Cheryl has been a regular for many years and today her maturity is a calming and necessary force. Cheryl's husband is a well-established gangster. She rang earlier this morning, our appointment was meant for Friday, but her husband needed her for some last minute work 'bash'. I only have an hour to spare and ordinarily I would have turned a woman down on a day like this as, on the whole, and this is a broad generalisation, women are not as easy as men when it comes to being clients. They take longer, run over time more frequently, and they think (sometimes correctly) they can get it for free elsewhere. It is a little known fact that they can actually be pushier than their male counterparts. I'm not complaining, just letting you know it's a busy day - I have to check my emails, go to Tesco, wrap a present for one of my many and growing group of godchildren, get my room ready, see Cheryl, see my solicitor, answer 5 texts from Dan (he just won't leave me alone) have a panic attack and get home in time for the next client (Malcolm Girly Voice). But Cheryl is busy too - she slots me in between shops and pedicures - so there is never that 'time's up' awkwardness. We men are very different; we fire off and then shoot off, a full hour's fee for a twelve-minute 'finger massage'. Doing gay for pay, where full sex is not required, is a lot easier than the physical, emotional and time challenges of doing the full thing with a woman. When I was in Sunday School we had a very forward thinking teacher, Mrs. Edwards, who gave us some very general advice on sex education. 'Men are like gas ovens with on /off heat, women are like electric ovens - they take time to warm up and warm down.' I learned a lot in church.
Cheryl is in her late fifties and on heat. She has a good, full body, not voluptuous but sumptuous, fantastic breasts with big silk nipples, really soft on the tongue and great lips, which she likes to work right the way over my body. When she takes me in her mouth I almost forget that I am the one working for a living. She arrives in my flat a little out of breath and glistening with perspiration. I live on the top floor of a stylish 1740's apartment block. She tells me she has "sat in the cab in her own little wet patch all the way from Oxford Street". Cheryl is the sort of person who calls a spade a spade, and she's "just gagging for it". She is pure, wonderful, sexual filth with an East End laugh. Expensively groomed with peroxide blonde hair and long pearl fingernails - perhaps a little over done - she is, nevertheless, pretty hot stuff and she doesn't exaggerate about being 'wet'.
Never one to hang back she slaps her money on the microwave and puts her hand on my crotch. We don't kiss much. Generally I don't instigate it with female clients, and certainly not ever with men. Cheryl I think prefers it this way, it makes the whole encounter sexually feculent, after all, she's paying me to fuck her not love her.
Now what I like about Cheryl is that she comes to me for one reason only. She is entirely unsympathetic to my psychological or physiological needs; her vagina is the most embracing part of her being, and it's positively vice like. This is post modernist feminism in the naughties. I blame Cosmopolitan, Hillary Clinton and Emily Pankhurst. "I'm not feeling quite myself," I say, throwing my words to deaf ears. Actually I'm in a right mess at the moment and what I need is for someone to pin me back together.
"I've been saving myself up for a month," she says, as if she has ever had to save. "Darling, you got your money, now let's see what you can do with that lovely cock." I feel suitably objectified.
The road to ruin for an escort is paved with endless conversations with people who want to save you but not pay you. Thank God for the likes of Cheryl. I rest my tongue like a baby serpent on my lips, and that's it, she's off, dragging me up the stairs telling me that her pussy is too wet to wait, her black laced bra straining to hold its load, her nipples taut to the bit of her desire, she kicks down the door to the bedroom, pulls down my trousers and sticks me so far down her throat I believe I'm going to push out the other side.
God does she know how to give a blowjob!
She throws me onto the bed, somehow undressing in mid air to mount me. Cheryl is amazing, she can come and come. I don't mean to be crude or gratuitous with sexual description but to really get across what it's like as an escort you are going to need to hear some of that pornish sounding stuff. Cheryl gets into a lovely frenzy, her shaved pussy spasms so much it quakes the whole of her body, sending her into orgasm after orgasm, and soaking my bed and sheets with her cloudy sex milk. I used to think female ejaculation was an urban myth (no doubt invented, I thought, in the minds of men) so when I first met Cheryl I thought she'd wet herself. She builds up from orgasm to orgasm until after about forty minutes or so she can sometimes be in such a state of heightened multiple orgasm that she hardly needs to be touched, just stroking her inner thigh again can set her off in an explosion. The trick to get her there is to stay hard and not come and that's not as easy as it might sound.
It's amazing - her body vibrations as she comes to orgasm are inexplicably electrifying and tangible. She thinks I'm a miracle worker, but it's not me it's in her head. It's the sex she thinks she's having that makes it happen with me and not her husband (shit. he's going to kill me if he ever reads this). In the same way, it's usually true that not being able to orgasm is in your head. If that's you then don't despair; no matter how long it's been or how old you are - you can do it.
Anyway, seeing Cheryl helps my own self-esteem. Not that she's noticed much, but it has taken something of a nosedive in these past few months. The situation with my impending trial has been the most abusive and unpleasant experience of my life - so to actually be appreciated for something, for someone to think I'm sexy and good at something, feels humanizing again.
So today, I have a new Lawyer. To say that I'm nervous is an understatement. I feel raw. Skinless. I am in trouble. Horrendous trouble. A client, Dan, has landed me in it and I may be facing a prison sentence. I let his fantasy and lies get the better of me. He said that the cheques he was paying me with were company cheques, the company that he owned. But it has become painfully clear now that he didn't own the company. So there you are. I never ever take cheques, only cash, up front before we start, but stupidly, because he's been a client for eight years, I let him pay with cheques. And even more stupidly, because his fantasy was to be the escort and paid himself (like so many men) I even paid cheques into his account! Now I'm on money laundering charges (POCA 2002) which in Britain is a very serious game indeed, as it has wide spread draconian asset seizing powers attached, and I've got a million quid in the bank. It also means 2-4 years in prison which I can assure you is not a place a gay for pay kind of guy wants to go, prison inmates and staff not being well known for their egalitarian, libertarian deconstructionist view of gender roles in our post pluralist society. To put it succinctly, I don't want to get raped in prison nor lose all my cash and assets three weeks before I'm due to retire from escorting for good.
When I was starting out as an escort I used to see a senior Tory party politician who had been at the centre of the Thatcher/Reagan years, who quoted the old adage 'there's no fool like an old fool'. My god, do I feel like that fool right now! I'm full of wizened stories about the sex industry - but the truth of the situation is, I've behaved like a damn novice. I feel like a disgrace.
In order to play to the Jury, the police are using the term 'male prostitute' like a weapon against me, claiming that of course I'm guilty of money laundering - I'm an escort, a whore, riddled with virulent debts, and by definition violent and obstructive. Thanks to escorting, though, I'm relatively well off, so much so that I don't need to work - that at least is easy to prove. I work because, on the whole, I love 'the life.' I have met celebrities, royalty, bishops and politicians. I have conversed with them, held them in times of need, satisfied perversions or fed peculiar fetishes. I am not someone who revels in iniquity but I find it interesting knowing that an individual of perceived esteem is full of the same desires and sexual instinct as the cleaner who has spent a month saving up for a saucy hour.
Now, going to see your lawyer is a little like visiting your doctor. Tell your doctor and lawyer everything because they can only properly help you if they know everything - leave something out at your peril. Conversely, tell the police and tax man nothing because their job is to misquote you, miss out the important bits and generally make life hell for you. My editor tells me that I shouldn't attribute that quote to one of the most senior police officers in the UK, as it could be seen as libellous. So to be clear, I'm not. And I have never had any senior police officers as clients (though just by chance I live 200 metres from the Metropolitan Police's Clubs and Vice HQ, and have a very discreet front door tucked away, out of view from the main building).
A lawyer also shares with a doctor the capacity to tell you what you might not want to hear. In my case I have a fifty/fifty chance of winning/losing. I might lose everything. Everything that I have worked for.
I am well turned out for the meeting, in a nicely cut suit, stylish, classic and sleek, dark grey, not too flamboyant. I elect to wear glasses so my look will support the soberness of my mood towards the seriousness of the accusations against me. Thanks to Cheryl I look flush. I always come for Cheryl. She insists that I ejaculate all over her breasts. She then likes to rub my semen all over herself before getting dressed. She never showers; she likes to take the smell of me with her. She's a dirty one that Cheryl.
I arrive at my lawyer's offices, and the secretary shows me upstairs. If you crossed the bedside manner of a Zen-like nurse with the attention to detail of a German engineer, and imbue it with the mysterious calm of a Jedi Knight, you've got my solicitor, Nigel Richardson. I begin to talk about the case, explaining the situation with Dan, when he stops me.
"No, take me back to why you became an escort."
The Union prefers the term sex worker. It implies that we are engaged in labour. Even though I may jest about Cheryl, believe me when I tell you an hour with her is no walk in the park. It's definitely work. "The prosecution will call me a prostitute which is a loaded term. People will judge me before they hear what I have to say."
"You don't describe yourself as that?"
"Yes, but escorts have redeemed the word prostitute, and it means a very different thing to us than it does to the general public."
"What's the difference between an escort and a prostitute?"
"The difference between prostitute and escort is similar to the difference between a TURF accountant and a partner in Price Waterhouse Coopers or a conveyancing solicitor and a barrister. They both do the same job but one is perceived to be 'better', 'higher', 'grander'."
"OK, so why did you become a sex worker?"
So I begin with what amounts to a confession (a spiritual one, you understand), warning him that I have a tendency to ramble. He tells me that that's fine, he needs to get to the heart of the case, that to defend me he has to understand me. He is going to try to keep me out of jail after all.
*****
"Let's begin with the police."
"My life as an Escort is bound by a red thread, the police force - well it seems like it today, sitting in your office." I smile at Nigel. I feel desperate, but I keep a tight reign on my fear. "It begins and ends with the police, with 'use' and then 'abuse', and neither encounter has left me feeling all that great about myself. Two police officers after me for sex, two police officers after me because of sex, one story innocent, not quite William Blake (let's face it sex isn't), and the other anything but - coppers pursuing me because of the crimes of a client."
I look at the bookcase in Nigel's office. It houses copies of the same heavy books the investigative officer is going to try and throw at me.
"But before I tell you how I got started, let's get the fundamentals straight. Being an escort is about money. Anybody in the business who says they are in it just for the sex is almost certainly lying. Of course I like sex. Actually I don't like sex, I love it. And my god I have had some unbelievable encounters - pop stars, rooms full of the sexiest women in the world, endless partying and literally stacks of cash. But I have also had to deal with the less glamorous side of the business - the women who aren't as well kept, giving hand jobs to lonely, sad men and one or two things that have left me feeling, well, disgusted with myself."
Nigel is looking intently at me; his silent gaze is telepathic, putting questions into my mind.
*****
I was 23 years when I put an advert in the local paper:
"Male Escort - out calls only - Edward 0778855842".
My first call was a woman. She wanted me to have sex with her while her husband watched.
OK
He was just going to sit in the corner of the room - no gay stuff.
My attitude was very much in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound. I didn't then register the significance of my client's request. It wasn't until quite a while later that I realized that my purpose was not just to engage in a sex act. My job was to fulfil a fantasy.
Believe me, fantasies, on the whole, are more enjoyable, and often more fulfilling, than the reality. Speaking as someone who has done a lot of sex stuff, one of the great advantages of most sexual encounters is that if they fail they are not usually witnessed intimately by a third party. In a one-to-one you can always make it up to the other person in some other form. That is not the case in a threesome where, even were it not a paid-for experience, lots of different expectations have to be managed. And when an escort is brought in, it can sometimes magnify insecurities that exist within the relationship. Imagine if you turn up and in reality the man is a bit gay and wants to spend more time with you than her (it happens all the time), or she is despondent with him and seeks revenge by coming more uncontrollably for you than she ever did with him, not because I'm better in bed but because the fantasy for her is so total. God it's a mess! I didn't know that at the time, but couples experimenting with third persons are often experiencing difficulties with their relationship, and despite how they may present themselves as otherwise, there can be all sorts going on under the surface. So, a little advice, if you ever thought about starting out as an escort, do not do a couple as your first job. It's a minefield of jealousies and insecurities. Had I known then what I know now, I never would have agreed to do the job.
Oh, and I didn't think it was that important at the time, but you'll probably think it worth me mentioning - I was also a virgin. Up until a couple of months before I'd placed the advert I had been a fully signed up member of an evangelical church. I had been since the age of 15. Prayers, guitars, happy clapping, you name the cliché and I had the scripture for it.
Now, there's always the thought that something terrible might happen. I might be murdered, and end up on some news report or something. I entertained the idea for a couple of hours or so, before I decided to leave my brother a note. It was in a brown envelope instructing him to open it if I had not returned by one o'clock in the morning. I left it where he would find it. He worked in a student bar in the quaint middle class town where we were brought up.
On the phone the woman asked me how much my fee was. I quoted her thirty-five pounds, including travel - I had no idea how much I was worth. I had never spoken to anyone in the business. I had seen the odd advert in the back of magazines but the price was never present. I didn't know any escorts, rent boys or call girls. I just had this insatiable desire for adventure. Was it about money? Well, yes, of course and back then thirty-five pounds was more than I could earn in a night pulling pints. But before you get cocky and pick up the phone to me, remember that my fee has shot up. Back then, of course, I was a complete novice to the profession. I thought that vanilla was a flavour of ice cream and rimming had to be explained three or four times before I got the gist of what was being asked! And before you ask, no, I don't.
I thought thirty-five pounds was adequate for what I had to offer. This was, after all, my first time. How wrong I was! But it was an extraordinary exploit - a journey of self-discovery and I had rarely felt more alive! The very thought of getting paid to have sex with a woman was kind of exciting. And there's something indescribable about that moment when the client puts a few hundred quid in your hand for doing sex stuff. Clean, crisp, dirty, filthy cash!
Amazing.
Back to that night. Sitting outside a new magnolia house in a brand new toy town, flat-pack estate, somewhere in dull suburbia, the other side of town from my parents' (yes, I still lived with my parents) about to meet this woman, her husband, their home, their domesticity, their sex, their expectations - my heart was racing. I looked at their house. The window frames to the property were white plastic. The building was detached but identical to its neighbour. It was perfectly surreptitious; it had no intention of standing out. Each house looked the same as the one next door, as this street was to the street before. It was the picture of conformity. I sat for what seem like a very long minute or two trying to talk myself up but really twisting myself around. Here goes. I got out of my car.
I was nervous as I rang the doorbell and, if I'm honest, I almost bottled it. I heard footsteps approach the door. I shivered as the latch clicked. I wasn't sure who to expect. I had no idea what kind of people call up a stranger to pay them for sex. Certainly as a young Christian I had learned one fairly strident Sodom and Gomorrah view of it all, but this house seemed to lack all the necessary licentious qualities. It seemed so normal looking. And then the door opened.
You could say she looked good in that sweet way of just over-ripening fruit. She seemed embarrassed for a moment and then, as she smiled, I saw the cracks around her eyes were like ice melting in the first oncoming of spring. In the background her husband shuffled in his new cheap jeans. We exchanged pleasantries, as I was lead into the front room. There was a brown, glass coffee table on which sat a bottle of red wine. Bulgarian. On their mantelpiece and scattered about a bureau were photographs of their children, family outings and grandparents. Their children were just turning teenagers or thereabouts. They, my clients, were in their mid to late thirties (which was old to me). She looked better turned out than he. When they sat down they did so on each end of the sofa. I sat opposite on a sofa chair facing them, accepted the wine and switched on the charm.
I've always been a natural at playing roles, able to be whatever a client desires as long as it doesn't cross my boundaries. It's important to stay in character, even when one is silently shocked by what is being asked of you, or even a little non-plussed by what the client is actually gaining from the encounter. When you are with a client (or clients) the impression to leave is that they are the be all and end all for their time with you. Another thing to bear in mind is that you need to lead the client. They are there, usually, for one thing and it is up to you to make the first moves. I wasn't aware of this at the time, and I carefully avoided any conversation about sex or whatever it was we were about to engage in. We talked a little about their village, the weather, local shopping, Chinese people, Indians. And then. In a gap it slipped out. They were police officers.
Bollocks.
Shit.
Fuck.
I felt a sinking thud in my stomach which passed and then I felt all my colour leak out of me like some cartoon loony tune. I couldn't have heard that right.
Oh God.
Shit.
Please.
No. Yes.
Oh fuck, please let this be some kinky game. They were certainly talking like they were naughty children caught red handed with their hands in the cookie jar. Let this be some game. But she pointed to the photographs behind me. There were two portraits of him and her in blue at their graduation ceremony called 'passing out'.
I felt faint.
Her uniform did nothing for her, or me for that matter. When they showed me their warrant cards it was her photo that seemed the more severe. A note to any police officers thinking of hiring brand new escorts: don't tell them you're in the police - it's not a great opening! They tend to get nervous! I was deflated. I had been doing so well, I'd even been feeling a little horny. I was beginning to look forward to our casual frolic, I had been semi erect, cock sure, but now I knew for certain that I was never going to get it up (I always know if it's not going to happen). No, worse than that, I felt my penis crawl back inside of me, in the fear that it might be bitten off during my inevitable struggle for freedom.
Fuck.
The softer you feel, the more nervous.
The more nervous, the worse it gets.
Shit
I remembered the note I had left for my brother. I imagined that come one o'clock he would open it in a panic, divulging its contents to my mother.
My mother
Shit
"Right lad," he said, "can I have a word?"
I imagined the cuffs tightening on my wrists.
"OK," he went on, "in a minute I'll go up stairs, go into our en-suite bathroom and close the door. Michelle will then bring you upstairs. If you want to kiss her down here, I don't mind, but don't take too long about it, save it for the bedroom. When I hear you on the bed I'll give you a couple of minutes and then I'll come in and sit in the corner."
It was like a sergeant giving orders to a new recruit.
Michelle looked at me as he gave me my instructions. She suggested that I take my coat off. I was wearing a thin jacket, which was entirely inappropriate for the time of year.
He seemed precise and confident in his voice - dull working-class-made-good home and away type suburbia. Talking down to me like he intended me for one of his station cells. As I unzipped my jacket we caught each other's eye. I did a double take under his gaze. Just for a moment I got the distinct impression that he was a little out of his depth, that they didn't know how to play it. His bellowing confidence was a performance, he was pretending that he had 'it' when it actual fact he had no idea what 'it' was. But he was a policeman and I was a virgin to this game and very nervous to boot, I was hardly going to call his bluff. Ten years later, in my interview with the police, I'd know instinctively what the look and tone betrayed and that would make all the difference. He turned to leave the room; I didn't relax even as I heard him run upstairs.
Michelle smiled at me as I peeled my jacket off. It was a shy smile, which faded to the floor. I looked at her for a moment; she suggested that I remove my top before I follow her up in five minutes. She, too, was precise. I wondered if precision was the thing they shared along with dullness. I found it hard to define their attraction to each other, yet there was this similarity between them. I had always thought that opposites attract. Perhaps I was wrong. Something wasn't fitting about the evening. I removed my top and downed another glass.
She whispered "I'm really looking forward to you fucking me hard and long."
I smiled and said she looked beautiful, and then she turned to leave. I felt my inner face cast down and fill with The Fear. When she turned to give me one last erotic look I forced a smile which must have been very unconvincing. I felt something small change in her, though I was too wrapped up in myself to understand.
In contrast to her husband she was less nimble on her feet as she ran upstairs. More plods. I could imagine her on her beat. The thought was enough to dam the blood to my groin.
I sat nervously on the sofa, where she had been. I could feel the soft indent of her bottom. The space was colder than a corpse. I looked at their uniformed photographs on the mantelpiece and considered doing a runner. But that's not my style.
Fuck it. I decided to go on. If I was going down I'd at least show some sort of fight. She wasn't unattractive, so just get on with it.
I fumbled for a suitable fantasy, anything to help me get it up. It's funny how sometimes you have to really force your sexual imagination to work. Here I was about to fuck a stranger, albeit watched by her partner, who was a copper. For some, this is a sure fired winner in the 'turn me on' stakes, and I was struggling to even think about sex. I felt quite over-crowded by the room; its contents, all the smiling photos, their Argos imitation metal rotation mantelpiece clock in surround glass, the kind old people get given when taking out insurance. And there in the centre were my clients, in uniform.
How did this happen?
I'm so stupid.
I'm not doing this ever again.
For a moment I even considered offering up a prayer and immediately saw it evaporate in the swelter of this stupid mess. Don't be stupid. You can't ask God to help you provide a better 'paid for sex' service.
Can you?
Shut up, fool.
Now I'm talking to myself!
The clock ticked, light and plastically. I forced myself to concentrate. I felt ridiculous sitting on the sofa, in my pants, stroking myself, hoping this wasn't some judicial sting. I worked through a few of my tried and tested fantasies and there, at last, up he popped, a little modest at first, but he was there, he hadn't let me down. I've always had ridiculously sensitive nipples if touched gently. Never fails. Well, 'never say never'.
There was no time to lose. I jumped up and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. I arrived at the doorway to the bedroom like an athletic Harlequin, in my sleek white pants, concealing my not so confident stiffy and there she was, dimly lit, lying on the bed, which sat in a white room with mirrors and inbuilt wardrobes. It could have been my parents' room. It was so ordinary, so domestic, so normal.
I was met by a tiger of pheromone heat. She wanted it all now and was not going to stop till tomorrow.
Shit.
Bollocks.
Fuck.
I lost it!
I was out of my body from the moment we kissed, but not in some young lover, dizzy sort of a way, when you are flying together. No, it was nothing like that. I was out of the moment. Her tongue, her breasts, her hairless pussy - they all felt alien to me.
I opened my eyes mid kiss.
What the fuck am I doing here?
No hard on!
This is so embarrassing!
This is really embarrassing
'Cover! Cover!'
I heard some words my old rugby coach Mr. Miln had taught us. 'To cover' happens in lots of games. It's to kind of stall the action, slow it down when you sense it getting out of control and your team needs to hold their position because the initiative is lost and your side is losing confidence. If this feeling continues a quick panic can set in, and within a moment a strong team can be overrun. If one person or small group take the initiative quickly they can 'cover the active game' while the rest of the team catches breath, comes back on side and realizes things aren't so bad. You remain in possession of the ball, and stall the other team.
Then you try again.
This is what you do to get an erection when panic is setting in. Cover, play for time, stall, regain confidence, calm down and try again.
Fuck! It didn't work!
It must have been terrible for her. I became limp as soon as I appeared in the doorway, which can't have been the most encouraging entrance. She had clearly made an effort for me; indeed, she was looking attractive, sexy. I love sexiness. Sure there are times when my work is, well, work, but I have always been aroused by women when they have that ethereal pre-sexual glow. Not this time. Each time she told me to relax I could feel her confidence wane. I should have been leading her. I should have been gently kissing her neck, complimenting her breasts with my touch and opening her with my tongue. I didn't have to fuck her like a porn star, I just had to make her feel like she was a beautiful woman, the beautiful woman that she felt she was, deep inside herself.
What a failure!
Inevitably when her husband came into the room, from the bathroom, it went from bad to worse. He'd paid me to give his wife a good seeing to and my whole body seemed to be rejecting her. It made her feel unattractive but it was my fault not hers.
I felt like I was dying a thousand deaths.
Eventually he told me to stop. The bedside light went on. I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment turning red.
Most people think blushing only affects the face. It's a myth - it affects every area of the body.
He told me to go downstairs. I could hardly even catch her glance. I think I said 'I'm sorry' but it sounded more like I was acknowledging a bereavement which I suppose, in a way, I was.
Like a fool I left the room naked. I returned to the living room and sat on the sofa and wondered when this farce would end. When he did eventually come back down he told me that I had ruined his wife's self esteem, that she was lying on the bed inconsolable; 'she felt like a dog', his words. How strange to use such an analogy. He told me that I was entirely unprofessional (which I was), but he did it as if he was giving me a caution, which, to be honest, gave the situation a sort of ridiculous irony and I had to stop myself from smirking; he certainly wasn't smiling.
I mumbled something about it being my first time, but he was having none of it.
He wanted me out of his house. Believe me I couldn't wait to leave either, but I just stood there defiantly. He looked at me and his eyes genuinely had wrath in them.
But even naked I won't be talked down to.
Escorts are often asked to play a subservient role to fawning clients. I'm happy to play along for a bit, after all, the customer is always right. Clients should enjoy it but never believe it.
"What?"
"I think I've left my pants upstairs."
Actually I wasn't entirely sure where any of my clothes were. I died a little more. He was going to kick me out naked. How could I have been so stupid? Why hadn't I thought ahead? I should have placed my clothes somewhere retrievable, in a neat pile, by the door of the downstairs room, so that if needed, I could have thrown them back on quickly and been in place to exit.
He looked at me for a moment. "Right," he said finally and then disappeared. I heard their muffled voices. She was really upset. Eventually he came back down with my pants, holding them delicately between two fingers, as if he didn't want the rest of him to touch them. Putting them on I felt I was stepping into something sodden and cold. They felt horrible. And all the time he didn't take his eyes off me.
"What?"
"I'm not sure where my trousers are."
"You idiot, boy."
I thought he was going to hit me, he certainly threw the word 'boy' at me, but instead he told me to stay where I was and off he went to find my clothes. He rummaged around and then after what seemed an age he came in and threw them at me. He told me to dress, as quickly as I could, before slamming the door on me.
And that was that.
I emerged from their house ridiculed, missing a sock and as broke as when I started. I hadn't got the money first. The winter air felt just as cold. Their cul-de-sac was no less ordinary, if anything it seemed a little unimpressed by my endeavours.
As I put my coat on, I heard them shouting from the bedroom above.
He: You're useless!
She: How dare you! You're the one with the experience! You didn't have a clue!
I'm not even sure how long I was in there. I rushed back to my brother's bar, retrieved the unopened envelope and went home feeling somewhat diminished, resolved to remove my advert and never to attempt such a thing again.
I had learned something invaluable though. What 'that' look meant in that policeman's eye and what his tone of voice communicated.
*****
It would be another two years before I would try again. It was 1998, and I was doing a full time MA in history, financing myself by working a bit more than full time in a café. I was not entirely sure why I was doing this second degree - I guess it was just something to do. But I was poor. I didn't have a penny to my name. I had been poor as a Christian leader, poor as a student, poor teaching English in Spain and now, once again, poor doing an MA. I looked outside at a parking meter. Now here's the crux, I'm on £3.06 an hour and I pay tax on that - so after ten hours I had less than £30. Ten hours a day, every day. I had to steal time to study. That's the caricature of prostitution, to be doing a job, day in and day out, a job you hate, that abuses you. It saps you. It steals your life. But I can tell you, I've known the perceived shame of being without money. I've had to claim benefits and I have worked in jobs where the amount you earn is barely more than the benefits you can claim. Now that's abuse, that's degrading and that's doing something day in day out you hate.
I looked into to the future - I had been offered a PhD, which at the time I accepted. My bursary was £6,000 p/a which would have meant even more student debt. It was in statistical history - a branch of the subject I could only consider for the bursary. At least another three years of struggle and then what? Lecturing? I'm not a lover of academia - I like history, but -
Ever felt stuck? I felt stuck.
Alexander the Great said the peoples of the East and West are conquered because they had not learnt how to pronounce the word 'No".
And so, while making sandwiches I looked at that parking meter in the centre of Cambridge - it charged £1.25 for twelve minutes. I realized that it was on a better hourly rate than I was. I was struggling for no money, debt and heartache. The immediate future seemed bleak, and the long term out of reach. So when people ask me why I became an escort, it's because parking meters can earn more than a man, and because some people will find their mouth and tongue forming around a word: 'No'
It was years before I was to really meet any other escorts, and I always wondered why sex work union types had such an empathy with migrant workers, feminism, proud sexual disabled people, artists, gays and the politically different. Groups I, in my isolation, hadn't put instantly together. But they have all done one thing to break out of their situation. They have all wrapped their lips and tongues around a single word.
No.
*****
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes! At the end of my first afternoon of what actually turned out to be my third attempt (I'll explain in a bit) as a whore I had £400 - almost two weeks pay (and most escorts don't do tax) and it turns out I was under charging!
After two afternoons I resigned from bonded labour! I threw away my overalls; I was out of catering for good!
About this time I drew a graph. It was a schematic graph of my life, as I saw it. The first eighteen years you are in varying degrees of dependency. You are not physically developed and you don't have your own finances. From eighteen to seventy you work. At the other end, from seventy to eighty, you are also, to varying degrees, dependent. People who are eighty-eight are quite often like children in need of help with dressing and cleaning. They need looking after. So from retirement age until you die, and from birth till eighteen, there is a lack of freedom simply due to age, physical/mental health and the financial situation that can limit your life choices.
From eighteen to seventy you've got the boom years - we call these years the best years of our lives when we get older - you have the greatest health, wealth and ability to exploit your life choices. These are our best days!
But what do we do with those days?
We give them to work!
Twenty-two to fifty-seven are the best bit, so how come most of us spend our days doing something we don't really love doing, and more importantly only releases us when we are less able to enjoy our freedom? There must be another way of breaking out of this system that's weighted against me?
And so, once again, I put an advert in the local paper. It took the best part of that first week before I realised that the newspaper had made a mistake and missed out the last digit of my phone number.
One call did come.
He was a strange, scrawly voiced man who had tried every number before arriving at mine. I agreed to meet him in the centre of Cambridge. I got into his car. I just remember him as being thin, that his voice suited his lack of stature. He immediately tried to beat me down on the price, which made me feel uncomfortable, this was my second ever job you must remember and the first was hardly endorsing. However I kept my uncertainty to myself and insisted that the price quoted on the phone was not going to drop. We drove for miles out of Cambridge, into the countryside. I would never do this now because doing a job outside carries such a risk from the law - but then I didn't know any better. There is no escort's information desk. I was making this up as I went along. On top of this I was pretty nervous because I had never had a sexual encounter with a man before. When we stopped driving I had no idea where I was. He just wanted to watch me masturbate.
And that was that. I was in.

THE BODY POLITIK
Jennifer leaves for work at 8.49, a little late. My work phone rings at 9am. I hadn't slept well. In his very calm way Nigel has put the fear of God into me. He has made it clear that there is no necessary correlation between the words justice, truth and law. Shit. I'm middle class so I should be ok. Right?
"Andrew, how's it going?"
I have no idea who it is. He sounds American. I open my voice memory bank and search through my archive, but it's too early in the morning. "I'm fine," not giving anything away, "how have you been?"
"I've been great, Andrew, I've just flown in from Barbados."
Barbados? It's Cocaine Bob. He is Canadian, not American. With Bob you have to be willing to get going immediately and on his terms, and you have to be experienced with closeted gay guys in order to give him enough gay stuff but not to make him think that you think he's gay. I pretended that I didn't notice, when I first worked for him, that the porn I caught him switching from involved two men together.
"So when are we meeting?" To which the correct answer is 'I'll be at your room in 22 minutes and 6 seconds,' with a cheeky tone. "How was the flight?"
"High!"
Suddenly my day, and the next day and the next, are turned on their head. I thought I was going to be doing my court stuff, union stuff, fixing a house I own, going out for dinner with my brother, loving my girlfriend. Instead I am rushing from my shower into my clothes, getting a cab, texting all the girls I know to see if they are free, reminding them that they are my girlfriend, my name is Andrew and you're Rose or Belinda or Becca, answering two angsty texts from Dan and having a line of cocaine at ten in the morning in a room of the Charing Cross Hotel, in central London, next door to the government office where Jennifer works, with a naked man in his mid forties and a working girl, whom I've never met, in the shower. Bob called her in earlier, picked her from www.cherrygirls.co.uk, but (in his mind) she's not right. He doesn't want a call girl. To him they're "practiced, plastic, unreal, of type, off the counter, top shelf, don't own their own words, whose opinions can be bought, pussies more worked out than an athlete's foot". What he wants is the cleaning girl that just caught them at it, or the girl at the reception desk, or that woman who sold him the necklace for his wife; everything that he can't pay for, everything just beyond his financial reach. His coke-filled mind is too clumsy with the neurosis of pornography that straddles his imagination - so much so that it has abandoned his penis - to concentrate on keeping the movie going over. What I mean is he can't get it up but his desire is consuming. Cheeky (cocaine) brings on the need but not the ability, and that is why I am there. I can fuck her for him and he wants it real, real life; my girlfriend, my ex girlfriend, my ex ex, the girl next door, the girl I went to school with, the girl I met at the gym, the girl I went to church with. We all play a part, whatever he wants to hear. Whatever the client wants to hear, and Cocaine Bob has done so much cheeky that he needs another man to enact the sex which, like the girls he really wants, is now so far out of reach he can only stare, and laugh, and chat with one full eye straying a bit longer than it, for a completely straight guy, should towards my tanned, smooth skin.
So, I'm still thumbing my phone trying to find a friend, any friend. It's never great to be calling escorts at ten in the morning. You might not hear from them all day. But the good ones get in touch. My phone beeps and it's Andrea. Andrea is a natural, in a glance she can pick up whatever the story is, choose the fantasy and not commit - if you ask her how long we have been friends she'll say, "we go way back" - way back - so we might have been best friends or met ages ago earlier this semester. Andrea is a natural escort. There are some of us that are terrible, so you're constantly throwing in lines, misdirections - last time they were Sally, this time they are Lucy, and they might forget that this time I'm Andrew, not Simon. Andrea can slip into gear first thing in the morning and keep it up till last thing at night.
One problem is the unspoken rule that an escort knocks five years off their age. Bob will ask how old they are - he fancies us younger, sometimes a late twenties won't get away with being 21 and often I haven't really met the voice on the other end of the phone, if they are coming from an agency, so I feel that I'm playing blind. One day our jaws dropped as a sassy 55 year old walked in, who Damian Kaos had described to me as 'not much over early 20's'! There's no regulation in the sex industry and that means charlatans abound; the more they close it down the more criminal it becomes.
Unnecessarily so.
Bob will ask me who they are, how I know them, which to choose, but the truth is I choose the one who has answered my text, pure and simple. So whether he picks Cathy, Rachel, Jade, Annarita, Cristal or Roxy, I mould his fantasy to who I know is on their way. If he says he wants an English girl who is twenty two, slim and quite shy, and works as a secretary, I say I know someone who works as a secretary in the building next door but she can't come 'because she is working', but I do know an Italian girl called Rose who is available straight away.
I pretend to cut a line and snort it, offering him one, before I get on the phone, and he is so high on coke that the powder has formed a thick haze of flying gay fairies circling his head, each smaller than a speck and as naked as the day they were born, and he just smiles as I talk to Andrea who works under the name 'Rose'.
Andrea is very business-like - this is her work phone after all. The fact that I greet her with 'Rose' means that I am with a client right now and she will know that Rose was once in a relationship with me. "Andrew, how are you this morning?" I have worked with Andrea for many years.
"I'm with a friend right now - Rose are you in college at the moment?" Immediately she knows it's the student fantasy." How is your economics degree going?" Bob wants an English girl, so I'm getting the next best thing - someone who is smart, not an escort cliché of a foreigner studying English - so I've indicated to her that she is at university. In fact Andrea is an economics student of sorts. She has a very clear understanding of economics, the rules of the financial game, the clear divide between the haves and the have-nots. Andrea is from Brazil, she was brought up in a Favela, in the hell of poverty, surrounded by gang violence, drugs and murder, people piled on top of people, the overhead knotted web of the makeshift cabling keeping life going but trapping aspiration and hope, the jammed maze of the shanty town, with no clear way out, fenced off with the police taking pot shots at the street kids, picking them up and killing them, torturing them, toying with them like vermin. I imagine scenes from Fernando Meirelles' City of God. She says it's no way as bad as that. We wouldn't know because when we go to Rio we only see what the rich people see.
Andrea has three houses now, has bought a house for her mother, been deported - 'saved from trafficking', sent back to the poverty she fled, twice, got back to London, twice, and worked on.
My God is she beautiful. She is determined, forthright, packed full of life's delicious dynamite, and is now all set to pay for the very best education for her children, when she has them one day, and has bought EU citizenship (where there's a will there's a way). If you need help and you'd like to become an EU citizen my editor tells me I can't tell you how to. However, "any Brazilian hairdresser knows how to. Don't just go and ask one outright, they will be suspicious, instead go and have your hair cut, get the expensive cut with highlights and all that, then tell them that you're an escort, somehow when it comes up to the subject of work they won't mind or be shocked. In time, when you have built a relationship, they can help you". To be clear I'm not encouraging any illegal activity, simply quoting what one of the most highly paid QC's in the UK told me. I am very, very discouraging of this sort of thing and would like to take this opportunity to state that it is morally wrong and you are not to do it on any account. Get back to Africa where your average life expectancy will be half what it is for a EU passport holder.
The most attractive thing about Andrea is that she's very intelligent. She would soar academically if life had afforded her an education.
Economics?
Andrea is free
Her English is not perfect but she learned long ago to say 'No'.
"I'm out at the moment," she replies - which means I don't have my sexy stuff with me - so I say don't worry, Bob doesn't mind, he knows you're on your way to college. She then says "I'm at the gym" - which means she hasn't showered, shaved and done women's stuff - Bob doesn't mind, he has a shower in his room, he'll probably want to watch you, I say for him to hear.
She wants to know three things, but we can't talk openly - clients can often hear what the other person on the phone is saying or they catch on to what's going on (that we are cooking up a story) from tone of voice, so you have to watch your tone - I tell her "we are quite excited thinking about you," which means can you come over immediately, to which she replies "have you got everything we need?" - don't worry I have everything we need come right over - which means I've got all the protection, lube, dildo, blindfold, poppers, and don't worry its all sorted - which means the money is sorted and you will be paid as soon as you get here, I will make sure of that. Meanwhile girl number one is in the bathroom and he's complaining that she's so obviously an escort (in some men's minds if a male is being paid to sleep with women exclusively, as he believes I am, then I'm not a dirty prostitute like this woman. I'm a stud). He is disparaging, dehumanising, "but maybe we can do her for half an hour," he chortles and tells me to chop another line. It would be my fifth not my second, so I jump in first to do my cocaine trick and go through the motions on the mirror so that I'm able to go through the motions on the bed. Meanwhile, when the escort, Rachel, comes out of the shower, (in my opinion she's gorgeous) I pop to the loo and flash a txt to Andrea to tell her the outline of the story I've just cut up for Bob. Seasoned practitioners know you've got to be quick.
"22, econ, 2nd, king col, Halloween, on you, party. ;-). yes K. no A. extension, fine, Italian."
I've said:
you are 22
econ - you are studying economics
king col - at Kings Collage
Halloween - We met at a Halloween party [not though escorting]
on you - which means you're to lead, because I am here for a while. You can mess up and leave in an hour but I can't (it would be politer to ask but I know Andrea won't mind).
Party - you will need to fake and take Cocaine.
;-) - yes I have had one already!
yes K - Kissing (she doesn't mind kissing clients)
no A - I've got you out of Anal and will be in support
extension - Play our cards right and we may have successive hours.
fine - it's going ok so far.
Italian - Don't forget what country you are from.
I'm concerned that it goes right because if it goes right I'm here for two days. That's about £3k just for me and the girls are on almost double what I'm on (even though I'm doing all the organizing).
Prostitution is the great leveller. Men earn half to a third of what women do with all the attached glass ceilings and lower status. Worse, many female escorts, some of whom are strident feminists who I have a lot of respect for, feel this is as it should be as it's somehow the 'way of the world' when it's in their favour. I'm not complaining, just telling you how it is.
Debates on issues like social theory and trafficking would really benefit from having people who are actually doing the job giving their input to the discussion. You'd think that was an obvious thing to say but check next time you're listening to a debate - odds on no one who's actually in the industry will be invited to speak. But what normal sex worker wants to be outed in the press with all the legal, social stigma and loss of income?
I explained this to Laura, a leading senior human rights activist who was running a campaign recently in Trafalgar Square, at the end of my street. I went to commend her for a life of great work and got into a defence of prostitution by accidentally saying why I was interested. When it became clear that the old fashioned feminist chit chat of prostitution being male violence on women by men wasn't going to work so well on me, I was told eventually I had false consciousness (this is where you really are a victim, are trafficked, are being raped, do need to be saved but just don't know it!) It's a cover all argument because by extension people with 'false consciousness' don't know their own mind and so can't be credibly listened to. It works really well on Asian and South American sex workers because they are more likely to be speaking English as a second language, more likely to be poor, more likely to not have their visas in order, more likely to have less education and so their disempowerment can help sell the argument better.
I'm British, white, male, middle class, very wealthy for my age, intelligent, have two degrees and a pimp would never dare try to speak down to me like Laura did. And they wouldn't do it to Andrea either.
Yes, Bob has money to burn but he's not stupid with it. He has the tanned body of an ex- pat hanging around the golf courses and beaches at the rich end of Barbados; he looks good for his age, as if he hardly has to work at anything other than himself. I come out of the bathroom and he does something rather amusing - he says to the girl, "I have a gift for Andrew," and he produces some ridiculously fey beads - like something a young boy band would be photographed wearing before they have cracked into the girl market. The amusement and irony is not lost on me and I feign gratefulness for this cheap, tourist, stingingly gay looking bracelet. Which, I agree to wear 'every day'. What the fuck would the 'Rugby Boys' say? Perhaps Rachel is wondering if she has fallen into some Gay orgy.
Some girls get turned on by this and some don't.
On the bed Rachel flashes me a glance as she sits propped up against the pillows in her pink swimming costume, legs slightly bent and apart, hair wrapped in a towel, he must have asked her to come dressed as a beach babe. She knows full well that sitting like that leaves her sexually exposed, her vaginal area slightly visible and that the lycra material, in this sort of swim suit, flows over the contours of her pussy lips. Being very well brought up I do what every good Englishman does, don't get seen glancing while the three of us do the chit chat, have a drink and play for time with a cigarette. Actually she's hot, she knows it and knows that I know she knows it. I hope that this is not too bad for her, and she doesn't find me a disappointment.
If you get insecure sometimes while you're having sex - if you feel like you're not good enough, not sexy enough, too old, too young, whatever, then take encouragement - I feel like this too sometimes and so does everyone. The truth is, like so many things, the experts don't know as much as they let you think they know.
This is what I do sometimes (embarrassing but true) - it's the YAB system of feeling hot about yourself. Put this book down and go and get a mirror or go to a mirror with this book. Then take off your clothes. Trust me it will be fun.
________________________________________________
YAB
Look in the mirror for a few seconds the next time you shave or are doing your make up. This is best done with your top off or naked but it's up to you - it still works with clothes on.
Look at your features slowly, take time, see those eyes, see those eyebrows, see those lips, take time to look at yourself. Look at that beautiful hair look at those wonderful wrinkles, look at those cool funny spots.
Now say hello out loud softly. See you're smiling already!
Now compliment yourself - honestly I'm serious. You're worth it! Say something lovely like you have sexy eyes. Go on, nobody can hear you, you can be ironic, it still works as long as you mean it.
I say stuff like "you know what Andrew, you are very naughty, you are fucking sexy" (with irony, I'm an Englishman so this sort of thing doesn't come easy).
Now tell yourself the truth. That you are beautiful and loved. No, that is the truth silly. Say it again.
Finally, smile at yourself. Let me tell you something I've learnt about you.
You Are Beautiful.
(YAB takes as long as you like but done once a week for 30 seconds can really make you hotter stuff).
________________________________________________
Rachel doesn't need to tell herself she looks hot. She's a real turn on. Her skin is lovely and her chest against mine sends the blood to my groin. We go through this sexual routine not able to communicate openly with each other, both wondering if we are doing the right thing for the other, not knowing if we are faking or enjoying each other, slip, slide, give, take, moan, suck, eat - normally I would fake this but Bob is in for a close-up and she moans, she is wet, she cradles my head and then draws me up to kiss my mouth, her tongue cradling mine as she gently takes me inside herself and I become aware that she isn't dead to me, whatever charade we might be playing. I don't know what story Bob has told her as to who or what I am, so I'm going along with whatever happens. Bob is naked on the bed, jabbering away, playing with his semi soft cock.
Rachel is a blonde bombshell; her hair bleached, with a tiny bit of dark root, enough to add a depth to her appearance, an artistic touch. She has a beautiful slim body, with pert 'perfect for me' breasts, and she is a wonderful, kind lover, delicate and tender with her caresses. Her touch is one that displays a genuineness that profoundly understands the pleasure of her partner. I sense her vulnerability and so I reassure her whenever I can, running my hand on Bob's side through her hair and whispering to her that she won't have to do anything she doesn't want to do - the hand is a misdirection to hide what I am whispering from Bob who is lost in his fiction of the moment. We switch from playing a game to genuinely giving each other pleasure, somewhat to my pleasant surprise. She kisses me and runs her finger nails gently down my back to the top of my bum and does a soft holding movement, once I've stopped she then begins gently with her hands to start me on a new rhythm, her rhythm. This is so helpful as we can't talk much because the client is there, so instead by doing this, she is telling me three things:
I fancy you a bit too. But your rhythm's all wrong. Do it like this.
This is what we men need to know sometimes and it cuts out a lot of wasted time. We switch from show for the client to sex for each other (while still maintaining a show for the client) and I can feel her beginning to build up in the next 10 minutes to an orgasm. Bob is getting excited by this now, and he's moved a large armchair to the bed side. He's sitting on his haunches to watch, while administering coke on a key to me and her (you can't get out of coke on a key in that position). Rachel's orgasm is growing, I can feel her tight pussy and wall muscles contracting in ever increased rhythms, she's getting close, but I need to calm down without changing the rhythm or I'm going to come and I don't know how long I'm going to be here today, but this is very hot, she's getting closer but clearly doesn't want Bob to see this bit. Her rhythm gets faster, faster, faster, this is such a lovely morning, I think with my coke sex head on.
She's just about to come then...
Bob interjects leaning over us putting his right hand on the left side of my head between our foreheads.
"Would you do anal?" he hoarse whispers to me.
I lose the rhythm, Rachel who's on the edge of a secret (from Bob) orgasm, pauses, loses her rhythm and loses the moment. We slow down, missed it. Stop. We sigh and shrug our shoulders with our eyes and separate. Bob! Shit damn this client!
"What about it", Bob enthuses to us indicating to Rachel that she should have a line of coke, a tiny flicker of "no" in her eye tells me she doesn't want to. " I only do anal with a girlfriend" which is a ridiculous thing for a man to say and Bob knows it. There's a bit of tension but it's also good to demarcate lines especially with people who like to stray. "Maybe later with one of the other girls." This has a double edge as it gets Rachel out of the situation while giving Bob an incentive to keep me on. Remember, I've already told Andrea that she's been got out of anal so that means at least a 3rd hour with another girl. I wonder is Alice is free? No, she doesn't do it. Damien will know someone but he's so unreliable would Solitaire come? no we're friends that wouldn't feel right. I take an obvious big line and offer one to Rachel to show Bob some kind of willingness as a consolation. As I pass a newly rolled note in my thumb and fore fingers she slightly squeezes them and in her eyes says thanks. I'm not telling you I'm altruistic - believe me girls cover for me all the time too.
For me the escort always come first - they are the top of a top ten list of the most important things in any situation and I don't even know what the other nine are. I will pander, make up stories, throw in fantasies and be as nice a possible to the client, but the client can fuck off and die before an escort is forced to do anything they don't want to do on my account. Fuck you if you think you're going to get away with it, or you can't control yourself, or you feel dissatisfied with her or me or both. And don't think you'll get your money back. Trust me when someone speaks to you softly and with low body language very politely like I will, beware. You will regret it. Will I fight? That's the least of it. I will make a scene, I will walk naked to reception crying gay rape; do I look afraid? Do you think I'm bluffing?
Why do I get protective of my fellow workers and myself? Because this is, very occasionally, a scary and dangerous business, being in a room on your own, naked, vulnerable with clients who are blind for sex and objectification, who will deliberately ignore your boundaries. You are an object for their pleasure, and believe me this happens a lot. And do you think the police will stick up for you? Woe betide you if you're a woman and your papers are not in order. Far from being helped, you will join the statistics of people 'saved from coercion' and 'trafficked', even if you are plainly an economic migrant, before being deported back to poverty. The client will be ticked off and sent on his way. No, you can't call the police.
Anyway, Bob isn't like that, he knows the boundaries and he isn't abusive. He calls me when he is town, he's harmless. He just likes to party.
Rachel has a rather posh South Ken English accent. She is young, 21 or 22, slim, elongated in form. She has that great thing where the hips meet the stomach in an arch, which I find so sexy and a real confidence in her own beauty. But there is a sadness about her. Why do I feel like you were in a care home and that you were abused and that if life had given you different options you would be doing something different? This is a good job and you are being well paid, but something tells me that you are not loved. I wish I could save you but I have to save myself and I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job.
We go back to our routine but the moment has passed and Bob's hour slot is almost up. He's indicated he doesn't want another hour so she does an acceptable looking orgasm, gets changed and we part company. A little high she kisses me goodbye at the door, not usual for escorts and flashes me that flushed almost orgasm look, which I acknowledge, and she's off. I know she's going home to finish with her fingers what I was prevented from achieving for her. I wanted to slip her my card but I've got a girlfriend and while girl stuff for money is OK at this stage of our relationship (ish and as long as I never ever mention it), no money would be being unfaithful. My phone bleeps - 'Rose' is just coming through concierge where Dr David Kelly the British WMD weapons inspector had one of his last cups of tea.
"Rose come in, darling, you look beautiful"