Diary of a Married Call Girl

4 Lingerie Liberal

FRIDAY, 3/23/01

This morning my fingers were engaged in a painstaking task—removing tiny green rosemary leaves from a stalk containing too many black ones—when both phones started ringing at once. The domestic landline I share with Matt and my cell phone (shared with no one), vying for attention. I grabbed the phone on my kitchen wall.

“Nancy! What’s up? Those bibs are adorable! I can’t wait to break them in.”

One of Elspeth’s newborns could be heard wailing in the background.

“My au pair started yesterday. She’s a godsend. Fabulous. And I finally had a chance to open all the presents! What are you doing?” she inquired.

“Making a rosemary marinade. And I have garlic all over my hands!”

It was nice, for once, to have an easy answer for my sister-in-law.

“We have to talk about your friend Allison.”

“We—um—we do?”

“You’re obviously uncomfortable about inviting her to Jason’s birthday party.”

“I don’t think—”

“Nancy, it’s the kiss of death. You can’t let this happen.”

“What are you talking about?”

The garlic on my hands was now overwhelming.

“During the first year of my marriage, I made the same mis

take. You’re alienating yourself from your single girlfriends. It’s a normal feeling. But you have a great relationship with Matt and there’s no reason for you to act so insecure! Besides, I’d like to meet Allison.”

“I don’t think any of this is relevant,” I said, rather stiffly.

“I think it is. And I’ve been there. I know what you’re going through.”

Been there? Elspeth has no idea where I’ve been!

“I am not going through what you think I’m going through.”

I instantly regretted the coldness in my voice. Then realized there was nothing to regret. Elspeth was barreling ahead, determined to liberate and reform.

“I know exactly what you’re going through. Matt already told me how uptight you’re getting about Allison. I just want you to know—this is a phase and it’s not a healthy one! Single women are not the enemy! They can make married life more interesting. And acting paranoid about single women makes you less attractive to your husband. I found that out on my own, and I’m giving you the benefit of my experience.” After a heavy silence, she continued. “You missed out on having a sister.”

She’s trying to be…my big sister?

I am a big sister. With two brothers! As an eldest sister herself, she should know that this is just not done.

“I always wanted a sister,” said Elspeth. “We need to communicate more! Besides,” she added, “all my girlfriends are married or engaged, and Chris is such a catch! I hate to see a guy like Chris at loose ends.”

The distant wailing resumed. Would Elspeth’s maternal instinct please override the sisterly one? But her fabulous new au pair wasn’t going to let that happen.

“What about…” I hate to do this to my twenty-something cousin, but she doesn’t have to know it was my idea. “What about Miranda?” I suggested. “I know she isn’t dating anyone special.”

“Your cousin? Isn’t she a little immature for Chris?”

“Chris would be perfect for her! She needs to start dating above Fourteenth Street.”

“Good point.…Hey,” she said, “aren’t you—? Don’t you have a French class on Friday mornings?”

Elspeth has an unnerving habit of starting a new topic just when I think I’m getting a handle on the previous one.

“I—um—I don’t always go at the same time. My instructor switched days this week.”

“Oh. I thought it was a class. It’s one-on-one?”

“I have to go!” I gasped. Riffing desperately, I added, “Someone’s at my door—I’ll call you back.”

I hung up fast and counted to ten. Gazing in horror at the kitchen wall, I discovered that I had a bad case of garlic phone. You can’t tell your phone to chew a handful of raw parsley, so I attacked the handset with a succession of cleaning potions and hoped for the best.

As I returned to my marinade, I could feel the mantle of frumpiness enveloping my deltoids. Settling upon my shoulders like a ghost. Elspeth has no idea what my life is really about, but something she said managed to hit home: couple-centric paranoia isn’t pretty. And makes single women look soooo much more attractive to a guy. Especially your own!

Of course, there are plenty of other good solid reasons to keep Allie far away from Elspeth and Jason. I’m doing the right thing.

But still. I don’t trust my best friend the way I used to. Because she’s not married! And I trust Trisha—whom I’ve known for just a few months—because she is.

Married hookers instinctively trust each other. We speak the same code, tell the same lies, fear a common peril. I can’t help feeling that an unmarried hooker—especially one like Allie—hasn’t got enough to lose.

Does that make her the enemy of my marriage?

SATURDAY, 3/24/01

Matt told Elspeth how uptight I’m getting? Paranoia “makes you less attractive” to your husband?

It’s all starting to get to me!

Last night, sitting across the table from Matt, while he gazed at my candle-lit presence, I felt betrayed.

How dare he discuss his lurking disenchantment with his sister?

Did he discuss disenchantment with his sister? Or did he merely hint at it, in the way men sometimes do—before they’re even aware of their own feelings? In which case, the betrayal is unconscious, as so many masculine betrayals are. For some reason, that doesn’t make the loss of face any easier to digest.

“These tomatoes are great!” he enthused. “What’s in this dressing?”

I threw him a flirtatious, secretive smile. If you admit to a loss of face, then you’ve really lost it.

“I think you’re a better cook than…” he paused. “Don’t tell Elspeth I said this, honey, but you’re a better cook than my mother.”

I tried to look pleased, but this wasn’t what I needed to hear.

A good marinade is no replacement for that mysterious allure which pulled him toward me when we first met. I was smart enough, while dating, to save something for marriage. Matt didn’t know I could cook until we moved in together.

Okay, so I know how to date, which is no mean accomplishment. Too many hookers are good at their job yet abysmal at the dating game. But am I smart enough for marriage? It’s a lot to keep track of. Provocative single girlfriends. Keeping my career a secret while keeping it afloat. An extra six pounds. And now, this stain upon my self-image that I’m too proud to discuss with him. Being cast as an insecure member of the Couples Brigade makes me feel officially overweight.

As Matt cleared the table, I made a decision. After he disappeared from the kitchen, I gathered up every bread stick and new potato, and all the crackers, then threw them into a bag. I started to remove a sliced loaf of Eli’s sourdough from the freezer. But Matt will freak if I do that! He’s so impressed with our constant supply of distinctive, ready-for-toasting bread. I spared the sourdough and trashed the frozen wholewheat waffles.

After I disposed of the starch-filled bag, I discovered a box of hazelnut biscotti in a cupboard.

“What are you doing?”

Matt’s voice startled me as I approached the apartment door.

“Throwing these out!” I said petulantly. “I thought you were online! Why are you spying on me?”

“Why are you throwing out the biscotti?”

“They’re stale! Can’t I clean up my own kitchen without being questioned about it?”

He gave me a puzzled look and disappeared again. Perhaps I should have said something else, but I refuse to admit to a man that I’m thinking about my weight. I learned many years ago that if you don’t mention the first five pounds, most men don’t see them. This means I am only one pound overweight in the context of our relationship—even if I’m six pounds heavier in real time. Math is more like a language than people realize. With many dialects.

Later, as I tried to sleep, Matt placed an affectionate hand under my camisole. The memory of his curious compliment came back to me. Cooking. Mother. Maybe the six pounds is taking its toll after all.

“I am not the one who confides in your sister about the details of this relationship!”

His hand stopped moving.

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you think I’m talking about?”

Sitting up, he put his hand on my hair and stroked it gently.

“Something’s bothering you,” he said. “I knew it when you threw out the biscotti.”

Why doesn’t he remember comparing my cooking with his mother’s less than three hours ago? Or what he said about not telling Elspeth? If I don’t remind him, I run the risk of being seen as an irrational harpy, possessed by mental demons! And if I do remind him? He just might decide that I am his mother.

God.

What’s happening to me?

MONDAY, 3/26/01

Matt has replaced the biscotti. A loving gesture, but I wish he wouldn’t.

After a weekend of moody reflection, make-up sex, and a Pilates class (to take my mind off the mood that the sex didn’t dissolve), I’ve got an emergency session with my shrink—to discuss the mood that Pilates could not vanquish.

Yesterday, while we made up, I imagined that Matt was degrading me in all sorts of unspeakable, systematic ways. I sometimes wonder about the orderly nature of my fantasies. Of the lurid underworld I’ve invented where I only have to fall into my correct place for everything to go according to plan.

Is this a hooker thing? In the business, there are too many days when sex doesn’t go the way you hope it will, and the body (his, yours) miscalculates. A hard-on falters, a dollop of K-Y is just not as much as you need, or another girl is in bed with you, misreading your cues. Sometimes a customer is late, or you get stuck in traffic, which throws off your whole routine. A perfectly choreographed day with the sex just so and everybody coming (or showing up) on time is a dream I’ve been chasing since I started hooking. In my erotic fantasies, it is somebody else who plans and organizes the sex. Within seconds of envisioning such efficient depravity, I find it hard to stop myself from coming.

And making up with Matt is always good. He’s got that instinctive knowledge about how to touch me. As I held on to Matt after an explosive climax, he had no idea what I was thinking. Matt has a certain way of coming that satisfies and possesses. Because I’m not the first or second girl in a list of favorite phone numbers. And there is no chance that I may have been the third number called, in the hope of fitting in a quickie before the Metroliner. When he comes, it’s with me, and the sensation can’t be replicated—for either of us—because it’s too intense.

In the physical afterglow, our bodies were at peace. But my mind was still warring—with itself.

LATER

This afternoon, I put it to Dr. Wendy: “I have every right to protect my marriage from my best friend!”

Dr. Wendy leaned back in her chair, clasping her hands in her lap. I could see her biceps peeping out of her polo shirt.

“Say more,” she urged.

“Allie would be hurt if she knew this but lately I trust Trisha more than I trust her. I could introduce Trish to anyone in Matt’s circle. Even my nosy sister-in-law.”

While I’ve met Allison’s parents—a trusting gesture on her part—I keep her as far from my husband as possible.

“I can’t trust Allison to keep our story straight. I feel close to her—because of what we’ve been through—but that’s not the same thing as trust.”

Trish is just a girl I work with but there is so much I don’t have to explain to her. Our priorities are the same: preserving a husband’s innocence without losing too many clients.

“Matt and Elspeth are asking me all these questions. They can’t figure Allison out. And I don’t want them to,” I said. “Straight people always want to know how you spend your time. They have no idea how nosy they are! Nobody would ask me what Trish ‘does.’ Trish doesn’t have to explain herself because she’s a mom. I feel safe around her. I hardly know her but I know we belong to the same tribe.”

“And yet, this tribe is a faction of a much larger tribe,” Wendy said.

“Marital Nation,” I suggested.

“Do you and Trish belong to a special branch of the marital tribe? Or do you feel like the married branch of the sex worker tribe?”

“Nobody I work with—except for Allie—calls herself a sex worker,” I said.

Wendy looked thoughtful.

“Is there a preferred term?”

“Oh, it all depends. Allison likes this word Trollop, actually. She’s got a new e-mail sig: ‘Trollop-at-Large!’ She’s putting together a benefit for the…Council of Trollops. And she’s dating this guy who’s making a documentary about hookers! She went and spoke to his class at the New School because he wanted to make sure there would be an actual working prostitute to answer all his students’ questions! And now they’re going out together!”

“What does he teach?”

“Something to do with American Studies. He wants her to be in his documentary—and she hasn’t said no, which worries me sometimes. I don’t dare look at my e-mail when Matt’s around. What if he sees Trollop-at-Large swimming around in my in box? Allie’s turning into a liability.”

But my shrink was looking impressed rather than horrified.

“Your friend sounds rather brave.”

“Brave! Allie’s not—I was hustling in hotel bars when I was fifteen! That was brave!”

“Yes,” Wendy said “Perhaps—”

“But if I continued to do the things I did when I was a teenager, I wouldn’t be brave, I’d be out of my mind!”

“But what do you think Allison was doing? When she was a teenager.”

“I know exactly what. She was a cheerleader! At some high school in Ridgefield, Connecticut! Allison didn’t have to clean her own room until she went to college! I had to clean my room, do the dishes every night, AND rake the leaves. Her mother picked up after her.”

I had to nip my shrink’s budding admiration in the bud ASAP.

“You have different parents and you’ve led different lives,” she said in a more neutral tone. “But you’re very close to her. Or you have been. Is friendship always about sharing the same values and experiences? Sometimes—”

“It’s not about her!” I blurted out. “It’s me! I found out the other day that everybody thinks I’m some kind of overweight paranoid housewife who hates single women!”

“Everybody? How did you find this out?”

“My sister-in-law! She’s—she’s conspiring with my husband—”

Wendy was staring at me intently.

“—to invite Allison to a dinner party. There’s only one way to deflect Elspeth from hunting down Allison. I have to let her think I’m one of these, you know, hardcore wives who just wants to hang with other couples. I know how to keep Matt and Elspeth off the scent—but I hate myself!”

“For betraying Allison?”

“For being the victim of my own frumpy game! I guess I should feel like I’m winning. They have no idea what I’m really hiding. But my sister-in-law thinks I’m a clingy wife, shunning my single friends. And my husband is starting to compare me with his mother! I’m turning into…”

I couldn’t say it.

“What are you afraid you might become? Marriage can play havoc with a woman’s particular sense of her own identity,” said Dr. Wendy. “In your case, there are multiple identity issues—”

“I don’t have multiple personality disorder!”

“I didn’t say that.” Dr. Wendy was gentle but firm. “It’s clear that you’ve chosen your various identities. But what are you trying to say or not say about being a wife?”

“Could I have become, in less than a year of marriage, the total embodiment of everything that causes men to see hookers in the first place? That’s so not fair!”

I was getting shrill and looking around for the box of tissues.

“That’s probably not how I would describe it,” she said. “But that’s how it feels to you. Today.”

“Not just today—all weekend! But if I seem to be that and I’m not really, then I guess I’m doing a good job at being a wife?” I grabbed a few tissues. “In fact, I’d be doing a great job.”

“Because you’re still in control of your identity.”

“But if I’m really becoming what I was pretending…” I was fighting back tears of anger. “I don’t know how to do this—this married thing. And all these questions she was asking—my sister-in-law started pestering me about my French lessons. It was awful. Remember the plan I came up with, to become a translator?”

“Yes. I remember that.”

“It’s a lot more stressful than I thought it would be.”

“Career transitions are emotionally demanding,” said Wendy. “I went through one myself when I decided to be a psychotherapist—after six years of teaching phys ed.”

That explains the biceps! I’ve been to three different female shrinks, all on the West Side, and Dr. Wendy’s the only one who takes responsibility for her upper arms. I’m not saying that’s why I stuck with her, but it certainly didn’t hurt. It’s hard to take advice from a therapist who doesn’t take care of herself—like my first shrink, Dr. Anita Samson, who was very overweight and chain-smoked. During sessions! There’s nothing more discouraging than a shrink who looks physically unhappy. Dr. Wendy hasn’t got a clue about hair and she doesn’t bother with her nails, but she takes good care of her body. She has the cheerful yet earnest look you want in a shrink. Or a phys ed instructor.

“But this is a fake transition,” I said. “I’m just transitioning from one cover story—one fake job to another!”

“You aren’t the only person I’ve encountered who is juggling additional career narratives,” Wendy pointed out. “An imaginary transition is quite challenging.”

Put that way, my situation sounds almost genteel.

“From a therapeutic perspective”—Dr. Wendy adjusted her glasses and leaned forward—“the imagined career is as meaningful as a remunerative job. Perhaps even more so. Every career is an exercise of the imagination, if you think about it. Your transition is not unique,” she told me. “In the world of work, it’s common to exaggerate or invent. I knew a man who was unemployed for months. His family had no idea. He got up every day, put on his suit, and went out of the house, without ever missing a beat. The human imagination is pretty resilient.”

“Oh my god. Like that middle-aged guy in The Full Monty? Are you saying I’m in the same boat as him?”

The out-of-work factory manager with the bad lawn decorations? Who can’t tell his wife that he lost his job?? My self-image doesn’t really see itself that way.

“That’s a good example of what I’m talking about.” Wendy looked pleased, as if she might be on the verge of handing out a gold star. “The boat is very full.”