The Price: My Rise and Fall As Natalia, New York's #1 Escort

by Natalie McLennan

  This was a sign. I was supposed to have this dress. If only they had it in my size.

  “Natalia!”

  It was Joelle. I peeked out from behind the curtain. The salesgirl was standing there holding my dress. She smiled and handed it to me. I was giddy. It was the thirty-eight.

  Then she asked me my shoe size. This one I knew in European sizes: “Thirty-six.”

  I was rushing to get the dress on. Joelle zipped me up again, and I turned around. The salesgirl was standing with a pair of silver-heeled stilettos that matched the dress perfectly. I put them on and stood up. The whole princess thing I felt when I first put the dress on? Now it was real. I looked at myself, and I was happy. Happy I’d left Paul, happy I was earning money, happy I was free…and young…and beautiful.

  I bought the dress. It was a little under $2,500 for the dress and the shoes. Or about five hours of my time. We walked out of the store, and Joelle said she was proud of me. Even the shopping bag was gorgeous.

  As I left the store, I felt like I was high. I turned to Joelle and said, “Let’s get a room.”

  The obvious choice was the Gansevoort Hotel, less than a block away. Why would we get a hotel room in the middle of day? Part of it was I just wanted a nice, private place to do blow and have a drink that wasn’t the loft. Part of me just wanted to rebel against being controlled, and to do something on my own time for once.

  The manager saw my shopping bag and winked. I smiled—my aura must have been radiating pink stretch satin.

  He asked me what I did, and I told him I was an actress.

  “Are you visiting?”

  “No, I live here. Sometimes I like to take a vacation from my life.”

  He liked my answer. He upgraded us to a suite and comped us a bottle of champagne.

  We hurriedly threw on our new duds and jumped on the beds like ten-year-old girls. We were ecstatic. I couldn’t control myself.

  I was making more money than I had ever dreamed. I was wearing clothes straight out of Vogue. I had all the drugs I wanted, and more. We were walking clichés, and we loved it. It was a fantasy world that couldn’t last. But at that moment, high as the sky, slurping Veuve Clicquot and giggling like we were at a slumber party, everything felt perfect.

  Of course, nothing ever lasts. Our cell phones started ringing like crazy. First mine. Then Joelle’s. Every three minutes. It went on like this for half an hour. We put them on vibrate and tried to ignore them, but they just buzzed around in circles like dying bees on the bed stand.

  We looked at each other.

  “Let’s go on the roof and watch the sunset,” I said finally.

  “Totally,” Joelle answered.

  “I want to wear my dress!”

  As we were leaving the room, I threw my phone on the bed in a final act of defiance.

  The Gansevoort’s roof deck is the place downtown to catch the sunset over Jersey. There are comfy lounge chairs, a pool, a 360-degree view and always a lively, sexy crowd.

  We grabbed a little bench next to a particularly raucous group, which included Steve-O from Jackass, who was downing drinks like he was on some kind of dare.

  It was one of those classic New York sunsets when the sky goes from cotton-candy pink to deep orange. I lived in awe of those sunsets—we didn’t have them in Canada. I later found out that it’s Jersey’s poor air quality that makes the colors so vibrant. Whatever, still pretty to look at, right?

  Joelle and I ordered Cosmos and continued with our fantasy date.

  Until reality barged in.

  Jason burst onto the deck. He was clearly angry. Being in fashionista mode, my first reaction was, wow, he looks good. His style had become a little more downtown, and I liked it. He’d developed his own relationship with the salespeople at Jeffrey, and it was paying off.

  He was with Bill, his account guy. Not his accountant. His account guy. Jason was an ex-con with horrendous credit, so he could barely get a 29.9% interest credit card, let alone a cell phone or a lease or a merchant bank account. So, Bill was the man who signed the contracts. Jason gave him and his pregnant wife an all-expense paid trip to Vegas as a thank-you. Nice guy, if maybe not the brightest bulb.

  Jason was on the warpath. I could tell he was about to go into a tirade like I’d heard him do on the phone that first day in Jersey. He saw my dress and paused for a second. He seemed confused by it. Bill tried to preempt any ugliness by acting as intermediary. Of course, he was just protecting his investment, really. His name was on our lease, and if I wasn’t earning money, the rent didn’t get paid.

  I told Jason to fuck off before Bill could get out a complete sentence. I was the one making the money that was paying the rent and his massive salary. He should show me some respect.

  If I wanted to take a break and chill out on a deck with my friend, I could take a fucking break and chill out on a deck with my friend.

  I was a little hot under the satin ruffle, I admit.

  Jason wasn’t having it. He starting raising his voice, telling me that I needed to get back to work and that he was my boss.

  Then words like “client” and “bookings” started coming out of his mouth, and people started to look at us. I got up and walked away without saying anything. He was totally out of line. I was still guarding my double life closely. It was the one thing I had to hold onto.

  I called the elevator and held back my tears. I couldn’t believe the disaster that was unfolding. Everything had been so perfect.

  Jason, Joelle and Bill all showed up just as the doors were opening. We rode the elevator in silence, and I swiped the room key and pushed open the door.

  Once we got into the room, Jason admitted he didn’t have any bookings for us. He just couldn’t stand that I was having such a good time with someone other than him. He called me a “cunt” and screamed that Joelle was a bad influence on me.

  She was a bad influence?

  Pimps have never been known for their sense of irony.

  “So you’re going to be just like Paul?” I screamed. “Why don’t you just hit me, too?”

  I started crying. Bill and Joelle went into the other room and gave us some space. Jason tried to hug me, and I pushed him away. He suggested we go back to the loft. I said I didn’t want to. I needed some space.

  After a couple of minutes, I realized my play time was over. The mood was ruined. What was the point?

  I agreed to go back.

  It was no better there. Jason sent Joelle home, but she wasn’t happy about it. I wasn’t either. It only made me more upset with him. He fired Joelle and told me I was banned from ever seeing her again. I chose money over my friendship with her. I had only known her for a couple of days, but I felt bad about it. I cast her aside in order to make things right with Jason, but I was a girl with a goal—and independent life and walking away from my source of income with a girl I’d known for just a few days was not going to get me there. Was this job already changing me? I didn’t know. I do know that we did manage to get good use out of the suite at the Gansevoort later that night. Jason booked me for a three-girl, $15,000 date that paid for my dress a few times over.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MEET THE CLIENTS

  My attention increasingly shifted to my clients: bankers, record producers, entrepreneurs, trust fund kids, and even a sports icon. They flew me to the playlands of the rich and debauched. I stayed in $5,000-a-night suites at the Waldorf and ordered room service for three days straight. I drank Dom Perignon in Miami Beach like it was Sprite. I ate filet mignon in a penthouse at the Bellagio. Tens of thousands of dollars were wired to the New York Confidential account for the pleasure of my company.

  After having to rely on boyfriend after boyfriend for rent and spending money, now I knew how Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager must have felt with all of that cash stuffed in the ceilings of Studio 54.

  I got into the escort world with a clear plan. I was going to apply the Wall Street Rule: set an amount of time and an amount of money,
and then get out. I set the goal at $100,000 by the end of August. I later learned that the Wall Street Rule never really works for bankers either. What was designed to be a quick fix, turned into a permanent lifestyle before I could blink.

  Rent, salaries, drugs, magnums of champagne, Dolce & Gabbana suits, advertising—running a house of ill repute—isn’t cheap. To keep the whole operation humming, Jason increasingly needed me to work eighteen hours a day, three to four days at a stretch. I’d sleep for twelve hours before starting all over again. It was grueling, and it didn’t take long before I needed serious amounts of chemical assistance just to make it to the next appointment.

  If this were a Behind the Music episode, this would be the part where our first album goes platinum overnight, and the party never seems to end.

  Cue the guitar riff.

  * * *

  One night, I arrived home at around ten o’clock. The loft was empty, which was extremely rare. There was always at least one of the girls or managers milling around on the $10,000 leather couches smoking, doing their nails, or snorting a line the size of Cuba off of an ornate Baroque mirror.

  The first thing you do when you arrive at the loft is check the booking sheets. The booking sheets list all the women, their appointments, and Jason’s notes on the clients. The notes included the client’s occupation, favorite movies or books, their height, weight, a note about how hooker-y they wanted the girl to look (some guys want a slutty Christina Aguilera, others want you to be able to pass for a bridesmaid at their sister’s wedding). None of Jason’s notes were sexual. He wanted to know what the guy was really like: his personality, his quirks and his interests. He built detailed profiles, which helped us deliver exactly what the client was looking for.

  I believed in what we were selling. It got to the point where I was actually advocating “choosing an escort” as a lifestyle. Choose an escort over your secretary and minimize your guilt and the potential for ruining your marriage/life, while maximizing your pleasure and happiness. Inspire the rest of your life by having the best sex of your life with me. I thought it all made sense.

  Even the top girl had to man the phones if no one else was around. I never liked booking my own appointments. It felt weird. As ridiculous as it sounds coming from someone who did what I did, I hated mixing business with pleasure. It affected the dynamics of the appointment if I had to first haggle with the guy over the phone before we met.

  As I was perusing my booking sheets, I noticed that one guy had booked three girls over the course of the weekend. Booking two girls for a big weekend was not uncommon. But booking three was rare. In addition, the guy had told Jason that he was an agent. He named the agency. I knew it well, as did every aspiring actor, director, and screenwriter. It was by far the most powerful agency in L.A., and probably the world. Every once in a while, a client would be forthcoming with his identity, but it was rare, especially if he worked in a high profile industry such as entertainment.

  The phone rang and I answered. It was the agent. He wanted to confirm his appointments. I felt a lead weight drop to the pit of my stomach.

  I used to joke with Jason that one day I would win an Oscar for playing an escort in a remake of Pretty Woman. But deep down I knew what I was doing was probably not the best move if I wanted a shot at a legit film career, let alone an Academy Award. But the naïve Canadian in me blocked all that out when I picked up the phone. I asked the agent why he hadn’t booked an appointment with me. I told him my name and, feeling especially confident, interjected, “I’m an actress,” seductively adding that I would love to see him.

  We made an appointment for the next day at seven.

  No matter what, I was reliably late for all of my bookings. Most of the time, it wasn’t my fault. I was so overbooked that I’d end up with appointments fifteen minutes apart at opposite ends of midtown, or even overlapping appointments. Or something would come up, like Jason would find some woman walking down the street and want my help to convince her to try escorting. Or I was just late.

  It was a warm night, and I took my time getting ready. I put on one of my favorite outfits, a green Dolce & Gabbana summer dress and a pair of Manolo Blahniks with three-inch heels. One cool perk about the business was that when you see someone only once, you can wear the same thing over and over again. The Dolce dress was perfect. During the day or early evening, you want to look casual and cute, but not too trashy or you’ll stand out. I jumped in a cab, all nerves, and headed up to the St. Regis, the majestic old hotel on Central Park South.

  As we got closer to the park, the traffic got horrendous. It was already past seven, and we were fifteen blocks of gridlocked traffic away. I started to freak out. I pleaded with the cabbie to do something, anything, to get me to the hotel quicker, but we were locked in a classic midtown scrum. The puny air conditioner’s whiff of cool, dusty air on my ankles was the only thing keeping me from blowing a gasket. I started to sweat— nervous sweat—profusely, which is never good for business. Finally, I snapped. I threw a handful of bills at the driver, jumped out two blocks from the St. Regis, and started running. Well, not quite running, but hustling like a crazy streetwalker as fast as one can through an apocalyptic traffic jam in $600 Manolos.

  What had I been thinking? What could possibly come out of this? The starry-eyed actress in me, with dreams of a Hollywood fairy tale, fantasized I was Lana Turner heading to the soda fountain—not an escort going to an expensive hotel room.

  By the time I made it to Central Park South and turned toward the hotel, I was already almost an hour late. I started having one of my panic attacks. The chaos of midtown Manhattan started to swirl around me. People were rushing by, going about their normal lives completely oblivious to this secret other world I was part of. I felt so far removed from everything.

  Out of breath, but nearly at the hotel’s gilded revolving doors, I called my girlfriend Andrea, the only person from my regular life who knew about my new career. A former escort herself, she had encouraged me to jump into the profession.

  “Andrea, what do I do? The guy’s a big time agent!”

  She said, “Do you know how many actresses would kill for a chance to have five minutes with someone from [that agency]? You get to spend two hours with him.”

  That made sense, or enough sense at the time.

  The doorman gave me a warm smile as I slid calmly through the large, ornate revolving doors.

  I always liked the St. Regis. It’s got class. The staff never made me feel uncomfortable. The security guards, doormen and clerks at the big hotels know exactly who the escorts are and what you’re up to. Some treat you like shit. Most don’t seem to care as long as you’re discreet. Some are actually really nice to the escorts. Each hotel has its own preference about how they want you to go about your business. Some prefer that you check in at the desk and call up like a regular guest. Sometimes that can get awkward. During the Republican National Convention, the security was so tight they actually made me sign in with my I.D. at the front desk before calling up to the client’s room. Fortunately, I used my real name so it matched my I.D., but most hotels, knowing that their high-roller clients want their nocturnal hijinks kept on the DL, prefer you to keep a low profile. Keep your head down and head straight for the elevator. However I did it, I always hated lobbies. I felt so vulnerable walking through them with a purse full of credit card imprint slips, condoms, lube, and thousands of dollars in cash in $100 bills stuffed into envelopes. I had this reoccurring nightmare that as I’d be walking through this super-swanky lobby full of rich and famous people, I would trip and fall, and as I skidded across the hotel lobby, my purse would spill open, spilling all of my illicit accessories all over the hard, marble floor.

  I slid past hotel security without looking up and pushed the button for the sixth floor.

  The agent opened the door. He looked a little peeved that I was so late, but he didn’t say anything.

  I gave him a quick hug and got down to business.

&
nbsp; “Hi, I’m Natalia. Do you mind if we handle the financial stuff now? It’s easier this way.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  The first thing you do when you walk in the client’s door is take care of business. It’s an awkward way to start a “romantic” encounter, but it’s absolutely necessary. I had my own special way of greeting the guy so that it would be as comfortable as possible. It made it better, but I was always happy to be over that part of the appointment.

  If they paid me in cash, which they mostly did, I never counted it in front of them, though the rules are you’re supposed to. If they used a credit card, I had to place the card under the double layer slip, line it up correctly and rub an imprint with a pen or lipstick, like a Chinese food delivery guy. I always hated that. It felt so tacky.

  As the agent handed me an overstuffed envelope I tried to break the ice.

  “I told you I’m an actress, but don’t worry, I won’t pull out my headshot and resume. But if you like me and there is anything you could do for me that would be cool, but if not I won’t, like, start crying or be devastated or anything,” I said awkwardly, adding, “I want us to just be able to hang out and not feel like I have an agenda.”

  Sometimes I don’t know when to shut up.

  He quipped, “It might already be too late” under his breath as he walked to the mini-bar to pour himself a drink.

  The agent cracked a bottle of red wine and told me to take off my clothes. He was no Ari Gold, but he was obviously a guy used to ordering minions around without wasting any time on Ps and Qs. He was surprisingly well built and had some very expensive shoes on—which I appreciated. I took off my dress slowly, slipping my panties down over my shaved pussy. All the while, he showed no emotion. He was as cold as ice.

  There are basically two types of clients—men who would like to go out on a date with you and those who just want to fuck. I could tell right off the bat the agent wasn’t interested in the girlfriend experience.