Anonymous - Belle do jour:Diary of an unlikely call girl

But these were both recent, and no test of long-term memory.

Sometimes a man will walk by who smells of A1. We’ve been friends so long our intimacy seems like an epoch ago. He smelled of hot sand. I am always tempted to follow these people wherever they are going. To catch their elbows before they disappear into the crowd at a tube station, or scribble a note to slip into their pockets. I want to know what scent they use. To ask what right they have to smell like what, for me, will always be sex itself. lundi, le 26 janvier

N has a friend, Angel, who is also a working girl. I see her around occasionally-we share some of the same haunts.

I’ve always admired her figure but never really wanted it. All womanly curves have been banished in favor of narrow thighs and a perfect arse. She’s a sculpted triumph of engineering, all legs and long hair, and toned to within an ounce of her life. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to wake up one day in her Versace-clad body. It possibly would be the worst thing in the world to actually try to achieve that shape.

I was out and about a few nights ago and nipped to the ladies’ to reapply lipstick. Unhappily, it was one of these ultramodern places with a troughlike sink where the water splashes everywhere and a too-narrow mirror lit obliquely from below reflects the space between your collarbone and chin. Flattering to exactly no one.

Having ascertained that the toilet was designed by someone who hated women, I turned round to see Angel crouched on the floor, sobbing. I almost didn’t stop. She hadn’t seen me yet. But something about the fragile bow of her heaving shoulders made it impossible to walk away. “Are you okay?” I whispered, kneeling beside her.

It all came out in fits and starts-first man trouble, then family problems, then a recent surgery gone wrong, then the reason for the surgery. It turned out Angel was the victim of a notorious attack several years ago. It was the anniversary of the incident.

“That was you?” I whispered. She nodded. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She showed me the cuts from the reconstructive surgery she’d been undergoing, just at her hairline. I hugged her gently. I told her about my last few years, losing family and futures, how sometimes you feel like a cork tossed around on an ocean. How being told to buck up and stiff-upper-lip it often makes things worse. Yes, the world really is an unfair place. Yes, these things are sent to try us. No, you don’t have to smile all the time, every day. How it wasn’t her fault.

I stayed in there almost an hour while people walked in, walked out, stepped over and around us. Then Angel stood up, straightened her clothes, ran a brush through her hair. And while I didn’t expect this was the start of something beautiful between us, I thought perhaps there had been a connection made. Not mates watching telly on a Friday night and scarfing chocolate. But maybe a gentle, unspoken acknowledgment. A subtle nod across a room. A sorority of two.

So I saw her again last night. Another club, another toilet. I said hello. And she utterly blanked me. I ran straight to N, wounded by the snub. “Yeah,” he said. “I would have a lot of time for her, but she can go from needy to brittle in about ten seconds, and you never know which one you’re going to get.” mardi, le 27 janvier

Rang the manager to discuss upcoming work schedules. She was giggling too much to talk, which is distinctly not in keeping with her Eastern-European-glacial-uber-babe facade.

“Er, are you okay?” Maybe I caught her at a bad time, or in the throes of gleefully administering cracks of the whip to laggard customers, or something.

“Darling, have you heard The Darkness?”

“Yes?”

“Oh, they just crack me up. They are so funny.”

“Mmm. Well, in their way, I suppose.” Perhaps I am excessively judgmental in believing that anyone who looks like the bastard child of Robert Plant and Steve Perry via Austin Powers’s dentist has no business as a rock god. “Is it okay if I have Monday and Wednesday nights off until further notice?”

“Of course, darling. Take as much as you need.” She then broke into a warbling rendition of “Get Your Hands off My Woman,” which was marred by the fact that her falsetto was singularly incapable of approaching the stratospheric heights of the original. I sincerely hope she wasn’t prancing around in a pair of lace-up white PVC trousers at the time. Then again, there would probably be unheard-of prices for such a performance (if indeed it hasn’t already become a regular feature of the Spearmint Rhino oeuvre).

Someone asked recently what services I would be unwilling to provide, and I was unable to think of anything good. Now “imitating stick-insect Freddie Mercuries from Lowestoft” has become the first entry on the list. mercredi, le 28 janvier

Last night I had friends over, not so much a celebration as an excuse to clear the pantry of bottles that have been hanging around since time out of mind. Rang a few people, sent a few e-mails, all very last-minute. Happily, chez Jour is just large enough to accommodate the dozen or so who saw fit to turn up without anyone having to go out on the roof. And I’d hate to do that to a body in this weather, really I would.

At one point, discussing the painting of the Italian Renaissance and the Low Countries, the conversation segued elegantly to the revelation that there is an exhibition at the Royal Academy of pictures of women with come on them. If true, I am so there.

By 3 a.m. I was left with two rather drunken but helpful guests who collected bowls and glasses, loaded the dishwasher, and shooed out the neighbor’s cat. But they were clearly not in any condition to drive. Sleeping arrangements had to be sorted. Unfortunately, the two remainders were N and First Date, the fellow I disastrously slept with last week.

We hung on to the last shreds of conversation until it was far too late to do anything else. N was clearly not going anywhere in a hurry, and neither was First Date-I expect he wanted to get me alone again. It was well past my accustomed bedtime and I hoped one or the other of them would give up and go home, but they did not. “Well,” I said. “The bed sleeps two and there are three of us-so it’s the sofa for some unlucky soul, I believe.”

They looked at each other. They looked at me. Neither volunteered for the sofa. Neither volunteered for the bed.

“Seeing as the two of you are both tall, why don’t you boys take the bed? I’m the only one short enough to sleep here easily.” Again, no response. “Don’t all volunteer at once, guys.”

Another minute of silence passed while I tried to decipher the eyebrow semaphore that passed between them. “I’ll have the sofa,” First Date offered. We took turns changing in the bathroom and I brought out a quilt and two blankets before turning in. First Date spread out the blankets.

“It’s going to be cold tonight,” I said. “Won’t you use the quilt?”

He shrugged. “Leave it out, just in case.”

N and I went up to the bedroom. N shut the door. “Don’t do that,” I whispered. “He’ll think we’re having sex.” I pulled it ajar.

“Why do you care? Besides, he’s probably already asleep.”

I didn’t know why I cared. It just seemed a bad idea to close the door completely.

A few hours later I woke, mouth dry from too much alcohol. Walked down to the kitchen for a glass of water. First Date was curled tightly on the couch. He’d put on the quilt and looked very cold indeed. I went back up to the bedroom, took out the sheepskin, and wrapped it around his feet. He didn’t wake. jeudi, le 29 janvier

People are either more trusting than I expect them to be or I appear more trustworthy than I am. Recently I successfully strong-armed the landlady into a spot of redecoration at my place. With the excuse that most of the kitchen fittings need replacing anyway, I have made the case for a full-on Chintz Removal which will hopefully culminate in a pagan ritual in which all Colefax and Fowler prints are gleefully thrown onto a crackling blaze.