The Education of a Very Young Madam (21 page)

"He did," I answered.

"He was just upset. He didn't know what he was saying. You should give him twenty-four hours to calm down and then you two can talk this out."

"I should give
him
time to calm down? He won't let me go home. He's holding all my stuff hostage. I don't even have any clean clothes. And he threatened me. And my dog! He totally crossed the line."

Jaime looked like he was about to protest, but I was done talking to him. And then, perfect timing, there was Nick. I was glad Jaime saw us leave together, because I knew that word would get around. I hated Freddie and I wanted him to know it.

First Nick and I tried to go to a hotel around the corner, but it was all booked up. Then he suggested we go to Seb's house, which was perfect. It was Seb's house in the Hamptons where things had started to go wrong between Freddie and me, so it might as well be Seb's house in the city where they ended for good.

I've always believed that to truly get over someone you have to replace him. And once you fuck someone else, there's no turning back. It's the best way for me to end a relationship and force my emotions not to take over. That night I fucked the shit out of Nick, right in front of Seb and his girlfriend in fact. That night I had my first one-night stand ... finally.

Later I went to Freddie's apartment by myself. I still had my keys, and by that time I had calmed down enough to realize he had probably been bluffing about getting his brother to arrest me. Freddie had too many reasons of his own not to want the police in his apartment. As soon as I walked in, Max came bounding over to greet me. The rest of my stuff was in another room, behind a locked door that I didn't have a key for. I banged on it and screamed. There was no sound but I know that Freddie probably was there. He had once told me that he lost the key to that door and without it there was no way to lock it from the outside.

I still had my gun with me, and for a moment I thought about shooting down the door. But I quickly realized it wasn't worth it. If I was going to go to jail for having an unregistered gun, I at least wanted the satisfaction of shooting the man himself, not just his door. Max was running wild around my feet. He was overdue for a walk anyway. I picked him up and we left.

Max and I got a car back to New Jersey and checked into another hotel. The next day I sent my assistant to pick up my things. Freddie didn't give him any trouble. I think he had made his point and I had made mine. There was nothing left to fight about.

I've come to realize that I'm just unlucky in love. But I've also been around long enough and had enough experience to know that things like this don't happen to me by complete accident. As

I've said before, I believe in karma, so I know a lot of it is my own fault. I've screwed over too many guys in my past, and those kinds of things come hack around to haunt a person. That's why I make a point of treating people fairly in my work ... the girls who work for me, my customers. I treat those people the same way I want them to treat me, and that usually works out fine for all ofus. But love is another matter.

I've spent most of my life searching for someone to care about me, no matter who it is. Sometimes it hits me that I have no value in this world and that, if I should die, there is a good chance it wouldn't affect anyone and it would go unnoticed by everyone except my clients. For a while I could pretend that Freddie might be the one who cared if something bad happened to me. After him, there was Justin, a guy I lived with on the Jersey Shore until he started doing drugs and lying to his credit card company about which one of us owed them money. Both of them actually had me convinced for a while that they truly cared about me.

There are only four things that I'm deathly afraid of: commitment, heights, Vegas, and Elvis. The first two are pretty obvious, I think. Vegas is because it's a gambling Mecca and just the kind of place where I know I would really lose my head and maybe never get it back. I don't know why Elvis really; I just think he's creepy. And maybe because there are lots of them in Vegas. Every time I see an Elvis impersonator I think, What if that's the real Elvis back from the dead and no one knows it because there are so many goddamn Elvis impersonators out there that we can't tell the difference anymore? I wonder, if that happened, would it make the real Elvis happy that he could finally live his life in peace, or sad that his true identity was going unnoticed? I can't decide which would be better for someone like him, and the whole thing just messes with my head.

Not long ago, when I was with Justin, I came up with a plan to face my fears. One night, soon after we got together, when we were still really into each other, we started talking about getting married. I decided then that the best, most romantic thing I could ever do with anyone would be to hop a plane for Las Vegas, get one of those Elvis impersonator—ministers to marry us, and then jump out of a plane to seal the deal. That way I could face all of my fears at once, in a single day, and put them all behind me.

I still think it's a good idea. We never did it, of course, but we talked about it, and he was game for a while. If there is ever a way you could reset your karma, kind of start over with a clean slate, I think it would be by doing something like that. Maybe I just need one really big moment when I could face all my demons at once.

CHAPTER 12

Functional Family

L
ately, despite my rules, I've been more open to letting people into my life. I don't think I'll ever get married or settle down with a guy, for all the obvious reasons. Even if I found someone who didn't turn out to be an asshole, I probably still wouldn't trust the relationship. Between my own parents; my clients, who are mostly married; and the relationships I've seen my girls and girlfriends go through, I'm not sure I believe in the whole "until death do us part" thing.

But I'm beginning to form my own attachments. First off there's my dog, Max, who has remained my companion through some hard times and several relationships. He's the man in my life these days, the best one I've ever had.

And more recently there's been Zoe, who I met when I was in Montreal. She was about eighteen then and already working the trade, which is what she's done for a living ever since. Like I said before, I like to bring in girls from Montreal from time to time because there is a lot of experienced talent there. As Zoe puts it, practically every halfway-decent-looking girl there tries out the sex trade at one time or another. She may be exaggerating a bit but probably not much. I brought Zoe to New Jersey about a year ago for what was supposed to be just a week of work. She ended up deciding to stay here permanently. She wanted to get away from her pimp, who had controlled her life for a long time. Leaving the country seemed like the best way to do that.

Zoe is a soft-spoken blonde with a slight French accent, and she is definitely the sex kitten type. She's got long, thick hair, the body of a pinup girl, and perfect fake tits—big, but not frighteningly big like Pamela Anderson's, and still pretty soft and natural to the touch (at least that's what the guys tell me). She's been working for a number of years now, and she's great at her job. The clients love her, so I had no reason to discourage her from sticking around. But our relationship became much more than just madam and call girl.

At the time that Zoe moved here, I was looking to expand my business. It had been running pretty consistently for several years, and I wanted to see where I could take it next. I could only do so much by myself, however, and I had dreams of expanding into other areas of New Jersey and even into other cities, like Boston and Philadelphia. Even if I worked night and day, I wouldn't be able to pull all that off on my own, so I worked out a deal with Zoe to become my support staff.

Zoe has a nice voice, and I have spent way too much of my life on the phone, which is actually the part of the job that drives me crazy. The arrangement was this: when Zoe wasn't with clients, she'd work the phones and book and confirm appointments. She'd also occasionally handle e-mail requests for appointments, though I still like to do most of the computer work myself. In exchange I gave her a place to live. I had a big two-bedroom apartment at the time and wasn't using the other room, so she moved in. After that we became more than business associates. We became roommates and friends.

I still do all the marketing and business strategy—I'm not sure there's anyone I'd ever trust to do that for me—but in terms of client relations, Zoe is great. She never gets annoyed and never gets angry. She's a bit passive, and sometimes she doesn't know how to handle a situation, like when a client complains about a girl being late for an appointment, but when that happens she just puts the guy on hold and asks me what to do. In extreme situations, she simply hands the phone over to me. I'm usually not far away.

When issues do arise, how I choose to handle the situation has to do with who I'm talking to. I've gotten to know my customers really well over the years. Girls are often late for appointments because I like to book them pretty close together when I can so that we don't waste any time. If the previous guy was late or the girl needs a break for one reason or another—she needs some food to refuel, or a chance to freshen up, or whatever—that can mean a client has to wait downstairs or in the parking lot for ten, fifteen, sometimes thirty minutes, which can make the poor guy very unhappy. Sometimes it's enough just to assure the guy that his hour won't start until he gets into the room and that I'll even tack some extra time on the end to thank him for waiting. That's for the type of guy who is concerned about getting his money's worth. (They almost never use the extra time anyway because very few guys need the whole hour to get done what they need to get done.) Other guys get annoyed with waiting because they're worried it will kill their mood. To guys like that I say, in my sweetest tone, something like "I'm so sorry about the delay, sweetie. I'll let you smack her ass to make up for it." That usually does it. But that's exactly the kind ofwork I'm getting fed up with doing. And Zoe's getting better at it.

Zoe's a very friendly, very outgoing person, and having her around has changed things for me. I've always gone out lots, but now I stay in more and have people over. That's a big step for me.

I also think I'm more open with people, some people anyway. If I hadn't been that way, I probably barely would have noticed Melissa when she came over. She was a mousy thing when I first met her—tall, nearly five ten, with short, dark hair, and kind of goofy. She wasn't quiet exactly, just timid and a bit naive, the kind of girl you know you can easily convince to do anything you want her to. I like powerful people, which she definitely wasn't, so she just wasn't the type of girl who usually makes an impression on me.

The first time I met Melissa it was through my friend Lucas. Lucas was a serious tweaker, into any kind of club drug he could get his hands on, and I'd run into him when I was out on the town all the time. He was funny and strange, and I liked him but I never really trusted him beyond being someone to party with.

One day he called me up and told me he had this girlfriend who was in the business and asked if I needed any new employees. I'm always looking for new talent and I take referrals, so I asked him what she looked like and where she'd worked before. I don't remember what he said exactly, just that his description of her sounded pretty good. Lucas is a slick guy, and I didn't suspect anything, not yet.

Lucas also explained that the places Melissa had worked before had been pretty low-tech, so she didn't have any pictures or reviews on any of the sites. That happens sometimes, so I wasn't too concerned about it because I know how to deal with that type of situation. I just figured she'd been a low-class hooker up until then and she was looking to upgrade. I told him we could build her online presence and work with her to get some good reviews to establish a reputation with the right kinds ofclients. I also told him that it wouldn't be easy and that she'd have to work with me to make it happen, but it was definitely doable. He said she was all for it and would do whatever I thought was necessary.

The first step was to get some pictures of her to post on our site. Unless the client knows me well enough to trust my judgment and description—and I do have a few of those—he almost always wants to look at a picture before scheduling an appointment. Occasionally a client will call up a little desperate and ask who I've got available right away, what she looks like, and then he'll just

take what he can get, but usually my clients p refe r to wait for the girl they want, as long as they don't have to wait too long.

We can't use just any old photos either. We' re not making a MySpace page. This is a business. The photos need to be sexy, they need to be full body, and most important, they nee d to be accurate. Even though a girl gets dressed up and primped for her photos, they need to represent what she really looks l i ke. More than once I've had a client show up for an appointment and t h en turn around and leave as soon as the girl opened the door. Maybe she's gained weight or is older than she looked in her pics or just hasn't been taking care of herself or is having a bad day, but di e n ts can be picky about those kinds of things. Seeing a girl's photo is th e start of a fantasy, and if the girl spoils that fantasy right up-front, well then, why would a guy pay for that? It's much better to get p i c tu re s taken regularly that show what a girl really looks like rathe r than posting some outdated or airbrushed thing that she'll neve r live up to. That way, a client knows what he's in for and get fewer phone calls asking to reschedule with someone else.