To me this was insane. I just never realized how difficult it was for people to make that transition. It was a case of getting money when you needed money. I did not think then that I had taken such a big step. I had considered myself a whore from the time I had become sexually active, even before I became sexually active. From that time on, I had thought of myself as a whore and it was like, well, I’m gonna make money at it, and, sure, try to get paid for it.
she hated the rain
Sapphire
She hated the rain. Never could figure out what people be talkin’ ‘bout when they be talkin’ ‘bout gentle, refreshing, spring rains bathing the earth’s surface! This nasty ass, cold greyness pouring down combining with shit in the street sho’ wadn’t sweet. Her wig was wet. Hairspray and rainwater mingled with perspiration and ran down her neck. Her feet were like blocks of ice. “Muthafuck this shit,” she mumbled, “I’m turnin’ in for the nite.”
As she strolled past the likker store, she looked down the street at the elementary school she usta go to wondering what her mother would say. Well, she thot, least I ain’t on welfare. The street was deserted. At 3:00 in the mornin’ Webster and Grove looked like something out of a movie. She shivered and quickened her pace. Some putty faced pig in a blue chevy slowed down and while cruising along side her leered, “Pssst! Wanna date? Huh honey? How ‘bout it?” She almost ran; she couldn’t have taken another feebly dick, pink, hairy son of a bitch if he’d been shittin’ fifty dollar bills. She walked over to Hayes Street, lo and behold, a bus, a rare occurence at 3:00 in the mornin’. She hopped on the bus, sauntered to the back hopin’ Willie wouldn’t be upset ‘bout her not gettin’ no whole lot of money. Shit! Wet as it was the muthafucker oughtta be glad she got what she got. She jumped off the bus and motored down the street hopin’ there was some brownies left ‘cause all nite she’d been wanting somethin’ sweet. She started up the stairs, slid up to the door and laid on the bell. No one answered. She wondered what was takin’ so long. Shit! Even if no one else was in Jackie be in. She was always the first one in! Sometimes she thot that bitch had a stash cause can’t nobody come up wid that much cash every nite! “Hell,” she muttered, “What’s wrong wid these fools?” She laid on the bell again. Willie usually be home about this time, too. Finally she heard footsteps approaching the door. They musta been fuckin’. Still that son of a bitch didn’t have to take till Christmas to answer the door. She heard him on the other side of the door, his footsteps, his breathing.
Willie opened the peephole and said, “What cha want?”
“Nigger r u crazy,” she said, “What u think I want! Lemme in!”
“How much cash u got?”
“Bout seventy-five.”
“U trifling bitch, u mean u been out all nite and ain’t got but seventy-five dollars? You musta been jivin’ roun’ smokin’ weed wid the other bitches!”
“Willie u know better than that. I ain’ lazy. It’s jus’ been slow. Come on daddy,” she wheedled, “open the doe.”
He opened the door, grabbed her arm, yanked her around and placed a well aimed patent leathered foot in her ass and said, “Bitch u get in when u got my money.”
Enraged and scared she sobbed, “Bu..but Willie it’s rainin’!”
Willie slammed the door, opened the peephole and tole her, “Walk between the raindrops baby, walk between the raindrops.”
Police as Pimps
Karen
In 1975, I had run away from home. I met a man who was nice to me and later on turned out to be a pimp. At the time, I was fifteen years old. I was from North Carolina, and very naive to the ways of the world. He told me he was going to take me to California to be a model. What I found out when I arrived was that instead of being a model, I was to be a prostitute. He put me on the streets of San Francisco.
One week later, I met Vince. He was a vice officer. He started coming around where I worked and buying me cigarettes. And when it was cold, he would bring me doughnuts and cocoa. He said he wanted to be my friend. I didn’t know anyone in California, and I was very lonely and scared, so I believed him. He finally got me to tell him everything that had happened. My pimp, my age, my parents, how much money I was making. This went on for about a month. Then he told me he wanted me to make love to him. He said if I did, he would make sure I never got busted by vice. So I did. He saw some bruises on my body that had been inflicted by my pimp. He told me that I did not have to be abused anymore by my pimp, and that he would take care of me. He even said I would not have to give him all of my prostitution earnings, just half. I told him I would have to think about it because I was scared of what my pimp would do to me. Vince told me not to worry about it, he would take care of it.
I left my pimp and contacted Vince. I told him I still wanted to work the streets. He said I could as long as I continued to have sex with him and gave him some of my money. He would be my pimp. He would bring all of the vice officers by, where I was working, one at a time, so I could see them, and so they wouldn’t arrest me. This went on for a few months until I had saved enough money so I could go home to my parents.
The Continuing Saga of Scarlot Harlot III
Carol Leigh
No wonder I’m all stressed out. This work is weird. This stigma is weird. I’m weird. Everyone I know is a weirdo. It usually takes about an hour to wind down after an encounter. What should I do now, while I’m waiting, waiting for the next phone call?
I can always read The Mamie Papers, a collection of letters written by a brave and guilty whore at the turn of the century. The book depresses me. I cringe as she calls herself unclean and immoral. There is no repose.
I’d rather be contemporary, anyway. I think I’ll watch television. I check out the Guide. Oh, no! I can’t believe it. Margo St. James on a talk show, and just in time, I tune her in.
Ah, there she is, chronically courageous, impenetrably brave, grinning out from the commercial in her stylish pink sweater dress and thick, neat farm-girl hair. I admire her ease, yet I worry through the patter of the talk show host, posed carefully seductive in his loveless sports suit. I relax as I observe his good-natured interrogation.
“So, you’re retired now?” He seems disappointed.
“Not tired. Just retired,” Margo replies in her alto drawl as she stretches comfortably on her couch. The audience chuckles. The host mugs a pout.
“Would you be inclined to kiss and tell?” he asks, squirming in his seat.
“Oh, we don’t kiss. Too many germs,” she replies and sits, erect. “By the way, why are you rubbing your thigh?”
A whore speaks! Not quite the revolution I had hoped for, but she certainly is afforded respect. The audience gasps, titters and applauds this heroine. They seem to care.
Margo and the host continue to serve and swat their double entendre until flutes signal a commercial interruption.
“Thank you very much, Margo St. James. . .”
But Margo interrupts. The cameras are stuck. The music stops.
“Wait a minute. I have an announcement to make. COYOTE is having a Hookers’ Convention during the Democratic Convention. We’re inviting the delegates to stay in our homes, the female delegates, of course. That’s informal. I’ll put up a few in my lobby,” she belts as the music ascends, her voice fading behind the horns.
“Thanks,” he says, quite rushed, “And now a word from.
Just my luck. And just as I was beginning to relax in my nest of cash and condoms, I witness a call to duty on my television set. Well, I suppose I was asking for it.
I just knew, when I decided not to join the Cats and Candlelight Womenpower Commune, that I had opted to confront my oppression on a daily basis. Rather than excusing myself from the men’s world, I chose to challenge the enemy, my boyfriend at the time. He never quite agreed with me, and finally I grew to smother my bitterness, complaining to my sisters in angry whispers.
“I despise men’s tacit acceptance of our oppression. It’s a conspiracy!”
> As the years rolled by, I grew inwardly understanding and outwardly calm. A flick of fate made me a prostitute. I was poor and alone when I first moved to this open city. It seemed like the logical thing to do. In these last years I have developed a caring for the men in my bed. Individually and close-up they seem innocent and vulnerable. Besides, they are my clients, my lovers, my wards, my employers, my intimates. Eventually, the word patriarchy began to slip from my vocabulary.
I learned that women led the movement to make prostitution illegal. The Suffragists. My foremothers.
And now, I consider the challenge and call for a new tally. We are the whores. Who are our friends?
I must descend from my icy abode and attend those bagel brunches, contriving platforms amidst feminist hunches. Together we will make prostitution an issue along with the other issues such as abortion rights, equal pay, lesbian rights and rape. We will organize and speak, and they will be staring at us.
That’s right, I’m afraid. Our potential astounds me. The fact that prostitution is illegal shocks me, almost paralyzes me. Am I allowed to help organize a Hookers’ Convention?
I don’t think I’m allowed to talk to another prostitute. That’s conspiracy. Suppose I was describing a new sexy dress I had purchased in order to make my fortune? It’s illegal to talk about business.
I don’t think I’m allowed a personal lover. He would be suspected of being my pimp and may be called in for associating with me.
Theoretically, I’m not allowed to talk to anyone. I have very few rights, except the right to a trial and certainly not one by my peers.
Priscilla Alexander, friend and activist, once said:
The right to be a prostitute is as important as the right not to be one. It is the right to set the terms of one’s own sexuality, plus the right to earn a good living.
So, descend I must. And luckily during my retreat, I wrote a song about our struggle. Perhaps I’ll play it over coffee and croissants to an audience of whores, friends and activists.
We’re doing prostitution
Although it’s no solution
It’s just a substitution
We make a contribution
We’ve found a resolution
To our destitution
We don’t want persecution
We’re doing prostitution
It’s an age-old institution
Ya know, it’s not pollution
We need some absolution
Perhaps a revolution
A brand-new constitution
To end this persecution
Yeah, yeah, c’mon yeah!
In the Massage Parlor
Judy Edelstein
The customer looks like the all-American football player type. He’s young, middle-aged, blonde, broad-shouldered, and muscular. It turns out he’s an executive for a lumber company. He’s the guy who’s supposed to represent the company’s concern for ecology.
While I work on him, he talks at me. He claims that his company really cares about the environment. They’re planting new trees, etc., the whole spiel. “And what are you going to do,” he asks, “if the average American housewife wants colored toilet paper? We try to sell her on white, but we have to give the housewife what she wants.”
After I’ve thumped and kneaded him all over, I start oiling his all-American-sized prick. He clamps one of his muscular arms around me and pulls me closer to him.
Pretty soon he leaves behind his lumber company personality. “Let me eat you,” he begs, “just for a little bit.”
“I don’t do that,” I say. I keep on stroking up and down on his prick.
But he keeps on asking me, and finally I can’t take it anymore. I’m ready to do just about anything to get him off. “Okay,” I say, “just for a minute.”
So I take off my skirt and underpants and lie down on the table. He stands against the table, leaning over me, and starts to lick me. He’s moaning and growling and biting me a little, being too rough. I think about stopping him, but instead I lay back and try to relax. All of a sudden I come.
I stop him from eating me and just lay there for a minute. He’s still standing over me, and after a little bit, he starts to put his prick inside of me. I move away from him. “Lay back down on the table and I’ll finish you off,” I say.
So he gets back on the table, and I jerk him off some more, and finally he comes.
Afterwards I’m sitting in one of the empty massage rooms with the muzak turned off, feeling kind of shaky. I just can’t believe that I had an orgasm with that jerk. I try to forget him, to think about making love with Laura, the woman I’m with right now. But all I can see is the customer’s all-American face.
* * *
No customers have come in yet this evening, so I’m sitting in the turned-off sauna, just thinking.
When I first started working here, I knew I’d have to jack off the guys. But I thought I could deal with that. As my friend Kate, who works in another massage parlor, puts it, “It’s just like pulling a toe.” And pretty good pay for that. A hell of a lot better than typing or waitressing. Plus, I would have a chance to learn to do massage.
So I started working here, pretty naive. The first time a guy tried to feel up my breasts, I got really angry and wouldn’t let him. So he got angry, too, and never came back.
Another time a repulsive old guy wanted to eat me. He kept offering more and more money, finally offered me two hundred bucks, but I still wouldn’t let him. I even told him that money couldn’t buy everything. He must have thought I was nuts.
Pretty soon I wised up. I figured I wasn’t working here for my health. So the next time a guy tried to feel me up, I let him. That way he left me a nice tip and asked for me again.
Now I let most customers feel me up some. I’ve learned not to be there when they touch me. When they touch my breasts, I tell myself they’re not really touching me.
For another five or ten bucks I sometimes do the massage topless or bottomless. What the hell, I figure, I might as well. But I can’t bring myself to do blow jobs or let them screw me. Even though I’d make more money, I just don’t want to do that. It turns my stomach too much.
Mostly the job is okay. I try not to let the guys get to me. And I go home afterwards and try to forget about it all. But sometimes I get scared. I think of the guy’s hands all over me. I think about some stranger sucking on my breasts. And sometimes I wonder how I can let the men do that. I wonder what there is left for me. I wonder where/am.
* * *
We keep a card file on all our customers, with their name, description, maybe a few comments, and how often they’ve been in. That way we can keep track of which are regular customers, and not likely to be cops. Of course, lots of the guys don’t give us their real names, so we have a lot of Smiths and Joneses in our card file.
Tonight I’m massaging a John Smith. He’s a young guy, slender, the quiet type. He lies face down on the table and doesn’t say a word while I work on his back and his legs. After I turn him over, I give him a face massage, working my fingertips into the shallow wrinkles on his forehead. His eyes are closed and he still lies quietly.
When I start to rub oil on his penis, he finally opens his eyes. “Let me put my arm around you,” he says in a soft voice.
I move closer to him and let him put his arm around my waist. For some reason, I don’t mind his touching me.
I hold his penis cupped between my hands and stroke slowly up and down, then a little harder and faster. His arm tightens around my waist and I feel his hand stroking my side.
As he approaches his climax, he begins to murmur. “Honey, sweetheart,” he says, “you’re so sweet, you’re so good, you’re so gentle. Honey, sweetheart, you’re so beautiful.” On and on. I notice that his eyes are closed again.
One of my hands makes oily circles on his chest, the other moves up and down on his prick. I start to feel sadder and sadder. It’s not me he’s talking to, not me he wants. It’s someone who really love
s him that he’s wanting.
Finally he comes. Afterwards I stand there quietly for a moment, still holding his penis in my right hand, my left hand resting on his chest. Then I reach for a prick rag (my own name for the stacks of little towels) and wipe him off.
He opens his eyes and looks at me. “Thanks. That felt great.”
“I’m glad,” I say, smiling at him.
When I clean up his room afterwards, I discover that he’s left me a ten dollar tip. Of course, I’m glad to get it. But somehow his ten dollar bill makes me feel sad too.
* * *
It’s mid-evening, a pretty busy time, and I’m working on a new customer. We don’t have him listed in our card file, and none of the other massage parlors I call know him either. So I’m being cautious with him, trying to size him up, trying to decide whether he might be a cop.
We talk for a while. I ask him what he does, is he married, all the standard questions. He says he’s single and he works for United Grocers. It all sounds good, but I’m just not sure about this guy. So I figure I won’t give him the hand finish.
I ask him to turn over. When he’s lying on his back, I see that he’s got a huge erection. It’s pretty hard to ignore, but I try to.
I work very slowly on his face, then on his chest and stomach. “C’mon,” he says, “aren’t you going to give me the hand finish?”
“Well,” I say, “we don’t usually do that.”
Sex Work Page 6