The True Confessions & Wild Adventures Of Two Rent-A-Girls

The True Confessions & Wild Adventures Of Two Rent-A-Girls, by Julie Nelson and Linda Tracey

July, 1973  Pinnacle Books

Sometimes I wonder why I read this crap. The True Confessions & Wild Adventures Of Two Rent-A-Girls presents itself as one of the countless sex books of the early ‘70s (it’s actually labelled “Sociology” on the spine), but the cartoonish cover art is more indicitave of the content. Credited to a pair of “rent-a-girls” but likely churned out by some poor contract writer (it’s copyright Pinnacle), the book comes off like a poor man’s The Happy Hooker, presenting itself as a glimpse into the life of a pair of girls for hire. Who are not, as you might justifiably suspect, prostitutes! In fact the entire premise of the book is about as hard to buy as the authorial credit. 

“Only in the swinging seventies could there be rent-a-girls,” the intro informs us. Throughout the book we’re given a bit of backstory on this organization, which turns out to be a business run out of Los Angeles in which men (or women!) can rent a girl…for dates or whatever. Only later in the book do we learn that rent-a-girls are not hookers, and indeed it’s “against the rules” for them to have sex with the men who have rented them, as they could lose their job, the company could be fined, etc. What makes this so strange is that, prior to us readers being informed of this, narrator Julie Nelson has already had sex with practically every guy who has rented her! It’s also kind of funny because she and her rommate, fellow rent-a-girl Linda Tracey, get indignant when clients bluntly ask them for sex, or assume they’re hookers, etc. 

“Julie” narrates the majority of the book, turning in a series of random chapters that follow a “day in the life of a rent-a-girl” approach. Each chapter is very short, concerns some unusual “client” she or her fellow girls meet and have sex with, and then each chapter ends on a lame punchline or joke. This, coupled with the naïve tone of Julie’s narrative, reminds me very much of The New Stewardesses. Even when it comes to the frequent sex scenes, which – early in the book, at least – are about as tame as those in The New Stewardesses. In fact early in The True Confessions I thought I was about to read another of those unusual publications: the sleaze novel that isn’t very sleazy. I’ve always wondered about those kinds of books, and who the intended readership for them was. Like, “I want to read some sleaze, but then I also have church tomorrow, so…” 

At any rate, The True Confessions (I refuse to type out that super-long title every time) does indeed become more explicit as it goes along, as if “Julie Nelson” were skittish in the opening pages and got more bold as she went along. But still, we aren’t talking super-sleazy material here, with the majority of the shenanigans over and done with in a sentence or two. Also, textbook anatomical terms are used throughout, which I guess goes along with the b.s. “Sociology” tag on the spine. Even when Julie quotes her fellow rent-a-girls, it’s all “his penis” this and “my vagina” that, and none of it has any impact. Also as mentioned the sexual material is over and done with in just a few sentences; practically every chapter – and there’s a bunch of them, each chapter only a few pages long – follows the same template: Julie gets a phone call from Bernice, buxom redhead who runs the Rent-A-Girl office, and Bernice will have a new client. Julie will go meet him, talk to him a bit and learn what his weird hangup is, more than likely have sex with him, and then she’ll end the chapter on a lame joke. 

Julie informs us that she and Linda were sorority sisters in college at Wisconsin and then moved to LA to become actresses, with little success. One day they were at a friend’s wedding and the bride told them her husband was a former “client.” She further explained that she’d been a rent-a-girl, the “best job in the world,” and on this shaky recommendation Julie and Linda decided to give it a go. That was two years ago and the book is comrpised of Julie and Linda’s wily-nily reflections on the job. The author works in some hamfisted metatextual stuff with Julie occasionally informing us that “Linda says I should write about this…,” as if there really are two women writing. 

The True Confessions opens with Julie on one date, then flashing back to how she started the job. This entails a chapter in which she and Linda meet Bernice and have to fill out a questionaire. Then they’re each sent on their first dates: Linda’s client wants immediate sex and Julie’s is a wealthy guy who just has Julie run him a bath and then give him a “happy ending.” So from this first date it’s established that rent-a-girls have sex with their clients. So imagine my stupefecation when later in the book Linda comes running home crying from a date because her client demanded that they have sex! Or when Julie gets indignant because another client tells her he wants a mistress in every state! “What does that have to do with me? You just met me!” Julie asks him in shock, causing the reader to wonder if he’s suddenly reading a completely different book. 

Well anyway, as mentioned there’s no “plot,” per se. The two girls – plus other rent-a-girls who are occasionally quoted – tell us all about their various dates, like the couple that hires Julie so she can watch them have sex, or the guy with the small dick who flies Julie to Vegas, or even when Julie tells us about “my first black date.” There’s even a part where two lesbians rent them, and Julie grits her teeth and goes through with it. Again, practically every client does these two girls…and not to beat a dead horse, but it continues to be strange when Julie goes out with a guy who turns out to be an undercover cop, and we’re informed the LAPD occasionally runs sting operations on the office to make sure the girls…you guessed it, aren’t having sex with their clients. Because they could “lose their license” and stuff. Of course Julie manages to screw the cop and keep her job. 

Even more random is the part where Julie and Linda are hired to “act” in a movie…and of course it turns out to be a porno. “What do we have to lose?” Julie tells the ever-suspicious Linda, and soon enough Linda’s having sex on film and Julie is being double-teamed. And they’re fine with this. Again, it’s just a “date” they’ve been hired for. But then a few chapters later Julie gets uppity when another client asks her to go straight up to his hotel room. Well anyway, the author tries to cover the full spectrum of kinkiness, each client wanting something odd, like the guy who wants Julie to play hide and seek with him. Some of the clients are unhappily-married men…and again, confoundingly enough, Julie feels bad for one of them and decides, moments after meeting him at the office, to take him back to her apartment – which is against the rules – and screw his brains out to make him feel better. For a negotiated price, of course. But please, don’t ever confuse her with a hooker. 

Honestly, I don’t why I read this kind of crap. Anyway, this is another one of those books that is better served by a series of random excerpts: 

But the idea of having sex with a stranger I had only met a few minutes before was not very appealing. I was beginning to feel more like a call girl instead of a rent-a-girl. But by the time we reached his room, I had made up my mind to give my very first customer the best screw he ever had. -- pg. 26 

We had our drinks in the library and Mr. Palmer was a different man. He was relaxed, dignified, and cool. We didn’t talk about his bath, but rather about politics. He is a Democrat and so am I, so we had much to discuss. -- pg. 32 

I was becoming excited and I am sure part of it was the anticipation of what his small penis would feel like up my vagina. -- pg. 72 

We made love and I really did my best. I did everything I could think of to excite him, but at first I was doing as badly as his wife. Then I remembered something one of my girl friends had told me. I grabbed his balls and began to squeeze them. -- pg. 99 

It was wild. Two men screwing me at once. And I was getting paid! -- pg. 115 

Toward the end of the second day I was beginning to feel guilty. What was I doing here? Was I nothing more than a cheap whore sleeping with some creepy guy who paid women to fuck him in London and probably Paris, Madrid, and Rome too? -- pg. 150 

I hope I haven’t given the impression that all our rent-a-girl dates are wild, weird, and off-beat. -- pg. 171