being a sex worker at new year

Working as a sex worker over New Year can be hard work but financially rewarding. It can also bring much joy and pleasure on all levels to client and escort alike, and in different ways. Here - John Bellamy recounts a New Year from the 90's.

On the 31st of December some decades ago I took a call from a client. He was in London with his lover and another friend. The friend had lost his partner of 20 years - that year - and this was to be his first New Year without him. So an emotional time.

He was from Chicago - as were his friends who had brought him to London for the Festive Season and this being New Year, they wanted a 4th - a friend for him so he would not feel alone, even while with friends. Being a professional - I was very up for this kind of booking.

We met and to be honest, all were tall and handsome and Brad - while having lost his lover of over 20 years looked far too young - and wore his age well.

As soon as our eyes met there was a connection and within minutes I had him laughing at some silly Limey joke and the fact I had lived in the USA also helped break the ice.

They were staying at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel on Baker Street and after cocktails in their suite, we set off for the central London nightclub The Hippodrome.

Being an escort is not always going out to dinner and then shagging the client -:- a lot of being a GOOD escort is being able to listen and be sympathetic, and as I was also a bereavement therapist - I felt quite at ease in this situation.

I never asked about his past partner - especially on this night - and we chatted and laughed about the differences between the USA and England and the four of us headed up to the restaurant level of The Hippodrome where they had a table booked.

At £75 each for dinner and £75 each bottle of bubbly, this was an expensive evening and considering I was also being paid £500 for my services, this was an evening I knew I would remember. This was probably some time in the early 1990's.

The nightclub was packed to the gills, with probably over a thousand people dancing, drinking, eating, cheering and generally having a noisy time when spot on midnight, the whole club erupted to Lulu and her famous SHOUT played loud through the sound system and we were all on our seats by this time dancing ( we were still on the restaurant floor which would have originally been the balcony when this was still a theatre ) and it was SCREAMING ..... The place was alive and the cheer at midnight went through us all.

Arms in the air, jumping up and down, all screaming out the Lulu song.... the place was buzzing.

I made sure I paid Brad ever more special attention at this time making sure he was alright and not thinking back too much, but looking to the future. It is good to remember and good to have a past, but if you get stuck in ' what was' then you can never be free for ' what is to be.'

Smiles and laughter all evening. Good food and wine helped of course but - more to the point, I kept my client - Brad - entertained and laughing all evening and when at 2am they decided to leave - I went with them showing them the way back to their hotel as finding a cab was impossible, and even though this was central London, not a cab to be found.

None of us were big drinkers and as I don't drink at all, we were all happily merry and not falling down drunk, which ruins any evening out. It was actually only a 15 minute walk and I was hoping Brad would invite me to stay the night in the hotel with him as my 'contract' was not for an overnight but just the evening with dinner and company for Brad, but as finding cab to get me home would be impossible, when he asked if I'd like to stay, I accepted and we spent a very nice and pleasant night together in his hotel suite.

We had sex - all very gentle and easy - kind and thoughtful sex - tender and loving sex - and when cuddling up after, he said it had been the most perfect evening and he had thought before hand how awful it would be, how depressed he would be - how alone he would feel - but that I had brought him out of himself and he hadn't thought of his partner half as much as he thought he would and that he had enjoyed himself immensely and actually - so had I.

In the morning his friends ordered breakfast in their next door suite and we joined them and all enjoyed champagne and strawberries as well as a typical Full English which I pointed out to them was not English but an American invention and we chatted for hours about our new years resolutions and which ones we knew we would not even keep so why waste time even thinking about them, and we all laughed. Being a force of nature - having a large personality - always allowed me to mix in with any situation and rise above, and this evening was no different.

It had been a sensational evening and I truly felt I had done some good here - helped this first new year go with laughter and not tears - fun and not depression, and it always joyed my heart when you KNOW you have helped and how this will be talked about when they get home to the USA and how well the evening went.

When it came time to go home and leave Brad, I had already been paid in advance as I took the booking with a credit card payment ( so I know it was genuine and that I would be paid ... ) and I was given a £250 cash bonus - discretely - by Brads friends and Brad handed me ( again discretely ) a £250 tip - and this was starting the New Year VERY much on a high. His friends told me I was exactly what they had hoped for - for Brad - and that they were so pleased to have met me and seen Brad so happy.

I said my farewells, gave Brad a huge hug and told him to stay in touch as friends - not a client and escort - and I taxied home to Hammersmith.

I had no special event booked for New Year as it has never meant that much in my family and to go out in such style, and with such lovely - really lovely people - and be part of their world and they a part of mine, even for just an evening, and to be able to help someone at a time in their lives when they feel everything is falling to pieces and I can help brighten their mood even if just for an evening - is a joy in itself.

Friends who popped round later that day were astounded at the story I shared, the money I had earned and the ability to fit straight into any situation, and they were aghast. While they were escorts as well, the one escort they all looked up to - the one who always led the way - the one who ran the large escort agency they all worked for - the one who shone above and beyond any other sex worker / escort in London at that time, was me - and I giggled to myself as so much of what I offered was just - from the heart and not always thinking about the money all the time, but the person, the client, the man who wanted - needed - and I would always offer the very best I had to offer, and for this, I was the best.

This was many decades ago and out of all the tens of thousands of clients I had over the years, and while at least 90% of my clients were repeat clients, some as often as weekly and for decades - and while Brad was a one of, I have never forgotten Brad and have always kept that New Years Eve in a very special place in my heart and in my memory and while I never did hear from Brad again, I know he was on the road to recovery and a bright future ahead.

Life it what you make it. Being a sex worker - in many peoples eyes - is a low life - scum - below the lowest - but that is the thoughts of an ignorant uneducated person who assumes all sex workers are alike and while there are many scummy and low class sex workers out there, just as there are scummy low life people IN ALL PROFESSIONS - there are also the high class, the educated and really good sex workers out there who - like me - shone above and beyond and meant something very dear to many clients who adored and cared for and enjoyed the company of myself if and when - and it was not a low life service, but one of such style and care and for that, I am immensely proud of what I did, proud of who I touched on and proud that I set the bar so high for others to aspire to.

That was decades ago and while I offer the very best I have to offer, still, and on every New Year - at and through Hamilton Hall, the journey continues and when a passenger on a cruise ship in Tahiti met another customer of Hamilton Hall and they agree that ' That John Bellamy is quite a character huh ?' and how Hamilton Hall is so well known globally, it does make me giggle and pleased that so many - so many - have felt and will feel a little of the madness, the joy, the spiritual and the smiles that make up a day in my life and the rewards are enormous in mind, body and soul.