THE GIRLS

The iron laws of economics apply to the sexual services industry just as any other. At the bottom of the range - the street-corners - competition is a matter of price and proximity (as it is between McDonalds and Burger King). In the middle of the market - the "yellow pages" agencies - it is a matter of attaching extravagant claims to an indifferent product (as it is between Ford and GM). At the top end of the market - my former agency - things are far more a matter of quality, style and reputation (rather as they are for Ferrari and Rolls-Royce). Price is a secondary concern. It's the excellence of the product the customer is interested in.

Elsewhere (see The Service) I describe what we provide for our clients: "the best sex; good company; quality escorting; and all wrapped up in complete discretion".

Now ask yourself: How would those same nymphos/junkies/MAWs fare attempting to provide such a service?

Discretion? From an actress?

Quality escorting? From a nymphette?

Good company? From a junkie?

The best sex..?

Well, a nympho may perform often, but that doesn't mean well; and the junkie may think she's good...but then she also may think she's a giraffe or an airplane; and the actress may...well, you've seen "When Harry Met Sally", right? Oh, and the model. The current icon of male desire. But do guys really think she'd be any good in the sack? Bottom line is that sex is an athletic activity. Do you really think one of those stick-insects could perform for more than thirty seconds at a stretch?

I'm willing to conceed the odd actress or model may have done okay in the business, but I regard them as exceptions. Aside from which, the mere mention of them again conjures up the name of Heidi Fleiss...the "How Not To" of professional escorting. In my experience, MAWs were simply not a presence. And they were certainly not what my former employers looked for.

Which prompts the question: who did my agency employ?

There was, of course, no identikit girl. But, for all our differences, it is possible, looking back, to see that in many respects we were quite a homogeneous group. And, although I doubt that any one of us would register top marks in every one of the categories I'm going to list, the following characteristics and abilities were central to what the agency was looking for in its recruits.

* Good-looks.
Okay, this is a no-brainer. But I use "good" rather than "amazing" deliberately. Model looks weren't required. Girl-next-door pretty was quite sufficient. Indeed, a fresh-faced look was preferred to the over-painted glossy-magazine one. A girl exuding youthful vitality was much preferred to anything vampish.

* Compact Physique.
Hollywood seems to think call-girls start at six foot. In my experience the opposite is true. Average, even slightly below average, heights are preferred, for the simple reason most guys like to be taller than their escort.
The popular image is on surer ground in seeing us as svelte. This is so, though we're not anorexics. The agency encouraged us to work out, though almost all of us didn't need urging; we were the sort who did so already. Consequently, though lithe and uniformly fat-free, ours was a toned, healthy, athletic look.

* Fluent English-speakers.
Most of the girls were American. There were a number of English girls, the odd Canadian or Scandinavian and one or two of the "cosmopolitan" types who seem to have roots in several countries and none. But it was fluency in English rather than this or that nationality that the agency required of its girls.
The reason was simple: not just in the countries we focused on, but others - indeed globally -, the language of the wealthy and successful - i.e. our clients - is English. Period.

* Good Background.
Another thing the movies and novels get wrong is in making the call-girl some poor lost soul from the gutter dazzled by the world of rich people. In fact, the roots of high-class escorts are not only invariably middle-class, but often towards the upper end of the middle class.
Take me: I went to a private girls' day school and grew up round country clubs. And, while I wouldn't describe my roots as wealthy, they were certainly comfortable.
This sort of background, not poverty, was the norm.
Remember: the agency needed girls at ease in the world of the wealthy. Someone like me, just a couple of notches below it, was far better equipped to blend into it than someone from a housing project and a city high school.
There was also the matter of accent. Of sounding right at the social events a client might want to take you to. Basically, you just have to sound intelligent, but two accents are definite pluses...and two clear minuses. The pluses are British English, which sounds erudite and sophisticated to American ears, and Soft Southern States, which sounds sexy; the minuses are Valley Girl (okay it's a manner as much as an accent) which marks you as a moron, and Noo Yawk...which is social death, pure and simple.

* Intelligence.
The executive who hires a top escort isn't, as a general rule, in need of an update on the daytime soaps. He's only rarely interested in which rock star has just released a new album. So, if those are your main conversational gambits, you're in trouble.
In fact, of course, if that's the limit of your conversation, the agency would never have hired you in the first place.
The clientele my former agency served consisted almost entirely of clever, successful men. And, while they may have hired us to help unwind, they were still looking to unwind in the company of someone with whom they could conduct intelligent talk.
On top of which, there was the actual escorting side of the work. Often this involved mixing socially where, again, you had to be able to impress in educated company.
So the agency usually looked for college co-eds: preferably ones on decent courses - some real academic discipline, not a joke major - and at the better schools. Of course, there are plenty of retards at the average college, so it was a rough yardstick. But in the absence of better alternatives, it was one the agency stuck with, at least as a starting-point.

* Athleticism. Who do you think is better in the sack: Kate Moss or Jackie Joyner-Kersey? It's not a hard call to make. Sex is intense physical exercise, and the best athlete is the best equipped for it. Far better, certainly, than some malnourished model.
Which is why the agency sought an athletic background in its recruits.
Some girls were gym fiends: into aerobics and workouts. Several others had been dancers or studied dance. (Indeed, a background in ballet was reckoned a BIG plus by the agency. The reason? As someone put it: ballet is "lap dancing for the rich". The tuxedo brigade fantasize about Sylvie Guillem the way they drool over Heather Locklear down at The Hard Rock Cafe.)
In most cases though, it was sports that featured on our resumes, and usually quite a lot of it. I, for instance, was a good swimmer and a more than decent tennis player but, if anything, I was towards the lower end of sporting attainment. Other girls had been nationally competitive, and the agency recruited NCAA scholarship kids like crazy. (In fact, they focused on it so much, we joked about the agency running its own "college draft".)
Not that they looked at every sport the same. Generally, they didn't recruit from things like basketball or volleyball: these tend to feature big, rangy body types, and (like I've said) that's not what the market wants. Instead, it looked at - and got - sprinters, swimmers, divers and gymnasts.

* Grit.
Hollywood loves to portray call-girls as traumatised/victimised/stressed out.
This is the polar opposite of reality. Anyone emotionally frail wouldn't have got to first base with the agency. It couldn't risk hiring anyone who might "lose it" under pressure. The stakes were altogether too high.
What it wanted was tough-minded, level-headed types; girls who could cope with any kind of crisis without embarassing themselves or the agency.
Apart from which, the day-to-day demands of the work demanded we be cool, grounded people. Practical. Gritty.

* Sexual Maturity.
High School boys get obsessed with football; Troy Aikman, John Elway and Brett Favre don't. They don't because they can't afford to. It's not an obsession for them...it's a job. Which means they need to approach it cooly and professionally...not in a state of hyper-ventilation.
It's the same for a call-girl. We don't obsess about sex. We can't. It's our job, and we have to be cool and professional about it...as well as very good.
(Note, again, how this rules nymphomaniacs out of the business.)
So, when the agency recruits, it is looking for girls confident in their sexuality. They'll be experienced certainly. Probably fairly promiscuous; but selectively so. The type willing and able - in college, say - to pick the guys she wants and to go get them; the type that has already instinctively learnt how to use her sexual wiles.
The agency will take those instincts and skills and build on them. Experience does the rest.