The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (11 page)

‘That’s great,’ I said. He’d been dealing drugs? I’d had no idea; clearly the Jewish matriarchal sign language has evolved to include such things and I simply have failed to keep up.

‘You should ring him up sometime,’ Mum said. ‘You two were always so close.’

‘Were close. I wonder what we’d have in common now.’ Apart from making a living on the fringes of legal society, I mean.

‘He seemed to think you should go out and visit,’ she said. ‘I told him your work kept you very busy, though.’

Hmm. Late winter in rainy, crowded London or holiday in the sun? Maybe instead of following Giles to his new company, what I really needed was some time off to think about it. Somewhere warm would be nice. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I think I may have some extensive holiday coming up.’

Silly idea, really. Tempting. But silly. Yes. Silly.

mercredi, le 8 décembre

Saw a little girl – maybe ten years old or so? – in Brent Cross yesterday, wearing a pink shirt that had a picture of a bunny and the message ‘ Get Lost’. Was tempted to offer her money for the shirt.

jeudi, le 9 décembre

Not being a call girl any more has its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage: leg coverings. No matter how long the coat, how clingy and luscious the skirt, how reliable the stockings, you will catch a chill. The top half is usually underdressed, too (shockingly few punters request cardies), but not to such an extent as the lower half. These days I could go out in cords over tights if I liked, all tucked into fuzzy boots, with no ill consequence save my own sartorial embarrassment.

Disadvantage: transport. Though underdressed for a cold night, one does usually get from point A to point B in a taxi while working the sex trade. Now I stand at a cold bus stop, or sweat down the back of my jumper on an overheated Tube train, and wonder why people choose to leave home at all.

Advantage: selective party attendance. No longer am I required to make someone else’s night sparkle. Granted, I spend a lot of time reading in the bath, wondering whether I am still capable of making my own nights sparkle, but at least I don’t have to feign interest in work-related conversations while my drunken client staggers into the women’s loo. At times my work role was more babysitter than sexpot.

Disadvantage: spending money. Giving lavish gifts is the high point of winter, as is drinking bottle after bottle of pricey fizz – largely to distract the population from the cold. The benefit of hourly, cash-in-pocket work is being able to hit the shops on the way home. And possibly even emerge with a gift for someone.

Advantage: throwing away the fuzzy red knickers for ever. Whoever decided sexy women and Father Christmas were a logical cross should be strung up.

Disadvantage: having to buy my own champers. Advantage: sunshine. Since a British winter has, on average, about fifteen nanoseconds of daylight from now until March, I spent a lot of previous winter days asleep after late nights out – and never seeing the sun at all.

Disadvantage: personal grooming. I’m no couch potato, but then again, knowing significantly fewer people are going to see me wearing less than three layers this winter is no incentive to keep up with sit-ups, waxing or the like. Sometimes I worry the Boy will tell people my previous occupation – then relax, because the state I’m in, no one would believe it.

vendredi, le 10 décembre

‘You can’t be seriously considering it,’ the Boy said, flipping through old magazines. We’d just come from the shower, where we’d had a lovely fuck. It was like when we were a new couple, it was that good. We’d started by lathering each other, then I fingered his pucker while sucking him off, then he’d taken me up the arse. ‘That would possibly count as the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’

I shot him a look. This from someone who spent the last three years ‘in between jobs’ while I was paying a small fortune in taxes? Typical attitude of his class, I thought. They can coast indefinitely and never look the worse for it; but if you’re middle-class and take a sick day you’re shirking duty to God and country.

‘Besides,’ he said, ‘no one really does the whole gap year thing any more. That’s so ten years ago.’

‘Except Susie, of course,’ I said.

‘Pardon?’

‘Susie. Your friend. You know, the one who has her post delivered to your house. You said she was off travelling, right?’

‘What are you implying? She’s just someone I know. It’s not like I’m sleeping with her. I mean, she’s fat and smokes and reads Heat. She’s just keeping a few things at my house, and that’s it.’

Wow, methinks the man doth protest too much. ‘Mmm,’ I said. ‘Well, it’s a tempting offer. I’d love to get some travelling in while I’m still young. And I haven’t seen my cousin in so long. We used to be very close. I hardly feel connected to anyone in the family any more.’ That’s it, play the filial guilt card, he can’t possibly begrudge me that. I despise myself sometimes.

samedi, le 11 décembre

The Boy was hardly out the door when I checked the keystroke logs on the computer. I had been at work most of Friday, so he’d had a wide-open opportunity to snoop on my computer.

And he took it, that much was clear. He’d been careful to erase his history in the Web browser so I wouldn’t know, and had made a more-or-less good effort to replace everything on the computer desk just where it was, so it appeared he hadn’t even turned it on. But he hadn’t known about the keystroke logger and I could see everything. He’d checked up on my diary, then cycled through my recent Web activity. And then—What ho? What is this?

Checked his email – password easier to guess than I would have imagined, not that I’d have to guess it now. And then. His own anonymous blog, publically posted on the internet for anyone to see.

I logged on and had a look – and my heart sank. Oh, he was still seeing Susie, all right. She was away in South-east Asia visiting her dad, but they were definitely still on as far as he was concerned. I guess it was nothing I hadn’t already known, in my heart of hearts, but still it stung. He even posted some of the things she’d been sending him, comparing the way she was to the way I am.

That was the horror of it: seeing her most recent email, and how banal it was. She had had food poisoning. Her father’s new wife is only a few years older than she is. Had he received her gift in the post yet? If not, never mind. Looking forward to seeing him soon – maybe he could fly out in January?

Love, Kitty.

And that hurt. To find Susie calling herself by the same pet name he’d always used for me was a painful thing to read.

But not as much as finding out about all the other girls.

dimanche, le 12 décembre

Recipe for relationship failure:

Take one large resentment. Age well over time. Marinate with many and detailed notes on what a horrible person your girlfriend has been. Season with endless rehash of her prior job. Stir well with accusations of her cheating to take the focus off your own extracurricular activities, which turn out to be many and varied.

Keep online diary recording your chunterings and conquests, which she finds.

Prepare self for when she opts in favour of extended holiday abroad.

lundi, le 13 décembre

It’s the time of year for one of my favourite things: port with cheese. Granted, this could easily be done year-round – cheese already forms a large part of my diet, usually in pickle sandwich form. But there’s something so succulent about port and cheese when it is, to paraphrase Donne, the year’s midnight.

It remains one of the great disappointments of adult life that the best port list I ever laid eyes on was in the first-class section of a rather nice airline (rather nice, because they upgraded me). Unfortunately it was August and I couldn’t bring myself to spoil my winter treat. Also, port on an aero-plane? No, really … port on an aeroplane?

It’s a truism that food and sex are not only similarly pleasurable, but also may be enjoyed together. Countless Mills and Boon novels and the entire oeuvre of Mickey Rourke have told us so. Usually I would agree, but in the case of port and cheese, I must strenuously argue against. As a prelude to sex, yes, a thoughtfully selected 1985 vintage and some Dorset Blue Vinny can be as potent a seduction tool as a Barry White album. But in the bedroom itself? Never.

Please allow me to qualify the statement. Bailey’s is a perfectly acceptable tipple to lick out of the small of a lover’s back. Drops of whisky are like a particularly erotic perfume and I’ve certainly had a gin cocktail, if you know what I mean. But port? In front of the fire, in a small glass, and quite emphatically sitting up.

And, if things with the Boy continue as they are now, possibly the only satisfaction I’ll be enjoying over the coming holiday season.

mardi, le 14 décembre

After lunch I pop by Erin’s desk to ‘borrow’ her stapler – mine has been nicked by Jojo, the Malaysian in Personnel. Erin’s still at lunch. When I put the stapler back it moves the mouse, and her computer screen comes back to life. A chat window is open.

The employees all use a messenger program to communicate between offices – it’s more convenient than phoning and, I’ve found, saves time when asking questions. Erin’s been chatting with Giles, I see. He’s almost always online.

hey sexy

Still thinking about this morning ;)

my fingers still smell of you

Off to lunch now … maybe organise a ‘private meeting’ later?

My face goes beet red. Not embarrassment; anger. Stupid, stupid girl, I think. And then I wonder how much of this goes on with the Boy and Susie when I’m not around.

Idiots, I think with real hatred. Every one of them. Erin and the Boy. Susie and Giles. What is wrong with men? Why do they need to lie, run around, and generally hurt as many people as possible in pursuit of nothing better than a screw? If they really need to get their end away, why can’t they do it with a whore?

I’d seen the Boy’s pictures of Susie online. She was very young, flat-chested, with short, spiky hair and glasses. The sort of girl I would have pegged as a lesbian, Hey, calm down – I went to a girls’ school. But in spite of the fact that I knew I was prettier, that he thought her stupid and hated her smoking, it wasn’t much consolation. It made the whole affair, in fact, slightly worse.

And that’s what I think about this discovery: how can Erin be involved with Giles? How could someone as singularly annoying as her, as rigorously average, be hanging off the end of his cock for fun? How, in any sort of fair world, does this happen?

My heartbeat is thick in my ears. If it was another place, another time, I’d wait at her desk until she came back and smack her one. Now I just imagine doing so, over and over, and the adrenalin makes me feel ill. Back at my desk I open a chat window and type in a message to Erin. You idiot, I write. Do you want to tell your boyfriend or shall I? Shall I? Shall I blow the whistle on Erin? Shall I email Susie and tell her what her so-called boyfriend’s really been up to while she sends back world-weary missives from the Let’s Go! circuit? But my finger hovers over the return key that will send the message, seemingly endlessly, and I find I have neither the hate nor the guts to send it, in the end.

mercredi, le 15 décembre

Met a gentleman late, at his house.

It was an old client. I was there on business.

I needed the money to offset costs for the rest of the month. I needed to go out and relax with an old friend, someone I knew would not judge me. I needed to feel wanted without the problem of having to establish that it was just for companionship and sex, not for ever. And N was busy with his new girl.

Was it cheating? Yes, it was cheating. I’m a fucking hypocrite. I wouldn’t have rung the client, wouldn’t have even thought of it, if not for that diary. The Boy thought my going to dinner with N justified a drama? He can take a fucking flying leap. What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, you know. I found myself on the other end of the client/whore relationship for once. I needed a quick release, no strings attached. I needed N, but he was off with his new girl, and I didn’t want to have to make that call, anyway.

I needed to get the Boy off my mind for a few hours.

The client, M, is older, short but elegant. An ex-jockey who works in the City and keeps a mews house for the weekdays. Likes: white wine, white knickers and light domination. Dislikes: talking about his family, meeting before 10 p.m., paying in small bills. I always left M’s house with a fistful of pinks.

He didn’t ask questions when I rang him. He said he was free and he’d see me at ten. He handed the cash over. We got straight down to business: brief kissing, his eyes closed, mine open; I stripped slowly, shoes first so we were on eye level. Kneeled to take him in my mouth briefly, looking up to meet his eyes. Stood up and he turned me round. His hands were small and rough; he caressed my bottom and bent me over the sofa. Usually he likes me on top, but this time we didn’t even make it to the bedroom. He asked if he could come on me – I said yes; he pulled the condom off and ejaculated on the small of my back.

We were lounging on the floor, half dressed, when he finally asked. He’d rung the agency a month ago; they sent another girl in my place. ‘So why all of a sudden, out of the blue like this?’

I shrugged and drained my wineglass. He refilled it. ‘No good reason,’ I said.

He nodded. The details weren’t important. If there was something in my voice, or in my eyes, he let it go. And then the oddest thing. He started telling me about his family, here was a picture of his wife; about his daughter, an artist. He had saved clippings from the paper where her work was mentioned; here was a black-and-white photo, of a curly-haired Jewish woman. His daughter.

Who was older than me.

At the end of the appointment I went up for a shower. Next to the bath was a hairbrush, and wound through it long, dark hair. Just like his wife’s hair. Like his daughter’s. Or it could have been another call girl’s.