The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (17 page)

A most interesting object was delivered yesterday. The landlady had the furniture made some years ago by a firm that kept the details on record, and they have been kind enough to supply attractive new cushion covers for the overstuffed monstrosity (I mean the sofa, not the landlady). The new covers were brought up just after lunch along with detailed instructions on how to put them on and a tool to aid, in application.

This tool, it must be said, looks exactly like a paddle.

It's a very classy paddle indeed, of the same glowing hardwood as the frame of the sofa itself, with a smooth, rounded handle that mimicks the turned legs of the furniture, and a tapering, flat side, apparently for stuffing the cushions in their new skins. But it doesn't look anything like an upholstery aid to me. It is, quite frankly, a well‐made and extremely horny paddle. It has a leather thong threaded through the handle, for goodness sake. And it matches the furniture.

I looked at the paddle, then at the delivery man. 'Do you want this returned when I'm done?'

'What? No, just keep it or chuck it away. We don't need it back.'

'Thank you.' A more welcome and unexpected gift I 139

haven't had in ages. It's as if Valentine's Day has come early.

mercredi, le 4 fevrier

Client (setting the dresser mirror on the floor): 'I want to watch you watching yourself masturbate.'

Well, this makes a change. 'What with?'

'Your hands first. Then a vibe.'

'And then you . . . ?'

'No, I just want to watch.'

He provided a chair and I sat. Wriggled out of my knickers and drew the skirt of my dress around my hips. There it all was, on display, as I'd rarely seen. Yes, I usually do a spot check after waxing and before going out, but this was different. And hand mirrors feature strongly in both work and sex at home, but this was just me, alone, inviolate. Belle from a fly on the wall. And being a self‐obsessed creature, I was possibly as fascinated as he.

I watched my lips grow fuller, redder, wetter. Much darker than I imagined, almost purple, as I've seen the head of a penis do so many times. The aperture itself widened and gasped. I could hear its gentle smacks like a mouth opening and closing as my hand rubbed faster and my hips moved less gently.

The effect was of watching myself on television. I suppose it must have been for him as well ‐ he paid far more attention to the reflection than to me in the chair. I wondered why bother paying someone to masturbate when there was no interaction, then I realised. He wanted to be the director.

But as I approached the point of no return I would slow down and readjust my position ‐ ostensibly to give him a 140

better look or varied position, but really to keep myself from coming.

It was remarkably difficult to keep from setting off the hair-trigger for most of the hour. He sat on a bed, then knelt on the ground, coming closer and closer to the mirror, occasionally making requests regarding the speed and action of the vibe or the location of my free hand ‐ but didn't touch. When he came, it hit the glass, sliding thickly over my reflected image onto the carpet.

jeudi, le 5 fevrier

I came in soggy and grumpy, having been caught in a sudden burst of rain in Ladbroke Grove and without my umbrella. I'd been out to meet a man for a date, and let us just say it hadn't gone well. There were three missed calls, all from the manager's mobile. I rang her back. 'Hello, sorry I missed you earlier.'

'Not to worry, darling.' The manager, for once, was not listening to horrible hair‐rock. 'You had a booking.'

'I went to meet someone for lunch and forgot my phone.

Anything interesting?'

'This very nice man. He always asks for you.'

'Ah.' This has happened about once a week since I started working. 'The French one?'

'He is such a lovely gentleman.'

'Yes, and he always gives less than an hour lead‐time on a booking. 1 can't get out so quickly.' My house is too far out of Zone 1 for that. 'I presume you gave him to one of the other girls?'

'Yes. But he always asks for you, darling.'

'Tell him to give me more notice next time, okay?'

'Mmm.' There was another voice in the background and 141

the manager went oddly quiet, then whispered, 'Sorry, have to go!

Nice talking to you, goodbye!' Must be the boyfriend who has no idea what she does for a living. It seems odd to me ‐ but then it's her job that is illegal, not mine.

Text from First Date soon after: 'Torture Garden. What think you?'

Well, if he's trying to keep me interested, he's certainly doing well. I am so there with bells on. Clamped to my nipples, of course.

vendredi, le 6 fevrier

Walking through a tiled corridor to the District Line at Monument yesterday. A busker was there, playing Dylan‐esque riffs on a guitar and making up lyrics about the people walking past.

'. . . and I said, my friend, there will be a woman / and she will walk by you / and you will know her by her white suit and pink shoes / there will be a beautiful woman . . .'

I couldn't help but smile, looking down at my shoes. Dusty-pink, peep‐toed courts. Very 1940s or 1970s, depending on how you work them.

'. . . and my friend, you will know her / you will know this woman by her smile . . .'

I kept walking, but laughing the whole way, and looked back to grin at him before turning the corner.

samedi, le 7 fevrier

N came round after the gym to help with the cushions. By 'help' I mean 'sit on them while I boil the kettle', which is helpful in its way, I suppose. Someone has to make the first 142

stain on the upholstery. By which I mean nothing ruder than spilled tea. You sick creatures.

N's eyes lit on the cushion‐squeezer‐cum‐paddle immediately.

When I came back with the steaming mugs, he was already doing a few test whacks on his thigh.

'New piece of kit?' he asked.

'Came with the sofa,' I explained.

'Class.'

One of N's other exes, the one who broke his heart, has started turning up at the gym intermittently. I notice it's never a time he's likely to be there. Sometimes I linger in the locker area, listening in case she talks to anyone and knowing her current situation would carry a high premium indeed. And if she knows who I am she hasn't acknowledged it. I'm not certain whether to tell him yet or not. We were only halfway through the tea before the conversation turned, as it inevitably does, to her.

T don't know whether just to call her,' he said. 'If she's seeing someone new, I'll feel rubbish; if she isn't, I'll wonder what was the point of us breaking up.'

'When someone decides it's over there's nothing you can do.'

'I know. I just thought, finally I have everything sorted, finally I— holy fuck.' 'What's wrong?' 'Look out your window.'

I did. A residential street, cars parked on the opposite side.

Some house lights on, some off. Almost‐invisible droplets of rain blown sideways, showing up as a shower of orange under the streetlight. 'Yes?'

'It's his car. It's your ex's car.'

I squinted. The eyes are not quite what they should be these days, but I don't drive and have re‐adjusted my notion of 'normal newspaper reading distance' to approximately z 143

centimetres from my nose. But yes, it looked awfully like the Boy's car ‐ Fiat, V reg, half a block down.

An inadvertent shiver. It was cold by the window and I pulled the drapes. 'Lot of cars like that around.'

'Wasn't there when I parked,' N said. 'None of your neighbours has one.'

I turned back towards the sofa, unfolded my arms, picked up the cup of tea and sat down. 'Mmm. I don't think so. I don't know.'

When N left an hour later, the car was gone, anyway.

dimanche, le 8 fevrier

So: it is the mid‐eighties. Sometimes in the summer my mother leaves me with a Jewish youth group on weekdays. Usually we hang around a community centre, playing board games or being forced into strange sports of which no one knows the rules, like korfball. Sometimes we take trips.

One time we go to the beach in two minibuses. It's not a warm day, but the beach is a treat (we are told) so we mustn't waste the day (we are also told). A teacher at school once brought back a bleached starfish from her holidays abroad, so I spend the day walking barefoot up and down the shore looking for one. Of course there are none. Some other girls are sitting cross‐legged in shallow water, pretending to shampoo their hair with sand. They ask me to join them but I don't. It looks too cold.

We are brushed down obsessively by the leaders before being allowed back in the buses. But there is still sand in everything when we come back, so the adults order the girls into one room and the boys into another to change out of their swimsuits and shake out their towels. Between the two rooms is a cloakroom-cum‐corridor, and the

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boys don't realise that two older girls are watching them change.

I didn't get to look. Not from want of trying: the older girls were tall enough to block the view, and wouldn't let anyone else near.

They described what they saw (inaccurately, I later realise). For years after I believed the male member has a spiralling ridge going down it, the physical equivalent of the verb 'to screw'.

There is a popular song all the older girls like, and they argue about who loves the singer most, whose name would sound best with his. His protestations of asexuality are meaningless to them.

No, not meaningless: they make him harder to win. He is as separate from the boys around us as a person can be. He is beautiful, antique, otherworldly and from Manchester ‐ and if we know anything, it's that Manchester is far cooler than where we are.

In my first flat after university, I am unpacking dishes in the kitchen when the song comes on the radio. It is the first time I have heard it without a chorus of twelve‐year‐olds singing along.

That summer of the youth group was also the summer my parents' friends start to call me 'the little Alice'. As in, through the looking glass. 'Where is the little Alice?' they ask, and I run from wherever I am, happy to impress. I am brought out at gatherings to impress with feats of memorisation. They keep me in the room, a parlour game: come watch this ur‐adult. I know they're patronising me by speaking this way, but at the same time I am pleased because I can talk back to them in their own language.

One friend of the family refuses to dine at our table if not seated next to me. He asks what I think about politics, and I am surprised to learn I have an opinion. However uninformed. It really hasn't changed much since, either. Then he asks me to recite poetry, going over it line by line. I recite it back 145

verbatim. 'Some day you might even absorb all this,' he laughs.

So I am in the kitchen, alone, listening to this song as an adult, not as Little Alice. The lyrics are quite sad, actually. Without realising it, I have begun to cry.

mardi, le 10 fevrier

Fuck: a spotter's guide

Good Fuck:
makes a lot of noise, alerting neighbours to actual sexual activity on the premises. Leaves nothing behind and does not phone immediately after. In short, should probably be charging for services rendered.

Bad Fuck:
counts ceiling tiles then demands betrothal.

Fuckable:
not so much conventionally attractive as exuding animal qualities. Unless, of course, that animal is an otter.

Fuckwit:
not likely to engage in actual fucking anytime soon.

Fucking Hell:
is populated by women of the tanned and blonde variety who would rather talk about their diets, spirituality and tiny dogs than engage in sex. (See also: Chelsea, Tantalus.)
• Fucked Over:
no longer the recipient of regular fucks.

mercredi, le 11 fevrier

In the last week I have been set up on three more dates. This might mean my friends are concerned about my emotional well-being, or afraid of what might happen if I am single for too long, or both. And I don't want to get attached to First 146

Date too quickly. He's a nice person and we get on well, but the more I think about him the more I find his intentions a little . . .

intense.

None of the intended gents, however, were quite what I had in mind for a love match.

Bachelor number one was a lovely bloke ‐ tall, strange dark eyes, devastating Welsh accent. If there's anything that drives me batty it's the mellifluous tones of men from the Valleys.

Superficial, I know, but we all have our weaknesses.

Alas, the fellow must not have been clued on the details of my working life. Halfway through the starter he related an elaborate anecdote, which essentially came down to ridiculing his best friend for 'dating a whore's sister'. Ah. Well. Pity. The meal was nice, though.

Bachelor number two met me at a pub and was already drunk.

Another fine figure of manhood, but having distinct problems negotiating the relationship between his body and the force of gravity. Inside of half an hour he was clinging to the bar for support, having discovered I am unsuitably small to support 15-odd stone of wavering man.

A couple of hours later we were in the queue for a club. In spite of the rain and general yuckness, they were operating a one‐in, one‐out door policy when the place itself was clearly nowhere near full. Bachelor number two took umbrage with this indignity and decided to address the bouncers on the matter. They, quite reasonably, chucked the lad out on his ear. I peeled him off the pavement, got him back to his in a taxi, located a bag of peas in his freezer and slapped it on his swelling cheek before making my excuses. Being already unconscious, I doubt he noticed.

Bachelor number three was the sort of person for whom the mantra 'better to keep quiet and be thought dim than open your mouth and remove all doubt' was created. After a 147

solid hour of my bright chatter (being personally unafraid of whether people think me dim or not), he finally came out with a few winners:

'I can't say I'm a fan of [the subject I studied at uni].'

Wiping out an entire academic discipline with a single sentence. That's fine, that's okay, I'm not precious about such things. So off again the conversation went, this time to music, a subject about which he was somewhat more animated.