The Education of a Very Young Madam (22 page)

Because photos are so important in this business and there really is an art to them, I wanted to talk to Melissa b e fo ie she had a photo shoot. I knew she was new to this kind of thing, so I made my rules perfectly clear. I have a couple of photographers I work with regularly, and they are professionals who kno w exactly what I want, but they come at a price. Since the girls in this business are usually not too good with money, I've worked ou t two payment options: (1) The entertainer can cover the costs of th e photos, which means she owns them outright and grants us t h e r i ght to use them only on our site to advertise her services and the y will be taken down, upon her request, within three to five b us ine ss days; or (2) We can share the cost of the photos, in which cas e the company owns the copyright to them and can do with them what we wish until we have been reimbursed in full. After that, the copyright reverts to the entertainer, who can then use the phot os for other

jobs or other agencies or can just ask us not to use them. Melissa didn't have any money, so she took the second option. She didn't ask too many questions, but she agreed to my terms. I also got the feeling she had no idea how to take a good picture, so I decided I'd better be there for the shoot. We made an appointment for her to come to my place for a session with one of my photographers.

When Melissa arrived, she made a good first impression. She was more cute than sexy, but I immediately saw how I could give her a coed persona and sell her that way. I was a little surprised that she didn't bring much with her, but I always have lots of lingerie and makeup around, so I knew I could find something for her to wear. I started talking to my photographer about what I wanted, and Zoe, who was back from a call, started talking to Melissa. Zoe can talk to practically anyone about nothing at all.

I could see out of the corner of my eye that Melissa liked the attention Zoe was paying her, so I let them keep chatting for a while. Melissa was a bit shy, and Zoe seemed to be getting her to come out of her shell, which I needed her to do if these pictures were going to be any good. In the meantime, the photographer and I were going through some clothes and backdrops to set up the right look.

My ears perked up when I heard Zoe ask, "How old are you anyway? "

"Uh, twenty-two," Melissa answered.

"Really?" Zoe said. "You're almost my age! I thought you were younger."

Zoe went on to another subject, but for some reason an alarm went off in my head. I asked Zoe if I could talk to her in the other room for a minute about some business stuff. The shoot was being set up in the living room of our apartment, so we went into my bedroom and I whispered, "How old do you think she really is?"

"I don't know," Zoe said, immediately getting the hint, "but I think she's young. You can just tell by talking to her."

"Let's both ask her again," I said, and we went back into the living room and sat down next to Melissa on the couch.

"How old are you?" I asked her straight out, while trying not to sound like I was accusing her of anything.

"Uh ... like, twenty-two," she said. She sounded a bit scared.

"No, you can't be that old," Zoe said. "When were you born?"

She didn't know the answer to that, and pretty soon we wore her down. "I'm seventeen," she finally admitted. She was giggling when she said it, like she'd been a bad girl, but it wasn't funny to me.

"You should not be doing this," I told her. "At your age, you should be in school. What are you doing here? Why did Lucas tell me you were older?"

At that, Melissa broke down. Her facade was pretty flimsy anyway, and it melted right away as soon as I hit the right button. Lucas was the right—or should I say the wrong—button. Melissa got really upset, and when she finally started talking, her story just spilled out.

"Lucas has been making me do this," she said. "It started just a few days after I moved in with him. He was the one who asked
me
to live with him, and he'd been great up until then, so I thought it would be great. But then all of a sudden, everything was about money. I had to pay my share of the rent, he said, and the groceries and the expenses, even the drugs, which he'd given me for free until then. I told him I'd find a job, but he said that would take too long and whatever job I could find wouldn't be enough anyway. He said he knew something I could do to make money.

"When I got home one day after that, there was this car waiting to take me to an appointment. Lucas had set it up. I didn't know what to do, so I got in the car. Everything had been awful for me for months anyway, so I barely cared what was happening. I hardly even remember what the guy looked like. When I got home, Lucas took all my money. 'You only have to do it for three weeks,' he told me, 'until we have enough money to get by.' But that didn't happen. He called you because he knows you'll be able to get me more clients and that you charge them more. That's all he cares about, the money."

It turned out Melissa was a runaway. She'd had some problems with her family and with the law, so she had ended up in a juvenile-facility in upstate New York. Remind you of anyone? I could definitely relate. It was an awful place, so she escaped as often as she could. Usually they'd find her pretty quickly and haul her back, but one time, thanks to some Hare Krishna guy who gave her money for bus fare, she made it all the way to New York City with nothing but the clothes on her back. "Be good, God is watching," the Krishna had told her when he gave her the cash. She thought it was hysterical that the guy had said that to her.

She had nowhere to go, so she'd been sleeping on the E train when she met Lucas and his friend Tim, and they lured her to New Jersey with the promise of drugs and a safe place to hang out. She was into coke at the time, but they introduced her to meth. It was fun in the beginning, and things started off slowly. She'd come and go, sometimes sleeping on Lucas's couch when he let her; it was as safe and secure a place as she'd been in months. Finally one night he said to her, "You're going to be my girlfriend." He should have said, "You're going to be my meal ticket." But she didn't know any better. She liked him, so she agreed.

I decided right then and there that Melissa was not going back to Lucas's place—no way. She would stay with us. Zoe not only agreed, she was excited. I think she thought she'd finally have a playmate. That's how Zoe, Melissa, and I became a family, our own screwed-up version of a Norman Rockwell picture.

The next day we all went to Lucas's apartment together to pick up Melissa's things. We intentionally hadn't called him to let him know that his "girlfriend" wouldn't be coming home . . . ever. I thought he'd probably throw a fit and destroy all her stuff or try to sell it, the cheap bastard. In case we ran into trouble, I brought Tony, one of my very big Mafia friends, along for the ride. As we drove to Lucas's place, we told him Melissa's story, and he was disgusted by it. Those Mafia boys have a strict moral code, especially when it comes to women and children. He said that if Lucas was there, he'd teach him a lesson for free.

Melissa just acted like she was on some adventure. She looked a lot older than she was, but it was moments like that one when it would really hit me—she was still just a kid. I mean, it was like she was on her way to Disneyland or something.

When we got there, Lucas was home, of course. He didn't work, so he had nowhere to be. Melissa gathered up her clothes while we asked him for the money she'd made. "You told me you were just saving it for me," Melissa screamed at him, "so where is it?” Naturally, it was all gone.

Lucas started cursing at Melissa after that. But before any of us got a chance to respond, Tony hit him, hard, and he fell back against the wall, then down to the floor. It was just one punch, but that's all that was needed. I knew bringing Tony was a good idea.

On the way home Melissa asked Tony why he'd hit Lucas. "He was pissing me off and I didn't like the way he disrespected you," he said. Melissa smiled the biggest smile I'd seen from her so far, and I think she developed a little crush on him right then and there. The rest of the way home Tony lectured her on how she needed to get her act together and get an education. Melissa just listened and agreed.

Because Lucas had basically been running her life, I wanted Melissa to know that she had some say about what happened to her, so I asked her if she wanted to stay with us for a while or go somewhere else. I knew she would say she wanted to stay with us, but I thought it was important to give her the option. She was as happy as a little puppy about the idea.

But then I told her, if she was going to stay with us, there would be some rules she had to follow, no exceptions. First, there would be no more working for her of any kind. And no more drugs either. She and Lucas had been experimenting with all sorts of substance cocktails, but I told her that had to stop. I wasn't going to be a hypocrite, so I told her that I sometimes indulged in such things, as did Zoe, but that was okay for us because we were adults. She was a kid, and she needed to start acting like one.

I also told her, and I knew it would be a sticking point, that we had to call her mom. We didn't need to tell her where she was living exactly, but we did need to let her know that Melissa was okay and give her the cell number where she could reach us.

Melissa's mom was really angry at first when I called, but I just told her that Melissa was welcome to stay with me but I wanted her to know what was going on and that she was okay. As the days and weeks passed, I kept calling just to let Melissa's mom know what her daughter was up to. When we wanted to take a trip to Boston for the weekend one time, I called up Melissa's mom to ask her if it was okay. She seemed stunned by the question. "Yeah, sure, do what you want," she said, but she didn't sound angry this time. I think she actually appreciated the updates.

I know what you're thinking, some family—an illegal immigrant/call girl, an underage felon, and me. We had fun together though. We started calling Melissa Felonie after that, "because she'll get you twenty to life." Zoe and I both treated her like a little sister. Since my apartment was only a two-bedroom and both bedrooms were already taken, we had trouble figuring out where to put her. It was funny because I had lived there by myself for months before Zoe moved in, and it had seemed really big then. Now it felt tight, but no one seemed to mind and we worked it out. Sometimes Melissa slept on the big couch in the living room, sometimes in bed with one or the other of us like we were having a slumber party.

Because Melissa wasn't going to school and I wouldn't let her work—not even answer the phones—she sometimes got bored and in the way. I tried to make up assignments for her to keep her busy, as if she were in school. She liked to draw and was really good at it, so I told her to draw pictures of the people she'd met. She also said she was interested in writing, so I told her to write about what had happened to her. She'd take Max for walks and hang out with Zoe when she wasn't working, but Melissa had a lot of energy and an active mind, and I could tell that life with us wasn't going to be enough for her forever.

Fortunately, about that time Nicole became an honorary member of our odd little family. Nicole had worked on and off for me for months. She's in her forties, divorced, and has two kids, but she's the cutest little blonde you've ever seen. She also has a phenomenal body. No one would ever guess how old she is, and those clients who know couldn't care less.

During the week, Nicole's kids live with their dad, who also supports Nicole and paid for the house she lives in in New Jersey. It was all part of the divorce settlement. Nicole's ex is a trip. He once told her that if he could have had kids by himself and left the woman (meaning her) out of it, he would have, but thanks to his biological limitations, he had to put up with her and pay up as well. But Nicole was well taken care of. She just worked for me so she'd have some pocket money to pay for her G (short for GHB) habit.

Because Nicole didn't need to work, she was often home during the day without much to do. I began shipping Melissa off to her house when she was getting on my nerves or when I was really busy. It turned out to be a perfect solution for everyone because they ended up really liking each other.

I was the one who always called Melissa's mom, but after a while they finally agreed to speak to each other directly. When Melissa got on the phone with her mother for the first time, they talked for a long while. By the end they had decided that her mom should come down for a visit. We arranged to meet her one weekend at Nicole's house. I thought it would be better if she didn't see our place. There might be too much incriminating evidence around, and besides, I didn't want her to be able to track me down if she ever found out the whole story about what I did for a living and what had happened to her daughter.

Her mom showed up one Saturday with Melissa's brother and stepdad. We were all there to support Melissa—me, Zoe, Nicole, and even Nicole's kids, who were with her for the weekend. We tried our best to come across as normal, well-adjusted people, but everyone seemed a little nervous, especially Melissa. She wasn't sure what to say to her mom about what she'd been doing all this time.

"The truth doesn't always set you free," I advised her. "It can also lock you up."

In this case, it could have locked me up too, so I didn't want to get into it. But I did want her mom to know something about what Melissa had been through so she would understand how dangerous it had been for her daughter when she was on her own. She easily could have ended up a junkie ho like Natasha, or the property of some pimp like Zoe had been for years, or worse. And you can't just come back from things like that. I know. I've seen it happen way too many times. I wanted her mom to have some clue about what can happen to a young girl if she's left on her own with no one looking out for her, so I told her, without mentioning my part in it, of course, that Lucas had tried to pimp Melissa. Her mom just gasped and looked at me. I think she was deciding whether to believe me or not. Melissa was a big drama queen, always overstating things or just plain making them up to get attention, so I got the feeling her mom had decided a long time ago not to believe much of what her daughter said. But this wasn't coming from Melissa, it was coming from me, and I'd always been straight with her when we talked on the phone. I may have left out some details, but I never lied to her.