Prologue

ornament

 

 

March 2012

 

Hey there, Mr. Big.

I’ll bet you think this book is about you, now that it’s all said and done, right? Wrong. It’s not. It’s about me. Money Watts. And how the world of politics, escorts, and blackmail came to a head, all in one day in 2011. It’s about my side of the escort coin. The side of making a business out of sex for money.

This is my own version of Sex and the City. Sex in the Big Apple. Sex with big names. Sex for big money. Sex that made big news. You were my Mr. Big. But now…well, like I said, this story is not about you.

I had the baddest high-end call girls and call guy in New York City. My agency, called Lip Service, was comprised of just the four of us. We kept it small, we kept it exclusive, and we kept it high-class. And I kept all the juicy names in my little pink e-book.

I was the provider, or organizer. And they, the clients, were called hobbyists. We did it all over the Internet on an adult website, or sometimes over the phone. Sometimes the hobbyists would even rate each of us and give reviews. They’d rate us on price, cleanliness, honesty, and attractiveness. And we always received ten out of ten. This was no street corner operation. These were not escorts of ill repute. This was not a brothel. This was about meeting a classy man or woman to “escort” you to dinner, and then going somewhere after for an intimate evening together. That’s it. No different than a first date with someone who doesn’t call the next day. Only there’s a booker who gets ten percent. I split the rest fifty-fifty with my escorts. And at two thousand dollars per hour, sometimes even thirty thousand per weekend, we did very, very well. We were providing a very necessary service. And we were very, very good at it.

The Politics

In private, he patronizes escorts. In public, Democrat Darrell Ellington is a New York senator for the 21st District in Brooklyn, married to Ursula Leah Ellington, a former Republican who came from a long line of politicians. They met while working together at Paine Webber years ago, and married in 1995. Darrell worked in government affairs and Ursula was a senior consultant. He was elected to his senate seat in 2002, and if Ursula had it her way, she would one day be the next African American First Lady to the second African American U.S. President in history. And her son from a previous marriage, Micah Daye, knew that all too well. His mother had dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, willing to do whatever it took to keep their noses clean so that she could make it to the White House before her competitive ex-best-friend, Kendra Graves, married to the New York senator from the 60th District, made it there first.

Republican Kalin Graves was a New York senator for the 60th District. His wife, Kendra, was a marketing executive at Saks Fifth Avenue corporate. Just when Ursula’s husband, Darrell, made it known he was interested in politics, Kendra sought out a politician of her own and married Kalin Graves the next year. The beef between Kendra and Ursula stemmed from the fact that they were once secret lovers.

The Escorts

Like I said, I’m Money Watts. My home in Cobble Hill West outside of Manhattan was where I ran my business. In 2005, I was married to a well-known sports anchor who brought me to New York after he was hired for a big announcer job with the NBA, co-anchoring with Ahmad Rashad, but he left it, and me, all behind when he went back to Los Angeles to be with a local weathergirl whom he met during a National Black Journalists Conference the year before. We’d only been married six months. I’d signed a prenup. I had nothing, so I made a way. I had sex for money. The money was good. I was good. I still take on clients if it involves my expertise, which is role-playing and dominating—my dom name is Brooklyn. I personally service Tyler Copeland, the NYPD police chief, who is a certified cross-dressing sissy.

As a runaway teen and aspiring actress, strolling through the lights and wonder of Times Square at the age of seventeen, Midori Moody saved a pimp’s business card for a rainy day. She left home because she said her big sister was the perfect child, and she was the misfit. Two days after she called the pimp named Romeo, she became a good girl gone wild who drank and partied, and screwed for money. She found out that feeling love through those transgressions was easier than dealing with her own abandonment. She’d later break away and buy herself a condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but by the time she met Micah Daye, her new boyfriend, that’s when she started to get sloppy. Bailey Brenner, her regular “hobbyist” who was on the city council, started getting crazy jealous.

Malaka Sutton’s three-story townhouse is in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Malaka’s own mother was an escort when Malaka was a child in Denver. Her mother would even take her along to see clients. Malaka learned firsthand how to make sexy ends meet. And in New York, they were meeting like a muthafucka. Malaka was my highest paid escort. She satisfied the cream of the crop. She was my number one lady.

Tall and fine and in demand, Kemba Price, Italian and Sudanese, from Staten Island, was my one and only call guy. He lived in Harlem on 128th Street, and when he wasn’t on “dates” for Lip Service, he was at the gym, chiseling his six-foot-five, model-type body. And that’s where he first met Ursula Leah Ellington, the wife of Darrell Ellington. And he also met a new friend, Romeo, the pimp.

 

The Blackmail

ornament

 

 

March 2010

So tell me what happened.” I sat in the lobby of the historic Algonquin Hotel on Club Row. Midori made me frown.

“Bailey’s just jealous. He’s making up stories.”

“What’s he jealous of?”

“He knows about Micah.”

“And how does he know anything about your private life, Midori?”

“I guess he followed me. I guess he’s been watching me.”

“You guess? Midori. Listen to me. This is a problem. I send you to meet Bailey at the St. Regis, and you take money from him on the side?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then what happened to that hotel room? Why was it damaged like that?”

“It wasn’t damaged when I left. I left him there.”

“So, you didn’t tear up the room and threaten to accuse him of roughing you up?”

“No. He said that?”

“I said that.”

“I make enough money. I wouldn’t do that just to get some cash from a client. He’s the problem, not me. What I didn’t tell you is that Bailey did the escort bonding. He said he loves me.”

“See, that’s something you should’ve told me. Then I wouldn’t have assigned you to him. He’s good money, but he won’t be requesting you again, I guarantee you that. I smell messy.”

“Okay.”

“So what’s up with you and Micah? You two are still serious?”

“It’s coming along.”

“And he still doesn’t know what you do?”

“No. Still thinks I’m a realtor.”

“It’s too close for comfort, Midori. He’s Senator Ellington’s stepson.”

“Yes. And that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. See, the other night, Micah was talking about playing around on the computer. He’s doing this tech job, and with his IT schooling, he knows how to hack into email. He’s talking, well joking, like a prank, about hacking into Senator Graves’s personal email account.”

“Midori, that mama’s boy is looking for something on Senator Graves that would embarrass him. Cause his political career damage. That’s called blackmail, not a prank. And he’d do it just to please his mother. But he could go to jail for the rest of his life. He really thinks he’d be able to get away with something like that?”

“He won’t really do it. He was just talking. Sometimes he acts like he’s young Microsoft or something.”

She had the nerve to giggle, but it sounded nervous, which it should have been. I kept a very straight face. “I see nothing funny. What do you see in a nerd like that?”

“He’s nice.”

“Still looking for the knight in shining armor. Still looking for love to take you away, like in the movie Pretty Woman, huh?”

“No.”

“See, it’s sad that your little boyfriend has no idea that the dirt he’ll uncover could be his own. If he did that, he’d not only uncover evidence linking Senator Graves to prostitution, but that would open a whole ugly can of worms that would expose his own stepfather’s kinky other life, and expose Lip Service. Now there are three ways to solve this. One would be for you to tell him what you do and what his stepfather is into. But that’s a no-no. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Another would be, you keep an eye on your little beau, and talk him out of that madness. You’d need to keep him close. You understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Micah had better watch himself. Kemba said Micah’s own mother all but propositioned him while he was coming out of the gym the other day.”

“She did?”

“Yes. She did. Your boyfriend Micah is so busy trying to blackmail the enemy, he’d end up destroying his own political family.”

“I’ve got him.”

“Yeah, well, you’d better.”

“How’d you know about the hotel room being torn up?”

“Back to your boyfriend. The third way would be that I could have someone handle him. I’ve been at this for years and I have a lot to lose. My clients have a lot to lose. I’m not going to let anyone ruin this. If you don’t talk him out of his little brainstorm, I can fix it myself with one phone call.”

“You wouldn’t do anything to Senator Ellington’s son.”

I just looked right through her.

She blinked fast. “Like I said, I’ve got him.” She swallowed hard. “And actually, I’m ready to quit.”

“Not just yet. I need you near him. Trust me, this is not a joke. Handle this.”

“Or else what?”

“Midori, even if you are my sister, I won’t let you fuck this up. We’re in the world of politics and sex in New York City, and right now, there’s porn and kinky sex on tons of government computers as we speak. It’s the perfect place to be to make money for the service I provide. And before I let some amateur, sorry-ass blackmail scheme happen, I’ll do what I have to do. I’m not going to jail. I’ll stop anyone.” I gave her a look serious enough to let her know I’m a madam first, and a sister second.

Midori angled her stare like a puppy.

I imitated her angle. “You could learn a thing or two from Malaka. Clean and easy.” I handed her an envelope. “Now, I’m flying you to the Florida Keys for a late dinner, and then a full day with a Long Island physician. Meet him at the Little Palm Island hotel tonight at nine. Your flight is at noon.”

“Got it.” She took it.

“And tell your little nerdy boyfriend you’re going to look at property. Keep him in check.” I did not blink. “And, Midori, this conversation never happened.”

She did blink, fast as usual, and nodded yes.

That would have all been well and good, if Midori’s sneaky ass hadn’t been wired the entire time.