Call Girl Confidential Read online

  I had one regular client in Philly who was engaged to a doctor. Her schedule made for a very difficult personal life for him sexually, so I was merely a release or retreat from the frustration that he would have for the rest of his life, should he go through with his marriage to her. Another regular client there was one of the biggest Republicans in Pennsylvania. Kristin would have his favorite girl, whose pseudonym was Rowan, come up from Florida for him.

  The men in Washington were insane. It was a company town, and power was the product. They had a whole other concept of what prostitution was. There were some threesomes, which was fine. But they wouldn’t leave after their appointed time. And everybody in D.C. was expecting bare backing. No condoms. Who on earth would take that chance? They were abusive, mean, and relentless. The first time I went to Washington, I was supposed to stay for five days; I left after two. We did not do any further market research in D.C. after that. Kristin sent me back to another state’s capital, and that’s where I had sex with my first governor.

  NINE

  two governors

  I traveled to a certain city and checked into an apartment that Kristin maintained there. I was supposed to meet a man named Trevor. He wouldn’t be hard to miss: He drove an Aston Martin—James Bond’s vehicle of choice—and when the silver, aerodynamic work of art whirred up to the curb, I stepped right in.

  Trevor was handsome. No: he was drop-dead gorgeous, and he seemed pleasant enough in the short time it took for him to drive me a couple of blocks to a restaurant. We could have walked, but I never question clients! It was a lovely space, with French doors opening onto a small park. It was early spring, and crocuses had popped up around each tree. I chuckled to myself at the phallic imagery.

  Trevor and I were having a cocktail at the bar, when he turned to me and nodded.

  “That’s our governor over there having lunch with some of my friends,” he said. “Would you like to meet him?”

  “That depends on if he’s a liberal or not,” I joked. “I’m a Republican, you know.”

  He chuckled, took me by the hand, led me over to the governor’s table, and introduced me as Ashley.

  “Governor, I don’t know if you should be seen with these reprobates,” Trevor ventured, causing his pals to laugh. “I’d like you to meet Ashley . . . Smith. Watch it: she’s a fiscal conservative.”

  “Well, she’s a hell of a lot prettier than Jan Brewer,” he guffawed. “Nice to meet you, Ashley.”

  He should have said “Ashleys.” I could have sworn the governor said that right to my breasts.

  Other than that, he was really gracious. It was casual. I shook his hand, and Trevor and I returned to the bar. I didn’t think much of it. But I thought it was weird that Trevor would take someone whom he’d hired to meet the governor. Trevor said the governor was a client of his. It could have been true.

  We stayed at the bar, talking for two hours about politics, why I was in this business, and what I was really going to do with my life. He really wanted to know, and he had a way of making you want to tell him. I told him nothing about Isabella, but at this point I had gone back to school, and that was an easy topic to bring up and discuss with any client. We finished our drinks and then drove back to the apartment. Trevor came up and we had sex. For such a great-looking guy, I guess any girl would be hopeful that he would have been absolutely amazing. And he was, but it wasn’t that blow-me-out-of-the-water sex that he should have reciprocated. It was fine, though. In this business, you get used to that.

  I was still in town a couple of days later when Kristin’s booker called. She told me that Trevor wanted another “date.” Frankly, that perplexed me. Trevor was a very young guy, handsome enough to be an actor. He was single, impeccably dressed, manicured in every way. He was extremely confident, and he appeared to have money. This was a man who would have no problem getting girls. Based on how things went last time, it must have been a lot better for him than it was for me. Check for my ego.

  Trevor said he wanted to come directly to the apartment this time. When he arrived, he rang the doorbell and I buzzed him through. I opened the door, and to my surprise, it was not Trevor standing there. It was the governor, smiling. For a split second I thought he was in the wrong place, but I recovered in a beat and invited him in. Ah, now I get it, I thought. Trevor was literally test driving me for his boss.

  The governor was in no hurry. He strolled over to the sofa and sat down. He was more than pleasant. He wasn’t chatty, but he did ask me about myself, and I said I was a student. My clients always liked that I was in college. There was no strangeness whatsoever between us, but I did keep expecting him to acknowledge that we had met previously at the restaurant through Trevor. He never brought it, or Trevor, up. He had the situation under complete control.

  Still, I sensed a neediness about him. Because he was a governor, I hesitated to touch him. But he soon made the first move, and there it all began. He was “old-school”: no foreplay, just enough action to get him hard enough to perform. Although he would try to be a man and take charge, he wasn’t exactly going to finish that way, so I always had to take control. And he never talked during sex, but afterward it was clear that he wanted to feel like he had blown my socks off. He’d grin from ear to ear, and from the way he looked at me, I got the feeling he believed I really wanted him.

  He was a member of the good old boys’ club, if there really is such a thing. The kind of powerful man who would sit in a room somewhere smoking a cigar and talking smugly—and with plenty of exaggeration—about what he had just done to me. I think he bought into the idea that I was impressed with power. Little did he know that “governor” ranked pretty low on my client list.

  He didn’t even take an hour. I never questioned him when he left without paying. I was sure he wouldn’t, forgive the pun, screw me over, and that I would be hearing from Trevor. After all, I certainly had something on the married governor now, didn’t I?

  I saw the governor several times over the next year or so. I never met him in public, of course. He always came to the apartment. Always at night, around dinnertime. On all the dates, no money ever exchanged hands between us. Trevor handled the money.

  I never had a problem with him, unlike another governor I had as a client. He was never chatty. But you could tell he genuinely needed the affection he apparently wasn’t getting at home. He was very appreciative. Someone who appreciated you taking time with him. He never tried to give you the feeling that you were lucky to have him as a client. I’m not saying it was a girlfriend relationship, but the sex was very relaxed, calm, and pleasurable. Nothing freaky. And he would always say thank you.

  Still, I thought of my sister and my political friends from the other side of the aisle. Oh, what they could have done with that tidbit of information. He’d better watch it, I thought. I hoped he wasn’t so free with others who might start talking.

  Oh, but he was an angel compared to another governor I had as a client. As the whole world knows by now, New York governor Eliot Spitzer was a client of Kristin’s. They heard about Ashley Dupré. They didn’t hear about me.

  It was an appointment set up two or three days in advance. It wasn’t one of those Can-you-be-somewhere-in-an-hour? things. Kristin said it was an important client, but she didn’t say who. She briefed me on what he liked—what he expected. He needed the scenario specified to the girl in advance. He’s a role-play kind of guy.

  He didn’t want mainstream intercourse. He definitely wanted a struggle.

  There was a whole dialogue I was supposed to have with him. I was supposed to say I had just been to a self-defense class. He was supposed to respond: “Well, then, let’s see if you learned anything. Can you protect yourself?” He would be the aggressor. I would have to defend myself.

  I was at Kristin’s apartment at the Corinthian in the middle of the afternoon. Kristin was working on her computer in the other room when he arrived.

  Ah, I thought when I answered the door, this is the re
ason for all the secrecy and preparation. Why didn’t Kristin just tell me? Did she think I wouldn’t recognize him?

  He had his jacket off. He was in a shirt and tie. He was cordial enough, but there was no suggestion that we have a drink together. There was none of that.

  He said he didn’t want to wear a condom. I said that was not negotiable.

  He then started to feel out whether I understood what was expected: that I was supposed to show him some of the things I’d learned in my “self-defense” class, and then he would show me a thing or two. I told him I understood.

  He just jumped right in. He was like some of the guys who envision themselves in a porn movie. No initial tenderness at all.

  It was really about pretending it was a struggle. He wanted to believe that the situation was real, that he was attacking me and that I was defending myself. He put up a pretty good fight.

  It was I who was taking control of him initially. I felt really stupid at first. But then I got it. I’m pretty strong. I think he was gauging my strength.

  I didn’t feel I was acting after a while. He preferred it. The more struggle there was, the more he was into it. He became extremely comfortable with what was happening. You can tell when someone finds a comfort zone. He was so into the situation. Now this girl understands; here we go.

  I remember holding his wrists, him pushing back, me trying to hold my stance, and then we moved to the bed. My clothes came off in the fray.

  He really wanted to be in control. It was all about restraint and holding me down until I was nearly helpless. He really put on a lot of pressure, pinning me to the bed. That didn’t bother me. That’s what I was told to expect.

  It takes a lot to scare me. I’ve been through a lot. But at this point I was starting to get worried.

  He wasn’t pretending to be a rapist. But he was like an attacker.

  I still had my lingerie on. He was naked. He was aroused. I thought, What can I do to get this part over with? What can I do? At some point we have to get down to having sex and move on.

  I remember trying to push myself up off the bed. That made him apply more pressure. It happened so quickly. I think when I pushed up, he thought I was asking for more. He applied more force. Almost the entire time was consumed with this struggle.

  It wasn’t that easy to get out from under him. This wasn’t playtime. He was taking it really seriously. He was getting what he wanted. He liked the struggle. There was no safety code word we’d agreed upon. I hadn’t thought it would get this intense. He doesn’t know I’m being serious that enough is enough, I thought. I was really worried. It got rough. And then he put his hands around my throat, strangling me.

  When he grabbed my throat, that was too much. He wasn’t squeezing. He was pushing down. I was on my back. I don’t know if he was trying to really hurt me, but he was.

  He took it a little too far. Maybe if I were more experienced, which I was not, it would have gone on. I was nervous. I was worried. This is not OK, I thought.

  After it was over, he got dressed to go. He never said, “I’m sorry, are you OK?” Nothing of the kind. He acted like everything was normal. But before he left, he gave me a very big tip. It was separate from the pay, which was about $1,500 an hour, and Kristin was going to handle that. Maybe it was to keep me from saying something. Or maybe he was sorry. I do remember him perspiring a lot. My friend who knows a little Yiddish calls him “Governor Schvitzer.”*

  * * *

  * Former Governor Spitzer denies that this encounter occurred, calling it a “fabrication.” He also denies that he ever met me and that he ever had any connections to or dealings with Kristin Davis or her operation.

  TEN

  the last great madam: anna gristina

  Kristin was too flamboyant, and she was becoming too unpredictable. When she got drunk, she’d pitch hissy fits and do things like throw her phone against the wall. The longer I worked for her, the more convinced I became that she would get busted.

  The job had become less and less outcall, which meant less money in my pocket and an even bigger hit to my soul. I felt like I was becoming less and less of Rebecca, and I didn’t know who I was. Things were not going well in court; money was not coming in; and my heart and love of my life, my daughter, Isabella, was still not back home with me. I was working eight-hour shifts at Kristin’s apartment, and I felt like I was going to a job. I couldn’t believe I had gotten to the point where I had accepted that this was my job. It was depressing. I was lying to everyone about how I was making money, and it was getting really hard to keep up with who I told what. I’d go home after a long day of incall work and Kristin or her booker, Lucy, might suddenly call and ask me to go back out on an outcall.

  One night Kristin sent me on an outcall to a client’s apartment. We went to clients’ apartments all the time, passing photographs of their wives and children in silver frames on the grand piano on the way to the master bedroom.

  This client was a major New York real estate developer. He liked to wear women’s underwear, so we called him Panty Man. He had a whole case of silk panties, albeit very large panties, in his apartment. There was a lot of hush-hush about it. Kristin didn’t want a lot of discussion because she was afraid that new girls wouldn’t want to go. He was one of Kristin’s regulars and paid by credit card.

  I went to his apartment on the Upper East Side. He answered the door in a thong. He was a very overweight man, and his stomach was in rolls. You couldn’t see the thong at first. He looked to be in his forties.

  His apartment was huge and beautifully decorated, but that night it was in disarray. Perhaps his wife had taken the kids for a ski vacation; who knows? He had video cameras mounted all over the place. We passed his teenage daughter’s bedroom; it was immaculate, like a neat little fortress against the weirdness.

  He then brought out the cocaine. He did so much blow. He asked me if I wanted some, and didn’t mind when I said no. Some clients do.

  He asked me to use sex toys—on him. He wanted it to go on for hours, but I just said I couldn’t extend the session because I had another appointment. I think it was the thong.

  The job just seemed to be getting worse and worse. I worked briefly for a different agency that operated like a factory. It was ridiculous. They wanted me to rent my own hotel room and have sex with as many guys as possible, all day long. I made $6,000 or $7,000 in a day. It was a time when I really needed cash to get up-to-date with my bills, especially for Ms. Alter. I did it for about ten days straight. I made a lot of money, but my body was completely torn apart and exhausted. I was a mess, physically and mentally.

  Another escort at Kristin’s, Olivia, told me she secretly worked for another madam. She didn’t want Kristin to know. But her competitor had operated totally under the radar for fifteen years in New York City, with business around the world. She had the most beautiful girls flying in from around the country, and the wealthiest clients would book them in advance like a celebrity junket. Olivia bragged about how much money she was making with this other madam. I said, “Please give me her number.”

  I called her the very next day and explained my situation. The woman had an accent; was it Irish? No, Scottish. She called herself Caroline. Only later would I learn that I had been speaking to the legendary Anna Scotland. Aka Anna Tennant. Aka Anna Gristina.

  She replied, “I have to have you checked out. I don’t take just anyone. Go to this address. My friend Christie will meet with you there.”

  Olivia had told me that nobody gets to meet “Caroline” directly. A lot of girls never saw her face. Neither did most of her clients. Most people had no idea what she looked like. And the truth was that Olivia had only done one job for Anna, and it had been a specialty job. She wasn’t working for her as a girl on her roster. Anna was confused about how I got her number in the first place and was nervous about it, so I revealed my source. Anna proclaimed, “Well, then, she’ll never work for me again.” Pretty harsh, and I got the message. I passed t
hat number to no one.

  I went to the predetermined place, and Anna’s intermediary, Christie, was there waiting for me. I met her at a well-appointed apartment on the Upper East Side for a meet-and-greet. I had to sit and talk for a while. She wanted to know everything about me. I was pretty forthcoming about who I had worked for before and why I was moving on. I talked about how I grew up and where I came from. She also asked me what films I liked, whether I’d read any good books lately. What restaurants I went to. I think she was trying to determine whether I could hold an intelligent conversation with cultured men.

  Then she asked me to undress completely. I’m slender, with natural breasts and a slim waist. I have long legs, and no cellulite, thanks to years at the gym. My hair is naturally pale blond, and it’s down to my hips.

  Christie walked around me, and when we were face-to-face, she reacted with one word: “Great!” Christie asked if I was ready to work. “Oh, I’m ready, all right,” I answered.

  “Then you’re going to have to leave Kristin Davis and not say where you’re going,” she said. “Caroline expects exclusivity.” This was actually the first time I had ever heard someone ask anyone to do that. But I liked it. It made me feel like this was on an entirely different level. That would be an understatement. I had no idea what I was about to get myself into.

  After my first job for Anna, I had no problem with that. The client paid me $5,000, and my cut was $3,500. Anna’s clients paid more and tipped way better—they might leave a four-figure tip—and because Anna had had clients herself at one time, she gave the girls 60 percent, unlike Kristin’s half cut. I said to myself, OK! If this is what this woman can deliver, I’m in.

  Soon after, Christie called to find out my availability for a photo shoot with a well-known photographer who has a secret side business photographing call girls. Anna had rented out a house, hired a caterer, and organized a couple dozen of the sixty or so women she had working for her at the time to pose. It was a snow scene, and we wore elf hats and furry boots and, well, little else. She also had us pose for the clients’ lookbook. She kept all of our photos so we couldn’t bring them to another agency. This was entirely new for me. I had never had photos taken. This meant that clients would actually see the real me when they were deciding which girl to book.