by York, Mattie
Panties for Sale
Mattie York
Text Copyright © 2013 Mattie York
All Rights Reserved
“Panties are by nature innocent, pure, decadent, depraved, modest, brazen, ridiculous and sublime.”
- The Panty Sutra
“I can't believe I gave my panties to a geek.”
-Sixteen Candles
Table of Contents
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7
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10
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14
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55
1
No one was outside, even though it was almost 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Alex’s stilettos echoed down the deserted street, as she hurried along, slowing only long enough to note the house numbers.
Actually, Alex thought, the street was quite charming. It reminded her of that TV show, The Wonder Years. Where in the early 70’s, new house buyers could choose the brick colour before their house was built, stamping forever their individuality on the world. Shades of lemon, strawberry and pistachio bricks lined the street. Ice cream favourites of those overly optimistic baby boomers, whose optimism, like their bricks, was now sadly faded giving way to a tired yet well-mannered middle class. Lemon yellow 209 sported a basketball net over the garage. Pistachio green 211 had white shutters and a pot of yellow nasturtiums sitting gracefully on the front lanai. Rose pink 213 had a large lilac bush on the front yard shading a gathering of jolly hard working garden gnomes. 215 was, wait a minute. Where was 215? Alex stopped and turned around. No, she didn’t miss it; the last house was 213. Then a large patch of grass and then the street ended. That can’t be right, Alex thought retracing her steps.
As she slowed down to step over a large crack, she was reminded of how damn smart she was. Because, if she hadn’t decided to wear her stilettos, she wouldn’t have had to slow down and if she hadn’t slowed down she would have missed (she did miss the first time) the narrow rock staircase. But this time she didn’t miss it. She saw it. And she looked up. And there it was. 215. A majestic plantation house towering above the street, its white plastered walls cracked with age, glistening proudly in the morning mist. Glancing once back down the street, she warily began to climb the staircase.
“Hello?” Alex peered through the screen door into an empty hallway. A plate of half eaten toast was abandoned on a side table and the smell of freshly brewed coffee still permeated the air. It was obvious that someone had just been there. Not seeing a door bell, Alex knocked loudly on the wooden door frame. “Hello? Anyone home?” An eerie quiet responded. Alex checked her cell phone; no new messages. She pulled out the note she had scribbled to herself. Angela, Saturday, 10:00 am, 215 Simcoe Ave. Yes, she was here. Right place. Right time. But where was Angela?
With a sigh, she turned around and surveyed the empty neighbourhood. Her breath turned white as she breathed in the chilly morning air. Why was there no one around? 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning? This place should be crawling with activity. Did no one have kids? No hockey practice to get to? No Saturday morning coffee and bagel runs? Alex shivered and stepped closer to the house, trying to absorb some of the warmth from within. As she did, she noticed the drapes were pulled back along the front window. Carefully, she stepped around the large concrete urn that flanked the entrance, pushing the tall dead grass decorations out of the way, to edge along the front stoop which led to the living room windows. All of a sudden, she caught sight of her reflection and nearly lost her balance. “What the hell?” she cried. How could her hair be frizzing out already? She had specifically massaged Marc Jacobs Extra-Strength straightening cream into her damp hair that morning before she blow-dried it to stop this very thing from happening. “Damn!” she leaned closer to the window trying to flatten her hair with her hands.
What was that? Alex turned her head to listen. Yes, there it was again. It seemed to come from deep within the house. Alex pressed her ear to the window. “Shit!” she jumped as she heard someone barreling down the stairs and quickly tried to shuffle back to the front door. Her heart started to race and she felt her stomach tighten. What the hell was she doing? Why hadn’t she bolted when she had the chance?
“Alex?” A short middle aged woman opened the screen door. She smiled warmly and stepped aside so Alex could enter. “I’m so glad you could come. Were you waiting long?” The woman dabbed at the small beads of sweat on her forehead with a handkerchief as Alex smiled and shook her head no. “I can’t hear anything upstairs. I was just coming down to see where you were, when I saw you standing out there. Is it still raining?” She shivered and slammed the heavy oak door. “My, what a dreary day.”
Not sure where to go, Alex turned around to look at the woman. She was leaning against the closed door, boldly looking Alex up and down. “Yes,” she nodded, “yes, you will do, you will do just fine. Wonderful.” She smiled and reached out her hand, “I’m Angela”.
Alex had imagined that Angela’s grip would be strong. Solid. Perhaps a little bit warm and motherly, but powerful nonetheless. One that told you in no uncertain terms, that she wouldn’t take any shit. A strong handshake was important, Alex thought, considering Angela’s line of work. But Angela’s handshake? No, Alex wasn’t expecting that. It was odd. Limp. Almost lifeless. And cold. It felt like shaking a water balloon that had been left outside all night. Alex shuddered and stuck her hands in her pockets, rubbing them on the coarse denim trying to rub away the sensation.
“My office,” Angela walked towards the stairs “is on the top floor. I keep my business separate from my family.”
Family? She has a family? That was something Alex hadn’t expected. Cautiously, Alex followed Angela up the pink carpeted stairs. Wood framed photos of happy blonde chubby children were hung on pink floral wall paper. Glass vases of fake satin roses sat collecting dust on the window sill. Alex cringed and tried to ignore the groupings of small teddy bears in tuxedos and wedding dresses leading the way up the stairs. Gripping the iron banister, she tried to shake off the feeling of dust and chemicals gathering and settling in her hair from the strong mix of plush carpeting, stale cigarettes and cheap air freshener.
Surprisingly Angela was quite agile and Alex had to hurry up the stairs to catch up with her. “Here we are,” Angela leaned on the third floor banister to catch her breath, “My office.” She reached down into the neck of her t-shirt and unhooked a mess of keys from her bra strap. “I don’t know where Dora is, she’s supposed to be here. Lord knows where that girl is.” Angela glanced up at Alex, “Dora is my assistant. You will just love her. She is really good to my girls. But,” Angela held up a gold key triumphantly, “it looks like it’s just me and you to start.”
Alex’s jaw dropped as she entered Angela’s office - which was really just one huge room - that took up the whole third floor. One whole room com
pletely cluttered with pink, pink and more pink. Like an overstuffed Barbie Dream house. Alex tried to act nonchalant but she had never!
Along the right wall, shelves reached from the floor to the ceiling, overflowing with papers, and stacks on stacks of pink photo boxes. Almost hidden under the pink paper clutter was a desk area with a computer, a printer, and a large office telephone switchboard thing. A white board decorated with pink rose stickers covered the wall. On the left side of the room, a pink Venetian vanity and matching plush chair sat wreathed in pink silk flowers and covered in a cacophony of perfume bottles, brushes, eye-shadows, lipsticks, blushes, q-tips, tissues, lotions and hair spray. A hair dryer, a curling iron and a straightener dangled down the side. Beyond that, French doors draped in pink gauze, led into a walk in closet with clothes in wrinkled piles strewn all over the floor.
But what really made Alex stop in her tracks was the massive king size canopied bed that was elevated onto a plush pink carpeted stage in the middle of the ‘office’. Long strips of pink gauze were wrapped around the frame billowing down to the floor as large silk roses intertwined with ivy leaves were twisted around the bed posts. A pink satin bedspread was draped over the bed and almost swallowed up with pink silk pillows. But the best, the piece de résistance, was the ceiling. Centered perfectly on pale pink plaster, directly over the bed was a gigantic gold plated oval shaped mirror, with tiny golden cupid faces peeking out of the frame, giggling, pointing and watching with bemused interest at the goings on below – whatever that might just happen to be. Of which Alex didn’t dare even guess at.
“Don’t worry about all this,” Angela waved away the pink fantasy set as she walked through the room. She slid the curtains open at the far end of the office and disappeared behind.
Alex was now more than a bit unsure. Had she really thought this through? She ran through the emails Angela had sent her in her mind. She was sure there was no mention of an audition, was there?
2
Alex ducked under the curtains and relaxed a little as she found herself in a clean, comfortable, relatively normal sun-room. She sat down into an easy chair watching as Angela stretched her arms and plunked herself down onto the large couch. Hauling one leg and then the other up, Angela tugged at her oversized t-shirt unsuccessfully trying to cover herself as she shifted until she was properly comfortable. Her hair was tousled and fell unevenly past her shoulders in a shade of bottled platinum blonde that Alex knew was definitely not the work of a stylist. Alex suspected neither was the hairstyle. It was that 80’s rocker chick hairstyle with long bangs, half curled under, half curled up and back and then teased and hair sprayed to the max.
Besides her hair which was stuck in a decidedly lame time warp, Alex thought that Angela could pass as a pretty regular suburban Toronto housewife; frumpy, chubby and in dire need of a personal trainer, a house cleaner, a wardrobe consultant and a hair stylist. But how did that make any sense? Maybe that was her appeal? She did have lovely doe-shaped eyes of a brilliant cerulean blue. And she had this charming way of lowering her face when she looked at you, peering up at you through her long dark eyelashes.
As Alex watched Angela pry open her cigarette case with her shiny red nails, she decided yes, there was a certain attractiveness about her; she was probably a knockout when she was younger. And she did have a nice smile. It was warm and friendly, yet mysterious and beguiling all at the same time. It made you feel something. Something tingly? Excitement? Perhaps a kind of safe-ness? Alex wasn’t sure. When Angela smiled at her, she couldn’t tell if she wanted to rip her clothes off or bake her a batch of chocolate chip cookies. It was unnerving.
“Man, I needed that.” Angela sighed after a long deep drag from her cigarette. “So, you want to be an escort?”
“Yes,” Alex nodded, “I think so.”
Angela stared at Alex as she took another drag. “Ok,” she exhaled, “let’s start with the red tape. Here, in Toronto, escort services, are still considered legalized prostitution.” Her fingers made quotation marks when she said the words prostitution. “It’s partly true. Because it is legal here, we get a lot of business coming up from the States. Some escort services take advantage of that. Not us. Here at Angela’s Angels, we pride ourselves on providing the total escort experience. It doesn’t matter where you are from. All of my clients are respectable. Completely safe. Very high end. Don’t worry about that. I only deal with gentlemen. You will probably be asked to go for dinner, or perhaps the theatre. If you’re lucky, a client may take you away for the weekend. One of my girls just went to Niagara Falls. She stayed with her client at the Hilton, in a suite overlooking the falls. Yes, it does happen. All the time.” She leaned back and took another drag.
“Now, what we at the Angel’s offer is a companionship service. If you are serious about becoming an escort, it’s important for you to know,” she pointed her cigarette at Alex, “you need to be very careful about which agency you chose to represent you.”
Alex shifted in her seat. The sun was breaking through the mist and shining in through the windows into Alex’s eyes, forcing her to squint to see Angela. “I can tell you honestly, my business is very fair. I work very hard to keep it that way. I care about my girls. Personally. I always check out the client’s addresses, their phone numbers and their credit cards. My girls are always driven to their appointments by my own drivers, and always picked up afterwards and taken home. I will always make sure you are comfortable before sending you out, and either me, or Dora will talk to you about each appointment afterwards. Especially now, in the beginning, you know, just to make sure that you are ok.”
Angela paused to savour her last drag, then grabbed an open Pepsi can from the table and dropped it in. She watched through the tiny opening as the Pepsi attacked the cigarette, swirling the can until it had extinguished the filter with a sizzle. “How many other agencies have you met with?”
“None.” Alex shook her head. She had stumbled upon ‘Angela’s Angels Escort Service’ while reading E - News late one night. Some big actor was in town shooting a movie and had been arrested for sexual assault. He had tried to fondle a masseuse. Alex had been puzzled. Why would you try to fondle a masseuse in a spa?
All the masseuses Alex had ever gone to hadn’t even been that young or good-looking. And they were always fully clothed, usually in a high collared white uniform. Very un-fondable. And didn’t you have to lie on a bed on your stomach with your face in one of those circle pillow rest-things? How would you manage fondling in that position? Alex was surprised when she read it hadn’t actually been in a spa, per say, but an X-rated massage parlour.
She wasn’t surprised they existed. But she was very surprised that they existed in Toronto. Toronto was tame. A nice clean cut Canadian city. Things like that only happened in those over the top made-up FHM fantasy articles, in dark alleys in Bangkok or Las Vegas or maybe in Texas, but not, in her quiet polite Toronto, Canada.
Of course, Toronto had hookers. Alex wasn’t that naïve. She had seen them, hanging out on the streets late at night, usually on her way home from the Richmond St. clubs. Hookers were always easy to spot by their cheap shoes, tight clothing and way too-short skirts, huddled together smoking in groups or walking up and down the edge of the sidewalk waving down cars. Alex was amazed at their determination when she saw them out on Jarvis St. in the middle of winter. Sometimes she felt sorry for them as she passed them by in her warm taxi. Not sorry enough to make eye contact or stop the taxi and lend them a few bucks to help them out. But then how would that help, really?
She had thought a shady hand job in a dark alley or a blow job in the back of someone’s car was usually the extent of it. Ok, maybe, a few hours in a cheap motel. But this illicit ‘massage’ community, this underground world so well organized, and apparently so well-known even Mr. Hollywood knew where to go.
That this was happening in her city, right under her nose fascinated Alex and she had clicked from site to site. As she skimmed through pictures o
f the girls currently available, she was surprised at how young and normal they were. They didn’t wear too much makeup, most had natural coloured hair; not the stereotypical peroxide blonde, and only a few had fake boobs. Most looked like someone she could see any day walking down Yonge street. Some were Asian, some Filipino, some were even Russian. Some were too skinny, some were fat, others looked really rough. How did men choose which one they wanted? And how sleazy and desperate were these guys to pay so much for a hand job when there were girls like her, dressed to the nines, getting tipsy in night clubs every weekend looking to hook up for free?
Alex knew that she should be horrified by seeing women so blatantly objectified and up for sale, but she found herself strangely interested as she read how clients could choose ‘masseuses’ to be topless, naked, with shaved, or with ‘natural’ pubic fashions. They could also choose the service: regular, full, VIP. Regular was a shower and a massage with hand job, a full was a blow job. The VIP? Well that was undisclosed, but Alex could easily imagine what would be offered there.
It seemed the only rule that the parlours were adamant about was that masseuses were not to be touched unless it was ‘specifically arranged before the appointment and fees were adjusted’; which would explain why the celeb got himself into trouble. Why didn’t he just pay for the VIP?
Transfixed (and perhaps slightly aroused), Alex clicked on a banner advertisement looking for new, attractive, intelligent ladies to earn extra cash as an escort. Alex remembered watching an episode of Designing Women where Suzanne had been persuaded to be an escort for a bald, but very rich geek. She was paid to accompany him to his school reunion as a piece of eye candy in an effort to make him look more popular. Sure she had watched it when she was still a kid, but damn, what had she been thinking? Eye candy, my ass. Of course, it was all about sex.
“How many escort services are there in Toronto?” she asked Angela.
