Confessions of a Call Girl's Friend

As soon as Toni got home from a trick, she'd jump in the shower and scrub herself raw. The ritual seldom varied. I'd hear her coming up the stairs sighing loudly, dropping her clothes on the floor as she wound her way from her bedroom to the bathroom, the smell of sex lingering on her olive skin. She would scour the bathtub obsessively twice a day -- it had to be more than clean, especially after a trick. When she got in the shower, rough grains of Comet would slide under her feet and circle down the drain, washed away with soap and loathing.

When I first came to interview for a room to rent, Toni was straightforward about her occupation. "I'm a call girl," she said "I do tricks but I never bring them home." She offered me some Hamburger Helper and then changed the subject. I didn't say anything -- what could I say, really? I'd never known a prostitute -- or call girl -- and I needed a place to live. A part of me thought it would be exciting to observe that seedy nocturnal underworld, to get an insider's look from a safe distance. I could vicariously experience the outrageous, find silent answers to the questions everybody wanted to ask. I thought it would be glamorous somehow, and Toni did not let me down.

Watching Toni get ready for a trick was like watching an elaborate backstage preening session. Toni was unconventionally striking, and her strong, aquiline nose gave her an almost arrogant air. At 33, she had resigned herself to being more Rubenesque than waif, but she still had the face, and a beautiful one. Having bathed and covered her breasts in baby oil and rubbed sweet cocoa butter onto her thick thighs, she would stand naked in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, trying to decide on the night's look. It would be a choice among creamy doe eyes, smoky temptress, pink candied innocence or her sophisticated but minimal look. The eyes were first, followed by the mouth, sculpted perfectly into a handsome burgundy flower. Then came the clothing and shoes. She would put her large, naked frame in the crowded hall closet, fishing through silk, cotton, polyester, polka dots and stripes, searching for the perfect outfit to complete her chosen look. Toni's look meant everything -- her value was physical, and without physical appeal she was valueless. "How's this?" she would ask, sometimes shouting from the hall closet, never listening for an answer. Her mind was elsewhere.

All of Toni's clients were regulars, a group of around 20 or so men who knew the routine. They would page her and leave a message, a time and a place: late evenings, weekends, three, four times a week, anonymous apartments, downtown hotels. They knew the price was $200 an hour -- straight sex only -- and they didn't ask for special favors. They also knew they had to talk to her before she dropped her panties. That was her rule. And she'd listen and respond, as she was well-read, confrontational and engaging. A thinking man's whore.

What they didn't know was that she gave them nicknames, comical and cruel, analyzed their motives, dismissed them in one breath. There was only one who had her complete sympathy, but he was a quadriplegic. "Stump," she'd call him, laughing uncomfortably. He had no arms and no legs. He couldn't touch back, couldn't put a condom on his own penis. She'd have to lift herself onto him and hold him in position. She'd return from these nights feeling a mixture of pity and disgust. It was tragedy in its purest sense -- tragic and comic -- and she'd moan on the way to the shower, "I've got to get Stump man off of me!" Only he could never be on her, only in her. I'd often wonder how he even managed to pick up the phone to call her. And I'd wonder why she always went back. But if she didn't, who would? She was doing community service, she said.