Chapter 1, Rubber Souls Summary and Analysis

Xaviera Hollander begins the tale of her life as a prostitute with an account of being incarcerated and held in "the Tombs," a jail in New York. She and her high-class call girl cohorts are being ridiculed and provoked by streetwalkers, a type of prostitute generally considered lower class. Racial tensions flare as the streetwalkers accuse Xaviera, who has already become a madam or leader of a whorehouse at this time, of not employing any black women in her business. Just as Xaviera begins to protest, a black prison guard enters escorting another white prostitute who yells a racial slur at her, and a fight breaks out. Xaviera and the women she employs avoid the fight and are taken to see a judge. Xaviera pays for each of her girls but does not have enough money to...