When she was known as the Manhattan Madam, Kristin Davis learned to cater to the sexual whims of the world’s financial elite. But she also learned that men who are making tons of money think they can do no wrong…a mind-set that brought the world to the edge of economic disaster.
-Illustration by Matt Vincent
It doesn’t surprise me that we are in the midst of one of the worst recessions this country has seen. That’s because I have personal knowledge of many of the men who have driven us all off the cliff. In my former life as a madam, I was privy to their sex lives. In fact, I ran the world’s most successful escort agency, with a client base well over 10,000. We grossed more than $5 million a year.
When they say Wall Street is a boys’ club, they aren’t kidding. I know this better than anyone since I did my time in the financial world. I spent ten years climbing my way up the corporate ladder. My last position was vice president of operations at a $5 billion hedge fund, where I was fired after getting caught posting ads on Craigslist looking to hire hookers. “Inappropriate use of the firm’s business hardware” is what they called it. I call it bullshit.
After spending ten years on the “street,” I know how these firms operate. When they are up, there is no limit to what the moneymakers are allowed to do. Someone like me, in the back office, never makes the big money. But the front-office guys, the traders and portfolio managers—these guys can get away with murder. As long as they make the company money, all indiscretions are overlooked.
That’s how it is on Wall Street. If you are not one of the moneymakers, you’d better learn to keep your mouth shut or you won’t have a job. If your boss goes out and buys a Range Rover on the company credit card after having a stock go up ten points in a day and cashing out—just light up some cigars and congratulate him. What he spends doesn’t matter—he made the company $2 million in a day. An $80,000 Range Rover is no big deal.
Combining this knowledge with my financial expertise made me a successful madam. I could talk the talk with the guys on the “street,” and they loved it. They were so surprised to find that the woman running this illicit business was actually educated. Many of them offered me high-level executive jobs, which I just laughed at. I said, “You can’t afford me.” On more than one occasion I showed them that I made as much money as they did, if not more. That was the irony. I had left the world of finance with the understanding that I would never make “real” money like these guys, and yet by capitalizing on their desires I was making more than they were. It has often been said that the sex industry is the one place where women make more money than men, and I’ve definitely found that to be true.
As a madam, I found myself inducted into the inner circle; I was the only girl in the boys’ club. And what a sweet club it was. I was on speed dial for some of the top men on Wall Street, the movers and shakers, the world’s financial decision makers. Me, a nobody, was now the street’s most popular girl!
One of my first Wall Street clients was a very successful money manager. I’ll call him “John.” He man – aged a multibillion-dollar hedge fund for some of the wealthiest people in the world. John called looking for girls one evening. He had some clients in town from Europe and they wanted to “party.” In the escort world, “party” means the clients plan on doing coke, so the girls need to be ready to party with them, and the call could go on for days. As long as there were drugs, the girls would stay—and my best girls always understood the importance of extending the call by keeping the party going.
This time, John was definitely ready to party for the evening. He wanted three girls for three hours each. I quoted him a price of $7,500 in total. I told him that normally I would charge $1,000 an hour per girl for a total of $9,000, and that he was getting a $1,500 price break for booking multiple girls for multiple hours. He tried to negotiate but I stuck to that price, and he finally said, “I like you—you drive a hard bargain. And you sound cute—why don’t you come join the party?” I told him he couldn’t afford me, and he laughed. He said, “I can afford anything I want. What’s your price?” I answered, “I don’t have a price; that’s the point.”
I called three of my best party girls and told them to be ready in an hour for a long night with a fun group of guys. The party was in John’s penthouse apartment. Part of my protocol is for the girls to call me when they get to the appointment and collect the money. When Lola called she said, “Damn, you have to see this apartment. It overlooks the entire city, and takes up a whole floor! I could hold a carnival here.” I told her to have a good time and to make sure to pick up the phone when I called in three hours to see if they wanted to extend the appointment.
At the three-hour mark, I called Lola to find out if John wanted to keep the girls longer. I could hear music blasting in the background, and Lola said they were having a great time. There was coke, weed, and ecstasy; they were dancing and snorting coke off one another, and two of the girls were in the bathtub with one of the guys. It was about 1 A.M. and John got on the phone to ask how much to keep the girls until six. I told him $5,000 per girl. He wanted to negotiate, and since the girls were already there I caved and let them stay for $4,000 each.
At six in the morning, I called Lola to make sure the girls were leaving. They were still partying. I couldn’t believe it! It’s 6 A.M. on a Wednesday—doesn’t anyone work? I got John on the phone and he said they were having so much fun they wanted to continue the party. This meant there were still drugs—and as long as there are drugs, there’s a party. “Don’t you have to go to work?” I asked. He said, “I’m the boss—I can do what I want and what I want is some new girls.” I sent two girls home since they were tired and sent two new girls over. This lasted until about 4 P.M., and he ended up spending more than $30,000.
John became one of my best clients. Soon he was holding parties every week. They would last one or two days, sometimes three if he was on a bender. The girls loved him because he was fun and always had a lot of drugs. He was a little kinky and liked to spank them and watch girl-girl shows. Occasionally he asked that they bring toys, so I’d make sure they picked some up at the 24-hour adult store on the way. They did whatever it took because, well, it was his dime and he always tipped well.
After a couple of weeks, and some $50,000 in charges, he asked me if I could start billing his company credit card. He said he considered this entertainment, and since it was his company, he could do as he pleased. He sent me a sample invoice and I started creating them for him monthly. We spoke nearly every day and he started asking me to take care of other things for him, like securing theater tickets or booking premium automobiles, such as Bentleys. I did this on my merchant account and ended up billing him for all services in one invoice to get them by his accountant. In an eight-month period, I invoiced him for well over $220,000.
I call this the “king syndrome”—a mind-set that says I am the king and I can do whatever I want with no repercussions. Those who challenge the king are guilty of treason. This mind-set is very common with the Wall Street elite. And this way of thinking (or not thinking) is why our country is in the economic toilet today.
My biggest Wall Street client ran a global financial firm—it doesn’t go much higher up on the food chain than this guy. “George” was also an important principal in our government—helping determine policy in an institution that monitors fiscal transactions and influences financial and credit conditions. He called one day wanting the best of the best. I started going over the list of my top girls, all models signed to major agencies, and he settled with a very established lingerie model named Samantha. He requested an overnighter; I told him there was a nonnegotiable rate of $15,000. He didn’t balk and gave me his credit-card number. He requested that Samantha dress elegantly since he was talking her to an exclusive five-star restaurant.
The next day he called to thank me and book for the next week. I made arrangements with one of my most elite models, who I’d have to fly in from California, where she was a working actress. I e-mailed him photos, and he immediately said he wanted her for two days, so I quoted him $50,000. Again, he didn’t balk at the price. As a perk, I threw in a limo for the night since he was taking her to a casino in Atlantic City, where one of his favorite musicians was performing. The next day he took her to Barneys and sent her home with a $5,000 gift certificate for me as a thank-you.
Not surprisingly, George was one of my absolute favorite clients. He was smart, funny, easy to book, and paid extremely well. He split his charges between his personal credit card and his corporate black card. We used to talk finance, which was always fun, and he told me once to Google him. I was extremely impressed at what I found. I never questioned his spending, where the money came from, or the lavishness of it—that’s just how Wall Street guys are. Today, with his company facing financial ruin, George has gone running to the government—whose financial policy he used to influence—to get bailed out. That’s also how Wall Street guys are—spending our money on their lavish lifestyles and shamelessly expecting us to pay for it. And we do.
Another good client was a principal attorney representing a huge international company. I thought this was funny because he was supposed to be in charge of compliance and making sure everything was aboveboard, but at the same time he was supporting an expensive hooker habit. “Greg” was actually very kinky and went on huge cocaine binges almost every weekend. Every time he called he was already high. He’d start calling Saturday morning around 9 A.M., wanting a girl to get there in 20 minutes. And every Saturday I would explain to him that these girls were not awake yet and the earliest I could get someone to him would be 11 A.M. I’d tell him that I would make some calls and let him know who I was sending around 10 or 10:30.
Somehow this never seemed to sink in because 15 minutes later he’d be calling again … and 15 minutes later, and so on. That’s what happens when you’re on a cocaine binge—you lose track of time and you don’t want to be by yourself. Greg also demanded that his girls bring a whole wardrobe of outfits so they could role-play. He always wanted standard outfits—a sexy suit, some sort of gown, and a bikini, but sometimes he would complicate things by throwing in something outlandish, like a cowgirl outfit complete with hat and boots. Or a nurse’s uniform. On more than one occasion, I had to have the girl go by the local stripper-clothing store to pick up the right costume on the way to his apartment. This meant another 30 minutes of stalling for me. But he would say if she didn’t come with the wardrobe, he would send her away, so I did everything in my power to make it happen.
Usually Greg would keep the first girl for five or six hours. Then he would take a break and call me a few more times to ask who else was available. Around 7 P.M. the process would start all over again and he would book another girl for five or six more hours. Sunday morning he would start calling somewhere between 6 and 8 A.M. By that time he could barely speak and he was usually really irrita ble. I’d ignore his calls until nine or so, and pick up only because he had called some 100-plus times. I’d tell him to get some rest and I’d call him later in the afternoon. We repeated this pretty much every week.
Greg was good enough to refer me to one of his business acquaintances, “Jack,” who ran an electronic trading exchange and controlled his firm’s stock-analysis division. He became a very good client who went on periodic spending binges and actually took one of the girls on vacation with him. Jack tended to fall in “lust” with some of the girls, wooing them with shopping sprees in futile attempts to get them into a “real” relationship. In about half a year he spent $40,000.
I had many other Wall Street clients. Presidents of leading investment firms, heads of trading exchanges, top traders, portfolio managers, and even newbies just getting started. A few would call me from their overpriced lunch meetings, martinis in hand, and ask if they could swing by for a quickie. Many would come with their associates after work to relieve stress; others would come during work, because to them, getting laid was more important than the job. Some would even close down my apartment with their friends during the day, partying with five or six girls, spending thousands, and trashing the place, leaving liquor bottles everywhere and cocaine on my countertops. They all lived duplicitous lives—pretending they were hard workers while they spent most of the day screwing around.
And can you blame them? It is Wall Street tradition that those making money answer to no one. If you’re wondering whether these guys are the ones receiving TARP money, I can say for certain that some of them are, and if you’re wondering where your tax money is going, all I can say is that I seriously doubt that these guys have all cut back on their “discretionary” spending.
The boys’ club still exists, and there is no doubt that they band together when times are tough. Who are the top people in government overseeing the financial bailout? They’re all former Wall Streeters. Times don’t get much tougher than they are now, but you can be sure that once happy days are here again, the “street mentality” will revert back to what it was before. I’m sure that the next “Manhattan Madam” is already lining up girls and waiting for the next bull market to start the good times rolling again.
