Tracy Quan - Diary of a Married Call Girl

For Paulo Henrique Longo

Cover Page

Title Page Diary of a Married Call Girl TRACY QUAN

Dedication For Paulo Henrique Longo

1 Roundheels and Caballeros

2 The Meaning of Wife

3 The Ballad of East and West

4 Lingerie Liberal

5 Fluff and Aft

6 “Yet” Means “Now”

7 The Schoolgirls Come and Go

8 Death and the Laytons

9 The Rise of the Fallen Woman

10 Why I Am Not a Crackhead

11 Crisis Management

12 Misconceptions

13 Hotter Than July

14 My Apprenticeships

15 Harm Reduction

16 Attics and Basements

17 Provide, Provide

Original Titles from Mischief

Acknowledgments

About the Author

By the same Author:

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

Dear Diary,

My two best friends are no longer at war: They invited me to brunch on Sunday. Do I want this unlikely alliance to succeed? Let’s just say I’m ambivalent.

Yesterday, I was late for the brunch at Quatorze—which I had to embroider into a birthday celebration when my husband started asking too many questions about my day. Sliding into a banquette, I looked around furtively. Jasmine, sitting next to me, barely noticed my arrival.

“You can’t fuck him on the first date!” she was telling Allison. “You’re becoming a public figure!”

Across the table, Allie was sipping a mimosa.

“What do you mean, ‘a public figure’? I’m just me,” she protested.

“He met you at that crazy conference!”

“That was a panel discussion. For Lucho’s course. Re-Writing the Extra-Colonial Body. He’s fostering a dialogue with sex workers! And he wants to discuss his plans for a documentary. He was too shy to introduce himself at the harm-reduction conference. So we didn’t really meet till last week. Tuesday will be our first chance to—”

“Discussion, conference. To him, you’re a public figure. This isn’t like turning a trick! This guy’s a fan. Fuck him right away, and you’ll destroy his illusions. Listen, those panties stay on if we have to glue them on.” Jasmine paused. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint a fan…would you?”

Amazing. Jasmine has gone from blanket rejection of Allison’s “sex worker activism” to micromanaging all the details now that Allie’s a budding spokesperson.

Allie blushed. “A fan? I never thought of it that way! But”—she began to looked worried—“I don’t want Lucho to have illusions. I want him to really know me.”

“For god’s sake, he knows too much about you as it is. Now look at Nancy. I’ll bet she didn’t fuck Matt on the first date.”

“Please,” I warned Jasmine. “I am so not in the mood to dissect Matt!”

“What’s wrong?” Allison was glad to change the subject from her latest crush to my new husband. “Is everything okay? With you and Matt?”

“Matt’s fine,” I said tersely. “I’d much rather hear about your professor friend. You met him at…a harm-reduction conference?”

Should I tell Allison about the birthday ruse?

Maybe not. There are things your single girlfriends just don’t understand. Especially a friend like Allie, who seems to be grooming the man she just met for an illusion-free romance. Which sounds as appealing to me as a sugar-free meringue.

“When you became a spokesman,” Jasmine told Allie. “You gave up your right to sleep with guys on the first date.”

“I—what are you talking about?”

“He knows you’re a working girl! If he doesn’t, you can sleep with him anytime you want. Because he won’t know he’s getting free sex from a hooker! But he knows. And you’re not just any working girl. You’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

“A reputation. This isn’t the 1950s,” Allie objected.

“No kidding! If you sleep with him right away, he can go on Craig’s List. Or yap about it on his website! You have to find out more about his past before you fuck him. And don’t tell him anything about yours.”

The waiter appeared at our booth. Jasmine ordered a martini and I, with genuine remorse, a businesslike Evian.

“No kir royale?” he asked.

“Not today,” I said. “Medication,” I added, as both girls were giving me owlish looks. “I have to leave early,” I explained, when the waiter had drifted away. “Something at the Waldorf.”

Alcohol and work don’t mix. Or shouldn’t.

Jasmine eyed my pale blue yoga pants with curiosity. Then my matching hoodie and my gnomish tote bag, larger than usual, chosen for its excellent zipper. The last thing you want, when carrying lots of dildos and a pair of fuzz-lined manacles (not to mention a serious change of shoes, underclothes, and a Donna Karan suit) is a clever bag with nifty magnets, Velcro flaps, or gimmicky pockets. A laptop case—my usual cover for a hotel call—is way too small for all this gear. And you don’t want the zipper to jam!

“Smart move,” Jasmine said, staring down at my new suede sneakers.

Faux sloppy is a look I’ve been cultivating since my marriage began. It’s pulled together but says “no special plans.” The goal here is to look vague, not mysterious.

Allison, who never has to think about married-girl mufti, was perturbed.

“It’s a long story,” I sighed. “Charmaine’s using the apartment, so I have to change in the hotel bathroom!”

Or maybe here? But no, this restaurant’s too intimate for that sort of thing. Why did I ever go in on this deal with Charmaine? A married hooker has to downsize —but I couldn’t bear to part with my rent-stabilized lease. That would be like discarding your oldest friend. Charmaine is mostly a boon but sometimes I feel like my small sunny 1BR on East Seventy-ninth is being slowly colonized by a stranger whose ways I barely understand.

“You’ll manage,” Jasmine said. “Nancy always manages,” she added, casting a meaningful look at Allie, who was gazing pensively into the distance.

“Nancy didn’t sleep with Matt because she didn’t know if she wanted to!” Allie began. “But Lucho and I are different. Besides, this doesn’t feel like a real first date. We exchanged at least a hundred e-mails before I spoke at his class. Not that kind of e-mail,” she added. “I had no idea who Lucho was. Someone gave him my e-mail address. Then I got something from his department, inviting me to speak on the panel. I know he didn’t ask me out until after the panel but—don’t you think this is more like a third date? Or even a fifth? We spent two hours IM-ing about the problems in his mother’s homeland. His e-mails are totally articulate! And sensitive! And he wants me to be part of this documentary. That’s the real reason for our lunch.”

Jasmine was looking more Solomonic than usual in a subdued argyle V-neck. She pulled her dark hair behind her ears, and the eighteen-carat glow of her Bulgari knockoffs seemed to compete with her highlights.

“We’ll make allowances for technology,” she said. “Taking the obsessive e-mails into account, so long as you’re not sending each other thinly disguised porn, you might be able to treat this like a second date. Hooking is like backgammon. Dating and marriage are like chess. This guy is a knight. Or, if you handle this right, a rook! Your strategy, as queen, is ‘be enigmatic.’ Don’t be making these extravagant moves. At this point in the game, you and Lucho—”