a man who is a habitual user of escort services. These range from the experienced and infinitely charming high tipper to the boorish tightwad who compares you unfavorably to every other prostitute he’s been with. Be sure to treat every hobbyist as if he is the former. They will most likely write an Internet report on you.
I is for Invisibility
Don’t stand in the lobby of a hotel on the way out talking to your manager on the phone about the customer and what her cut of the take is. I’ve seen people do it; it’s horrid. What are you waiting for, hordes of adoring fans? Get out, get a cab, go home. Be discreet.
J is for Jealousy
When a regular customer-especially one you like or who tips well-moves on to another girl or otherwise inexplicably drops you, take it in your stride. They’re not paying for sex because they want a relationship, silly. There will be others. There always are.
J is also for Jet Set
Very few girls will travel outside a hundred mile radius on a regular basis. A repeat client may well offer to take you around the world on his yacht, but don’t be disappointed if it never exactly materializes. Even when they’re paying for the sex, men are apt to inflate their income and connections to impress and amuse you. All I can offer is, don’t count your frequent-flier miles before they hatch. jeudi, le 1 ^er janvier
N and I met in town last night to raise a drink and indulge in mutual holidaytide misanthropy. I hate going out on New Year’s, but being alone is infinitely worse. N’s preferred tipple these days is Bailey’s on ice, which is virtually pudding in a glass. As I lifted my glass, a man we knew pushed past, spilling half my drink on my jeans.
“What’s her problem?” I sniffed.
“Nothing a fortnight in a Turkish brothel wouldn’t fix,” N said. Thus inspired, we spent the rest of the evening compiling a list of people whose attitudes (we thought) would be much improved by such a holiday.
In need of a fortnight in a Turkish brothel (rough draft):
Naomi Campbell
Penelope Keith
Princess Anne
Cherie Blair
Pamela Anderson, though she may actually enjoy it
Blair’s Babes
(E)liz(abeth) Hurley
Paris Hilton
Myleene Klass
Any Jagger ex or offspring
Condoleezza Rice
Jenna Bush
Jessica Simpson actually, any blonde for whom the descriptors “It Girl” and “famous father” apply vendredi, le 2 janvier
Regarding orgasms at work:
I don’t. I don’t equate number of orgasms with the level of enjoyment of sex, nor good sex with the ability to produce an orgasm. At the age of nineteen, if I remember the person and the conversation correctly, I realized that sex was about the quality of your enjoyment and that doesn’t always mean coming.
On the other hand, I also remember that conversation largely consisting of comparing experiences with dropping acid. Nevertheless, the realization that sex is just an end in itself stayed with me.
Let’s be honest, this is a customer service position, not a self-fulfillment odyssey. They’re paying for their orgasm, not mine. Plenty of the men-more than you might think-never even come at all. They never imply it’s a failure on my part. Sometimes they’re just after human contact, a warm body, an erotic embrace. Most times, come to think of it.
The inability of punters to produce an orgasm in me is no way a comment on their shortcomings. As far as their part of the bargain goes, they’re doing a great job, and I enjoy sex for more than the merely physical tingle. Being desired is fun. Dressing up is fun. No pressure to experience physical release for fear of damaging someone’s ego, or give someone an orgasm for fear of never hearing from them again, is hella wicked.
Sometimes a race is a good day out-regardless of where you finished. samedi, le 3 janvier
Text from the Boy:
Are you okay? Feeling sad because I’m afraid you don’t want to talk to me.
I wonder if I’m abnormal sometimes. A little cold for love, slightly lacking in sentiment. As soon as someone’s interest flags, my own feelings start to go that way too. As Clive Owen said in the film Croupier, hold on tightly-let go lightly.
I don’t give people enough chances.
Maybe I know it’s not right anyway. All romance is narcissism, A1 told me once. This was the same person who also told me women over thirty should never wear their hair long, so he’s probably an unreliable source, but still. I’m doing us both a favor by not responding.
There are other things that have happened, things I never wanted to think or write about because I was afraid of being rash, in case everything straightened itself out. It might still. I could ring, or send a text, but they seem such poor approximations of communication. If I can’t sort out what’s in this head, how can I put it into intelligible sentences?
If I wait too long, the decision won’t be mine to make anyway.
I decide to go out and spend all my money on underwear, then throw them about the room to decide my fate like a satiny, lace-gusseted I Ching. Let the gods of Beau Bra decide.
I bought a set in chocolate-colored lace, with pink satin ties at the sides of the knickers and between the cups of the bra. I don’t think I got these for either work or Boyfriend. The carriage coming back was crowded with bargain hunters and tourists. I tried to guess what each shiny paper bag contained. A package of handkerchiefs? Comic books? Perfume? There was a mass exodus into the north of the city, people rushing off at each stop. Someone who can’t wait to get home and won’t even take off her coat before tearing through tissue paper. A man who was pulling the wrapping off a new CD already, dropping ribbons of plastic on the floor.
Tonight I am going out with friends to an annual dinner. The men will be stuffed into their dinner jackets, which have grown mysteriously smaller since last year, and grumble about the skimpy main course. The women will swish from table to table in jersey and diamante, hair smooth like petals.
The tube lurches closer to my stop. The song on my headphones is buoyant-the sort of pop confection on a thousand best-of-2003 lists. When I look up, I see how close the yellow handrail is to the ceiling light and brush the cover with my fingertips. A pram rocks on the unsteady journey, knocking over a mother’s shopping bags. I can’t help smiling. Further down the carriage, a bald man stares. dimanche, le 4 janvier
N jeweled my arm for the formal event last night-purely platonically, you understand. Am still angry at the Boy and taking the hard line for now that “all men are twats, unless they’re paying, in which case they’re twats who are paying.” N understands perfectly and accepts his appointment as “twat” with grace. This probably means he’s trying to get me into bed.
We showered and dressed at mine, and I tied his bow tie before we left. He was planning to wear a ready-tied, but I insisted on the real thing. I will not be seen in public with a man whose tie falls into any of the following categories: clip-on, spinning, or metallic. There is a time and a place for comedy eveningwear. I believe it passed when Charles Chaplin shrugged off his mortal coil.
Throats dry, we stopped for a pre-revelry drink at a bar that was cunningly hidden under another bar. Several dozen other celebrants were there as well, and N introduced me around. A chirpy, raven-haired Nigella-alike planted herself to my left.
“Why, hello there,” she twanged. “My name’s T-.” Her dress was doing a reasonable job of keeping her breasts restrained, but I didn’t reckon on its chances for surviving the night.
I gave N a “do you know this woman?” look. He shot me a “no, do you think she’ll sleep with me?” look.
She put her perfectly manicured hand on my knee. “I just love your accent!” she enthused. “Where are you from?”
“Yorkshire,” I said. “And your good self?”
“Michigan.”
Charming. But the crowd grew restless, and we moved on to the venue. Unfortunately, T- and her date were sitting three tables from us. Dining at a table of mostly couples, I found myself seated next to the wife of a mutual acquaintance. She drunkenly looked me and N over. When he turned to talk to someone, she said, “So how long have you two been back together, then?”
“Er, ah, we’re just seeing what happens. Only friends, you know.”
“Of course you are.” She gave me a sly wink to indicate that she didn’t believe a word of it. This indictment might have carried more of a sting if she didn’t simultaneously spill red wine down her dress.
The speeches were the highlight of the evening. A multiply medaled Paralympian with a seemingly endless supply of sex jokes, followed by a sport personality, followed by a paunchy silver-haired man. The quality of the speakers was such that even I, a rank amateur at anything smacking of nonsexual exertion, could pretend to be interested for twenty minutes.
Then it all broke down for the disco. I danced, I drank, I danced some more. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed N on the sidelines bending T-’s ear. Good lad, I thought. After she went off to dance with her date, I sought him out.
“You sly dog. So did you get her number?”
“Actually, she was more interested in you.”
“Really?” I looked back at the dance floor, where she was being spun round and round by three men. Probably an experiment in centrifugal force and its effect on fabric strain. So far as I could see, the dress was still refusing to budge-whether due to magic or double-sided tape, I don’t know.
“Yeah, I think I ruined your chances though.”
“How’s that?”
“I said you’d only do it with her if I came along.”
“You complete twat!” I punched his shoulder, probably hurting my fist more than anything else.
He kissed the top of my head. “Just saving you from yourself, dear.”
SEX: A SPOTTER’S GUIDE
• Sex Shop: not normally known to sell sex as such. Lexical equivalent of calling a specialist vegetarian grocer a butcher.
• Hot Sex: reproduces, as nearly as possible, the visual effect of pornography. See also: Phone-In Sex.
• Good Sex: in which you get everything you want.
• Bad Sex: in which someone else gets everything he wants.
• Sex Kitten: a woman of reasonable charm, though often reliant on cantilevering lingerie.
• Sexual: usually related to the mating rituals of animal species or the burgeoning hormonal urges of youth. Word never used in an actual sexual episode without a lot of giggling. Exception that proves the rule, various Marvin Gaye songs.
• Sex Education: the interface between a banana and a condom. Not generally known to impart useful information.
• Sex Bomb: a weapon of mass destruction. mardi, le 6 janvier
I rang the bell of the building; no answer from the speaker-he buzzed me straight up. He opened the door of the flat and disappeared into the kitchen for a drink. Inside, it was clean, almost sterile. Smoky glass mirrors everywhere-I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being in a restaurant. Rather incredible digs for someone the manager said was a student. Postgraduate scholarships probably extend far enough for a few pissups each term, but I doubt they cover having a lady of the night in for a session.
He: “Don’t be so nervous.”
Me (startled): “I am relaxed. So what is it you study?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
He told me his name. “Really?” I said. It’s an odd, old-fashioned moniker. “My boyfriend is also called that.” Ex, I scolded myself. Stop thinking about him in the present tense. We discussed the client’s desire to move-to North London, which apparently has “the highest density of psychotherapists in the world.” Knowing a few people round that way, I understand why perfectly.
He: “You’re an odd one, I can’t quite figure you out.”
Me: “I’m fairly straightforward.”
“An open book, right?”
“Something like that.”
(later)
Me: “What is it you do again?”
He: “Psychoanalysis.”
Which made us comrades, if not exactly colleagues. The conversation strayed to evolutionary biology and the role of pheromones in attraction. How well you like someone’s smell is, apparently, related to the likelihood of producing children together with as few congenital defects as possible. Not the usual overture to incite romance, but it works well enough on me. He liked the sex intense, sensual, tongue-centric. I liked the mirrors. He held me open and took me anally, slithering in and out. After he came, I went to clean up and noticed a copy of Richard Dawkins’s latest book in the bathroom.
Me (dressing): “I enjoyed that. And, you smell nice.”
He: “Excellent, that means we can have children.”
We both laughed. “Not quite yet.” I dressed and left.
There were still shops open and I wanted to spend the money in my bag. Heels clattering, I walked through an underground subway. At the end of one tiled passage were boxes-homeless people. I am never sure whether to hold their gaze or not; swing wide of where they’re sat or not. What is it about them that makes us so uncomfortable? Do the homeless have some kind of sympathetic magic that might rub off, and we will be rendered penniless if we dare get too close?
The men were young, talking. I caught the gaze of one. Broad Northern accents. I was aware of both the sound of my shoes echoing toward them and the weight of the money on my person. A kind person would just heave the notes in their direction, wouldn’t she, I thought.
Rubbish, another part of my mind chimed in. They’d only use it on drugs.
Ooh, get you, high and mighty. Who just had sex for money.
Yes, well. At least I have a job. I’m not selling out. I’m not getting paid for something I wouldn’t do for free anyway.
They might just be backpackers. Who would appreciate the cash.
They might just be rapists.
The corridor turned sharp right just past their makeshift camp. The two young men-quite good-looking, actually-looked up as I came near. “Out late?” one asked.
I smiled. Could tell them the truth. Won’t. “Party,” I said.
“Cool,” the bearded one said. They went back to their conversation. Neither slowing nor swerving, I continued on out of sight. mercredi, le 7 janvier
He: “White wine, I presume.”
Me: “Why, how very thoughtful.” (he presents a glass, we toast and sip) “Rather drier than usual.”
“Thought I’d give it a try.”
As a regular becomes more regular, rules slip a tiny bit. They’re not supposed to be under the influence during an appointment-and neither are we-though a little alcohol isn’t expressly forbidden. Having seen this particular man several times, I know that he must indulge in a spliff before he sees me. I can smell it, and am surprised it doesn’t affect his performance.
Last night I arrived a few minutes early-Monday nights, light traffic-and caught him in the act.
Another habit he indulges in are inhalants during my visits. Now, I realize these aren’t illegal (at least, I don’t think they are), and am not opposed to drug-taking as such. Live and let live, victimless crime, and all that. I only rarely take anything stronger than a stiff drink-though those who knew me at uni would probably attest to the contrary.
Last night on his bedroom floor, I was sitting astride him. He, eyes closed, reached for the familiar small brown bottle and took a direct sniff. And then he offered it to me. What’s the harm? I thought, and sniffed, and did so again when he picked it up ten minutes later.
And what a rush it was. I felt my scalp, face, and ears pounding, like when you blush but more so. Every sound seemed intensified, a little tinny. My fingertips felt like paws, a foot wide.
Thank goodness it only lasted a minute or so.
The inhalant, that is. The sex was rather longer. jeudi, le 8 janvier
There are several things this job makes difficult to take seriously.
First: public transport. Perhaps in normal jobs, coming in twenty minutes late is excused with the “Northern Line, grumble, you know, bah” routine. But when a neglected husband has sixty minutes between lunch hour and his next meeting, and he took a Viagra and seriously has the horn, you cannot be late. The taxis and I are old friends now, darling.
Second: people giving you the eye on public transport. Maybe they think I’ll follow them off to a hidden love nest? Or they’ll follow me off and it will be love at first crowded, southbound-delays sight? No chance.
Third: one-night stands. Like the Army, I have fun and get paid to do it. Sometimes it’s not as fun but I always get paid. I clock more oral sex in a week from customers than in my entire time at uni.
Fourth: boyfriend troubles. I don’t want to be single and a prostitute. I don’t want to be without him in my life. We called a truce. Yes, really.
Fifth: fashion. Flat boots, short hair, cropped trousers, ra-ra skirts? I’d never get work again. vendredi, le 9 janvier
It was the Boy’s birthday, so he came up to visit. Things were nice-he was clean and polite and clearly on best behavior. For most of the night, things were easy, relaxed, even. I leaned more and more heavily on his arm and he responded with an arm around me. Thank goodness, I thought. Just a blip. Nothing to fret over.
We decided to leave our friends in Wimbledon early (the better to strain the bed, my dear) with the flimsiest of excuses, only to run into epic stoppages on the tube. After being stuck at Earl’s Court for an hour, Himself nodding off on my shoulder, a change of route was announced for our train. So we leapt off at Gloucester Road to make a transfer. Alas, the Piccadilly line was also toast.
I made an executive decision and dragged us outside to flag down a black cab. “How much is this going to cost us?” the Boy asked.
“Don’t worry, I’ll cover it,” I said. Noticed him leaning in to quiz the driver himself. “Oh, come on, you silly,” I scolded, bundling him into the cab.
I directed the driver first to an appropriate bank to withdraw cash. The Boy was sulking when I got back in the car. “The meter went back on while we were waiting,” he grumbled. “Probably added at least a pound to the fare.”
I wasn’t too bothered. “He was waiting a couple of minutes,” I said. Also, having grabbed a black cab instead of a minicab, I was fairly certain that-whatever the fare-he wouldn’t try to drive us all over hither and yon. I live out in the relative sticks and forty-pound round-trips into town are not unheard of. In the course of work, naturally, it’s an expense the client covers. Considering the time and the trip, if we got in for around twenty I’d be grateful.
The Boy pouted, withdrew his hand from mine and sulked out the window.
A bit later, we were about two miles from home. “I think we should get out here, we’re close enough,” the Boy said. The meter had just ticked over twenty quid, but I was in heels and uninterested in spending half an hour in the cold when we could be in bed making sweet lurrrve.
I looked at him sharply. “If you want to get out and walk, I won’t stop you.” I had no intention of going anywhere. This was his birthday, my treat, and what’s money compared to being home in each other’s arms?
The light turned green. The driver nervously checked his mirror. “Um, are you getting out here mate?” he asked.
“No.” The Boy crossed his arms and sunk lower in the seat.
We were at mine inside five minutes, safe and sound. Mortified at the scene, I tipped the driver three pounds. We walked up the steps. I unlocked the door and stepped inside. “Well,” I said.
“Well.”
“Are you going to apologize? Because I am livid.”
“I can’t believe you let him fleece you like that.”
“I can’t believe you acted like that. It’s only money.”
“It’s a lot of money.”
“It’s my money to spend, and I want to spend it on getting us home together. It’s no more than a round at the pub would have cost.”
Cue a nightlong argument in which, ironically, the whore bears the standard for Money Is Meaningless, while her boyfriend recounts favors done and expenses incurred by him throughout the past year. If he truly wants to change careers, perhaps accounting would suit. It ended rather abruptly with me writing a check for something approaching my hourly fee and shoving it into his hand. “Will that do?” I asked. “Does that make you happier?”
After a strained morning he wandered off to chat up the neighbor and palpate her shinier, better techno toys. There is no worse sound than the greedy giggles of a redhead displaying a PDA in juxtaposition with her cleavage.
I spent the better part of an hour scanning train schedules. samedi, le 10 janvier
We were exhausted from arguing all night. He had a train to make at London Bridge. I was meeting friends and we left the house at the same time. At the tube station, we sat with an empty seat between us. He pored over a map of London pointlessly.
A Northern Line tube arrived. The carriages near our end were empty. I jogged up and hopped on. The doors remained ajar a few moments. I sat and looked around-he hadn’t followed me on. I looked to both ends of the carriage. Popped my head out the door. The Boy wasn’t there. The doors closed.
I sat down again, put my head on the large bag in my lap, sighed. A couple of stops passed. People crowded in, some groups, talking. I got off to change at Euston and momentarily thought about going back. No, I figured, he’d be long gone. But I stood on the platform, waited through a few arriving trains, just in case. After ten minutes I gave up. Sat down across from a young Asian man, a girl wearing a headscarf and headphones, and a bored-looking blonde with her shopping.
Just before London Bridge a face popped in front of mine. I jumped. It was him. I was surprised, didn’t know what to say. This was obviously the wrong reaction.
“Oh, never mind,” he said, going to stand by the door.
“Where did you come from?” I asked.
“What do you mean? I’ve been here all along.”
“On this train? On this carriage?”
“Yes.” He sniffed, held the handrail, looked out the window as the train slowed into the tube station. “Thanks for screaming. Now everyone thinks I’m a mugger or something.”
“I didn’t scream. You just startled me. Are you sure you were on this train? You can’t have been.”
“I was standing right next to you the whole way.”
“No, I looked around. I waited at Euston. You can’t have been.”
He stepped off the train, onto the platform. A stream of people parted to flow around his bulk. “If you want to talk to me, get off and talk to me.”
I sat down again. “I can’t. If you want to talk to me, get on.”
“No, you get off.”
The doors started to close. I said his name, strained, my voice sharp and high. “Don’t be stupid. Come on.”
The doors closed, we pulled away. Last time I saw the Boy, he was waving.
I sighed. The train was almost empty. The blonde woman with the bags leaned across. “He was lying to you,” she said. “He got on the tube at Bank.” dimanche, le 11 janvier
Anal sex is the new black.
Hands up if you remember when big-name porn stars didn’t go there, when no one said it out loud, when the only people who presumably made regular trips up the poop chute were gay men and prostate examiners. A man who suggested his wife grab her ankles and take it like a choirboy was probably courting divorce, or at the very least burnt suppers for a month.
As with the mass amateurization of everything, though, anal has gone mainstream in a big way. Girls who used to ask whether you can go down on a boy and still be “technically” a virgin now wonder whether opening the back door still leaves you theoretically pure.
Hurrah, I say, because anal’s wonderful. Then again I had the benefit of being introduced to the practice gently and considerately over a matter of weeks, by a man whose desire for me to be able to take him inspired the necessary patience to persevere. He started with massaging and stimulating the anus, then moved on to inserting his own well-lubed fingers. It wasn’t long before small vibes were introduced. When we finally got to the main event, I was begging him to do it.
And other folks must be catching on too, because simply everyone does it these days. By the time it was mentioned on Sex and the City, all my friends shrugged. “So what?” they wanted to know. “We’ve been doing that for yonks.”
I fully anticipate by next year Charlotte Church will have a glittery T-shirt that reads “My Barbie takes it up the ass.” Maybe I should make one and send it to her.
Yes, anal. The new black. Out there is not so out there anymore. Last night N and I were perusing a top-shelf mag he picked up for me, one page of which featured a woman of grandmother age being fisted in both holes. And she was smiling. And, I wasn’t even fazed. Few things shock me, really. But there is one that always gets to me-every time.
I know anal sex is the new black, because my bloody mother just rang to talk about it.
But as long as I had her on the phone, I thought I could break the news about the Boy. To her credit, she didn’t say a thing until I was finished. “Poor little creature,” she said, and it was just at that moment I felt the first tears dropping. Yes. Poor, poor me. What luck I have such a sympathetic mother.
Who then made me wait on the line as she turned to tell the whole story to my father, verbatim.
They agreed I should go home for a couple of days. I was powerless to argue. lundi, le 12 janvier
My head fell further toward the surface of the table. I didn’t want the steaming mug of tea in my hands. I didn’t want breakfast. My mother sighed. She obviously wanted to say something. “I suppose at least each failed relationship raises my standards for the next one,” I grumbled.
“Honey, don’t you worry that someday your standards will get so high no one will satisfy them?”
If I had the energy to lift my forehead off the rim of the mug, I would have given her the evil eye to end all evil eyes. “I don’t even know why it happened,” I groaned. “I mean, I know why it happened, but not globally why.”
Father rattled his paper and looked concerned. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said. “He was probably seeing some other girl and just looking for a reason to end it.”
“Oh, that helps very much, ta.”
Come to think of it, maybe he was. Oh, there were a few times, a few texts, a few phone calls that seemed odd at the time. And one big thing, several months back. “You never surprise me,” he used to say. He said it often. Usually when we were in the throes of a gentle argument, when my attitude rubbed up against his ego and the first word someone said wrong threatened to tip everything into oblivion. “You never surprise me,” he’d say, and anticipating the coming list of Things I Have Done Wrong in the Last Year, I would go to another room and disconnect: closed door, television, toilet, whatever it takes. I already knew the list off by heart. It ranged from a brief period in which I went back to an ex, to less concrete items like whether or not I introduced him to other people as my boyfriend or as just a friend. Headphones on. One hour of silence would make him apologize.
I was in an expansive mood one morning in December. The sun was just coming up and, for reasons I cannot quite put a finger on, I woke with the birds. Never surprise you? We’ll see. I walked down to the Kentish Town train station and waited for a train on the southbound platform.
A taxi dropped me at his doorstep at the other end. The air was damp and smelled salty. It was still before nine in the morning. The back door is usually unlocked and I didn’t want to wake his housemate. I crept up the stairs and put a hand on the handle of his door.
Turned. No luck. Turned harder-Regency house, sometimes the weather makes the fixtures stick-no. Locked. I tapped on the door. Already my heart was sinking.
There was a noise of whispering inside. The creaking bed. “Hello?” came a whisper from the other side of the door. His voice.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Oh.” More muffled talking.
“Um, can you let me in?”
“Wait in the back garden. I’ll meet you there.”
Heart sinking? It was obliterated. My stomach took up residence somewhere in the middle of my throat. “What’s going on?” I squeaked.
“Can you go outside?” he said, only slightly louder. There was more noise from inside the room.
“No,” I said, raising my voice. “Let me in.” He came outside-very quickly. Shut the door behind him firmly. I lunged for the door. He held me off easily.
“For goodness’ sake-don’t embarrass me,” he said. His eyes pleaded with me. No way, I thought. There’s someone in there. But there was no getting past him. He started to walk down the stairs, taking me, struggling, with him.
“What the hell is going on?” I shrieked. I could hear the other bedroom doors in the house opening, and his housemates came out to see what was happening. He bullied me into the kitchen. There was a girl in there, yes, he said. Friend of his housemate. In the spare foldaway bed? No, in his bed. Who was she? I screamed. Don’t embarrass me, he kept saying. Don’t embarrass me. She was a medic, he said. An army officer. A friend of a friend, but nothing happened. Like fuck it didn’t, no one shares a bed and look-you’re not wearing anything under that dressing gown, are you? I dove at his crotch. It was true, he wasn’t.
“Trust me,” he pleaded. “Go to the cafe at the end of the road. We’ll talk about it later?”
“Trust you? Trust you? Can I trust you?”
His face fell. He made accusations. He played the Whore Card.
The phrase “losing your rag” has always seemed imprecise. I didn’t know what it meant, exactly. One of those sayings that defies explanation and only makes sense in context.
This was the context. I lost my rag.
“You have never found me in bed with someone else. You never will. This is the price I pay for honesty?” I am digging my own grave, I thought. No one values the truth over perceived fidelity. I fuck other people for a living, and yes, I tell him as much as he wants to know, but, oh. Oh. Oh. My heart has always been in the right place, I think. My head stopped using words to communicate.
I left. I went to the shore and waited for the shops to open, bought a bag of coconut-covered marshmallows. The water was high and the wind against the tide made white horses on the sea. My phone rang and rang-the Boy. I turned it off. He left messages. Nothing happened, he swore up and down. It was a plot by his housemate, the one who hates me. The medic (blonde, thin, I waited long enough in the bushes over the road to see her come out. But not pretty. Not pretty) was very drunk, she fell asleep in his bed in her underwear, he was too tired to set up the spare bed for himself or go down and sleep on the sofa. Whatever. I didn’t ring back. I caught a train home and took three appointments that day. After, smelling of sweat and latex, I listened to Charles Mingus and drank port until the wee hours. We made it up through texts, over a few days.
Still sat at my parents’ breakfast table, the mug of tea cold in my grip. Daddy refolded the paper and left it at my elbow. Go home, go to work, get over it, I said to myself. mercredi, le 14 janvier
I ran some errands shortly before an appointment and walked to the hotel from the bank in full-on makeup, suit, and heels. As I passed the park a man stopped.
“My God, you’re beautiful. Are you a model?”
Cripes, has that line ever actually worked? “No, I work near here.” Think fast-what’s near here? “Over in Royal Albert Hall.” I couldn’t have picked a more unlikely place, could I?
He: “You like it there?”
Me: “It’s pretty nice. The people I work with are interesting.”
“Plenty of prima donnas, right?”
“Yes.” (looking obviously at watch) “Well, I’m off to meet a friend for lunch, have to run.”
“Are those real stockings?”
“Of course!”
“You’re just too gorgeous. I wish I could take you out.”
“Well, you never know. See you around.”
“Bye.” jeudi, le 15 janvier
The self-fisting is getting remarkably easier with practice. For those who would rather watch than to touch-and there are plenty of those-this is proving very popular. However, I don’t think any amount of practice would enable anal fisting, although someone did want to see how many fingers I could get up the back passage whilst he fucked me. I could feel the swollen head of his cock clearly through the narrow wall of tissue separating the two orifices, and wiggled the tips of my fingers to tickle his shaft. He came quickly, stayed hard, fucked again, repeat.
He: (falling back on bed after the third go in one hour) “I used to be better at this, really.”
Me: (pulling up stockings) “How do you mean?”
“The old man’s had it. I’d be surprised if it gets up again any time in the next month.”
“I wouldn’t know, being a woman, but I think he’s done admirably.” (patting the now-wizened bit of flesh) “Good job, you. Have a well-deserved rest.”
“You really like what you do, don’t you?”
“I think it would be hard to take if I didn’t. My imagination is not quite sufficient to detach my mind from double penetration.” vendredi, le 16 janvier
N and I drank cups of tea at mine and listened to the radio. “Alright then,” he said. “You’re abandoned on an island in the South Pacific, which five records would you take?”
“A lot of rock, a lot of blues.” I thought a moment. “Probably at least three blues albums.”
“On a desert island by yourself? Isn’t that a bit depressing?”
“I’m already alone on a desert island. Except this isn’t a desert, and it’s cold and wet.”
“Remember you do have the odd man Friday,” he said, patting my feet. We fell asleep together on the sofa listening to Robert Johnson. samedi, le 17 janvier
These are a few of my favorite things (that punters never ask for):
• For me to come for real. Why should they? With someone I’ve just met, who doesn’t know the unspoken road map to my body, it’ll take something like a geological age with his tongue propelled by more drive than an industrial bandsaw. Of course I fake it, when asked at all.
• Glass marbles. Infinitely better than the rubbery love-bead variety. Cheaper than a glass dildo. Scales up well according to size and relaxation of orifice. The sound they make when they come out is as delicious as the temperature change going in.
• Food sex. I have never, ever been paid to lick chocolate sauce off someone or have it licked off me. In private, though, I like to think myself an excellent and carefully maintained plate (N.B.: does not include insertion of vegetables, which you don’t eat afterward anyway).
• To turn up in my regular clothes. Random-person sex is cool. Random-person sex with someone who looks random is even better. Also I’m very lazy.
• Bathing him afterward. I love soaping a man’s body, the slightly submissive attitude of kneeling to run my hands down the pillar of his legs, gently lifting each foot in turn to wash it. I adore drying a man, too: imagining what I would want dried first (face and hair), what needs gentle patting (armpits and genitals) and what might get forgotten (back of knees, between the shoulder blades). Plenty want to wash me, though, so perhaps they are acting on the same desire.
• Rimming. Given a thorough wash with hot soapy water beforehand, I will do this. It feels like trying to push yourself into pursed lips. It’s a challenge, and the tiniest flicker of your tongue goes further there than anywhere else. It’s cunnilingus on the miniature scale. As with the last one though, they do it to me all the time. I shouldn’t complain, really.
• To imitate an animal. For some reason I imagined they would. They don’t.
• To imitate characters from The Simpsons. It has nothing to do with sex, but I’m pretty good at it-especially Milhouse and Comic Book Guy. Who knows, maybe I’ll meet a man with a Patty and Selma fetish, and then my ship will have truly come in.
But for tonight, I have a date. A real date with someone who uses my real name and rings me on my real number. Okay, he may be a hologram, but I cannot know for certain yet. dimanche, le 18 janvier
I haven’t had a proper first date in ages. He’s an acquaintance of N’s, which gave us a conversational springboard, but I was quickly growing addicted to his looks, his voice, and his sense of humor. It surprised me to feel just as awkward and off-kilter flirting with someone as it always had before. Did I get a bit nervous having to leave a message on his answerphone? Check. Did I deliberate over what I was going to wear on our date? Check. Obsessing over the details, including Googling his name every few hours? Too right I did. Did my heart speed up just a tiny bit on seeing a text or e-mail from him? You betcha.
So we went out-the details are meaningless-and talked around and around each other, and around the topic of how mutually attracted we were. I kept looking at his hands when I thought he wouldn’t notice. He must have been looking at mine, because all of a sudden, on the train, we were holding hands (dear God, we were holding hands) and he was exploring the spaces between my fingers with his lips (just shiver) and I put my head on his shoulder (yes, it fit perfectly) and he smelled my hair (oh, yes, please).
Then we went and fucked it up by having fucking.
Maybe it was the glass or three of wine. The music, which was just at the right bpm to make my head spin. But then I so did what I should not have done-I went straight from cuddling and kissing into Whore Mode.
And this poor thing, he got the works. The little squeals. The wrist restraints. The full-on, sweat-soaked, bed-rattling, neighbor-waking, deep-throating, dirty-talking, facial-cumshot, use-me-baby-till-you-use-me-up works. He fell asleep straight after but I couldn’t close my eyes because I knew what had just happened. I had utterly hot, but completely soulless sex with someone who-up to that point-I actually wanted to see more of.
There’s that line about the likelihood of buying the cow when the milk’s on sale, you know the one I mean?
So we woke early and dressed. He escorted me to the station and I caught the first train home. I couldn’t look at him and felt like an utter idiot. Note to self, never have sex on a first date. lundi, le 19 janvier
Last night I dreamt about the Boy.
It was in a restaurant-cum-bar-cum-tunnel-to-the-underworld kind of place, located in a crumbling religious monument and with a playground out the back (can’t explain; dreams are just that way) and I was having a drink with a girl from the gym with great tits. Great Tits and I were having a conversation in which I was outlining the end of the affair, and she asked his name.
I said his first name. She said his second, loudly. “Ah, you know each other?” I was about to ask, when I turned around and saw GT was addressing him directly. He was there. Sitting with his new girlfriend, a well-known porn star.
Cue major discomfort as Great Tits and the Boy went through greeting procedures. I smiled at the porn star, who was inexplicably naked. Then the Boy and I were walking outside, on a grassy upward-sloping tunnel to the playground, and I stopped and lay down, and he lay down behind me. He said he missed me, he missed fucking me. I felt him grow harder and slide up between my thighs.
“You can’t,” I said. And he pushed the first inch inside.
At this point the porn star (who, it should be pointed out for the extremely dim, is NOT dating my ex in real life, this is just a dream), still inexplicably naked, positions herself on her back in front of me. I dive in. She tells me she doesn’t like direct clitoral stimulation. I rub her through the hood and tongue her inner lips. The Boy mounts me from behind.
I woke up half-wrapped in a bedsheet. I didn’t come. I can’t stop thinking about his hands, his hands. The way his hair felt. The smell of the skin on his back in summer. mardi, le 20 janvier
They say when it rains, it pours, but is there a saying for the complete opposite? Perhaps “When it’s dry, it’s arid”?
The most recent bookings have all been time-wasters and mind-changers. There is always a certain amount of this at work-like the man who wanted to book an overnight but didn’t ring the manager when he got to the hotel. So while I knew first name, time, and location, I wasn’t about to turn up and go round all the floors knocking at each door.
Can you imagine? “Room service? No? I’ll try next door then….”
He did contact the agency a few days later to apologize. Seems he simply didn’t write our number down and couldn’t ring again. Of course.
Other times the cancellation comes from my end-I get nervous if someone changes time and location more than once. Too many overly specific requests also tend to put me on guard. Dressing up is fine. Dressing up like your septuagenarian grandmother and being asked to bring my own mortuary foam is not. A finely tuned Creep Radar is a necessary part of the business. This is, after all, an occupation that ranks somewhere between nuclear core inspector and rugby prop for job safety. Except I’m issued neither a foil suit nor a pair of spiked boots for protection.
I have also learned never to trust a booking made more than three days ahead, as these people almost never call back to verify the appointment details. At first I imagined my work diary filling up weeks ahead. But the most reliable calls come six to twelve hours in advance, even from regulars. The longer someone has to think about it, it seems, the heavier guilt weighs on them. Or maybe they decide to do it themselves. A copy of Penthouse isn’t exactly going to give you a blowjob and a backrub, but then again, it’s more likely to be found hanging around your local off-license and can be had for under a fiver.
Lame excuses, cancellations, aggressive patients, dubious over-the-counter remedies. Now I know how a doctor feels.
At least the four As have descended on Jour Towers for a few days. Quote of the night:
A2: “So what are we doing tomorrow?”
Al: “Well, we’ll have to get that bottle of whisky first thing in the morning, definitely.”
You couldn’t buy a better bunch of chaps, I swear. mercredi, le 21 janvier
N is approaching the one-year anniversary of a breakup. I am of the belief that it usually takes as long as the relationship itself for the pangs to subside, which means he should have been over this one, oh, about nine months ago. His ex was a bit of flighty girl. Frankly I never thought they’d make it. I was right, but this isn’t the sort of thing you go telling your friends straight after the fact. Example:
“I sent her a Christmas card and a birthday card and she hasn’t so much as texted me.”
I’m thinking: Well, of course not, silly boy. She’s probably married to an oil tycoon and has a litter of children by now. I’m saying: “How dare she. That is so profoundly unfair.”
N has a charming ability to think the world of his exes. Naturally, I’m not complaining. “Pedestal-worthy” is a modifier more of my acquaintances should use. In the wake of his ex’s refusal to contact him, N is seeking out every other immortal beloved to have crossed his path- muy High Fidelity. It started last month with His First.
They exchanged phone calls for a few weeks. He was sweet about it. Talking to her seemed to bring a lot of memories to the fore-how they met and courted, secretly, over several years. Why she never wanted to marry or have children. The last time he saw her in person, the sad, strained final farewell. Like everyone else, I love a good passion. I love a good story even more.
Then N arranged to meet His First in person, and his reminiscences went from the rosy-hued to the frankly sexual. He’s never had a woman since with bigger breasts. She taught him everything a man ever need know about going down on a woman. How she reacted to the taste of come. And so on.
“God, if she’ll let me, I’d love to have her again. Just once, just for old time’s.”
I’m thinking: There isn’t a single ex I would take back. I’m at least 95 percent sure of that. Usually. Depending on which way the wind’s blowing. I’m saying: “Darling, great idea. I bet it’s even better than before.”
“You mean they’re even better than before,” he said, making a groping gesture in midair with his hands.
“Of course. Of course that’s what I meant.”
He looked at me and smiled. “So if I manage to get her in bed, and she’s up for it, would you do a threesome with us?”
I’m thinking: Not a chance, hon. She’ll never say yes, and even if she did, I wouldn’t. I’m saying: “Go for it, sweetie. The more the merrier!”
N put his arm around my shoulders. “You’re the best woman ever, you know that?” Happily he will continue to believe so for the time being-I am reliably informed that His First didn’t let him get any more intimate than an awkward hug at the end. He can go on thinking I’m a sexual saint and it’ll never be put to the test. jeudi, le 22 janvier
“Darling, can you make a booking for this afternoon?”
I was varnishing my toenails and feeling slightly cranky. “No, I’m afraid it’s my time of the month.” I suspect she either doesn’t pay very close attention to our cycles or is too polite to call me on an obvious lie.
Except in this case it wasn’t a lie. It was a lie when I used it about, oh, two weeks ago.
“This maaaaan, he is very rich,” she said. “He keeps asking only for you.”
“Can’t do it,” I snapped, wondering where on earth I’d managed to leave the ibuprofen, and other incrementally more important things. Like not smudging the nail varnish as it dried, and reading the paper. “I don’t think he’d want blood on the sheets.”
“It’s a hotel call.”
“The hotel management. Whomever,” I said.
“Darling, what I tell the other girls is, just use a bit of sponge.”
A bit of sponge? “A bit of sponge?” What was this, some demented nineties contraception allusion, or the start of a slippery slope involving fulfilling Greek diving-suit fantasies?
“You just cut off a corner of a clean sponge, darling, and put it up your-”
“Yes, okay, I think I see where that’s going.” I shuddered. Having once-years ago-inadvertently forgotten a tampon during sex, I was not keen to repeat the experience. The thought of someone banging away at my cervical door as I grew ever more worried about the chances of retrieving a scrap of synthetic foam and, by extension, the inverse chances of ending up in the emergency room sounded distinctly untempting.
And barring that, what if he was hoping for a deep dive of the digits into my finger-licking nether regions?
“It should last the hour. When the other girls are on their time, I never book them for longer than an hour. You will be fine, darling.”
She was right, of course, though perhaps explaining the missing bit of washing-up implement to whomever next walks through my kitchen will be awkward. As for retrieval, truth be told, the client never even came close to troubling the sponge. vendredi, le 23 janvier
To my great surprise, the man I went on a first date with rang back. He hadn’t taken my guilty conscience as a hint at all-in fact, he’d been hiking in the North and simply not been able to ring. So much for my surgical brush-off, then. But just hearing his voice did make me smile. Perhaps it is worth pursuing after all.
He invited me out to a play. Unfortunately, I do like to keep evenings free for work, and haven’t been terribly in the black of late. Must be that pesky habit of spending all my money on underwear. I politely declined, but said we must get together later in the week.
“You can brush me off, I won’t take offense,” he said.
“Oh no, I’m not at all,” I backpedaled. “I really would like to see you soon.” It’s not every man who offers to take you on the town after knowing he can score with you regardless. Most would take first-date sex as an excuse to crack open a can of beer and watch Grand Prix on all forthcoming dates.
But First Date, I suspected, was nicer than that. Much nicer. “You promise?” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Guarantee,” I said, smiling back. samedi, le 24 janvier
It is the Chinese New Year celebrations. This is not something I would usually know, except today on leaving an appointment the client gave me two gold-foil-wrapped fortune cookies. I didn’t think fortune cookies were particularly traditional, but enjoy the thought that perhaps a randomly chosen slip of paper in a cookie holds the key to one’s future. It’s no less likely to be true than looking in the back of the Metro, anyway.
The first fortune read:
You will receive a cheerful call next week. which amuses me no end. Was that meant to be the next week after the fortune was printed, the week after the cookie was opened, or just “next week” in general? A pedant could thus claim that if said cheerful call does not materialize between now and the 29th, it was in fact meant to mean next week.
The second fortune read:
You will appear on television in the next year. which is at once more frightening (bloody hell, I certainly hope not) and yet subject to the same restrictions as the first fortune. If I don’t appear on TV in the Year of the Monkey, then clearly it will be during the Year of the Cock.
For completely unrelated reasons, I am now looking forward to the Year of the Cock. dimanche, le 25 janvier
An odd side effect of this job is the sensitivity to personal smell.
I don’t usually shower straight after the appointments. There’s one regular client who bathes me at his house with a sponge and almond soap, but I tend to wait with others and shower at home.
So I may be walking out to a cab, or going up the stairs of my flat, and catch a whiff. Not of sex, not specifically-just someone’s scent. The smell of their skin or hair or hand cream that rubbed off on my skin and clothes. Sometimes it’s mixed with my own smell as well, and I know as soon as I can I will undress and sniff the creases of my clothing.
Will I remember these men if I smell them again? They say scent is the most powerfully memory-associated of all the senses. And that it is also the most neglected. It is so ephemeral. You become quickly tired of strong odors, but can’t get enough of the tease, the slightest waft of an almost-remembered association.
The Boy smelled strong but not unpleasant. He used to sweat incredible amounts. After a long session in the bedroom he would lift himself up, sweat dripping down his back and chest. The smell was light, the taste salty; sometimes I would lick him dry. Even a bit of heavy petting will cause droplets to come out on his back. One touch and his palms go damp. He swore high and low that I was the only woman to have had this power over him. I joked that he must be part dog: a panting animal.
Crossing the street I smelled a cologne that must have been the same as the psychoanalyst used. I remember touching the smooth green bottle in his bathroom. One morning I put on a pair of shoes that inexplicably reminded me of a client from earlier in the week. Did I think at the time “This man smells of leather/old sneakers/sweaty socks”? No. But there was a deep note of similarity, and by lunchtime, I had to take them off because I couldn’t stop thinking about work.
But these were both recent, and no test of long-term memory.
Sometimes a man will walk by who smells of A1. We’ve been friends so long our intimacy seems like an epoch ago. He smelled of hot sand. I am always tempted to follow these people wherever they are going. To catch their elbows before they disappear into the crowd at a tube station, or scribble a note to slip into their pockets. I want to know what scent they use. To ask what right they have to smell like what, for me, will always be sex itself. lundi, le 26 janvier
N has a friend, Angel, who is also a working girl. I see her around occasionally-we share some of the same haunts.
I’ve always admired her figure but never really wanted it. All womanly curves have been banished in favor of narrow thighs and a perfect arse. She’s a sculpted triumph of engineering, all legs and long hair, and toned to within an ounce of her life. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to wake up one day in her Versace-clad body. It possibly would be the worst thing in the world to actually try to achieve that shape.
I was out and about a few nights ago and nipped to the ladies’ to reapply lipstick. Unhappily, it was one of these ultramodern places with a troughlike sink where the water splashes everywhere and a too-narrow mirror lit obliquely from below reflects the space between your collarbone and chin. Flattering to exactly no one.
Having ascertained that the toilet was designed by someone who hated women, I turned round to see Angel crouched on the floor, sobbing. I almost didn’t stop. She hadn’t seen me yet. But something about the fragile bow of her heaving shoulders made it impossible to walk away. “Are you okay?” I whispered, kneeling beside her.
It all came out in fits and starts-first man trouble, then family problems, then a recent surgery gone wrong, then the reason for the surgery. It turned out Angel was the victim of a notorious attack several years ago. It was the anniversary of the incident.
“That was you?” I whispered. She nodded. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She showed me the cuts from the reconstructive surgery she’d been undergoing, just at her hairline. I hugged her gently. I told her about my last few years, losing family and futures, how sometimes you feel like a cork tossed around on an ocean. How being told to buck up and stiff-upper-lip it often makes things worse. Yes, the world really is an unfair place. Yes, these things are sent to try us. No, you don’t have to smile all the time, every day. How it wasn’t her fault.
I stayed in there almost an hour while people walked in, walked out, stepped over and around us. Then Angel stood up, straightened her clothes, ran a brush through her hair. And while I didn’t expect this was the start of something beautiful between us, I thought perhaps there had been a connection made. Not mates watching telly on a Friday night and scarfing chocolate. But maybe a gentle, unspoken acknowledgment. A subtle nod across a room. A sorority of two.
So I saw her again last night. Another club, another toilet. I said hello. And she utterly blanked me. I ran straight to N, wounded by the snub. “Yeah,” he said. “I would have a lot of time for her, but she can go from needy to brittle in about ten seconds, and you never know which one you’re going to get.” mardi, le 27 janvier
Rang the manager to discuss upcoming work schedules. She was giggling too much to talk, which is distinctly not in keeping with her Eastern-European-glacial-uber-babe facade.
“Er, are you okay?” Maybe I caught her at a bad time, or in the throes of gleefully administering cracks of the whip to laggard customers, or something.
“Darling, have you heard The Darkness?”
“Yes?”
“Oh, they just crack me up. They are so funny.”
“Mmm. Well, in their way, I suppose.” Perhaps I am excessively judgmental in believing that anyone who looks like the bastard child of Robert Plant and Steve Perry via Austin Powers’s dentist has no business as a rock god. “Is it okay if I have Monday and Wednesday nights off until further notice?”
“Of course, darling. Take as much as you need.” She then broke into a warbling rendition of “Get Your Hands off My Woman,” which was marred by the fact that her falsetto was singularly incapable of approaching the stratospheric heights of the original. I sincerely hope she wasn’t prancing around in a pair of lace-up white PVC trousers at the time. Then again, there would probably be unheard-of prices for such a performance (if indeed it hasn’t already become a regular feature of the Spearmint Rhino oeuvre).
Someone asked recently what services I would be unwilling to provide, and I was unable to think of anything good. Now “imitating stick-insect Freddie Mercuries from Lowestoft” has become the first entry on the list. mercredi, le 28 janvier
Last night I had friends over, not so much a celebration as an excuse to clear the pantry of bottles that have been hanging around since time out of mind. Rang a few people, sent a few e-mails, all very last-minute. Happily, chez Jour is just large enough to accommodate the dozen or so who saw fit to turn up without anyone having to go out on the roof. And I’d hate to do that to a body in this weather, really I would.
At one point, discussing the painting of the Italian Renaissance and the Low Countries, the conversation segued elegantly to the revelation that there is an exhibition at the Royal Academy of pictures of women with come on them. If true, I am so there.
By 3 a.m. I was left with two rather drunken but helpful guests who collected bowls and glasses, loaded the dishwasher, and shooed out the neighbor’s cat. But they were clearly not in any condition to drive. Sleeping arrangements had to be sorted. Unfortunately, the two remainders were N and First Date, the fellow I disastrously slept with last week.
We hung on to the last shreds of conversation until it was far too late to do anything else. N was clearly not going anywhere in a hurry, and neither was First Date-I expect he wanted to get me alone again. It was well past my accustomed bedtime and I hoped one or the other of them would give up and go home, but they did not. “Well,” I said. “The bed sleeps two and there are three of us-so it’s the sofa for some unlucky soul, I believe.”
They looked at each other. They looked at me. Neither volunteered for the sofa. Neither volunteered for the bed.
“Seeing as the two of you are both tall, why don’t you boys take the bed? I’m the only one short enough to sleep here easily.” Again, no response. “Don’t all volunteer at once, guys.”
Another minute of silence passed while I tried to decipher the eyebrow semaphore that passed between them. “I’ll have the sofa,” First Date offered. We took turns changing in the bathroom and I brought out a quilt and two blankets before turning in. First Date spread out the blankets.
“It’s going to be cold tonight,” I said. “Won’t you use the quilt?”
He shrugged. “Leave it out, just in case.”
N and I went up to the bedroom. N shut the door. “Don’t do that,” I whispered. “He’ll think we’re having sex.” I pulled it ajar.
“Why do you care? Besides, he’s probably already asleep.”
I didn’t know why I cared. It just seemed a bad idea to close the door completely.
A few hours later I woke, mouth dry from too much alcohol. Walked down to the kitchen for a glass of water. First Date was curled tightly on the couch. He’d put on the quilt and looked very cold indeed. I went back up to the bedroom, took out the sheepskin, and wrapped it around his feet. He didn’t wake. jeudi, le 29 janvier
People are either more trusting than I expect them to be or I appear more trustworthy than I am. Recently I successfully strong-armed the landlady into a spot of redecoration at my place. With the excuse that most of the kitchen fittings need replacing anyway, I have made the case for a full-on Chintz Removal which will hopefully culminate in a pagan ritual in which all Colefax and Fowler prints are gleefully thrown onto a crackling blaze.
In the meantime, I will be experiencing minor household disturbance. Not unbelievable, mind, just inconvenient. I was talking to one of the As about the impending redesign recently.
“Well, if they get their pants together at work, I’ll be at a conference the next fortnight. Do you want the keys to mine?”
“Surely, darling, but aren’t you afraid I’ll spill something on the carpet?” A is notoriously fussy about his home and has been known to reserve only a single shelf for his girlfriend’s belongings. Even if she lives there.
“I trust you,” he said, sipping a whisky and soda. “I know you know how to iron the sections of the paper just as I like them.”
Ah, if only he were kidding.
Another case in point: a recent customer booked me for the better part of an evening at his own home. Having exhausted most of a bottle of gin, the springs of his bed, and all reasonable conversation, he slipped away for a quick shower.
Such interludes make me nervous. It’s not as if I plan to rob the place, but I am a compulsive confessor-even to things I haven’t done. At school if the entire form was being reprimanded for the action of a single student, I am sure I felt the guilt most of all. Especially if I wasn’t involved.
Most customers are wary of us anyway-when in their own home instead of a hotel, they more often put off the bathing ritual or suggest a joint shower, so as not to leave me alone. I’m not offended.
But this client, he threw on a dressing gown and scampered off to the bath. I sat on the couch. Considered pawing through his CD collection, but decided that would be rude. I carefully examined the watercolors on the wall. And with nothing more to do, no calls to make or return, nothing to read, I did what any reasonable person would do.
He emerged from the bathroom to find me busily washing up.
Perhaps I am more trustworthy than I thought. vendredi, le 30 janvier
Snow yesterday afternoon-near UCL, students dashed out of the Union and Archaeology to gather up handfuls of snow and throw them at each other. Clusters of girls walked by in twos and threes, huddling under umbrellas. Though it had gone dark, the light was calm, diffuse: a warm glow of streetlights reflecting off the puffy duvet-sized flakes coming down.
I went to meet A2, who hasn’t had a date any time this geological era. He recently hooked up with someone at a conference, though, a girl from Manchester. It seems a long way to go for sex. He assures me it isn’t just about the sex. A2 is a great chap, but an extremely poor liar.
We installed ourselves in a gastropub-cum-bar to watch the buses outside pile up in the icy street. It was one of these places with a high ratio of leather seating to bar space, where they turn up the music automatically at 7 p.m. regardless of how many customers are inside. We were practically shouting over the background noise to hear each other.
“So what do you think of latex?” A2 bellowed.
“Latex?” I asked, unsure if I misheard. “A good idea, generally.” Unhappily, I am discovering a recent sensitivity to the stuff, having come away from a blowjob at work with swollen, tingling lips. Hardly a scientific experiment, though. It could just as easily have been the spermicide on the Durex.
“No, I mean like-” he mimed putting on a rubber glove. “Latex. The feel of it, you know, for-”
“You’re talking about rubber sex already?”
“She’s a hell of a girl,” he mused. “So, have you ever done it?”
The squeaky squeaky? “Not full coverage, no. You mean with the catheter and head mask and everything? No.” Ugh. Up your urethra is probably the least arousing phrase I can imagine, ever.
“I so want to go there.”
“Careful, you’ll scare her off.”
“It was her idea. So-tips?”
“Lots of baby powder, I should think. I don’t even want to think about what this would smell like.”
“Mmm, I do.”
Where do people come up with this stuff? And wouldn’t it get rather sweaty in there? “Freak. You said this was-and I quote-not just a sex thing.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Who, me?” I put a hand to my chest in mock surprise. “I would absolutely never. I’m as pure as the you-know-what,” I said, nodding toward the snow outside.
“Sure you wouldn’t. You having another?” A2 yelled over a god-awful cover song by an unmentionable boy band.
“Something hot, if they have it. With plenty of alcohol. Only way to banish this music. And the mental image of you humping a blow-up doll.” samedi, le 31 janvier
In weather like this, one must admit defeat, ignore the “never too thin” mantra altogether and give in to a new paradigm. This can best be summarized as the tights-fishnets-socks under trousers, “please don’t let me have to use a public toilet juggling all this getup” design for life. It is perhaps a small price to pay for living in a winter wonderland of slush.
And in such days as these, only a cad would casually throw out a line like “You’ve gained some on the hips.” Which is why I had to kill N and bury the corpse under a layer of permafrost on Hampstead Heath. No jury would convict.