LITMIR.BIZ

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are over. No one tips anymore. So why don’t you try it out, just one call? Just give me your description and I’ll send you out, after that you can decide whether it’s something that you want to do again or not.

      I could have sworn that somewhere in the narrative she stifled a yawn.

      I was far from yawning, myself. I answered with some trepidation, but apparently they were the right answers; apparently I passed whatever internal test I was being subjected to. There was the briefest of pauses when I had finished. “Hmm. All right. I’ll have you see Bruce tonight. I know he’ll like you.”

      “Tonight?” For all my eagerness, that seemed very soon. Too real, too fast. Panic set in. “Peach, I’m not dressed up –” I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with a black vest and an olive linen jacket over it. Not my image of how a callgirl should dress. (Like I knew anything: I had seen Pretty Woman and that film starring Sigourney Weaver as a scholar by day, callgirl by night and that was about it. What you might call a limited frame of reference.)

      Besides, how I was dressed was not the only issue here. “You see, I had hoped to meet you in person before I started,” I said. You know, like a real interview.

      “That’s not necessary,” she said, her voice brisk. “You can’t lie about your description, the guy you see will tell me the truth. I don’t need to see you first.”

      “I want you to,” I said, thinking that I was sounding petulant and not knowing what to do about it. I had wanted to come across as – oh, say, at least marginally sophisticated. “I mean, there’s no problem, I look young, I look good, but…” My voice trailed off. Now I was definitely sounding lame. Great interview. Articulate as hell. Try that on one of your classes someday.

      Her voice changed subtly. Later, when I got to know Peach, I recognized the slight shift in manner and attitude: the nursery nanny whose charges aren’t following directions. Obedience and agreement are expected. Don’t tell me you’re going to be difficult. “A lot of different women work here,” she said. “Our clients have all sorts of tastes. I’m already thinking of one or two who I think you’d enjoy; one’s a surgeon, the other is a musician. They’re guys who want to talk, guys who’ll appreciate you, who don’t just want a quick visit.” She was being careful, I realized, not to use the s-word, not to be any more specific than she had to be. “I think you’ll enjoy spending time with them.” Come on, now, children, playtime is over, listen to Nanny.

      I said, trying not to sound stubborn or defensive, “I still want to meet you first. I want you to see me. I want to be sure.”

      Peach was dismissive. “There’s no sense in meeting unless you find you like the work, unless you want to keep doing it. And don’t worry – you’re dressed perfectly. A lot of the clients go for casual. So do it, or not. You decide. Call me at seven, if you want, and I’ll set it up.”

      And that was that. Do it, or not.

      I decided to do it.

      She was as good as her word. When I called her back she was full of information, delivered at the staccato speed of a submachine gun, and I found myself scribbling on the back of an envelope from my jacket pocket. “His name is Bruce, his number is 555-4629. Your name is Tia – isn’t that what you said you wanted to be called? Anyway, you’re twenty-six, you weigh 125 pounds, thirty-six, twenty-six, thirty-five. C-cup bra. You’re a student. Call him, and then call me back after you’ve talked to him.”

      Did she always tell her employees what they were supposed to look like? I wondered. I didn’t ask, though, and later found out that, indeed, Peach tailored the precise description to what the client was looking for. Within reasonable bounds, of course. Now, however, I was just reacting to the speed of it all. I said, slowly, “Peach, I called you to say that I want to try it. How did you get me a client so quickly?”

      She laughed. “I had a feeling that you’d say yes. Now call him. Do you remember everything I told you?”

      Barely. That was a lot of data, I thought, staring at the envelope. A lot of data that I had never thought about actually articulating to anybody. I remembered a line from Half Moon Street: “Don’t worry, I’m naked underneath!”

      Apparently these were guys who didn’t want to take that on faith.

      Well, okay. I didn’t have any idea what my real measurements were, but those sounded as good as any. I took a deep breath. This was it. I was really doing this.

      Bruce asked me to go through the statistics again, but he seemed pleasant enough (I had been expecting stuttering, maybe?) and gave me directions to Revere. To a marina. He lived, it transpired, on a boat.

      He was a bear of a man, bearded, with eyes that twinkled behind his glasses. We sat on a small sofa in the cabin of his sailboat, drank a very nice chilled Montrachet, and talked about music, our conversation interspersed with clumsy silences. It felt oddly familiar, as if…well, to tell you the truth, what it felt like was a date. A first date. A blind date.

      An extremely awkward one.

      He got up to refill our wineglasses and when he came back he did the little classic pretend yawn and stretch that is a favorite move from everybody’s first junior high romance; but at that moment I leaned forward to pick up my glass and so he missed. Oops.

      I hadn’t done it all that well in junior high, either, come to think of it.

      He cleared his throat. “Do you mind if I put my arm around you?”

      I was bemused. Did I mind? Um – well, no. I came here for you to fuck me, you’re paying two hundred dollars an hour to fuck me, I don’t expect I should balk at you putting your arm around me… I looked at him, unable for a moment to respond. He really meant it. It was endearing beyond belief.

      I’d imagined a lot of things, back in London. I’d imagined even more since then, sitting alone in the whirlpool at my gym and thinking about what I was about to do. I’d imagined a lot of pretty unimaginable things, to tell the truth. What I could never have imagined was this polite awkward guy asking my permission to put his arm around me.

      “That would be nice,” I managed to say, and a moment later he kissed me.

      Definitely a first date kiss.

      I returned it with some enthusiasm, moving my arms up his shoulders and around his neck and drawing him deeper, closer to me, opening my mouth to his and gently sliding my tongue against his teeth.

      And it was at that precise moment that I knew it was going to be all right. This wasn’t anything esoteric or bizarre or dangerous: this was something I had done before, something I did well, and – best of all – something I enjoyed doing.

      He slid his hand up under my t-shirt, raising my bra, and then he was touching my breasts, playing with the nipples as they hardened in response, still with his mouth crushed against mine. I moaned slightly and pressed my body closer to his, and I could feel his heartbeat accelerating, hear his breath coming faster. We pulled away from each other, slightly, responding to some inner common impulse, and his eyes met mine. “You’re beautiful,” he said.

      “Thank you,” I whispered, tracing the shape of his lips with my fingertip.

      He cleared his throat. “Would you – can we go in the bedroom?”

      I knew just what to say; this was easy, after all. I could do this in my sleep, on automatic pilot. I didn’t even have to think about anything. It couldn’t have felt more natural. “Yes, please,” I said, keeping a sense of controlled eagerness in my voice.

      The bedroom wasn’t far. We were, after all, on a boat.

      I had taken the precaution of buying condoms on my way over. Now I hesitated before following him, ostensibly finishing the wine in my glass, and I slipped one from my handbag into my jeans pocket. Nice work. Unobtrusive as hell. Hey, what do you want, I’m new at this.

      And it was still feeling like a first date.

      The room

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