Читать книгу Behind the Mask: Enter a World Where Women Make - and Break - the Rules - Emma Sayle - Страница 6

‘It is never too late to be what you might have been.’

George Eliot

I never got the chance to tell my parents myself about my new career in the sex industry. As far as they knew, I was a corporate PR girl promoting respectable businesses. So they were taken by surprise when the Daily Mail published an article about me with the headline: ‘She’s the Poshest Swinger in Town’.

I had only been running Killing Kittens for a few months and hadn’t yet spread the news to my nearest and dearest. I was sunbathing on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, when Mothership called me, obviously furious. I could practically hear her blood pressure rising and her nervous system going haywire.

‘Emma, I’ve never been one of those mothers who yells and spanks their children. But if you were here, I would smack you right now for being such a risk taker!’ she shouted.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but once she’d managed to draw breath long enough to calm down and read out the Mail piece to me, I felt terrible, filled with guilt that my parents had had to read about me like that. I tried to apologize but Mothership was having none of it.

‘How could you, Emma?’ she cried, her voice cracking and sounding like she was about to cry. ‘Don’t you know how this makes us feel?’

‘I was going to tell you, I promise!’

‘When, exactly?’ she snapped back.

‘As soon as I got back to London.’

‘The phone has been ringing off the hook all day. Your father is furious. The Daily Mail called us. Don’t you realize how this could affect us all? They say you run orgies for wealthy liberated couples and single women. Is it true? And if it is, why did you have to leave it to the Daily Mail to inform us?’

‘I’m sorry, I really am,’ I replied, thinking it must have been Chinese whispers, my story getting passed around and eventually ending up in the press.

‘The whole world knows before we do. Oh, Emma, really! Your father and I have decided the only good news is that, according to the Daily Mail, you’re not getting involved in these orgies yourself.’

‘That’s right,’ I said calmly, trying to soothe her. ‘It’s business for me.’

‘Well, that’s a relief at least. Thank God for small mercies.’ But she still sounded angry. I crumbled on my sun lounger, wondering how I was going to clean up this mess and make it up to my parents.

The 10,600 miles between Sydney and London bought me some time for everyone to calm down, but a week later I faced the music. I stopped in London only long enough to dump my luggage at my flat, and then I went back home to my parents’ house, arriving so late that they’d gone to bed. I made my appearance the next morning, trying to get back into the good books by bringing my mum and dad (otherwise known as Mothership and Colonel) tea in bed, along with two baseball caps embroidered with slogans. One read ‘Poshest Swinger’s Dad’, the other ‘Poshest Swinger’s Mum’. To their credit, they laughed. As they sipped at their tea, a little less stony-faced than when I’d come in, I offered them my overdue apology for the shock and embarrassment I’d caused, and tried to explain exactly why I’d taken this particular path in life. They made an effort to understand, but I don’t think they did.

‘I’m sorry for not telling you first,’ I said. ‘I should have. But it’s only been a short time and I’m still finding my feet.’

‘But honestly, Emma – sex parties?’ My mother still looked scandalized. ‘Why? What makes you want to do it? Look what they’re saying about you.’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t care what the newspapers write about me. Remember what you said to me once? “A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.” I live by that motto. Besides, this is what I want to do. It’s an excellent business opportunity, I’m providing a service people want and I intend to make the most of it. I’m not going to be derailed by the groaning hypocrisy of people who’d like nothing better than to come and see what’s going on for themselves.’

Colonel burst out laughing. ‘Emma, you’re a stubborn creature, aren’t you? You’re probably right. And your mother and I would be lying if we said we were truly shocked. You’ve never failed to surprise us.’

I could see that they both understood that I had made up my mind and that there was no point in trying to convince me to follow a different path. I smiled at my parents. ‘You always said to me you wanted me to be the best at what I do. This is what I’m going to do. Now watch me.’

Looking back, I can see now that I was never going to do things conventionally. I’ve always had a desire to take risks, do things out of the ordinary and forge my own path. From the moment I could walk, I wanted to run away from home. Every opportunity that presented itself, I’d have my little wheelie case ready so I could flee the nest. It wasn’t that I didn’t like home, I loved my family deeply. I was very fortunate: I had a privileged upbringing with nice homes and private schooling, but I always knew no matter how comfortable my life was, I was never going to take the usual route and do things the easy, mapped-out way. I never liked taking orders and I was keen to win my independence and get on with life’s adventures. Childhood was an irritating inconvenience and I couldn’t wait to grow up.

My sense of adventure began early. I was born in Guildford, Surrey, but when I was one, Colonel’s army duties took us to Belfast. My father was brilliant and academically gifted; he had read Classics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and was fluent in German, French, Italian and Latin. After becoming a Fellow of his college, he’d left for a career in the Army and then the Diplomatic Corps, which meant his family was destined for a life on the move. He was talented and successful, but nonetheless he always looked a little ordinary next to my beautiful mother. She was glamorous, leggy and olive-skinned, with ash-blonde hair, blue eyes and a smile that could calm a raging ocean. She was a devoted wife and a great asset to my father, as she charmed everyone she came into contact with at the same time as raising her little family all over the world.

My sister Georgie was born during our two-year stay in Belfast. By the time I was three, home was the Rheindahlen Military Base in Germany, where my brother Johnny was born. I was seven when we moved back to England, where we set up home in Somerset. When I wasn’t at school, I spent my young days hanging upside down out of oak trees or lining up my toys in height order with OCD military precision (I still have a mania for order). At eight, I was sent to Hanford Prep boarding school for girls in Dorset. I spent most of my free time reading, devouring the books of Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransome and Willard Price. Adventure appealed to me, and my literary heroes and heroines gave me the sense that anything was possible. When I outgrew these books I moved on to the spy novels and books about war and religion that my father read.

I was a real Daddy’s girl; I worshipped my father and always longed for his attention and approval. Attention I got by causing mischief, and approval I tried to win by impressing him with my school reports and athletic prowess. I was impish and prone to getting into scrapes, but I also did well at school. I didn’t mind lessons and I was good at games; at 10 I was tall for my age with long legs that made me a natural runner and captain of the netball team.

Although I was away from my father in term time, I was desperate to be with him in the holidays. Wherever Colonel went, I followed, which meant flying out to join the family wherever he had been posted. He’d become a leading liaison officer and was sent to Berlin in 1989, so I was there when the Wall came down. I was only 11, but I remember that night vividly. People everywhere were jumping up and down, crying and laughing with joy. My parents and I joined the crowds by the Brandenburg Gate and cheered on every East German Trabbi that drove through to the West. I also took a hammer to the Wall like everyone else, knocking off chunks of history and stuffing them in my bag. With everyone rolling into the West, we went to East Berlin’s flea markets and I stocked up on Russian dolls and fur hats, which I bought for next to nothing. I was nicknamed Del Boy Trotter back at school, as I sold my bits of Berlin Wall, fur hats and dolls and made a fortune.

With the Cold War coming to an end, my mother started organizing food and medicine convoys to Russia, and when I was home for the holidays I helped her. Once we were filmed by ITN as we sat in one of 10 trucks on the 1,454-kilometre trip from Berlin to Smolensk. I felt humbled by meeting orphans, some of whom were the same age as me. To be able to hand out the clothes and sweets that I took for granted made me determined that when I was older I would set up my own charity and carry on doing what I could to help others and relieve a bit of the misery in the world.

For the next two years, I hammered away at the Berlin Wall in the holidays and continued to sell the chunks to my school friends in term time. I gave half of the proceeds to charity. At 13, I left Hanford Prep and went to Downe House, a girls’ boarding school in Berkshire. Any girl who makes it into Downe has fought to be there and, as result, the school is full of strong, competing personalities and a lot is demanded of the students (including the future Duchess of Cambridge and her sister, who were there at the same time as me). I loved it – I was born a fighter.

I made strong friendships at school and took an enthusiastic part in the healthy tradition of practical jokes (in fact, I’m told that some of my most notorious pranks are still recounted to this day). I also fell in love for the first time. The object of my passion was one of the school gardeners, a lad of about 17 who looked deliciously tanned and muscular as he trimmed the bushes. I was completely infatuated with his impressive masculinity, and he always stopped work and stared when he saw me too. Our romance was fuelled by love letters, passed between us by his boss (who perhaps ought to have known better), but when we actually managed to meet, it was a disaster. Close up, my gorgeous gardener was far less impressive than I’d thought, as he stared cow-eyed at me and fumbled for my hand. His love letters had seemed sophisticated, but in person he was sickly sweet with a squeaky voice. Everything I felt for him withered and died in an instant.

Although I enjoyed myself at school, there were times when I felt isolated. I was not one of the ‘London Trendies’, as we called them – the girls from rich families with opulent pads in the most expensive parts of London. They were real-life Barbie dolls, with a skinny look and the right designer clothes; some of them not only wore Versace or Alexander McQueen, but also had photographs in the dorms of themselves clutching their favourite fashion designer’s arm. While I was on Russia-bound medicine-and-food convoys, their school holidays consisted of private jets, Bentleys and exotic locations. By the time I was 16, I began to feel the difference so keenly that I developed eating issues and secretly started taking laxatives. I wanted to be as thin and glamorous as those girls, with their effortless confidence, fantastic clothes and gorgeous boyfriends from Eton and Radley. Despite all the privileges I had and all of my outward confidence, I still felt inferior and thought I could control it with food, as though that would somehow be a route to social success. The eating issues that started then would take a long time to conquer.

When I was 14, my father was made the British Defence Attaché to Kuwait and Egypt. Home was now Cairo, and that was the same year that we all went to Buckingham Palace to watch Colonel being invested with the OBE for his services during the Falklands War, Northern Ireland and Berlin. I watched in awe as the Queen pinned the award on my father’s jacket and congratulated him. Mothership squeezed my hand and whispered, ‘All right, darling?’

I didn’t say anything in reply. I was too proud of my father to speak.

Despite my sometimes-shaky self-esteem and on-going eating problems, I was developing a keen interest in another side of life: boys. My passion for the gardener was long dead, but I had other objects of fascination now. Although I was at an all-girls school, I had a brother, which was an advantage as I was able to snog a few of his friends. Otherwise I met boys at parties or through my parents’ friends. I met Ed at a party during the summer holidays, and he became my first boyfriend. The romance had an expiration date, but I loved holding Ed’s hand and kissing him (we’re still friends). There were other boyfriends after him, and at 16 I went further than ever before. Sex was not on the menu, but there was plenty of exploration and I began to unravel the mysteries of what men were like and what happened when things got steamy, and it’s safe to say that I liked it.

As I got older, I became wilder and more reckless. I was still kicking over the traces, keen to get on with life and taste everything that adults enjoyed. It could have disastrous consequences, like the time I got properly drunk for the first time, aged 16. Colonel was hosting a lavish dinner party at our Cairo house for the Canadian Ambassador. Unknown to everyone else, my endless glasses of Sprite contained double shots of vodka and after a couple of drinks, I became convinced the 28-year-old army officer sitting to my right was deeply in love with me. Colonel noticed my odd behaviour and said, ‘You can try a tiny glass of wine, Emma. It may calm your nerves.’ He wasn’t to know that the wine would prove the proverbial last straw, and my flirtation came to an abrupt end as I threw up violently all over my plate of beef Wellington, stunning the other guests into horrified silence. Colonel dispatched me to my bedroom with military efficiency. He did not offer me a glass of his beloved Châteauneuf-du-Pape for years to come after that.

I lived up to my final Downe House school report from one teacher, which read: ‘I have found Emma to be cheeky, over-excitable, opinionated and thoroughly obnoxious – she’ll go far.’ I thought it was a fair point.

Colonel hoped I would follow in his footsteps and apply to Cambridge University, where he had been both a fellow and bursar of his college, but I decided that wasn’t for me. Instead, much to his disappointment, I chose Birmingham University, to read Sports Science. Before then, I took a gap year paid for by my Del Boy Trotter trust fund, and my first stop was Africa. Colonel had now been sent to Kuwait and was busy with his new posting, while my mother was resettling yet again, and I reassured them by telling them I had a job lined up in Cape Town. The truth was that there was no job, and all I managed in the first week was to get my belly button pierced and lose my memory for most of it after being offered hash cakes. I was mugged in the street and had my passport and purse stolen. When I went to the police station to report the incident, I was groped by a burly Afrikaans copper, who kept muttering, ‘Gee my jou hand. Ek hou van jou,’ while he pawed me. Translated, he was asking for my hand and saying he liked me. I’d had enough of Cape Town, and I swiftly packed my wheelie case and headed to Kuwait to join my parents. They had lined up a job for me at a holiday resort, but I was sent packing within two weeks after I encouraged most of the Filipino staff to go on strike because of their appalling pay.

With time on my hands, I turned my focus to boys and began dating a man. Losing my virginity never felt monumental to me: I knew it would happen when it felt right. That moment came during one date, while we were sunbathing at a poolside. I suggested that it was the right time to do it. He was surprised but willing, and we lost no time in going somewhere private to do the deed. As I was an 18-year-old virgin, I had no idea what I was doing, but pretended I did. Luckily I didn’t expect it to be a magical event – after all, I had no strong feelings for the man, I just wanted to do it – and sure enough, it wasn’t mind-blowing. It was awkward and it hurt, but I was glad I’d done it: I felt more grown up and confident, and I sensed potential. This time might have been a damp squib, but I knew it could be much, much better.

My motto for that wild year before university – and ever since, if I’m honest – was to let go of any inhibitions I had and push the boundaries to the limit. For me, it was part of my journey to self-exploration and finding myself, but I went beyond reckless sometimes. It helped that being a daughter of a diplomat came with privileges and immunity: my diplomatic ID card gave me quite a safety net and turned me and a few other English and American diplomat kids into reckless risk takers. Once, Colonel took me to a party on board a US warship in Kuwait and I enjoyed a marathon kissing session with a handsome Lebanese man there, until my father discovered his family was part of the Lebanese mafia and nipped that in the bud at once. Another time, I was dared to climb on board a superboat belonging to the ruling family of Kuwait. Never able to resist a dare, I gave it my best shot and managed to get on and off without being caught, but the British Embassy heard of my little exploit and my father was ordered to get me under control. Another time I was thrown into jail for being a potential spy after being car-chased by Saudi patrolmen along the Kuwait–Saudi Arabia border. The truth was, no espionage was involved. It was dark, I got lost and I’d forgotten my diplomatic ID card. Colonel had some choice words to share with me when he picked me up from jail.

I wanted fear, risk and exhilaration, but I soon learned that pushing boundaries could have consequences, and not just for me. I was dating an American marine who was a member of the US Embassy security staff. Deciding that Kuwaiti hotels, the beach, army barracks, tankers, helicopters or warships no longer had the thrill factor, we decided the rooftop of the massive, fortress-like US Embassy was the place to have sex. Now that my virginity was out of the way, I had taken to this pleasant new activity with gusto and loved having sex with my hunky marine as often as possible. As we exchanged that devilish look on the rooftop, we both relished the excitement of doing something so daring and forbidden, and that made us throw caution to the winds. But the loud groans that followed meant that it didn’t take long for us to get caught with our pants down. Moments later, security guards armed with rifles swarmed like ants across the rooftops and it was only my marine identifying himself that stopped a full-scale military shootout. Colonel was summoned to the US Embassy for a stern dressing down, and once more I was in big trouble. But he was learning by now that I was headstrong, difficult to control and determined to play as hard as I could.

My crazy gap year came to an end and I headed to Birmingham University to take up my place to read Sports Science. I reluctantly left my marine and we made promises of mutual devotion, but in my first week of university, a friend in Kuwait called to tell me that no sooner had I left than he’d jumped into bed with someone else. So that was that. Despite the activity and excitement of Freshers’ Week, I was miserable, but my heartbreak was swiftly dispelled when I met Aidan. He was tall, dark, athletic and handsome, and his intense piercing blue eyes won me over before he said ‘hello’. We fell in love almost at once, but it was a tumultuous, rollercoaster ride of a relationship and it came with the condition that a break-up never really meant ‘it’s over’. For three years, our big love affair was punctuated by frequents splits and passionate reunions. I loved being with Aidan, but when we were apart, I didn’t slow down. University was mostly a blur of sports, some studying, drinking, making friends and having sex. I made sure that I broadened my horizons, with sex in particular. A foursome with a guy I’d been seeing, his best mate and a girlfriend of mine became a threesome when my friend did a runner, leaving me with two very hot, ripped rugby boys. I tried the other kind of threesome when I was having a drink in a bar with an ice-hockey player and another girl joined us. She and I shared a drunken snog, which was quite fun, and my boyfriend, clearly enjoying the show, suggested we go back to his place. When we got there, he told me he’d like me to go down on our new friend. I was game for anything, so I did, but I decided then and there it wasn’t for me. My boyfriend ended up shagging her, which was fine, but we didn’t last much longer after that, and Aidan and I got back together yet again.

When graduation came, Aidan and I went our separate ways: I headed to London and he moved to Sydney to become a high-flying corporate psychologist. But we stayed good friends and made a promise to each other: if we were both single by the time we hit the big 4–0, we would marry.

But for now, I had to decide what I was going to do with my life. The last thing on my mind was organizing orgies, but Fate was soon to intervene with a spectacular experience.