Call Girl

JENNY ANGELL

Title PageIntroductionChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoOriginal Titles from MischiefAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorCopyrightAbout the Publisher

People ask so many questions about it. You did that? You’re kidding, right? How did you start? What’s it really like? What kinds of people use the service? What kind of girls work for it?

Men, especially, are utterly fascinated by the subject. They want to talk about it, they ask the same questions over and over, they can’t get enough information. It’s like getting a glimpse into some mysterious semi-forbidden world, a world caricatured by pornography and attacked by conservatives and speculated about by just about everybody. Men get a vicarious sexual frisson thinking about it. Women wonder what it would be like to have someone pay – and pay well – for something they routinely give away for another kind of currency.

And, inescapably, people look at me and get a little scared. I could be – I am – one of them. I am their sister, their neighbor, their girlfriend. I’m nobody’s idea of what a whore looks like. Maybe that’s why I’m scary.

They want callgirls to be different, identifiable. That keeps them safe.

But the reality, of course, is that usually we’re not. Oh, the girls on the streets at night, yeah, with them, you know. But to be honest, those girls scare the shit out of me. I was out one night with Peach and we locked the car doors when we drove past them, and we’re supposedly in the same business. The truth is, we have nothing in common.

But callgirls – women who work for escort services, especially expensive ones, especially those run by other women – we don’t look any different than anyone else. Not even always prettier. So we’re scary: because, you know, we could be you, too.

Maybe we are.

* * * * * *

I hate using literature to refer to television, but I have to here. These days I regularly watch a program called The West Wing, an intelligent, witty, politically-aware and humanely sensitive weekly drama. I’m impressed with the characters, with their thoughtfulness and their dedication.

Yet in an early episode, a character articulates to a callgirl the same assumptions that appear to be virtually universal: that she has no ethics to speak of, that she would do anything for money, that she, essentially, is her profession. And that her profession is nothing to be proud of.

Who else among us would tolerate such an assumption?

Please hear this. Callgirls have ethics. We make decisions like everybody else does, based on our own religious and/or moral convictions. We are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Socialists, and Libertarians. Some of us are kind to small animals. We are neither sex-obsessed nor nymphomaniacal. We have relationships, we build trust, and we keep secrets. We are daughters, sisters, and mothers; we are wives.

The reality is that men need us. And they don’t want to need us. So they blame us for it. It’s why Muslim women have to be hidden from men – it’s their fault, apparently, that the men feel tempted by them. It’s why “hookers” are amoral – because their job is to cater to that which is amoral in all of us.

So – try to put all of that aside. All your assumptions, all your conditioning. For just a little while, free yourself of your guilt, your prejudices, your judgments. Then you can hear my story.

* * * * * *

In 1995 I was close to receiving my doctorate in social anthropology and was anticipating full-time, tenure-track employment at some recognized institution of higher learning, eventually leading to a professorship. What I got, instead, was a series of lecturer positions, because most universities were no longer offering professorships, or offering very few. It was, after all, the nineties, and grants and other resources weren’t stretching as far as they once had. I was willing to keep at it, however, because it was my chosen profession. It was my vocation.

When I started working for an escort service I was teaching classes on a semester-by-semester basis, being paid – at the end of the semester – the less-than-princely sum (before taxes) of thirteen hundred dollars per class.

The woman I have called Peach ran an agency that could be considered a mid-level escort service. Let’s see: how can I explain it? She didn’t get the rock stars when they came to town, but she did get their entourages. She got people who owned companies, but not necessarily companies anyone had ever heard of. She got people with condos at the Four Seasons, but not luxury penthouses. She never got clients who wanted a quick blowjob in the car; but she also rarely got the clients who wanted to take the girl to the Bahamas with them for a week, either.

Peach ran ads looking for employees, and hers stood out from others in that she required a minimum of some college education. The fact is that she helped pay off a whole lot of graduate student loans. She had a specialty niche: she did well with clients who wanted intelligent conversation along with their sex. She inspired loyalty in both her callgirls and her clients, and she tried to be fair to everyone.