Adventures of a London Call Boy (10 page)

She was an enthusiastic partner, urging me to thrust harder and deeper, noisily expressing herself as she came. The quivers inside her aroused me and soon I was coming again, clasping her around her slim waist and drawing her towards me.

Later, we lay together, naked on the bed.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?' she said.

‘Do you smoke?' I said.

‘No. But I think I probably should. Is it always like that?'

‘Sometimes. I must say that even in a professional capacity, that was very enjoyable.'

She laughed. ‘It's never been like that before. Not even when I've, you know …'

‘Done it yourself?'

She giggled. ‘Yes.'

‘It's just a question of patience.'

‘But some women never come.'

‘I've not met any. Or at least not that I've known.'

She looked at me, propping her chin on her hand.

‘Why are you a gigolo, Cesc?' she asked.

‘Well I'm not. Not really. I'm relatively new to this.'

‘Really?' she said. ‘You seem very professional.'

‘I was a committed amateur for a long time.'

She laughed again. After a while, idly running a hand along her flank, I spoke.

‘Like a lot of things. For the money. I got into it a bit by accident. I'm really only starting up. I think in the eyes of the law I have to call myself an escort.'

‘You can escort me all you like,' she said, half cringing to herself.

‘Do you want me to see you again?' I asked.

‘It's tricky. Yes. I'd like to. I need to make sure my fiancé's away.'

‘You should make him try harder. You deserve it. And by the way, using a vibrator during sex is perfectly fair game too.'

‘OK.' She looked at the clock: we'd been there for a lot longer than I'd imagined. ‘You should go, though. I'm sorry.'

‘Don't apologise. The customer's always right,' I said.

Although I didn't see her as often as the others, ‘Sophie' became the third client on my growing list.

Chapter Twenty-four

With three clients, I felt capable of setting up something like a business. Maybe ‘outfit' is better. I've never had much of a head for business, but luckily I had some good advice. J. pointed me in the direction of some listings mags, and Celeste took it upon herself to tell a few people she knew who might be interested.

I also learnt the lessons of my experience Internet dating. I deleted the various profiles that I had on contact sites, and instead focused my attention on one website that elegantly skirted around the fact that it was effectively a forum for offering sex for money. I thought about image: I wanted to make it clear that I offered great sex to women who wanted it; I wasn't a stripper, I wasn't some sort of disciplinarian and I didn't go with men.

J. pointed out a few things about the financial side: it might look odd that I was paying rent, buying clothes, indeed eating and living without any discernible income. I had two options, she suggested. Either disappear and reappear under an assumed name (apparently this is relatively easy and happens a lot, certainly in the world of business and particularly in businesses related to matters sexual), or run something relatively legit, ‘admit' what I earned from that, and pay tax.

I've never been a great one for tax, and the thought of giving a percentage of my clients' fuck money to the government seemed strange. But given a choice between screwing for money and paying tax, or being screwed in the butt to stay alive in jail, I chose the sensible option. At the same time, it was also clear that, like taxi drivers who live in mansions in Epping but admit to earning only £8K a year, my escort business did not need to be particularly lucrative.

The other good thing about the profession was the freebies: dinners out, occasional gifts and, of course, the little number I had going on free clothes. Most of my dates were local, and occasionally I'd even get picked up. Rich women can be very generous. And I noticed that as the business developed, the women seemed to get wealthier. Wealthier, and increasingly decadent.

So, technically, in the eyes of the law, and as far as the adverts I post seem to say, I am an escort. I have set up as a business, and any income on those activities is taxable. I don't solicit: it is almost always the woman who asks. Sometimes escort work turns into call-guying, sometimes it doesn't. But you won't find me on a street corner, and I don't go cold calling.

It wasn't all simple at first. One of my first problems was the name. Cesc Aleixandre is a hell of a mouthful. Although it sounds suitably exotic for the job, it brings a whole series of problems. Firstly, no one can pronounce it, particularly not the first few clients. After a couple of weeks, I got a call:

‘Hi. Is that Cisco,' said a voice that reeked of smoke and excess.

‘Yes, that's me. It's Cesc.'

‘Ah, Kesc, sorry.'

‘No, don't worry, everyone gets it wrong.'

Curiously, that girl had a particular talent for getting it wrong. When we met, she greeted me as Chesc. I corrected her again, and she apologised, but I realised that it was becoming faintly awkward. I didn't even try telling her my surname. She was independently wealthy, tall, formerly married to a banker, slightly horsy looking, and, I soon found out, a frustrated pervert who with my help became a former frustrated pervert. Let's call her Virginia, or V.

During our first session, V. called me ‘Fran', ‘Chesc', and ‘Kesc'. As she was coming, she used another name altogether, which I could barely make out through the silk scarf she'd had me knot in her mouth, but, if memory served, I discovered later to be that of one of her dogs.

I thought long and hard about how to make my name pronounceable and memorable. Celeste advised that I change it, offering a series of increasingly ridiculous names.

‘What about Dick Wood?' she suggested.

‘I'm not a porn star,' I answered.

‘So? How about Max Hardman?'

‘Look, that's ridiculous. I'm not some steroid-pumped Viagra-popping American. I need something that suggests a bit of class and discernment. Which my own name does perfectly well.'

‘But what good is that if no one can say it or remember it?'

‘Well maybe once they've shouted it out in orgasmic reverie a few times, they should remember.'

‘Ahh,' said Celeste, puffing on her cigarette and trying to get the attention of a waiter inside, before giving up and flicking her ash onto the table, ‘that's the problem though, isn't it. What if you don't get that far? What if they don't hire you? Because you have a silly name.'

I gave her a dirty look, but had to admit there was some sense in her argument. That week another client called. Before we'd even got down to discussing the details of the assignment, she was questioning me about the name.

‘Where's it from?'

‘It's kind of Spanish,' I said.

‘Kind of?' she asked.

‘Yes. It's a long story. I can tell you later, if you really like.'

‘Well later I think we'll have better things to do, don't you think?'

So I started telling her about my family, but after a few moments I realised that I was boring her. I tried to return to the matter of the assignment, but it was clear that in the few seconds I'd wasted she'd changed her mind. She made some sort of half-baked excuse to put me on hold, and then cut me off. I rang back, but the phone was off. I never like looking desperate, so I left it at that. I realised that my name had lost me a pay cheque.

‘This is serious, Celeste,' I said to her later, at the flat.

‘What is?'

‘I lost a client because of my name.'

‘Really? I did warn you. So are you going to change it? I've thought of a really good one.'

I gave a look that I hoped would make it clear that I wasn't in the market for a fake moniker. But she carried on regardless.

‘Here. It's perfect. You should call yourself “Ace McFuck”.'

‘Celeste, that's not even a name. None of the elements of it are a name.'

‘Mc is a name,' she said, with a shrug. ‘And I've got a friend called Ace.'

‘I've met him. His name is Alistair. And he's a twat.'

‘You're so ungrateful. I'm just trying to help your career.'

‘I'm not calling myself Ace McFuck.'

‘Is it because you don't like the Scottish? Are you being racist? You know my Dad is Scottish?'

‘No. No. And yes, I do.'

‘So Ace Fuck then?'

‘No,' I said, trying not to shout at her. She was clearly enjoying my predicament far too much.

The answer came a few weeks later, with V.

‘Tell me about your name,' she said, lounging on a thick rug in front of the fire in one of the living rooms in her Maida Vale town house. It was one of three properties she keeps in the city, this one being dedicated to her arty projects and business ventures. And, it seemed, to the pursuit of sex.

We'd just finished an acrobatic session trying out a series of sex toys that she'd been importing. It turned out she'd been using some of her vast fortune to start an erotic emporium for discerning ladies who know. She obviously didn't need the money, but it was at least something she had a real interest in, or least seemed to, given her reaction to my use of a vibrating jade cock-ring imported from Japan.

‘Why not tell me about yours?' I said.

‘Mine's boring. Very ordinary. Besides, it's false, of course. Yours has something exotic, yet true, about it.'

I tried to avoid taking the mickey out of her rather over-the-top analyses, and instead explained briefly the complicated story of my family history, and the source of a name that sounds foreign pretty much anywhere. I kept it brief: she was a busy woman who bored easily; I'd also learnt my lesson from the previous case of the lost client. I also mentioned the problem that I had with no one being able to pronounce or remember it.

‘Is that a problem? I mean you're not being hired for conversation,' she said.

I felt, very briefly, insulted, before realising that it was an odd sort of compliment.

‘Well, technically I'm an escort. So you could hire me for a chat.'

‘Like a therapist,' she suggested.

‘Yes. But you're right. I don't get hired for the talk. The problem is it doesn't really help the marketing.'

‘Quite the young entrepreneur, aren't you,' she said, half mocking.

‘Everyone has to take care of business, no?'

She nodded.

‘How is it pronounced again?' she asked.

‘Cesc,' I said, stressing the s sounds.

‘Hmm. Ssesssk,' she said. ‘You need a lot of tongue for that. No wonder you're so good at what you do.'

‘Thanks.'

‘You know it sounds a bit like Sex.'

I looked at her.

‘You're a genius. That's it.'

‘You're welcome. Now, go and put that tongue to work, will you.'

It was the least I could do.

The Joy of Cesc
, I thought.

Chapter Twenty-five

Back at the flat, I talked about it with Celeste. I told her about the conversation with V.

‘That's the horsy one, right?' she said.

‘Don't call her that. And don't tell anyone I called her that. I don't want anyone to think I talk about clients in disrespectful terms.'

‘Right. But you do though. Quite a lot,' Celeste said.

‘That's not true. I'm not as bad as you, anyway.'

‘Look, forget it. What about the name?'

‘She said it sounded like Sex.'

‘Well you certainly smell like it,' Celeste said.

‘It's just my natural pheromones,' I replied.

‘Bullshit. Anyway, you need something like a tag line,' Celeste said. ‘Something unique, something to brand you.'

‘To brand me? That sounds painful. Have you been reading
The Story of O
again?' I asked.

‘You know I hate that book. It was the worst present you ever bought me.'

‘You're so ungrateful.'

‘Sounds like Sex. Well I suppose it does a bit.' She pondered my name and its sound for a few seconds. ‘Sounds like Sex would be quite a cool name,' she suggested, after a while.

‘I've got something better,' I said.

‘Really? What?'

‘Wait for it …
The Joy of Cesc.
'

‘Hmm,' said Celeste, apparently unconvinced.

‘It's a great name for a call guy service, don't you think?'

She seemed to warm to the idea.

‘I'll admit that, for once, it's not a totally stupid idea. Good work, Cesc. I mean, you need something that will make you instantly memorable. And, I guess, it solves the problem of no one knowing how to pronounce your name.'

So it was settled. I opened a web page with that name, as well as changing my profile on the contact website. It seemed to work. The next couple of calls both got my name right, and both led to what I call passing trade: one-night sessions of paid pleasure that don't turn into a regular deal.

In the meantime, Celeste seemed to be taking far too much interest in my work. A few days later, we were chatting in the living room of the flat. I was getting ready for a date with the raven-haired woman, or Raven, as I'd started to call her on my phone and in my diary. She'd asked me to wear leather, and I was sitting awkwardly on the sofa in a pair of trousers that had cut off the blood supply to my feet.

‘By the way,' Celeste said. ‘I had an idea.'

‘What?'

‘You need cards.'

‘Cards?'

‘Like business cards. Calling cards. It gives a touch of class.'

‘Really?'

She showed me a few samples that a friend of hers printed. I had to admit that they did have an elegant feel to them: thick paper, embossed black ink, and not the sort of thing someone would tear up to use as a filter in a roll-up.

‘I could go for that,' I said.

I paid Celeste to have some cards made up. A few days later, she was back with a slim metal case, containing a deck of business cards.

‘What do you think?'

‘I'm not sure about this. Isn't it going a bit far?'

‘Going further than sleeping with women for money?'

‘We almost never,' I said, ‘sleep.'

‘Just look at the card, Cesc,' she said.

I took a look at the card.

On the back was my mobile number.

It was, as promised, a white card with black embossed lettering. I thought it looked a little bit tacky.

‘You're a gigolo, Cesc, what do you expect?'

‘I'm not a gigolo.'

‘What are you, then?'

‘I don't know. But that's not the word. Certainly as far as the law is concerned, I'm an escort.'

‘Look, don't be so picky. I think they're perfect.'

I wasn't convinced, but I decided to give them a try. I gave a few to J., a couple more to Raven and a handful to V. I didn't let Sophie have any, as I was worried her fiancé might pick them up. Also, I felt rather odd using a girl I in fact quite liked to pick up more trade. I handed over a couple at an erotica shop I knew, where I'd bought a few tools of the trade in the early weeks of my enterprise. I was pleasantly surprised when the cards started to pay off.