escort diary® of Zoey Ashford: My first year of working in the industry; What was it really like?
My first year of working in the industry was a whirlwind, to say the least. It was like my first day of high school, full of anxiety and curiosity. It was something completely new to me, and I had to adapt fast. Real fast.
I was young, impressionable, naive and inexperienced, but chirpy as ever. I knew I had to make a change and leave my mark in the industry. So I rented an apartment for the week, put an ad in the paper, bought a second phone and, just like that, I was set.
Advertising back then was remarkably simple. My ad in the paper was only two lines long, a basic description of myself, my phone number and my location. That was it. No carefully curated websites, no social media strategy, no endless galleries or elaborate bios. You placed the ad in the paper, and the next day the phone would start ringing.
And ring it did.
The next morning, my phone buzzed almost nonstop with enquiries. Back then, people called. If someone texted, more often than not, they were probably not a genuine client. The industry wasn’t as saturated as it is now either, and while the rates were considerably lower than what many charge today, the volume of enquiries was completely different.
Check-in finally came and, voilà, I was set to have my very first booking.
I was nervous as hell.
The doubts immediately started creeping in. What was going to happen? What do I do? What if I mess up? I had so many questions and so very little time.
But….he didn’t show.
Bummer.
I was devastated, my ego slightly trimmed. Fortunately, about fifteen minutes later another call came through and shortly after, my second booking arrived. Of all days, the intercom wasn’t working, so I had to rush downstairs to the gate to greet him.
I was wearing a red halter-neck summer dress, and he arrived dressed in a casual suit. He approached me eagerly with a smile on his face and we made our way upstairs.
Once inside, I tried to act as though I knew exactly what I was doing.
I asked him to take a shower. In my head, the words had sounded so smooth and confident. Out loud, my nerves betrayed me completely. We stood there for a moment staring at each other like statues, both giving these uncomfortable little chuckles.
Then he leaned in and kissed me.
Suddenly the nerves weren’t quite as loud.
He picked me up onto the benchtop, sliding his hands beneath my dress, and one thing led to another. In what felt like the blink of an eye, the half hour was over.
Then he left.
The funny thing is, the man who became my first actual booking also became one of my first regulars. At the time, I had no idea that nervous little appointment would be the beginning of something much bigger.
After that, things moved quickly.
For a while I bounced between hotel rooms and short-term apartments, feeling a little like a nomad searching for somewhere to finally call my own. Eventually, I found it, a beautiful, elegant and spacious apartment with a gorgeous view over the river.
It also came with a not-so-gorgeous price tag of $1,100 a week.
It was a gamble, but I knew I could afford it. More importantly, I wanted somewhere nice. Somewhere that felt permanent rather than temporary. I was tired of constantly packing up and moving around, and I wanted a space where I could properly build something.
Once I moved into that apartment, things really started to take shape. My working hours were 10am until 10pm. Every day. I only offered incalls and never did outcalls, and last-minute appointments were completely normal. I certainly wasn’t sitting around the apartment waiting for something to happen. Most days were busy almost continuously until around 5pm. Things might slow down for an hour, then by about 6pm the phone would begin ringing again and the evening would take off.
Sometimes I would have dinner cooking in the oven while seeing clients. That was simply what life looked like.
Earning money was completely different then. Making $1,000 in a day with relatively few clients wasn’t unusual, even though individual rates were much lower than they are now. Demand was high, and the competition was much lower.
What surprised me most was how quickly I took to it.
Before I started, I had imagined the job would be far more difficult than it actually felt once I was doing it. Instead, I discovered that I genuinely enjoyed it. I enjoyed meeting people, I enjoyed the independence, and I liked being in control of my own day. No boss to answer to, no deadlines to rush to complete.
With the permanent apartment came regulars. One became two, two became several, and before long I began seeing the same familiar faces again and again. Eventually, I wasn’t relying solely on new enquiries anymore.
But while the work itself came surprisingly naturally to me, running the business did not. That was the real learning curve.
I was earning money, but I wasn’t particularly good at saving it. I trusted people far more easily than I probably should have. Screening was very different then compared with what it is today, and I didn’t yet understand how important it was to establish strong boundaries from the beginning.
I didn’t really know how the industry worked. Not properly.
There was no huge online community at my fingertips. I didn’t have a group of peers I could turn to when something happened and ask, “Is this normal?” Most of the time, I learned because something happened first and I made plenty of rookie mistakes.
But slowly, experience began replacing naivety.
I became more confident saying no. I became better at reading people. I understood my business more clearly and began working out what I was comfortable with, what I wasn’t, and the kind of companion I actually wanted to be.
Six months in, business was booming. My regulars were growing, the apartment had become established, and I had gone from having absolutely no idea what I was doing to running something genuinely successful. I paid off two car loans. I paid more than a year’s worth of rent on the apartment in advance. And eventually, I bought a car outright.
For someone who had started with a two-line newspaper ad, a second phone and a week-long apartment rental, it was surreal.
By the end of that first year, I wasn’t seeing many new clients anymore because I didn’t need to. My regulars generated enough income to keep everything running comfortably.
Life was grand. Business was booming. And for a while, it felt as though life couldn’t have been kinder to me. Until one fateful event came crashing down.
But that’s a story for another day…
End of Year One.
