Most of this job is ordinary. The part that is not is that you meet strangers alone, often at an address you have never seen, and the law makes it an offence to have a colleague in the next room. That is covered in our guide on whether two escorts can share a flat, and it is the reason everything below matters more than it should have to.
What to ask before you agree
Keep it short. You are not interviewing him, you are confirming he is real and the booking is what he says.
A first name and a working number. Then ring it back. This is the highest value ten seconds in the whole process: it proves the number reaches him, and a man who will not take a call back has told you everything.
Where. For a hotel, the hotel and the room number. For a private address, the street and the flat. Vagueness here is the most common warning sign there is.
How long, and what he is expecting. Not for the sake of it. If what he wants is not something you offer, you both want to find that out on the phone.
Whether anybody else will be there. Ask every time, and treat a wrong answer as the end of the booking rather than a surprise to work around.
Withheld numbers get less of your time. So do men who will only text, who will not say where, or who open with a question about your limits before they have said hello.
Reading the call
The obvious signals are easy. The useful ones are quieter.
Haggling is the clearest. A man negotiating your rate before he has met you will negotiate everything else in the room. Pressure on limits is the next: not asking, which is fine, but asking again after a no.
Then there is the man who is very keen to know whether you work alone, or whether anybody knows where you are. There is no innocent version of that question. It is the one to end a call over.
Finally, trust the flat feeling you cannot justify. You do not owe anybody a reason. No is a complete answer and it costs you one booking.
Setting up an incall
Somebody should know you have a booking and roughly when it ends. Agree a check-in message afterwards and a word that means come and get me, and make sure they know what to do if the check-in does not arrive.
Keep your phone charged, on you, and not in another room. Keep the money somewhere out of sight rather than on the side. Take a quick look at who is at the door before you open it, and if there are two of them, do not.
Think about the room itself. You want to be nearer the door than he is, nothing heavy within his reach, and nothing lying around that carries your real name or address. That last one costs you nothing and matters more than people expect.
Setting up an outcall
Outcalls carry more risk because the ground is his. Send the address to the person who knows about your bookings before you set off, and text again when you arrive and when you leave.
Hotels are the easier version. There is a lobby, staff, cameras and a room number that matches a real booking, and walking straight to the lift without stopping at reception keeps it discreet. Private addresses need a little more: check the building looks like what he described, and if it does not, keep walking and ring from somewhere else.
Keep your own way home. Your own taxi, your own fare, your own decision about when to leave. Our guide on incall and outcall covers the practical differences.
Money
Agreed on the phone, in cash, at the start, before anything else happens. Count it. Nobody who intends to pay minds you counting.
Deposits are worth taking on a first booking with a client you have not met, for long bookings, travel outside London and anything unusual enough that you would turn other work down for it. Keep them small and traceable, and say what happens if either of you cancels. Never ask for gift cards, vouchers or top up codes: clients are told to treat that as a scam, because it is one, and asking will cost you the booking and your name. Our guide on escort scams is written for clients, which makes it useful reading from your side.
A price raised once he is in the room is his problem to withdraw, not yours to accept. So is a man who produces less than was agreed and expects the booking to continue.
What is never negotiable
Your limits, your screening and your right to end a booking. Not for a higher fee, not for a regular, not for a quiet week. A client who pushes on any of the three has told you exactly who he is, and the answer is no at any price.
You can also stop after he has paid. Give the money back and leave, or ask him to. Losing a fee is a small price, and the bookings people regret are almost always the ones they talked themselves into.
The other side of it
Clients on this hub are told what screening is for and what a reasonable escort will and will not ask them, in our guide on what an escort will ask you. It is worth reading, because it shows you what a well prepared client has already been told to expect, and how little of what you need to ask is unreasonable.
If you are still setting up, how to become an escort in the UK covers the legal position, and safety covers how the hub handles concerns raised with us.