Belle de Jour is the
“It occurs to me that i a world of twelve-year-olds in sexy boots and nans in sparkly minidresses, the surest way to tell the prostitute walking into a hotel at Heathrow is to look for the lady with the designer suit…”
“Most people raise an eyebrow when they find out my closest friends are mostly men, and for the most part, men I’ve slept with. Strange, I think. Whom else are you going to sleep with besides people you know? Strangers? Don’t answer that…”
Belle de Jour
The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl
ePub r1. 0
nalasss 28. 11. 13
Original title:
Belle de Jour, 2005
Digital editor: nalasss
ePub base r1. 0
This book would not have been possible without the support and patience of Patrick Walsh and Helen Garnons-Williams, and their staff and associates, to whom are owed many thanks.
The first thing you should know is that I’m a whore.
I don’t mean that in a glib way. I’m not using the word as an analogy for working a desk job or toiling away in new media. Many of my friends will tell you how temping for a year or ending up in sales is equivalent to prostitution. It’s not. I know this because I’ve been a temp and I’ve fucked for money, and they are in no way similar. Not even the same planet. Different solar systems altogether.
The second thing is that I live in London. These two facts may or may not be related.
It’s not a cheap city. Like almost all of my friends, I moved here after university with the hope of getting a job. If not a well-paying one, at least something interesting, or populated exclusively by handsome, eligible men. But such positions are thin on the ground. Almost everyone is studying to be an accountant now, including my friends A2 and A3, who are respected in their academic circles. Good god — a fate worse than death. Accountancy trumps even academia in the unsexiness stakes.Prostitution is steady work but not demanding. I meet a lot of people. Granted, they’re almost all men, most of whom I’ll never see again, and I’m required to fuck them regardless of whether they’re covered in hairy moles or have a grand total of three teeth or want me to recreate a fantasy involving their sixth-form history teacher. But it’s better than watching the clock until the next scheduled tea break in a dismal staff room. So when my friends pull out the tired analogy’ of corporate employment-as-whoring yet again, I nod knowingly and commiserate with them, and we down cocktails and wonder where all our youthful promise went.
Theirs is probably on a trunk road to the suburbs. Mine is spreading its legs for cash on a regular basis.
Having said that, the leap to full-on prostitution did not happen overnight.
I ended up in London like thousands of other recent graduates. With only a small student debt and a bit saved, I thought I was set for a few months but my surplus was quickly drained by rent and a thousand trivial expenses. My daily routine consisted of poring over the job pages, writing enthusiastic and sycophantic covering letters, although I knew I’d never be interviewed, and masturbating furiously before bed every night.