Full Name:| Leonora Adams
Nicknames:| Nora to family and close friends, Lea to clients
Age:| 20.
Gender:| Female
Orientation:| Straight, but happy to go bi for the job. Usually it’s part of a threesome or some sex show, but Lea has one regular female client.
Originally From:| Skowhegan, Maine. Parents from Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, and Bogota, Colombia
Currently Living:| Broad Street, Stapleton, Staten Island

Occupation 1:|
By day, Leonora is a business and law student at Cornell’s New York campus. She won a scholarship with a project on cross-border co-operation between the fishing fleets of Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Due to her family’s troubled finances, this scholarship was the only way she could attend such a prestigious university, and she’s not going to waste the opportunity. Of course, the scholarship only pays school fees. For rent, food, course books and all other living expenses, there’s…

Occupation 2:|
Call girl. High-class hooker. Escort. Lady of the night. Whore. Call it what you will, Leonora doesn’t care. A girl’s got to make a living, and she’s damned if she’s going to scrape by in some minimum-wage drudgery. Some people call her immoral. Others call her a victim. Underneath all the hype, it’s just another service job. The clients generally observe the rules – that’s the benefit over being a street walker. Really, the job is 33% listening, 33% arm candy, 33% fucking, and 1% shame. Hey, everyone’s mask slips now and then. The Blue Light Agency’s madam is Leonora’s godmother, which is how she got such a lucky break, but like every other illegitimate business in New York, it belongs to the mob.

Physical description:|
Leonora is 5ft 8in, dress size 4/6. Yoga gives her an athletic, rather than thin, build, as she knows her clients prefer a girl with a curve or two. She has brown eyes and medium-length dark brown hair, which she’s never dyed.

On campus, Leonora dresses very casually, usually in jeans, Converse sneakers, a Cornell hoodie and a blood-red leather jacket. She wears her hair pulled back in a pony tail, and minimal make-up. Rather than making her look plain, though, this simple uniform highlights the natural beauty of her features. She sports this look to appear as different as possible from when she's working.

When meeting a new client, Leonora usually wears a simple black, strapless cocktail dress, a thin silver chain with green pendant and silver stud earrings, with her hair up to reveal the tan skin of her slender neck. So not to tower over her date, she'll only wear two- or three-inch heels. She also has a Vera Wang chiffon dress for daytime engagements, and her prize possession, a black Versace origami gown, which she's only worn once, to a high couture event.

Likes:|
Blue collar bars, the sea, yoga and meditation, French-Canadian culture, smoking weed, wine, The Financial Times

Dislikes:|
Pets, privilege, conspiracy theorists, car bores, tattoos, fried food, social network sites

Fears:|
Having to drop out of Cornell. Losing her identity in the big city. Claustrophobia. Parents finding out about her job. Never reconciling with her parents

Secrets:|
Leonora killed a child in a drug-driving hit-and-run, but let a friend take the fall.

Hobbies:|
Between her studies and her job, Leonora doesn’t have much free time. Whenever she can grab a couple of minutes to herself – on the subway, in the library, when a client has fallen asleep – she’ll do a quick meditation. It helps her clear her mind of the clutter of trying to live two or three lives at once, at break-neck pace. In the same vein, she does at least 20 minutes of yoga before leaving in the morning.

Talents:|
Having a French-Canadian mother, Leonora speaks fluent French. She picked up a little Spanish from her father too.
She knows enough about wine to hold her own on the subject in high society, and joined the university’s wine-tasting society, even if she rarely has time to attend.
Sex – She was an early developer in this regard, and quickly learned not only how to enjoy herself but to make sure her partner was enjoying him(her)self, not just physically but emotionally/mentally as well, which combines well with her…
Empathy – Leonora never loses sight of the fact that hers is just one perspective in a world of billions. Everyone has their own motivations, influences, needs and fears – whether it be to blow hard about a business deal or rapping about being the baddest motherfucker in the carriage – which happens a lot round Staten Island. This trait also helps on the job, meaning Lea can play a variety of parts to a variety of customers, flirting consummately and winning people's trust.
However, her life being what it is, perhaps Leonora’s greatest skill is compartmentalizing. This can come off as cold, even ruthless, but she can’t allow one part of her life take time – or headspace – from another part.

Deficits:|
Leonora’s focus on her studies and busy working life means she has little time for anything – or anyone – else. She hasn’t spoken to any member of her family in over a year. She often forgets to eat – she’s just too busy. She regularly breaks social dates because her mind is elsewhere. The only thing she doesn’t forget are client dates and coursework deadlines.
Something that occasionally shows her up on jobs – Leonora’s lack of co-ordination means she’s useless at dancing, especially in a couple. Being led around the floor is about all she can manage.

Weapons:|
Mace spray, killer heels.

Personality:|
Leonora has had to overcome quite a few obstacles to get to where she is, and fears that effort going to waste. As a result, she is very goal-oriented and determined, and has subsumed a lot of the adventurous, youthful traits she displayed in her home town. Though she's scared to admit it, she's also having difficulty living two separate lives - the determined student and the fun-loving call-girl. One is a life of endless grind, commute and work, the other is glamorous, simple, and (for now) consequence-free. Is she her true self while on the arm or in the bed of a rich man? And if that is the case, is she wasting her life, time and effort in the endless work of Cornell?

On campus, Leonora is slow to make friends. She rationalizes this as a lack of time but the truth is that she is reluctant to get close to people for two reasons: firstly, that they'll find out what she does for a living, and secondly, that an attempted romance will confirm her fear that her job as a call girl has ruined relationships for her. Nonetheless, she is guardedly friendly with a couple of female classmates; their friendship mostly revolves around study groups and exam tips, but she makes a point of going to In Vino Veritas, the campus wine society, at least once a fortnight to unwind and socialize. It was while recalling a drunken game of truth-or-dare at the club that Leonora first caught the eye of Lincoln Genovese.

On the job, Leonora lets go of all the pressure and lets out her fun-loving side. She can be goofy or mischievous. While she tailors her behavior to the client and the occasion, she is invariably upbeat and enthusiastic, and gives her clients the impression that they are the source of this good mood. Indeed, they invariably are; not only are their dates as a chance to forget her 'real' life, but they take place in luxurious settings. Unlike some other girls at the agency, Leonora doesn't dislike or pity her clients; they have made a choice to purchase a service, and they're invariably pleasant, easy-to-please customers. A few have slightly different tastes - one elderly gentleman likes her to urinate on him, for example - and another enjoys humiliating her in public, but Leonora knows it's all fantasy - on both sides' parts.

History:|
Leonara was born to French-Canadian and Colombian parents in the nowheresville of Skowhegan, Maine. Her father had been a fisherman, but an accident shattered his leg and ended his career. After that, the family made ends meet with seasonal work and odd jobs around town. Regular visits to family across the border, and hearing a second and a third language, gave Leonora the idea early on that there was more to life than this backwater town.

This attitude got Leonora into trouble from a young age, manifesting itself in giving cheek to authority figures and occasional outright refusal to do homework, chores, and so on. From the ages of 12 to 15, she fell in with the wrong crowd, cutting school, smoking dope and sleeping around. However, a brush with the law following a joyriding crash made her realize continuing down this path meant being trapped in Skowhegan for ever. Instead, she resolved to do whatever it took to get out, and threw herself into her studies.

Her wildest hopes were exceeded when she won a scholarship to Cornell, but she was soon brought back down to earth when her parents broke the news that they would never be able to afford to send her. A huge row broke out between Leonora and her father, with her timid mother feebly playing peacekeeper, and harsh things were said on both sides. Her dreams seemingly in tatters, Leonora fled the house and hooked up with her old gang of troublemakers. A four-day bender later, a nine-year-old boy was dead, and Leonora and three of her friends were in the lock-up for hit-and-run.

It was at this point that Leonara’s French-Canadian godmother made the first of her vital interventions in Leonora’s life, bailing her out of jail and coaching her to give statements to the police that suggested that it was another of the gang, not Leonora, that had been behind the wheel. Leonora walked free, her friend started a 12-year jail term.

Her godmother’s second intervention was to offer her a job that could put her through college. Leonora had always been sexually confident and adventurous. Nonetheless, her palms were sweaty as she knocked on the hotel room door for her first ever job. Imagine her surprise, then, when a smiling grey-haired man in his 80s, standing a foot shorter than her in her heels, opened the door. From then on, Leonora has grown into the role, exuding the confidence clients expect in public settings and the compliance, empathy and sensitivity they require in bed.

Leonora was able to juggle her two lives with no other complications than exhaustion in her freshman year, and achieved an overall honors grade (there was that scary time her monthly sexual health check came back 'unclear' due to a lab screw-up, but they've all been clear since). However, early in the first semester of her sophmore year, a real complication arose. She was on the arm of Walter Kilpatrick, a wealthy and powerful politician - well, all her clients were wealthy and powerful - at the MET ball when, for the first time in her call-girl career, she saw a familiar face: Lincoln Genovese.

Lincoln's a complication. He was in a few of her classes last year, and a handful more this year. Leonora had a policy of not paying too much attention to men in her classes, for various reasons, but Lincoln wasn't the kind of guy you can easily ignore. Without even seeming to be aware of it, he commanded a room. He had an air of authority, of controlled power. It was attractive, in a way that Leonora hadn't allowed herself to feel in a long time. And then she caught him staring at her as she giggled with a friend. There had been an almost animal glare in his eyes, one that spoke of prowling, of possession. After that, Leonora had done her best not to get too close, and some mild flirting aside, had been successful until that night at the MET ball. Lincoln had been as surprised to see her there as she had been to see him but his eyes had bored into hers. Her one consolation was that they hadn't had the opportunity to talk, because she saw questions in his eyes; an intimidating woman Leonora took to be his mother, Victoria, kept him by her side nearly all night. However, Lincoln's father, Jonathon, had spoken to her date at length, and had charmingly introduced himself to her too. He had the same animal charm as his son, only magnified, and it had the same impact on Leonora, only magnified.


Leonora's block on Broad Street, Stapleton, Staten Island

Day-to-day life:|When she’s at home, Leonora rises at 5.30am, leaves her Staten Island home at 6am and is on campus by 8am. If she doesn’t have a client, she’ll stay on campus until around 8pm, then either go out or go home for more study. If she has a client, however, she’ll use either the campus’s gym changing room or the agency’s office changing room to get ready, depending on which is closer to the date. Her locker always contains two LBDs, killer heels, various lingerie sets, toiletries, hair products, sex toys and so on that she needs for a quick change. Her ‘emergency’ kit of cotton T-shirt dress, g-string, dry shampoo sachet, chewing gum, lipstick, foundation, eyeliner, bullet vibrator, condoms, a tampon and a 50g can of Mace with UV dye fits into a surprisingly small handbag.

Having spent just over a year as a high-class escort, Leonora feels she's beginning to understand the game a bit more, and beginning to realise that's what all of Manhatten is; a giant board game. She's been seen on the arm of several different men in the same restaurants, the same hotels, by the same waiters, the same hotel porters. She imagines there is an unspoken acknowledgement among service staff and hookers, and if they know that this game is afoot, then surely the real power brokers know. As such, Leonora realizes she is a player, albeit a tiny pawn, in a great game. And as any chess player knows, even a pawn can occasionally become the queen...