Xaviera Hollander - The Happy Hooker - My Own Story

They were a happy bunch of guys – one Jewish, one Irish, and two Italians – they had a drink and sat around and talked and joked.

Meantime, they asked me to send out for three other girls for them, which I was happy to do. The girls arrived, and one of the men flashed a badge and identified himself, after pushing me his fee in advance.

“Hey, Pussycat,” he said, “we’re not exactly what you think we are, we’re not johns.” Which amazed me, because they had pretty authentic hard-ons in their pants. “We’re police officers, and you’re under arrest.”

This time my lawyer got me off with another hundred-dollar fine on reduced charges by proving this was entrapment.

“Entrapment” means that a police officer deliberately causes you to commit a crime, and he cannot then legally arrest you for it, which is fair.

Another method the police use to bust you is to wait downstairs and grab a client as he leaves and intimidate him into fingering you, so to speak.

They ask him has he paid to get laid, and if he says, “No, I was just visiting my mother,” they say, “Okay, we’ll take your name and address and just let your wife know what a dutiful son you are.” The guy gets frightened and tells all. Then they either bring him straight back and confront you with your accuser, or they wait until more customers come in so they can catch you all together in the act.

This is the way I was busted, for the first time, in the house of Georgette Harcourte, and I still remember it as a very ugly and degrading experience.

At this time I was working mostly for Georgette, because Madeleine caught me passing my cards around among her clients and sort of rejected me. I felt bad about it, because Madeleine’s was definitely the best house in town and had the most sophisticated clientele. Georgette’s clients were mostly drunk stockbrokers and freaks, and most of her girls were unattractive. Also, I must point out that Georgette’s 50-50 split was less fair than Madeleine’s 60-40. Financially Georgette was so tough that if you had to take a taxi from here to Timbuctoo she wouldn’t give you a break. In her house the girls were never allowed to fix themselves a cold drink, much less have something to eat, even if they were there over four hours. In my house the girls can eat and drink what they want.

Still, Georgette’s was where I was working, and she loved to have me because I was hard-working, reliable, and resourceful. I was also the only girl who could get into the Plaza or Waldorf after midnight without difficulty. I would put on a conservative sweater and skirt, white socks and shoes, and fix my hair into pigtails. I hardly ever wear makeup, even to this day, now that I am a big madam, so I already had a fresh, natural look. I’d put a pair of glasses on my nose, and then I would hold a book under my arm and breeze in past the security men like a college girl. Before I knocked on the client’s door I would undo my hair, remove my socks, take off my glasses, and throw the book in the trash can.

Another thing Georgette liked about me was that I could take care of the big cocks, any length, any width, because I love it.

So I was an asset for her house, and she knew she could call me any time of the day or night and I’d run over for her.

This night in February, 1970, Georgette called me to come over and help her with a stag party for a group of five investment bankers. I recall there was a blizzard going outside and I was nearly frozen when I arrived at the Pavilion, where she had her penthouse. I was busy thawing my hands as I stepped from the elevator, but I noticed a little Chinese-looking guy wearing dark glasses, who must have been her previous customer, leaving.

I went inside and was assigned to Carter Miles, a banker who is famous for his big penis that none of the other girls’ pussycats could take. They call him “the long mile,” for obvious reasons.

I remember Carter pounding away at me. He took forever to climax, as he was very drunk. His friends were all finished and getting dressed.

Meantime, I heard Georgette accept a phone booking for another two guys who were coming by, and she asked me to stay on for them. So everybody was dressed now except me, because I am an exhibitionist, and even in my own house I love to walk around in the nude or with a very short nightie.

I was just sitting, relaxing, one customer’s head in my lap, when the doorbell buzzed. “Let me greet them in the nude,” I jokingly said to Georgette. “What a wonderful reception that will be;” one of the bankers mumbled.

I stood beside her as she undid a hundred locks. She opened the door, and two guys were there. Both very large men, one was bald and kind of vicious-looking, but I suppose they can’t help being born ugly and their money is as good as everybody else’s. So I jumped forward and greeted them. “Hello, darling,” I said to the big, bald one. “Come on in, let me take your jacket; make yourself at home.” But whom did I notice behind them but the little Asian-looking guy in the dark glasses, whom they’d obviously grabbed on the way out, and the weasel was wetting his pants, he was so frightened.

The men flashed their badges and said, “Vice Squad, you’re all under arrest.” Then everything happened at once, eight uniformed cops burst through the door, and chaos broke loose.

The girls were screaming, the customers were having several fits, and only Marianna, Georgette’s maid, kept her cool and hid the books. Even Georgette, the madam herself, was yelling stupid threats at the cops. This for me was a very scary moment, and I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Meanwhile, my little black book with my clients all listed was in the next room with my clothes, and I was standing there naked. The first thing I instinctively did was run into the bedroom, rip out the pages with the addresses on them, and hide them underneath Georgette’s laundry while the uniformed cops were turning the place over for drugs.

One came to the bathroom just as I finished hiding the pages and ordered me to get dressed to go with everyone to the station. But in all the disturbance I couldn’t find my bikini underpants, my panty hose, or my bra (which people were wearing in those days), so I had to go out into the freezing night with nothing under my coat but a light minidress.

The neighbors were lined up in the halls watching as they herded us out like geese into the squad cars, and off to the precinct.

It’ seemed we were bumping and circling around the city for hours, and meanwhile the Irish cop beside me grabbed my hand and put it on his huge hard-on. The wagon is dark, my laugh is cynical.

“What is this nonsense?” I said at the top of my voice. “You arrest us for selling it, and now you want a freebie blow-job in the car!” This seemed such an inappropriate thing to do that I cracked up. “What the hell, we’re going to prison, we might as well give it away,” I said jokingly.

The other girls were mortified. “Take it easy, Xaviera,” they said; “this is a serious matter.”

But to me this was the breaking point. We were being pushed around like common whores, we were upset, and my ass was literally freezing off without my underpants, and this cop wanted to get a freebie. Embarrassed, he shifted uneasily away from me, his ardor considerably cooled.

It, was around one A.M. when we arrived at the precinct house, and we were again herded up a flight of filthy stairs and into a dirty office, where Lieutenant Greenleaf, the big, bald ape who arrested me, took off his coat and sat down to his desk.

We could make a couple of phone calls if we were quick about it, they told us, but the trouble was that I didn’t have anyone to call except Paul Lindfeld, a straight man I met in Miami whom I’d been going out with steadily since Christmas.