A phone call from Ellie's mother

It was around 9pm and I was getting ready to go out to see some friends when the phone rang. It was number withheld and I was wondering who it was.

"Hello this is Miranda de Freitas" the voice said, "I'm Ellie's mother and I wanted to ask you some questions if that's ok?"

"Not really", I said. I was about to go out and see my friends. For the last week Ellie had been spreading rumours to my friends, but now things seemed to be dying down.

Mrs de Freitas politely insisted that we have a conversation, I reluctantly agreed and then she started asking me all sorts of questions about my date with Ellie. I can't remember the most of the conversation but we were on the phone for 20 minutes. Some of it sticks in my mind though.

She said that Ellie had run out of fuel on Christmas eve and was found in hysterics and that she was worried and asked me what had happened. This of course was after I told Ellie I did not want to see her again. I told her that we went on a date and then I had had words with Ellie and said I did not want to see her anymore.

She asked me if I was using protection with Elie, did we use condoms? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Seriously? The mother of the girl I dated was asking me these most intimate questions, can you imagine? I politely said that it was between me and Ellie and not her business.

Then she asked me about Harrods and asked if I had bought her lots of presents. I told her no, Ellie was buying things in Harrods, not me. She didn't believe me. She asked who had bought the Hermes scarves. I told her it was Ellie. She asked how she was paying and I said cash, although I didn't say wads of cash.

Then I thought you know what, I'm going to tell her. I'm going to tell Mrs de Freitas that her that her daughter is leading a double life as a prostitute because I am sick and tired of being questioned as if I've done something wrong. I'm going to tell her the names of the websites and she can see it for herself. Eleanor is the liar not me. She's the one who's the master of deception and lies about how she earns a living every time she leaves the house.

Just as I'm about to let the cat out of the bag I hear the mother say "Ellie sit down with your father now, sit down!". I think, my god, the whole family are there together. At that moment I couldn't drop the bomb. I couldn't tell her that her daughter was a prostitute. I just didn't have the heart to do it. I stayed silent.

The next question the mother asked was "Did you give Elie a pill?"

I start to think, did she take a pill I ask myself? Perhaps for headache. "No" I reply. This is making me feel very uncomfortable, why is she asking me if I gave her a pill?

"Ellie says you gave her a pill", say the mother more insistently.

I was wracking my brain thinking. Our date was a week ago and I'm trying to remember, then I realise she did take a vitamin c tablet. "She took a vitamin c tablet", I told her. "She was coughing and she asked for vitamin c".

"Are you sure it was vitamin c?" The mother asked.

The blood started to drain away from my body into my feet. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I could see exactly where this line of questioning was going. I felt sick. For the rest of the evening I developed the most horrible headache, thinking what has this girl been saying? I thought she had calmed down since my rejection, but clearly not.

False accusations to my friends

It was Boxing day at around 11am. I had just dropped off my friend James back in London when I received a text message. It was from Lizzie Noel, Ellie's cousin. It read:

QUOTE

Alex, I have heard some very unsettling and disturbing news about your treatment of my cousin Ellie. She is deeply upset and so am I, you betrayed her trust and took advantage of her. Your behaviour is unacceptable, please desist in contacting any members of my family again.

UNQUOTE

The blood started to drain away. I thought what has Ellie been saying? My god. I immediately told Lizzie what had happened. I told her Ellie was a prostitute and told her to Google the sex sites, which she did. Once the saw them she apologised realising that Ellie was untrustworthy and a liar. I decided to tell a few friends what had happened, to counter the allegations now going around the place. 

Ellie sends me Crazy messages

I was still on my sofa, only having just discovered that my date was a prostitute 10 minutes before when a long text message arrived on my phone.

It was from Ellie. It said that she was about to drive on the "most dangerous road in Britain" and gave details of her funeral arrangements, her passwords to bank accounts and list of her possessions. "You are the solicitor" it said.

Here is a copy of the exact message (personal info has been removed):

QUOTE

Safety deposit number 216. Metro bank fulham broadway. Key in my knicker draw. £2k in my bedside drawer. Size 5 shoes to my mother. 1k to my dog Ruby. The rest on my parents Miranda and David de Freitas of zzzzzzz. Intestacy apart from that. You are the solicitor. Spice girls "Goodbye" at my funeral. And "All things Bright and Beautiful". No flowers, party dress, no black, shots of tequila and the wake at  zzzzzzz. Music to Miss Christina zzzzz and Miss Lara zzzzzz. Clothes to be divided equally amongst all those with size 12 dress size. All bras and Pepperberry bespoke dresses and clothing to Miss Eleanore zzzzzz of Parsons Green. Facebook and Twitter password is zzzzz All to be deleted after all photos printed. Gmail password is the same. Hotmail is zzzzz Donations to Road safety and Look Good Feel Better. Nationwide acct pin is zzzzz. Barclays Premier zzzzz. Diamonds under my mattress to my Aunt Miss Emily zzzzz. Jewellery to my goddaughter Miss Dizzy zzzzz. Black clothes and suits to go to Miss Tomassina zzzzz. This is my last will and testament. I am of sound mind. I appoint Raksha zzzzzz of Wembley to divide up my possessions according to Intestacy. Eleanor Poppy Miranda de Freitas of zzzz. About to drive very fast on the most dangerous road in Britain

UNQUOTE

What the hell was going on? I was already in shock about finding out she was a prostitute and now this?

I was concerned. I asked her if I should contact her father (because his number was still on my phone) and she replied no. I decided to contact her cousin Lizzie Noel and forwarded her the message that I had received. Lizzie got back to me within a few minutes and said that Ellie had been "joking". I was so annoyed.

Just as I was exchanging a few text messages with Lizzie I received a call from Ellie. She acted as if everything was fine, that everything was totally ok. She was asking in a joyous and playful tone "So, tell me about where you're going to be spending Christmas, how do the Economou's celebrate Christmas....".

She was acting as if everything is ok. It turned out she was actually in her car outside her fathers house about to drive to her grandmothers for Christmas. She had me on loud speaker and I could hear her father approaching the car. "Is everything ok", he said. Lizzie had contacted him.

She reassured him everything was fine and he gave her directions on how to get to the Grandmothers. He did not know I was listening on the car loudspeaker. After a minute he went back into the house and Ellie and I continued our conversation.

I was so annoyed at her. Firstly there was sex sites which I found shocking and disgusting and now this manipulative "suicide hoax". She had everyone running around asking if she was ok.

We spoke for a minute or two and I told her the text messages were manipulative and attention seeking and not cool. I was really pissed off with her and told her that I would not be seeing her again. Then I hung up on her. I didn't tell her I had discovered the sex sites, I kept that to myself.

At 8pm I collected my friend James and we drove down to my fathers house where we'd be spending Christmas. I told James all bout my date with Ellie, the tantric massages, the sex sites, the cash in Harrods, the £338 of sex toys and suicide hoax messages I had just received. He was listening to me in disbelief as Iwent over everything for the hour long drive.

We arrived at my fathers house and I checked my Facebook. Ellie had uploaded a post of her at a petrol station with a magazine in her mouth referring to a "fucking arrogant cunt that upset me". I was thinking my god, I made the right choice. This person is bad news and I need to stay away from her.

See the post below. Read the text....

I find out that Ellie is an escort and decide to end the relationship.

It was Christmas Eve, around 6:30 p.m., and I was sitting on my sofa, idly browsing the internet while waiting to pick up my friend James, who was going to be spending Christmas with my family.

It was just a few hours earlier that I'd been on a date with Ellie. For reasons I can’t fully explain, a strange thought crossed my mind, and I typed into Google: 

“Portia tantric massage.”  - and up popped the search results.

I just sat there, frozen, staring at the screen, unable to comprehend what I had found. I couldn't believe that my date was in fact a prostitute. 

All day, small suspicions had been gnawing at me. When we were in Harrods, Ellie had been carrying wads of cash, thousands of pounds. In a casual conversation about pen names, she mentioned she sometimes went by “Portia,” though she never really explained why. I’d also noticed sachets of lubricant in her handbag, not just one or two, but lots of them, which struck me as unusual for a 22-year-old. 

On top of that, she kept bringing up tantric massage, almost obsessively. And then there was the night before our date, when she said she was “at the house of a madam having a lesson.” At the time, I laughed it off as a joke. 

My date with Ellie de Freitas

Ellie came round as planned to my flat at around 1pm, we had lunch and then went to Harrods so she could do some Christmas shopping. Whilst we were in Harrods I noticed she had these wads of cash. Perhaps £2000 and I was thinking this is a little strange to carry around so much cash. Especially that she works at the Body Shop.

After Harrods we come back to my flat around 5pm. She realised she left her phone in her car and asked if she could make a phone call using my phone. She called her father and told him where she was.  She lives with her parents so this seemed normal. After the phone call she asked if she could take a shower and came back wearing one of my shirts and little else.

After a few hours of talking, we start kissing and fooling around. We ended up having sex and I was surprised by how sexually confident she was. We had hardly drunk anything, just one small bottle of cider each. 

We had a shower together and went to my bedroom where she gave me a "tantric massage". By then it was midnight and then started to chat.

Just before 2am she suddenly realises that her dad might be trying to reach her. We check my phone (which was on silent) and he has left a number of concerned voicemails and text messages. She messages him back, he replies and they exchange a few more messages together. After a little while we fall asleep in my bed.

We wake up at 830am as I need to put money in the parking meter, so her car doesn't get a ticket. I come back with her phone and Ellie starts texting various friends who have been texting her the last 12 hours. I make a little breakfast, we chat and we joke about getting a sex toy. Specifically a vibrating egg. At 11am we leave my flat having decided to go to sex shop, to buy the vibrating egg.

We arrive at Ann Summers, on Kensington High Street, at around 1130am. She goes in first whilst I finish my cigarette. I come in a minute later and Ellie is literally buying the entire shop. Every minute that goes by she is placing another item into the basket or giving it to the shop assistant. I am trying to get her to slow down, I thought we were going to by a single vibrating egg. But no. When the bill arrives it's £338. Yes you heard me right. I think she spent £60 on lube alone. What 22 year old needs lube?  I reluctantly pay on my card and Ellie gives me half in cash. We leave the shop with 4 carrier bags full of sex toys.

I drove Ellie back to Chelsea to pick up her car and we part company. Tomorrow would be Christmas day so I would't see her for a few days. I was kind of relived.

I liked Ellie but she was turning out to be a bit weird, especially buying all those sex toys and this was just the first date. It was getting all a bit too intense. Some photos of our shopping trip to Ann Summers below.

Ellie de Freitas buys sex toys in Ann Summers

In Ann Summers at 11:25am on 24th December 2012

How My Friendship with Ellie De Freitas Turned into Something More

By the 22nd December 2012 I had been talking to this girl called Ellie de Freitas on Facebook for two months. Ellie was 22 and I was 33. She was no stranger to me. I had known her cousin Lizzie Noel for five years and we shared many mutual friends. We both lived in the same neighbourhoods in London. She lives in Fulham and I live in Chelsea.

We had been chatting on Facebook messenger nearly every day since I met her at a friends birthday party in October 2012. Technically I had known her as an acquaintance since 2010 but we've never really chatted before then. Ellie is a lot of fun, she is very mischievous. Even though we had never hung out, we had had many laughs over the last two months on messenger. I think we'd probably exchanged around 500 messages, we'd talk daily. Always joking around.

The night of the 22nd December 2012 the messages started to turn sexual and Ellie sent me a message saying: "Change your sheets, we're having croissants in bed together tomorrow!"

I thought OK, why not! I like this girl she's fun and who knows what will happen. What I thought was starting off as a friendship could be turning into something more.

Ellie and I in October 2012 at the birthday party.