Murder Most Fab (4 page)

I was
fascinated by and impressed with her business-like attitude to her sideline.

‘I’ve
seen a lovely pair of boots in Dolcis. Time to shag an Arab. Quote me a bit of
Shakespeare, honey, while I put my cap in.’

‘For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.’

‘Oh, really? I do hope so.’

We
laughed about it, because we laughed about everything, but her mercenary
approach was clearly a means of emotional survival. If she’d had a particularly
unsavoury encounter she would flinch in telling the story, shuddering as she
recalled the misshapen penis or the bitter semen she had been tempted to
swallow for an extra fifty quid. She would sit on my bed and stroke the wad of
grubby twenty-pound notes to comfort herself.

‘In for
a penny, in for a pound. His wife should be very grateful to me, if that’s
what she has to do to keep him happy,’ she said sadly, gazing into the
distance. Then she snapped out of it, switching into comedy mode in the blink
of a mascaraed eye. ‘Still. Down the hatch to grab the cash!’ She gave one of
her rare but beautiful smiles, and threw herself back on the bed, tossing the
money into the air and laughing as the notes fluttered across and around her.

I was
in awe of her. She made prostitution seem glamorous. I even loved the horror of
it. It appealed to me, in my secret agony, that such an activity could deaden
the spirit.

Catherine
burrowed, expanding and bewitching, further and deeper into the territory of my
mind without my realizing it. My life revolved round her, and although there
was no sexual attraction, on my part at least, there was every other variety.

One evening Catherine
called me from the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane. ‘Get your arse down
here,’ she said urgently. ‘I’m with Prince Howsaboutit, or whatever his name
is, from Bahrain. He’s got a friend who’s in the mood for a nice English boy.
What’s more, he’s gorgeous — think Brazilian footballer wearing a sheet.
They’re handing out Rolex watches like they were after-dinner mints.’

I
didn’t need to think twice. ‘I’m on my way,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you in the
foyer in forty-five minutes.’

‘Attaboy,’
she said, with satisfaction. ‘I knew you’d be up for it. No jeans or trainers,
Cowboy. Wear your suit.

I hung
up, excited. Her secret world as a hooker had seemed so enthralling when she
talked about it. Now I would see for myself what it was like.

As
arranged, Catherine met me in the foyer and led me through to a luxurious,
expensively lit bar. ‘Just stay calm and act cool and you’ll be absolutely
fine,’ she muttered, as we approached a discreet, leather-lined booth.

Inside
sat two handsome, exotic men in their mid-thirties. Catherine introduced them
to me as Assam and Shazad, and they tood up and shook my hand. Assam cast an
approving glance at Catherine, then patted the seat beside him, beckoning me to
join him. They were drinking peppermint tea and his breath was fresh and sweet.
He was undeniably handsome, built like a sportsman, with limpid, dewy eyes that
lingered on my face, then scanned my body approvingly.

‘Very
pleased to meet you,’ I said.

‘You are
handsome boy,’ said Assam. ‘Drink champagne, please.’

‘If you
insist, Assam.’

After
half an hour of polite chit-chat, he whispered to Catherine that he would like
to invite me up to his suite.

‘Assam
wants to show you his etchings. You’d love that, wouldn’t you?’ she said to me
brightly.

‘Love
it!’ I echoed, already relishing our recounting of the dialogue once we got
home. I stood up boldly. ‘Take me as I Assam …

Assam
laughed politely at my ‘joke’ and bowed goodnight to Catherine and Shazad. He
took my elbow and steered me towards the lift where he pressed the button for
the top floor: the penthouse. ‘You are nervous. Why you nervous?’ he said,
once we were inside the lift. ‘I like you very much.’

He
moved closer, but although I braced myself for a kiss, he reached behind me and
squeezed my left buttock, almost to the point of pain. This wasn’t romance, I
reminded myself. It wasn’t showbiz either — it was prostitution. Although I was
scared, seduced by the unexpected handsomeness of Assam and goggle-eyed at the
opulence of such a posh hotel, the like of which I had never seen before, I
knew I mustn’t let Catherine down. I must be a ‘pro’ and deliver the goods.
Nothing else would do.

As soon
as the door closed behind us, Assam let out a sigh and took off his jacket. The
charm and politeness he had displayed downstairs in the bar took on a curdled,
cynical tone. He fixed me a drink and said, rather curtly, ‘Make yourself
comfortable while I take a shower.’

I
stepped on to the balcony and looked down at the traffic sailing along Park
Lane and the shadowy expanse of Hyde Park disappearing into the night. Around
it, London glittered and gleamed, a luxurious playground for those who could
afford it.

I
wasn’t sure what was expected of me, but I made an intelligent guess. Back in
the suite, I stripped down to my boxers, slipped the condoms under the pillow
and arranged myself on the bed.

A few
minutes later, Assam emerged from the shower, wrapped in a fluffy white hotel
towel. He dropped it and joined me on the bed. He was warm, expensively scented
and a little damp.

He
didn’t kiss me but pushed my head roughly away from him and bit the back of my
neck. He was an inconsiderate but technically accomplished performer, and I
displayed as much enthusiasm as I could, even though my mind was bubbling with
a thousand thoughts.

I had
never been paid for sex before. In fact, I had only ever had sex with one other
person and I loved him with all my heart. Sex without love was a new experience
for me.

I felt
many different things. Assam’s indifference was strangely erotic. The way he
turned and pulled me made me feel like a rag doll, but it was not unpleasant.
Intimacy with someone new broke my heart, but ultimately hardened it, too. Face
it, sister, I said to myself, your heart is already broken. It’s high time you
toughened up.

As
Assam forced himself inside me, huffing and puffing, telling me how much I
wanted it, I told myself it was a healing experience. If I didn’t want it,
maybe I needed it, which was more important.

I was awoken in the night
for a prolonged reprise that involved hair-pulling and what I presumed was
Arabic dirty talk. (It seemed unlikely that Assam would be reciting sacred
poetry at such an intimate moment.) A few hours later, as dawn was breaking, he
had me perform a traditional sex act on him, then announced that the car would
be waiting for me downstairs in ten minutes.

‘Thank
you very much,’ he said formally, once I was dressed. ‘I must sleep now. This
is for you.’ He handed me a promising envelope, so I said goodbye and trotted
off, without so much as a mouthwash.

While I
was waiting idly in the foyer for my car, Catherine sashayed out of the lift,
all spick and span even if she was still in last night’s clothes.

‘Ah,
there you are,’ she said, linking arms and swinging me towards the rotating
doors. She scrutinized me. ‘Bit of residue in the right corner of your mouth,’
she said. A manicured claw flew towards me and gouged out the offending
material with a couple of layers of skin. ‘Best not to give the hotel staff any
more reason to be suspicious.’ As she said this she smiled falsely at the
concierge. ‘Got the dosh?’

I
handed her the envelope.

‘Well
done.’ She peeped inside. ‘Very well done!’

Catherine
and I were delivered back to south-east London in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes,
whooping childishly out of the window, our pockets bulging with twenty-pound
notes. Soon she was sitting on my bed, counting our booty, while I made some
tea.

‘Ooh,
Christmas has come early,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and buy some champagne!’

I
turned off the kettle.

Catherine
handed me a fat wad. ‘A very well-deserved two hundred pounds for your
trouble,’ she said.

I felt
a distinct sexual thrill. ‘Money turns me on,’ I confided. ‘I could get to like
this.’

‘Well,’
said Catherine, ‘I could have a word with Madame for you. I don’t think she has
any boys on her books. She really ought to. There’s money in them there
buttocks.’

‘I’ll
think about it,’ I promised. So far I hadn’t been struck down by a bolt of holy
lightning for my wicked behaviour and, in a strange way, I had enjoyed my night
with Assam. Also, there was no denying that the money would come in useful — I
was a poor student, after all.

The
next day I put a hundred pounds in an envelope and posted it to my mother with
a note explaining that I’d been paid rather well for a modelling shoot. I felt
extremely proud of myself.

There
was little to discourage me from renting out my body again. It seemed terribly
easy and, as I was in cahoots with Catherine, rather funny. After all, I
wouldn’t be a common prostitute, I reasoned: I’d just help out when they
needed me and, even then, only at the top end of the market. I asked her to
take me to see Madame as soon as possible.

Catherine styled me in
ripped jeans, black T-shirt and leather jacket, and escorted me to the HQ of
Elegant Escorts for my afternoon appointment with Madame. She operated her
small concern from a neat, minimalist mews house just off the Portobello Road
and she was an inscrutable Oriental woman of indeterminate age, somewhere
between thirty and fifty. Evidently Japanese in origin, she clearly had some
background in rock-chick, groupie circles. She wore a top-quality leather
waistcoat fitted to her child-like waist, and had the air of a rock god’s
mistress.

I quickly
discovered that Madame’s catchphrase was ‘Make happy, make money!’, and that
she smiled and nodded a lot.

‘Catherine
tell me that you go to appointment with her, and Mr Assam very complimentary!
Good, good. Make happy, make
money!’
She hung on to the last syllable of
‘money’ a little longer each time she uttered it, until
eeeeee!s
echoed
round the room like escaped budgies. ‘Most men like lady, but some men like
boy!’
she said, giggling bashfully, geisha-style. ‘But it raining men. Do you
suck and fuck to completion and how big your cock? It big, and make happy, make
moneeeeeey!’

‘I’ve
had no complaints in that department,’ I said.

‘Mr
Assam, he said it award-winning!’ She nodded knowingly.

‘Oh,
well done, Cowboy,’ said Catherine. ‘I didn’t like to ask but you’ve got the
look of somebody with a big one. The donger of death.’

‘Length
and girth very satisfactory,’ said Madame, consulting her notes. ‘Ejaculation
distance almost two yards!’

I
lowered my head, feigning modesty.

‘Shame
there isn’t an Olympic event for that sort of thing,’ said Catherine. ‘If
they’d only bring in Synchronized Rimming and the Spunk Javelin I could imagine
you with a bronze medal hanging round your neck.’

‘Bronze?’
I said, a little hurt.

‘So,’
said Madame, standing up to indicate that the meeting was over, ‘I get you
work. You make happy, make—’

‘Moneeeeeeeeey!’
Catherine and I chimed simultaneously.

And
that was that. My career as a high-class prostitute had begun, though in those
early days it was merely my sideline and, in some ways, my hobby.

A week later Madame called
me and, inevitably, my second paid sexual encounter felt much more like work. A
businessman awaited me at the Savoy Hotel. No dinner was involved, I just had
to present myself at room 406 at ten o’clock that evening. ‘Mr Smith’ opened
the door in his sizeable boxer shorts and was as sweaty as he was salacious.
But the thrill was still there, as he handed over the money and lost himself in
lust. ‘Your body is my plaything,’ he breathed.