If I want my time wasted, I’ll waste it myself. – Mason Cooley
One of the banes of an escort’s existence, second only to cops, is constituted by time wasters and deadbeats; the former are men who pretend to be interested in our services but never actually arrange anything, and the latter those who make appointments with no intention of keeping them (or who get cold feet but don’t have the balls to call and cancel). Time wasters are a mere annoyance, but a deadbeat costs a girl time, fuel, and possibly another fee if she turned one down in order to keep the supposed appointment with the deadbeat. Those who at least open the door, admit their change of heart and pay a cancellation fee aren’t so bad, but those who won’t even open the door are in my mind utterly reprehensible.
One sort of time waster is the stroker; he tries to get the girl to talk sexy on the phone (or to send him provocative emails) so he can play with himself, thus stealing her services in addition to wasting her time. This type is pretty easily detected because reputable escorts won’t discuss sex via any form of electronic communication, so if a guy keeps pressing for it anyway one simply hangs up on him. Of course some of them do it while one describes oneself, which is pretty hard to avoid but at least is over with quickly. But I once had a stroker who was far more bold; he asked on the phone what would happen if he didn’t like me, and as usual I replied that he would owe me a $50 cancellation fee. So he asked me to come over and let me in, then said he “wasn’t sure” if he liked me or not. When I asked him what he meant, he told me that he wanted to see me without my clothes before making his final decision.
“I don’t think so,” I laughed. “I don’t take my clothes off until you pay up.”
So he paid me, and I disrobed and turned this way and that while he ogled every inch of my body before saying, “No, I don’t want you to stay. Please give me my money back.”
Now, I didn’t just fall off of the turnip truck; I knew very well what this cheapskate was up to. He figured he’d get himself a strip show for $50, then wank himself as soon as I walked out the door. So I handed him $200. Immediately he reacted; “You said the cancellation fee was $50!”
“That’s for me just showing up; I provided you with a service by taking my clothes off, so I’m charging you double.”
“That’s not fair!” he whined.
“Not fair? Are you for real?” I asked calmly. “You must think I’m some kind of idiot. I know what you’re up to, and you’re lucky I gave you back as much as I did. A less honest girl would’ve kept the whole thing. Of course, if you want to try to take it back by force…”
“No, no, I’m not going to do that!” he assured me, and I left the room after advising him not to try this sort of thing with anyone else. At least I felt reasonably certain that I had ruined his mood and made him unable to use his mental image of my nude body for the purpose he had planned.
The single most common excuse I got for cancellation from the ones who actually opened their doors was, “You’re not what I expected.” Now, I’ve mentioned before my reasonably thorough description of myself, and 99% of my clients were ecstatically happy with my looks and presentation. So, given that nearly every man who said this was either under 30 or not much over it, I am forced to conclude that either A) he really had less money than stated and when he saw a clear-eyed woman of discernable presence rather than a drugged-up trollop he knew better than to attempt to bargain me down to $100; or B) he had fantasies based on stereotypical images and was disappointed that I wasn’t wearing garish makeup and some ridiculous outfit. I can’t be sure, though, because they would never explain themselves more fully.
Once I had agreed to go a particularly long way for a client, out to the nearby town where I grew up. It was a quiet night, but I still made the young man understand that I was doing him a favor by coming out that far (I was the only working girl in New Orleans who would). And then he opened the door and came out with that same stupid statement; I was utterly furious. “Not what you expected?” I asked. “What the hell did you think five foot five, 125 pounds, 34 triple D-25-36 with long curly brown hair and brown eyes would look like?”
“I dunno,” he said, standing there with an asinine Gomer Pyle smirk.
“Are you blind or just stupid?” I then asked, resisting the urge to slap him.
“A little of both, I guess,” he said with the smirk still on his moronic face. He of course refused the cancellation fee as well; judging by the condition of his trailer I doubt he had 50¢ much less $50. I honestly considered calling my husband from the nearby car to beat the crap out of him, but I thought better of it and just left.
Most of them, of course, don’t even bother to open their doors; if they’re scared, playing games or just passed out drunk they don’t even come near the door (the light visible through a peephole darkens when someone puts his head there to look out). One of the ways I always tried to protect girls from such games was by insisting that they call hotel clients on their room phones rather than cell phones; this ensured that the client was genuinely in that room and often that he was the registered guest if the hotel asked (as many do) that a caller confirm the guest’s name before putting it through. If a client did not respond to repeated knocking, it was a simple matter to pull out one’s cell phone and call the room again; if he was asleep or passed out this would usually awaken him so one could ask him to open the door. In the case of a true deadbeat, however, this mattered very little; he knew his victim was out there, and he knew that she knew he was in the room, but what could she do? Well, in some cases, embarrass the crap out of him by writing “deadbeat” or “asshole” or some such on his door in lipstick. I myself never did this unless I was absolutely certain he was in there and refusing to answer, and not even always then. But there were some times that the stupid game made me so angry I just had to waste his time or piss him off as he had done to me.
On one memorable occasion I got a call from an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Metairie (the largest suburb of New Orleans) and since it was a warm, dry evening I went in my convertible. As I got out of the car a kid about 14 years old suddenly appeared at my side and asked me which house I was going to; though it was early evening this made me suspicious. “I hardly think it’s any business of yours, sugar.”
“If you’re going to (the house number), they aren’t there,” he said. Of course, it was the same number my supposed client had provided, but given that I had to park several doors down on the opposite side of the street the only way he could’ve known that was if he had given it to me himself.
“I’ll check it myself if you don’t mind,” I said; of course he was correct and nobody was there.
As I got back into my car, he leaned over my door and asked “Are you an escort?”
“I think you already know the answer to that,” I said, starting the car.
“What do escorts do?” he asked.
“Call me back in about seven years and I’ll tell you,” I said. “Now get off of my running board and don’t bother us again, OK?” He complied, but never stopped alternating between looking at my face and staring at my tits. I really couldn’t bring myself to be angry; he had succeeded in fooling me on the phone, and one expects juvenile pranks from a juvenile. Adult men have no such excuse.
That last story reminds me of another movie: Milk Money. I only saw part of it, but the young boy wanting to gawk at a hooker is a consistent theme.
“Gawk” is definitely the right word. 🙂
I’ve certainly wanted to kill a few deadbeats in my time. One of my girls had a novel way of dealing with one. She was a fomer streetwalker who’d cleaned up her life and gotten an education after getting tired of alternating between life under a bridge or in a dingy hotel room and life behind bars. Whne the sonofabitch wouldn’t answer the door, she made as much racket as possible in his front yard so as to alert all his neighbors to his having called and requested a visit from her. Once lights came on at the houses surrounding houses, she felt she’d gotten her revenge, and we of course quickly left in case before any potential police cruisers could arrive. Of course I reprimanded her mildly for it, but I absolutely agred with her sentments. A few days later the guy called again and tried to pologize and request another visit. It was too late for him though. I’d already blackballed him and let him know in no uncertain terms not only would no girl working for me ever agree to a date with him but no girl from any other service in the area would either. I even spread the word among independent providers I knew to keep the bastard from doing it again. I hate clowns like him.
There’s absolutely no excuse for their behavior; it’s just another example of the idea some people have (reinforced by government and neofeminist propaganda) that whores are less than human and therefore undeserving of common courtesy. 🙁
This happens a lot. I wonder if it happens as much to other house workers like plumbers, electricians, taxi drivers etc. I very much doubt it, but someone should do a survey.
In part, I think, it’s to do with the stigma, causing many sex workers to advertise their bodies but not their faces, and guys wondering what they look like.
Sex workers are very vulnerable when they can be requested to go anywhere + I worry for them, though things are a little bit better now perhaps with the advent of mobile phones. Does the net make things safer or carry its own risks? Certainly I think its enabled at least some sex workers to get off the streets for gaining trade. An inspiration for another posting, perhaps, Maggie, if you haven’t written it already?!
The internet has both advantages and disadvantages; screening clients is far easier for the internet escort, but the reviews written by clients (which form an important part of her reputation) are now being used as evidence in prosecution of escorts, and I’ve also been told that internet escorts feel more pressure to move outside of their comfort zones due to the pressure exerted by the need to get good reviews.
I think I will do a column on this; thanks for the idea! 😉
I’m truly sorry to say this, but the little boy story has me laughing. He has a lot of guts and might actually make a good client with some proper training.
As for the rest…ugh. Time-wasters of all sorts ALWAYS go on my bad client list, even though some girls don’t think they’re “bad enough” to warrant it. If you’re costing me my income, you’re a bad client.
XX
It always makes me laugh as well; I even considered calling this column “Get Off My Running Board, Kid” but “Deadbeats” was a better title for the Halloween season. 😀
“This happens a lot. I wonder if it happens as much to other house workers like plumbers, electricians, taxi drivers etc. I very much doubt it, but someone should do a survey.”
I survey would be interesting. I suspect this stuff happens a lot everywhere. I owned my own business for years and I would say about a third of calls ordering product were bogus. And yes, we were treated as being sub human. I would say goverment workers and teachers were the worst.
This happened to me on a regular basis when I had apartments to rent. People would call me up, make an appointment to look at an apartment, and never show up. In summer, or at least when the weather outside wasn’t bad, it was an annoyance, but having to wait outside that building in the depths of an Iowa winter for people who never showed infuriated me.
As a financial planner, I got stood up a lot – people would pretend to not be home, then when called the next evening would insist that they had, in fact, been home and I must have had the wrong house. *Snort.*
When I ran my own furniture repair/restoration business, I rarely if ever got stood up. Not sure what the difference was, except that people generally don’t like insurance/investment salespeople much either, so it must be “OK” to make them waste a drive across town. Like Technomad, I had the same problem as an apartment caretaker/rental agent.
[…] and trying to keep her on the phone as long as possible, or actually making an appointment and then not showing up (or not answering when she shows up), or taking every minute of the purchased time and then […]
I also rent apartments, in a high demand area. The no show rate is 50%
Reblogged this on Sierra Dayna and commented:
It never ceases to amaze me at the inconsiderate behaviour of a time waster,one who contacts a companion with no apparent intent of meeting ,perhaps he may be lonely or perhaps one might say he gets off at acting in this manner neglecting the fact that this is a business.A gentleman on the other hand only contacts when he is serious,has limited communications with a companion as he is a busy individual ,he sends an introduction ,including his credentials for verifying perhaps some playful banter,after the companion clears him and he is verified,they are all set till the day of or day before in which he contacts her to confirm.Simple and quite effective!
I recently had a potential ask to see me. I told him my donations and he goes, “Do you talk dirty?” I said, “Yes”. He then goes, “Tell me something dirty to get me in the mood.”
Uh, no.
This is after him asking me, what we would do physically, and I told him that I can not discuss these kinds of things via text or phone. Ridiculous.