An escort after a date, alone in a hotel corridor
The door closes behind me. I am alone in the long corridor of an elegant hotel. It’s the middle of the night; guests are sleeping behind monotonous hotel room doors. Here and there, I see a ‘do not disturb’ sign or a used room-service tray that has been put outside the door. Except for the cameras, no one can see me.
As always after a date, I cast a quick last look into my purse; do I have everything: my mobile phone, my key and my fee? Yes, the envelope with the slender, large banknotes is safely tucked away in a pocket hidden in the lining. Just a moment ago, my gentleman-spender gave me a kiss on the cheek as I bent over him on the bed to say goodbye – him, shot to bliss, in a post-coital coma.
My mobile phone – check! Some messages and missed calls in the last couple of hours. Most numbers I don’t recognise: probably people who had found my number on the website of my escort service Hetaera. They haven’t even bothered to carefully read every single profile; they just wanted to know if any of our ladies were offering their services tonight. Yet, Hetaera is not a traditional escort agency: It is a high-class escort club. Ergo: Return calls are out of the question. Which services we are offering is something the ladies like to discuss with their clients in private. It’s just more fun like that. Hetaera Berlin escorts don’t guarantee any specific erotic services. Still, if they do take place, then it’s because the ladies themselves enjoy it just as much as the gentlemen clients do.
The key to my flat – as always on the bottom of my bag. My bed is waiting for me, the bed in which I’ve never had sex and actually hope I never will. Still, I don’t feel like going home just yet. I feel good right here; I want to enjoy my adventure just a little bit longer, in the delicately scented air conditioning, surrounded by the luxury of this hotel in Berlin’s central Mitte district. I would probably not be able to afford a room myself, here. I’m an intruder, a stowaway passenger in this world of luxury, to wich I‘m only allowed because some people find pleasure in me and in my company. By no means could I ever afford this on my own merits. But then again: Who would be a member of the jet-set based purely on their own merits, without at least a bit of luck and good connections? And also: How many women are staying in this hotel tonight because of their husbands? Or maybe even as some sort of erotic company for a couple of hours of a particular kind of delight, while they describe themselves as models or hostesses on their tax returns? Or maybe even other women working as escorts without being ashamed of it, like myself?
The hotel is something special: It’s not part of a chain, not one of these hotels you can find the same version of in Berlin, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Cologne or wherever. The building is more than 100 years old, it has high ceilings and dark parquet. Everything here imbues old city secrets. You feel like you’re lost in decadent dreams, as if you weren’t in Berlin but rather in Rome, Trieste or even Marrakesh. The dimly lit high and thick walls absorb noise and thus seem tailor-made for erotic encounters. There is still some excitement in my body and in my head; I’m still in my role of the wicked courtesan, of the queen of the night, still in my costume: my silk dress and my haute couture cape – both so suited for this setting.
I am going in the direction of where I believe the elevators are – as always, I cannot find them; initially, I go in the wrong direction, but after some wandering around on the sound absorbing carpet, I find myself in the marble-clad entrance hall. I reach for my cell phone and turn it loud.
Private friendships in escort service – for a good reason
Who can an escort lady call shortly after sex? Her agency? To sign out like a good girl? No, that’s not what I do. Call her best friend? That’s probably what every girl who’s new in this business is inclined to do first. You’ve had so much fun and the guy – who is the same age as your professor – was a gentleman; everything was so incredibly nice and he accommodated all of your wishes. It all felt so natural, just like in real life! And the fee; for that amount of money your friend would have to work for a whole month, or even longer! This is when you realise just how happy your friend will actually be to share your joy with you – at this time in the morning, looking at her alarm clock.
Let alone what it’s like to call someone after a rather unpleasant experience with a client. To those who are seeking comfort in this emotional turmoil, who are looking for affirmation and love, for someone who will tell them that it wasn’t their fault, that they haven’t done anything wrong, that they shouldn’t blame themselves – to those I would like to say: Don’t do it. These friends, for whom it’s totally normal to be frustrated in their office jobs, to hate or fear their bosses and who struggle from day to day with the week-end as their only light at the end of the tunnel, these friends, who tell each other that it’s normal to feel like that, that life “of course isn’t a walk in the park” and that – as an adult – it’s the only reasonable thing to do – these friends will always say just one thing to the escort girl complaining about her job: “You have to stop doing this.” In the perception of others, an escort is only allowed to have hot encounters – with the exception of convinced dropouts telling everyone they have been manipulated and abused.
At this time of the day, the only ones who are interested in receiving a call from a call girl are in fact other call girls. That’s to say: Other high-class escorts – of course I don’t want to offend anyone.
No matter how good, how bad or how averagely kind my client was, there will always be some lady colleagues who are still awake at this time of the day and find pleasure in evaluating my evening over a couple of cocktails. After all, these ladies may actually also cross paths with the gentleman in question at one point. I send a couple of messages. Surely one of the ladies will respond, perhaps even all of them; Didn’t Liv have a date tonight as well? Or maybe Fanny, the new girl? Maybe they’ve just finished, too and are still a bit high after the tension being released; maybe they want to celebrate, too?
In the elevator, a quick glance in the mirror – my hair is wet, my eye make-up is smudged, but my skin is glowing, my cheeks are rosy after sex and I feel pretty. I believe I never look as good as I do after some hours of fruitful sex.
Hotels at this time of the day are magical places. Their grandeur and vastness can only fully be experienced right now. There is no hustle and bustle of checking in and out, there are no business men with trolley bags on their way to the railway station or to Tegel airport, dictating their smartphones. The subdued light subtly underlines the wall decorations and the opulent flower arrangements. There is background music coming from the bar: soft jazz. The bar tender is immersed in a book, still he immediately notices me as I’m making myself comfortable at one of the tables next to the bar and he puts a small bowl of truffle popcorn in front of me as if we’ve known each other forever. I have no wishes; he has no questions.
I wonder whether one can see what I’ve just been up to. That, just twenty minutes ago, I was still wound around the body of a highly aroused gentleman, three floors higher? To the experienced eye, it should be clear that I am not a hotel guest; that I am only visiting – from the large handbag I am carrying. A hotel guest surely would only bring her key card and cell phone with her to the bar at this time of the night. And even if I’d come from outside, I wouldn’t have wet hair and you would not smell the hotel shampoo from it. Do they have a presence of mind like that, the bar tenders and night porters of grand hotels? Do they at least remember seeing me here before? That I am the one who has a taxi ordered for her in the middle of the night? The one who is never at breakfast?
On a side note, I love this version of Berlin between the night and the morning: the dark golden hue of the street lamps; the ink blue sky over Gleisdreieck park; the nightingales in the shrubbery along Landwehrkanal; the wideness and emptiness of those streets, when all of the traffic lights are out and the taxi drivers are talkative. That’s all still waiting for me, tonight – I’m taking my time. I order a glass of red wine, Bordeaux. It’s dark and heavy and it burns on my lips, slightly swollen from all the kissing. It’s a lovely feeling. One that many people only experience when they are freshly in love. My cell phone lights up: It’s Thaïs! She’ll be there in a minute. She loves it, too, this world of hotels, of their bars and of taxis at night. We are two conspiratresses united in the common pleasure of being a prostitute.