The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (14 page)

The Boy flicked the oar and the tender turned so we were crossing the current. The lights offshore brightened the faces of his family, now standing on the foredeck the better to spot the fireworks when they started.

‘Of course I remember,’ he said. ‘You’re the only girl I’ve ever taken out on the boat. I think of it as ours, somehow.’

Now this really rubbed me up the wrong way. I knew for a fact it wasn’t true. In his Web diary he had pictures of his large ex, Jo, weighing the inflatable rubber tender down at a dangerous angle on the way to the mooring. The diary also made reference to showing a Japanese girl the finer points of seamanship from the main bed of the berth. He’d promised Susie a thousand times in email that he’d take her sailing round the Isle of Wight when she came back. Why did he have to throw out such an obvious lie? I had been enjoying myself until then.

More to the point, why didn’t I call him on it? Maybe it was guilt about prying into his diary. Maybe I thought it would all blow over. Or maybe, somewhere, I still felt a little bit bad about his having to date me while I was turning tricks, even though it shouldn’t have made a difference.

Shouldn’t have, if we’d been honest with each other. If he’d told me right away that he had problems with it, instead of acting like an arse whenever I spent money, and then fucking around on the side.

‘Really? I figured it was a rite of passage for all of your kitties,’ I said curtly. We reached the yacht in silence and Magnus helped me aboard.

Dear Belle

Dear Belle,

I’m a strong, outgoing, feminist kind of girl, but have a boyfriend who views me as an object. We went swimming the other day and he went into a strange mood afterwards. I eventually dragged it out of him that he was really embarrassed about the size of my thighs. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Ditch him?

Dear Tender and Juicy,

Sorry, but was he not already familiar with the sight of your thighs? If anyone is going to treat you like an object, please make it someone for whom a generous girth is a pleasing thing. There are men in this world who will worship your thighs like the temple pillars they are. So dump this fool and go find one. Now.

Dear Belle,

I have finally found a boy I like. Trouble is, he has a broken cock. By which I mean he has a constriction in one of his tubes which means he can’t come. I suppose I shouldn’t really mind, seeing as he can do other stuff. But I want the whole shebang. And it would require years of surgery. How long can a girl last when she isn’t getting her dessert?

Dear Traci Lords,

Unless a protein facial is your kink of choice, I don’t see a problem here. It isn’t as if he doesn’t want to come with you – he physically can’t. And barring the condition causing him serious pain, it’s not an issue I would force. Chances are he’s already rather gun-shy (so to speak) about it. If a faceful of salty spray is an absolute must for you, take him on holiday to the Western Isles and do it on a rocky beach.

Dear Belle,

I am a circumcised teenage virgin and would like to know what kind of reaction I could expect from a girl upon her discovering my distinct lack of foreskin. Would you be so kind as to hazard an informed guess, so that I can prepare myself for any likely outbursts on her part?

Dear The First Cut Is the Deepest,

Personally, I prefer uncut, but it seems that most ladies if given a choice like a man who’s had the chop. They seem to think it’s more hygienic. Any initial reaction you get will probably be more curiosity than horror, and I wouldn’t expect it to harm your chances of receiving regular blowjobs. In fact it may enhance them.

Dear Belle,

My boyfriend is wild in bed but a Conservative at the ballot box. In your experience, is politics a good way to tell whether you’ll have a stud or a slug in the sack?

Dear Swing Voter,

Political leanings have nothing to do with quality of sex. There’s a persistent image of Tory men as more kinky, but trust me, sexual perversion knows no political, racial or cultural bounds. But I have to ask: is he thinking what you’re thinking?

samedi, le 1 janvier

Resolved: to put an end to sleepy-sex.

Everyone has an internal sex clock; my alarm sounds about twice a day. While the half-asleep roll and shag can sometimes be an efficient way to hit the snooze, it should by no means form the majority of couplings. Even tense periods in the relationship are no excuse: if the sex is all we have, we should be trying, damnit! I fear complacency is setting in. Sometimes I can’t remember if we actually had sex or I just dreamed it. Considering my plans to leave in the next fortnight, though, this won’t be a problem much longer.

Resolved: to organise and categorise sex toys.

They’re everywhere: in the bathroom cupboard, a box on top of the wardrobe, or at the back of the closet. While the concept of a dedicated piece of furniture specifically for vibes, whips and the like smacks a little of saddo ‘lifestyler’, there has to be a better storage solution than this. Also may be restrictions on number of dildos one can take in carry-on baggage these days.

Resolved: to stop fancying men of inappropriate age.

While men ten years younger than myself are available and seemingly everywhere, they have little to offer apart from relative firmness of the flesh. Charming eighteen-year-olds are simply not going to deliver the goods I require without serious tutelage. If the boyfriend doesn’t pull it together, hopefully my age cohort is capable of something else worthwhile. Though perhaps the possibility of pulling anyone while away is too horrible to think about yet.

Resolved: to reintroduce my feet to high heels.

Yes, the pavements are deathtraps in winter. Yes, there is no good reason to wobble about in strappy sandals, given my current lifestyle. The popularity of Uggs attests to the fact that women prefer comfort to style. But strangers whistling at you is a solid defence against the chill of winter, and it never happens in trainers. Also, I plan to be clad in more weather-appropriate shoes when I go to see J, so this may be the last outing the old stilettos have for some time.

And seeing as my sexual activities will probably be severely curtailed in less than a month’s time, here are a few suggestions for you, Dear Reader:

1 Change the time of day for your lovemaking

If you always leave sex till the last thing at night, odds are the variety is suffering for it. Granted, with demanding jobs and children underfoot, finding the time can be difficult … but then, who said pleasure comes easily? Schedule a lunch-time quickie with your lover, or call in all your favours to organise a midweek day off.

2 Have an open mind

If one partner refers to various sex acts as ‘the thing we seldom do’ or ‘the thing we never do’, there’s a problem. Yes, you might want a tame massage while he wants a no-holds-barred dungeon scene, but isn’t give-and-take what strengthens relationships? Do everything once before you decide – twice, just to be sure you weren’t doing it wrong. If you don’t like it, at least you’ve tried.

3 Talk to your friends …

… honestly. Sometimes it can be liberating to hear people say what they do in bed. And explore your own sexual past – is there something you used to do, and miss? Are there ways and means of getting your current partner to change the routine? Friends are also a great source of information, such as where to obtain props (of both rugby and sexual varieties).

4 Make mistakes

As the sages say, ’tis better to have fisted and failed than never to have tried at all. Or something. What would you rather have, a bank full of racy memories to rely on when you’re drooling on your deathbed, or a spate of predictable, though tasteful, reminiscences that are all the same?

5 Watch porn

I don’t buy this debasement-of-women nonsense. I don’t buy the white-slavery argument. The vast majority of erotica does not harm anyone and buying a Jenna Jameson video doesn’t bankroll pimps in Prague. Watching porn will not make you a sociopath. There is something for every taste at every level of raunchiness. Even if what turns you on is watching fully clothed men rub against lamp posts … If a kink exists, the porn is out there. Find it.

dimanche, le 2 janvier

I have begun to wonder whether it’s not too early to go under the knife.

I know: someone who traded on her naked body for a living really has no right to be considering cosmetic surgery. Especially before middle age.

I blame television. And the holidays. Sat around with little to do but eat my body volume in mince pies, the television became the staple entertainment of the month. I emerged the other side with not just a half-stone of holiday weight, but a shocking addiction to makeover programmes.

You would think, as a former call girl, that having naked pics on a website up against the best airbrushing has to offer would have burrowed into my self-esteem years ago. But no, it’s the sight of middle-aged housewives undergoing dodgy rhinoplasty that has me wondering whether Belle’s still got the goods.

Until now I had always been happy to accept what I was given – we can’t all be born Angelina Jolie – and make the best of it. Granted, my parents are both attractive people and I’m fairly sporty. My breasts have so often been described as perfect that I believed the hype. But now it seems beauty is not just about genetic good fortune and what is easily achieved through diet, exercise, hours of painful waxing and installing flattering lighting throughout the house. Anyone who considers herself perfectly sexy straight out of the box is clearly in the minority.

Watching these shows, I’m horrified. Nothing is sacred, no fault too minor to be laser-sculpted into oblivion. Even labia aren’t exempt from the surgeon’s knife. I can only imagine the effect this will have on call girls. How long before agency websites start including genital close-ups, and women with pert and juicy lips will have to go to great lengths to assure jealous friends theirs are real? Perhaps it’s a good idea to stay retired.

lundi, le 3 janvier

Every couple enjoys a certain amount of private code-making; it’s part of the pleasure of having someone in your life. Over time the stilted, awkward get-to-know-you conversations give way to a sort of shorthand that only the two of you understand. It’s part of what holds two people together, lets each know the other thinks they’re special. It’s the little things that keep a long-term relationship afloat.

Here are two of ours:

1 ‘I believe you’ is simply a more polite way of saying ‘Enough already.’

‘Er, honey, it seems a little strange to me that this girl Susie has her post delivered to your house, sent you love calligraphy from her holiday, and is storing things in your bedroom while my spare belongings are relegated to the damp basement. Oh, and you call her by the same pet name you used to call me. You wouldn’t happen to be sleeping with her, would you?’

‘Of course not! How could you possibly think such a thing? I would never cheat on a girlfriend! You are such a hypocrite!’ (ad nauseam)

‘I believe you.’

2 ‘Mmm’ means ‘You’re wrong/ignorant/laughable, but I can’t be bothered to labour the point.’

He: Wind farms are a real blot on the landscape. I can’t imagine why we haven’t gone completely to nucular power yet.

Me: (softly, eyes closed) Nuc-le-ar, dear.

He: Pardon?

Me: Nuclear. You said nuc-u-lar.

He: (after long silence) Sorry, but I can’t tell the difference between what you said and what I said.

Me: Mmm.

mardi, le 4 janvier

‘You, my dear, are positively jet set these days,’ L said.

‘Oh, darling, don’t I know it. What with that EasyJet trip to Prague last year and all. And not forgetting the Eurostar.’

‘Care for some company on your sojourn?’

‘Really?’

‘I was thinking of taking a few months off later in the year. Asia, don’t you know. But I reckon after the tsunami and all, it might be a better idea to go elsewhere.’

‘Really? Shouldn’t you be looking for, you know, work or something?’ Bit of a moot question. Her mother has a collection of Jags. And no visible means of support. I guess L is simply carrying on a proud family tradition.

‘Job, schmob.’ L waves her hand. ‘It’s all a cover for being a lady of leisure.’

‘All right, then, you just say when. Mi casa and all that.’

‘Oh, I will,’ L smiled.

jeudi, le 6 janvier

It’s late; I daren’t look at the clock. My theory of getting too few hours of sleep is that if you never know exactly how under-rested you are, you won’t feel the full effects of staying up later than you should. But I’ve been thrashing about for hours doing nothing more than making the sheets damp and I know I’ll wish I’d taken a sleep aid come morning.

Thin shafts of streetlight poke between the curtains. I’m alone with my thoughts, never a good pairing to begin with, far worse now. Am I making the right choice in leaving? And when I leave, will I be single – or not?

I know what the answer should be. I know what the magazines and website quizzes say. But I can’t escape the feeling that under the bravado of the media is an unspoken struggle that every woman, someday, will likely go through. How many wives of my clients spent nights like this? I have a few phone numbers – women who found my number jotted somewhere and phoned me to make accusations. I saved all those numbers in my phone as ‘Don’t Answer’, ‘Angry Wife’ and so on. Can I ring them up now, ask how they did it, how do you deal and when do you know not to?

When does love trump good sense, and for how long? The Boy rang me late, whispering; I imagined a sleeping body in another bed somewhere, maybe sleeping through his phone call to me, maybe not.

I thought he might be calling to wish me luck on my last day at work. As usual, we wallowed in the minutiae of his day until I was grumpy about the state of our relationship.

‘Why do we go on like this?’ I moaned. ‘We only really like each other about half the time. Perhaps less than that.’

‘We’re tied up in each other,’ he said. ‘We share too much to just walk away.’ And though it was a simple-minded thing to say, especially considering where I thought he was, it was true. My love for him had yet to die, and I didn’t think I could bear leaving him before it had.

As N said, I’m a stayer. For my sins.

vendredi, le 7 janvier

There is very little to signify my last day at work: handing in the identity card that opens the outer door and the key for the door to the office, packing my sparse belongings in a box that has been provided, and even though it is barely larger than a shoebox it dwarfs the few things inside: a few pens, a half-used notepad and a reference book. There’s nothing of interest on my computer, but I upload my work files to the company server and reformat the disk anyway. At lunch someone takes my chair away; it’s been bagsied by a pregnant woman in Billing. Every time I do something I think, This is the last time I’ll use the toilet here. This is the last cup of tea.

‘Are you gonna need this?’ Erin bangs her fist on the top of a filing cabinet at the end of my desk. I shake my head. I only ever used it for storing my work bag, when I still had appointments.

This is the last time I’ll hear Erin’s voice.

This is the last time I’ll walk out this door.

‘Helloooooo? You fergot yer mouse pad!’

‘Keep it,’ I say, back to the window. Okay, that was the last time. With luck.

samedi, le 8 janvier

I don’t consider myself sentimental – not when there’s a big floppy sop like the Boy to compare myself with – but I had to make certain before leaving that the few things left at my mum’s house that still mattered to me would be safely stowed away until I came back, including:

• the bootleg Material Issue T-shirt a friend sold to everyone in A-level art instead of doing her projects,

• every broken pair of earphones, because you never know,

• a museum-sized hoard of costume jewellery I never wear – again, you never know,

• an entire roll of blurry photos from the week I met A3,

• two Ikea lamps I never remember to buy replacement bulbs for,

• all the notes from my degree (a surprisingly slender collection, that)

• two pairs of slippers, though I hate slippers, and

• countless CDs yet to be transferred to MP3.

It’s all about legacy, innit

dimanche, le 9 janvier

The Boy met me at home just as I was taping the last of the boxes shut. Anything that was left had either been in the flat to start with, was going to a charity shop or was being squeezed into my luggage for the plane.

‘I presume you’ll need me to take these in for a few months?’

‘No, I’ve already made arrangements,’ I said. A4 was hiring a car and after I’d gone would be coming round to check the post, drop off my keys with the estate agent and take my things to his.

‘Oh, you should have said,’ he said. His face drooped. I suppose he’d assumed I would be asking him for last-minute favours; it never occurred to him that I could be more organised than that. And there were plenty of good reasons not to keep my belongings at his. For one thing, I knew the cupboard under the stairs in his house was already full of boxes of Susie’s crap and that, due to the tsunami, she was coming back earlier than expected; for another, I knew he couldn’t be trusted not to go through my stuff.

‘Not to worry, he offered,’ I said, referring to A4. ‘Anyway, I want to spend the time with you rather than spend it moving boxes.’ And if we happen to split up soon, at least I won’t have to collect my boxes from your house – or send someone else to do it.

lundi, le 10 janvier

The Boy and I planned to go out but we had to change tack. The hurry of packing had left me a little worn, and I was feeling fragile and on the edge of getting a cold. My throat was raw and my muscles had the feeling of meat left too long on the bone. I didn’t feel bad about changing plans – it wasn’t very nice outside, anyway. He doesn’t take not getting his way very well, but even he understands that not to make a show of sympathy is a bad idea. ‘Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?’