'Belle de Jour', the anonymous 28-year-old London call-girl . Here, writing exclusively for The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, she reveals (almost) all
'I am a young woman. I have sex for money. And I love to write. This is my story...'
My alarm is never set; I rise at a different hour each day. I eat breakfast, check my e-mail and update the weblog - little chores. My working day proper begins at four or five in the afternoon when I shower and dress. The first meeting, unless I have a lunch date, is usually at seven. Sometimes there's only one; sometimes more. Occasionally I work all night and come home at 7am.
I always ring someone when I arrive at a job and again when I leave - on longer assignments, once every few hours. The manager tends to worry when she doesn't hear from me. She used to have my job, too.
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Just so you know - I'm a whore. Not in the metaphorical sense, often invoked by writers my age, of auctioning my intellectual abilities to the highest bidder. I'm not some disillusioned twentysomething desk-job graduate equating salaried work with selling out. No, I'm an actual, exchanging-money-for-sex prostitute.
It's been my job for almost a year, and while it's unlikely to be a long-term career move, I'm not gagging to get out of it either. Work is good. The pay is great. Job satisfaction is high. I never felt this positive working in a bookshop. Of course, it's not for everyone. (Then again, neither is accountancy, though my friends seem to be moving over to it at a depressing rate.) It's not even for a remotely significant percentage of the population - and truth be told, I've met more than a few women on the game who should not have been there. It's no cinematic fantasy of bubble baths and Lotus drivers, but nor is it the abject horror of being a streetwalker. It's hotel visits. It's near-anonymous sex. It's learning to have no qualms or hesitation about the 'latex moment'. It's one first date after another where the man always scores.
I always loved sex, always enjoyed meeting people. Even before I began this job there were plenty of mornings when I woke up and wondered who on earth that was next to me and where my knickers were. I'd shower and dress, stay for the obligatory polite cup of tea, then wander back out into the world - blinking at the sun, dressed in the previous night's clothes. This job doesn't feel different from that. If anything, it's better. No one feels obliged to ring the day after.
As a student I did other sex-related work; the summer after I began university I worked as a stripper. That was my first experience of how strange men can be. They didn't seem to find it odd to discuss Pablo Neruda with a topless woman as a preface to a lap-dance, but I did. I couldn't stop giggling and eventually offended too many customers. The manager had to let me go, but I didn't mind - term was starting again anyway.
A year later I was at a party talking to a professional dominatrix. She liked my poise, she said; she liked the way I laughed. Would I be interested in a little work on the side? So I bought the customary PVC dresses and dusted off the riding-crop - but again, it was difficult to take seriously. It's hard to keep your nerve when a man in big white girly pants is cleaning your stilettos with his tongue. When I left - more due to lack of interest than a better offer - I didn't imagine getting into sex work again.
It happened. The usual story: impoverished graduate in depressing London bedsit seeks career with integrity or, failing that, a fat pay-cheque. Temp work is depressing and poorly paid. By comparison the money in escorting - up to £300 per hour - was irresistible. With one appointment a week I covered my bills. Two a week and I could eat out. Three and I could afford new clothes. A slippery slope, you might say.
People ask what in my background could possibly have led to this and I'm not sure what to say. My family doesn't fit the profile of your average whore's upbringing. I am not the victim of childhood sexual abuse or a chronic lack of attention from my parents. No one believes me, of course; as we all know, sexual promiscuity is necessarily the result of low self-esteem or some such rubbish.
I disagree. I've met other prostitutes and, yes, many are drug addicts, survivors of abuse, or both. Some hate it from day one, but persist because they know no other way to support themselves. But a few are like me - a bit in debt but not unemployable.
It's a useful stopgap.
Having seen so many people naked is a great equaliser. Clothes off, it doesn't matter what someone drives or does for a living. I feel comfortable that way, competent around bodies. I know I don't look it. Clients often treat me exceptionally gently at first, as if I might break, and it is a large part of the job to egg them into a frenzy. At my interview with the escort agency, the manager worried about my squeamishness. Perhaps I don't look very robust
'I am a young woman. I have sex for money. And I love to write. This is my story...'
My alarm is never set; I rise at a different hour each day. I eat breakfast, check my e-mail and update the weblog - little chores. My working day proper begins at four or five in the afternoon when I shower and dress. The first meeting, unless I have a lunch date, is usually at seven. Sometimes there's only one; sometimes more. Occasionally I work all night and come home at 7am.
I always ring someone when I arrive at a job and again when I leave - on longer assignments, once every few hours. The manager tends to worry when she doesn't hear from me. She used to have my job, too.
advertisement
Just so you know - I'm a whore. Not in the metaphorical sense, often invoked by writers my age, of auctioning my intellectual abilities to the highest bidder. I'm not some disillusioned twentysomething desk-job graduate equating salaried work with selling out. No, I'm an actual, exchanging-money-for-sex prostitute.
It's been my job for almost a year, and while it's unlikely to be a long-term career move, I'm not gagging to get out of it either. Work is good. The pay is great. Job satisfaction is high. I never felt this positive working in a bookshop. Of course, it's not for everyone. (Then again, neither is accountancy, though my friends seem to be moving over to it at a depressing rate.) It's not even for a remotely significant percentage of the population - and truth be told, I've met more than a few women on the game who should not have been there. It's no cinematic fantasy of bubble baths and Lotus drivers, but nor is it the abject horror of being a streetwalker. It's hotel visits. It's near-anonymous sex. It's learning to have no qualms or hesitation about the 'latex moment'. It's one first date after another where the man always scores.
I always loved sex, always enjoyed meeting people. Even before I began this job there were plenty of mornings when I woke up and wondered who on earth that was next to me and where my knickers were. I'd shower and dress, stay for the obligatory polite cup of tea, then wander back out into the world - blinking at the sun, dressed in the previous night's clothes. This job doesn't feel different from that. If anything, it's better. No one feels obliged to ring the day after.
As a student I did other sex-related work; the summer after I began university I worked as a stripper. That was my first experience of how strange men can be. They didn't seem to find it odd to discuss Pablo Neruda with a topless woman as a preface to a lap-dance, but I did. I couldn't stop giggling and eventually offended too many customers. The manager had to let me go, but I didn't mind - term was starting again anyway.
A year later I was at a party talking to a professional dominatrix. She liked my poise, she said; she liked the way I laughed. Would I be interested in a little work on the side? So I bought the customary PVC dresses and dusted off the riding-crop - but again, it was difficult to take seriously. It's hard to keep your nerve when a man in big white girly pants is cleaning your stilettos with his tongue. When I left - more due to lack of interest than a better offer - I didn't imagine getting into sex work again.
It happened. The usual story: impoverished graduate in depressing London bedsit seeks career with integrity or, failing that, a fat pay-cheque. Temp work is depressing and poorly paid. By comparison the money in escorting - up to £300 per hour - was irresistible. With one appointment a week I covered my bills. Two a week and I could eat out. Three and I could afford new clothes. A slippery slope, you might say.
People ask what in my background could possibly have led to this and I'm not sure what to say. My family doesn't fit the profile of your average whore's upbringing. I am not the victim of childhood sexual abuse or a chronic lack of attention from my parents. No one believes me, of course; as we all know, sexual promiscuity is necessarily the result of low self-esteem or some such rubbish.
I disagree. I've met other prostitutes and, yes, many are drug addicts, survivors of abuse, or both. Some hate it from day one, but persist because they know no other way to support themselves. But a few are like me - a bit in debt but not unemployable.
It's a useful stopgap.
Having seen so many people naked is a great equaliser. Clothes off, it doesn't matter what someone drives or does for a living. I feel comfortable that way, competent around bodies. I know I don't look it. Clients often treat me exceptionally gently at first, as if I might break, and it is a large part of the job to egg them into a frenzy. At my interview with the escort agency, the manager worried about my squeamishness. Perhaps I don't look very robust