by Tracy Quan
“You’re blaming the victim. That IRS agent threatened to ruin his life! You’re not being fair to him.”
“That IRS guy threatened to ruin my life, too. But I didn’t become an informant, did I?”
“But you don’t have children! Jack has a family, a marriage, people who depend on him.”
“Jack’s ‘children’ are grown! It’s not as if Jack’s wife was going to get custody of two people in their late twenties!”
“No,” she agreed. “But he didn’t want to hurt her. He was trying to protect his family. You shouldn’t condemn him for that.”
“He blabbed to the IRS about us—and now they have every reason to think they can come back for more. What kind of man ‘protects his family’ by turning himself into a sitting duck?” I asked. “Even if what he did was justifiable, we can’t afford to deal with him. What if he gets subpoenaed? Every conversation, every transaction you have increases the risk.”
Allison appeared to be listening, so I pressed on.
“Look,” I said very patiently. “Your girlfriends have been sticking together and we’re not seeing this guy—”
“That’s why he keeps calling me!” she said brightly. “And offering me so much money! None of the other girls will see him. Maybe I should ask for three thousand.”
I shrank back in horror.
2 Through the Hooking Glass
FRIDAY MORNING. 2/4/00
Last night, after our appointment with Harry, Jasmine dragged me to the Mark for a martini. Not wanting to show up blotto for dinner with my fiancé, I opted for a ladylike Kir Royale—“just one.” Jasmine ordered her usual: Absolut, straight up, with an olive.
“I’m worried about Allison,” I confided.
“Stop the fucking presses!” Jasmine sputtered. “When have you not worried about Allison? What sort of problem might Her Blondness be causing—I mean, having—this week?”
I told her about Jack’s showing up at her building without an appointment and Allison’s latest bright idea, the $3,000 question. “Don’t discuss this with Allie,” I added. “Promise you won’t say a word about what I’ve told you!”
Jasmine gave me a searing look that unnerved me.
“Allie might say something about us to Jack,” I explained. “Do you want him as an enemy? Who knows when he might get interviewed again by the IRS? Or if she might tell him that we turned her against him…not that we did exactly…”
My sheepish voice trailed off into a maze of denial. I tried not to think about the sin I was committing. Spilling one best friend’s secret (against her specific wishes) to another best friend! Is there a special place in hell? I hope there’s a waiting list.
“That girl…” Jasmine was muttering darkly. “That girl’s soul is composed of cotton candy.” (I see what Allie means about Jasmine being judgmental.) “She’s a moral idiot!”
And if Jasmine knew that Allison had asked me to keep a secret? Would she trust me not to blab her business around? But I would never tell Jasmine’s secrets to Allie. That’s the difference. I swallowed the rest of my apéritif. The sweet alcoholic potion was doing its job, morphing into a weird elixir of self-justification, smoothing out my wrinkled conscience.
“And Eileen’s been getting creepy phone calls from him,” I went on. “She slammed the phone down. He retaliated by calling her back. And now Eileen’s telling everyone who will listen how she stood up to this jerk! What should we do?”
Jasmine frowned into her empty glass. “We should get another drink. And keep Jack in perpetual limbo—if we can. Eileen’s too confrontational for her own good.” As she signaled to the waiter, her wrist glittered winningly. (That guy on Forty-seventh Street who does those Bulgari knockoffs. I must remember to ask for his number.)
Jasmine sighed and shook her head. “Eileen reminds me of those big dumb guys from my old neighborhood who were always getting into bar fights!” she said. Eileen’s about five feet tall, but Jasmine has a point. “They never went anywhere in life, and they’re probably still getting into brawls and getting kicked out of bars. But Eileen should know better! How long has she been around? Eight years? What is her problem? Why is she provoking a phone fight?”
Suddenly, Jasmine’s attention shifted. “Did you pay retail for that?” She was eyeing my pony-skin Baguette with harsh curiosity.
“Of course not!” I lied.
“It really works with the sweater,” she acknowledged, “but you spend money as fast as you make it. That’s gotta stop!”
Who does she think she is? My mother?
“Hey, look.” She pulled an envelope out of her black crocodile tote (a sleek find at 70 percent off, last summer) and waved an invitation in my face. A benefit for the S________ Foundation. “Two Benefactor-level tickets courtesy of Harry. He’s got a conflict that night. This is a great way to find new guys. Maybe we can pick up some Super-Benefactors. Their tickets are in the megadigits.”
“They’re not spending that kind of money to sit with mere Benefactors,” I pointed out. “They’ll be at their own tables—miles from ours.”
Jasmine doesn’t usually venture beyond our private circle for new customers. The girls we work with operate strictly from their books. There are very few acceptable methods for getting new business: You can trade dates with another girl or pay a cut for each new client. Work for a reputable madam and risk her extreme displeasure if she catches you “stealing.” When a girl is leaving town or retiring, you might buy her book. But how often does a good book become available? It’s rare. Sometimes an established customer refers a new client, but that’s also rare. Most of my regulars would be a little turned off if I had sex with their pals.
Of course, other kinds of girls—through advertising on websites or working for escort services—can afford to eschew these niceties. They have an endless supply of new guys (obtained at great risk), but private girls and reputable madams don’t work with them. Very few “escorts” have the patience to cross over. A small number will try to make a go of working privately, but the minute things get slow, a hard-core escort goes right back to the escort agency, or to advertising. And if she gets arrested? All the private girls in her address book are at risk.
A private girl braves the slow months to preserve the quality of her book, her contacts—her way of life. I should know. I crossed over a long time ago. And stayed here. I’ll never go back. No matter how slow it gets.
“Look,” Jasmine was saying, “this isn’t like advertising. It’s a totally cool way to enhance your client book.”
“Soliciting at a social event?” I was appalled.
“Noooo,” she said disdainfully. “We’ll work these guys as sugar daddies, do a little research on them, make sure they’re legit—and find out how rich they are. And then…say you have a monthly expense. Like, you’re taking some lessons at the French Institute. That’s five hundred dollars a month right there! So you hit the guy up for your French lessons. Or a summer share in Sag Harbor. You get the idea.”
“Or your ailing mother’s hospital bills?” I suggested, rolling my eyes. “I’m a professional. And so are you. That stuff’s for litehooks.” (Girls who kind of sort of sometimes maybe in a way get paid for sex. More often than they admit, but not often enough to make a living at it.)
“You’re missing the point! If you’re pretending to litehook, then it’s different—you’re not really a litehook! You’re the ultimate pro. Passing for a litehook.”
“Surely you’re not that desperate for new business.”
“Desperate? Please. You should always be building your book. Never take your existing customers for granted. Cultivate your john book as if it were a vegetable garden.” Jasmine was twisting the stem of her martini glass between her fingertips. “Water it, plant new seeds. Grow potatoes in the fall, tomatoes in summer. Learn about new farming technologies.” Her eyes shone as she warmed to her theme: the hooker in the dell.
“Potatoes?” I said. “How glamorous.” I studied the
invitation. “I can’t,” I said, sipping my second Kir Royale carefully. “I promised Allison I would go to a meeting with her that night.”
“A meeting? With Allison? You’re not going to join that crazy hookers’ union!” Jasmine exploded. “Do you know what will happen to the price of pussy if those airheads succeed in changing the fucking laws?”
“For god’s sake, lower your voice!” I warned her. “Do you want everyone to hear? You’d better order some carbs before you get too drunk. Anyway, I’m not joining,” I explained. “I’m just being supportive. Of Allison.”
Narrowing her green eyes, Jasmine interrupted, in a half-slurred half whisper: “Do you know why they want to make it legal?”
I shook my head and moved closer. A middle-aged guy in a pin-striped suit with a graying ponytail was eyeing Jasmine from a love seat near the entrance.
Her voice turned steely. “If those girls ever get their way, girls like us will be doing it for ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents—just like them! Have you seen those ads for tantric hand jobs? They’re all over the Village Voice! That’s the element you’re going to encounter at whatchamacallit—the trollops’ council or whatever they call themselves.”
The ponytailed fellow stood up to greet a tall angular blonde; she was wearing Harry Potter eyeglasses, dark red lipstick, and a bright blue boa around her neck. She was also lugging an incongruously boxy red North Face backpack. He offered her the love seat and perched on one of the muffin-shaped stools, which gave him a great view of her long legs, her massive Mary Jane wedgies, and her tiny miniskirt.
Jasmine, by comparison, was a picture of sanity, in low-heeled ankle boots, well-cut trousers, light brown lip gloss, her face a more angular version of Gayfryd Steinberg’s circa 1986. A reasonable voyeur might see a streamlined brunette debating hairdressers or nursery schools with her school chum. But Jasmine was off on a tangent. And we’re not school chums—in any traditional sense of the term.
“It’s sexual socialism,” she was saying. “A redistribution of resources. Terrible. Like the minimum wage.” She took another sip. “Ayn Rand had a name for these types. Secondhanders!”
“What’s in it for Allison?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “Professionally speaking, she’s not one of those girls. She’s one of us.”
“In my opinion? It all comes down to those pink handbags!” Jasmine said. “Her taste in handbags is so juvenile, it’s excruciating. Last year, she was calling herself a sex addict and carrying around that Kate Spade number—in pink, remember? This year it’s pink Louis Vuitton! And now she’s calling herself a sex worker. It’s too predictable for words. Infantile! A hooker’s accessories should radiate discretion. Power. Sexual maturity.” She reached into the grande-dame-ish alligator tote sitting at her knee and took out a black nylon wallet. “Now, this,” she said, opening it, “I got on the street from one of those African guys. You have to invest in an expensive bag, but a wallet’s something else entirely. Everybody sees your bag, but almost no one sees your wallet.”
A waiter arrived with our bill. I opened my own wallet—speckled pony skin accented with a matte plastic trim. Only Jasmine could succeed in making me feel uneasy about this chic new addition to my extended family of mostly Italian accessories.
“Let’s split it,” I said.
“Christ. Having all hundreds is almost as devastating as having no cash at all!” she muttered crossly. “Get the next one. I have to break a bill.”
At Demarchelier, Matt was waiting impatiently, fiddling with his cell phone. “Where were you?” he demanded. “You’re twenty minutes late!”
“I had a drink with Jasmine, and I tried to call you,” I riffed in a snippy voice. “Is your ringer off again? Your voice mail’s not working, you know!” My irritation was so authentic that my white lie felt completely real. Besides, Matt just upgraded his phone and hasn’t had time to learn the new features. His compulsive upgrading is a godsend, providing endless new excuses for any failure to communicate. I wonder how many other relationships rely on technology for this very reason.
“Well, you should have invited her to dinner,” he said.
“Jasmine,” I began. Jasmine was too exercised over the hypothetical price of pussy to pass for a normal person tonight? I don’t think so! “She had other plans,” I told him. “Take us out for dinner next week, if you like.”
Matt was absentmindedly stroking the underside of my wrist: a mini-truce in the war on lateness. “I’ve never had a date date with two girls,” he replied, clearly enticed.
I looked vaguely past his shoulder and acted as if I hadn’t really caught the innuendo. For a second, I wondered if Matt could guess that Jasmine and I, just hours before, were…doing another kind of date together. He couldn’t possibly. Could he?
Compared to some of the men I routinely bed, Matt seems so young and healthy. Sure, he’s turned on by the idea of two girls, like any other guy. But he doesn’t require two girls just to get a hard-on; some of my clients are so jaded that nothing normal turns them on anymore. And, though I hardly qualify as being Into Girls, I’ve probably been in bed with more women than he has. It boggles the mind. Even my mind.
But that’s one thing I treasure about Matt. A relationship with a guy who hasn’t turned into a raving decadent. I smiled softly across the table and gazed into his eyes. Never change! I wanted to say out loud. We looked at each other for a while, and I wondered what he was thinking.
Over dessert—virtuous strawberries for me, sinful crème brûlée for Matt—I contemplated my session with Dr. Wendy: Maybe he knows one side of you. It’s not the complete you, but that’s not the same thing as being a fraud. Is it?
“My sister thinks we should come up with a date,” Matt was saying.
“Why?” I asked. “Elspeth’s not the one who’s getting married.”
“I know, but she wants to plan her year—”
“Can’t she plan her year without planning our wedding?” I shot back. “Why is she always interfering?”
As an older sister myself, with two brothers, I know that a younger brother must put his foot down in order to gain a big sister’s respect.
He changed his tack. “Well, anyway, I was thinking, if you aren’t ready to set a date, why don’t we move in together?”
“Move in?” I was floored. “Where?”
“Wherever you want. I mean, we could move into your place or my place and see how we like living together.”
I couldn’t hide my dismay. We’ve only just begun discussing the engagement, my shrink and I. And Matt wants us to move in together! How will I keep seeing my clients? Oh, what was I thinking when I said yes? And what now? Can a girl march down the aisle and just say “Whatever!” instead of “I do”?
“Why do you look so surprised?” he asked playfully. “We’ll be living together when we’re married, you know.”
“I know that,” I snapped. “But—but—my place is too small for a couple. My bedroom’s tiny. Where will you put all your suits?”
“Okay. Mine’s bigger,” he offered.
“This—is very sudden,” I stammered. “We—we just got engaged!”
“We’ve been engaged for a while, honey, almost three months. You’re upset. What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, though I had the urge to bolt from the table. “Was this Elspeth’s idea? I wish you wouldn’t discuss our relationship with—”
“Calm down, okay?” He wasn’t playful anymore. “This has nothing to do with my sister.” And turning this into a fight about his sister was not going to be an easy way out.
I silently recalled the time Matt almost found out about my second phone number: One weekend, last summer, I stupidly forgot to unplug my business phone. When it rang, I was so startled that I almost gave the entire game away, dashing madly from one end of the apartment to the other! And what if both phone lines had started ringing at once? I made up some story about buying a new phone because the old one was broken. The me
mory of that day made my stomach tense up. I smiled stiffly.
In a more patient voice, he said, “Just think about it. You don’t have to decide this minute.” He paused. “God, you look…are you okay?”
My palms were sticky. If we broke up now…I thought, it would all be so simple. I stared at my ring.
“I’m sorry,” I said, picking up a strawberry with my spoon. “You deserve someone more stable. Less neurotic.” My fingers trembled. The strawberry tumbled onto the tablecloth.
“Don’t be silly,” he told me. “It doesn’t matter what I deserve. That’s not how love works.”
“How love works? You’re an expert? Is that something they covered in business school?” My eyes filled with tears and I rushed off to the ladies’ room where I calmed my nerves by checking the voice mail on my cell phone.
A tongue-in-cheek message from Milton: “Put those dirty videos back in the deep freeze, kiddo—I’ll be in Tokyo for the next three weeks.” He promised to call after his business trip. Milton’s bottomless appetite for porn videos, awkward positions, and oversize sex toys doesn’t turn me on. But the sound of his voice is always so reassuring. I closed my eyes and replayed the message.
Then I dabbed some powder under my eyes and returned to my boyfriend, emotionally refreshed—much to his relief and mine. You see, the thing is, I really think Matt benefits from me being in the business, even though it has to be kept a secret. I’m a much better girlfriend when I’m feeling secure about my clients, my bargaining power—when I’m having a good week. When I’m seeing other guys—for money—I’m better in bed, too. I know it.
Later, helping me into my coat, Matt brushed his lips against my left ear. I felt his teeth nipping discreetly at my lobe. “I must really be in love with you,” he whispered. “You’re so fucking impossible!”
