Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl
Tracy Quan

forMike Godwin

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Everything is more glamorous when you do it in bed.…

—ANDY WARHOL

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Epigraph

1 Ménage à Quoi?

2 Through the Hooking Glass

3 Mau-Mauing the Flatbackers

4 Origin of My Species

5 The Folks Who Live on the Hill

6 As Above, So Below

7 Johns and Lovers

8 One of the Girls

9 A Hooker’s Home Is Her Castle

10 Only Collect

11 Hetero Doxy

12 Origins Again: The Sex of Money

13 The Bad Seed

14 In-Laws and Outlaws

15 Turn of the Century

Diary of a Married Call Girl

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

1 Ménage à Quoi?
MONDAY. 1/31/00

Dear Diary,

Today I had the most embarrassing experience—with one of my regulars. Howard was flat on his back enjoying our threesome with Allison when I decided to straddle him backward—something I’ve done hundreds of times. So I carefully lowered my body, confident that my acrobatics looked like zero effort.

Howard stood firm inside of me, but I threw in a just-in-case moan for good measure. With my shoulder blades resting against his chest, all he could see was the back of my neck. Lying still in that position is more work than bouncing up and down, but it’s usually the perfect strategy when you’re doing a session with another girl. Howard can’t check to see whether her tongue is really where it’s supposed to be. And besides, it’s his favorite position.

I felt serene. Supple. At the top of my game. Allie slithered down to the edge of my bed, placing her head somewhere between my legs—and his. I felt her long blond hair tickling my thighs. My cue to start moaning louder: “She’s soooo good at that…she’s licking my clit! Tell her not to stop! Oh, please don’t stop…”

Unfortunately, when I thought Allison was pretending to do me, she was really doing Howard.

“Hey!” she whispered, when he had disappeared into the shower. “When you were telling him all that stuff, I was tickling his balls with my tongue!”

“You were?” I was indignant. “We’re supposed to pretend you’re eating my pussy! If you’re going to change the routine, you have to tell me,” I hissed. “You know I can’t see what you’re doing from that angle!”

“He seemed to like what I was doing!”

“Well,” I was forced to concede, “I suppose that’s what really matters.” But still. How annoying.

Turning my attention to the bedroom phone, I quickly checked my voice mail. Jasmine’s crisp clarity—”Thursday. Don’t be late. Harry at five P.M.!”—was a welcome distraction. Then voice mail from Eileen: “I gave your number to Steven G. He’s dying to meet another Oriental. But he’s kind of kinky, so call me first. It’s for today!” Eileen Wong’s clients tend to be impulse buyers with a hundred strange quirks. And a message from Steven himself, sounding bashful but eager: “Hi, uh, well, I’ll have to call you back. Hello? Are you there? I’m on my way to an ATM. I’ll call back in ten minutes.” There was street noise in the background. Car phone? Pay phone? Hard to tell. He sounds like the type of guy who’s cautious enough to use a pay phone when he calls a working girl. Probably married. Or maybe just self-conscious and paranoid about whatever it is that turns him on.

Allison mumbled apologetically into her cashmere sweater as she pulled it over her face: “Honestly, I thought you could see me, Nancy! I didn’t know…” As her pale shoulders disappeared into the sweater, her silly ingratiating grimace almost made me back down.

“How can I possibly see you if I’m staring at the ceiling?” I retorted crossly.

Howard returned, a towel wrapped around his soft damp middle, smirking with satisfaction. I was furious with myself for revealing a trade secret. To a John I’ve been seeing for more than five years! But I brazened it out with professional blitheness. As I bade him farewell, he winked and said, “See you next Monday—I’ll bring two Oscars. You both earned them!” I flashed him a cool smile.

Allison followed me into the bathroom, pondering her latest dilemma out loud. “Guess who called? Jack! He’s trying to make an appointment with me!”

This is so typical. Whenever I’m annoyed with Allison, she tries to distract me with her problems.

Jack can still find new girls through the back pages of New York magazine, but he’s barred from the beds of girls like us who trade customers privately. Shouldn’t Allie know better than to contemplate seeing Jack?

From behind the shower door, I reminded her, “We blacklisted him! Nobody wants to see Jack after what he did. And neither do you.”

“Well, maybe I do,” she said petulantly. “He misses me and he’s offering me a lot of money. Maybe I should reconsider this—this blacklist thing.”

We blacklisted him because of what he did last year—and Allie was the first girl to experience the terrible fallout of Jack’s behavior. How can she forget? Much less forgive?

I pointed the handheld showerhead between my thighs, then aimed it cautiously at my breasts, to avoid splattering my hair. It’s an occupational hazard, showering four times a day: My hair has to look great for work, yet I’m constantly in danger of wrecking it…Catch-22!

“He offered me a thousand!” Allie was saying. “Just to see me for—you know, the usual.”

His normal rate is three hundred dollars. A grand for half an hour! That’s hard to turn down. But Allison doesn’t need to hear that. She needs to learn how to say no and mean it.

“After what he did to us, I think it would be a major betrayal for any girl to make an exception,” I told her.

“But I have—I mean, Jack and I had—a different kind of…” Her voice grew squeaky and faint. “Well, anyway, I’d like to hear his side of the story.”

Yeah, I’ll bet she would! For a thousand dollars, who wouldn’t? But the point is, your word’s not worth much if you say yes to everything that looks financially appealing. Or easy.

“His side? He has no side. I don’t care how much he pays, dealing with him is just too risky.”

“He’s so easy,” Allie pointed out. “And he wears a condom for everything.”

“We’re not talking about that kind of risk! And you have to stop thinking in the short term! He gives you a grand today and that’s great. What happens later? What if you lose all your contacts with the other girls? Jack’s generosity won’t make up for that. Ever.”

As I slid the shower door open, Allison handed me a towel. That childish pleading look again! Even though we’re the same size—we can trade bras—I suddenly felt like the huge clumsy playmate of a delicate fine-boned little girl. I stared into the bathroom mirror and saw, reflected back, a surprisingly graceful neck. Not the awkward galumphing outcast—a ghost from early puberty—that I sometimes imagine myself to be. And my hair had kept its shape.

Like me, Allie looks easily ten years younger than she really is. If we were aging at different rates, would we have stayed friends for so long? In fact, I wonder sometimes if looks are the basis for most female friendships: the looker who takes up with a lesser looker because it bolsters her ego; the attractive girl who (having learned that lesson) seeks out pretty friends so she won’t have to deal with another woman’s jealousy raging out of control—it’s easier to manage your own insecurities, after all. Those of another girl can be hard to read, impossible to quell, and therefore highly dangerous. Allie and I have our problems—I know in my heart that it’s not the healthiest friendship—but where looks are concerned, ours is a bond between equals. And that’s important.

“I didn’t agree to do anything with him,” Allison was insisting. “We’re just talking about it.”

“You shouldn’t even be talking to him,” I warned her.

If I wasn’t as pretty, she’d suspect me of sabotaging her out of jealousy. And if she wasn’t as pretty, she’d hate me for being so dismissive of male admiration. Allie appeared to be listening respectfully, but she became distracted and started glancing at her watch. I gave up.

Before she left, Allison begged me not to mention Jack’s phone calls to Jasmine. “You know how she jumps to conclusions!” she simpered. “Jasmine’s so judgmental. And she might tell everyone.” She tucked four hundreds into a shiny pink Louis Vuitton backpack and zipped it shut.

Maybe I should take the cut from Allie, instead of relying on her to send me back a date, but her parting words killed that possibility: “Oh, good! I can pay my rent now. Thanks! I’ll send you someone soon. Okay?” Catching the look on my face, she added, “February’s rent! It’s due tomorrow. I have to get to the bank.”

“You’re seeing guys to pay the rent the day before it’s due—?” Before I could finish, the phone interrupted me. Allie headed for the elevator as I grabbed the ringing phone.

“I think I missed Steven’s call,” I told Eileen. “I have to go out now. I can see him around seven.”

“Oh. Bummer.” Eileen sighed. “You have to get this guy while he’s hot. He’ll call next week. Do you have sheer stockings? They have to be sheer, not stretch. And please don’t wear platforms—he likes real heels.”

“Platforms? Why would I wear platforms with a john?”

“You wouldn’t believe what the last girl wore. These new girls! Listen, I know he’ll call. He wants to see an Oriental—badly. Don’t let him make an appointment for the next day, though. He’ll screw it up. If he calls when you’re not busy, that’s the best way to see him. He’s very fast. Three fifty. Be cold and bitchy but don’t order him around. He’s not a slave. But he wants to worship you…”

What kind of guy knows the difference between sheer and stretch stockings? For $350, I’m quite intrigued. Eileen and I trade a lot of business—we both have clients who go for the petite Asian look, though I think my guys are less fixated on it. (A lot of my clients enjoy Allison, too—maybe it’s the blond contrast.) Funny how every call girl I know ends up with a certain type of regular. Eileen’s customers are fetishistic, Jasmine’s are among the quickest. I’m not sure how to define a typical Allison client…not sure I want to.

“Hey, by the way. I’ve been getting these calls,” Eileen said. “Hang-ups! And voice mail with lots of stupid breathing. Ever since I heard from you-know-who.”

“Oh god. Jack?”

“Yeah. The nerve! He acts like nothing happened, you know? Like we don’t know.”

“Well, don’t let on!” I said, alarmed. “Just tell him you’re busy and get off the phone—politely.”

When you blacklist a client, he’s not supposed to know about it.

“Look, I don’t have to humor him—not after what he did to me! Blabbing to that—”

“If he finds out he’s being blacklisted, he might take it out on you in some way! What’s more important? Being right? Or being happy? And safe?”

“Well, I hung up on him, okay? I told him to leave me alone. And now I’m getting these calls. I bet it’s Jack! He has no right to do this.”

Between Allison wanting to make up with him, and Eileen self-righteously provoking him, I really don’t know what to do. The whole idea was to turn the volume down on this guy in the hopes that he would just go away and stay out of our circle. Ever since he—

Yikes—almost 3:30. All the cabs are changing shifts! It will be a nightmare getting across town. Must log off NOW, SOON, five minutes ago, if I really plan to be on time for therapy.

MONDAY NIGHT

Despite the traffic, I actually snagged a taxi quickly, by offering an off-duty cabby twenty dollars. Stuck in Central Park traffic during the crosstown pilgrimage to Dr. Kessel’s funky West Side office, I couldn’t stop thinking about Allison and Jack. She still has a soft spot for the guy. Her taste in men has always been appalling. And yet she has a natural talent for this business. Strange…And Eileen will be pissed if she hears that Allison has been talking to him. As will Jasmine. And everyone else. Oh god. And they’ll be furious with me if they find out that I knew and didn’t tell them. Why does Allie put me in these impossible binds? Why do I tolerate it?

As I emerged from the park, I spotted a big picture of Tony Soprano’s shrink on the side of a bus shelter. This week, the Sopranos are everywhere—magazines, bus shelters, you name it—and everyone seems to identify with Tony for some reason. But my shrink’s much hipper than Dr. Melfi; for one thing, she’s on a first-name basis with her patients. And, unlike Tony, I’m a savvy veteran of self-absorption, as unembarrassed about seeing a shrink as I am about getting a monthly haircut. And yet. Just like Tony, I must take this radical leap of faith! In my case, it’s about leaving my cozy East Side cocoon for the shopless tree-lined wasteland that is Riverside Drive.

I may be one of Manhattan’s therapized elite, but I’m still coming to terms with some aspects of the process—like having my recently blown-out hair savagely reblown by the punishing wind off the Hudson. Examining my hair—again—in the lobby mirror of Dr. Kessel’s solid prewar building, I was struck by the hugeness of her lobby. It’s like being in a cathedral. The West Side, whether indoors or out, is so disorienting. Leaving the East Seventies is like getting squeezed out of a grid-shaped womb into wide-avenued anarchy.

I sat patiently in Dr. Wendy’s waiting room, taking in the unchanged ethnic pottery, the Arts and Crafts furniture, while another patient went overtime. I’ve never told Wendy how simple it is to eavesdrop in that second chair to the left of the bookshelves.

“I can’t stand it!” a female voice was saying. “I don’t want to be confined or constrained in any way…I don’t like it when he asks for a date on Wednesday…” The voice became muffled and my listening spree ended. Minutes later, a mousy girl—unaware that the acoustics had been working against her—strolled past, carrying a Coach briefcase. I was impressed. Some guy is trying to constrain her? Maybe she’s more interesting than she looks…My turn.

After ranting—not too audibly—about Allison for a few minutes, I noticed a bemused expression on Dr. Wendy’s face.

“I feel betrayed,” I grumbled, but I didn’t go into the Howard mix-up. It would take half my session just to explain the physical mechanics, let alone the irritating dynamics, of my three-way with Allison. Instead, I sputtered on as best I could about Allison and Jack, trying to get the feelings accurate without discussing the money or the other girls or any of the classified details. I wanted to tell her about Eileen, but I stopped myself.

Finally, I said, “I guess I’m stuck with Allison. With her lousy judgment and her silly narcissism. And the fallout.”

“Is this why you came back?” Wendy interrupted. “Because of your relationship with Allison?”

“No.” I fell silent. It’s been over a year and there’s quite a lot Wendy doesn’t know. And not just because I have to withhold so much business info in our sessions. “It’s a relationship with a guy. I’m—we’re—in love. We got involved last spring.”

“Well, perhaps we should get caught up on that. Is he a client?”

“No, a straight guy.”

“When you say he’s a straight guy, you mean…?”

I held up my left hand as if it were a shield and spun my ring around. I told her: “He works on Wall Street. His boss is Pamela Knight. She was on Moneyline last week. He’s one of her bright young rising stars.” Wendy’s dark lashes flickered, but I couldn’t tell whether she recognized Pam’s name. “He wouldn’t understand my business. He’s always had a straight job. His entire life he’s been so—so normal that he doesn’t even know how normal he is. The other night, we were watching The Sopranos and he started telling me how corporate life is just like a Mafia hierarchy. Where does he get these ideas? The most unusual job he ever had was a stint as a golf caddie in college! He would never understand how his girlfriend could have a job that’s—well, not exactly legal.” To say the least. “And all the guys I’ve been with.”

“But most of your clients are, essentially, straight guys and they understand. Don’t they?”

“Y-yes. Pretty much.”

“Obviously, it’s not his work that sets your boyfriend apart from your clients.”

“Okay,” I said. “It’s not him. It’s me! He doesn’t know I’m a hooker. I’m pretending to be a straight chick. And it’s working! And that makes him a straight guy. It’s…I feel like Dr. Franken-hooker.”

Wendy smiled. “Well, it’s how he perceives you rather than who he might actually be. If you feel like you’re shaping his reality, it’s a heady but onerous responsibility—”

“And his sister’s an assistant D.A.!” I interrupted. “And my cousin Miranda introduced us. So if Matt finds out what I really do, he could freak out and say something to her. To my family! To his family.”

“Hang on,” she said. “Just refresh me on Miranda. She’s older than you? A sort of big sister?”

If I can keep track of my clients’ stories, why can’t my shrink keep track of mine?

“No. Miranda’s almost ten years younger than me,” I seethed. “After college she moved to New York and bought a co-op loft. Uncle Gregory pays all her bills. That’s her dad. He’s older. I mean, he’s my mother’s eldest brother.”

“Yes.” Dr. Wendy looked alert. “I remember now.” She did not apologize for the oversight, and I wasn’t sure she understood how irked I was. Wendy adjusted her glasses. The red frames, unfashionably large, make her look a bit like an office manager. Her frizzy hair always looks like it needs a good cut. But she’s got these sexy almond-shaped eyes—and a worked-out body—that save her from looking frumpy.

I suppressed my irritation and added, “Miranda has no idea what I do for a living. She doesn’t think about how other people make ends meet. You know the type.”

“Yes. I remember. And I know the type.”

Miranda’s downtown existence is entirely subsidized by Uncle Gregory, and she’s blissfully unaware of our parents’ income disparities—which is quite handy. She never asks how I get by because she’s never had to get by. Miranda fancies herself a class traitor and sees me as the chic fogy. When she discovered Matt at a gallery opening, she deemed him “too East Side” for her downtown sensibilities but perfect for me. She takes real pride in our resulting courtship, but I wonder what she would say if she knew about my very East Side profession.

“It’s not that my family is so refined,” I added. “It’s just that we don’t talk openly about money. Miranda probably thinks I get money from my parents, too. If she thinks of it at all.”

I glanced at my engagement ring again, then looked up at Wendy.

“It’s a lovely ring,” Wendy said. “So…” The inevitable question: “How do you feel about it?”

“Like a fraud.” There was more silence, as our time ran out. “Not entirely like a fraud,” I added, quietly. “More like…a successful fraud. My girlfriends in the business see this as a victory. And my regulars are delighted for me. It’s like being an athlete who’s just won a trophy and everyone expects you to make an effective speech and maybe win more trophies and endorse a breakfast cereal—except that I could lose the endorsement if my corporate sponsor finds out who I really am. I’m terrified!”

“So. If your corporate sponsor finds out who you really are?” She echoed my words back. “What then?”

I stared at her, defeated by the enormity of her mental exercise.

“Maybe,” she proposed, “your ‘corporate sponsor’ appreciates a side of you that is real, but it’s not the complete you. That’s not the same thing as being a fraud.”

“Maybe,” I said, unable to look away from my substantial-yet-tasteful diamond.

“Are you still keeping a journal? It might be helpful at a time like this.”

“Sort of. But I lost a whole month! Trying to encrypt it in Word! Don’t ask.”

Wendy nodded sympathetically. “You should consider getting an iBook.” My shrink, the Mac hugger. I guess it goes with all that ethnic pottery.

On my way home, I popped into what looked like a reputable lingerie shop on Broadway. I requested sheer stockings—supplies for Steven, Eileen’s client. A tattooed salesgirl with eyebrow rings and a vacant smile—was she also on Ecstasy, perhaps?—tried to sell me fishnet thigh-highs. Then, sensing my dismay, she steered me toward a rack of sheer black pantyhose with virtual lace “garters” built into the sides. Interesting, and rather pretty, but not what this new client is looking for. I was about to demand the manager—was there a responsible adult in the shop who understands “garter belt”?—when my cell phone rang. Steven, the cause of this maddening culture clash.

“I was just thinking about you,” I chirped. Suddenly I remembered Steven’s specs: bitchy, not chirpy. “No, tomorrow looks uncertain…Confirm with me in the morning. I can’t talk,” I added in a firmer voice. “I’m shopping.” For him, actually. But I didn’t say that because, well, it’s like telling a John you’re at the drugstore picking up some more K-Y.

Sheer stockings, like a girl’s lubrication, should simply materialize, out of the erotic ether. Do not let daylight in upon magic.

The salesgirl drifted away, in search of easier customers. Unable to resist a bargain, I snatched up three pairs of half-price thong panties—cute little animal prints. Perfect for Ted P., who likes to watch me changing my underwear in his office, and the more panties per minute the better. Some fetishists are so easy to shop for. Others must wait.

WEDNESDAY. 2/2/00

Every girl has a favorite customer. Plus, a john whom she barely tolerates in order to meet her weekly quota. In between the two extremes are bread-and-butter guys—the mainstay of a call girl’s business. You plan for bread-and-butter guys, cultivate them, seek them out. But you never plan to have a favorite john.

Allison’s favorite was Jack.

Last summer, he practically went into mourning when she decided (for the umpteenth time) to quit the business. Jack didn’t want Allison to know he was seeing other girls, and he mostly saw her friends so he could mope about how much he missed her. To have a regular who’s so easy—a quick blow-job-with-a-condom—and so devoted! We all sort of envied her. Who wouldn’t? Jack seemed like the perfect client.

Until he got a call from Tom Winters, a twisted IRS agent who was auditing Allison and calling everyone she knew. Winters wanted to prove that she had vast reserves of hidden wealth; he couldn’t believe that she simply had no savings or real assets after more than five years in the Life. Winters was curious about Allison’s lifestyle—her apartment, her prices, even her body. (He asked one girl if Allison had had a lot of expensive plastic surgery. Yes, paying cash for major cosmetic work leaves a major trail, if you’re being audited for undeclared income.)

Jack told the IRS how much he paid Allie and how often. He described the furniture in her living room. Never mind that these antiques came from her grandmother. Winters was convinced he could “prove” that Allie spent gobs of undeclared income at big-ticket antique shops. Auditing call girls was more than a job for Tom Winters: it was a hobby, an obsession, a calling.

And Jack didn’t just tell him about Allison. He told the IRS how they had been introduced—about the other girls she worked with, like me and Eileen, and he ended up providing Tom Winters with a list of private call girls on the East Side. Allison lost many of her best clients—along with the best part of her mind—all because of Jack, the weak link. Winters decided to LUD her, as they say. He got a printout of her Local Usage Dialing records and started checking up on everyone she had ever called. He used her phone records to connect the dots and came up with some alarmingly accurate theories. He threatened her clients with professional and marital embarrassment—i.e., the tax audit from hell, meaning lots of loaded questions aimed at surprised wives, prickly bosses, and gossipy junior associates. Allison’s clients were terrified of being linked with a “known tax evader.”

One night last fall, Allison woke me with a drunken hysterical call: “You’re the only person who had this information! I should have known!”

“Allison?” I whispered, trying not to wake my exhausted boyfriend.

“How else could the IRS know all these things? How else could they know that Fred came over to my place on Tuesday, May the fourth? Or the name of the girl who sent him?” she wailed in a high-pitched voice.

I sat up fast and moved away from Matt, hoping he couldn’t hear her.

“What are you talking about?” I asked in a horrified whisper.

“I’m talking about that IRS agent—who I never should have seen today!” She stopped suddenly and I heard a deep raw sob. “He knew everything! My clients, my prices, he even knows I charge extra for—for—” There was a humiliated whimper that made me cringe. “So, when did you turn me in?”

“Please calm down,” I begged as her accusations grew clearer.

“I’m not as stupid as you think!” she cried. “You won’t get away with this. I’ve got stuff on you, too!”

When I hung up, I was shaking.

“What time is it?” Matt demanded angrily. “Who was that? Why are all your friends either in trouble or causing trouble? “ he railed. “What is wrong with you? Do you have even one normal girlfriend?”

The weeks that followed were harrowing. I did not speak to Allison and barely spoke to my boyfriend, for fear of saying something incriminating. Matt started quizzing me.

“What’s going on in your life? Was Allison threatening you?” When I tried to brush the whole thing off as girlish hysteria, he refused to believe me. “You were trying to hide your conversation the other night! Why?” My distress made him angry. “What have you done?” he demanded.

For the first time, I was forced to consider just what Allison, in fact, had on me. We’ve been trading customers for five, maybe six, years. She knows my boyfriend. We’ve had dinner with each other’s families. She’s the only working girl I’ve ever introduced to my mom or my cousin, and yet she’s the most unstable. What was I thinking when I allowed her into my personal life? Allison even knows where I hide my cash—whatever I don’t spend, that is. I hired a lawyer, the notorious Barry Horowitz, who normally defends rich sociopaths—like those Dalton kids who hacked off that homeless man’s hand in Central Park. I hired him to defend myself against my best friend! And against Tom Winters, the IRS agent, who was also asking people about my furniture and my clients and looking for a weak link in my life.

Tom Winters was neutralized before he could get to my boyfriend. By mid-November he was a front-page story in the Post, a public embarrassment for the U.S. Treasury Department. He had been caught—on tape—doing the very thing he accused every call girl in New York of doing: pocketing undeclared income. Winters had used his government job to extort cash from terrified shopaholic hookers who were caught spending far more than the income they declared on their tax returns. A small Barneys shopping bag filled with hundreds did him in. (It’s amazing how much cash you can fit into a bag that was designed to carry a bottle of foundation.)

When Allison came to her senses, I felt like I was waking from a bad dream. You know, that moment when you’re not sure it was a dream and you’re not sure you’re awake yet?

Jasmine had cautioned me last fall about making up with Allie. “If a girl ever threatened me like that—you don’t get to do that in this business! Not without consequences. And if it wasn’t for that silly bitch, your boyfriend wouldn’t have been asking you all those questions.”

Yes, Allie got me into trouble with my boyfriend, but I managed to get myself out of it. I’ve kept his mind off “all those questions” by keeping Allie at arm’s length. I never converse with her when he’s around, always turn my cell off when I’m with him, and, to date, he’s none the wiser. Yes, I am always looking over my shoulder and sometimes I need to be alone just to decompress from my own shadow, but that’s the cost of making friends with the girls you work with. (Some hookers refuse to socialize with the other girls—and who can blame them?)

I persuaded Jasmine not to tell anyone about Allison’s insane threats. Allison needed to get back on her feet and replace the business she had lost. If the other girls knew she had threatened to turn someone in, they’d be shocked—and she would never get any business from them again. Eileen, for example, is angry enough at Jack; I can just imagine how she’d take it if she knew about Allie’s recent conversations with him.

Allie has never been the sharpest eyebrow pencil at the makeup counter. Her reputation as the natural blonde with the wonderful voice—too-dim-to-hurt-a-flea—has been her meal ticket. And not just with men! Allie’s the kind of girl madams adore because she’s too disorganized to steal their customers. During the last seven years, she has decided to quit the business at least four times. Professional call girls regard her as harmless competition. Fortunately for Allie, nobody knows about her angry threats. Well, nobody but me. And Jasmine.

Today, Jasmine remarked, “That girl owes you big-time. You protected her reputation.” We were walking back from the nail salon, after an emergency pedicure (for Jasmine, due to a stubbed toe) and a routine manicure (for me). I still haven’t said anything to Jasmine about Allison and Jack.

“If I were a bitch,” she continued. “I’d blackmail Allison and she’d be paying me to keep your secret. How much do you think it’s worth? Three hundred a week? If it’s any more than that, it’s not worth it, she might as well quit the business. But I think she could come up with a couple of hundred. The logic of blackmail—”

“Don’t even think that way!” I said in horror.

“Please, Allison’s so kinky she’d fucking love it, having to turn tricks to pay off some evil blackmailer. Wasn’t she claiming to be a sex addict last summer? This is right up her alley!”

“Stop it,” I moaned.

“Oh, come on. She’s lucky I’m not a bitch. Therefore I won’t do all those things—which, by the way, I know she would love to have done to her. That girl loves attention, and if there’s one thing a blackmailer gives you, it’s attention.”

I suppressed a spiteful giggle. “Blackmail is not something to joke about,” I said primly.

Jasmine became eerily calm. “No,” she agreed. “It’s not.” We were standing at the corner of York and Seventy-ninth, waiting for the light to change.

“And not being a bitch is not some sort of unique accomplishment that you get a great big medal for,” I added.

“Maybe not,” Jasmine allowed, heading into the crosswalk, “but it should be.”

Uh-oh. Five o’clock. Time to rinse off my camphor mask, rewind the video, change the sheets. Milton’s due to arrive any minute now!

THURSDAY. 2/3/00

This morning, an emergency rendezvous with Allie at the health club. I was climbing backward on the StairMaster when she appeared, flushed and damp, in flower-print running shorts and a cropped T-shirt.

“I have to talk to you,” she panted. “I need your advice. You’re the only person I can talk to…Why—uh—are you doing it like that?”

“It’s supposed to work the glutes,” I said through clenched teeth. “Can you just broadcast our problems a little louder?”

When I got to the women’s locker room, Allie had already showered. She was standing in front of a full-length mirror, sprinkling talc-free powder on her breasts. The nine-to-fivers had cleared out and the moms had gone off to Power Yoga, leaving the room empty.

“It’s about Jack,” Allie began. Then, frowning at her image in the mirror, she added, “Does my tummy look sort of…huge today? I feel so puffy.”

“Your abs look fine,” I reassured her. “What’s going on with Jack?”

She patted the thin strip of blond hair between her legs with a powder puff, then stood on the scale—carefully setting the powder puff aside before she dared look at the number settings. She stepped off the scale, began pulling her panties on, then confessed, “I—um—ran into him last night.”

“Ran into him?” I squinted at her furiously. “You saw him, didn’t you.”

“No! I mean, yes, but not the way you mean. I ran into him because—” She blushed. “He surprised me. I was coming home from a call, and Jack was standing outside my building holding a huge bouquet of lilies! You know I love lilies.”

“Allie. A john who shows up without an appointment is a stalker. Even if—especially if—he’s carrying your favorite flowers. You could have been walking home with a straight friend—with a boyfriend or something—and then what? Sneaking up on a hooker is pathological and disrespectful,” I told her. “Not to mention ungentlemanly.”

“Well, I was nervous when I saw him standing there,” she admitted. “But he was very polite and he just gave me the flowers, said good night, and walked away.”

“God, how creepy.”

But at least he didn’t make a scene in front of her doorman.

“And when I got upstairs there was a note. Do you want to see it?” She pulled a small envelope out of her gym bag.

I know why you’re holding back from seeing me. I’m truly sorry about what happened, and you’ll always be special to me. I think about you constantly. I miss everything about you. Please give me a chance.

All my love, J.

“Then he called this morning! I think I should see him. He’s being very generous. He’s offering me a lot of money, and you’ve always said I should treat this more like a business. Well, this is a business decision for me.”

“You should set some sort of weekly quota for yourself. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have standards. Some things are not for sale,” I pointed out. “While he’s thinking about you constantly, he’s making breather calls to Eileen. He’s a loose cannon.”

“She doesn’t know it’s him. Eileen doesn’t even have Caller ID! How can she say that?” A towel attendant entered the changing room, and we both clammed up. “Welllll,” Allie mumbled. “Don’t tell Jasmine. Or any of the other girls. Promise me you won’t say a word. But I asked him for two thousand. And he agreed.” Despite wanting to elude everyone’s disdain, she looked rather pleased with herself. “Soooo,” she said, with a hint of smugness. “What would you do?”

Every girl has a favorite john, and who this guy is tells you a lot about the girl. Jasmine’s favorite is Harry from Darien, who keeps a black Town Car waiting while he’s getting a blow job upstairs in his socks and wing tips. Because he’s her steadiest customer and a quickie, she hasn’t raised his price in two years. In my case, there’s Milton. Unlike Harry, Milt is no quickie. Sometimes, he’s a lot of work. But he spends far more than my other regulars, and he’s willing to help if I get myself into a financial pickle. How could I not like him? He’s financially faithful. And the bottom line with a favorite john is that deep down you like it when he’s faithful. Allison’s favorite? A spineless weasel who married into a real estate family, who ratted on us all to the IRS because he was afraid his rich wife would find out about his midday excursions to call girls. Though he likes a bit of variety, he’s really obsessed with Allie. And who else would be flattered to hear that a john “thinks about her constantly”? Most professionals would run for the hills if a client said that.

“When you have a business,” I told Allie, “you have to set your own standards. Weed out the undesirables. Being a call girl is like being responsible for a really hot restaurant. Some people get a little dessert on the house, and some don’t even get in the door. Jack shouldn’t be able to get a reservation. He’s been tainted by this IRS mess, and we can’t afford to have him around.”

“You’re blaming the victim. That IRS agent threatened to ruin his life! You’re not being fair to him.”

“That IRS guy threatened to ruin my life, too. But I didn’t become an informant, did I?”

“But you don’t have children! Jack has a family, a marriage, people who depend on him.”

“Jack’s ‘children’ are grown! It’s not as if Jack’s wife was going to get custody of two people in their late twenties!”

“No,” she agreed. “But he didn’t want to hurt her. He was trying to protect his family. You shouldn’t condemn him for that.”

“He blabbed to the IRS about us—and now they have every reason to think they can come back for more. What kind of man ‘protects his family’ by turning himself into a sitting duck?” I asked. “Even if what he did was justifiable, we can’t afford to deal with him. What if he gets subpoenaed? Every conversation, every transaction you have increases the risk.”

Allison appeared to be listening, so I pressed on.

“Look,” I said very patiently. “Your girlfriends have been sticking together and we’re not seeing this guy—”

“That’s why he keeps calling me!” she said brightly. “And offering me so much money! None of the other girls will see him. Maybe I should ask for three thousand.”

I shrank back in horror.

2 Through the Hooking Glass
FRIDAY MORNING. 2/4/00

Last night, after our appointment with Harry, Jasmine dragged me to the Mark for a martini. Not wanting to show up blotto for dinner with my fiancé, I opted for a ladylike Kir Royale—”just one.” Jasmine ordered her usual: Absolut, straight up, with an olive.

“I’m worried about Allison,” I confided.

“Stop the fucking presses!” Jasmine sputtered. “When have you not worried about Allison? What sort of problem might Her Blondness be causing—I mean, having—this week?”

I told her about Jack’s showing up at her building without an appointment and Allison’s latest bright idea, the $3,000 question. “Don’t discuss this with Allie,” I added. “Promise you won’t say a word about what I’ve told you!”

Jasmine gave me a searing look that unnerved me.

“Allie might say something about us to Jack,” I explained. “Do you want him as an enemy? Who knows when he might get interviewed again by the IRS? Or if she might tell him that we turned her against him…not that we did exactly…”

My sheepish voice trailed off into a maze of denial. I tried not to think about the sin I was committing. Spilling one best friend’s secret (against her specific wishes) to another best friend! Is there a special place in hell? I hope there’s a waiting list.

“That girl…” Jasmine was muttering darkly. “That girl’s soul is composed of cotton candy.” (I see what Allie means about Jasmine being judgmental.) “She’s a moral idiot!”

And if Jasmine knew that Allison had asked me to keep a secret? Would she trust me not to blab her business around? But I would never tell Jasmine’s secrets to Allie. That’s the difference. I swallowed the rest of my apéritif. The sweet alcoholic potion was doing its job, morphing into a weird elixir of self-justification, smoothing out my wrinkled conscience.

“And Eileen’s been getting creepy phone calls from him,” I went on. “She slammed the phone down. He retaliated by calling her back. And now Eileen’s telling everyone who will listen how she stood up to this jerk! What should we do?”

Jasmine frowned into her empty glass. “We should get another drink. And keep Jack in perpetual limbo—if we can. Eileen’s too confrontational for her own good.” As she signaled to the waiter, her wrist glittered winningly. (That guy on Forty-seventh Street who does those Bulgari knockoffs. I must remember to ask for his number.)

Jasmine sighed and shook her head. “Eileen reminds me of those big dumb guys from my old neighborhood who were always getting into bar fights!” she said. Eileen’s about five feet tall, but Jasmine has a point. “They never went anywhere in life, and they’re probably still getting into brawls and getting kicked out of bars. But Eileen should know better! How long has she been around? Eight years? What is her problem? Why is she provoking a phone fight?”

Suddenly, Jasmine’s attention shifted. “Did you pay retail for that?” She was eyeing my pony-skin Baguette with harsh curiosity.

“Of course not!” I lied.

“It really works with the sweater,” she acknowledged, “but you spend money as fast as you make it. That’s gotta stop!”

Who does she think she is? My mother?

“Hey, look.” She pulled an envelope out of her black crocodile tote (a sleek find at 70 percent off, last summer) and waved an invitation in my face. A benefit for the S________ Foundation. “Two Benefactor-level tickets courtesy of Harry. He’s got a conflict that night. This is a great way to find new guys. Maybe we can pick up some Super-Benefactors. Their tickets are in the megadig-its.”

“They’re not spending that kind of money to sit with mere Benefactors,” I pointed out. “They’ll be at their own tables—miles from ours.”

Jasmine doesn’t usually venture beyond our private circle for new customers. The girls we work with operate strictly from their books. There are very few acceptable methods for getting new business: You can trade dates with another girl or pay a cut for each new client. Work for a reputable madam and risk her extreme displeasure if she catches you “stealing.” When a girl is leaving town or retiring, you might buy her book. But how often does a good book become available? It’s rare. Sometimes an established customer refers a new client, but that’s also rare. Most of my regulars would be a little turned off if I had sex with their pals.

Of course, other kinds of girls—through advertising on websites or working for escort services—can afford to eschew these niceties. They have an endless supply of new guys (obtained at great risk), but private girls and reputable madams don’t work with them. Very few “escorts” have the patience to cross over. A small number will try to make a go of working privately, but the minute things get slow, a hard-core escort goes right back to the escort agency, or to advertising. And if she gets arrested? All the private girls in her address book are at risk.

A private girl braves the slow months to preserve the quality of her book, her contacts—her way of life. I should know. I crossed over a long time ago. And stayed here. I’ll never go back. No matter how slow it gets.

“Look,” Jasmine was saying, “this isn’t like advertising. It’s a totally cool way to enhance your client book.”

“Soliciting at a social event?” I was appalled.

“Noooo,” she said disdainfully. “We’ll work these guys as sugar daddies, do a little research on them, make sure they’re legit—and find out how rich they are. And then…say you have a monthly expense. Like, you’re taking some lessons at the French Institute. That’s five hundred dollars a month right there! So you hit the guy up for your French lessons. Or a summer share in Sag Harbor. You get the idea.”

“Or your ailing mother’s hospital bills?” I suggested, rolling my eyes. “I’m a professional. And so are you. That stuff’s for lite-hooks.” (Girls who kind of sort of sometimes maybe in a way get paid for sex. More often than they admit, but not often enough to make a living at it.)

“You’re missing the point! If you’re pretending to litehook, then it’s different—you’re not really a litehook! You’re the ultimate pro. Passing for a litehook.”

“Surely you’re not that desperate for new business.”

“Desperate? Please. You should always be building your book. Never take your existing customers for granted. Cultivate your john book as if it were a vegetable garden.” Jasmine was twisting the stem of her martini glass between her fingertips. “Water it, plant new seeds. Grow potatoes in the fall, tomatoes in summer. Learn about new farming technologies.” Her eyes shone as she warmed to her theme: the hooker in the dell.

“Potatoes?” I said. “How glamorous.” I studied the invitation. “I can’t,” I said, sipping my second Kir Royale carefully. “I promised Allison I would go to a meeting with her that night.”

“A meeting? With Allison? You’re not going to join that crazy hookers’ union!” Jasmine exploded. “Do you know what will happen to the price of pussy if those airheads succeed in changing the fucking laws?”

“For god’s sake, lower your voice!” I warned her. “Do you want everyone to hear? You’d better order some carbs before you get too drunk. Anyway, I’m not joining,” I explained. “I’m just being supportive. Of Allison.”

Narrowing her green eyes, Jasmine interrupted, in a half-slurred half whisper: “Do you know why they want to make it legal?”

I shook my head and moved closer. A middle-aged guy in a pin-striped suit with a graying ponytail was eyeing Jasmine from a love seat near the entrance.

Her voice turned steely. “If those girls ever get their way, girls like us will be doing it for ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents—just like them! Have you seen those ads for tantric hand jobs? They’re all over the Village Voicel That’s the element you’re going to encounter at whatchamacallit—the trollops’ council or whatever they call themselves.”

The ponytailed fellow stood up to greet a tall angular blonde; she was wearing Harry Potter eyeglasses, dark red lipstick, and a bright blue boa around her neck. She was also lugging an incongruously boxy red North Face backpack. He offered her the love seat and perched on one of the muffin-shaped stools, which gave him a great view of her long legs, her massive Mary Jane wedgies, and her tiny miniskirt.

Jasmine, by comparison, was a picture of sanity, in low-heeled ankle boots, well-cut trousers, light brown lip gloss, her face a more angular version of Gayfryd Steinberg’s circa 1986. A reasonable voyeur might see a streamlined brunette debating hairdressers or nursery schools with her school chum. But Jasmine was off on a tangent. And we’re not school chums—in any traditional sense of the term.

“It’s sexual socialism,” she was saying. “A redistribution of resources. Terrible. Like the minimum wage.” She took another sip. “Ayn Rand had a name for these types. Secondhanders!”

“What’s in it for Allison?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “Professionally speaking, she’s not one of those girls. She’s one of us.”

“In my opinion? It all comes down to those pink handbags!” Jasmine said. “Her taste in handbags is so juvenile, it’s excruciating. Last year, she was calling herself a sex addict and carrying around that Kate Spade number—in pink, remember? This year it’s pink Louis Vuitton! And now she’s calling herself a sex worker. It’s too predictable for words. Infantile! A hooker’s accessories should radiate discretion. Power. Sexual maturity.” She reached into the grande-dame-ish alligator tote sitting at her knee and took out a black nylon wallet. “Now, this,” she said, opening it, “I got on the street from one of those African guys. You have to invest in an expensive bag, but a wallet’s something else entirely. Everybody sees your bag, but almost no one sees your wallet.”

A waiter arrived with our bill. I opened my own wallet—speckled pony skin accented with a matte plastic trim. Only Jasmine could succeed in making me feel uneasy about this chic new addition to my extended family of mostly Italian accessories.

“Let’s split it,” I said.

“Christ. Having all hundreds is almost as devastating as having no cash at all!” she muttered crossly. “Get the next one. I have to break a bill.”

At Demarchelier, Matt was waiting impatiently, fiddling with his cell phone. “Where were you?” he demanded. “You’re twenty minutes late!”

“I had a drink with Jasmine, and I tried to call you,” I riffed in a snippy voice. “Is your ringer off again? Your voice mail’s not working, you know!” My irritation was so authentic that my white lie felt completely real. Besides, Matt just upgraded his phone and hasn’t had time to learn the new features. His compulsive upgrading is a godsend, providing endless new excuses for any failure to communicate. I wonder how many other relationships rely on technology for this very reason.

“Well, you should have invited her to dinner,” he said.

“Jasmine,” I began. Jasmine was too exercised over the hypothetical price of pussy to pass for a normal person tonight? I don’t think so! “She had other plans,” I told him. “Take us out for dinner next week, if you like.”

Matt was absentmindedly stroking the underside of my wrist: a minitruce in the war on lateness. “I’ve never had a date date with two girls,” he replied, clearly enticed.

I looked vaguely past his shoulder and acted as if I hadn’t really caught the innuendo. For a second, I wondered if Matt could guess that Jasmine and I, just hours before, were…doing another kind of date together. He couldn’t possibly. Could he?

Compared to some of the men I routinely bed, Matt seems so young and healthy. Sure, he’s turned on by the idea of two girls, like any other guy. But he doesn’t require two girls just to get a hard-on; some of my clients are so jaded that nothing normal turns them on anymore. And, though I hardly qualify as being Into Girls, I’ve probably been in bed with more women than he has. It boggles the mind. Even my mind.

But that’s one thing I treasure about Matt. A relationship with a guy who hasn’t turned into a raving decadent. I smiled softly across the table and gazed into his eyes. Never change! I wanted to say out loud. We looked at each other for a while, and I wondered what he was thinking.

Over dessert—virtuous strawberries for me, sinful crème brûlée for Matt—I contemplated my session with Dr. Wendy: Maybe he knows one side of you. It’s not the complete you, but that’s not the same thing as being a fraud. Is it?

“My sister thinks we should come up with a date,” Matt was saying.

“Why?” I asked. “Elspeth’s not the one who’s getting married.”

“I know, but she wants to plan her year—”

“Can’t she plan her year without planning our wedding?” I shot back. “Why is she always interfering?”

As an older sister myself, with two brothers, I know that a younger brother must put his foot down in order to gain a big sister’s respect.

He changed his tack. “Well, anyway, I was thinking, if you aren’t ready to set a date, why don’t we move in together?”

“Move in?” I was floored. “Where?”

“Wherever you want. I mean, we could move into your place or my place and see how we like living together.”

I couldn’t hide my dismay. We’ve only just begun discussing the engagement, my shrink and I. And Matt wants us to move in together! How will I keep seeing my clients? Oh, what was I thinking when I said yes? And what now? Can a girl march down the aisle and just say “Whatever!” instead of “I do”?

“Why do you look so surprised?” he asked playfully. “We’ll be living together when we’re married, you know.”

“I know that,” I snapped. “But—but—my place is too small for a couple. My bedroom’s tiny. Where will you put all your suits?”

“Okay. Mine’s bigger,” he offered.

“This—is very sudden,” I stammered. “We—we just got engaged!”

“We’ve been engaged for a while, honey, almost three months. You’re upset. What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, though I had the urge to bolt from the table. “Was this Elspeth’s idea? I wish you wouldn’t discuss our relationship with—”

“Calm down, okay?” He wasn’t playful anymore. “This has nothing to do with my sister.” And turning this into a fight about his sister was not going to be an easy way out.

I silently recalled the time Matt almost found out about my second phone number: One weekend, last summer, I stupidly forgot to unplug my business phone. When it rang, I was so startled that I almost gave the entire game away, dashing madly from one end of the apartment to the other! And what if both phone lines had started ringing at once? I made up some story about buying a new phone because the old one was broken. The memory of that day made my stomach tense up. I smiled stiffly.

In a more patient voice, he said, “Just think about it. You don’t have to decide this minute.” He paused. “God, you look…are you okay?”

My palms were sticky. If we broke up now…I thought, it would all be so simple. I stared at my ring.

“I’m sorry,” I said, picking up a strawberry with my spoon. “You deserve someone more stable. Less neurotic.” My fingers trembled. The strawberry tumbled onto the tablecloth.

“Don’t be silly,” he told me. “It doesn’t matter what I deserve. That’s not how love works.”

“How love works? You’re an expert? Is that something they covered in business school?” My eyes filled with tears and I rushed off to the ladies’ room where I calmed my nerves by checking the voice mail on my cell phone.

A tongue-in-cheek message from Milton: “Put those dirty videos back in the deep freeze, kiddo—I’ll be in Tokyo for the next three weeks.” He promised to call after his business trip. Milton’s bottomless appetite for porn videos, awkward positions, and oversize sex toys doesn’t turn me on. But the sound of his voice is always so reassuring. I closed my eyes and replayed the message.

Then I dabbed some powder under my eyes and returned to my boyfriend, emotionally refreshed—much to his relief and mine. You see, the thing is, I really think Matt benefits from me being in the business, even though it has to be kept a secret. I’m a much better girlfriend when I’m feeling secure about my clients, my bargaining power—when I’m having a good week. When I’m seeing other guys—for money—I’m better in bed, too. I know it.

Later, helping me into my coat, Matt brushed his lips against my left ear. I felt his teeth nipping discreetly at my lobe. “I must really be in love with you,” he whispered. “You’re so fucking impossible!”

A shiver of pleasure ran through me as he steered me toward the sidewalk. I smiled up at him, brought back to safety by his desire for something more immediate—something I knew I could deliver.

As we proceeded to my apartment, I went over my mental checklist: Is the ringer on my business phone off? Did I put my excessively diverse condom assortment in the special drawer? Hide that incriminating dildo? Stash all my cash? Lock up the videos? A working girl can’t be too careful.

My body was responding to his unambiguous grip—his hand circling my arm—and the nervous feeling in my chest was migrating through me, toward my panties. Toward him.

MONDAY AFTERNOON. 2/7/00

This morning, I got one of those calls. “It’s Bob! Remember me?”

“Of course!” I trilled.

Oh, dear. Which Bob? As I made small talk with the familiar voice, I ran through my Bobs: Bobby M., the lawyer in his forties from Short Hills; Bob, no last name, in the insurance business, who wears glasses; a “snowbird” called Bob in his sixties who hangs out in Boca Raton, needs a large-size Trojan; a Bob from Greenwich who—

“Is this still Sabrina’s number?” Bob asked, thrown off by my voice.

Ah. The snowbird! Taking a break from his sun-drenched winter.

“It’s me!” I assured him in a softer voice; this Bob thinks I’m twenty-six.

Jasmine regards multiple naming of the working self with impatience: “Who can keep up with all your names?” Jasmine doesn’t use a work name, she calls herself Jasmine at all times. “Suppose some guy runs into you at a gallery opening, calls you Boopsie or Cupcake or whatever, and screws everything up for you? Hide it in plain sight,” she insists. “Besides, they think it’s tacky when a girl has too many names.”

Different names are handy because so many clients have the same name. Bobby the lawyer calls me Suzy, Insurance Bob calls me Lisa, and Bob the Snowbird knows me as the kittenish “Sabrina.” I can identify nine out of ten johns (or Bobs) by crosschecking a guy’s voice with the name he calls me. This is like having Caller ID software implanted in your forehead. Unlike some girls, I never have to crassly inquire “Which Bob are you?” to a man I’ve had sex with. In other words, it might actually be classier to have a few working names. Despite what Jasmine thinks.

Two years ago, I bought a small list of guys from Daria, who left the business…to get married. Neither she nor I had an inkling, then, that I, too, would contract the marriage virus. Half-Persian, half-German, from somewhere vaguely south of L.A., Daria was confident that I would do well with her clients because, as she put it, “You’re exotic like me. You’re not as busty, but that’s okay because you’re Asian.” (Like so many Californian hookers, Daria had pretty much assimilated after five years on the East Coast. But her D-cup breasts were undeniably West Coast and so was her assessment of my figure. By local standards, I’m almost busty. Really.)

I gave myself a new name, making myself years younger and much newer to the business. Daria’s former clients think “Sabrina” has been working for two years at the most.

As a child, I used to harangue my mother: “Why was I called Nancy? Why can’t I be a Suzy or a Barbara? Why wasn’t I named Felicity?” Not having the faintest idea what she was foretelling, Mother replied, in that prim tone (which remains her parental hallmark), “When you grow up, you will have the freedom to choose any name you wish. Until then you will be called Nancy.”

So what would Matt think if he knew how I’ve realized my earliest ambitions? He’d be…appalled. I’m sure he has no idea how much fun it is to rename yourself at will. And how do you explain a thing like that to a guy like Matt, anyway?

You don’t.

TUESDAY. 2/8/00

When Bob showed up, I was wearing a short pleated skirt with high narrow heels. My red toenails glistened against strappy golden Pradas—a confectionery bare-legged look that I could never wear to a john’s office or a good hotel. Wouldn’t dream of wearing outside of my apartment, actually.

“Look who’s here!” I cooed.

I fluttered around the living room, bending forward to adjust the VCR—and to grant a quick peek up my skirt. Easy to do, in heels. If I were traveling through the halls of the Peninsula or the Four Seasons, these shoes might throw me off. But within the radius of my bed, I’m gliding; I belong in them.

I’m a better twenty-six-year-old today, at thirty-something, than I was at twenty-six. And I enjoy being a “new” girl—more than I ever enjoyed it when I really was new. So when Bob mentioned the Stanhope, a hotel I’ve been to many times, I feigned ignorance.

“Sabrina,” he chuckled. “Didn’t Daria teach you anything?”

“Only the important things.” I giggled and pulled my skirt down to hide my transparent white panties.

“Don’t do that,” he protested. “Daria wouldn’t want you to cover up your pussy like that, would she?”

“Daria taught me how to eat pussy,” I remarked in a friendly voice. “She teaches by example.”

His eyes twinkled as I slipped into his crude routine.

“Does she?” he replied gamely. “So she did teach you something. Daria likes to have her snatch licked, doesn’t she?”

“Only if you know what you’re doing,” I told him. “And she tells me you have a well-trained tongue.”

(Daria and I didn’t know each other that well. In fact, we worked together just a few times before I bought her book. But her clients like to think we were lovers. Before she moved on, Daria planted this cute idea in their minds—and called during her honeymoon to remind me. She was a conscientious call girl, even in retirement.)

Soon I was standing in front of Bob in my panties and heels, bent over with my skirt at my feet and my smooth rump in his face.

“What a gorgeous ass,” he sighed. I could hear him unzipping his pants.

“Are you playing with your cock?” I murmured, pulling my panties clearly to one side. I tilted my pussy to give him a better view.

There was a hungry moan as he held back from coming too fast.

“Let’s go in the bedroom,” he suggested.

“Good idea,” I agreed, glancing at the clock on the VCR. “Where we can relax…and I can try out your tongue.”

This wouldn’t work if Bob knew how long I’ve been in the business. He needs me to be Sabrina: naive, dirty-mouthed, willing to do all the work, very much in control, excited by my “new” career. A tall, complicated order. Especially when you’re really new.

I teased him and sat over his face, demanding that he lick my ass.

“Your tongue…” I was cooing again. “I could get addicted to that tongue!”

I changed positions and slipped a condom onto his erection. “Are you going to fuck me today?” I was kneeling on the bed, poised to suck his cock. I ran a fingertip over his dark chest, flicking the gold chain to one side; Bob’s generation still believes you can’t be too rich or too tan.

“Oh, my god. Sabrina—you’re such a hot little girl!” His erection was impressive. I placed it in my mouth and gave some attention to the head, then worked my way toward the base. “Not yet, not yet,” he moaned, pressing his cock upward. Only with a condom could I give him the following treat; I felt an unexpected throb as I pulled him into my throat. He exhaled loudly, turning rapidly to jelly—my signal to pull away, grab a tissue, and shift gears.

As I tidied up, I turned off my slutty act but continued to play bubbly Sabrina. My boyfriend never sees this part of me. Guys like Matt don’t mate with bubbly chicks. It’s true, I do seem unambitious, compared to the women in Matt’s daily life—his boss, his up-and-coming female colleagues. But unambitious is permissible (in a girl) if you’re not too bubbly, and if you’re respectable. My fake job isn’t a power gig—nor is it glamorous—but it has nothing to do with my looks. And Matt wouldn’t want to be seen as a guy who marries a girl for her looks! (Though of course he wouldn’t have fallen for a girl who wasn’t pretty.) That stack of volumes on my bedroom floor by dead white novelists from Thackeray to Mrs. Gaskell to Henry James, interspersed with stuff by live brown ones implies that I’m serious at the core. Matt never reads fiction that was written before 1960 but wants to marry a girl who does.

Whereas Matt finds my reading tastes respectable, Bob’s impressed that I read anything at all. Bob’s the kind of self-made guy who could marry a woman who doesn’t even read. He made all his money in real estate speculation.

“You’re a very nice girl,” Bob assured me in a deliberate, fatherly tone. “A wonderful young lady.” He was sliding some hundreds under the tissue box on my bedside table.

I was touched by his desire to validate the fluffy dirty-mouthed girl he sees three times a year. I suddenly wondered if Matt, upon meeting such a bimbette, would bother to say something corny, something kind. Would he know that it makes a difference? Would he care? I don’t want to go there, I guess; anyway, Matt belongs to a different part of my life.

As I closed the door I could hear Bob stepping into the elevator, and I wondered: What happens to the bubbly “Sabrina” when Nancy marries Matt? Must I burn the bimbette to save the woman?

FRIDAY AFTERNOON. 2/11/00

Etienne is back from a short trip to Paris. “Realizing this is intolerably short notice,” he began in a wheedling voice. “I hope you still remember who I am? What a week! Could we perhaps…this evening? Allow me to forget this gruesome week…”

After almost ten years—he’s one of my oldest customers, by which I mean longest—he still employs these coy icebreakers.

“Be here no later than six!” I cautioned him.

I have to meet Matt at seven, but didn’t tell him that, of course. Never let a guy feel he’s being rushed. And never let him know why! Just in case he does feel rushed.

“Bien sûr,” he purred agreeably. Etienne has lived on East Sixty-seventh Street for more than three decades, but his accent remains strangely intact. One of his many style decisions.

SATURDAY. 2/12/00

Etienne arrived last night, carrying a chocolate-brown umbrella with an engraved brass handle in the shape of a swan’s head.

“Very handsome,” I told him. “Did you find it in Paris?”

“It keeps me dry,” he said with a humorous shrug. “My children gave it to me for Christmas.”

Etienne’s son is an eye surgeon, and his two daughters are teachers. I think he once told me that the oldest daughter is married to a guy at Salomon.

Lying on the couch with my bare feet nestled in Etienne’s lap, I smiled as he traced gentle lines on my calves with his fingertips. “Do you know what your most interesting feature is?” he asked dreamily. “I am always curious to know what a woman will designate as her most important feature. Women are so often at odds with their paramours.”

I gazed down at my legs. Sometimes, when I’m with Matt, I get paranoid about my thighs. But never when I’m with a customer. At work, a pragmatic self-appreciation kicks in: I instantly feel, oh, 10 to 30 percent more attractive as soon as I have an appointment lined up. It’s an engine that switches on by itself. You answer the phone, make the appointment, look in the mirror, and you see what the client will be getting. It’s hard to be so objective with a boyfriend. And lovely to be appreciated by a succession of men over fifty.

I was wearing my new zebra-print thong and nothing else—so I couldn’t hide the effect this was having on my nipples. A familiar tingle caused my thighs to turn in slightly. Etienne ran a considerate fingertip over my right breast and smiled. Now, I thought, smiling back, here he comes, as predictable as a clock. Sensing my body’s pliant mood, he moved closer. His lips made a dangerous beeline for mine, but I dodged him gracefully and I slid away from his kiss.

“Let’s continue this biology lesson in the bedroom!” I giggled, grabbing his hand.

“You are a foul-tempered devil,” he muttered. “Why do you welcome my kisses here,” he said, tapping the front of my panties, “but not here?” He touched a finger to the corner of my mouth.

“One of life’s mysteries,” I murmured, slipping out of my panties.

“You never answered,” he said, placing his mouth against one breast. His tongue was warm, not too demanding, and my nipple couldn’t help but encourage him. “If you had to choose just one important feature?”

“I’d pick two,” I said, knowing how much my vanity pleases Etienne. “My face and my breasts.” I couldn’t exactly repeat my secret answer: “If only I didn’t rely on them so much! My face has made me rather lazy about exercise, and my tummy always threatens to betray me. I should go to the gym more often, but I seem to be getting away with it because you keep calling.”

He smiled and cupped one breast, then ran his hand over my abdomen. “No quarrel with your assessment—but for me, it’s your skin.”

“Really?” How, after a decade of seeing me, does this man come up with such charming new material? He’s a born flirt, the genuine article.

“The texture is what I find so…compelling.” And then, as my flattered smile registered on Etienne, his intrusive mouth sought another off-limits kiss.

“Darling,” I breathed, maneuvering my neck to evade him, “my pussy is getting so impatient…” I tactfully directed his face toward my open thighs. Almost six-thirty. How time flies when you’re being hustled by a veteran john!

When I emerged from my building—just a few moments after Etienne’s departure—Matt was waiting in a cab, delighted that, for once, I was ready on time.

Elspeth’s buffet was in full swing when we arrived at her apartment. My cousin Miranda was standing next to a giant brioche, halfheartedly fending off a sandy-haired, somewhat beefy-looking guy I’ve seen many times before. He’s at all of Elspeth’s parties and I think he must be one of her junior lawyers, but I can never remember his name. Miranda has a permanent tan from growing up in Trinidad, and her mother, like my dad, is half-Indian.

“Fascinating,” the sandy-haired guy was saying. “I had no idea such a unique mixture of beauty was actually possible. Your father’s Chinese?”

Miranda smiled oddly and pulled me toward her.

“Meet my cousin Nancy,” she told him. “This is…um…Christopher. I’ll be back!” she added, pulling me in yet another direction. “Let’s get Nancy a drink.”

“Well, I guess Matt can keep him busy,” I said. “How’s everything?”

“Oh, fine, now that you’re here! All these men keep hitting on me!” she complained. “I thought you’d never arrive. And that…Christopher. He keeps talking about how exotic I am. You know, I feel like an object,” she said in a low bitter voice.

The terrible twenties! She really believes she doesn’t want all this attention. Even though she’s wearing a cropped cashmere sweater and the tightest Dolce & Gabbana pants I’ve seen in weeks.

“Your outfit’s kind of sexy,” I pointed out, as she steered me toward the champagne. “And your belly-button ring is a definite draw.”

“Not that kind of object!” she said. “He keeps harping on how exotic I look just because—just because I’m half-Chinese.” And she still has that trace of a Trinidad accent, which suburban New Yorkers like Christopher don’t expect a Chinese-looking girl to have. I don’t have that accent, because I left at the age of two.

“He meant it as a compliment,” I said. “Be nice to him, he’s trying to be poetic and charming. And don’t take it so personally! To him, you are exotic.”

“Well, I’m sick of everyone asking me where I’m from,” she told me. “Especially men.”

“Then go back to Trinidad where everybody will know exactly where you’re from. And you won’t be exotic anymore. But you’d hate having to deal with Trinidadian men. Can you imagine?”

In this, we’re viscerally united. Neither of us has ever had a boyfriend from the islands. Though she still has the accent, she really can’t go back. Miranda clinked her champagne glass against mine and gave me a rueful smile.

“I suppose that’s right. Look, here he comes. Mr. Exotic himself.”

“You just resent him because he’s not wearing one of those strange little goatees. He’s a nice guy! Let him take you out to dinner sometime.”

“Oh, he’s not my type,” she sighed, rolling her eyes at me as if I were one of our great-aunts. Except that she would never actually roll her eyes in that way at any of our great-aunts. It would have to be done on the sly.

Christopher and Matt were heading toward us, led by Elspeth, who was dressed in party Manolos, black satin capris, and a transparent silk T-shirt. Elspeth is one of those A-cup gals who can maintain her respectability in a see-through blouse. Her short auburn hair topped off a smooth, pretty line that ended at her pointy toes. An audible “Nancy!” startled a few guests. That brittle voice takes some getting used to—it doesn’t really go with her pixielike features. “Miranda!” Much air-kissing. “Being engaged to my little brother really agrees with her!” she exclaimed. “You look different tonight. Isn’t she radiant!” she said to Matt and Miranda. “I swear to god, you’re glowing, Nancy.”

That’s because, while rushing Etienne through his session, I felt obliged to throw in a real orgasm. A man won’t think of you as a pleasure-pinching hooker if you take a little time out for an orgasm. If, just minutes ago, he felt the tremors of your clitoris against his tongue, it’s a cinch to get him off, then send him out early, feeling pleased with himself.

I glanced around at all the high-heeled guests and felt a twinge of ambivalence. Should I have worn sluttish stilts instead of flats? Nobody would guess that less than one hour ago I was lying in bed with my thighs wrapped around the face of a gray-haired man, conjuring up degrading fantasies (with Matt in the lead role) so I could get my orgasm over with, already. Not with all these women gliding around on their party stilts while I stand here in my shiny good-girl flats. Deep cover.

“Men are dogs,” Elspeth was saying. “Jason promised to be here no later than six! To help! Yeah, right. He’s stuck in a meeting and he totally forgot. Did you get my e-mail?” she asked. “About the fabric dyes?”

“I haven’t had a chance to log on all day,” I explained. “I was, um, trying to get this project finished and I got sort of caught up—overwhelmed by it.”

“And listen, there’s this website that—don’t knock it till you try it—helps you organize your wedding. I wish this had been around five years ago, when I got married. Take it from me, the Day will go more smoothly if you break it down into components. They have a private chat list for anxious brides. Lucy, my colorist, says they discuss everything.” She cast a meaningful glance at Matt, to indicate the Girls Only quality of the list.

“Really? Like, first-night jitters?” Matt said, with a mischievous smirk.

“No.” Elspeth pretended to be annoyed. “Lingerie and bouquets. So, Nancy: this project that keeps you so busy. What’s the latest? Are you almost done?”

Miranda turned away from Christopher and leaned in to hear more. I felt a quiver of insecurity in my solar plexus, which I tried to quell with champagne, then managed to make a few nonremarks about my fake job. Matt, Elspeth, my family, his family—they all think of me as a part-time slacker who does copyediting for extra money. Miranda is so clearly a girl with an allowance that any relative of hers can be tarred with the same brush, so Matt assumes that my work supplements a modest income from my parents.

Fortunately, most people think the doings of a copy editor are pretty boring. It’s easy to get them distracted from my supposed job: Just talk about it! The subject usually changes, quite rapidly, when I explain that my current “project” is a massive treatise on Eastern medicine that the author hopes to translate into German. It’s important to mention a language that is totally unsexy.

“How did you meet this guy?” Elspeth asked. “This—what is he, an acupuncturist? And a chiropractor? From where?” She wasn’t letting go of the subject as easily as I had hoped.

“Oh, ah, he’s a family friend of the translator,” I explained. “She’s going to translate the whole thing when I’m finished, and we’re having this terrible problem because a file got corrupted and he only made one backup.”

Christopher was trying to look interested and Matt was examining the wine bottles as Elspeth went on.

“And where did he train?” she said, looking directly at me.

I was stumped. Where did this fictional chiropractor learn how to be an acupuncturist? She was waiting for an answer.

“Uh, you mean his computer training or his medical training?” I did my best to appear confused. “His computer skills are negligible,” I added.

Elspeth glanced at Matt and began to say something. Then she stopped. I turned to the bar for another glass of champagne, horrified by my questionable performance. When I came back, Elspeth was having a rather quiet tête-à-tête with her brother. Matt looked up and came closer, to put his arm around my waist while Elspeth gave us both a long, thoughtful stare.

“So, what’s the publication date?” Elspeth demanded, in a cheery yet ominous voice.

“Well, I…” Leaning into Matt’s light embrace, I cleared my throat pensively. “The thing is, I made an agreement. I’ve signed a contract not to discuss—I’m not really allowed to disclose any of the details. I know it’s a bit silly—with a book like this—but it’s part of my arrangement with the translator.”

“Really? Is that a common practice?” Elspeth wanted to know.

Jesus Christ.

“I thought it was, but I really don’t know. Why?”

It bothered me that she had stopped asking where the chiropractor trained and was now on a new line of questioning altogether—just when I thought I might have a suitable answer for the last question. And this was all supposed to be so boring!

“I wonder if a contract of this sort is enforceable,” she said. “What are the limits? Did you show it to a lawyer? If you did, you’d have to tell your lawyer about the book. What if you told your doctor? Or your psychiatrist? Could a publisher call them to testify about what you leaked? What if there was a crime involved?”

“Elspeth had too much coffee this morning,” Matt sighed.

“Well, a contract like that raises important privilege issues that Nancy might not have considered.” She looked at me quizzically. “Not that you’re the kind of girl with any secrets to keep. Or are you?” she asked with a sharp, mischievous smile.

A tall blonde in a red scoop-necked blouse and a leather skirt caused Elspeth to break away. “Karen! You look great! I’d like you to meet my future sister-in-law, Nancy.”

I wondered if Karen was one of Elspeth’s law school buddies, a fellow prosecutor, perhaps. Increasingly, I find that the more provocative the outfit, the straighter the job. I almost wonder if a display of cleavage and flesh will make me blend in more.

“My brother’s a player,” Elspeth said proudly. She grabbed my hand to show Karen my three-carat diamond. “When he does something, he really does it.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Karen gushed. “We have to talk! I just heard about a fabulous two-bedroom—would you consider moving downtown? Tribeca?”

“Karen’s a real estate genius,” Elspeth chimed in. “Give them your card—I was telling Matt the other day, ‘You can’t expect Nancy to start a new life with you in that bachelor pad!’”

Elspeth’s husband appeared in the doorway carrying a huge briefcase. Jason’s the money in that marriage—an M&A lawyer. Elspeth, the assistant D.A., sees herself as the integrity. Naturally, he’s the polite one and she’s the loudmouth.

“Better late than never!” she rasped cheerfully. “Where were you?”

As he leaned forward for our perfunctory kiss on the cheek, we exchanged a brief look, that “Eye Contract” entered into by two people who might never have met if two other people weren’t related to each other. Restrained sympathy. A curious desire to understand the other person. Followed by relief because you don’t really have to.

When I turned around, Karen and Matt were trading business cards, and I could feel the walls of an unseen apartment closing in on me.

“Matt says you have a new e-mail address? Here’s mine. You’re going to love this place—it’s perfect for a young couple,” Karen told me.

“Oh, I’d love it if you two moved downtown,” Miranda said. “There’s so much happening! We can meet for lunch, Nancy, near the museum.” Miranda works at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, which is smack-dab in the middle of thronging hell! But she loves it because she has no memory of what SoHo was like when it was just a budding restaurant scene with a few nice shops.

“And it’s closer to work,” Matt said. “Definitely. Can we see it this weekend?”

What did I get myself into here? Tribeca? Oh god. Overpriced, inconvenient, miles from my hairdresser and my bikini waxing…not to mention my shrink. But my geographic horror gave way to relief. Thanks to Karen and Miranda and Matt, all singing the praises of an overrated neighborhood, Elspeth was now focusing on us as a couple and seemed to be less curious about me. Thank god.

SUNDAY. 2/13/00

Update on the Tribeca 2BR. According to Karen’s bubbly e-mail, it’s got a breakfast nook and a balcony. The current occupants bought in ‘92, before the market started going haywire, and the husband has persuaded his wife to relocate to East End Avenue so their daughter can walk to school. Karen has a special rapport with the co-op board, which insists on vetting all prospective renters—in the flesh. “I’ll get you in, no problem,” she threatened—I mean, promised.

This morning, while Matt was in the shower, I snuck in a quick call to Liane. “I can’t talk long,” I warned her. “My boyfriend and I are going to look at a rental on Franklin Street. I just have a minute.”

Like every madam I’ve known, Liane is exceedingly generous with her wisdom. At seventy-something, tall, slender, and Dioresque, she is still the epitome of 1950s elegance. And fifties ethics, too.

“Under no circumstances should a girl like you ‘live with’ a man,” she said. “These trial marriages are a big mistake.”

Trial marriage? Wow. If I tell Liane that I’m responsible for putting off the wedding date, I’ll never hear the end of it.

“Well, I’m not going to tell you how to conduct your life, dear. Don’t you know anyone who’s available tomorrow night?” she asked, changing the subject.

February fourteenth. A great night to be a call girl without a valentine and a terrible night for madams, because too many girls have relationships that tie them up (so to speak) for the evening.

“You, of course, have a good reason to take tomorrow night off,” Liane remarked. “Your fellow has made a commitment, and he’s a catch. Though you’ll soon see that commitment evaporating if you move in with him! What is your fiancé planning for Valentine’s Day?”

“We’re going to a chamber-music recital.” Liane indicated her approval. “Avoiding the crowds,” I said. “Don’t you think Valentine’s Day can be a bit—”

“Of a nuisance? Frankly, dear, yes. I have a lovely gentleman from Buenos Aires flying in. He’ll be in meetings all day tomorrow and he wants a brunette with real breasts to arrive at eight, leave at midnight. He’s at the Four Seasons. Dinner in his room, pleasant conversation, garter belt, stockings, two thousand.” She sighed. “He’s so easy, too! Or so I’ve heard. You’d be perfect.”

I felt a twinge of regret, despite the fact that 40 percent would go to Liane if I were to see him.

“How about Jasmine?”

“She’s too businesslike,” Liane objected. “And he prefers someone petite. Well, I suppose, in her little Chanel ballet flats, Jasmine really looks petite and she’s trim and pretty, so he’s not going to send her away…” Jasmine’s five feet five, but I held my tongue as Liane tried to sell herself on the idea. “She has a nice bust—not too big. She hasn’t had her breasts done, has she?”

“No way!” I assured her. “I’ll call you later.”

I quickly dialed my hairdresser’s number, allowed it to ring once, and quietly hung up. Just in case Matt happened to hit the redial button.

We’ve all heard the horror stories—innocent boyfriends accidentally hitting redial, stumbling across numbers and clients and…welcome to Hooker Hell. If that isn’t every call girl’s worst nightmare, it certainly should be!

MONDAY. 2/14/0 0

Today I showed Wendy the keys to Matt’s…bachelor pad, as Elspeth calls it. (What do you call the apartment of a man who wants to forsake bachelorhood for you and you alone?)

“So you have the keys to your ‘corporate sponsor’s’ headquarters?” my shrink asked, cocking her head to one side.

The keys were sitting on the small table between us, next to her tissue box.

“I never use them. Only to lock up when I’m leaving—if he’s not there.”

“Never?”

“Well, he might be inspired to ask for a set of mine. I couldn’t possibly let Matt have keys to my place! And I’m always afraid he’ll bring that up. This morning…” I scowled unhappily. “I resolved to throw them into the Hudson.”

“Really. What’s going on?”

I crossed my arms uncomfortably. “His sister’s pushing me to set a wedding date, and she introduced us to this real estate broker.” I told Wendy about the two-bedroom on Franklin Street. “Matt thinks it’s wonderful and he just assumes I do, too. He has this idea that we’ll become some kind of downtown couple, but his whole idea of what downtown is really about is just silly! And false! Moving downtown isn’t what makes you a downtown person. It’s so naive! He’s not really a New Yorker,” I explained, “and it’s becoming more obvious. How can I live in Tribeca with some guy who doesn’t even know that he’s not really living downtown, that the whole area has become an overpriced travesty! He has zero sense of real estate irony.”

“So you’re angry at your boyfriend because he’s still an out-of-towner.”

Wendy blinked, betraying a hint of a smile, and I suddenly felt unfaithful. Boyfriend-bashing is fine if restricted to certain topics, but this was pushing the envelope. You’re supposed to be able to say anything about anybody in therapy, but I felt guilty. Admitting that he’s geographically unhip to the point of clueless! A good girlfriend doesn’t speak derisively about a guy who is so…invested in her.

“Where is Matt from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Connecticut.”

“Irish-Catholic?”

“No, some kind of part-time Protestant. His mother came from one of those Hudson Valley Huguenot families. But he’s not very interested in his ancestors. Or his religion. He’s…” I smiled and blushed. “Very keen on the present and the future.”

“Yes?” Wendy looked quizzical. “You had a pleasurable thought.”

“Oh, nothing. He’s so cute,” I sighed. “Sometimes, I just want us to keep dating. I’d like to stop time and be old enough to know better and young enough to play the game and…be pursued by this up-and-coming guy for the rest of my life. I guess I’m like one of those clients—those men who keep holding back because they don’t want to come. They don’t want their session to end, and they just keep prolonging it.”

“And how do you feel about those men?”

“I used to hate them! But now I’m used to it. I know how to pace myself, how to hurry them along—gently, of course. But nobody feels upbeat about getting a difficult customer.”

“So if you’re a difficult customer, what does this new apartment signify? The end of an ‘exciting session’?”

“Look, any normal woman would be thrilled. It’s really a very nice place. It’s close to Wall Street, so it’s perfect for Matt, but it’s miles away from everything I do. Does he expect me to give up my home, my neighborhood, my entire life? Just like that?”

“To be fair, I don’t think Matt has any idea what you’ll be giving up if you move in with him.”

“No kidding! If I move in with him, I’ll—I’ll be reduced to doing outcalls.” (What else? Rent Jasmine’s bedroom by the hour? The bulk of my business today is in my apartment.) “He doesn’t understand how I support myself. I think he thinks I’m getting money from my family.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Um, no. I just sort of let him think it. I mean, there’s no way I could dress the way I do and live where I live if I really made my entire living as a freelance copy editor.”

“Interesting. Why did you get engaged?” Dr. Wendy asked in a quieter voice.

Tears of self-pity began to pour down my cheeks. Fortunately, Dr. Wendy’s office and my bedroom are two places where you never have to hunt around for a tissue!

I blew my nose and explained, “It was totally unprofessional of me—I didn’t think it through! I accepted his ring. I was too dazzled to think—disoriented, afraid—”

“What were you afraid of?”

“He came over to pick up his keys.” I pointed to the keys on the table. “We had broken up a few days before, and he was acting strange. I started thinking he was going to assault me.”

“Has he assaulted you before?” Wendy was alarmed.

“Of course not!” Matt smacking a girl—that’s unthinkable. But you can’t even joke about such matters these days. Everybody, even your shrink who has known you for half a decade, will suspect that you’re protecting a social monster. “It was a misunderstanding,” I assured her. “I was disoriented. I felt so distant from him at first, and he seemed like a stranger to me, and I didn’t know why he was there. We weren’t seeing each other anymore. But he said he needed his keys because he was locked out of his apartment. And then my mind flashed on this terrible thing that happened when I was sixteen!”

“Yes?”

“A john who waved a gun in my face. I was terrified. And when I started screaming my head off, the client got so scared of the racket I was making, he begged me to leave.”

“He did?” Wendy sat up straighter. “You weren’t afraid to express your feelings. Your emotions saved your life! I think that’s something to be proud of. Especially at sixteen.”

“Well,” I sniffled, “I ran out of his apartment and I tripped on my own pants—I was wearing harem pants with those cords at the ankles, but they were loose—and when I tripped, I slid down the stairs on my back in my high heels.”

Wendy was now gripping the arms of her chair. “My god. At sixteen?”

“Oh.” I stopped crying. “I was fine. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I was kind of shocked, but I wasn’t hurt.”

“You could have broken your neck! Or your back!”

“But I didn’t. I got right up, buttoned my blouse, found a cab, and went back to the escort agency. I was so relieved that none of the neighbors saw me.” I had just started working for Jeannie’s Dream Dates, an outcall service owned by a madam named Mary. She ran it from a midtown studio apartment, advertised in the Yellow Pages (and some other publications I prefer not to think about), and felt that Mary was a terrible name for a madam. So she called herself Jeannie.

Wendy took a deep breath. “So this is what was going through your mind when Matt proposed? A narrow escape from a gun-toting john. Did that happen in New York?”

“Yes.” I laughed briefly. “In a very nice town house right off Park Avenue in Murray Hill. Too much coke. The client was upset because I couldn’t make him come and his hour was up.”

Maybe my flexible teenaged body saved me when I tumbled down those stairs. But the point is, I’ve gotten away with so much—how much longer can it go on? I’m not a teenager anymore.

“And Matt’s proposal—was it really a surprise?”

“God, yes. I never imagined…”

Wendy jutted her chin forward—her Listening Gesture.

“I had broken up with him and I was ready to devote myself to my business. I decided to swear off boyfriends. Then Matt called. He made up that story about the keys, which I believed.

Wendy nodded.

“When he grabbed my hand, I got nervous. He was so much stronger. And suddenly, I remembered that guy with the gun. I thought: I’ve come this far, I have my own clients, I don’t have to work for some sleazy escort service, I’m well-connected and go to the best hotels. My clients are the movers and shakers of the universe. They run Manhattan. But my own boyfriend turns out to be a random nutcase just like that guy! I’ve allowed a maniac into my home! At least, when I was sixteen, that guy didn’t enter my life—I could leave his apartment! For a minute I wasn’t really a success after all. Women who get killed by guys they don’t understand are, by definition, failures. Right?”

There was a pause. Dr. Wendy doesn’t like to call anyone a failure. “And then what happened?”

“He pulled out this beautiful Lucida ring and he was so incredibly gentle and persuasive and passionate, and everything was okay again. I realized that I was a success. My nightmare was a delusion. I never dreamed, when I was a sixteen-year-old hooker, that a guy like Matt would propose to me—that I would even want him to! Don’t you see? I was spellbound! By my own respectability!”

“That’s a lot of material to be processing while your boyfriend’s trying to propose to you.”

“After all the stories I’ve told him, and all the lies he believed, that story about the keys—I really believed him!”

“You fell for his ruse.”

“Yes. I took it as a sign! It made me feel that we belonged together after all. He used his wits—he figured out a scheme to get back into my apartment and into my life. I was so…” My heart still skips a beat when I remember the confusion, the fear, and the sudden realization that I had been romantically snared—by this guy who didn’t know exactly who or what I was but could still get the better of me. “It made me, you know, respect him as a guy. We had…” I paused and remembered the reckless love-making that had followed. “We had very good sex that night,” I added primly.

“But when Matt came to collect his keys you were reminded of an unsatisfied sex partner from over a decade ago—a man who also wanted something more than you could give.”

This certainly appealed to my therapeutic vanity. And my latent Sinderella Complex. The commercial nymphet in danger, saved by her scheming Galahad. But I fessed up.

“I know marriage is supposed to be the alternative to strange guys waving their weapons in your face. But the truth is, that’s the only time anyone has ever threatened me with a gun. I’m not in that kind of danger. Most of my guys are regular clients. I was just so dazzled. My heart was pounding because he had captured me. He proved that he wasn’t just my mental toy—he surprised me totally.”

“And now? In the cooler light of day?”

“Maybe girls like me aren’t supposed to marry. Wasn’t that the first thing Gigi’s aunt taught her? We don’t marry. Maybe those Old World courtesans had the right idea.”

Wendy knows that Gigi is one of my favorite adult fairy tales. The book, the movie, even the corny songs. So does Matt. He, however, just thinks it’s some kind of strange retro quirk.

“Gigi comes from a family of courtesans,” Wendy began. “But the only successful courtesan in the story is her aunt, who also happens to be the head of the family. And she masterminds a marriage for Gigi, despite herself. So, Gigi is really a story about ambivalence in the demimonde.”

I savored the phrase, the emotional geography. In the demimonde: ambivalence. A golden age of hooking when girls like me could retreat into their own social country. No wonder they could say, without regret, “We don’t marry.”

“But ambivalence about marriage is not unique to your profession,” Wendy continued. “I meet hundreds of women in my practice—and a lot of men—who use their work to explain a romantic disappointment or a fractured relationship.”

I nodded in agreement but felt rather wistful. So much for my Belle Epoque fantasy of a romantic caste system!

3 Mau-Mauing the Flatbackers

What with actresses wanting to be amateurs because they think it’s ladylike, and amateurs wanting to be actresses because they think it’s immoral, the theatre is no place for an honest workman.—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

TUESDAY. 2 /1 5 / 0 0. The morning after the night off

In the cab on the way to Carnegie Hall last night, I felt my temperature rising as I checked the clock on my cell phone. As usual, I had not given myself enough time to find a taxi—a bad habit that I mostly indulge in with boyfriends and rarely with clients. I closed my eyes to block out the Valentine traffic jam on Second Avenue.

I opened my eyes at Park Avenue and Fifty-seventh. Two girls in smart black suits got out of a limo in front of the Four Seasons Hotel—where I would be tonight if I were working. Maybe I could somehow escape from this Sinderella Spiral and become, like Jasmine, a sexually active spinster—a woman with a past, a future, and no serious boyfriend. A woman without nosy future in-laws who ask awkward questions. A woman with less to lose! All the pieces of my life can’t possibly fit together for much longer. Something’s got to give—but what?

When I got to my destination, Matt was waiting in the lobby, looking a little shy—and rather adorable in the tie I gave him for Christmas, the one with small yellow giraffes on a bright red background. He’s mine! I thought, with a sudden surge of confidence. His face lit up when I approached.

“Each time I see you,” he murmured affectionately, “it’s a kind of revelation to me.”

I melted against the arm of his jacket and my regrets faded. The pieces do fit, I thought. With Matt, I have a future. My body, still tingling with anxiety about its checkered past, now felt safe, desirable, mysteriously protected.

My doubts drifted out of me during the recital. Later, in his bed, I closed my eyes while he—quite happily—did all the work. I reveled in my laziness and encouraged him to take his time.

WEDNESDAY. 2/16/00

A phone call this morning from Jack! “Suzy? Are you available today?”

“I’m sorry,” I said carefully. “I, um, have an exercise class in five minutes—can’t talk.” You should never tell a John you’ve blacklisted him. He’ll want to have a long conversation with you, attempting to explain himself, pledging to reform—or trying to convince you that he’s innocent. Or he’ll try to find out who spread the word of his misdeeds, if he’s vengeful. So I’m accidentally unavailable when Jack calls. Unlike Eileen, who feels the need to confront her foes, I’m very clear about not wanting to have enemies in this business. “Can I call you back?” I suggested, as a stall.

“No, don’t call me at work,” he said nervously. “My son’s in the office. Okay, fine, call, but if he answers, just act like you have a wrong number. Call me before five—I want to see you,” he added abruptly. “I’ll come right over.”

My other phone started ringing, and I quickly hung up.

“It’s me!” Allie announced. “I just saw Jack!”

“But he just—When? Where? What’s going on? Where are you?”

“I just got home. We had lunch at La Côte Basque.” She giggled and added, “He gave me an envelope. You’ll be proud of me. I stood my ground! I told him we couldn’t have sex. He said I should keep the envelope anyway. There’s enough in here for…oh, wow. I think I made the right decision.”

“Well, he just called me.”

“He called you?” Allie sounded incredulous. “When?”

“Just now!”

There was silence. So Allie met with him, took his money, and left him with an unrequited hard-on.

“And what did he want?” she asked. “Did he talk about me?”

“What do you think he wanted? Look, if you insist on playing head games with Jack, he’s going to look for satisfaction elsewhere. And no, he didn’t say anything about you. The man is not a eunuch. Even if he agrees to act like one when he’s having lunch with you.”

“Well, I’m not possessive! I don’t care who he sees.” There was a pause in which I said nothing. Doesn’t care who he sees? Nobody asked her! But I didn’t want to be the one to point this out. “And don’t forget the NYCOT meeting,” she reminded me. “You promised to come! See you tomorrow?”

That meeting. Ever since Allison got involved with “the sex workers’ community,” I’ve noticed a definite loosening of standards. I think I preferred it when she was a Recovering Hooker, trying to kick the habit.

“Allie, you’re playing a dangerous game,” I started to warn her. “You’re not being professional about this—” But she had already hung up.

LATER

Amazing news from Karen about Franklin Street. The owners are staying put. Apparently, the wife suddenly panicked at the prospect of moving to the Upper East Side. She broke out in hives! Canceled the deal on their new condo. Had to forfeit a mortgage broker’s fee. Turns out this is the second time hubby has tried to pry his wife away from her cultural roots. And lost a mortgage broker’s fee.

“They’ve got all this money,” Karen sighed. “And the husband’s a partner at___________.” She named some white-shoe-sounding law firm. “But she gets a hysterical illness whenever she has to go above Fourteenth Street! And now that she has this child, well, she’s never going to let him tell her where to live.”

“Oh, dear,” I sighed back, trying not to sound too relieved.

Saved by a bourgeois bohemian’s worst hang-ups! I ♥ Manhattan and its many varied neuroses. The neighborhood caste system is alive, and all’s right with the world. Or at least with the borough.

THURSDAY. 2/17/00. Pumpkin time—home at last

Tonight, as I was leaving for the NYCOT meeting, I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was going. With my keys dangling in the door, I dashed back inside and had to boot up my laptop just to retrieve the address; I’ve been careful not to print out any of Allison’s recent e-mail. I cringed as I reread her message:

The New York Council of Trollops (NYCOT) wants YOU. As sex workers, we have been penalized for daring to transcend patriarchal concepts of sexual virtue that have kept all human beings in a state of sex-negative paralysis for millennia. Be we prostitutes, be we strippers, pro-dommes, or phone-sex workers, we are all sexual and social healers. As we enter a new millennium, we honor the history of all whores, take responsibility for healing the sex-negativity in our lives and in the penal code, celebrate the contributions of sex workers everywhere…

When I saw the location, I groaned; my outfit was all wrong. Wear a casual fur on Avenue C and you’ll be totally misinterpreted, maybe even assaulted—what was I thinking? Suddenly, my lunaraine mink sweater looked less jaunty, less casual, and more controversial.

As the cab pulled up in front of a run-down redbrick walk-up, I was glad I had changed into my quilted black jacket, the perfect transitional outfit for traveling below Fourteenth and back. A coat for all zip codes. You can’t tell what it costs unless you look carefully—at the inside.

On the second floor, I was overwhelmed by an aroma of burning sage, and by Allison’s latest role model. Roxana Blair is New York’s most politically correct ex-hooker. When she isn’t organizing NYCOT meetings, she facilitates Vaginal Empowerment Workshops, coyly referred to as Group VIEWs. Roxana also believes that intimate relationships interfere with our sexual empowerment by discouraging women from perfecting their masturbation skills. Whatever!

So far, I’ve resisted her efforts to recruit my, er, body for a weekend VIEWing. Roxana and I have reached what I would call a vaginal detente: you don’t show me yours, and I won’t show you mine. But I did agree to attend the NYCOT meeting for Allison’s sake, on the strict understanding that this was not, repeat not, one of Roxy’s vaginal encounter groups.

“Nancy’s here!” Roxana mooed to the room. “Welcome!” She was dressed in an oversize tie-dyed T-shirt, which rode up when she hugged me. At the sight of Roxana’s unkempt pubic hair, I froze. Have I been tricked into joining one of her G-spot search parties? And why doesn’t she wax?

“I haven’t seen you in months,” Roxana continued, completely ignoring my alarmed expression. “Not since our lunch at Zen Palate.” (That’s when Roxana tried to befriend me by ordering twenty different kinds of wheat gluten followed by tofu for dessert. She was under the mistaken impression that because I look Chinese, I must be a vegan Buddhist. I haven’t had the heart to tell her that, where I come from, Chinese people are Catholic or Anglican—and carnivorous.)

I glanced around the room and saw a skinny girl in her twenties with short spiky hair and a U-shaped nose ring. Her black bra was peeking out of a half-open leather vest, but she, unlike Roxana, was wearing pants. Her jeans had holes in the knees, but, mercifully, not at the crotch. An overweight woman with chin-length gray hair, wearing a long flowered dress and black sneakers, handed me a sign-in sheet.

“For the NYCOT mailing list,” she explained cheerfully.

“I don’t want to be on any mailing list!” I said, unable to control my shrillness. “Where’s Allison?” And where were all the other members?

Nobody else seemed to care—much less notice—that Roxana was chairing this meeting without her panties. Allison appeared, carrying some paper cups and a large pitcher of red liquid.

“Oh, Nancy’s here—good. Everybody help yourselves to cranberry juice!”

“This needs sugar,” the skinny girl with the nose ring complained.

“It’s made with Hain’s unsweetened concentrate, and it’s very good for the bladder,” Roxana told her. “This is a sugar-free dwelling, Gretchen.”

“Well, we’re going to discuss inclusiveness,” the girl replied. “If we want to do outreach to the entire sex industry, we have to acknowledge different kinds of cultural norms.”

Allison scribbled dutifully in her Kate Spade organizer and looked up. “What else is on the agenda?” she asked brightly.

“We have two new members,” Roxana announced. “Gretchen and Nancy.”

Members? When did I say I was becoming a member? I guess there are no free vegan lunches. Gretchen and I regarded each other from across the room with wary expression-free eyes.

“So, why don’t we all introduce ourselves,” Roxana continued. “Please tell the room who you are, what kind of sex work you do, and why you’re here.” As members began to introduce themselves, Roxana jotted notes on a huge yellow pad, nodding emphatically.

“I’m Belinda,” said the gray-haired woman. “I’ve been a dominatrix for twenty years. All my friends know I’m a pro-domme, I have an ad in Corporal, and I’m a proud bisexual volunteer at the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, a member of the Lambda Independent Democrats, and a founder of the Lower East Side Coalition. And I’ll be speaking at this year’s Leather Leadership Conference in D.C. I joined NYCOT because I want to make the world a better place for the next generation of sex workers.”

How does she find time to work?

“Also,” Belinda continued, “I’m having a dispute with the billing department of Screw about an ad I was running. The patriarchal males who control the adult publications are threatened by pro-dommes because we’re strong independent women who don’t give blow jobs. Now I noticed that Nancy, here, says she doesn’t want to be on the mailing list. I’d like to know why—”

“That’s wonderful!” Roxana interrupted. “Can we limit the introductions to introducing ourselves and wait until Nancy has her turn before we start the actual discussion?”

I was not exactly looking forward to explaining myself to the downtown dominatrix who doesn’t give blow jobs. (Or take care of her hair.) Fortunately, Allison gave me some breathing time.

“I’ve been a sex worker for eight challenging and fulfilling years,” she began. It was bizarre to hear her lapsing into NYCOT-speak—”sex worker”? She beamed at Belinda, who beamed back. “I just want to say that lately I have been aware of the goddess within every sex worker. For example, my friend Nancy, whether she wants to be on the mailing list or not, has been—”

“I think we should limit ourselves to ourselves,” Roxana interrupted again. “Wait until Nancy has spoken.” Her gentle New Age manners were beginning to wear off.

The girl with the nose ring took the floor. “I’m Gretchen. Today I run a needle exchange program in Hunts Point and I have a master’s in public health, but I worked on the street for eight years.” When everyone sat up, she began to vent. “The hookers’ movement is always talking about changing the laws, but what are you doing for IV-using street workers?” she asked. “Nothing! You’re all just talking to yourselves! You can’t go to Hunts Point and expect to reach women on the street by telling them how fulfilling your life is,” she told Allie. “You’re out of touch with reality. I was out there at the age of fifteen—whoring! And what were you? A fucking cheerleader?”

Allie went rigid—and looked rather startled. Like the proverbial creature caught in the headlights.

“If there’s a goddess, why would she allow cops to lean on teenage girls for blow jobs? Without condoms!” Gretchen added.

Roxana cleared her throat but didn’t scold Gretchen for veering off-topic. Or for impugning Allison’s high school career. So much for limiting our introductions to ourselves! Do I detect a double standard? Unbridled, Gretchen began to berate Roxana’s elitist attachment to sugar-free beverages.

“You can’t have a policy like that at group meetings,” Gretchen told her. “You’re excluding people like me. You can’t do outreach in Hunts Point with sugar-free beverages!”

Roxana and Belinda seemed to enjoy Gretchen’s tongue-lashing.

“I want you to know that I feel privileged to be having this dialogue with you,” Roxana mooed. “I wasn’t aware of the classist assumptions I was making.”

Belinda, the dominatrix, chimed in. “Heroin should be legalized,” she said, in a rather submissive tone.

Heroin. So that’s it. I was wondering how anyone with such a pronounced sweet tooth could be so skinny.

“Um—where is Hunts Point?” Allison humbly inquired.

“The Bronx,” Gretchen said with a knowing sneer.

I managed to introduce myself as “Um, Nancy, I’m a working girl.” That was all I wanted to say.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Roxana said to me. “We want you to think about joining this committee.”

“This committee?”

“This is the steering committee. We really feel the lack of your perspective around here.”

My perspective? Does that mean I should have worn my mink sweater after all?

Houston Street for a cab, I tried to give Allie moral support. “How can you be expected to know the geography of the Bronx? You have no reason to go there!” I carped. “Gretchen didn’t have to be so snotty about it.”

Ignoring my remarks, Allison gave me a curious look. “Why don’t you talk to her about your past?” she asked. “Didn’t you start working when you were fifteen?”

“That’s none of Gretchen’s business.” (Besides, I was still, technically, fourteen when I started hooking.)

“But you share a common experience as sex workers!”

“Gretchen and I have nothing in common. I never had to give a blow job to a cop, and I never worked on the street. And I’m beginning to wish I’d never told you anything about my life, because you obviously don’t understand it. Don’t you dare start talking to Gretchen about me! Do you hear?”

Allison blinked, hurt by my outburst, but not for long.

“You should reach out to her,” she said firmly. “I see a lot of potential for a mutually healing dialogue!”

“With Gretchen? She’s not interested in making friends with me. Or you, for that matter. Don’t kid yourself,” I snapped.

“NYCOT is committed to healing the divisions between sex workers. We Are All Bad Girls,” Allie intoned. “Roxana says we have to expect—embrace—our growing pains…The process of empowerment involves change, and change involves—” A vacant cab interrupted Allie’s train of thought, and we got in.

As we headed up First Avenue, Allison continued to chatter. “Change—sometimes even for the sake of change—can reveal our hidden strengths as agents of social change…” At Fifty-ninth Street, she ran out of steam and changed the subject. “I’m going to be interviewed next week. Did I tell you? The producer called today. Roxana has to go out of town that night, and she says I’m ready to represent NYCOT publicly—”

“You can’t go on TV! Have you lost your mind? Everybody in your building will recognize you! And nobody will ever work with you again! Do you think Liane would let you work for her if she saw you on—”

“Noooo, silly, I’m going to be on the radio—it’s a call-in show!” Allison reassured me. “Besides, Roxana takes all the TV calls. She says I’m not ready for TV.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Roxana’s grabby sense of turf should keep Allison off TV for quite some time.

“What was that Roxana was saying about ‘my perspective’?” I asked. “I hope you haven’t been telling her about my past.”

“We don’t have a woman of color on the steering committee. NYCOT is facing the challenge of diversity. We need a committee that looks like New York.”

“Let’s see: You’ve got a dominatrix who’s a partisan Democrat. A heroin-addicted streetwalker with an attitude. And a blonde who’s always late with the rent,” I said. “If that isn’t a committee that looks like New York, I don’t know what is.”

Allie frowned and opened a small compact. She dabbed her nose. “Jack showed up again—I wasn’t expecting him! I was seeing someone, and my doorman buzzed. He said, ‘A gentleman wants to bring a plant upstairs.’ So I told him I would pick it up later. Then Jack started calling me”—she lowered her voice so the cabdriver wouldn’t hear—”while I was trying to get this guy off! And the phone wouldn’t stop ringing because Jack knew I was in the apartment. He left a bunch of messages, begging me to pick up the phone. Why do men say ‘pick up the phone’ when they know they’re already in voice mail? It’s crazy! My customer was really nervous. He took forever to come—all those interruptions !”

Recalling the interruptions, she looked flustered.

“He’s acting like a lovesick teenager!” I said. “An adult sends flowers—or brings them when he’s invited.”

“You’re right,” she said, with an odd smile. “He is.”

“And it’s not amusing when”—I dropped my voice, too—”a client does that. It’s a stalker thing. Completely unacceptable.”

“Well, I do have a doorman to protect me from stuff like that.”

“Great. Jack’s making a spectacle of himself in front of your doorman. And screwing up your existing business! You’re going to be sorry you took that money.”

“I know what I’m doing,” she proclaimed.

“That thing Gretchen said. Were you a cheerleader?”

In a stiff voice, she said, “That’s completely irrelevant. It has nothing to do with any of this. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sorry! I didn’t know it was such a sensitive subject.”

She feels perfectly okay about barging into my past and bringing up my teen hooker years, yet she’s hung up about…being a cheerleader? I guess she’s embarrassed. Being a former cheerleader won’t help her—or might even hurt her chances—in a popularity contest that puts so much store in a girl’s street cred. She may have changed, but she hasn’t exactly grown. In fact, she’s still a cheerleader; Allie hopes I’ll reveal my history to Gretchen because it will make her look better for having brought me to the meeting. Trying to use me to increase her own credibility as a hooker! You’ve gotta watch these cheerleaders—they’re an exploitive breed. Even when they think they’re being avant-garde, they’re really trying to be popular.

Anyway, home sweet home—where I’m greeted by my boyfriend’s amorous voice mail. He’s working late at the office, he misses me, he’ll be finished at…just about now. But I’m not in the mood for an impromptu sleepover! Being stuck in Roxana’s living room for two hours, surrounded by the reek of incense and badly dressed girls, has completely turned me off to all forms of lovemaking, paid or unpaid. And besides, I’m saving myself. For an early-morning date at the Carlyle with Jasmine. Do I call him back? Pretend I’m not around to get the message? What is the etiquette when a working girl becomes engaged?

Lately, I’m paranoid about having him in my apartment. I worry about Matt finding things while I’m fast asleep. Like those over-the-top black crotchless panties I wear for Milton. With the red frilly opening. Yikes.

FRIDAY. 2/18/00

Well, I opted for an impromptu sleepover—at Matt’s place—after hinting that I “just want to cuddle.” In preparation for a night of sexless bonding, I showered and changed into a pair of white cotton panties. My Not Tonight Gear is actually more expensive than some of my workwear. Sexy understuff is as rare as bottled water these days. And there’s always a special at Bloomingdale’s or the local lingerie boutique. But you hardly ever see good seamless Swiss panties on sale. Good-girl undies, like the girls they were designed for, get harder to find every day. One of my millennium resolutions was to pamper my lower body in all its moods and phases, so I’ve invested in high-quality off-duty cotton panties. In white, of course. It’s a mistake to stint. You don’t spend a whole lot of time in your work panties—they’re off before you know it—but your off-duty unders have to stay on, sometimes overnight. The sixty-dollar panties I wore last night are comfy and loose but properly fitted. With a demure embroidered flower on the right hip.

I arrived at my boyfriend’s bachelor pad wearing my pristine waist-high armor. You know how they always say “Wear something risque under your business suit—even if you are the only one who knows about it, you will feel like a sex kitten.” Well, same thing here.

Having doped myself up with melatonin, I took to Matt’s bed feeling very much like a neutered being. As I was drifting off in one of his T-shirts, I heard him showering, then setting the clock. Then I felt his hands making experimental advances. He slid the T-shirt up to my waist and ran his fingertip beneath one leg of my panties.

“So…where were you when I called?” he asked in a friendly voice. “What did you do tonight?”

How could I begin to explain my night? Roxana’s incense-filled den of activism, a bitchy encounter with a former street kid, that aging dominatrix with her ad in Screw, and his girlfriend being asked to join the Council of Trollops steering committee because she’s…a Call Girl of Color?

“I was hanging out with Allison,” I said in a sleepy voice.

His hands delved deeper, and I pulled my lower body out of reach. As I drifted off into chaste slumber, or tried to, he whispered a dirty endearment into my ear. My response was lukewarm. Then I heard him saying, in that hushed reverent tone that boyfriends reserve for pastel-colored underwear: “You should wear these panties more often. They’re…so soft.”

Should I bite the bullet and invest in some actively

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