Barbery Byfield was a flaxen-haired, peaches-and-cream, blue-eyed beauty who could have had her pick of any of the pedigreed young men at Yale. The heirs of the Cabots, Lodges, and Davenports were all interested in this remarkably beautiful girl from Ames, Iowa, had made their intentions clear, and were generous with their affections.
There were few of these well-to-do, patrician men at Yale these days, their rightful places having been displaced by 'the other', that potpourri of racial diversity so sought by university administrators; but there were enough of them still to matter, to be noticed, to live a life of privilege even within a newly defined progressive context. They still summered on the Vineyard or Nantucket, skied at Gstaad over Christmas, were fixtures at the Plaza or the Waldorf, and dined at Mory's or Fence Club.
Barbery, however, was not the usual Wellesley or Holyoke girl, patrician by birth, aristocrat by breeding, and ambitious by nature; but a Belle de Jour, a high-class call girl with an open mind, a damsel without any particular moral principle, savvy in the way of men, and an impeccably proper date. She lured and bedded young men from the best of families, promised them days and nights of Turkish delight and the exotic pleasures of a pasha's harem.
Where she learned her trade was a mystery, recondite as she was about her past; but there must have been some tutor, some Blaze Starr or Fanny Brice, for no young woman coming from a childhood and adolescence of milking, hemming, and winnowing could possibly have emerged with such sexual brilliance.
The truth is far less intriguing. Some girls, as Vladimir Nabokov knew, were nymphets, preternaturally sexual beings well before puberty; girls with desire, know-how, and a sensual nature which had a remarkable purity for anyone so young.
How did she know this? There were no recognizable, correlated antecedents, Nabokov wrote. It just happens, like a murmuration of starlings, a surprise of nature to be enjoyed only by the very fortunate; and so it was that Barbery's fate was set and settled very early. Although she was a promising mathematician and violinist, these possibilities paled in comparison with this thing - this impatient, nettling, irritating itch that needed to be scratched, this surprisingly incorrigible thing that wanted satisfaction.
It might be enough for nymphets to become the Emma Bovarys or Connie Chatterleys of the world - demanding sexual prowlers for whom the act was inescapable; but when combined with a canny sense of opportunity, it was unstoppable and irresistible.
How one in such a traditional university environment, let alone la creme de la creme, transforms ordinary dating, boys and girls together, into a commercial enterprise is subject for business school and a Freudian couch; but the reality was quite simple. Barbery 'traded' sexual favors for ski weekends in Aspen and summers in St. Tropez, a perfectly consensual affair with both parties properly recompensed.
Barbery was such a genius at her craft, that the young men who brought her to the Riviera or Caribbean go-to islands valued her far more than she did them. As a result and according to the law of supply and demand, the young men not only came back for more but fought each other for the privilege. Exclusive trips soon lost their luster and value, and the best-heeled and most intent suitors paid her in cash; and so was her career as a Yale call girl begun.
These adventures were only as an undergraduate, and Barbery's career was destined for bigger and better things. She graduated Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa and headed for Harvard Law School. Her reputation preceded her and before long the same trail of men followed her from torts to courts. By the time she graduated and had secured her first clerkship, she was a wealthy woman.
She was an equal opportunity business owner, and welcomed all comers, although she was fondest of the grandsons of old German Jewish families like the Rothschilds who had built New York - young men with millions who fell particularly hard for this cornflower blue-eyed beauty and who were ready to lavish her with everything their money could buy.
To manage all this - torts and courts along with a growing business - was a challenge; but since her affairs were strictly on a paying basis, she did not have to worry about secrecy, jealousies, or squabbles. That was a male thing, and all it did was to raise her value.
Washington, her next stop as an attorney for Arnold & Porter, the city's most prestigious law firm, was a perfect venue for her polyglot interests. Thanks to her tenures at Yale and Harvard, she was already well known on K Street and Capitol Hill - both for her legal brilliance and her sexual favors. Washington, a porous, no-secrets place despite its official firewalls, was already primed and ready for her, and it was not long before the premier call girl agency in town contacted her. What she could make for Madame LeCharnier would be far more than she could hope for with Arnold & Porter, even with the quiet investments made offshore in Aruba and Bimini.
Her old classmates also in Washington to pursue their careers were more than eager to be with her and were quite willing to pay her new rates, among the highest in Mme. LeCharnier's house. Their incomes had risen like hers, and commerce was in equilibrium.
Her Yale reunions were the most fun, and she went every five years. She was approached for an organizing, leadership role, but she demurred. Her life and profession required at least a modicum of privacy. No, she would attend as an alumna only.
Surprisingly, those men who knew her at Yale had wholly and abjectly subscribed to the principle of 'suspension of disbelief'. They chose to ignore or overlook the fact that she was a call girl and to treat her no differently than they would any other attractive, successful woman. As such she could travel in the best of circles, curry favor with the best of families, and make millions from them.
Men will always be men, she said, Yale or Podunk - all dumbly and reverently anxious to bed her - and she wondered why she had no competition. She was bi-professional, a successful trial lawyer and a high-priced Belle de Nuit. Unlike the Catherine Deneuve character, she had no sexual conflicts to resolve, no personal conundrums, no unsolvable emotional mysteries. She was simply a nymphet grown up, smarter than most, with no inhibiting morality, and a very positive outlook.
None of my Yale classmates know what has become of her. At some point she must have given up her avocation but even advanced AI Google searches have come up with nothing. So be it. In this way she can be remembered for what she was, and what she was was really something.
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