Angella Johnson: VIEW FROM A BROAD
What is a thirtysomething single girl to do when she needs an escort and all her eligible male friends are out of town? Well, you could always try the personal columns, teased a colleague.
She may have been joking, but images of a sexy Richard Gere wiggling his tight buns in the movie American Gigolo sent me rushing to the classified section of The Star.
There, snuggled between “Pain by Cane” and “Versatile Clint – an awesome gymnast!” was “Gentle Damian. A BEEFY 93kg muscled stud with biceps, pecs & charm.” I locked Gere’s vision in my mind and dialled.
“Sorry, Damian is busy at the moment,” said an effeminate- sounding male voice belonging, I discovered, to one of his younger co-workers. “Would you like me to give you some information about him?”
Yeah, sure, I replied. Go ahead. “Well, he’s 6’2″ and about 92kg. He has short, dark-blond hair, blue eyes, a smooth body; is very well developed – particularly in the biceps. He’s also very well-endowed downstairs … and uncut.”
I almost asked what he meant by uncut, then it dawned on me. Oh my! “The fee is R220 for one and a half hours,” the voice continued, as if reading from a menu. “Would you like him to come to you, or will you come to us?”
My mind went blank. He asked where I lived. After a momentary internal panic, I said Sandton (well, it sounded authentic) … and could he come to me? “We charge a travel fee of R75. Then we bring him through and pick him up afterwards.”
And what exactly is Damian prepared to do, I asked coyly. “He’ll do anything you want him to do. He’s very giving,” cooed the voice suggestively.
When I finally got hold of the “beefy 93kg” on the phone, he turned out to be a 24-year- old former soldier from Pretoria who had arrived in Johannesburg only a week ago. I explained that I needed an escort for a party being given by a British journalist.
“Oh excellent,” he said in a soft voice filled with humour, and we agreed on a flat fee of R500 for three hours.
“Is it formal or informal?” he asked. Semi-formal, I replied. “Oh, then I’ll wear my Dali T [Tambo] outfit.” Envisioning some outrageous kaftanesque number, I quickly suggested jeans for my toyboy date and arranged to pick him up in Kensington.
Okay, so it would have been preferable to have got someone a little older. But if Joan Collins can parade around with men several decades younger than she is, why should a few years (well, a tad more than a few) stand in my way? I envisioned myself draped over his muscular arm.
Came the day of reckoning I arrived at the house; Damian opened his garage gate and my heart sank. He was a big boy all right. But not the smoothie I was expecting. His blond hair was military shorn and he was clad in a black bomber jacket and blue denim jeans.
“I’m a little underdressed,” he said with a half-smile. No kidding, I thought, and wondered if it was too late to choose someone else. “Excuse me a minute and I’ll change.”
Left in a tastefully decorated pastel-shaded room filled with candles, it dawned on me that it was a brothel. The house exuded the smell of stale male bodies and sex. I later learned that several men aged between 19 and 24 lived and worked there.
Damian re-emerged, in tight-fitting, shiny black polyester trousers and matching embroidered shirt. It was his best Dali T outfit. I felt trapped. But it was too late, so we drove off to the party in Saxonwold.
First a pit stop at the Zoo Lake cafe, for a spot of “getting to know you” – just in case someone asked how we met. “Let’s keep it simple,” suggested Damian. “Say I’m your gym instructor [he certainly had the body for it] and that we’ve just started seeing each other.”
He appeared highly amused by the set-up. “Are you sure you’ve done this before?” I inquired. There was a momentary pause. “Only with men,” he confessed. “You see, I’m gay.”
For some strange reason I felt cheated. What if I wanted to have sex, I asked indignantly. “I would have said no. The flesh would not be willing.” Well, that was rich, I thought. There I was with a gigolo (rentboy if you want to be down market), and no chance of a full Monty if I had a mind to. “Can you at least act straight?” I snapped. “Do I look or act gay?” was his airy retort.
I had to admit he looked as hetero as any 20-odd year old, though I was concerned about the earring in his left lobe. “Oh, don’t worry,” he reassured. “It is just a fashion statement these days.”
So, were you surprised to see that I’m black, I asked as we sipped coffee in the winter sunshine. “Actually, I thought you might be Indian,” he said. “I knew you weren’t white and you have a Johannesburg accent.”
Now that was a first. Utter nonsense, of course – most people think I’m white English over the phone. So I assumed he was either stupid, or he was trying to make me feel comfortable – especially as he had just confessed a previous affiliation to the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.
“I was a member of the AWB’s Aquila youth league,” he blurted out during our bonding session. It seems he found the “power display thing” appealing and had also been a big Nazi fan.
However, Damian (we never progressed beyond first names) assured me he was no longer a racist, and remarked that accompanying a woman was easy money compared to having sex with wrinkly 80-year-old men. Some compliment, I don’t think.
Surprisingly, the event itself was not a complete disaster. He tried to fit in with the predominantly journalist crowd, even when the conversation turned to weighty matters like nuclear-arms proliferation.
I cringed a few times when he made trite remarks or stated the obvious, but then again he had not advertised himself as an intellectual. And he did nothing to embarrass me.
Mostly my blond ubermensch stuck resolutely at my side, fetched my food and made sure my wine glass was never empty. “He’s certainly very attentive,” commented an acquaintance when I asked what she thought of him.
But I could see people’s eyes flitting speculatively between us as they tried to gauge the measure of our relationship – especially when he unexpectedly clasped my hand in a show of affection or caressed my neck like an amorous lover.
Yet it was not the different melanin component in our skin that caused raised eyebrows. It was the obvious age and class gap, one friend later remarked. “I thought it an odd coupling, but assumed you were into him for his body,” she added.
Looking back on the afternoon, I must say it is not one I would like to repeat. Take it from me, renting an escort is not an option for any sensible woman looking for a date.
As Damian’s manager Wayne, to whom I paid my fee at the end of the day, said: “There is not much call for this kind of thing. Most women prefer to pick someone up in a bar – even if he’s ugly. They want someone mature that they can talk to, but in this business you’re over the hill at 25. And talking is not one of the skills these boys offer.”