Madam Read online

  My father’s voice startled me. “Where’s Abby?”

  A murmur of other voices, then a sound of someone shushing them. “You need all your strength to try and get better.” I think that was one of the men who always seemed to be around, one of my father’s business associates.

  My father’s voice again, impatient. “I want to see my little girl.”

  My back was pressed hard up against the damask wallpaper of the hallway. There was a Chinese vase on the table next to me. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t.

  “It’s best if you rest, Edgar.” My mother’s voice was clear as a bell through the heavy bedroom door.

  It was then that the door opened, slowly, too slowly, and they all came out. The doctor stopped to talk to me for a moment, but I wouldn’t talk to them. They weren’t going to let me see my father.

  I had always assumed that it was he who had not wished to see me; that they were respecting his wishes. The next time I saw him, he was white and lifeless, lying in his Sunday best in a satin-lined coffin. I clutched the pills to me, tears coursing down my face, my knees drawn up to my chest. “Daddy,” I whispered. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy …”

  He had wanted to see me. He had asked to see me. I had never known.

  I lay there for what seemed like an eternity, feeling warm, dizzy, and exhausted.

  Then I put the pills back into my suitcase, pulled out a book, and wandered unsteadily into the bathroom.

  I’d brought along a book to read on the bus, something by Pat Conroy, which I hadn’t touched because I was too busy looking out through the rain-streaked windows and feeling sorry for myself. I’d tossed it into the suitcase and now I picked it up, reading entirely at random. Or was it random? Conroy was a Southern gentleman, like my father. I sat on the toilet seat and, the tears still drying on my cheeks, started reading; Conroy immediately drew me in with his descriptions of place; his words were my father’s words, the voice of the South.

  I sat in that sad casino hotel bathroom and could suddenly, vividly, smell the marshes of South Carolina, as though I were there. A crane hooting. The sticky sweet summer air. I felt a longing—for them, for travel, for home, for anything but feeling sorry for myself, especially over someone as unremarkable as Jesse.

  I fell asleep sometime after that, dreaming of warmth and azaleas and the sweat of Southern summers, and when I woke up it was sometime the next day. Or evening. I’m not even sure.

  I did a quick line of coke to wake up a bit more, then reached for the trusty Yellow Pages. Odd to be on the other side of the phone, I thought with some trepidation as I listened to it ringing. But I also knew what I needed, right then, was to feel good, just to feel good.

  So I did what everyone else would do in the same situation. I called an escort service. Well, maybe not everyone …

  I wasn’t even sure who or what I wanted; I just wanted to feel something, anything, to feel the way that I felt when I read Conroy, to feel like it was worth trying to do all these things—work, make a life, have a business, connect with people, form relationships. Have sex: that was, actually, my driving thought. The connection between sex and death has been belabored far too much in literature, but I’ll add my two cents, anyway: I was coming back from the brink of death, and all I could think about was having sex.

  Of having life.

  They sent me a woman and a man. I guess that makes sense: when in doubt, cover all of your bases. Or maybe they were just figuring that they could get twice the fee from someone who was as confused as I must have sounded on the telephone.

  They were both young, in their early twenties; I’m good at figuring that sort of thing out. They arrived separately, the woman slightly more prompt than the man. She and I had already had a Scotch from the minibar and a line from my stash by the time he arrived.

  We started out right away having sex, since that was what we were all there for, all of us naked and sweating and squirming. I was feeling particularly passive, and told them as much. I have to say that they did put on a very good show. Well, that makes sense: we were in Atlantic City, after all.

  So I watched the show. He sat her on his lap and fucked her. She sucked his cock. She sucked my pussy while he fucked her from behind. I participated as much as I felt like, which was really pleasant. For once, no one was demanding that I do anything, be anything, put up with anything. I could do whatever I wanted.

  For two wonderful, glorious hours, that was exactly what I did. I played with myself while I watched them. He played with me while she danced around us. He kissed me while he was fucking her. She kissed me while he was fucking me. All of it nondemanding and nearly all of it in silence.

  They left and I sat and smoked a cigarette alone in the darkness. After about an hour, there was a knock on the door. She had returned with some winnings from the casino downstairs.

  She leaned against the doorjamb, looking embarrassed. “Hi, remember me? I’m Joy, I was here a while ago …” Her voice trailed off.

  God, she must deal with people with real memory deficits. Impressive ones. “I remember,” I said slowly.

  She gestured toward the room behind me. “I just …” She seemed to pull herself together, straightened up, and looked me in the eye. “The truth is I saw all your pills. And I wanted to be sure you’re all right,” she said.

  I was made of stone. I had no idea how to respond. Someone I had hired had not only noticed, but cared enough to come back. She must have been thinking of it at the tables downstairs. She must have been worried. I was amazed.

  I cleared my throat and moved aside. “Do you want to come in?”

  She smiled, and walked in past me. “Do you have any more champagne?”

  I closed the door. “Scotch okay?”

  We stayed up for another couple of hours, drinking Scotch, doing lines, complaining about men, and talking about everything and nothing. I was pulling myself together then, whether I knew it or not. It was a good feeling.

  By Sunday I was sore and exhausted, but somehow not as empty as I had been when I came to Atlantic City. In the end I put all of the pills back into their bottles and tucked them into my suitcase. I might have been feeling better—but not that much better. I was hedging my bets.

  Maybe that’s how we all live, in the end: deciding that today will not be the day that we kill ourselves.

  So I got on another bus in the rain, stared out of its streaky windows all the way back to Boston, and picked up the pieces. And swore, as we all do, that I’d never fall in love again.

  Private Yellow Pages

  I was surprised, and gratified, to note that I had been missed. That my absence had upset more than just my clients. Robert had left about a hundred messages on my services; Jeannette had called too, and Vivienne from the Design Group. I felt justified in my decision to wait it out.

  Maybe life wasn’t so bad, after all.

  The clients, needless to say, showed varying levels of unhappiness at my unavailability for a couple of nights. I hadn’t thought to have someone cover the phones for me, because I hadn’t really been convinced that I was coming back. Some were petulant, some were angry, others were extrademanding, as though needing to get back at me in some way.

  By that time, I had organized my thinking about my profession. Clients had started falling into different categories: they were types and personalities, rather than individuals—most of them, anyway. I knew some of them as separate real people, of course; I even became friends with them.

  I had quickly discovered that the men who used my service could be of service to me as well. It was like having my own private Yellow Pages—or a personal concierge service. I had, at a phone call away, doctors of all sorts, an excellent criminal lawyer (I had his number programmed into my telephone, just in case), club owners, someone who was “connected,” various drug dealers, and a whole lot of people involved in the dot-coms, which were just coming into their own by then. I was given free tickets to concerts, entrée into political dinners,
a nod at the doors of exclusive restaurants and nightclubs.

  I loved it, of course. I wouldn’t have been human if I hadn’t. It was like a fantasy come true. Cinderella at a never-ending ball.

  I knew a thing or two about fantasies, after all.

  Using an escort agency is all about fantasy. I can’t say that’s true across the board for prostitution—it probably isn’t. I suspect that when a guy picks up a woman on a street corner for a quick blow job in his front seat, he isn’t imagining it to be anything other than what it is. But what I’m selling is a dream, a fantasy, the ongoing fantasy that this wonderful, beautiful, attentive woman who asks for nothing other than to spend an hour with you could conceivably be yours forever.

  That is a fantasy no matter which way you look at it. First of all, no woman is sexually and emotionally attentive to the man she is with twenty-four hours a day. Real life—work, children, projects, appointments, hormones—all vie for a partner’s attention, and that’s not to mention the fact that most women occasionally want someone to be attentive to them. Not too many men like to think about that.

  Never mind: the fantasy is the harem, the beautiful, always-available, always-desirable girl who makes you feel powerful, adored, manly.

  The whole mindset is pretty sick, actually, but it’s the mindset that we have to work with, and I do work with it. I play into that fantasy, giving my clients the girls of their dreams, assuring them how much each girl really really likes them. To my eternal astonishment, they always believe me.

  Peter Povaklas is a case in point. He has been using my service almost since the first day I opened. And Peter waits, eternally, for the girl who will fall in love with him and make love to him forever. He goes through a lot of girls, though, because when he realizes that she’s not going to be The One, he immediately starts treating her badly. Nothing hurtful or dangerous, mind you—just mean. Snapping at her, becoming more demanding, that sort of thing.

  But he still calls me for girls at least twice a week, faithfully, and still somehow believes that one time, just one time, will be the right time.

  Part of Peter’s problem, I am told by those who visit him, is that he has no sense of a relationship (even one as well-defined and brief as a call) as being give-and-take in any way. He argues constantly with the girl (and with me, for that matter) about—well, just about anything.

  “Peach said that you’d give me a long massage to start with.”

  “Okay, that’s fine, turn on your stomach.”

  “Don’t be stupid! You’re supposed to take off your clothes first! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  Peter is a clock-watcher, making sure that he is not cheated out of thirty seconds of his allotted time, and indeed pushing to see if he can get far more. When a girl arrives at his place, he keeps her from calling to check in with me, making her wait, then saying that he is timing his hour from when she made the call. Stuff like that.

  He really seems to have no idea that his level of churlishness might be connected to the fact that no one seems to be falling in love with him.

  Timing’s a tricky thing in this business. Some of my clients go by the clock, like Peter, jealously coveting each moment of what they see as “their” time. Others don’t care, and in fact are happy to have a girl leave early if she has finished what he wanted her to do.

  I had one client for a while, very much in demand, who checked into a hotel in the financial district once or twice a month and wanted a blow job with his morning paper. Literally. He’d have a girl over there at seven or seven-thirty in the morning. She’d knock on the door, pick up the copy of USA Today that was sitting in the hallway in front of the door, and bring both services with her. He’d have the morning news on the TV and be partway through his coffee and continental breakfast. There was no need to check in with me (I would hardly have even heard the telephone, at that ungodly hour). He was well-trained, paid her upfront, no problems.

  She didn’t even have to undress. He’d read, she’d kneel in front of him, loosen his robe, take out his penis, and go to work. Five minutes later, he was tossing the newspaper down, tucking himself back in, giving her a distracted smile, his mind already moving on to the business events of the day, and she was on her way. Anyone who could get up that early (or stay up that late) was more than delighted to go and see him.

  Some of the girls I hire can’t wait to get out of the room. The ones who can really get away with that are the ones who are the most strikingly beautiful, who are drop-dead gorgeous, and have the clients amazed that they just had sex with someone who looks like a supermodel. Let’s face it, it’s not all that surprising. The reality of our world is that gorgeous women can get away with almost anything they want.

  Some of them rush the client: what do you want, where do you want it, here’s the condom, let’s get on with it. Some of the clients appreciate that, actually—there’s no need to manufacture meaningless small-talk, no awkwardness, no need to pretend. It’s all about sex.

  But the ones who want the fantasy, they’re the ones who want the girl there for the duration. And it seems to me, more and more, that that’s what guys are looking for.

  Someone used to say to me—it might have been Jen, or maybe Lily, they were the two most introspective employees I’ve had—that the way she saw it, she was being paid for an hour of her time. The client could spend the time doing whatever he wanted—talking, playing stupid mind games, fucking. She never left before the hour was up unless the client wanted her to. Both Jen and Lily accumulated a fair number of regulars, so whoever it was must have been doing something right.

  The ones like Peter, the ones who like to argue, for them that’s part of the experience. The power, the control, the kind of feeling they get by winning an argument. I think it’s a weird way of getting off, but if it’s what works, it’s what works.

  God knows they’ll argue with me, endlessly.

  It starts with the negotiation over who they will see that night. Guys sometimes call in advance and request someone particular ahead of time, making a date, as it were. But, more often than not, they call and order a girl like they’re ordering from the Chinese restaurant down the block. So a typical conversation might sound a little like this:

  “Hi, Peach, it’s Hubert.”

  “Hey, Hubert, how are you? What can I do for you?”

  “Is Lisa around tonight?” So much for the amenities. I’m fine, thanks for asking.

  A quick glance at my cheat sheet. I know that Lisa isn’t working, but that’s not going to keep me from doing business with Hubert. What I’m wondering is who I have that’s enough like Lisa to be able to send instead of her. “You know, Hubert, she’s not around tonight, but Gloria’s getting out of class at eight and I can have her go straight over to your place after that.”

  He sounds petulant. “Who’s Gloria?”

  “You’ve seen her before,” I tell him, my voice firm and reassuring. “She’s a junior at Northeastern. She comes from Kansas, has that accent, you know, a pretty Midwestern girl. You saw her a few weeks ago. Long brown hair?” I end on a hopeful note.

  Hubert’s not having any of it. “I don’t remember,” he snaps, and there’s irritation in his voice. “Can’t you call Lisa?”

  I sigh. It’s the girl’s night off, and they somehow think that if I called her she’d be delighted to cancel whatever plans she has and rush over to fuck them. Like their office could call them on a Saturday night to go in and work on some report. “She’s away on a ski trip with her parents,” I say, glibly, the lie coming quickly and easily. They always do. It’s one of my strengths, my ability to find immediate plausible lies.

  The “parents” part is key: there’s an element of wholesomeness that clients expect, something they never find to be in contradiction with what the girl happens to do for a living. There are some guys who actually believe that this is the first and only time she’s tried it.

  Like I said, it’s a fantasy world out there.
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br />   “I think you’d have a really good time with Gloria. She really liked you, Hubert. She told me I could send her to you anytime. She doesn’t say that about everyone.”

  There is a slight pause while he regroups. “I don’t know, Peach. Tell me again what she looks like?”

  There’s another call coming in, and this one threatens to be a long one. “Hold on just one second, Hubert,” I say, and switch lines before he has a chance to respond. “Hello?”

  “Hi, um, I wanted to know if you could, um, like, come over tonight.”

  I take a deep breath. Even though the ad says I’m an agency, there are always guys that imagine it’s a blonde with D cups answering the phone, working solo. I guess that for some of the ads, that’s true. “Sir, did you want to spend some time with a young lady this evening?”

  “Um, yes.”

  “And where are you located, sir?” No one says sir anymore. Except for people who come from the South. Or from repressive families of origin. I guess I hit it on both tries.

  “Um, I’m at the Sheraton, in Newton. I—I don’t live in Boston.”

  Hubert would just have to wait, I decide. “Can I have your name to verify it with the front desk, sir?”

  Long pause. Either he’s a problem or he is just embarrassed. I sense the latter, so I reassure him. “It’s entirely confidential, sir. It’s just to ensure the safety of the young lady who comes to see you.”

  That gets him. He’s clearly surprised that he might be seen as something of a threat. “Oh. Yes. Okay. Right. No, that’s, like, fine.”

  “Very good, sir. Just give me the information—your name and your room number—and I’ll call you right back.”

  He does, and I click back to Hubert. “Sorry to keep you on hold. That was my mother. I couldn’t just hang up on her. What were you asking?”