ALOT OF regret fills this little jail cell.
Helen, who sits on the floor next to me, averts her eyes and shifts to turn her entire body away from me. Even Helen with her salon-blonde highlights, fancy jewelry, and expensive clothes no longer has anything witty to say now, no more quotes from American self-help authors or any show-off Chinglish terms she picked up from television.
When you think of the typical woman in her late twenties or early thirties locked up in jail for solicitation and for being part of a prostitution ring, you don’t think of someone like me. Sure, I’m pretty enough after makeup to get paid for having sex—my measurements are 34B, 24, 34, and my long, black hair shines like a shampoo commercial right after I leave the salon. However, most of the time I have my hair up in a ponytail or bun, wear thick black-framed glasses, and go about my day without a trace of makeup on. That’s how people at school remember me, as a graduate student and teaching assistant at a reputable university. In my diurnal life, I am surrounded by sociology textbooks, highlighters, red pens, and piles of unmarked research papers. Most of my colleagues and the students at school would never dream that I would be a sex worker. In fact, they probably think I’m an old maid. But the truth is, a part-time teaching assistant doesn’t get paid much, maybe 350 NT, about ten USD an hour. A girl’s got to pay rent, buy clothes, eat, and take care of bills. My parents helped pay my undergraduate tuition, and I promised that once I was a graduate student I would take care of myself. I felt bad that they were still worrying about providing for me when they were half retired and running a little stationery store. I used to watch the store after school, and I knew very few people actually came in and bought anything, and when they did, it was something very small, maybe a ten NT eraser or twenty NT pen. My parents needed every meager NT they made.
I thought it was fate that the day I got my first paycheck from my teaching assistantship, I met Helen. Originally, I had been thrilled that I got the tuition waiver and assistantship, and thought I wouldn’t have to worry about my finances. Generally, people are happy when they get their first paycheck. They celebrate; they go out and spend a good chunk of it. I, however, got depressed. The check wasn’t enough to cover the monthly rent of thirty thousand NT for my tiny Taipei apartment on the eighth floor of a dingy concrete building. I was going to need a roommate or a second job, possibly both.
It just so happened that Helen, whom I did not know yet, was in line in front of me at Everlast Bank. She fanned herself with a thick stack of cash, showing off. I could smell the greasy glue-and-paper smell of the bills from where I stood. They smelled like envy. I thought to myself, mostly to make myself feel better, that maybe she was a clerk at a small business, and her boss sent her out on a bank run. That was the only reason a woman so young would have an entire paper fan of thousand-NT bills. Maybe I was staring at her money too much because she turned around and grinned right at me.
“It was a good week,” she said pleasantly.
“Week?” I asked weakly.
This woman made more in one week than I did in one month. And she read my thoughts.
“Payday disappointing?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the check I was holding.
“No kidding. I won’t be able to afford food this month. Eating’s overrated, anyway.”
“Well, you know, I was just reading a book by a famous American author about how you should never think about how you can’t afford something, but instead, you should go look for the money to make it happen. You don’t have to cut out food; you could just get yourself a bigger paycheck.” Helen mimed a bigger, rectangular paycheck with her index fingers.
Who didn’t want to make more money? More easily said than done. I said nothing, but mustered up a smile to go with my polite-but-indifferent nod.
“Let’s have some afternoon tea after this if you’re not busy. My treat. I think my agent, Tan, might be able to hire someone just like you,” Helen said.
Agent? Was she a movie star? Movie stars don’t receive cash by the bundle like that. Porn? I was intrigued and desperate enough that after depositing my check I actually followed her out, listening to the crisp click-clacking of her high heels against the cement.
Half an hour later, we sat on the top floor of the fancy new Breeze department store. I took a sip of the imported Darjeeling tea from an elegant porcelain cup painted with yellow flowers, so dainty I thought it might break if I set it down on its matching saucer too hard.
As I sipped my tea, Helen suggested I sell myself into prostitution.
Only she didn’t call it that.
“We are freelance entertainers. What we do is public relations, in America they call it PR. Prostitutes—hell no! Prostitutes have no control over which clients they take and sex is their only trade. We PR girls often have other talents or professions that we do during the day. You said you are a teacher? I’m pretty sure we have another teacher, too. There are also a few housewives, a law student, and I work at a cosmetics counter a few days a week. I don’t do it for the money, though. I do it for the employee discounts and endless free samples.”
Helen went on and on, and I listened with my mouth open.
“So what do you think?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t do anything like that,” I said, and meant it.
What would my parents say if they knew that the college education they paid for only amounted to my becoming a part-time prostitute? I reached for my jacket and purse, but Helen waved over a waiter carrying a tray filled with exquisite desserts: blueberry cheesecake, tiramisu, cream puffs, and green tea mochi. I would have said no, but before I said anything, my stomach growled, not just briefly, but two obnoxious, drawn-out gwwwoo-ow-ow-ow sounds. Helen laughed and took two desserts from the waiter’s tray and pushed them in front of me. Too embarrassed to object, I picked up a little silver fork and ate.
After tea and dessert, Helen handed me two business cards, one black, one pink. The pink one was hers. (“Call me if you need anything, or just want to have afternoon tea again!”) The black one belonged to her agent. (“His name is Tan, tell him I recommended you. He’s lovely.”) I accepted the cards with every intention of throwing them in the trash as soon as I was out of her sight, but soon forgot them at the bottom of the canvas bag I was carrying that day.
The next month, however, as I was withdrawing cash from an ATM, just about emptying out the savings account I’d been slowly adding to with Chinese New Year red envelopes since I was a little girl, I remembered Helen and her offer. My dad helped set up the account for me when I was in third grade and I was supposed to add to it, not deplete it. There’s no harm in having tea with Helen again, I figured. Besides, I am a sociologist looking for material for my research project. Maybe I should look into this industry. There could be thesis material in Helen’s underground PR girl ring. If this didn’t work out, I’d have to do something gerontology-related, and I didn’t feel like spending the next five years of my life in an old people’s home.
I went through everything in my closet. I tried on so many dresses and suits, a mountain of clothes and hangers had formed on the floor of my closet by the time I decided on a simple black shirt and jeans.
I arrived early at the top floor of the department store and waited for Helen. I must have read every item and description on the menu five times, though the words slipped through my mind without registering. Finally, my new friend arrived in a slinky white dress with crystals on the neckline and slinky fabric that hugged her body. Her brown sunglasses had very prominent logos on the side, probably an expensive designer brand.
“So, you changed your mind?” Helen’s lips sparkled from light pink lipstick with a glimmering sheen.
“I just wanted to find out more,” I said, pushing up my glasses and fancying myself a sociologist doing important, undercover fieldwork.
“I talked to Tan about you. He would love to meet you in person. In fact, he said that he might stop by soon,” Helen said. “He’s bringing the book.”
“What book?” I was taken aback by her springing Tan on me, but at the same time intrigued. After all, this was what I was here for, wasn’t it?
“It’s the book with all the girls. A catalog. It lists everybody’s measurements, includes a current salon picture, and also specifies interests, hobbies, talents, and sexual preferences.” Helen gestured with her hands as she spoke, like it was the most normal thing in the world, a menu of purchasable woman.
“Sexual . . . preferences? You mean like if I prefer a man or a woman?” I asked.
“That, of course, is a basic thing, telling us what you are open to. But also, do you like S&M? Are you good at role playing? Are you dominant or submissive? Are you willing to dress in costumes such as schoolgirl outfits? Do you like rubber garments, pain, or bondage? What about feet or other fetishes?”
I knew such things existed, but I never thought about them in conjunction with myself, or regular people. Were all the clients perverts? I’d only had groping-beneath-covers sex with an ex-boyfriend from college, and it had been a while. Had all men become perverts while I was busy studying?
Tan arrived a few minutes later, dressed in a cream-colored suit that contrasted with his brown sunglasses. His brown briefcase, which he set on the table after shaking my hand, sported a heavy-looking metal lock. I wondered if the briefcase was filled with cash or shiny gold bars, like in the gangster movies.
“You have a real air of purity about you,” Tan said, looking me up and down.
He unlocked the briefcase and took out a leather-covered book, one like the typical salon-quality photo album. It featured women in schoolgirl outfits or white dresses, with innocent, wide-eyed facial expressions; whip-wielding women in rubber suits with blood-red temptress lips; women with bleached hair in bikinis; punk rock chicks on motorcycles. The text beneath the pictures was too small for me to read quickly, but I noticed numbers in bold: height, weight, and the bust-waist-hip measurements of each of the women. My mind raced as I pictured borrowing Tan’s catalogue and quoting parts of it for my master’s thesis. It might even be published as a book. Of course it would be published as a book. Sex sells, after all. Maybe I should interview the women and get some fascinating, in-depth case studies.
“I think you would be great as a sexy librarian,” Tan said, interrupting my thoughts. “And you are very educated. You will be able to carry on a good conversation, which high-level businessmen and government officials love.”
“Government officials?” I asked.
“Sure, we have all types of clients. Many rich and influential men, and they are rather selective. I only sign the best girls, classy women like the two of you. And, of course, utmost secrecy among all parties is imperative. We don’t PR and tell here.”
“So what would I have to do?” I asked, already plotting to avoid legal issues by drafting disclaimers, getting releases signed, and using pseudonyms in my thesis.
“Spend some time with the men. You can pick and choose which clients and appointments you want to take, and spend some quality time with them at an exclusive location.”
The exclusive locations turned out to be seedy motels on the outskirts of Taipei. Between gray walls and faded wallpaper, I learned to say the things each client wanted to hear, act out the parts they expected of me while wearing the outfits that made their dicks hard. I became one of Tan’s best PR girls because I took such great notes. Back home on my laptop, I had an Excel file that listed information about each client. The whole time I had my thesis on my mind. Nobody had done research like mine before in Taiwan—it was groundbreaking fieldwork—no sociologist in the past had made such sacrifices for her work, personally xia hai, waded into the murky sex-worker ocean, as it were. I could become a famous author and be invited to appear on TV shows, maybe even have my own call-in talk show. That would be in addition to traveling all over Taiwan on speaking engagements and university lectures with my bestselling book, of course.
In short, the work sucked me in. Every other day, I spent a few hours of my free time in a motel with one man or another. They gave me gifts: spa memberships, designer bags, jewelry, and of course, cash. I documented everything in my Excel file, meticulously recording each non-monetary gift and its market value.
Up until the day the police barged into the motel room and arrested me for one account of solicitation and a second of adultery, adultery still being illegal according to Taiwanese law, on a certain level, I really believed I was only doing serious sociological research.
“It’s called immersion,” I said to the police officer, a young man with a crew cut and pockmarked cheeks.
“I don’t care what you call it, doll. It’s illegal.”
“I am a graduate student in sociology. It’s a sociological term, to immerse yourself in the environment of the people or careers you are studying. I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s research for my thesis.”
He made me stick my hands out in front of me and handcuffed my wrists.
What happened was one girl was caught by the wife of one client, and the police got involved. That PR girl made a deal with the police and gave up Tan’s information, which led to a search warrant and arrest. Naturally, the police got all the phone numbers, the detailed menu of girls in Tan’s book, and all the evidence they needed to catch most, if not all, of us.
“A total of nineteen girls were caught,” Helen whispered.
“No men?”
“Who cares about the Johns?”
“What about Tan?”
“He was booked for possession of all sorts of illegal drugs, I heard. Amphetamines, ketamine, cocaine, and ecstasy. He’ll be in jail for much longer than all of us put together, or maybe they’ll just put him in a chair and buzzzzzz.”
I shuddered.
Some women would be bailed out by their (very angry, probably ready-for-divorce) husbands, and some by friends or siblings, but who would bail me out? I couldn’t ask my colleagues. I would be fired from my teaching assistantship, dismissed by my university, which despite accepting students of all religions, identified itself as a conservative Catholic institution. A PR girl for a TA wouldn’t do.
“Do you think one of our clients would bail us out?” I asked Helen.
Helen threw her head back, laughing like a crazy person. “You think those men would touch us with a ten-foot pole right now? They will deny everything and anything! Those men don’t want to be associated with prostitutes! It would ruin their careers, businesses, marriages . . . are you nuts?”
Helen had never called herself or me a prostitute before.
I really don’t want to call my parents. I can just see it— Chinese New Year, everybody in the family whispering about my scandalous lifestyle, how my parents failed to bring me up right, how I used to be such a good girl but see how I am ruined now, how nobody will ever marry me, a tainted, worn-out shoe . . .