“My mum didn’t know what I was doing at first but I told her later on in case I was found dead in a ditch, I didn’t want her to hear about it on the news without knowing what I did.”
This was the heart-breaking conversation that 41-year-old Rachael Webster had to have with her mum one night after a three-day business trip meeting clients in London.
“Mum said she already knew, she was quite non-plussed with the whole thing.
“She used to say her prayers at night that I would stay safe – I felt quite guilty but managed to push it to the back of my mind.”
But what drives a woman into the arms, and beds, of strangers?
“I was a hard-up single parent and saw something about being an escort in a glossy magazine – I was lured in by the glitz and glamour of it all.”
The Manchester-born brunette, then 21, sent her daughter to live with her mum swapping nappies for negligées in the hope of carving out a glamorous career for herself.
“I couldn’t believe I was making the transition from the concept to the reality.
“It was incredibly difficult and I got very drunk the first time I went on a job. I became dependent on drink at night time to try and get over it, but I loved the designer clothes, shoes, handbags and the parties that my lifestyle offered me.”
However the novelty of quaffing champagne and indulging in designer shopping sprees soon waned as the reality of life as a call girl soon hit home.
“I got used to the job as time went on, I became hardened to it.
“The TV programme Belle de Jour didn’t highlight the dangers enough; I remember my life being on the line a couple of times while I was working.
“At times it was really harrowing, I got caught with gangsters at one point and I remember one guy chasing me in a hotel with a knife – I just prayed I would live to escape.”
Despite putting her life on the line each time she went to a client’s room Rachael still made the weekly trips to London from her Liverpool home leaving her three children with her mum.
Rachael explained: “It was a huge moral dilemma – I’ve always believed in a higher power looking over us, and I just hoped he wasn’t watching when I was working.
“There were times I felt empowered, especially when I was buying Gucci and Prada, but other times I felt really used, I just couldn’t go on.”
Her life took a different path following the death of her beloved mum, who died from an aggressive form of cancer, when a brain swelling nearly claimed her life.
Following this traumatic experience Rachael turned to drink, as she had done while working in London, and found herself with nowhere to go.
Homeless charity Crisis Skylight helped turn her life around in 2010 and enrolled her on a writing course where she penned her memoirs.
“It was very therapeutic, and when my tutor said I had a real aptitude for creative writing I eventually started to believe in myself.”
Rachael started writing her book, The First Floor: Autobiography of a High-Class Call Girl, ten years ago but then decided to scrap it and write it in its entirety from scratch in just six weeks.
“Some people think it’s fantastic and are asking when the sequel will be out, whereas other have asked, ‘has this woman no shame?’
“But it’s my life story – some people have a more colourful background – my eldest knows I’ve written the book and is really proud.”
You can find Rachael’s ebook here.
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