long hair. She put on a G-string, the floral halterneck, her jeans and sandals. At half-past five she took her bike and rode slowly so as not to arrive at the hotel out of breath and sweaty. This feels almost like a date, she thought. As she wove through the peak-hour traffic in Kloof Street, she saw men in cars turn their heads. She smiled a secret smile, because not one of them knew what she was and where she was going.
It wasn?t so bad.
He was just a regular guy. He had no weird requests. He received her with rather exaggerated courtesy and spoke to her in whispers. He wanted her to stroke him, touch him and lie beside him. But first she had to undress and he shivered and said, ?God, what a body you?ve got,? and trailed his fingers slowly over her calves and thighs and belly. He kissed her breasts and sucked the nipples. And then the sex. He reached orgasm quickly and groaning and with eyes screwed shut. He lay on top of her and asked: ?How was it for you?? She said it was wonderful, because that was what he wanted to hear.
When she rode her bicycle home up the long gradient, she thought with a measure of compassion that what he had really wanted was to talk. About his work, his marriage, his children. What he really wanted was to expel the loneliness of the four hotel room walls. What he really wanted was a sympathetic ear.
When it became her full-time profession later, she realized most of them were like that. They paid to be someone again for an hour.
That night she just felt she was lucky, because he might have been a beast. In her little flat, while Sonia slept, she took the five new hundred-rand notes from her purse and spread them out in front of her. Nearly a week?s work at Trawlers. If she could do just one man a day, for only five days a week, that was ten thousand rand a month. Once all the bills were paid, there would be seven thousand over to spend. Seven thousand rand.
Three days later she bought the cell phone and placed an ad in
She carefully studied the other ads in the ?adult services? section first before deciding on the wording:
And the number.
It appeared on a Monday for the first time. The phone rang just after nine in the morning. She purposefully did not answer at once. Then in a cool voice: ?Hello.?
He didn?t have a hotel room. He wanted to come to her. She said no, she only did traveling. He seemed disappointed. Before the phone rang again, she thought: why not? But there were too many reasons. This was her and Sonia?s place?here she was Christine. Safe, only she knew the address. She would keep it that way.
A pattern was established. If they phoned in the morning, it was local men who wanted to come to her. In the late afternoon and evening it was hotel business. The first week she made two thousand rand, as she would take one call per evening and then switch off the phone. Thursday her daughter had not been well and she decided not to work. In the second week she decided to do two per day, one late afternoon and one early evening. It couldn?t be too bad and it would give her time to have a good bath, put on fresh perfume . . . It would double her income and compensate for evenings when there were no clients.
That wasn?t her word. One afternoon she had a call, a woman?s voice. Vanessa. ?We?re in the same trade. I saw your advert. Do you want to go out for coffee??
That was her initiation into what Vanessa, real name Truida, called the AECW: the Association of Expensive Cape Whores. ?Oh it?s like the Woman?s Institute, only we don?t open with scripture reading and prayer.? Vanessa was
She recited her life story in a coffee shop in the Church Street Mall. A sharp-featured woman with a flawless complexion, a scar on her chin and red hair from a very expensive bottle. She came from Ermelo. She had so wanted to escape the oppression of her hometown and parents? middle-class existence. She had done one year of secretarial at technical college in Johannesburg and worked in Midrand for a company that maintained compressors. She fell in love with a young Swede whom she met at a dance club in Sandton. Karl. His libido had no limits. Sometimes they spent entire weekends in bed. She became addicted to him, to the intense and multiple orgasms, to the constant stimulus and the tremendous energy. Above all she wanted to continue to satisfy him, even though every week it took a little more, a step further into unknown territory. Like a frog in water that was getting gradually warmer. She was hypnotized by his body, his penis, his worldly wisdom. Alcohol, toys, Ecstasy, role playing. One afternoon he called in a prostitute so they could make a threesome. A month later he took her to a ?club?: a lovely big house on a smallholding near Bryanston. He was not unknown at the place, a fact she registered only vaguely. The first week she had to watch while he had sex with two of them, the second week she had to take part?four bodies writhing like snakes?and eventually he wanted to watch while she had sex with two male clients in a huge bedroom with a four poster bed.
When she heard for the first time what the girls at the Bryanston place earned, she laughed in disbelief. Six weeks after Karl dumped her, she drove to the club and asked for a job. She hoped she might see him there; she wanted the money, because she had lost all direction. But she was not so lost that she was blind to the inner workings. Too many of the girls were supporting men, men who beat them, men who took their money from them every Sunday to buy drink or drugs. Too many were dependent on the perks of cocaine, sometimes heroin, which was freely available. The club kept half of their earnings. Once she had got Karl out of her system, she came to Cape Town, alone, experienced and with a purpose.
?The trick is to save, so you don?t end up in ten years? time like the fifty-rand whores on the street, hoping someone wants a quick blow job. Keep off the drugs and save. Retire when you are thirty.?
And: ?Do you know about asking names??
?No.?
?When they phone, ask who is speaking. Ask for his name.?
?What?s the point of that? Most of them lie.?
?If they lie, that?s good news. Only the married ones lie. I have never had trouble with a married one. It?s the ones who can?t get a wife that you have to watch. The secret is to use the name he gives you when you speak to him. Over and over. That?s how you sell yourself over the phone. Remember, he?s still window shopping and there are a lot of adverts and options and he can?t claim his five hundred rand from the medical aid. Say his name, even if it is a false one. It says you believe and trust him. It says you think he?s important. You massage his ego, make him feel special. That is why he is phoning. So someone will make him feel special.?
