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A few years ago I was offered ￡450,000 to tell the world that Wayne Rooney had paid to sleep with me, but I didn’t take it. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. Whatever impression Rooney and his sort give, escort girls are usually very discreet. A good reputation is invaluable. In my case, I knew that both my work and my home life would suffer if I kissed and told. My family and friends didn’t know I what I did (although some had suspicions) and if word got out, I would forever be thought of as a prostitute. When the papers started sniffing around, I applied for an injunction myself but guess what? I was rejected. So there’s one law for rich men — however badly they behave — and quite another for the women they sleep with. My name appeared in the tabloids when the story about Rooney broke. In an ideal world, no one would ever have known about my secret working life. But the world, as I’ve known it, is anything but ideal.

　　几年前有人出价450,000英镑让我爆料韦恩·鲁尼曾经付钱让我陪他睡觉，但是我没有接受这个交易。你对此感到吃惊么？事情本来不该是那样的。不管鲁尼他们那类人给人的印象如何，伴游女郎都会言行谨慎。一个好名声是无价的。至于我，很清楚的知道如果我接受了并且爆料，我的工作和家庭生活将会受到什么报复。我的家人和朋友不知道我是从事什么职业（尽管有人怀疑过），假如事情有一天曝光，我将永远被认为是一个妓女。当报界开始在我周围嗅探，我申请了一项禁令但是结果你猜怎么？我被拒绝了！所以对于有权有势的男人们来说有一条规则——不管他们有多坏——对于和他们睡觉的女人来说完全是另一回事。当鲁尼召妓的事情曝光后我的名字出现在八卦小报上。在一个理想的世界里，没有人会知道我的秘密工作。但是现实世界，就我所知，从来就不完美。

How could the daughter of a university lecturer end up selling sex? I get sick of being asked this question. But the truth is that being middle-class does not guarantee a happy childhood. My dad and I had a very volatile relationship and my mum just chose to be away from the house as much as possible. In my early teens, I began to run away from home and at 15 I was placed in foster care with a vicar and his wife. For those months I spent with them, I was happy. I had firm principles; I didn’t believe in sex before marriage. But when I was 16, I was moved by social services to live on my own — and that’s when my ideals went out the window.

　　一位大学讲师的女儿怎么会去出卖身体？我已经受够了一直被问到这个问题。但事实就是出身于中产家庭并不能保证你有一个快乐的童年。我父亲和我的关系一直不稳定而我的母亲仅仅选择了尽可能的远离家庭。在我十几岁的时候，我就开始离家出走，在15岁那年，我被送到了一户寄养家庭由一位牧师和他的妻子照顾。和他们一起度过的那些日子，我过的很幸福。我曾经是很有原则的；我信奉结婚前不应该有性行为。但是到我16岁的时候，我被移交给社会服务机构独立生活——也就在那个时候我的理想破灭了。

I started dating and, by the time I sat my GCSEs, I was pregnant. I don’t believe in abortion so I had my son and took him to nursery while I finished sixth form. I worked as a sales assistant in Next in the evenings to try to make ends meet. My mistake — and God knows I’ve made enough of them — was to get into debt. I wanted to be normal, to live (and spend) like my girlfriends. That was things started really going wrong. I borrowed ￡800 to go on holiday, followed by ￡500 to pay the rent — both from loan sharks. The interest increased by the day, the debts got out of control and I soon owed ￡2,500. By that time I had bailiffs coming to my door and my landlord asking for sex in lieu of rent (I refused) in a house where the windows were being regularly smashed. Having grown up in a good neighbourhood, it was horribly unlike anything I was used to. That was when I heard from a friend about being an escort: you spent an evening with a man, but you didn’t need to have sex, she said. ￡1,500 an evening, just to listen to a man drone on! It was an easy decision.

　　我开始和男人约会，就在参加普通教育证书考试的时候，我怀孕了。我的信仰不允许堕胎，所以我生下了一个男孩并在填好6张表格后把他送到了托儿所。后来我在晚上担任销售助理来应付开支。我犯了一个错误——天知道我犯了多少次——就是欠债。我试图表现的跟其他人一样，像我的闺蜜一样花钱。事情就是这样变的糟糕。我借了800英镑去度假，又借了500英镑付房租，都是从高利贷者那里借的。利息一天天累计，债务开始失去控制，很快我就欠了2500英镑。在那段时间有法警来敲我的门，而我租住的那个窗户常破掉的房子的房东还要求我跟他上床来代替租金（我拒绝了）。对于在一个高级社区长大的我来说，那是跟以往经历过的绝不相同的可怕的事。直到我从一个从事伴游工作的朋友那里听说：“你只是陪伴一个男人一晚上，并不一定需要上床，”她说道。一晚上1500镑，只需要听一个男人说话！那是个很容易下的决定。

It may sound perverse, but I became an escort because I wasn’t interested in men. I’d known enough violent ones in my time to put me off boyfriends and dating. My clients wanted company, with no strings attached. So did I. At the end of the evening, my clients sometimes asked for more but I usually refused them. In fact I was dropped by my agency for saying 'goodnight’ before midnight too often. Soon afterwards, I added what you might call the full range of escort services — but only to men I liked. I advertised through an online Irish agency, under the category 'elite English girls’, and went to Dublin twice a month, where no one knew me. I rented a beautiful apartment with a few other girls and made enough each month to begin to save a nest-egg for my son. I’m not exactly proud of my career so far — but the way I see it, I’ve worked hard, and haven’t been a hypocrite. Even now, there are still many secrets I’ve never told.

　　这听起来好像不合常理，但我成为妓女的原因是我对男人没有兴趣。在我一生中，见过不少暴力的男人，这些让我远离男人和约会。我的客户需要陪伴，但不要牵绊。我也是。在夜晚结束之前，我的客户有时候会要求更多的服务但我通常会拒绝他们。事实上我由于频繁在午夜之前对顾客说"再见"而被中介抛弃。不久以后，我开始加上了所谓的全套服务——但只对我喜欢的男人。我通过一间爱尔兰网上中介来打广告，就在“精英英国女孩”栏目下。我每个月去都柏林两次，在那里没有人认识我。我和其他一些女孩合租一间美丽的公寓，每个月能够赚到足够的钱为我的儿子存一笔储备金。我并不至于以自己的职业为傲——但是我并不像一个伪君子一样的鄙视它，我很努力的工作。即使是现在，我仍旧有许多从未向他人说过的秘密。

I’ve had many famous clients, so I was almost offended when an actor slapped an injunction on me. My first thought was outrage that he’d think I’d blab. Word had leaked, perhaps through one of the girls I shared the apartment with, but I was never going to talk. My second thought was: why would anyone want to read about him? This man’s no major celebrity — I hardly recognised him when he walked through the door. I’ve since found out that this actor has given interviews about his perfect family and fidelity. So I have this piece of advice for him: if you’re going to see escort girls, don’t brag about your squeaky-clean private life. You’re pushing your luck.

　　我有过许多很有名的客户，因此当我被一个演员将一张禁制令甩到脸上时我感到受到侮辱。我的第一反应是他认为我泄漏了他的暴行。消息走漏了，可能是某个与我合租的女孩说出去的，但我从未讲过一个在。我的第二反应是：怎么可能有人想要听说他的丑闻？这个人根本不是大名人——他从门里走过的时候我根本都不会认出他。后来我发现这个演员被报导了他的完美家庭和忠诚。所以我给了他一个忠告：如果你要召唤伴游女郎，就不要吹嘘你完美无缺的私生活。你是在冒险。

I’ve given up the escort business now and my plan is to write a book, not just about my life but about the world I briefly occupied. Is being an escort so much worse than being a gold-digger? That means telling someone 'I love you’ while only seeing pound signs. I never pretended to be anything I wasn’t. I’m not proud of it, but I don’t regret it either. If I can find a publisher, I’d like to give my side of the story at least. That’s if the English law will ever allow women like me a chance to speak.

　　我已经放弃了伴游生意，现在我的计划是写一本书，不仅仅是关于我的生活，还有我曾经短暂拥有的世界。难道当妓女要比当一个拜金女要低贱很多么？拜金女意味着只有在看到男人的金钱才对他说“我爱你”。我从来也不伪装自己的面目。我不是对此感到骄傲，但我也从为感到后悔。如果我能找到肯为我出书的编辑，我至少可以从我的角度讲述那些故事，假如英国的法律允许像我这样的女人发出自己的声音的话。

It was a book, Call Me Elizabeth, that helped me to accept being an escort. It is about a lady who lived in a high-class area of London and lost her job, but didn’t want her kids to have to leave private school. It may sound a bit shallow, but it was an inspiration for me to read something like that. The story about the escort business in Britain needs updating for the 21st century, though. There is now a celebrity cast, by no means all of them actors and footballers. A friend of mine has been seeing a politician in London for some time, and has pictures that would make it very hard for him to deny anything. But this MP can rest easy: she would not sell her story. She values her privacy and anonymity, just as I once did.

　　在阅读了“叫我伊丽莎白”这本书以后，我开始接受了成为一名伴游女郎的想法。这本书是关于一位住在伦敦高级社区的女人，在失去工作之后，努力不让她的孩子从私立学校转学的故事。这听起来有点灰暗，但对我来说，读到这个故事对我是一种鼓舞。尽管在英国伴游女郎的故事背景需要更新到21世纪。这项生意的客户多半都是名流，当然他们并不都是演员或者是球星。我的一个朋友曾经在伦敦陪伴过一位政治家数次，并且有让他无法抵赖照片为证。但这位国会议员可以高枕无忧：她绝不会出卖他的秘密。她非常看重隐私，就像我过去那样。