12
Tu Es Libre
IT WAS A LAW OF NATURE, LIKE GRAVITY: SOMEONE HAD to walk away first. They had already said goodbye. Shar grinned, turned on her heel and left Eliza standing on the snowy sidewalk with her face undone, the stormy weather right there in the blue-grey eyes. How beautiful it is, she thought, when a woman conceals nothing.
Shar was so happy that she was almost dancing. The planets were aligning, here it was again, confirmation that the universe wanted her right here. There was a public pool close to her apartment, but the water was freezing—not only in the pool but in the shower room, too. Last week, she’d heard from another swimmer that the warmest pool in Toronto was at St. Anne’s. Indeed.
She walked quickly out of the neighbourhood and turned onto Bathurst Street, the wide, traffic-filled thoroughfare to the east. She was headed to a nail jockey place on Bloor Street. She hated nail polish—her fingertips felt suffocated—but Benoît loved it, the brighter red or deeper purple the better.
She took extra-long strides, swinging her arms. Toronto, baby! I had no idea! If Shar hadn’t had a date at one o’clock, she would have invited the flower-seller home and eaten her for lunch. Then again for dessert. As it was, they’d chatted for a few minutes, then exchanged numbers and email addresses.
Eliza was married. Which perhaps explained why she was so horny. Shar jumped over a small hill of slushy snow. It was good, this level of loopy euphoria. Her broken heart was clearly on the mend. She and Giselle had split up—after a lot of ripping and tearing—just before she left Ottawa. This had happened in August, so the wound wasn’t fresh. It wasn’t only her work that led to the breakup. During their two-year relationship, Giselle’s life trajectory had slowly clarified: after passing her bar exams, she would find a good job and have a baby. Or two. Perhaps three. Shar had always been clear that she did not want to have kids, but Giselle believed she would come around; eventually she would be happy to fill her house with spawn. Yes, Shar’s little bungalow in Westboro would be a perfect starter home for the family. It became clear why Giselle had been so thrilled to discover that Shar owned her own home. She wasn’t thrilled to find out where the money came from for the down payment, but she was a pragmatist. Shar was ready to finish her first career and start her second one, was she not? That’s why she was doing her master’s in psychology. The beautiful children (of their impossible future) would have a lawyer mommy and a therapist mama. Not.
Shar swung her arms extravagantly, letting the past slide away, pulling the present closer as one bare hand carried on up to her nose: she inhaled. Under the sea-creature saltiness, the woman’s pussy smelled as smoky as lapsang souchong, her favourite tea. When she licked the back of her thumb, her mouth flooded with saliva.
She pulled off her hat and shook out her hair; the edges that had been poking out were stiff with cold. The sun shone brilliantly on the snow-lined street; she wanted it on her face. As she turned onto College Street, she wondered what the husband looked like.
Eliza was beautiful, small but round and luscious-looking. And those eyes! Dark blue-purplish-grey eyes, almost slanty. She was as white as a yogurt container, but something about her face made Shar think that her DNA had been strained, a long time ago, through a gorgeous Mongolian. She had an aquiline nose in a broad face; she was both chiselled and soft. Often the features of striking people were contradictory; that’s what set them apart. Eliza’s husband could not possibly be as good-looking as she was; it would be unreasonable.
Usually Shar wondered what the wives looked like, though she liked both husbands and wives, especially when they came to see her together. One of her favourite professional activities was turning a woman in front of her man, even if the lesbian awakening only lasted for the date. Often these women were in bed with her as a favour to their boyfriends or husbands, a birthday present, or the fulfillment of some long-nurtured fantasy, and they were shocked by the intensity of sex with another woman. But Shar knew how to manage that surprise. Since adolescence, she had loved the transgressive act of kinking up straight girls. Women. They were so much more challenging and complicated than men. Men were simpler, in a good way: anatomically, orgasmically, conversationally, emotionally. She’d paid her bills by having sex with them since she was twenty, in her second year of undergrad at UBC.
When she reached her nail place, Pretty Luvlies, she stood at the plate-glass window admiring the jelly-bean-like display of nail polish bottles, gleaming in the sun. She didn’t have time to kick the snow off her boots; Mrs. Shinx, upon seeing Shar, stuck her small head and large bouffant hairdo out the door, mouth open. “It too cold! Come insigh!” It was not a question. “You freese out here!”
“Mrs. Shinx, I like the fresh air.”
“But you freese to death! Come insigh! I gi’ you hot tea!”
Shar nodded; it was impossible to ignore her commands. Mrs. Shinx would have made a great dominatrix. Shar kicked the brick wall to dislodge the snow from her boots. Mrs. Shinx ushered her in and began to fuss over her, along with a pale young woman who didn’t speak a word of English. A couple of other clients were in the shop, sitting on the big raised manicure chairs, reading women’s magazines. Their toenails were drying, shiny black and matte blue, respectively. Ladies from the neighbourhood, she supposed. From Eliza’s neighbourhood. Shar had a wicked impulse to start chatting, to see if they knew her. But she subdued her wickedness, slid her feet into the basin of hot water and closed her eyes.
—
Sex work was not the part-time job her hyper-educated immigrant parents had encouraged her to seek out. They had suggested she wait tables at a good French restaurant where she could make decent tips, which is exactly what she had been doing when one of her regular customers asked her out. She had smiled, kindly. He was a polite guy, generous. And, surprisingly, French. He always defaulted to French with her. It was their little bond. Her co-workers knew that he liked to be seated in her section. But to go on a date with him? Not only was he a man, but he was ancient, certainly in his late forties. Almost ugly. She lowered her voice. “En général, je préfère les filles.“ He nodded, held her gaze. He did have that broken-nose handsomeness, a hybrid of Bill Murray, Gerard Depardieu and Harvey Keitel. He quietly responded, “I would be happy to pay you for your time.” His tone was neither sleazy nor pushy, just matter-of-fact. “Only one date. In public, for a meal or a movie. If we enjoy ourselves, we can try it again. Several times. Then you can think about whether or not you would like…more.“ He smiled. “For more money. Of course.”
Still smiling, she shook her head but slipped his card into her pocket. She was surprised, but not horrified, or insulted, or disgusted. She was intrigued. It was an opportunity to try to be unafraid. To not hate them. Men. Those fuckers. And to make some money. In her tiny apartment in Kitsilano, she flipped open her computer and looked up his name (Benoît Martel), his company (Essler Systems, computer security) and his contact information. The North American headquarters were located in Quebec, but the company was French. She found a picture of him at a hospital fundraising event in Montreal.
How much would a wealthy man pay for a date? Just a date. She would have to negotiate the money over the phone; in person, she would just accept whatever he offered. But what was reasonable? In the late 1990s, escort agencies in Vancouver were online, but it wasn’t so easy to find independents with websites to check out.
Not that she was going to have sex with the guy! She was just considering dinner. She turned to the yellow pages. Page after page of ads for escort agencies! Could there really be that many men in Vancouver who wanted to have sex enough to pay for it? She called a couple of the numbers; blushing hotly, she told them about the date proposal. Both receptionists asked for her height, her weight and her age, then they told her to come in for an interview as soon as possible. They also told her the going hourly rate for various jobs. But, she explained with an earnestness they must have found touching, this wasn’t going to be a massage or a
blowjob. Really! It was going to be dinner and a literal walk in the park.
She decided to overcharge him. That way, he would say no, rescind his offer, and hopefully keep tipping her well at the restaurant. At $100 per hour, she reasoned that an average dinner would stretch over two or three hours; it would be more and easier money than she made waitressing. She wrote it all out first, exactly what she was going to say, and practised aloud, in French and in English. If he decided to switch languages to flummox her, she’d be prepared. Ten days after he’d given her his card, she called him and calmly named her terms. When she heard him smiling through his agreement, she almost changed her mind. What was so funny? Instead, she wrote the number one down on the notepad beside the phone.
1111111 !!! 11111111
She would go out with Benoît one time. If there was anything off about it, any scent of danger or coercion or even of him laughing at her, the first time would be the last.
After the phone call, she sat at her desk, tapping the pen so hard that it made holes in the pad of paper. She was not afraid of Benoît Martel. But maybe she was missing some instinct, the protective gene for fear, because she hadn’t been afraid of that other man either, two years earlier, in Marseilles, a man with a nice accent and a big yacht in the beautiful old port. Right at the far end, a view to the open sea. Some friends are coming by for drinks. Join us! He, too, had seemed decent.
The shock. Even as it began—so quickly, he was waiting for her, hoping she would come—she could not believe it was happening. Inside the well-lit, glittering boat, the music thumped under her head. There had been no other friends but a knife. And rape, repeatedly, each entrance forced, quickly or slowly, sometimes the knife on the teak bench beside them, sometimes the knife held close to her neck, the blade slicing her skin open, lines like long paper cuts as he swore at her and rammed away. The circulatory systems exam flashed across her mind—92 percent was her mark, she was such a smart girl. There were two major vessels in the neck, the carotid artery, the jugular vein, serious damage to either could result in death. She thought about that until finally he ejaculated inside her and took the blade off her throat, smacked it down like a hammer on the teak bench above her head. Still he didn’t get up; he pushed his weight down on top of her, squeezing the air out of her lungs. Hard to breathe, baby? Wait until you go swimming. After a few minutes of taunting her, he stood up, promised I’ll fuck you all night and when I’m done with you I’ll take your body out there and dump it in the sea. No one will ever know what happened to you. He turned away to pour himself a glass of wine. Then the knife was in her hand. She moved quickly, out of pure instinct. She stabbed him twice, in the neck, hoping for either the vein or the artery. It was beginner’s luck, and chance, because he turned his head at the precise moment, shocked, in search of her eyes. That twist of his neck made the carotid artery vulnerable to the second, deeper thrust of the knife. His eyes met hers but just as quickly their gaze was bisected by a dark line, flying, that she did not immediately recognize as blood though her body did. Her body knew; she stumbled out of the way, and did not look at him again. She found and pulled on her clothes with her back to his death.
He had been right about one thing only: no one ever knew. She did not run from the port; she tried to walk upright, without limping. A block away, she caught a cab, the knife at the bottom of her knapsack. She went back to her grandmother’s house, showered, slept, and woke to drink a bowl of café au lait. Her grandmother always said the police of the city were incompetent and corrupt. They fulfilled their reputation. No one found her because no one came looking. She did not deviate from her plan, the high school girl’s plan to spend time in Europe the summer before university. Her grandmother put her on a ferry to Italy; she travelled onward into her life, her one life, which she herself had saved. There she was, two years later, poking holes in her notepad, setting herself another task to make sure she was over it, forcing herself to remain open, unafraid. And if not unafraid, then daring.
Her instinct about Benoît was sound, though. They had dinners, lunches, runs in the Endowment Lands near UBC, trips to Lighthouse Park, runs along the seawall all the way to the Girl in a Wetsuit sculpture. Benoît remained the same person he had been at the restaurant, polite and generous. He was also kind, witty, interested in her life, open about his own, and obsessed—sometimes to the point that he bored her—by books about World War Two. And spy stories. He was forty-eight, married to a woman he still loved but had not had sex with for several years. She and their two children were still in Paris; she was willing to vacation in North America, but she refused to live there. He believed that was because she had a lover, and did not want to leave him behind. Though Benoît travelled back and forth a lot, and tried to spend a week at home every second month, he missed his family terribly. He would live in Vancouver only long enough to establish his business on the Canadian and American west coasts, then he would move back to Paris.
To say hello and goodbye, he kissed Shar on the cheeks. Once, after a great film, they hugged for a long time, feeling each other’s bodies through their jackets. But that was the extent of their physical contact. At the beginning of every date, he gave her $300 in an envelope. Except for the time they went to Turandot, Puccini’s opera, the Persian fairy tale of the murderous, beautiful princess who refuses to give herself to the man who adores her. That night, after they sat down, he told her there was extra money in the envelope. She counted the hundred-dollar bills in the restroom during the intermission: a thousand dollars. Two hours later, over a glass of wine at the Wedgewood Hotel, he asked her if she would spend the night with him.
She’d been flirting with him all evening, leaning against him while they watched the opera, letting her foot rest against his under the table. “Do I have to?”
“No. Of course not. You do not have to do anything. But I would be happy if you did.”
“Do you think I’m like Turandot, the cold princess who will give in to love in the end?”
“Mais non! Please don’t. I don’t want your love. I just want affection, which is much less stressful. And good sex. A few hours with you every week or two, because we amuse each other. A continuation of what we already have, but more. We’re friends, don’t you think?”
“Yes, we’re friends,” she said, hedgingly.
“But it’s a professional arrangement, too.”
“Yes, absolutely.” Those words calmed her. If it was professional, she could keep her distance.
“I will continue to pay you for your time. Which would be about the same number of hours that we see each other now. You are free to do whatever you like. With other people, sexually, or…ending it altogether with me. It might not suit you. But I’d love to take you on a short trip this winter. Maybe to Martinique. Just for a week. Anyway, I would give you two thousand a month. In cash. Just to start.”
She was dumbfounded by the amount, and immediately suspicious. “You would give me all that money just for sex?”
He shook his head. “But Shar, it is not just for sex. You are charming. You are funny. You are very beautiful. But, most of all, it would be a token of my appreciation for your excellent French grammar.” She laughed. He lifted up her long-boned hand and kissed it. “Sex can be had easily. And cheaply—but then it also feels cheap. I am fortunate to be able to afford fine things in my life. Not just sex, but Turandot and conversation and food. And, yes, a beautiful young woman like you. I respect all of these for what they are. I am a fortunate man.”
Like the opera, the evening had a happy ending for him. Shar had no interest in fairy tales, but he was a good man. She used his goodness to learn again about the goodness of men. After Marseilles, she had found it difficult not to hate them, all, evenly, uniformly, for what they could do to her; for what had been done to her.
For the first few weeks, she could not believe what she was doing. She felt outside her own life. She had an on-again, off-again girlfriend, Leanne; she couldn’t tell her what she was
doing, because Leanne was beginning to believe in separatism, not the Quebecois kind, but the feminist kind: daily life as separated from men as possible. And there was Shar, secretly sleeping with a man, listening to his stories and eating dinner with him and chatting with him on the phone at night, fondly. For money. She was sucking his cock—it wasn’t that bad, once you got the hang of it—for money. Yet, within two months, the situation had so normalized that she ached to tell Leanne what she was up to.
To test the waters, she pretended she’d read about a young woman doing what she was doing in a magazine article at the dentist’s (Benoît paid for the cleaning and checkup). Leanne was disgusted. “What crap magazine was it in? Cosmo? The most important things have been left out! The hidden truth always needs deconstruction. Where is the coercion, the degradation? That woman had probably been sexually abused as a child!”
“But the relationship didn’t sound abusive. It was just…sort of…an intimate business arrangement.”
“How can you be so naïve? Prostitution is violence against women; the money legitimizes the violence. It’s economic as well as physical rape. Prostitution was invented by the patriarchy to keep women in the lowest sex class, even lower than marriage!”
“But the woman in the article didn’t think of herself as a prostitute. Or abused in any way. She was only having sex with that one man.”
Leanne’s voice rose. “If she is having sex with someone for money, she is not only a prostitute, she is being prostituted by the patriarchy. As soon as money is exchanged, the woman loses even more of her agency. And all protection, too; everyone despises a whore, the police most of all. A whore is a slave, no matter what she herself thinks. Haven’t you read Andrea Dworkin?” Shar had not. She was studying applied psychology, still doing the requisite biology courses and coaxing mice through mazes with the promise of different rewards. Yes, she was a feminist and a card-carrying member of the campus QueersRHere Club. But she had neither the vocabulary nor the temperament to argue with Leanne: the notion that Benoît was raping her was stupid. And wrong.
The Change Room Page 10
