Madam - Prostitutes, Punters and Puppets (eBook)

‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for coming.’ I took a deep breath and smiled saucily. ‘I must say, that it makes a nice change to be able to say, ‘Thank you for coming….’ at the beginning of a booking.’ They laughed tentatively, unsure how to respond.

Pausing briefly, I made a show of peering out from the stage into the audience although the spotlights blinded me, making seeing anything impossible.

‘Blimey! It looks like I’ve managed to make some of you come twice.’ I waved, pretending to greet people I recognised. ‘At my age, with my ovaries making anyone come at all is something to be proud of.’

The crowd roared with laughter and relaxed. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was going to be a good evening.

‘My name is Becky Adams, but you can call me Madam.’

Prostitution is a difficult taboo subject, and listening to someone openly discuss sex work and bizarre fetishes makes many people feel uncomfortable and squirm in their seats, even with some moody lighting and a few glasses of vino.

I love public speaking. Sharing the ups and downs, in and outs of two outrageous decades spent running brothels in the leafy suburbs of the Home Counties. Stories of me and my naughty ladies being hounded by the authorities; vilified by the neighbours; dressing middle-aged men as babies; counting blow jobs and avoiding jail.

Strangely though my audience was often more nervous than I was. If they had never heard me before and had no idea what to expect, then generally they expected the worst. Most assumed I’d be a raging nymphomaniac who’d followed my dirty obsession with sweaty sex and genitalia into a seedy world of vice and hard-core filth. But here I was, blonde, polite, and just a little old fashioned with a love of small dogs and confectionery. Mother, grandmother, business woman. The product of nature, nurture and circumstance just like everyone else.

Over the last few years I’ve been invited to address many women’s groups and business clubs. Sadly some members would boycott the evening refusing to come and hear me for fear of embarrassment. Some would be angry that their club allowed a person such as me, a former Madam, a purveyor of prostitutes into their midst. But those who did suspend judgement and came to listen were surprised, entertained and intrigued - subsequently recommending an evening with Madam Becky to their friends.

I’ve been told I don’t look like a ‘Madam’. I’m not really sure what a Madam is meant to look like, but I’ve been blessed with some long-legged and small-waisted genes. Throw in a good education and some cosmetic procedures and in my mid-forties I’m still looking pleasant enough if a tad plumper than I had been.

I don’t arrive to speak clad in rubber or with my knickers on show. Although admittedly for a comedy turn at a rugby club I would wear my infamous PVC cat-suit, but that was more for practical purposes than titillation. Rugby club annual dinners always seem to end in a food fight. Dressed in PVC I could be wiped down with a damp cloth and chauffeured home minus the inevitable coating of mashed potato and black forest gateaux.

I genuinely like people. I’m open and honest, but never crude. I would never knowingly upset or embarrass anyone, that’s not my style. I’m more Benny Hill than Ben Dover, maybe with a touch of the ‘Carry On’s’ and a sneaky Sid James laugh.

Telling my massage parlour tales to a large group of people is a way to help remove stereotypical ideas about the sex industry, not to crack a cheap smutty joke at the public’s expense.

Sensibilities and maiden aunts are safe with me.

My eager listeners that night were all journalists and TV types who’d been writing all sorts of nefarious gossip about me for years. Some of it true, most of it wonderfully hilarious and creatively invented by the editors. According to one red top I’d been busy spanking members of the royal family, and frightening spaniels by having sex with the aristocracy during pheasant shoots in the Chalfont’s. As a lover of tweed and waxed moustaches, it sounded smashing, and wonderfully sporting but sadly not true. The real truth was stranger than anything the tabloids could make up.

Prostitutes, politicians and footballers are always fair game for the newspapers. When you run massage parlours and escort agencies for a living you spend your working days with a variety of members from all three groups. The fact that I had a convent education, was a bit posh and outspoken, always happy to poke my head over the parapet and appear on the telly to defend sex worker’s rights had made me a popular media target. I was happy to play along with the game.

The spotlights were blinding, but as I glanced sideways I saw a seven foot image of myself projected onto the screen behind me. It was the vision that used to greet clients as they opened the door into my large and legendary gentlemen’s club, ‘Madam Becky’s’ - provincial brothel and shagging HQ in Milton Keynes. A younger, slimmer me, in the skin tight, barely zipped, black PVC cat suit with huge bright pink lettering, WELCOME TO MADAM BECKY’S.

Feigning a shocked backwards stumble I looked up at myself.

‘Well, I say. That was a few cakes ago.’ I laughed with my audience. ‘And as a lady of a certain age, I am going to have to stand in this corner, where the lighting is more flattering, whilst I tell you about the different people who have frequented my various premises over the last twenty years.’

The audience were silent, willing to listen.

‘This evening I’ll be telling you about the changes I’ve noticed in the punters who visited my establishments, and how ordinary girls now decide to be escorts as a career choice, rather than out of any perceived poverty, desperation or coercion. As you’ll appreciate, there won’t be a power point presentation.’ I chuckled. ‘No photographic evidence as we have to protect the guilty. So tonight ladies and gents, you’ll just have to look at me, either pre-cake Madam Becky,’ I pointed to the slim, PVC projection. ‘Or…’ undulating my hand down my body like a magician’s assistant, ‘….the post, several years of Victoria sponge cake, matronly Madam Becky.’

So then chaps, on with the show.

‘In fifty percent of countries across the world prostitution is legal. In fact, prostitution is perfectly legal in the UK. You’re allowed to sell sex, or buy sex. What you get sent to prison for is helping others buy it or sell it. Being a Madam is very illegal. My job of chatting on the phone, arranging teapots on trays and folding towels carried a sentence of up to fourteen years.’

‘It’s estimated that at least two and a half million men in the UK pay for sex, and that number is doubling every decade.’ I let those surprising figures sink in. I could almost feel the women in the front rows look sideways at their men and wonder if they ever had, if they ever would, visit a lady of loose morals.

‘I know nothing about street girls and drugs; all my premises have been very middle class, middle market. Quality and value for money was my business ethos. Nice friendly ladies, expensive bubble bath, a cup of tea and a ginger nut.’

‘I provided my girls with a life coach, savings plans and private health cover, but despite paying my taxes, and ensuring the girls paid theirs, I was hounded out of business, and in September 2009 I hung up the cat-suit, and closed the bordello door for the last time.’

I looked into the spotlight spangled darkness.

‘To be honest, since selling ‘Madam Becky’s’ I’ve enjoyed not looking over my shoulder, always checking to see who was watching me, who was following me, or who was waiting to beat me over the head with a stick and run off with my immoral earnings. I’ve been arrested for kidnapping a pair of oversized pants, pole dancing in slippers and dispensing cold beer and salted peanuts. It seems ironic and unjust to me that the law states that I had to pay income and council tax from my illegal operation. Money then used to fund the police and local authorities to come and close me down. I’d rather they just invoiced me every time they raided us. That would seem more honest somehow.’

They laughed in all the right places. When I became serious and talked them through my belief that the internet and satellite TV was responsible for de-sensitising kids to sex causing them to have totally unrealistic and sometimes damaging sexual expectations of themselves and others, they listened intently.

‘We have school children dressing like prostitutes, and prostitutes dressing like school children. The Murdoch industries condone this and you as journalists need to take some of the blame.’ I could hear the awkward shuffling of chairs.

My fears about the over sexualisation of children isn’t a laughing matter, and I could hear from the murmurs of agreement that others, the parents amongst them, shared my concerns.

‘When I started my first escort agency in the early nineties it was almost impossible, and very expensive, for a client to find two ladies who’d work together in a realistic lesbian way. Even just a decade ago sex was still seen as something slightly mysterious and treated with a modicum of respect. Now, in massage parlours across Britain, we have girls of eighteen and nineteen who are happy to have intimate relations with men, women, soft toys and vegetables for a basic fee. In fact, this type of shenanigans is part of a normal weekend of binge drinking for many of today’s young people, so it stands to reason that they’d have no problem doing it at work for money. Being...