course not!” I lied.
“It really works with the sweater,” she acknowledged, “but you spend money as fast as you make it. That’s gotta stop!”
Who does she think she is? My mother?
“Hey, look.” She pulled an envelope out of her black crocodile tote (a sleek find at 70 percent off, last summer) and waved an invitation in my face. A benefit for the S________ Foundation. “Two Benefactor-level tickets courtesy of Harry. He’s got a conflict that night. This is a great way to find new guys. Maybe we can pick up some Super-Benefactors. Their tickets are in the megadig-its.”
“They’re not spending that kind of money to sit with mere Benefactors,” I pointed out. “They’ll be at their own tables—miles from ours.”
Jasmine doesn’t usually venture beyond our private circle for new customers. The girls we work with operate strictly from their books. There are very few acceptable methods for getting new business: You can trade dates with another girl or pay a cut for each new client. Work for a reputable madam and risk her extreme displeasure if she catches you “stealing.” When a girl is leaving town or retiring, you might buy her book. But how often does a good book become available? It’s rare. Sometimes an established customer refers a new client, but that’s also rare. Most of my regulars would be a little turned off if I had sex with their pals.
Of course, other kinds of girls—through advertising on websites or working for escort services—can afford to eschew these niceties. They have an endless supply of new guys (obtained at great risk), but private girls and reputable madams don’t work with them. Very few “escorts” have the patience to cross over. A small number will try to make a go of working privately, but the minute things get slow, a hard-core escort goes right back to the escort agency, or to advertising. And if she gets arrested? All the private girls in her address book are at risk.
A private girl braves the slow months to preserve the quality of her book, her contacts—her way of life. I should know. I crossed over a long time ago. And stayed here. I’ll never go back. No matter how slow it gets.
“Look,” Jasmine was saying, “this isn’t like advertising. It’s a totally cool way to enhance your client book.”
“Soliciting at a social event?” I was appalled.
“Noooo,” she said disdainfully. “We’ll work these guys as sugar daddies, do a little research on them, make sure they’re legit—and find out how rich they are. And then…say you have a monthly expense. Like, you’re taking some lessons at the French Institute. That’s five hundred dollars a month right there! So you hit the guy up for your French lessons. Or a summer share in Sag Harbor. You get the idea.”
“Or your ailing mother’s hospital bills?” I suggested, rolling my eyes. “I’m a professional. And so are you. That stuff’s for lite-hooks.” (Girls who kind of sort of sometimes maybe in a way get paid for sex. More often than they admit, but not often enough to make a living at it.)
“You’re missing the point! If you’re pretending to litehook, then it’s different—you’re not really a litehook! You’re the ultimate pro. Passing for a litehook.”
“Surely you’re not that desperate for new business.”
“Desperate? Please. You should always be building your book. Never take your existing customers for granted. Cultivate your john book as if it were a vegetable garden.” Jasmine was twisting the stem of her martini glass between her fingertips. “Water it, plant new seeds. Grow potatoes in the fall, tomatoes in summer. Learn about new farming technologies.” Her eyes shone as she warmed to her theme: the hooker in the dell.
“Potatoes?” I said. “How glamorous.” I studied the invitation. “I can’t,” I said, sipping my second Kir Royale carefully. “I promised Allison I would go to a meeting with her that night.”
“A meeting? With Allison? You’re not going to join that crazy hookers’ union!” Jasmine exploded. “Do you know what will happen to the price of pussy if those airheads succeed in changing the fucking laws?”
“For god’s sake, lower your voice!” I warned her. “Do you want everyone to hear? You’d better order some carbs before you get too drunk. Anyway, I’m not joining,” I explained. “I’m just being supportive. Of Allison.”
Narrowing her green eyes, Jasmine interrupted, in a half-slurred half whisper: “Do you know why they want to make it legal?”
I shook my head and moved closer. A middle-aged guy in a pin-striped suit with a graying ponytail was eyeing Jasmine from a love seat near the entrance.
Her voice turned steely. “If those girls ever get their way, girls like us will be doing it for ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents—just like them! Have you seen those ads for tantric hand jobs? They’re all over the Village Voicel That’s the element you’re going to encounter at whatchamacallit—the trollops’ council or whatever they call themselves.”
The ponytailed fellow stood up to greet a tall angular blonde; she was wearing Harry Potter eyeglasses, dark red lipstick, and a bright blue boa around her neck. She was also lugging an incongruously boxy red North Face backpack. He offered her the love seat and perched on one of the muffin-shaped stools, which gave him a great view of her long legs, her massive Mary Jane wedgies, and her tiny miniskirt.
Jasmine, by comparison, was a picture of sanity, in low-heeled ankle boots, well-cut trousers, light brown lip gloss, her face a more angular version of Gayfryd Steinberg’s circa 1986. A reasonable voyeur might see a streamlined brunette debating hairdressers or nursery schools with her school chum. But Jasmine was off on a tangent. And we’re not school chums—in any traditional sense of the term.
“It’s sexual socialism,” she was saying. “A redistribution of resources. Terrible. Like the minimum wage.” She took another sip. “Ayn Rand had a name for these types. Secondhanders!”
“What’s in it for Allison?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “Professionally speaking, she’s not one of those girls. She’s one of us.”
“In my opinion? It all comes down to those pink handbags!” Jasmine said. “Her taste in handbags is so juvenile, it’s excruciating. Last year, she was calling herself a sex addict and carrying around that Kate Spade number—in pink, remember? This year it’s pink Louis Vuitton! And now she’s calling herself a sex worker. It’s too predictable for words. Infantile! A hooker’s accessories should radiate discretion. Power. Sexual maturity.” She reached into the grande-dame-ish alligator tote sitting at her knee and took out a black nylon wallet. “Now, this,” she said, opening it, “I got on the street from one of those African guys. You have to invest in an expensive bag, but a wallet’s something else entirely. Everybody sees your bag, but almost no one sees your wallet.”
A waiter arrived with our bill. I opened my own wallet—speckled pony skin accented with a matte plastic trim. Only Jasmine could succeed in making me feel uneasy about this chic new addition to my extended family of mostly Italian accessories.
“Let’s split it,” I said.
“Christ. Having all hundreds is almost as devastating as having no cash at all!” she muttered crossly. “Get the next one. I have to break a bill.”
At Demarchelier, Matt was waiting impatiently,
