Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl

“When you say he’s a straight guy, you mean…?”

I held up my left hand as if it were a shield and spun my ring around. I told her: “He works on Wall Street. His boss is Pamela Knight. She was on Moneyline last week. He’s one of her bright young rising stars.” Wendy’s dark lashes flickered, but I couldn’t tell whether she recognized Pam’s name. “He wouldn’t understand my business. He’s always had a straight job. His entire life he’s been so—so normal that he doesn’t even know how normal he is. The other night, we were watching The Sopranos and he started telling me how corporate life is just like a Mafia hierarchy. Where does he get these ideas? The most unusual job he ever had was a stint as a golf caddie in college! He would never understand how his girlfriend could have a job that’s—well, not exactly legal.” To say the least. “And all the guys I’ve been with.”

“But most of your clients are, essentially, straight guys and they understand. Don’t they?”

“Y-yes. Pretty much.”

“Obviously, it’s not his work that sets your boyfriend apart from your clients.”

“Okay,” I said. “It’s not him. It’s me! He doesn’t know I’m a hooker. I’m pretending to be a straight chick. And it’s working! And that makes him a straight guy. It’s…I feel like Dr. Franken-hooker.”

Wendy smiled. “Well, it’s how he perceives you rather than who he might actually be. If you feel like you’re shaping his reality, it’s a heady but onerous responsibility—”

“And his sister’s an assistant D.A.!” I interrupted. “And my cousin Miranda introduced us. So if Matt finds out what I really do, he could freak out and say something to her. To my family! To his family.”

“Hang on,” she said. “Just refresh me on Miranda. She’s older than you? A sort of big sister?”

If I can keep track of my clients’ stories, why can’t my shrink keep track of mine?

“No. Miranda’s almost ten years younger than me,” I seethed. “After college she moved to New York and bought a co-op loft. Uncle Gregory pays all her bills. That’s her dad. He’s older. I mean, he’s my mother’s eldest brother.”

“Yes.” Dr. Wendy looked alert. “I remember now.” She did not apologize for the oversight, and I wasn’t sure she understood how irked I was. Wendy adjusted her glasses. The red frames, unfashionably large, make her look a bit like an office manager. Her frizzy hair always looks like it needs a good cut. But she’s got these sexy almond-shaped eyes—and a worked-out body—that save her from looking frumpy.

I suppressed my irritation and added, “Miranda has no idea what I do for a living. She doesn’t think about how other people make ends meet. You know the type.”

“Yes. I remember. And I know the type.”

Miranda’s downtown existence is entirely subsidized by Uncle Gregory, and she’s blissfully unaware of our parents’ income disparities—which is quite handy. She never asks how I get by because she’s never had to get by. Miranda fancies herself a class traitor and sees me as the chic fogy. When she discovered Matt at a gallery opening, she deemed him “too East Side” for her downtown sensibilities but perfect for me. She takes real pride in our resulting courtship, but I wonder what she would say if she knew about my very East Side profession.

“It’s not that my family is so refined,” I added. “It’s just that we don’t talk openly about money. Miranda probably thinks I get money from my parents, too. If she thinks of it at all.”

I glanced at my engagement ring again, then looked up at Wendy.

“It’s a lovely ring,” Wendy said. “So…” The inevitable question: “How do you feel about it?”

“Like a fraud.” There was more silence, as our time ran out. “Not entirely like a fraud,” I added, quietly. “More like…a successful fraud. My girlfriends in the business see this as a victory. And my regulars are delighted for me. It’s like being an athlete who’s just won a trophy and everyone expects you to make an effective speech and maybe win more trophies and endorse a breakfast cereal—except that I could lose the endorsement if my corporate sponsor finds out who I really am. I’m terrified!”

“So. If your corporate sponsor finds out who you really are?” She echoed my words back. “What then?”

I stared at her, defeated by the enormity of her mental exercise.

“Maybe,” she proposed, “your ‘corporate sponsor’ appreciates a side of you that is real, but it’s not the complete you. That’s not the same thing as being a fraud.”

“Maybe,” I said, unable to look away from my substantial-yet-tasteful diamond.

“Are you still keeping a journal? It might be helpful at a time like this.”

“Sort of. But I lost a whole month! Trying to encrypt it in Word! Don’t ask.”

Wendy nodded sympathetically. “You should consider getting an iBook.” My shrink, the Mac hugger. I guess it goes with all that ethnic pottery.

On my way home, I popped into what looked like a reputable lingerie shop on Broadway. I requested sheer stockings—supplies for Steven, Eileen’s client. A tattooed salesgirl with eyebrow rings and a vacant smile—was she also on Ecstasy, perhaps?—tried to sell me fishnet thigh-highs. Then, sensing my dismay, she steered me toward a rack of sheer black pantyhose with virtual lace “garters” built into the sides. Interesting, and rather pretty, but not what this new client is looking for. I was about to demand the manager—was there a responsible adult in the shop who understands “garter belt”?—when my cell phone rang. Steven, the cause of this maddening culture clash.

“I was just thinking about you,” I chirped. Suddenly I remembered Steven’s specs: bitchy, not chirpy. “No, tomorrow looks uncertain…Confirm with me in the morning. I can’t talk,” I added in a firmer voice. “I’m shopping.” For him, actually. But I didn’t say that because, well, it’s like telling a John you’re at the drugstore picking up some more K-Y.

Sheer stockings, like a girl’s lubrication, should simply materialize, out of the erotic ether. Do not let daylight in upon magic.

The salesgirl drifted away, in search of easier customers. Unable to resist a bargain, I snatched up three pairs of half-price thong panties—cute little animal prints. Perfect for Ted P., who likes to watch me changing my underwear in his office, and the more panties per minute the better. Some fetishists are so easy to shop for. Others must wait.

WEDNESDAY. 2/2/00

Every girl has a favorite customer. Plus, a john whom she barely tolerates in order to meet her weekly quota. In between the two extremes are bread-and-butter guys—the mainstay of a call girl’s business. You plan for bread-and-butter guys, cultivate them, seek them out. But you never plan to have a favorite john.

Allison’s favorite was Jack.

Last summer, he practically went into mourning when she decided (for the umpteenth time) to quit the business. Jack didn’t want Allison to know he was seeing other girls, and he mostly saw her friends so he could mope about how much he missed her. To have a regular who’s so easy—a quick blow-job-with-a-condom—and so devoted! We all sort of envied her. Who wouldn’t? Jack seemed like the perfect client.

Until he got a call from Tom Winters, a twisted IRS agent who was auditing Allison and calling everyone she knew. Winters wanted to prove that she had vast reserves of hidden wealth; he couldn’t believe that she simply had no savings or real assets after more than five years in the Life. Winters was curious about Allison’s lifestyle—her apartment, her prices, even her body. (He asked one girl if Allison had had a lot of expensive plastic surgery. Yes, paying cash for major cosmetic work leaves a major trail, if you’re being audited for undeclared income.)

Jack told the IRS how much he paid Allie and how often. He described the furniture in her living room. Never mind that these antiques came from her grandmother. Winters was convinced he could “prove” that Allie spent gobs of undeclared income at big-ticket antique shops. Auditing call girls was more than a job for Tom Winters: it was a hobby, an obsession, a calling.

And Jack didn’t just tell him about Allison. He told the IRS how they had been introduced—about the other girls she worked with, like me and Eileen, and he ended up providing Tom Winters with a list of private call girls on the East Side. Allison lost many of her best clients—along with the best part of her mind—all because of Jack, the weak link. Winters decided to LUD her, as they say. He got a printout of her Local Usage Dialing records and started checking up on everyone she had ever called. He used her phone records to connect the dots and came up with some alarmingly accurate theories. He threatened her clients with professional and marital embarrassment—i.e., the tax audit from hell, meaning lots of loaded questions aimed at surprised wives, prickly bosses, and gossipy junior associates. Allison’s clients were terrified of being linked with a “known tax evader.”

One night last fall, Allison woke me with a drunken hysterical call: “You’re the only person who had this information! I should have known!”

“Allison?” I whispered, trying not to wake my exhausted boyfriend.

“How else could the IRS know all these things? How else could they know that Fred came over to my place on Tuesday, May the fourth? Or the name of the girl who sent him?” she wailed in a high-pitched voice.

I sat up fast and moved away from Matt, hoping he couldn’t hear her.

“What are you talking about?” I asked in a horrified whisper.

“I’m talking about that IRS agent—who I never should have seen today!” She stopped suddenly and I heard a deep raw sob. “He knew everything! My clients, my prices, he even knows I charge extra for—for—” There was a humiliated whimper that made me cringe. “So, when did you turn me in?”

“Please calm down,” I begged as her accusations grew clearer.

“I’m not as stupid as you think!” she cried. “You won’t get away with this. I’ve got stuff on you, too!”

When I hung up, I was shaking.

“What time is it?” Matt demanded angrily. “Who was that? Why are all your friends either in trouble or causing trouble? “ he railed. “What is wrong with you? Do you have even one normal girlfriend?”

The weeks that followed were harrowing. I did not speak to Allison and barely spoke to my boyfriend, for fear of saying something incriminating. Matt started quizzing me.

“What’s going on in your life? Was Allison threatening you?” When I tried to brush the whole thing off as girlish hysteria, he refused to believe me. “You were trying to hide your conversation the other night! Why?” My distress made him angry. “What have you done?” he demanded.

For the first time, I was forced to consider just what Allison, in fact, had on me. We’ve been trading customers for five, maybe six, years. She knows my boyfriend. We’ve had dinner with each other’s families. She’s the only working girl I’ve ever introduced to my mom or my cousin, and yet she’s the most unstable. What was I thinking when I allowed her into my personal life? Allison even knows where I hide my cash—whatever I don’t spend, that is. I hired a lawyer, the notorious Barry Horowitz, who normally defends rich sociopaths—like those Dalton kids who hacked off that homeless man’s hand in Central Park. I hired him to defend myself against my best friend! And against Tom Winters, the IRS agent, who was also asking people about my furniture and my clients and looking for a weak link in my life.