Call Girl Confidential (3 page)

I was afraid too. I had heard of incidents where escorts had been killed after meeting men online. Kristin knew only a little about “Stephen,” and I wondered if she had screened him. Screening is when your boss, your pimp, your madam—whatever you want to call them—makes sure that the person on the other side of that door is who they say they are and that they are safe. Looking back now, again, how does anyone know who is safe, by the sound of their name and their credit card number or which hotel they are staying in? No bodyguard would be going with me to wait just outside the door and listen to make sure everything was all right. I would be totally on my own. And doing God knows what.

I thought about my pastor back home in North Carolina. “Revelation 21:8!” he would fairly holler. “ ‘But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.' ”

I would find out later that the first death was even closer than I realized. A few months after I started, Kristin's booker, Lucy, began surreptitiously booking us and taking the 50 percent cut for herself. She didn't screen clients at all. She didn't care about us, as long as she got her percentage of the thousands of dollars we would make from one encounter as she sat there and did
nothing. One night she sent me to Washington, D.C., where I was truly terrified that I would be badly hurt, if not murdered, like one of those girls you hear about on the news.

“Rebecca, are you there?” asked Kristin. “Look, do you want to do this or not? Because he wants you there at eight o'clock, and if you're not up for this, I've got to call another girl. It's not anything you wouldn't do with your boyfriend; I know this guy enough to know he's not a freak. And by nine o'clock, you'll be a thousand dollars richer.”

I had no choice.

“OK,” I said. “I'll do it.”

“That's my girl! Wear lacy lingerie. He likes that.”

Great,
I thought.
I have none of that. I will have to go shopping, which means the profit from this encounter will be minimal.
But I had a feeling I would soon be making some real money.

I
will never forget that night. One usually goes directly to the gentleman's room; sometimes they even leave a key card for you in a magazine in the lobby. But they were renovating the Parker Méridien, and I had to meet this stranger outside on the sidewalk so he could escort me into the hotel as if we were a couple.

I shivered in the freezing January evening, and as the clock ticked past our appointed hour, I started to get anxious. Had he seen me, changed his mind, and turned on his heel? Maybe I wasn't tall enough, or perhaps he preferred brunettes. I called Lucy and wondered if I had mixed something up. She told me to wait while she called the client to see what the problem was. It seemed an eternity and I called Lucy again. “Where is this guy?” I asked in exasperation. She confirmed the time and
place and instructed me to continue to wait and I was not to leave. I was miserable. I was literally standing out on the street, waiting for a john. Is this what I had reduced myself to? At that moment, I did feel like a $20 corner hooker. I felt like running home, but I was already out cab fare and would have to spend more going home, and that was money I could not afford. I was that broke.

Finally, a tall man in his forties approached and said, “Ashley?” (That was the name I'd decided to use.) He apologized profusely, as he had been waiting on the Fifty-Sixth Street side of the hotel. Being from out of town, he didn't know that West Fifty-Seventh Street is one of New York City's main thoroughfares, with Carnegie Hall just steps away. He seemed pleasant enough, but I was still overcome with the feeling of despair that had overtaken me. But I knew he would sense it, so I willed myself to snap out of it.

I tried not to call attention to myself as he led me through the Parker Méridien lobby and I clickety-clacked across the hotel's marble floors in white-and-gold four-inch stilettos. They were still in my closet from my nightclub days, and they matched a tight white dress I had that looked good with my hair. I was all white and virginal, but underneath I had on a thong and lace push-up corset. What kind of job dictates your underwear? The job I was about to begin.

The elevator went up with a whoosh and I tottered down the thickly carpeted hallway with him to Room 3606. My heart was doing a drumroll in my chest.

He unlocked the door and held it open for me. “Well, come in . . .” he said. It was the first time I was able to get a good look at him. He looked fine. He helped me off with my coat. He was
making me feel at ease—more of a gentleman than I had expected. He had a big smile, so I guess he liked what he saw. That was a relief. He had a deep voice, and he was wearing charcoal-gray trousers, a French-cuffed shirt, and a fleur-de-lis-patterned tie, a bit loosened. “I'm Stephen,” he said. “And did I get it right? Ashley? A beautiful name, befitting a beautiful lady.”

Ashley was to be my nom de guerre. From that moment on, until the time I walked out his door, I was the persona Ashley. Rebecca no longer existed. I had to push everything about the real me aside and lock it away in my purse. Who I was, all the things about me that would identify me—the things I really cared about, things I liked—were hidden. I morphed into the woman I thought he wanted. It would become my modus operandi with every client: I had different names and different personalities. It was more for my sake than theirs. If it was all pretend, then it was easier to emerge from afterward. At the time I thought it was more to hide who I was from them so I could keep my identity unknown, but later I would realize that it was most definitely for me. I could not have done this job if I even minutely felt it was the real me. I would “flip the switch.” You will hear me say that from time to time, because later I literally had to keep track of how many switches I was flipping at once. But for now, it was my first encounter as Ashley, and I was terrified. I had no idea what to do, really.

I noticed he had a bit of gray at his temples, and he seemed pleasant enough. “Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“Just a Coke, if you have it,” I said. What a joke. He could have whatever he wanted at the Parker Méridien. Including, apparently, me.

He had a suite, with a modern Scandinavian dining table, art
all over the walls, and a living room overlooking the lights of New York City. It was bigger than my apartment. He led me to the sofa, and I wondered if he could tell if I was nervous.

“You sure you don't want a little Jack Daniel's in your soda?” he asked as he handed it to me. “I thought I detected a drawl, and I know Southern girls like their bourbon.”

Did all the other girls drink a lot? I wondered. Did they party, do drugs? Was I supposed to do that too? Kristin hadn't warned me about this. I was never one to get drunk or do drugs, and I was improvising as I went along.

“No, this is fine, thanks,” I said, and he proceeded to ask me where I was from, what I was doing in New York. Basically he asked me all about myself, and I chattered on nervously. I didn't tell him I had a daughter. I didn't tell him why I was doing this, and he didn't ask. I asked him about himself, and he said he was with an oil company that was exploring other sources of energy. Not for how it would help the planet, but because it would create other revenue streams for the company. He asked me if I'd heard which shows on Broadway were getting good reviews. He took his time and acted as if he didn't have a care in the world, and he didn't seem to notice that we had been chatting for nearly an hour.

After a little while, though, he did become restless, and I knew that he needed something a bit more entertaining.

“I notice that you brought a bag along with you,” he said. “Would you mind sharing what you have in there with me?”

Blood rushed to my face. I knew from Kristin's bag-of-tricks talk that for this client that meant modeling lingerie for him. Kristin had encouraged me to put it on in the bathroom and strut out with the seductive confidence of Sharon Stone in
Basic Instinct
.

I honestly would have preferred to be shot at that moment. I was way too shy. I smiled nervously and slipped off into the marble bathroom and locked the door.

I must have spent fifteen minutes in there, changing. I was terrified.

“Do you need any help in there?” he called. “Or should I just get naked and come in there and we can take a shower together?”

“I'll be right out!” I squeaked.

I unlocked and slowly opened the door. I was wearing a black-and-flesh-colored lace push-up corset and garters with black stockings and five-inch heels. He was extremely pleased. I started to talk flirty and even a little dirty, and he became . . . even happier.

He asked for me to keep it all on and he lifted me off the ground and effortlessly placed me on the bed. He left his shirt and tie on, and I saw that he had begun to sweat. He unbuckled his belt with one hand without looking, and his pants dropped down.

He wasn't wearing any underwear, and I could see how hard he was. And then, after all my anxiety, it was over in less than two minutes.

He finished and threw himself on his back next to me, breathing as if he had just run the New York Marathon.

Then I just got up, picked up my things, and got dressed. He paid me in cash and said, “I hope to see you again on my next trip,” as he helped me on with my coat. He led me to the door, and just before I went out he kissed my hand. He was a gentleman—unlike several famous clients I was yet to meet. But I had crossed a line that night. I had lost . . . innocence.

Could I do this again? I asked myself as I descended in the
mirrored elevator, regarding my reflection. I knew I would take a long hot shower when I got home. But I also knew my answer by the time I had hailed a cab. With his generous tip, I had $4,500 in my purse—in cash. The cab ride would be no worry this time. Yes, I would do it again.

I
called Kristin as soon as I got into the taxi.

“Wow, you were there for a good long while,” she said. “How was it?”

“Different,” I replied. “I don't know if I know what I'm doing.”

“Oh, you know what you're doing, honey.”

“I felt guilty—he had a wedding ring on,” I fretted.

“Girl, did you just fall off the turnip truck?” she chided. “Half the men you're going to be with are married. They're faithful to their wives when they're home in East Ashtray, Texas, but when they're on the road, well . . . what their wives don't know won't hurt 'em. I think married movie stars call it a ‘location lay'—ha. Listen, he paid you in cash, right?”

“Yes, I have it.”

“Good,” Kristin said. “You wanna work tomorrow night?”

W
hen I finally got home, I couldn't get the keys in the lock quickly enough. I stripped down completely. I put everything in the washer and jumped into the shower. I was numb. I slid down onto the shower floor, hugging my knees, and cried.

I prayed,
Please, dear God, forgive me.
I cried all night, and I was afraid of God all night. In the morning I snapped out of it when I looked over at my daughter's empty room.
Anything,
I thought
. I will do anything to get her back.

If the worst thing I do is let others take my body to pay these impossible bills, I will answer to God for that. But she will not
suffer because her father wants to go to war with me. I will give everything I have, even my body, myself.

I ran out of funds just a few months after the custody battle began in 2005. Soon I would go to work at my regular day job and then afterward I would work for Kristin. I was working days and working nights, because Isabella was not in my home. She was with him.

I don't think I ever felt comfortable or got used to the idea of working during my time as a call girl with Kristin. Maybe it was the clients, or maybe it was seeing the other girls and how they reacted to the job. Sometimes I couldn't tell if I was crying because I missed Isabella, I was disgusted at myself, I was sad because I felt I was losing in court, or because no matter how hard I worked, it was never enough money. I could feel myself falling apart. There were days when I thought I was truly losing my mind; I would have panic attacks and breathe into a paper bag to try and get myself to calm down. I realized more than ever that I had to separate myself, the girl I truly was, from the girl these men wanted and needed me to be and that I was getting paid to be. The effort it takes to achieve that is nearly impossible but absolutely necessary. It never got easier to do the job. The only thing that got easier was pretending that it didn't bother me and that I loved each and every one of my clients. There is no time for a real life. You go into survival mode. And that is what I did and have done for years.

I would pull all-nighters for Kristin, sometimes working until four or five in the morning, then get a couple of hours of sleep and get to work by 8:30 a.m. Then I'd do it all over again. It was exhausting, but I had to pay the attorneys and the rent on my apartment and buy Isabella things. And I had to look good for my night job, and that cost money. A lot of money.

A regular girl running around New York may think about her manicure and pedicure, her highlights and waxing and even a few extras along the way, but an escort for whom men pay thousands of dollars is at another level of maintenance entirely. The clients expected it. No, they demanded it. I had to make sure my highlights were touched up frequently and had my hair blown out several times a week. I had to be immaculately manicured, pedicured, and waxed. Frequent facials. Eyelashes put on every two weeks, spray tanning every three to four days, so you have that perfect glow and look as though you just returned from St. Barts.