Madam Read online

  When they finally closed the doors behind us, we went back to my apartment, sitting silently in the back of the taxi, clutching each other’s hands with a sort of desperation I couldn’t remember ever feeling in my life before. We didn’t even kiss, or touch each other, as I would have done—who am I kidding, as I had done—with half a dozen other men. This was eerie: it was so much more simple, intense, and frightening than groping each other could ever be.

  I followed him in, closing the door behind me and leaning slightly against it. For the first time since I was a teenager, I was unsure of what to do next. Then his breath was on my neck and he was taking my hand in his. “Come with me.” I went.

  He made me lie on the bed while he lit candles. Usually it’s my job to do that. In fact, when it comes to atmosphere, it’s pretty much written in stone that if you want it, it’s the woman who’s going to provide it. You know I’m right.

  But Benjamin was there, sliding the jazz CDs into the player, lighting candles and incense, creating the mood. Deliberate, careful, caring. When he got back to the bed his hands were gentle on me, taking off my clothes slowly and carefully, his eyes never leaving mine, as though I were somehow fragile, sacred, special. His lips were all over my body—his tongue, his hands, caressing, moving, shaping. I wanted him more than I could have imagined wanting anyone ever before.

  Sometimes sex makes you forget everything, especially yourself. You get obliterated somehow in the torrent of feelings, and sometimes that’s what you want.

  Making love with Benjamin that night wasn’t about obliteration. It wasn’t about losing myself. It was about becoming myself. It was about finding something warm and intense that I had always thought was outside of me. Instead, it was deep inside, located at the core of my being, a flame, a light, a brightness that I’d been spending a lot of time looking for. In sex. In alcohol. In drugs. In love.

  It took Benjamin to show me that it was there and had been from the beginning.

  We made love slowly at first, then with building intensity, making something physical into something metaphysical, making something mundane into something spectacular. I was going higher than I had ever dreamed I could go.

  Phoning It In

  I’m setting up for work, and I can feel a headache building.

  It’s the weather. You know those people, the ones with an old injury or arthritis who can tell you when a storm’s coming just from the stiffness of their joints? My headaches are like that, the most tiresome barometer in the world.

  It’s been a quiet afternoon. Sam had homework and I watched him do it. When he was finished we made brownies in the kitchen, laughing and getting chocolate all over each other.

  Jane arrived just before six.

  I love Jane. I don’t know how I managed to find someone who is equally at home doing the phones, studying, or reading bedtime stories to my son, but I have, and I try to never take her for granted. She originally came to work for me as an escort in her first year of graduate school at Boston College, but her husky voice and unflappable personality had me try her out on the phones; and she never looked back.

  She doesn’t take any shit from the clients, but she also has such a charming way of setting limits with them that they don’t ever seem to know what hit them. She can talk clients into seeing someone they had already refused to see on three other occasions, and make them thank her for it, too.

  I know I’m on a short-term lease with Jane. Eventually she’s going to get tired of being in school and get herself a real job, but in the meantime, she’s mine. Since she finished her master’s last year and went directly into her Ph.D., so I have her for a few years more, I hope.

  Sam loves her, calls her Auntie Jane, and she brings him treats—colored paper, special marking pens, or the occasional piece of fruit. She lives near a Brazilian market in Somerville, so she’s always picking up things I’ve never heard of before.

  Tonight she’s here for babysitting duties. “Just get him his bath, can you?” I asked as I pressed the buttons on my cell to check my messages.

  Jane was looking at me and the kitchen. I’d forgotten the chocolate. “Looks like the whole family could use one,” she observed. “What was it, a lab experiment?”

  “Where I come from,” I said, the phone pressed to my ear, “we call this cooking.”

  She raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. Sam burst into the room. “It smells like they’re ready, Mom!” Sam doesn’t believe in saying anything that can be shouted instead. I winced.

  “Hi, Aunt Jane!”

  “Hi, yourself, Sam,” she said easily. “What’s going on in the kitchen?”

  “Brownies!”

  “Cool. Can I come see?”

  “Yeah.” He looked back at me. “You coming, too, Mom?”

  I shook my head. “Have to work tonight, honey,” I said, feeling a real tug of regret as I did. Every working mother’s lament—there’s just not enough time to do it all. When Sam was small and wasn’t in school, my working nights didn’t matter as much: we had our days together, and he was by and large asleep before my own workday got into full swing. But school gets out at three, and that’s not a lot of time to be together.

  Sam was philosophical about it. “Come on, then,” he said to Jane with a shrug and a peremptory tug on her hand. “You can tell me when they’re coming out!”

  I went into my office and closed the door softly behind me, my family on the other side and my heart rebelling. As I said, every working mother’s conflict.

  My office isn’t particularly officelike. I don’t work from my bed, as I did in my single, childless days, but this is as close to a boudoir as I can get and still have it on the first floor of the house. A sofa so wide two people can lie on it comfortably together (I know—we’ve done it), piled high with cushions that I position around me for comfort—or fling at the wall when I need to release some tension. The requisite pile of Yellow Pages and books, the requisite television and remote control, all easily within reach.

  I used to work with a bottle of wine nearby; now it’s spring water. I’m getting healthier as I get older.

  That’s not such a bad thing.

  I had a pretty good idea of who was going to be available, so I made the calls swiftly. “Jenny? You around tonight? Great, you should be hearing from me shortly.” I lit a cigarette and opened one of the paperbacks, Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter, and scrawled Jenny’s name on the inside front cover. I can tell which nights were which, according to what I was reading that evening.

  The phone had already started ringing before my list was complete. “Peach? Who’s on tonight?”

  “Hi, Evan. I’ve got Tina. You’ve seen her before. Does that work for you?”

  “Sure. Have her give me a call.”

  I disconnect, breathing a prayer of thanks for people like Evan. Every time he calls, he sees whomever I suggest. Manna from heaven, that’s what a client like Evan is.

  It doesn’t stay that good, of course. It never does. By nine I’ve slipped out to kiss Sam good night, opened a new pack of cigarettes, and nearly finished my first gallon of spring water. And I have Roger on the line. “I really want to see Amy, Peach; can you set that up?”

  “I can try,” I say, cautiously. The aforementioned Amy isn’t exactly my steadiest and most reliable employee. She’s also drop-dead gorgeous and everybody wants to see her, all the time. “Give me a half-hour and I’ll get back to you.”

  I take a deep breath. Roger’s a good client—doesn’t give me a hard time, sees someone from my service two or three times a month like clockwork, never hassles about time or money. Sometimes he even lets me schedule him in advance, something pretty much unheard of in my line of work, where impulse buys are more the norm. I punch in Amy’s number and she answers on the seventh ring.

  “Hey, it’s Peach; I’ve got work if you want it.”

  She giggles. I truly hope that she’s either watching TV or has somebody there—when people st
art giggling by themselves it’s a bad sign. “Hi, Peach.”

  It’s unclear whether she’s been drinking, doing drugs, both, or neither. But I really want her to see Roger. “Can you do a call?” I ask, making my voice even and—though it’s an effort—cheerful.

  There’s a pause. “Sure, Peach. Who?”

  “Roger Jones. Over in West Roxbury. You’ve seen him before.” I take a hurried breath and continue before she has a chance to voice an objection. “His number is 555-6676. Give him a call right now, and call me back, okay?”

  “What was that number?”

  I repeat it. “Call me right back, honey.”

  “Okay, Peach.”

  I send out two more quick calls, one to the Sheraton downtown, one to the mentally retarded client in Medford, and then the phone rings again. “Hey, Peach, sorry to bother you, it’s Roger. No luck with Amy?”

  I’m not about to explode all over Roger. “She should be calling you very shortly,” I assure him, keeping my voice warm and calm. “I think she was just rearranging her plans so she can see you. I know that she likes you; maybe it’s taking a little longer than she thought.”

  “Oh, okay, great. I’ll wait, then.”

  I picture him in his small neat house on Lagrange Street next to the cemetery. The house is empty, way too empty, since Roger’s wife died of cancer two years ago. He doesn’t bother to date; I’m not sure that he’s even interested in remarrying. One of the girls told me that his mantelpiece is like a shrine to his wife. I know he’s sitting there now, just sitting, maybe with the evening news on the television, maybe not. He’ll have nothing scheduled for tonight, nothing but the thought of Amy coming, giggling and bright and young and carefree, to make him feel even remotely better about his life. I grit my teeth.

  Amy …

  She doesn’t answer her phone, which is not a good sign. I try her cell. Also not happening. It’s after seven. I glance at the list of names I scrawled in the margin of page 5 of the Eudora Welty. Karen. Karen might work. She’s not as effervescent as Amy, but she’s young, cute, and impervious to others’ moods. Some people call that insensitivity. I call it the potential for longevity.

  “Hey, Karen, it’s Peach. Got work for you.”

  “Hi, Peach.” She sounds breathless; she’s probably on her treadmill. Every time I call her, she’s on her treadmill. I’ve never known anyone so much in love with one. “What time?”

  “As soon as you can get there. Roger Jones, in West Roxbury.”

  “Shit. My car’s in the shop.”

  That would have been good information to have when you signed on an hour and a half ago, I think sourly. “Okay, I’ll get you a driver.”

  “I hate using drivers.” A pause and a glugging sound as she downs some water. I can feel the pounding on the treadmill coming over the phone line. “They end up costing me. Can’t you find me a guy who lives on the T?”

  Yeah, I’m the original miracle maker. “Karen, it would help me out a lot if you’d see him. He’s a good client, he’s really easy.” I allow a bit of doubt to creep into my voice. “It’s looking like a slow night, I’m not sure I’ll have anything else for you.” That usually gets a little action, a bit more of a positive response. Usually.

  Karen’s playing prima donna. “Why don’t we wait and see if something else comes in, and then, if it doesn’t, I’ll go see this Roger guy,” she says.

  Who is in charge here, anyway? “I’m sending someone to him now,” I say. “I’ll see if there’s anything for you later.” I press the disconnect button before she can respond. Damn, damn, damn.

  I call Roger. “Hey, it’s Peach. I think that Amy might have a class tonight, I can’t reach her. I have a couple of really sweet girls, you’ve never met either of them, but would you be interested? I honestly can’t commit to getting in touch with Amy, after all.”

  “Can you tell me about the other girls?”

  “Well, I have Zoë. She’s a student, too. I think she’s studying to be an elementary school teacher.” A lot of the clients like that, someone gentle and sweet. “She’s five feet six inches, 125 pounds, 36-26-34. She has long hair. She’s really pretty.” I pause, but there’s no response from Roger; he’s waiting for the menu recitation to be complete. Some nights, that’s exactly how I feel: “Hi, I’m Peach, and I’ll be your waitress tonight. We have some specials I’d like to tell you about.”

  I shake my head to clear it and forge on. “There’s also a really gorgeous blonde, she’s twenty-three, her name is Sara. She’s five-foot-seven, 120 pounds, 38-26-34. What do you think?”

  Roger’s such a—well, honestly, such a peach, no pun intended. “Whatever you think, I guess. You know me. I’d just like to see somebody soon.” A picture of him flashes across my mind again, his long lonely evening stretching out in front of him, the empty voices from the cemetery mocking his solitude. I really want to throttle both Amy and Karen at this point. “Give me a few minutes,” I say. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  We’re just about two hours into the Roger saga now, and in the meantime, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing. I send someone out to see Peter Povaklas. I call the girl out from the Sheraton and arrange for the driver to meet her and pick up her fee; she’s relatively new, and I don’t like girls holding a lot of money for me when I don’t know them yet. I call Zoë/Kim, which is how I generally think of girls when they’re using another escort name. “Work,” I say, economically. Third time’s the charm, right? “Roger Jones, West Roxbury, his number is 555-6676. Give him a call and call me right back and let me know.”

  I disconnect before she has a chance to argue, something which everybody tonight seems in the mood to do. What happened, did the planets move into some negative alignment, or something?

  Zoë/Kim calls back ten minutes later. “I’m all set, Peach, I’ll call you when I get there.”

  Oh, my God, something went right. I sigh in relief. “Thanks, honey. Talk to you then.”

  Peter Povaklas calls to complain. He had “ordered,” as he so elegantly put it, a girl to stay for two hours. He wants her to stay for a third, and she doesn’t want to. “Put her on the phone,” I say.

  “Hey, Peach.” I can hear the weariness in her voice. I’d be pretty weary, too, after two hours with Peter.

  “Hi, honey. You don’t want to do another hour?” As much sympathy as I feel for her, I’d love for her to stay. I get my fee for each and every hour someone stays with the client, with no extra work. It’s sweet for both me and the girl, usually, another full hour’s money without more telephoning, traveling, all that sort of thing.

  “No.” There’s an edge to her voice. I can understand that, too. “I—um—I told Peter already, I have an audition in the morning, I have to get enough sleep.” Whether or not she actually does have an audition is moot; she clearly wants to get out of there. So we won’t get the extra hour. I give in. “Okay, that’s fine, honey, put Peter back on.”

  “So?” He’s always belligerent off the bat.

  I take a moment to light a cigarette, just to show him who’s in control here. I imagine him tapping his toe as I go through the initial inhale and exhale. Damn, but that tastes good. “So she has an audition and can’t stay, Peter. I can’t force her. That’s not the way I run my business. Do you want me to try and get someone else over there to see you?”

  “I want her to stay.” Now he sounds like my kid. No, I take that back: Sam never sounds quite that petulant. If he did, it would be the last time he tried it.

  It’s not the first time that I realize that running an escort service is great training for parenthood.

  “I know, Pete, but she can’t. When I send someone over there, I only guarantee the time we agree on. I can’t make anybody stay if they don’t want to.”

  He clearly doesn’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to. “I gave her a glass of wine,” he says, sulkily, as though this unprecedented act of generosity should buy him her allegiance forever.
r />   “I’m sure she enjoyed it,” I say. There’s another call coming in. “Okay, Pete, I have to go. Is she on her way out?”

  “She’s getting dressed. Already.” He’s going to make it hard for her to get out of there, I can tell.

  “Fine. Ask her to call me from her cell phone when she’s in her car, will you? As soon as she gets out? I need to talk to her.” This way, he knows that if she doesn’t call me, I’ll be calling him. A not-so-subtle reminder. It’s hard to be subtle with Pete. “And—do you want to see another girl tonight?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “You do that.” I press buttons and just miss the incoming call. Caller ID proclaims it to be a number I don’t know, and I don’t have the energy to pursue it. I’ll pick up the voice mail in a minute. There’s some sort of altercation taking place on the television, and I consider for a moment putting the volume on and seeing what it’s all about. Frankly, anyone else’s soap opera sounds pretty good to me at this point—misery loves company more than you know—but I decide instead to take a break and head to the kitchen for an iced coffee. Enough of this healthy shit.

  Jane is at the kitchen table, her laptop and textbooks open all around her, having an argument with her boyfriend on her cell phone. She waves to me as I pass. “That’s ridiculous,” she is saying. “I never told him anything of the sort.” I pour the coffee and lean against the sink, sipping slowly. Sometimes it helps just to get out of the office. “Call me back later, Brian,” says Jane. “When you feel like telling me the truth.”

  I sip my coffee and don’t say anything. She shakes her head. “I hate men,” she intones, darkly.

  “I know that feeling,” I agree and head back to the office.

  I send Sara out to a two-hour call up on the North Shore and the phone rings again. “Hey, Peach, it’s Roger. Sorry to bother you … ”

  Hell. I look at the clock. Zoë/Kim should have been there twenty minutes ago. I just assumed she forgot to check in. Some of the girls who have worked for other services don’t; they watch their own time. Whatever works. “Hi, Roger,” I say, cautiously.