The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (4 page)

She had to take a few calls during lunch, when I learned she speaks fluent German and Arabic. Domineering. God, 22

the punters must love that. She asked about my experience. Some dominatrix work, some stripping, no sex with clients, all ages ago.

She nodded. She asked if I had a partner; I said yes. She told me about hers, and how he didn't know what she did for a living. I found that incredible ‐ her phone had gone off three times already.

She ordered herbal tea. I had a coffee. I could feel the full weight of her gaze as I tipped a spoonful of sugar into the cup.

Whether hunger or disapproval, I wasn't sure. 'So now we have to talk about services.' She pronounced the word like it had twelve vowels: suuuuuuuuvices. 'Have you done A‐levels?'

Well, yes, but that was years ago. Who knew that academic fluency was a prereq for the job? Maybe the customers were more discerning than I thought. 'A‐levels?'

'You know,' her voice dropped to a whisper, 'anal.' I'm quite sure the waitress didn't need to refill my coffee right at that moment. Weren't there some decorative olive oil decanters she could be rearranging elsewhere?

'Oh, right. Yes, I can do that. Provided I haven't been out for a curry the night before.' We laughed.

The manager said she needed more up‐to‐date photos for her portfolio. The ones I had sent were unsuitable, as they were nothing like the usual glamour shots, showing me in various states of inebriation at the clubs and in one, with something that looked suspiciously like vomit down the front of a silky black vest.

All class. More air kisses and she was away, sticking me with the bill. Luckily it appears we have similar attitudes to food, i.e.

admiration from a distance, so it was hardly a burden. Two pots of tea and an untouched stale pain au chocolat: eight quid. Probably a bargain at the price.

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dimanche, le 16 novembre

I packed the Boy into his car and waved until he reached the end of the street. Before he even could have reached the motorway he texted a kiss.

It's been the better part of a year since starting this work, and he's still with me. Not that it was easy at first, especially when I had to tell him.

The Boy came up to London for a job interview. I was unsure how to bring up the subject of my new employment. Gently, blurring the edges of truth if necessary? 'Darling, I want you to know, I've been seeing men for money, but I do it fully clothed and they come in Bacofoil in another room. Every time. Did I mention I love you?' Or, be blunt and see what happens. 'My dearest one, I'm a ho. Did you somehow fail to notice the bling?'

He gabbled about his family and work through sandwiches, coffee, our walk down the road to buy a pastry. Over a morsel of baklava I finally blurted it out. He didn't say anything, just pursed his lips and nodded. But he didn't object outright. I took a deep breath. 'Of course if ever you want me to stop, I will.'

He still didn't say anything. We left the shop and walked in the sunshine. Falling leaves spiralled on the pavements; crunching underfoot, they smelled of earth and dust. My step fell in with his: we run together and are accustomed to the same length of stride.

He put an arm around me, started to speak, but stammered. He tried again. 'You'd be surprised. I've been thinking about it and I think it's okay.'

I kissed him. We walked up to the British Library together, to look at the Lindisfarne Gospels. The Boy told me they were portions of the Bible in Gothic style written on skins. I'm not terribly au fait with the finer points of

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Christianity, but suspect the King James is not usually published on abattoir by‐products. The raw craft of these sounded appealing. In the dim exhibit rooms, the gold and painted vellum seemed to glow with animal intensity. Brutal ends to saints and the devouring of virgins always seem to feature strongly in the European arts of that period. The Boy told me of his visit to the Lindisfarne island, where he almost drove a car into the surf. I laughed, the sharp noise shattering the reverent quiet. We went home and watched television, cooked a meal together and played lion attacking the Gothic maiden in a big white bed. (He was the lion.

lundi, le 17 novembre

Client: 'So why do you do this?'

Me: 'I'm not sure I have an answer to that.'

'There must be something that you at least tell yourself.'

'Well, perhaps I'm the sort of person apt to do something for no good reason other than I can't think of a reason not to.'

'So if someone told you to jump off a bridge . . .' 'Depends on the bridge. Depends if they were paying. Why?'

'Oh, no reason. Will you suck me now?'

mardi, le 18 novembre

One of my more potent fantasies is of the Boy fisting me. This is not because he's done it, but because he hasn't. For one thing, he has the most gorgeous hands I've seen on anyone, male or female.

Artist's hands, I say, and he splays out this wide paw for me to admire. They ferret under my

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clothes when we're in public; I rarely feel safe from manhandling.

But I don't mind. I want to feel planted on the end of his arm, an extension of him, controlled.

Even with regular erotic exercise I prove a bit too constricted for the Boy's fist. The manuals say this will come with time, but let's face it, I'm a busy girl and sitting around working his greased digits up my fluffy bits is the anathema of romance. I know the women in the shiny magazines all seem to be able to manage it these days. Back when oral sex was considered the height of depravity in the mainstream, the hardcore magazines were all showing nothing but anal sex. Now that anal sex can practically be broadcast before the watershed, fisting is where it's at for the truly sick. So much so that I wonder if I shouldn't stay ahead of the curve by just skipping ahead to anal fisting instead. But the ladies capable of such things are probably either possessed of a far greater pain threshold than mine or descended from a train tunnel. My own history with the practice of fisting can be broken down thus:

First, a teenage boyfriend. He wanted it, I wanted it. He had narrow hands, I was dripping wet. Young, foolish and incapable of getting more than twenty minutes' privacy at either of our parents' homes, we went out of town on a dirty weekend at a hotel. We were hardly in the room before I was stretched across the bed and he was concentrating manfully on the progress of his fingers inside me. Then his fingernails hit my cervix: ouch. Much fantasised, but never attempted again.

Second, N. Years ago, when we were still an item. He wanted it; I was dubious. It had been a long time since the teenager who tried to scratch me out, but I could still imagine the gritting pain.

But N was experienced, he knew about the finger‐curling wrist-thrust necessary to get a whole fist in without the woman experiencing involuntary

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hysterectomy. Unfortunately N also has hands that can span my waist. His last girlfriend had taken the fist many times, often while being buggered. She was also 6 feet tall and about twice my weight. We tried, many times, but never quite got there. I practised with all manner of widening tools: vegetables, dildoes, an extremely large‐handled torch. No luck.

Third, my hand goes where no hand has gone before. Namely up a woman who is on the phone to her boyfriend in Italy. He's paying me to make her come as many times as we can in an hour.

This is also the day I discover you need to break the internal vacuum to take the fist out again, unless of course your intended is into suction. And I don't mean the Jenna Jameson kind. Yeeks.

Fourth, one night, with a customer. And I discover that while someone else's hand might be out of my reach (so to speak), my own is slender and small enough to make it in. Contortionally awkward, but successful nonetheless. Finally, a perfect fit. Only then do I discover the black art of fisting is not getting it in; it's getting the damn thing out again.

I rang the Boy when I got home to let him know about the fist. I didn't mention it was with a client. 'Can you do it now?' he said over the phone.

'Probably,' I said. In pyjamas, in bed. Under the duvet. 'I'm just about asleep, though.'

'Oh.' There was a silence. 'Can you just describe it now, instead?' he asked. Of course I could. 'And then show me next time you see me?' Yes, of course, anything, love. I do not grow weary of you. Come see me, come take me away.

I woke to a missed text message from him: 'The best things in life R still free. I miss your cuddles most of all xx’

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mercredi, le 19 novembre

I crouched between the man’s legs. His inner thighs were huge and I brushed the skin with my fingertips. 'How was your holiday?'

'Good, good. Japan is an interesting place. Have you ever been?'

he asked, leaning back on the bed.

'No.' I took the hardening cock in my hand and pulled on its foreskin gently. It stiffened and lengthened in my palm. 'What is your favourite thing to do there?'

'They’re an odd people. They have these places, ' he said, pausing slightly as I took his member between my lips.

'Simulating a crowded underground carriage. Where people’s bodies rub up against each other . . . '

He slipped out of my mouth; I began pumping the shaft with my fist. 'I’ve always had a fantasy like that. A crowded student pub, short skirt, leaning over the bar to get a drink, someone comes up behind me. And there’s no space to move, so not only can I not get away, no one else can tell its happening.'

'Mmm, that sounds good.'

'Will you promise me something?' I asked. 'If you ever see me after at this bar, will you just come up and do that?'

'You have my word,' he said, angling his erection back into my mouth.

vendredi, le 20 novembre

The Boy is in town, so I am seeing no clients. We went to the gym, ostensibly so I could show him off, but mostly so he could show himself off.

First event was the rowing machine. I hate the rowing 28

machine. Hate hate hate it. It is the Devil's Bicycle. It is my nemesis and wants me dead. However, I will gladly sit alongside the Boy as he thrashes the metal beast into fly‐wheeled submission. After five minutes, droplets of sweat appeared on the back of his neck. After ten, the rippling ribbons in his forearms were driving me to distraction. A glorious half‐hour later I was aching to jump his bones.

Suitably panting, we headed for the bench press (which I can't do) and the bench pull (which I can). Suffice to say I am not fit to hold the man's towel.

For the piece de resistance I goaded him into chin‐ups. Four sets of six, shirt off, ensuring that even the resident thick‐necked gym bunnies were suitably humbled. Cower in the wake of his manly pheromones, you six‐packed Narcissi!

In order to reassert control we did something I am good at ‐

stretching. A cliché perhaps, but I have always been able to put my legs behind my ears. A long session of contorting hamstrings ensured that, fragrant with sweat and lusting as only long-distance lovers can, we never got past the car park.

Well, we did. But our clothes didn't. And our dignity came nowhere near.

Ah, young love.

samedi, le 22 novembre

Of all the services the manager and I had discussed at our first meeting, there was one neither of us mentioned. Oral. But there on the website for all to see, I am advertised as OWO. Oral Without. Without condom, that is.

To tell the truth, if she had asked, I would have said yes. I've done the deed with condoms in the past and my lips react badly to the latex and spermicide, swelling and

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tingling. And like all other sex acts, there is some risk involved, but nothing near what most things entailed. I wouldn't do it if I had cold sores, for instance. Or if I was especially concerned about the staying power of my lipstick.

But I'm a swallower and always have been. Once it's in there it doesn't taste any better to spit it out, and to be frank, it's no worse than the taste of a woman. A girl I went to school with once described semen as tasting of 'an oyster on a two‐pence piece'. I wouldn't know, having never eaten either, but she's probably not far off the mark.

dimanche, le 23 novembre

Last night I was walking down the fag end of Fulham High Street looking for a cab. There is a book store on the corner ‐ not the horrible kind assaulting you with endless stacks of remaindered Michael Moore and lattechinos to go, but the wonderful quirky kind. The sort of shop where the proprietor ‐ who can remember your tastes, previous purchases, and make appropriate recommendations even if you've not been in years ‐ appears to live on site, and either owns a collection of identical outfits or never changes his clothes. The proprietor of such a shop is always a man, always.

Unfortunately the shop was closed. Or perhaps fortunately; I had a wad of notes on me, some time to kill and a distinct inability to refuse fusty booksellers. When I was a student, I calculated I spent more per term on books ‐ and not ones related to my course, either ‐ than I had on food. But the shop was locked up and dark. Outside the door a plain white shelving unit held a few paperbacks. Whether these were donations to or from the public I didn't know. Being curious, I perused the titles. This is how I ran across the best thing I've ever read on a paperback cover: 'A girl

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can go anywhere if she believes in herself and has a mink coat.'

Well, yes! Indeed! How true, and wonderful! How very Holly Golightly! Uncertain whether the books were for sale or not, but certain this novel was destined to be mine, I deliberated a moment before dropping a pound coin through the post slot.

(Now is a good time to point out that I do not actually have a mink coat. I have a fairly nice watch, and suppose it is the most politically correct luxury item one can get away with wearing. I wouldn't want to be accused of either animal torture or funding cartels in the developing world. The possible exploitation of Swiss craftsmen is not a daily burden on my soul.)

The book, in case you are wondering, is
B.F.'s Daughter
by John P. Marquand, he of the Mr Moto novels. It is the most delicious trash. Think Mickey Spillane meets Francois Sagan in the lobby of Saks Fifth Avenue. In 1946. Shopping‐and‐fucking chicklit really has nothing on this.