Xaviera Hollander - The Happy Hooker - My Own Story

Even though it was late, I hoped he wouldn’t mind helping me out, because he was my guy.

“Paul,” I said, “I’m awfully sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I am in some serious trouble. I’ve been arrested, I’m worried, I don’t know what to do.”

The last thing in the world I expected was his answer. “I don’t want to know about it,” he said. “Don’t tell them you are calling me, don’t mention my name, and scratch it out of your book in case they confiscate it.”

It shows you how much you can sometimes depend on a man – when you need a helping hand and there’s nothing in it for him, he lets you down.

Time passed by very slowly at the police station, and nothing was happening for ages except that we were hungry and cold. Finally they decided to interrogate us one by one.

Georgette whispered in my ear, “Deny you were paid,” which turned out to be true, because we lost our pay for that night. “And don’t tell them who you are or where you live.” When my turn came a young Irish cop sat me down and asked my name. Despite Georgette’s advice, I gave it to him. There was no alternative. “Address, age, and occupation?” he pursued. Occupation? This struck me as a redundant kind of question, so I answered, “Nymphomaniac.” This big idiot said how do you spell that. “N-y-m-p-h,” I began and the girls started to crack up, and even two detectives dozing in chairs started laughing.

Despite the humor, I was depressed about this whole thing, and it was cold in there. I was very tired, so I climbed on a desk and tried to get some sleep. Behind me as I lay down I heard the cop interrogating Georgette, and they didn’t have to ask her name, because she was already one of the most notorious madams in New York at that time.

“Hey, you’re typing all kinds of errors on that sheet,” I heard her say to him. So the cop replied, “Yeah, how can I concentrate?” He pointed at me. “Look at that broad there with her bare ass sticking out in my face.”

Around five A.M. we were once again pushed into the squad cars, and this time we went downtown to the Tombs – my first visit – where we went through the whole rigamatick, filling in forms and making statements all over again. Only this was an even more horrible place than the station house – full of robbers, hoodlums, drunks, addicts, guys in fights, and streetwalkers.

We had to get mug shots taken and submit to the most humiliating kind of physical examination by a big dykish matron.

We had to bend backward, forward, and spread our legs so that if we carried anything in our vaginas it would most probably fall out. We were ordered to the bathroom whether we wanted to go or not, and then we were shoved into separate cells. People talking and coughing and vomiting, and altogether a very grim atmosphere.

In the cell next to me, a black girl fifteen years old kept telling me in a whiny southern accent that she had been pushing drugs since she was twelve, and she was dying for a cigarette, and she wouldn’t leave me alone. One of our girls had some, so we passed them from hand to hand to shut up her dragging voice.

It was terribly cold on the benches, and that night passed slowly, fitfully, without any possibility of sleep. Around eight A.M. we were taken to an even worse cell, full of vicious-looking black street hookers with long boots, colored wigs, and leather miniskirts. Their horrible body odor made me gasp and try not to breathe.

They started asking us all kinds of questions, as though we made a habit of spending our nights in these stinking jails. One black girl with bruises all over her face took an interest in me and wouldn’t stop demanding information. She was one of those kind of people who thump your arm when they want to know something.

“Hey,” she said, “you with the blond hair,” thump, “you must be high-priced jet-set call girls, the twenty-five-dollar-an-hour kind.”

“No, I beg your pardon,” I said, “we’re one hundred dollars an hour.” I was bragging, of course, but we felt like society ladies against those human dregs.

She didn’t want to appear jealous, so she said, “Hey, buddy,” nudge again, “hope you got your old man waiting outside to get you out.” “What’s an old man?” I asked, because I wasn’t familiar with street-hooker terminology in those days. “A pimp, don’t you have a pimp?” shove, push.

She was really knocked out when I didn’t know what a pimp was, much less have one waiting outside. I wished she would shut up, because this talk was bugging me, and I kept wondering what had become of my life. A year ago I was expecting to be married and settled down, and today I was in a dirty cell with twenty sleazy streetwalkers.

“Leave her alone,” Georgette said; “she’s new to this.” And about that time they called us into the courtroom.

There in the audience was Carter, my banker date – sober now – who had been considerate enough to come down and learn what was happening.

Then the lawyer Georgette had engaged for us, who was a relative of the judge, stood up and said his piece. I didn’t understand the proceedings too well, but he must have been very competent, because I heard the judge say, “Case dismissed.”

We all went downstairs for a milkshake and a sandwich and met the lawyer and Carter. I thanked them both, and I engaged Carter as my banker, which he is to this day.

Then I went uptown to collect my torn addresses from Georgette’s laundry, and on to my house, where I drew the curtains and slept for fifteen hours to forget what had been one of the worst nights of my life.

It was February, and New York was bitter cold and buried in slush. I was in no mood to work. The arrest was still on my mind and had left me feeling low.

I was fed up with the whole business of johns, madams, and cops, and the professional environment in general.

I was also lonely, to tell you the truth, because I had split with my last boyfriend, Paul, and everybody else I knew was off to Puerto Rico for Washington’s Birthday. I needed to hang loose, breathe free, get lost, take a trip. To hell with it, I’d go to Puerto Rico, too.

I’d never been there before, so I called Pan Am, and they could squeeze me on a flight that was leaving JFK in two hours if I could make it. I didn’t even bother to pack properly. I put on a summer dress under my winter coat, and a few essentials in my hand luggage – toothbrush, face creams, diaphragm, and vibrator. I could easily buy what else I needed there.

There was enough cash in the house for a round-trip ticket, with $300 left for three days, which was all I expected to stay, at the time.

I paid for my ticket at the airport, and the minute the plane took off I felt better. I looked forward to having some groovy experiences, because I mix easily and have no trouble communicating with people. I believe that’s one of the reasons I don’t need to drink or smoke cigarettes or grass – I get naturally stoned on good company.

I was looking forward to a weekend of fun. Work, thank God, was the farthest thing from my mind.

It was hot when we landed in San Juan, people walking around suntanned and everything looking sensational. I took a taxi from the airport to the Racquet Club, where some friends were staying, and tried to get a room.

“Forget it, miss,” the clerk said. “We can’t even rent you a phone booth.” This was one of their biggest weekends, and every New York Jew and his uncle Max was in town. So I located my friends, and they invited me to sleep over on their sofa, which was cramped, and slightly uncomfortable, but what the hell, it was for a few days only.

Next day I bought a dress, some sandals, and a bikini at the boutique and arranged myself near the pool. The place was overrun with pretty people, mostly couples, but plenty of Jewish American Princesses in their wigs and false eyelashes stalking the few single men around.