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

In the meantime, I will be experiencing minor household disturbance. Not unbelievable, mind, just inconvenient. I was talking to one of the As about the impending redesign recently.

“Well, if they get their pants together at work, I’ll be at a conference the next fortnight. Do you want the keys to mine?”

“Surely, darling, but aren’t you afraid I’ll spill something on the carpet?” A is notoriously fussy about his home and has been known to reserve only a single shelf for his girlfriend’s belongings. Even if she lives there.

“I trust you,” he said, sipping a whisky and soda. “I know you know how to iron the sections of the paper just as I like them.”

Ah, if only he were kidding.

Another case in point: a recent customer booked me for the better part of an evening at his own home. Having exhausted most of a bottle of gin, the springs of his bed, and all reasonable conversation, he slipped away for a quick shower.

Such interludes make me nervous. It’s not as if I plan to rob the place, but I am a compulsive confessor-even to things I haven’t done. At school if the entire form was being reprimanded for the action of a single student, I am sure I felt the guilt most of all. Especially if I wasn’t involved.

Most customers are wary of us anyway-when in their own home instead of a hotel, they more often put off the bathing ritual or suggest a joint shower, so as not to leave me alone. I’m not offended.

But this client, he threw on a dressing gown and scampered off to the bath. I sat on the couch. Considered pawing through his CD collection, but decided that would be rude. I carefully examined the watercolors on the wall. And with nothing more to do, no calls to make or return, nothing to read, I did what any reasonable person would do.

He emerged from the bathroom to find me busily washing up.

Perhaps I am more trustworthy than I thought. vendredi, le 30 janvier

Snow yesterday afternoon-near UCL, students dashed out of the Union and Archaeology to gather up handfuls of snow and throw them at each other. Clusters of girls walked by in twos and threes, huddling under umbrellas. Though it had gone dark, the light was calm, diffuse: a warm glow of streetlights reflecting off the puffy duvet-sized flakes coming down.

I went to meet A2, who hasn’t had a date any time this geological era. He recently hooked up with someone at a conference, though, a girl from Manchester. It seems a long way to go for sex. He assures me it isn’t just about the sex. A2 is a great chap, but an extremely poor liar.

We installed ourselves in a gastropub-cum-bar to watch the buses outside pile up in the icy street. It was one of these places with a high ratio of leather seating to bar space, where they turn up the music automatically at 7 p.m. regardless of how many customers are inside. We were practically shouting over the background noise to hear each other.

“So what do you think of latex?” A2 bellowed.

“Latex?” I asked, unsure if I misheard. “A good idea, generally.” Unhappily, I am discovering a recent sensitivity to the stuff, having come away from a blowjob at work with swollen, tingling lips. Hardly a scientific experiment, though. It could just as easily have been the spermicide on the Durex.

“No, I mean like-” he mimed putting on a rubber glove. “Latex. The feel of it, you know, for-”

“You’re talking about rubber sex already?”

“She’s a hell of a girl,” he mused. “So, have you ever done it?”

The squeaky squeaky? “Not full coverage, no. You mean with the catheter and head mask and everything? No.” Ugh. Up your urethra is probably the least arousing phrase I can imagine, ever.

“I so want to go there.”

“Careful, you’ll scare her off.”

“It was her idea. So-tips?”

“Lots of baby powder, I should think. I don’t even want to think about what this would smell like.”

“Mmm, I do.”

Where do people come up with this stuff? And wouldn’t it get rather sweaty in there? “Freak. You said this was-and I quote-not just a sex thing.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Who, me?” I put a hand to my chest in mock surprise. “I would absolutely never. I’m as pure as the you-know-what,” I said, nodding toward the snow outside.

“Sure you wouldn’t. You having another?” A2 yelled over a god-awful cover song by an unmentionable boy band.

“Something hot, if they have it. With plenty of alcohol. Only way to banish this music. And the mental image of you humping a blow-up doll.” samedi, le 31 janvier

In weather like this, one must admit defeat, ignore the “never too thin” mantra altogether and give in to a new paradigm. This can best be summarized as the tights-fishnets-socks under trousers, “please don’t let me have to use a public toilet juggling all this getup” design for life. It is perhaps a small price to pay for living in a winter wonderland of slush.

And in such days as these, only a cad would casually throw out a line like “You’ve gained some on the hips.” Which is why I had to kill N and bury the corpse under a layer of permafrost on Hampstead Heath. No jury would convict.

K-N

K is for Killer Moves

Or, the thing a girl is known for. For some it’s the look, others the intimacy, others a peculiar talent. Anal and light domination come up fairly frequently with me, but they’re not the killer moves. It’s the oral. I’ve been complimented on oral technique often enough to ask a man before I start on him whether he wants to come in my mouth or not, and if so, how long should I make it last? Many of them do not believe the timing of their orgasm is in my hands (or lips, as it were). Of course it is, silly things. That’s why they’re the men.

L is for Lousy Kissers

There are a lot of these in the world. It’s not your duty to reform them, though a gentle suggestion, well timed, can be the best thing a man gets out of the encounter. Other times you have to know when to hold your tongue. Especially when he cannot hold his.

M is for Music

I blame the conventions of overbearing cinema soundtracks for the crap that is supposed to accompany a session of hedonistic lovemaking. Music is a matter of taste, and it’s usually obvious whether a man has put something on because he wants to hear it and it turns him on or because he thinks it’s what ought to be done. Doing the deed to the syrupy strains of Luther Vandross is a misguided attempt to set the mood. Someone who pounds your arsehole to the beat of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, on the other hand, is clearly passionate about the music.

N is for Noise

The alternative to music. He wants feedback; give it to him. But for goodness’ sake don’t lay on the porn screeches in a cheap imitation of passionate frenzy unless he clearly requests it. They’re paying for sex, not stupid. dimanche, le 1 ^er fevrier

First Date and I agreed to meet to see a play. No big-budget West End production, this: he suggested we go to a show put on by some of his friends at a pub. It was something by one of my favorite Renaissance playwrights, and I was dubious of the adaptation. “You’ll be amazed what they’ve done with it,” he assured me. “A real two-hander.”

I giggled. I think perhaps the phrase means something different to luvvies than it does to call girls.

The night after the party, when he slept in the sitting room and N in my bed, all three of us rose early and had a cup of coffee in the kitchen. I walked them out to the street, waved N off in his car, and walked First Date round the corner to his. I was scared I might be in for a touch of the coldness I’d shown him, but no, he lit a kiss on my mouth before driving away. I thought perhaps another chance was deserved. It did rather show up my abilities as a hostess to force the poor lad to stay over on my sofa.