Thirteen Cards…

…from Telephone Boxes around Earls Court Circa 1995 Advertising the Services of Prostitutes

By Neil Willcox

1. Fully Equipped Dungeon

If we counted the number of cards advertising a fully equipped dungeon and assumed they all referred to different dungeons then it seems as though every house for half a mile around must have one beneath it. That turns out not to be the case. There is only one dungeon. It is fully equipped.

2. Elegant Leggy Blonde

Shoes are expensive, and bespoke tailoring more so, and custom furniture as well (though truth be told if you are willing to wait for them you can get all of these, of excellent quality, at a fairly reasonable cost). Nevertheless, if you have sixteen legs, the bills add up. Her expenditure is worth it though; for leg-connoisseurs do like some class and elegance and are willing to pay for it.

3. New in Town

This is a lie. She is not new in town. She has always been here. When the first people arrived to camp for the night in the valley by the stream they found her here waiting. The oldest professional.

4. Dressed to Thrill

Suzuki, Jane Suzuki. Daughter of Anglo-Japanese academic James Suzuki, she rebelled against her upbringing to set up the most elegant salon in Chelsea, just off the King’s Road. She favours blouses of Sea Island cotton, hand-knitted ties, silk stockings, and dark, sharply cut suits, though can be persuaded to don a kimono. Many clients refer to her piercing gaze, yet what truly stands out is her wit; she can cut a man dead with a one-liner. 

5. Olde English Dominatrix

The superfluous -e is fifteenth century, the Latinate –ix more commonly from the nineteenth. She is mysterious about her origins and one should not ask a lady’s age. Especially a lady with so many implements for punishment.

6. Snap, Crackle, Pop, Male Escort Service

Occasionally the lads get cereal fetishists and they pull out the hats and neckerchiefs and the giant bowl and call the wholesalers for a catering pack and several gallons of milk. Never turn away custom after all. But their name comes from the noise made when they undo their belts and flies and take off the tight leather trousers. Snap. Crackle. And Pop.

7. Fun Loving Playmate 

Not all her games are sexual though all are sensuous. The fun she loves is in the playing rather than who wins and loses. She always plays well, she always plays hard, and she always plays to win. She is a good loser and a very, very bad winner.

8. She-Male Pleasure

Never growing older, always mid-transition. In her room, it is always sunset in early June. “So long as there is a client that goes wild for a cock in a frock, here I’ll be,” she says. The pleasure is all hers.

9. Sweet, Petite, Truly a Treat

She dresses as a fairy, usually the sugar plum version, but flower and home and hearth and even the tooth fairy are in her repertoire. A century-old and six inches tall, sometimes she is asked by the clients to remove her wings to avoid damage. She just shakes her head. They never come off.

10. Transformation Specialist

Yes yes. Men into women, women into men. People into dogs and cats, into trees and swans and bulls and showers of gold. Existence into non-existence and vice versa. Irrelevant becomes famous, struggling becomes successful, impotent is transformed into powerful. All of these are available. But be warned, the most profound transformation will be to your bank balance.

11. Mature Lady Better Than Ever Before

You may have visited her before. I assure you that, like a fine wine, she gets better with age. And age she does, a day for every visit, for every visitor. And though she had few visitors to begin with, when she was too young, too fresh, now she reaches her peak. So also like a fine wine, she has been laid down enough and you should drink your fill before the end comes.

12. Treat Yourself

They are told to let themselves in. The room is empty. No one joins them. Eventually, they leave, having been there on their own, just themselves. It is the most exquisite experience of their life.

13. Emily 20 Year Fantasies

Again a lie, or at least an exaggeration. However, no one has yet complained. Emily’s fantasies are certainly total and undoubtedly satisfying. As no client who has experienced one has yet completed the full twenty years, we are unable to endorse the time period advertised.

Neil Willcox lives in Kent, closer to France than to London. He has worked on a fruit farm picking and packing, at an insurance company as a data analyst, and as a teaching assistant in local schools. He has self-published two Edwardian comedy crime novels The Inexplicable Affair of the Mesmerising Russian Nobleman and The Convoluted Adventure of the Vengeful Yankee Financier. Despite appearances to the contrary, not everything he writes has a ridiculously long title. He blogs at nightofthehats.blogspot.com and tweets @neil_will.