Floating City (22 page)

So when all the boxes were filled, I couldn't stop thinking about
Angela and all the other low-income women who had revealed so much of themselves, exposing their most painful and intimate secrets to me with such heartbreaking generosity. All that data would grow deeper from a solid basis of comparison. I owed it to them to keep pushing. For that matter, I owed it to them to broadcast their story in the most effective medium I could. So I risked annoying Margot by asking each of the three brokers if I could talk to any of their employees directly.

Two refused outright. “I don't mind telling you about me, but I need to protect these women,” one said.

The third was a manager named Darlene. Margot was called away just before we finished that call, so I took that moment to pop my question.

“I could probably introduce you to a couple of people,” Darlene said.

That night, she gave my phone number to two of her employees.

The next day, both women called. I started with my usual “looking for advice” approach, asking them for the best strategies to win over the trust of their peers. Before long I had learned they were both white and twenty-five, earned about fifty thousand dollars a year working just two or three days per week, had high school degrees, and had come from the South to New York to be actresses. Both had been beaten up by a client at least once. Both had been forced to perform sexual acts against their will.

The first one stopped there. But the one who called herself Cathy told me she had plenty of time and was happy to answer any question I could throw at her. Thrilled, I asked her to name the hotels and bars she worked. She got out her date book and reeled off her last month of appointments with an efficiency that would have impressed Bill Gates. I asked about conflicts she had experienced, the biggest challenges she faced, the most annoying details—just throwing out whatever topic came to my mind—and
she kept tossing back answers as if we were playing some fun information game. I wrote down the details as fast as I could, then ventured the uncomfortable question of what acts she performed and what she charged for them.

Cathy told me everything, adding amusing details wherever she could. “That guy, he actually was working for a publishing company,” she said at one point. “I told him I kept a journal and he said he would really like to help me get it published—as long as I didn't put his name in it!”

Cathy told me about gypsy cab drivers who found her dates, probably some of Manjun's friends from Hell's Kitchen. She mentioned doctors who gave discount medical care or drugs. She talked about the emotional impact too. Even accounting for bravado, it was striking how differently she and the Angelas of the world viewed their lives. Instead of shame and fatalism, there was a note of defiance.

When she finally had to go, Cathy offered to hook me up with her friends too. She seemed to understand my
n
problem instinctively, actually volunteering concern that she would be able to get me a wide enough sample to represent the full range of upper-end sex workers operating in the city. “The industry is changing so quickly,” she said. “You have to talk to as many people as possible. Some of us like hotels, some are online only. There's a wide variety.”

Within a week, I had talked with fourteen high-end sex workers, all white, all from middle-class backgrounds, 80 percent from outside New York. They broke down into two basic groups. First, the aspiring artist type, who came to the city to act, model, or dance. They worked as massage therapists or physical trainers and supplemented their incomes through sex work once every few weeks, earning between thirty thousand and sixty thousand dollars a year. Sex work helped keep their American dream alive.

The second group came from the lower rungs of the business
world, mostly saleswomen, paralegals, administrative assistants, or human resource associates. They were a few years older than the aspiring artists; like Margot, many had turned to sex work after divorce or professional frustration. For them, hooking was just a way to get by and maybe even settle the score a little—to make men pay for their sins.

For all of these women, sex had become a general currency. In exchange for referrals, they slept with bellhops, hotel clerks, strip club employees, and gypsy cab drivers. For medical care, they slept with doctors and dentists. When money was tight, they borrowed from strip club managers, bartenders, and clients, and sex often became their means of repayment. Strip club managers were particularly notorious for using debt to force women to sleep with patrons and friends.

The material seemed so rich. Soon after, I got permission from Columbia to start a long-term research study and quickly landed a major research grant. I began to hire assistants. Separately, with my own funds, I also hired a videographer, filmed a dozen of the interviews, and began trying to raise money to make the documentary. Finally, all my efforts seemed to be gaining momentum.

•   •   •

C
athy called me again a month later. She was no longer working for Darlene. “I work for Tori now,” she gushed. “I couldn't believe it when she said she was about to see you!”

At that moment, I was just heading out of my apartment for my first interview with Tori, an Ivy League graduate who managed a very exclusive agency on the Upper East Side and also invested in several strip clubs in New York and Florida. Her clients were such prominent people, she had been very reluctant to grant the interview, so I was surprised she had blabbed about it to Cathy. “Tori told you I was going to speak with her?” I asked.

“I'm the reason you're talking to her!” Cathy said. “Tori and I
go way back. We took dance together for years. She wasn't going to call you, but I told her you were a nice person.”

“I don't know what to say,” I said.

“You don't have to say
anything
,” she cried in her excitable way. “And I have something else that you are definitely going to like—one of my
clients
wants to talk to you!”

“A john?”

“Martin. He's a really nice guy.”

This surprised me. Except for my inspiring experience with Mortimer, johns were the one part of the sex work equation I had barely explored. There was already plenty to do with the drug dealers and sex workers and I probably assumed that most men wouldn't want to talk about paying for sex. But Cathy said she'd been telling Martin about how open I was and that I never made her feel like a criminal. “I think he just wants to talk with someone,” she said. “He hasn't been feeling so hot lately.”

I didn't see myself in the role of analyst for frustrated men, I said.

Cathy became indignant. “You said you wanted to learn all about this world, didn't you? Well, he's part of this world. It wouldn't even
exist
without him.”

A few days later, I found myself sitting across from Martin in yet another hotel bar. He was a tall, lanky man wearing a tailored tweed suit with a blue pocket square, his straight blond hair falling over his eyes as he spoke. He kept pushing it back as if each strand had been assigned a particular place on his head. “I guess it started about three years ago,” he began, “when things started to fall apart.”

I hadn't even asked a question! We were barely past hello. Slow down, I told him, and began taking him through my standard disclosure conversation: that I work for Columbia, that I wasn't actually studying johns in a formal way at that time, that I wouldn't use his real name, that I—

“I'm not worried,” Martin cut in. “I trust Cathy completely.”

“Martin, I'm
obligated
to make sure you under—”

“Did I tell you about how many guys I know are in the same situation?” he continued. “At least twenty! It's like the dirty little company secret. But we're not deadbeats, okay? I want you to know that. We are responsible people who are unhappy with our wives for one reason or another, you know, and we all have our personal flaws and compulsions. But we don't want to break up our families.” He repeated his key line. “We are
responsible people.
”

But didn't compulsive and secretive behavior suggest something more serious? Wasn't sex addiction a possibility?

An expression of scorn crossed his face. “I read that stuff in the media. It makes no sense to me. Bottom line, my wife doesn't
listen
to me. Cathy listens.”

Either he anticipated skepticism or my face revealed it, because he launched into a protest before I could even get out a response. “Most of the time, I don't even have sex with Cathy! I can count if you want—Cathy said you liked numbers. Last week, I met her twice—no sex. The week before, we were intimate once and not the other time. Before that, it was June and we had . . .” He thought for a moment. “Six meetings, I believe, and sex three times. So we're averaging 50 percent sex.”

But if the emotional exchange was half the point, I asked, wouldn't it make more sense to have a real affair? Then at least you'd know your paramour wasn't being nice just for the money.

I still didn't get it, Martin said. Affairs were too risky, too irresponsible. The exchange of money
protected
him. “See, it's not like an affair, because I'm not interested in Cathy for anything long term. Cathy is good for me because she knows that I am married and I'm not going to leave my wife. She's there to take the pressure off. Hell, if my wife knew as much about me as Cathy does, she'd be sending her thank-you cards!”

“So seeing prostitutes is good for your marriage,” I said, the sarcasm naked in my voice.

“Of course,” Martin said. He seemed exasperated for a moment, then he asked me quietly, “Haven't you ever had marriage troubles?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Then you understand.”

If he meant the hunger to be with a friendly young woman who did not think you were a bad and repulsive person, I certainly did. But it offended me to be drawn into his world in this way. I wasn't here to talk about me. I was the scientist, not the subject. (I realize now how defensive this sounds, but I was raw enough from my personal troubles, and the act of observation seems to require a certain protective distance.)

“It sounds like what you really need is a marriage counselor,” I said. “Or a psychologist.”

Martin shook his head. “I'm not into the therapy thing. This feels better. Talking to Cathy, that feels
a lot
better.”

With that, he began to unspool the message he'd come to deliver, an odd mixture of apology and boasting. “The thing you have to understand is, guys like me, we're big earners. High achievers. We were jocks in school, we're rising stars at investment banks and law firms, and we aren't going to a goddamn therapist to sit there and whine about how Mommy didn't love us. That guy is a loser. But a guy who spends a thousand dollars to command the attention of a beautiful young girl, especially if he doesn't even fuck her, that guy is a player. And when that guy goes home, he's going to be less stressed out and angry. He's
going to be a better husband.
”

As Martin continued, he chose his words carefully, loading them with just the right amount of emphasis, putting on a performance that was supposed to impress me with its brilliant, blinding honesty. “You're a good listener,” he said when he was finished.

With a bit of embarrassment, I realized that I was filling the role Cathy usually played for him. At the same time, I was starting
to fantasize about yet another documentary, about the complicated lives and complex motives of the high-end john.

“I think a bunch of my friends are itching to talk to you about this,” Martin said. “Do you mind if they call you?”

“I—I—I don't know what to say,” I stammered.

But Martin's phone was vibrating on the table. “Sorry, that's my office. Gotta go.”

He rushed out, leaving me sitting at the table.

•   •   •

W
hen I got home that night, my empty apartment greeted me like a tomb. I hated coming home. All the things my wife had left behind reminded me that I had failed. The coffee table mocked me. The lamps rebuked me. I wanted to burn them all. On one visit to my parents' house I was so upset, I threw away nearly every trophy, picture, and memento I had saved from my childhood, as if those years were somehow responsible for how badly things had gone wrong. All this made me more eager to plunge into a new round of interviews.

But sometimes even that backfired. One spring night, I came home and saw I had a voice mail message. I felt that little burst of hope. Maybe it would be something good!

Instead, it was Margot with shocking news. “Carla just robbed a client,” she said.

What!?
I couldn't believe it. Little frightened Carla, so recently the victim of an assault? Who had been so excited to work for Margot? Who had been so determined to break out of her cultural trap and achieve something? It seemed impossible. Just a few nights earlier, Margot was telling me that she'd sent Carla out on three dates so far and all the clients had given very positive feedback. She finally had that fiery young ethnic girl. She was thanking me. What could possibly have gone wrong?

The voice mail continued with more detail: Carla had gone to an expensive hotel with a businessman, attacked him, stolen five thousand dollars, and fled. Now he was threatening to call the police unless he got his money back.

That was all she knew. Carla wouldn't return her calls. “You're part of this,” Margot said. “You have to help me find her.”

This was now officially one of my worst nightmares. I was a researcher, a disinterested academic. I couldn't get involved in sorting out assaults and robberies. But I felt I owed Margot. And Carla was in trouble. I had to think of her too.

Do the right thing
, I told myself. Picking up the phone, I punched the numbers for Margot's office. I was prepared to tell her that I would go to Carla's apartment immediately and do whatever I could to sort this out.