When Jessica Weber decides to become a prostitute, she thinks she’s solved her problems. A talented and devoted musician, she’s struggling to pay the rent on her ramshackle Brooklyn apartment when she stumbles across the erotic services section of bobsboard.org.
At first, she finds a sugar daddy and is content to be a downtown version of a kept woman. But when her therapist extols the virtues of “sacred prostitution” as a healing art, she embraces her new métier. She meets Kitty Kunt, a notorious transgender sex activist, becomes an ardent proponent of the prostitutes’ rights movement, and begins to take classes at the Sacred Slut School for Sex Positive Sex Workers. She’s found her cause and not only that: finally free from the demands of a day job, she’s able to live out her dream. She puts a band together and is dizzy with the expectation that everything is working out…
American Courtesan is my fist novel. It is an erotic dark comedy, a contemporary picaresque. A scathing social satire set in the early years of the millennium, it reflects a time of material excess and documents the emergence of a sex culture on the internet.
American Courtesan will be available in the winter of 2010.
YOU CAN PRE-ORDER IT NOW FROM ANTAGONIST PRESS:
as a trade paperback $22.95 (includes tax and shipping US only)
or as an ebook $9.99
A Dramatic Reading
BEGINNING:
Prologue: Did I Pass the Audition?
When the buzzer rang and I went to the door, it almost seemed I had no choice. It felt like I was in a movie, acting in a role I’d once consented to play and now couldn’t get out of. So fumbling through all the coats, scarves, hats, and dry cleaning hanging on the wall, I found the intercom, pressed “talk,” and in a voice whose lilting cheeriness nearly seemed to come from somewhere else, said, “Be right down.”
I couldn’t buzz him in because the buzzer didn’t work. Like most things in my life at that time, it was out of order. And the landlord wouldn’t fix it; he wouldn’t fix a thing. I could imagine Gladys, the super, in her broad Brooklynese, “He sends us da friggin’ plumber to fix da electric, da friggin’ electrician to do da plumbing.”
One last anxious glance around the apartment assured me it would do. It would have to do. The pink lilies on the kitchen table cheered everything up despite the drab day. And their fragrance soothed me, reminding me of more innocent times – birthdays, weddings, funerals…
In the hallway, I nearly tripped on the scattered shoes and boxes that belong to my neighbor and best friend, Lainie – slovenly wench. I kicked them out of the way, wincing at her belly dance scarves slung over the banister. So, he wanted bohemian. I’ll give him bohemian. I descended the stairs in my heels, wobbly on the peeling linoleum which trapped dust balls big as kittens.
When I got downstairs, I opened the door.
“Alan,” I chirped, and briskly extended my hand.
He had a round, slightly pudgy face, bangs across a broad forehead, fine straight hair the color of weak tea. He wasn’t as short as I’d pictured, maybe an inch less than I’d be in stocking feet. Wearing a pin-striped oxford shirt and tidy pleated khaki trousers, he had a jacket draped over his arm and a bemused expression on his face. His eyes seemed to jump at the sight of me. Was I more or less beautiful than he’d imagined?
I nervously ushered him into the hallway, which was littered with old bicycles and unsold items from Gladys’ stoop sales. As we paused there momentarily, Alan seemed to inhale me with his gaze. I was sure that he was pleased. I led him up the stairs, jauntily swaying with every step.
On the third floor, I let him into the kitchen and asked him to remove his shoes. He looked dubious, but nevertheless obliged. Bracing himself on the wobbly chair, he lifted his trouser legs and carefully unlaced shiny black dress shoes. Above his socks, downy hair and the swell of strong runner’s calves.
“This is a cute apartment. This is a cute neighborhood.” He craned his neck about, examining my cerulean blue walls, artwork, plants, hodgepodge furnishings. “Is this near Bedford Avenue?”
I then knew he was one of those uptowners who rarely, if ever made the East River crossing. At that time, Williamsburg was still mostly “destination restaurant” – Peter Luger’s Steak House. And though already written about in the real estate section of the Times, it was still for artists and other assorted low-lifes.
“Williamsburg is actually quite large.” I began a lesson in elementary Brooklyn geography, as his eyes followed my extended hand toward the window and the sooty sky. “The Bedford Avenue area, which is probably what you’ve heard of, is down there toward the west, towards the river.”
“Nice view.” I thought he meant my ass, but he was looking toward the Williamsburg Bridge, the skyline of lower Manhattan.
“Yeah, I’m lucky.” I wondered what he’d think if he knew how little I paid in rent, but it didn’t seem to matter. His gaze had definitely shifted from the skyline to my breasts – the no bra thing had definitely done its trick.
When I reached for the bottle of wine he’d placed on the table, a smile came hesitantly to his face for the first time since our meeting. I picked it up and examined it – French, heavy dark glass, white label, gold lettering in an elegant font.
“It was a gift from my boss at Goodman Fuchs,” he said now smiling proudly. “It’s a three hundred dollar bottle.”
He seemed to be looking for a reaction from me, but I just said, “cool,” then trying not to betray my astonishment, went to the kitchen drawer beside the dilapidated stove and rummaging through, came up with the wine opener, opened the bottle, and pulled two glasses out of the cabinet.
“Nice glasses.”
“Dollar store special,” I replied.
Alan looked at me blankly.
“Let’s go into the other room.”
I’d drawn the shades in the front room, but left the windows cracked behind them. It had started to rain, and the wind rippled through the blue satin curtains, making them billow like flags. I motioned for Alan to sit down on the folded futon. “Sorry I don’t have any real furniture.”
“No problem. It’s, um, very…oriental,” he said.
“Mm hmm.” I was sifting through a pile of CDs on top of the stereo. “Do you like jazz?”
“Well, um, I don’t really know. I mean…I don’t know what kind I like. What kind do you like?”
“I like it all – I trained as a jazz musician. Here’s a classic.” I popped Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue into the stereo. It seemed like an appropriate choice for the situation, the silky melancholic plaints from Miles’ trumpet adorned by the pattering rain.
Starting to relax into my seduction, I crawled kittenish into place on some cushions by Alan as he poured me a glass of wine. I took it eagerly. I knew by the way he was looking at me how this was going to end and I welcomed the wine. Besides I was more than a little curious to know what a three hundred bottle would taste like.
“Your place reminds me of an off-campus apartment I once lived in,” he said, smiling politely.
Oh great. Here I was, nearly halfway through my thirties, and he thought I lived like a college student. “Of course.” I tossed my hair nonchalantly. “Where’d you go to school?”
“Yale,” he said, smiling slightly.
“Ah, George Bush’s alma mater,” I blurted out, then immediately regretted bringing up a contentious subject like politics at a time like this. The US occupation of Iraq had ruined more than one good date. “New Haven. I know it well.”
“You do?”
“Well, I went to Wesleyan, in Middletown.” I somehow needed to let him know that I too had graced the hallowed halls of an elite institution of higher education, but he seemed not to hear. I took a sip of the wine and discovered taste buds I hadn’t known existed.
We talked for a while and sipped our wine. He told me about his hobbies, “I play racquetball at the gym.” And “I belong to a chess club.” Then he told me about his job at Goodman Fuchs, the investment bank. “I’m in a new division. It’s brilliant. We take risky things and then spread the risk around, until there is no risk.”
After some time when he poured me a second glass of wine, I noticed his thick gold wedding band. Well, it’s not like I didn’t know, not like he hadn’t told me. I looked at his fingers clasping the bottle and glass. He had remarkable hands, perfectly sculpted, competent. I’d seen hands like that in magazines – clutching Platinum cards, sealing business deals, forging clandestine alliances, establishing global empires; the kind of hands that could have forcefully gripped machinery or tools, but let others do it for them. His best feature. Well, I only needed one thing…
“You’re really pretty. You must date a lot.” He inclined toward me offering the glass.
“Well, I’m tired of dating. That’s why I’ve decided to do this… but I’m not promiscuous.”
“No, of course not.” He paused as though searching for a way to put it diplomatically. “I guess it’s just hard to meet the right guy.”
You mean right to meet the hard guy. I watched his hand trace circles on the rim of his glass. I imagined it on me, in me. I’d begun to get tipsy. I was what they call a cheap date – until I decided to become an expensive one.
“Would you like that massage?” I asked. I was getting dreamy. Miles buzzed through my brain, loosening my sinews. I wanted to get him naked. I wanted to touch his body. My eyes drifted to his crotch. It seemed like he might have a hard-on, but with the way his trousers bunched up, I couldn’t tell. I speculated about the size.
“Only if you’re up to it,” he said.
I was very up to it. The question was – was he?
We dragged the futon to the center of the room where I covered it with a clean sheet, smoothing out the wrinkles. As I searched for a bottle of massage oil and dimmed the lights, Alan began to undress. I’d expected him to be more reserved, but he disrobed casually in the center of my living room as though we were an old married couple and he’d undressed in front of me innumerable times. The comforting sound of the rain tapping on the roof and the familiarity of my home gave everything an air of normalcy, but somehow I suddenly felt like a stranger in my own home. Or more precisely, a stranger in my own body. It felt like something else had begun to inhabit me, something I’d known was always there, but had never given life to. I moved myself aside to let it in. And it felt completely powerful.
He, on the other hand, seemed fragile and vulnerable standing there completely naked with – just as I’d suspected – a huge hard-on. In the dim light, his skin looked particularly white and thin. His torso and legs, on the vertical plane, and his cock, on the horizontal, gave the appearance of separate pieces cobbled together – pieces that he didn’t quite know how to move without further instruction from me. I’d never remarked before how completely helpless a man with an erection could be. When he gave me a pleading look, I told him to lie down on his belly.
As I’d learned in class at the One World Center for Holistic Studies, I began with long smooth strokes from neck to shoulders, waist, buttocks. And from the bottom – feet to calves, thighs. His skin was glossy with oil. The air was rosemary, sage, eucalyptus like a West Coast forest. I focused on his feet, the small toe bones, mounds, hooks, crevices, the indents of the ankle. Then I bent his knee and plunged my thumbs deeply into the thick muscle of his calf.
“Ow,” he squeaked.
“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“Just a little, my calves are sore. I guess ‘cause I played a lot of racquetball at the gym this weekend.”
I continued. Ridges, gullies, jagged ledges, ropey bridges. As my hand crossed the bone that separates the leg from the buttocks, Alan lifted his pelvis like an offering, the back of his balls peering from between his legs. Peek a boo, I thought, slithering down his legs as his pelvis retracted. On his inner thighs, I let my hands dip, barely dusting his balls. Just teasing, just testing. Again his pelvis rose like a soufflé. Soft moans connected the music from Miles to Alan to me and back.
“Why don’t you turn over? I want to massage the rest of you.”
There’s nothing as superb as a man flat on his back, legs and arms splayed out, penis pointing due north. A wondrous sight. I looked at him prone – slim hips, cock in the center of a patch of mahogany colored hair. Waiting. Yearning. I slathered his thighs with oil, my fingers raking the strong muscles and grazing his balls again. As my hands moved up to his cock, spreading the gloss that had gathered on its tip, he began to writhe helplessly. Then he sat up. I guess it was my turn. He lowered me to the futon, unzipped my jeans, hastily tugged them off with my panties, and buried his face between my…. Ahhhh!!!
“I knew you would taste good.”
“I’m a vegetarian.”
I’d expected him to retort that he was a meat eater, but it was becoming more and more evident that Alan was a bit slow on the uptake. No matter. He was a meat eater and what an eater he was. I was astonished not just by his ardor, but by his skill. He was a Grade A pussy licker – every woman’s dream. He had none of that irritating diffidence that some men have – like kittens lapping at bowls of milk. He knew how to work it, how to get on in there. I was overwhelmed; he just kept going and going, drenching me with pleasure and just plain drenching me. When he put his finger inside me, finding that oh so tender spot, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Do you want to fuck me?”
“I wanted to fuck you the moment I saw you.”
I scurried to the bedroom where I keep a stash of condoms by the bed, trembling and weak-kneed. Hurriedly I found one, and dashed back to the front room where he was kneeling on the futon, cock in air, poised for action. I peeled off the wrapper, put it on him, and lay down on my back, expectant.
“Do I get the job?” I purred.
“Do you want the job?” he asked, head of cock suddenly nudging the lips of my pussy.
“Yes. Yes.”
He penetrated me. I gasped.
“I’m fucking you with my big hard cock. I’m fucking your tight little wet pussy with my hard cock. Do you feel my cock? Do you feel my balls slapping against your ass? Isn’t my cock big and hard? Do you like it, how big it is? Can you feel it, how hard it is?”
It sounded a bit like the dialogue from an adjective challenged porn flick, but I went with it. Anyway it would be difficult not to notice in my position. And speaking of positions, just at that moment, he splayed my legs open, and finger on clit, gave me that last little nudge I needed and I came. He followed behind, until he collapsed, panting and sweaty, on top of me.
“That was great,” I cooed and tried to kiss him. But his lips were hard and unyielding. I realized we hadn’t kissed once the whole time. As I tried to comprehend this – I was used to men kissing me before, during, and after lovemaking – Alan abruptly disengaged and stood up.
“Yeah, that was great. Can I take a shower?” he asked, a gust of cold air hitting my body with shivers.
“Sure. Let me get you a clean towel.” I tried to sound peppy, grabbing my robe and escorting him to the bathroom. “So, hot is cold. Cold is hot. Here’s some soap – Dr. Bronner’s. It’s all natural.”
When he emerged from the shower – hair wet, squeaky clean, no stickiness around his cock, no massage oil on his back, no scent of another woman on his skin – we went back to the front room where he’d left his clothes.
“That was really good, but it looks like I’m getting the better half of the bargain,” I said and laughed giddily, drunk from the wine, dizzy from the sex.
“You’re amazing.” He paused from buttoning his shirt and looked at me, beaming. “And beautiful. You have the most beautiful eyes.”
Well that was something at least. It made up a little bit for his refusal to kiss me. He seemed to be in awe, which wasn’t anything like romance, but it was enough. Or it would have to be enough for me anyway.
I’d called him a car while he was in the shower, but when it honked downstairs as he was tying his shoelaces, I realized he was forgetting something.
“Um, you know…the money is what’s going to make this clear.”
“Oh.” He seemed genuinely sorry for his oversight. “I can’t pay you all at once for the month because some weeks I may not come at all and other weeks I may come twice. Is that OK?”
“Sure.”
“Here. Thank you.” He handed me a thick cash machine envelope which he pulled from his jacket pocket.
Suddenly I felt uneasy. Though nothing had happened without my consent – I’d planned and orchestrated the whole thing and certainly enjoyed it while it was happening – there was a nagging feeling in my gut that I was making a mistake. I took the envelope with a gracious smile, but all I could think was: what in the hell am I doing?
Chapter 1: These Twisted Webs We Weave
What in the hell am I doing? I knew what I was doing, I thought after Alan left, while ripping open that cash machine envelope, counting $750, all in crisp fifties. I just got fucked and it was incredibly hot. He ate me out – gave me a huge orgasm. And then I got paid it for it – handsomely. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. Though I had some lingering doubts, I just had to set them aside. Because really, when you thought about it, it was the best fucking job I ever had.
But before I met Alan and accepted that envelope, before I had ever so nimbly crossed the line between being a woman who wouldn’t, to one who would and in fact, did take money for sex, I’d been like so many other unemployed, underemployed, freelancing New Yorkers, trolling the internet for work, posting ads for my web design business on Bobsboard.org, sending resumes into the void, and waiting, hoping for my ships to come in.
You see, after a woefully prolonged hiatus, I was finally making music again. I was back where I belonged, generating new material, recording, working with some very savvy musicians. And although flat broke, I nonetheless couldn’t be burdened with a 9 to 5. I’d do anything to play, sing, write, gig with a band again. Music was my first love, and the way I saw it, this was my last chance.
I’d never imagined finding myself fixated on the erotic services section of Bobsboard, but once I’d let curiosity suck me in, something more tenacious seemed to hold me there.
And in that crowded virtual red light district populated by an endless parade of Asian cuties and busty blondes – obvious links to brothels and agencies – I found a scattering of non-pros and part-timers: students and artists, people between jobs who just wanted help with a purchase or paying a bill. They, like me, had found Bobsboard a convenient venue for hawking their services. But for them it was probably more lucrative – apparently there were more men looking for those women than for web designers. And some of these men were looking for ongoing business relationships. I found their ads intriguing.
Welthy Busness Man for college girl – m4w (49)
Reply to: anon-50769616@bobsboard.org
Date: 2005-08-31, 11:19PM EST
Looking for young cute girl who needs help with her tuision or bills. This could be long term. Discrete and serius only.
Your pic gets mine.
this is in or around New York
it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
50769443
I couldn’t seriously consider responding to Welthy Busness Man. For one thing, he couldn’t spell. For another, I was hardly a college girl. But hadn’t this always been a fantasy? I remembered a few years back enacting a whore/john scenario with an old boyfriend, Jason. It had really turned me on, but hurt his feelings.
“It wasn’t me,” he’d complained after sex.
“Sure it was you. It was you being someone else.” That relationship hadn’t lasted long.
I clicked on another link.
seeking a non-pro female for ongoing arrangement – m4w (38)
Reply to: anon-50769624@bobsboard.org
Date: 2005-08-31, 10:07AM EST
Nice guy, good looking professional seeking attractive female for weekly meetings.
I am generous and considerate.
Photo a must.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
this is in or around New York
it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
50769624
Completely prosaic. Banal even. A “nice guy,” yet what is a “nice guy”? Is offering to pay a woman for sex really so “nice”? And “good-looking”? I suppose everyone’s been told they’re good-looking at least once, if only by their grandmother. He could be hot. Or not. The utter blankness of the ad, its complete lack of character, seemed to fuel my fancy.
As I scrolled through the links, reading the ads, I was coming to realize that the thought of getting paid for sex with a stranger seriously turned me on. Though none of the ads were particularly compelling, I felt strangely compelled to respond, just to see what it would be like, but I forced myself to check my email box instead.
There was finally a response to my ad: Web design needed.
Hi saw your cool ad on bobsboard. I am an attractive young Harvard trained MD starting a practice here in New York. Will offer botox wrinkle reduction treatment at cost for web design services.
Eric Soler MD
Just what I needed. Maybe my landlord would take botox in lieu of rent. He’s got a pretty craggy face. I wrote back:
Sorry, but I haven’t got a wrinkle worth erasing. If you’d like me to build you a website anyway, drop me a line. You can view samples of my work on jessieswebs.com. Good luck to you.
Then without thinking I went back to Bobsboard erotic services and scrolled through the links until I saw:
Classy Courtesan for Discerning Gentleman w4m (27)
Reply to: anon-50769576@bobsboard.org
Date: 2005-08-31, 5:17 PM EST
I’m a 27 year old writer. 5’5’’, 120 lbs, 34 C, long blonde hair, blue eyes. I’m looking for a gentleman with whom I could establish a long-term discrete relationship. In exchange for a monthly allowance, I will provide weekly meetings in my Upper West Side apartment. I am also willing to travel.
You are educated, sophisticated and seek the company of woman who is not only sensual and beautiful but erudite and intellectual. I am not a pro, have never done this before, and am not interested in anything kinky.
Serious only. Please send a photo and be specific about how you would be willing to help me.
Well, if it’s good enough for her, why not me? It couldn’t be much different than the abysmal dates I’d been on lately. And what did I have to show for them – a lot of dinners down the toilet.
My cell phone rang, hurling me back into the heat of the late summer afternoon. I perked up. It could be work. No such luck. It was my sister. She can be a piece of work, but not work.
“Hey, Marn, what’s up?”
“Oh nothing,” she said. “I just got back from my Pilates class. You know, I have a new instructor. He’s fabulous. His name is Butch. Well, his real name is Bill, but there are two Bills, so we call him Butch. But sometimes we just call him Bill numero uno.”
The street noise had intensified in the late afternoon with the relentless Mr. Softee rendition of “She’ll be coming round the mountain” meets third world electronica. I went to the kitchen and got a glass of water.
Marni was babbling on. “He switched up my series and well, Jess, you should see my abs. My tummy is almost as flat as it was before I had Byron. I worked out so hard that I rewarded myself with a protein shake – with peanut butter. And then I stopped by the farm and got some gorgeous mums for the gardener to plant in the autumn garden. I think I’m going to do russet and scarlet this year. It’ll look terrific with the foliage and against the barn. I do need a change from plain old orange and red. What do you think?”
Although I had no particular opinion about the color scheme of Marni’s garden, I was nevertheless trying to think of something meaningful to say when she suddenly seemed to remember my presence. “Oh, Jess, and how are you? Is this a good time? What are you doing?”
I’d taken my glass of water into the bedroom, flung myself on the unmade bed. “Well, uh, actually, I was working, but don’t worry, I guess I could use a break.”
“Oh, and how is that going?” My sister has never believed I really work. In fact, ever since she’d quit her job hawking high end antiques and began acquiring them instead, she’d seemed to forget anyone actually did.
“Great. Fabulous,” I said. “I’ve got some new clients. Some really interesting stuff, one for a….” I hadn’t the vaguest idea what to say so I spontaneously blurted out, “courtesan.”
“Hmm.” She paused to consider. “You mean prostitute?”
“No, courtesan. It’s different.”
“Uh hum.” She cleared her throat, her voice climbing a perfect fifth. “I just wondered how the date with Raymond went.” I could see her in her pristine kitchen – Italian marble countertops, Subzero fridge, restored early nineteenth century Shaker cabinets “rescued” from an upstate farm – the perfect wife in the perfect home. Luring me in.
“Great. It went great.” I really didn’t want to talk about it. For the last few months, Marni and her husband, Wade, had been violently fixated on making a match for me. I don’t know how the idea came up. Memorial Day – Wade blithely flipping burgers on the BBQ, “Don’t we have any friends Jessie would get on with? What about Raymond?” “What a super idea!” Marni looked like she’d die of excitement. I’d played along with their obsession as they called me three times a week with visions of wedding invitations dancing in their heads.
“Oh good! I’m so glad!” Marni sounded elated, but then cautious. “Jess?”
“Yeah?”
“I, uh…I hope you didn’t sleep with him.”
“Why? Does he have an STD?”
Marni laughed nervously. “No. Well, it’s just… I just really don’t want you to embarrass Wade.”
Embarrass Wade? I tried to maintain my humor. “Jeez, I thought he got a commission if I put out.”
“Jessie!” she yelped. I could just see her face go red like it did when I mismatched her Barbies’ outfits as a child. “You know that Raymond is one of Wade’s most important clients. He emailed Wade today and said, I quote, ‘Your sister-in-law is beautiful, charming, vivacious, and bright. I had a lovely time with her. Thanks.’”
“So the preliminary negotiations were good. Are they ready to seal the deal?”
“You know, if you weren’t my sister, I’d never put up with this. In fact, I sometimes can’t believe you’re my sister. Jessie, Wade and I did this for you, because we want you to be happy.” She paused. “We’re concerned.”
“Well, that’s sweet and I appreciate it. I really do, but I’m fine. And, well, Raymond, he’s really not for me.”
“I know you’re fine now, but you need to think about the future. You’re not going to be young forever, you know. We just think that…we just want you to be settled. Don’t you want that?”
The image of my sister and her husband lounging by their pool in Greenwich seriously discussing my case amused me – Wade’s horsy face aglow in the afternoon sun, ruddy and speckled. “You know, dear, we’ve got to do something about your sister. She’s become a liability.”
“I’d rather die than settle,” I said.
“Don’t be such a drama queen. I’m not talking about settling. I’m talking about being settled. They’re different, you know. We’re just worried that all those artsy guys – I know they’re exciting; I know you like them, but they really aren’t husband material. Raymond is very accomplished.”
“Yeah, right.” What she meant is very rich.
“He’s not your typical financier – he’s very eclectic, very international. His mother is Persian. His father was an oil man and a diplomat. He went to the Sorbonne.”
“I know, he told me.” And told me and told me and told me….
I’d met “Ray” at the bar of the W Hotel Union Square. He was short, bald, scrawny-armed and big-bellied. He’d said he was 42, but looked more like 50. Still, I could have gotten past the looks thing, if we’d had anything resembling a reciprocal conversation. Instead he’d talked about himself all night, informing me of his feats as a teenaged world class skier, his fluency in five languages (which he tried out on me one by one), his love of contemporary art (he owned a Damien Hirst and a Jeff Koons), not to mention his philanthropy and his real estate holdings (a penthouse on Central Park West, houses in the Hamptons, Majorca, Tuscany, the Swiss Alps, and on St. Barthes.) Just as I had been about to tell him to fax me his CV, he actually asked me what I did. All I could muster was a deflated, “I’m a web designer.” “Oh, how fascinating,” he’d replied. “Isn’t it so interesting how the internet has changed our lives? Did I mention that I’m great friends with Terry Semel, CEO of Yahoo; Larry Page, co-founder of Google; and Bob of Bobsboard?”
Back on the phone, Marni was patiently awaiting my acquiescence. “I know he might not be your type, but I thought he’d be good for you. He really liked you. And he’s serious – he’s looking for a wife.”
“But, I barely said a word all night. He’s just being polite. He seemed not to notice I was there. I could’ve been the piece of nori stuck between his teeth.”
“That’s not what he told Wade.”
“Oh, c’mon, I’m not really trophy wife material.”
“You’re lovely, Jessie – when you’re not being difficult.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but he doesn’t need me. There’s no shortage of Hampton-house-hunting women with their biological clocks ticking who’d kill for a husband with a private jet and seats on the boards of MOMA, Sloan Kettering, and Designers against Distress.”
“Jessie, give him a chance. At least a second date.”
“OK, I will,” I lied.
“Good. I think he’ll grow on you. And don’t forget Byron’s fourth birthday on Sunday. Mom and Arnie are coming up from Florida.”
“I’ll be there.”
After I got off the phone, I went back to the computer. I clicked the mouse and stared at the Bobsboard posting again: Classy Courtesan. Now there’s a woman who’s taking charge of her own destiny. An artist, doing her work, living her life the way she wanted to. Free.
I checked my email. A new one I hadn’t expected:
We received your resume at InterX Web Services. Are very interested. Please call for an interview.
At long last – a job.
