Belle meets her coworkers at some kind of upscale... place? Could be a restaurant, so let's pretend it is. When she arrives at the restaurant, they're reading a website devoted to reviews of prostitutes. Belle's reviews include, "This girl has a decent body, but sadly she has no idea how to use it. No amount of prodding on my part would persuade her to get even a little excited -- the word 'frigid' springs to mind." Ouch! On the other hand, one of the other reviews on the screen calls her "a sexy bomb ready to explode." But I don't think she saw that one, because now she's hung up on the idea of getting a bad review.
It's 11:59 pm, and Belle is in bed. There's a call from her agent offering a 42-year-old nonkinky architect. Belle doesn't want to do it, even though he'll be coming to her place, but the agent (did she ever get a name and I just forgot it?) points out that if she's getting bad reviews, she should be taking all the work she can get. So she gets up, brushes her teeth, and tells us that work's been a bit slow.
The architect is named Louis (or possibly "Lewis") and seems a bit off-kilter. He hands over the money when he's meant to just be giving her his coat. When Belle goes off to call her agent to tell her she's safe, he objects. He doesn't want her calling anyone, since he feels that he's paid for her. He demands that she take her clothes off and she tells him to go. Even after she's offered a full refund, he keeps coming toward her. Finally, he grabs his money back and stalks out. Belle locks her door and breathes heavily while leaning against it.
When Ben arrives at that club he works at, he finds Belle sitting in a pretty nice chair. It's practically a throne. He complains about Vanessa and her obsession with napkins shaped like doves. He picks up on her acting freaked out and she starts to tell him about Louis. Just then! Her phone rings and its the agent saying things like, "If that's the way you talk to your clients, no wonder he complained." It turns out that Cleo didn't want to see him anymore, so he got dropped on Belle. Belle calls her agent a pimp (which seems fair) and hangs up.
Belle looks at the camera and comments "What a difference a year makes." We flash back to Belle's first encounter with the agent, so I guess she's only been on the job for a year. For some reason, it is not tinted blue. The first question is "A-Levels"? That turns out to mean "Do you do anal?" but I'm pretty sure those were separate lines on the checklist last week. Hang on for a second.
Okay, I've checked last week's episode, and the screenshot includes both "A-Levels" and "Anal Play". I guess "doing anal" is different from "anal play", but I don't see why you need a code word for one of them. The agent claims that she'll keep Belle safe and will be like a best friend. "A best friend who takes 40% and doesn't tell you her real name," she clarifies. We flash-forward back to the present, and Belle is insulting Ben's napkin dove. He acts like it doesn't hurt, but I think he's just acting strong. No guy likes being told that he has an inadequate napkin dove.
Ben can't get Belle to admit that she was scared, but he does discover that she's relaxing her client standards due to receiving bad reviews. I would think it wouldn't be that hard to log in and make a lot of phony good reviews. I mean, I can't imagine that the prostitute review sites have really stellar fact-checking departments. Anyway, Ben thinks she should try living like the normal people do. Belle thinks "normal people" sound pretty dull, but Ben bets her a tenner that she won't miss selling her body.
So we see her sitting in a park watching children play. She sees a frantic businessman on the phone, a harried woman on the phone, a man getting a parking ticket and yelling at a policeman, and decides that normal people are, in fact, boring. And they lead boring lives. She calls Ben and tries to get him to go have lunch with her, but he has to talk to a vodka supplier. She makes another call, and because she knows we can't see her phone from out here, she whispers to the camera, "It's my sister."
Her sister Jackie also cannot go out for lunch, because she has a mother and baby group, which will apparently involve a jamboree of some sort. Oh boy! So Belle misses work. She goes to a kitchen store of some sort, which has some expensive-looking plates and a crème brûlée torch. Man, I got one of those two weeks ago and you would not believe how may things I have brûléed since then. Tim, the man who works at the kitchen store, suggests elegant crockery as an ideal wedding gift. Or perhaps a pointless gadget? Vanessa once bought Belle an electric tin opener for her birthday, so Tim feels that a useless gadget will be just the thing.
Belle bonds a bit with Tim and guesses that he's either a musician or an artist. She voiceovers that since she's not working, she'll "have to start giving it away." Good news for Tim, who we see rolling over in Belle's bed and saying "Good morning." She tries to get rid of him by asking him if he shouldn't get to work, but it's his day off. And it backfires when he asks her about work and she ends up having to claim to be a "night-time legal secretary". Then she rushes off to make breakfast.
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Her refrigerator contains champagne and olives. However, her bathroom has a case with enough shaving cream and toothbrushing supplies to, um, supply a herd of elephants? See, because they're large and hairy and also have big teeth? Look, I realize it isn't that great a joke. Get off my back! Anyway, Belle tries to find enough food to provide breakfast, but Tim has noticed all those massage oils in the bathroom. He's figured out that she must be a professional. A professional masseuse! Good eye, Tim.
A little later, Belle is on the phone to Ben, frantically whispering that the man she slept with last night won't leave. And she can't just say his time is up because she didn't charge him! Ben isn't as sympathetic as he could be, basically laughing, saying, "Oh dear!" and hanging up. Later still, Tim is nosing through her CDs and wants to know where they'll be having lunch. Belle claims to have things to do, like... her carpet. Oh really? You're not just saying names of things you see, are you?
Finally, Ben shows up claiming to be her fiancé. Then he sits to Tim on the couch. Very close to Tim. As he puts his arm around Tim, we cut to Tim leaving. Bye, Tim!
Ben would like to know if Belle is going amateur, and if so, is it just so she can have sex in the Olympics? I like that joke. Anyway, Belle had to get rid of Tim because he was too normal. She claims to love what she does and that Ben owes her a tenner. She's going back to work, providing she can find clients who haven't read that bad review. Ben says that he used to think he knew her, but now realizes that she likes Marmite. She what? Oh, yuck. I'm not just being American here; I've tried that stuff and I'm prepared to say that all spreads ending in "-mite" are weird and gross. Sorry, Australians. I still love you!
At night, Belle is reading a book when she gets a call from her agent, who says "Turns out, one man's shit sandwich really is another man's crème brûlée." Wait, what? I think I may have been making it wrong, then. I was using eggs, cream and sugar. Silly me! Anyway, the agent says that her phone's been ringing off the hook with requests for Belle. She has Martin, a 35-year-old corporate lawyer. Belle does not accept until she threatens to leave the agency if there's a repeat of the client. But accept she does, and we learn that her new clients are because she got a great review from... Ben. Not that big a surprise, really. He took the opportunity to tell her future clients to treat her with respect, which is a good idea.
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When Montykins goes on vacation, he just goes someplace like Disneyland or the San Diego Comic Con. Monty also watches a lot of movies, which he writes about on Monty on Movies. You can email him at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.
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