I Do Not Remember My First Trick

Let me preface this by saying I grew up in a well to do family in [redacted], Texas. By all standards I had more opportunity and privilege than most, but the divorce of my parents in my freshmen year in college would be what ultimately drove me to completely "check out" of society.

In the beginning of my crack addiction I always swore to myself and to anyone that brought up the subject that I would never sell sex for money. Unfortunately, I was very naive and uninformed about the progression of addiction and I did not yet know what desperation felt like.

Initially I was pretty and fresh enough in the crack world that all of the drug dealers wanted to take me home with them. On several occasions I found myself living with dealers who would supply my dope habit just to keep me from running the streets. Eventually the dope supply was not enough for me and I went looking for a way to make
money so that I could be in control of my dope.

I knew one girl who would have me take her to a mexican apartment complex where she would go in one apartment and the men would line up outisde the door and pay her $20 each to have sex. She would knock off 10-15 men in an hour and we would smoke for the rest of the day. I knew that I couldn't bring myself to do that (at least not at the
time....certainly a year or 2 down the road if I could have remembered where that apartment building was I would have been there!!) So I asked her if she knew of any other way. That was the day that I was introduced to the phone chat lines.

I do not remember my first trick but I do remember many. I have had sex with as many as 12 men in a day. The busiest times of day were early in the moring when white men in business suits were on their way to work or during lunch time when they could sneak off for a quickie.

I started out charging $150-200 and being that I was pretty enough and still did not look like a cracked out whore, I could get that much. It was always about the money to me and I was always in a hurry to get it over with. I spent no time talking or even pretending to be interested in the men. I can remember men asking me $200 for how long and I would always tell them that I did not work on a time clock.

This gave them the impression that I might be there all night if things went right, but in truth if I was with them more than 20minutes it was because I was enjoying it!! Eventually I would not even speak to anyone on the chat line that I didn't already know because of the fear of police. I still had enough insight to know that I would not want a prostitution charge on my record should I ever get off drugs. I have had professional football players who paid thousands and I have given $10 hand jobs in the backseat of a car. I am sorry to say that WAY more often than not I had unprotected sex and it is truly the Grace of God that I never caught anything.

I am now 6 years sober and more than the thought of drugs, I am lured to the thought of getting back in to prostitution. Something about the thought of a man paying me to have sex with them really turns me on!! If it were not for the fear of going to jail I would definitely be a working girl right now today.

Instead I have a boring life and a boring job and from time to time to spice things up I tell my husband stories of different johns and how they fucked me and the things they said to me. I still fantasize about that life and wish I could go back--- minus the drugs.

I Said Yes

I placed a personal ad with the offer to meet a client at a hotel for a private lap-dancing session. I had been a dancer for three years, but had started to hate going to the clubs. I enjoyed the sensuality and intimacy of the job, but hated the crowds, noise, and cigarette smoke. The ad stressed that the sessions would be dancing only. I got many. many replies to the ad. I sent them all a list of "rules" saying that they would not be allowed to touch my breasts or vagina, had to keep their clothes on, etc. I also asked that we meet first in a public place for a cocktail or coffee. I phrased this as "us getting to know each other" but it was basically to give my gut a chance to tell me whether I would be safe with the person. I was polite, but firm about all of my requests. Very few of the initial responders followed up with me after this, but the ones who did sounded respectful and sane.

The first client I met was a guy from out of town, M. He sounded very nervous in the e-mails we exchanged, and I wasn't sure he would actually keep the date we made that evening at an upscale bar downtown, but I dressed up and went anyway. I had sent him a picture, but he had not sent one to me. When I got to the bar, I wasn't sure how to find him. I took a seat at the bar within sighting distance of the door and waited. A few different men were making eye contact with me but it was hard to tell if they were just flirting or if they were expecting me. After a few minutes, a man sitting at a table by himself waved at me. I went and introduced myself, and it was M.

The first thing he told me was that he was not going to go through with our date, but he felt bad about standing me up and would buy me a drink and tip for my time. We had a drink together and I drew him out about what he was looking for. As a dancer, I know lots of ways to set men at their ease and encourage them to open up to me.

He told me a familiar story: his wife, whom he described as "gorgeous" and who he said he still loved, was no longer interested in sex. He, of course, was still interested. I've heard many versions of this story over the years, and it always makes me sad. I have no judgement for either person in the relationship -- I don't enough to judge -- but I feel for anyone who wants intimacy and closeness and isn't getting it. I've been there myself.

He told me that I was too young; I was 28 and he was 53. He said he wasn't looking for a "model type", but rather, a real woman. (Um, models are real women too, for anyone who doesn't know.) He talked about how much he missed touching and holding and looking at a woman. We kept talking about the human need for intimacy, and I could tell he did want the meeting. I asked him he was ready to go the hotel ("assuming the sale" like this is an old technique I always used to sell $250/hr Champagne Room visits at the strip clubs) and he said yes.

I met him at his hotel and we went up to his room together. It was a very nice room, in a nice hotel, but not an ideal situation for lapdancing. There was one big arm-chair and a bed. I would have preferred a sofa or loveseat to dance on, but we made it work. It was much more intimate than dancing in the club, where there are lights and noise and distraction. He closed his eyes and barely looked at me, just wanted to hug me and touch my skin. I took my time getting out of my clothes and down to the nice lingerie I had underneath. We did about an hour of slow, quiet dances, and then he asked if we could stand up and hug. I said yes. He held me like that for several minutes.

Then he asked if we could lie down. I thought it over and decided I was comfortable with it, but when he asked if he could undress I said no. We lay down together and he continued touching my back and legs. He was very gentle and attentive, and it felt good. I got somewhat turned on physically, and made sure to let him see my response, since I could tell that was very important to him. However, I was much too much on my guard to really get into what was happening. For the most part he was very respectful. At one point he tried to kiss me, but stopped when I asked him to. Later, he tried to reach inside my panties, but I moved his hand away and he didn't try again. I appreciated his respect for my boundaries. Because he was so respectful, I was able to relax and enjoy his touching.

We had a pleasant, playful time together, and ended up spending several hours. I was charging $200 an hour, and it added up to a lot of money. He paid me at the end and counting out the money seemed to kill the mood for both of us a little bit. I made a mental note that if I did this again I would ask for the money up front. (I had seen him get the money out of the ATM next to the bar, so I knew how much he had...otherwise I wouldn't have proceeded with the session.)

Afterwards, he offered to drive me back to the bar and I felt safe enough with him to accept. The drive was slightly awkward. He seemed to feel odd about dropping me off back on the street. I wondered if he was having regrets about the session. He was rather cold when he said goodbye, and I was surprised to notice that I felt a little hurt. This was the only time during the session when I felt "dirty" about what I'd done. I felt he was judging me. I made a conscious decision not to let this bother me: I probably wouldn't see him again, and it was just a business transaction, so it doesn't really matter what he thinks about me. I would offer this advice to johns though: be nice to your hooker, even after you pay her. You're not the only one who has feelings about what just happened.

I Decided That This Was a Weird Moral Decision to Make Anyway

My story as a working girl is an ongoing one, and somewhat less than textbook, though, to be honest, I have no idea what the textbook case is.

About me: I am nineteen years old, good-looking, with a great figure, enough to do modelling now and again when I feel like it. Guys buy my drinks, drive me home and light my cigarettes. So why oh why, you might wonder, did a girl like me turn to being an escort?

The reason is simple: money. I have a student loan and an overdraft to pay off, along with rather large phone bills (what being a sociable person gets you), and a miserable part-time job in a bar that has, up until now, paid minimum wage. Full-time work is near impossible to find, and there is no way that I can drink, smoke and get around on sixty a week; the taxi home from work costs ten alone. I know that might contradict the previous paragraph, but I do like to be independent sometimes.

Another thing is that since becoming sexually active, I have become somewhat cynical of men and their motives. I’m good in bed, I instinctively know what to do and how to do it, and men love it. And after being used in the past, I have decided that I’m going to use them as well; might as well get something out of it, rather than waiting for the phone to ring!

As well as that, I do not see prostitution as a stigma, like some people do. I have always been for the legalisation of the profession; after all, it is jokingly referred to as ‘the oldest job in the world’, and every joke has a grain of truth to it. If it has existed for so long, wagging your finger at it is not going to make it go away all of a sudden. And what is so bad about it? Why has having casual sex become acceptable, yet charging for it is not? And why consistently put women in danger of mugging, sexually transmitted infections and bodily harm for doing nothing but using their body to earn money? There are far worse ways, like robbery, or conning a charity. And what about trafficking?

But I digress; I am not here to debate the legalisation or to tell you all about the dangers that working girls go through; I am sure you must have heard about it at some point. Moving on to yours truly, I am a fully fledged Internet addict (not much else to do all week), so I registered on a website that is an adult version of personal ads sites, where people register and look for people to have sex with. My profile looks for someone ‘generous’ and ‘non-judgemental’ to ‘help me pay off my overdraft’, and I have no face photos on there – after all, I do know a lot of people, and being seen on there soliciting would do me no good.

I also posted an ad on Craigslist, which is slightly more problematic, because as opposed to being click on the sender and being taken to their profile detailing their location, interests, photos etc, I have to ask people for this before I begin sending photos.

Within days, I’ve had numerous interest from both sites, from old men and guys that were married to their jobs, and guys that wanted webcam fun (no way in hell), and weirdos, and guys whose fantasy was to pay a girl for sex. I spent some time oscillating between telling myself I couldn’t afford to be picky and if they were paying for it then there was no reason to discriminate, and feeling disgusted at the thought of sleeping with some of them. In the end I decided that this was a weird moral decision to make anyway and there was no reason to begin to hate myself in the process by having sex with people that made my skin crawl.

I’ve never done this sort of thing before, so I didn’t really know how to go about the whole safety thing, but I used common sense, suggesting hotels and using my intuition – a useful tool that many women ignore, and better to be safe than sorry! Prices-wise, I looked at the guy and asked for either a hundred, hundred and fifty or two hundred, without a set timeframe though. Most of them wanted to go for a drink or two before the ‘main event’, which was fine by me, as I am generally quite an aloof and standoffish person, and need alcohol to warm up. One person moaned about a hundred and suggested sixty, to which I replied that a) I was not a street walker and b) I did not make deals or negotiate. Others had no problem with two hundred and paying for the hotel.

The only difficult thing for me is to be nice to people who are genuinely stupid, through no fault of their own, just a lack of brain cells, and to be forthcoming to guys in general. My general stance is to be slightly sceptical of them, to be sarcastic and to make them feel slightly insecure; here, I have to laugh at their lame jokes and pretend to find them adorable because I feel like I have to. It’s hard to explain but I guess the basic idea is that I don’t suck up to men, ever, and now I have to be nice to them. It’s a novel way to behave for me!

My first john was a guy called S, that looked a bit stupid but not particularly ugly in his photo; he was from the personals website. He was fine with a hundred and fifty. We arranged to meet in a car park, and I was about half an hour late because I was staying at the house of the guy I was seeing – shock horror, how unprofessional! I know I mentioned staying in a hotel and letting people know where I was, but who could know where I was? Besides, I knew the town I was going to well and could make my way to the train station if anything happened.

We went back to his and had a few drinks (me, as he had to drive), chatted about things and then there was that awkward moment where he clearly wanted to move things on but didn’t want to throw me on the bed and I was at the “oh my god, what am I doing?” stage, but we moved on. The sex was fine, he clearly loved it (the words ‘incredible’ etc featured a lot) and I wasn’t really complaining. He went to take money out of his bank account (should have asked for it up front, I know) and it wouldn’t come out, so he gave me his iPod as something to keep until he got it, and indeed I did get it a few days later.

Now he wants to take me to dinner before going back to his, and I’m thinking, isn’t this not what men do with call girls? It seems a bit formal, and not my thing, and to be honest I don’t want anything to do with him other than getting paid – not because he paid for it the first time round, but because we have nothing in common and he doesn’t particularly entice me as a person.

I’m seeing a guy right now that doesn’t know about this side of my life, and I’m not going to tell him. I want to discuss things with him soon – if he wants a relationship, then I will stop this immediately and try to pay off my overdraft the ‘honest’ way, and if he doesn’t then I will carry on. That way, I have a backup either way…

I Wanted Them To Leave Happy

The rooms were small, most had a corner shower but one had a hot tub. In the winter we'd run the hot water a while to warm them up. The guys would come in, pay $25 for a half hour and pick their girl. For $40 they could get laid, or "half and half," a blow job was $30, but some girls would do it for less. The desk didn't care if you took less, but they'd fine you or cut your shifts if they found out you were over charging. The year was 1979 and this was a massage parlor in small town Connecticut. I worked there two years, and I loved it. I had a college degree from a good school, real jobs, no drug problems, no loser boyfriend or pimp. Each girl had a kind of persona--sex kitten, earth mother, grad student, biker chic, victim. I went with preppy girl next door. I gave great blow-jobs, didn't always make them wear a rubber, let some kiss me, faked great orgasms when I wasn't actually having one, listened endlessly, commiserated, told amazing stories, and was very very popular. I usually worked 4 days a week, preferably the day shift, on a good day I'd see 9 or 10 guys, a slow day maybe 3. I had a lot of regulars--lawyers, truck drivers, shrinks, clergy of every kind, a famous writer, old guys, regular guys. I averaged $1200 to $1400 a week. We did not have to kick back any to the desk. I saved my money, and invested it. Remember now, at this time, teachers were making maybe $15,000 a year. Most of my friends from college were making less than $200 a week. I wanted to buy a house, maybe open a restaurant. The two guys who owned the place were easy to get along with, not abusive, mostly just business men. Once in a while they'd hit a girl up for "extras," but overall they were benign. They pretty much left us alone. The girls more or less got along. We could wear what we wanted, some chose lingerie, some leotards or one piece swimsuits, I wore short shorts and heels (remember candies mules?) or in winter, boots. We read magazines, watched soaps, constantly ordered food, talked-talked-talked. If a girl fit in--didn't try to over charge, didn't overtly try to steal customers from other girls or take them "outside," did her share of the work, and didn't shoot drugs, she could stay. If not, we'd push her out. We were mostly in our 20's, but one was at least 50. All sizes, some very cute, some not. Some girls never had more than 1 or 2 guys a shift, some of us would have a lot of appointments and guys lined up, waiting. There were 5 girls on a shift and 4 rooms. The guy would pay for his time out front, come into the lounge and pick who he wanted, we'd put him in any available room and tell him to get undressed and to take a shower. They didn't always want to and that was up to the girl. No talking about "services" or money until they were naked. This was in case they were cops, but in the time I was there, we were never bothered, although I don't know why. I learned real quick to get the money up front. The rooms each had a large, solid massage table, a small table with a lamp, and a radio. There was a TV mounted up high and they could pay $5 extra to have a porn movie on, which most of the girls hated--it almost felt like competition, more than help. Sometimes, especially if it was their first time, we'd start out giving them the massage they were ostensibly there for. If he was a regular they'd just put the money on the table and we'd go from there. Some of the guys were really great--some had great bodies and were young and good looking, some were quick and easy, some wanted to go down on you. I would tolerate it briefly if they weren't so good at it (most), and lay back and enjoy it if they were. I got off a lot. If I didn't, I faked it. Either way, they loved it. For the fucking I liked to be on top--more control, but sometimes I'd let them do it doggy. I did not take it up the ass. Still, I was always in control. I tried to be patient, and would really work hard to get them off, but I would not let them pound me endlessly. I'd use my tits, I'd lick their balls, sometimes I'd end up having to jerk them off, many guys have a hard time coming. I wanted them to leave happy. If they were impossible to please, looking for trouble, drunk, coked up, or hateful, I'd get them out fast and wouldn't see them again. Sometimes, if I could see right from the beginning that we weren't going to get along, I'd try to get another girl to take them, or get them to go for a two-some. Usually in the two girl sessions we'd fake going down on each other, but there were always a few girls you could really do it with. Some guys were not so great. Cheap, grabby, hard to do, demanding, stinky, crude. They would try to get away with things by saying that another girl had done it, so you should too. We all got stuck doing these guys from time to time. I found that there seemed to be less problem guys, more older guys (easier) on the day shifts. Most times we'd finish and lay there talking until their time was up. Some guys were more interested in talking than getting off. Yes, we had the foot fetishists, the slaves, the others. These guys always had to pay extra, so most of us liked doing them. One guy, in particular, we all loved. We called him "park bench." He did not get undressed, he laid face down on the table, and the girl sat on him, naked, reading a magazine, not talking to him. After about 20 minutes he'd say thank-you, and that was it. I had a lot of regulars, and some that I really liked, that maybe not many other girls would. One guy who was in his 90's and couldn't afford much, he was a $20 hand job. He did get off, but not much came out. I worried when I didn't see him for a while. I had a very very fat guy, very smart interesting guy, he was not easy to do, but he was generous, and I liked him. More than one highly neurotic professor, and a very acerbic conductor (symphonies not trains) that was a very smart unhappy man--but fun to talk to. Some guys were almost like real lovers, I liked them, most of course were instantly forgettable. The worst things that happened to me? I got ripped off a couple of times, once by a girl, and I got crabs once which completely freaked me out. No diseases, no violence, no bad dreams. I always liked sex before selling it, and I still do. I have always felt good about myself. It has always seemed to me that it was more like being a therapist, albeit a very intimate one, than something dirty or immoral. I left this place for a trick (what he was as I didn't even like him) who set me up in a condo and gave me money to open a restaurant (I absconded). I worked as a very high end escort in NYC (big money, studio 54, drugs, some well known guys), ran my own service in South Florida for a year (a girl got raped and beat up--I closed the service), got married, got divorced, and am now back in the business. I live in a very hip, alternative, new-agey mountain town, where being 50ish is not the kiss of death for a woman. I'm calling it "intimate touch for healing and well-being." I found I missed it. Also, I grow organic vegetables.

I Am Just An Ordinary Woman With The Knack Of Making People Love And Trust Me

I am not terribly good at writing letters, which is strange because my day job is one for which I write constantly. I am a journalist call girl. Or at least I was, until recently. I met someone. I quit before he had a chance to ask me to. It's just easier that way.

I think at this juncture, I should defend the men that came to see me. There was nothing wrong with them, and they were not perverts. Most of my clients were single, unhappily married or married to a person that couldn't understand their needs. One even had a wife with cancer. I know you're probably thinking that he's the worst of all, but sex is important. He needed the comfort and solace of flesh against flesh, and in today's society, the only way to get the flesh against flesh comfort is sex.

I guess my role as a sex worker was to reclaim the human contact that has been lost with our island centric way of living. When was the last time you truly just held a person that wasn't your lover with no thoughts of the sensuality of the situation? Touch used to be a very important thing for people. We want to be touched. We need to be touched. Truth be told, I did more pillow talk snuggling with my clients than anything else. Even the submissive clients, after their fill of their fetish, wanted to be cherished. The older men and the lonely men, which seemed to go hand in hand, raced through coitus and settled down for the rest of their time with my head on their chest to talk about their days. This is not the behaviour of deviants and perverts. This is the behaviour of a person reaching out for affection.

I think our world is in a sad state when a man, in order to get the affection, touch and attention that he requires for his mental well being, has to go to a sex worker. I will concede that some men's fetishes are a little too hot to hold for me, but on the whole, nothing that I consented to was so weird that the asker thereof should have a look of shame and disgust on his face as he asked it. I know you probably think that I'm desensitized to sexual weirdness, but a blow job is not weird. Men were ashamed of blow jobs. That was the taboo activity. Some men were even ashamed to enjoy girl on top coitus. Is our world so upside down that for a man to enjoy a woman in a seat of power is wrong?

I know my thoughts have been all over the place, but it's hard to write about these things without being outraged and a little mixed up. I also realize that I've said very little about me. Well, there's very little to tell. At first I needed the money, then I wanted the money. After the thoughts of the money dried up in my head, I turned myself to analysing my clients. In them I found a rich burial ground of feelings. They felt neglected, used, put upon and some other things that make me wish I went to school for psychiatry instead of journalism.

I am just an ordinary woman with the knack of making people love and trust me. These were just men who needed to love somebody who would let them. It's all so simple. Not complicated in the least. There were no perversions too perverse to get in the way of the trusting bond that was needed. Women suffer out loud, and men suffer in silence. Until we allow men to suffer out loud, many a wife will wonder where her husband is during his lunch hour, and in my opinion, a lot of those wives deserve it. (Not all of those wives.)

Of course, my life as a pampered call girl was a little different than the life of a pimped girl. I had the comfort of working in my own home and the freedom to choose with whom I slept. I wouldn't trade my experience for the world. My life as a hooker taught me all about the many faces of love and truth. Not to mention, I can curl a man's toes without even trying. I am proud of me.

I'm Dressed To Kill

I am writing this with an hour before I meet a new john, and as always I am nervous, my heart beats faster and I'm dressed to kill. What boots! What a skirt! If my teenage self could see me now she would swoon with envy and pride. I look amazing and I know it, but that's not the point.

I am also, as always, conflicted. As a women with radical feminist politics, this is the one area where I diverge from the dominant opinions of that group. I am constantly evaluating how I can be a truly feminist sex worker. For me that question of feminist integrity matters more than how to be a safe sex worker, a high paid sex worker, or anything else. My integrity is the most important thing, and I never do anything with a john that I wouldn't do by my own choice.

I turn down the piss requests, the "will you let my dog fuck you?" guys, the ones who try to bargain for more time and less money. I do not turn down the ugly ones, the lonely ones, the very hairy and sexually confused ones. There is something in me that loves them and their small perversions, loves the taboo of sex work and the incredibly novel situations that I find myself in. As an Ivy league masters candidate, this is not my last resort. I've lived with the love of my life for years and am satisfied in every way by our love/sex/friendship. I'm educated and well adjusted, yet I am also a working girl. We tend to defy your expectations, don't we?

For me sex work is more intellectual than anything else. My reward is the money, but most importantly the understanding.

The truth is, I often feel less safe around men I'm not sleeping with for money, the ones who harass me on the street or at my day job. The patriarchy is so overpowering and omnipresent that my feminist self feels in danger almost everywhere. What I like about sex work is the exploration, the digging through layers of sexism and sexual politics, finding where I stand and how men act when they are given free reign. It's a chance to dig through the hidden and bizarre aspects of our lives, and it fascinates me.

Sometimes johns are beautiful. Sometimes they are violent, or threatening.

But they always teach me something, however small, about the realities of human existence and I feel privileged that they let me in.

I Feel More Alive

I became a working girl two and a half years ago, when I was twenty-one years old and in my senior year at a very prestigious U.S. university.

Money played a large part, though maybe not in the usual way. I grew up in an immigrant family with a father who had a Ph.D. but difficulty finding work in the States. As a child, I had all the love and intellectual stimulation in the world, but no money and no real sense of money. I went to public school, never ate out and always bought the cheapest clothes, but so did everyone else I knew. Clipping coupons was just what people did.

Then I went to Very Prestigious University. And my peers changed--they were now scions of privilege, people who hailed cabs without a second thought, flew home to their families in first class and thought nothing of dropping a couple hundred dollars on a dress. What I envied was not their material goods (being a daughter of a financially-strapped intellectual, you learn to look down on those who are too flashy with wealth) but their sense of ease. They never thought about money; I worried about money all the time. I didn't quite articulate it to myself at the time, but I wanted that freedom. I wanted to never think about money.

In my personal life, I had been dating an extraordinarily good man for the previous four years. He came from a background very similar to mine and we immediately understood each other. He was beautiful and smart and the sex was mind-blowing; to this day he ranks as one of the two best lovers I've ever had. There was every reason to marry him, and we were very much headed that way. But I was twenty-one, and I was itching to explore other sex partners and other relationships. For a while he put up with this. I wanted to sleep with girls; he let me. I wanted us to date other people; he grudgingly tried to oblige. But it wasn't enough.

So I became an expensive hooker. It wasn't that easy, of course--I did a lot of research by reading blogs and online forums, worked for an agency briefly, contacted a couple of women already in the business and made them my mentors. In retrospect, I was an excellent little aspiring whore. My college career counselor would have been proud.

For the most part, the men have been gentle and shy and they stirred very little feeling in me, either emotional or sexual. Occasionally I'd meet someone with whom I got along like gangbusters. In that way, it's very much like dating in the real world--nine times out of ten there's no spark, and once in a while you make fireworks.

But the experience itself is always, always fun. I love the ritual-like preparations: showering and shaving and smoothing myself with lotion; selecting the evening's lingerie; putting on eyeliner and doing up my hair while admiring my mostly-naked self in the mirror; throwing condoms, lube, and breath mints into my purse; slipping on my clothes and heels and running out the door to hail a cab.

I'm always dressed a little better than I would be for a real-life date. I'm always a little quicker to laugh, a little more patient and empathetic a listener. It's like being on stage, playing a girl who's just a little more seductive and interesting than yourself. I honed my sexual skills and I loved that too, loved being able to make a stranger's toes curl. Sometimes I didn't succeed, sometimes I could tell that he was disappointed in me, but that happened only two or three times.

The whole time I'm with a client, I'm at a heightened state of awareness. I pay more attention to all my senses and do everything with more care, and in the process I feel more alive.

And then I'm in a cab again, driving home with a nice heft of hundred-dollar bills in my purse. I get home, strip, climb into bed, and masturbate. In part this is because I've got leftover lust--I orgasm easily but it takes a lot to fully satisfy me. In part it's because the whole experience turns me on, and in part it's a kind of reclaiming of my body. At the end of the day, my cunt belongs to me and I'm the one who gets to enjoy it. After I'm done, I lie in bed naked and count the cash. It's crazy and surreal and beautiful.

Of all the things I've done in my short life, this may be the one of which I'm most proud. It's because I've done it entirely for the right reasons. Most of the choices I've made in my life--studying hard, going to a good school, getting on a proper career path--have been at least in part to fulfill the expectations of others, and this has been one-hundred-percent for me. I've been successful and now I have enough investments and such that I never have to worry about money again the way I once did. Two and a half years ago, the world of money and privilege still intimidated the hell out of me, despite my pedigreed education. Now I feel like I can traverse that world with ease.

My relationship ended shortly after I started working; I told him and he was appalled. Fortunately, we have since managed to create a strong friendship out of that wreckage. I've told two girlfriends what I do and both have been incredibly supportive. Recently, I've started dating another man who I've also risked telling about my secret life (the other one of the two best lovers I've ever had). His reaction was better than I dared to hope for--a little titillated, a little turned on, mostly very happy that I'm opening up to him. We're still seeing each other.

I am now twenty-three and trying to coax myself into retirement. I worry daily about the fallout to my family and my budding career if this should come out. I am terrified about the possibility of my picture being splashed across the tabloids, a la Ashley Dupré. I worry about the impossibility of ever sustaining a serious relationship as a working girl. But the experience is so seductive, it's hard to leave. I've resolved to retire soon, and I know I'll miss it.

I Knew Deep In My Teenage Heart That Whores Were Blessed With The Secret Key To True Love

Whores always fascinated me, even as a young woman. They were so gutsy and independent, dark and a little dangerous. They possessed a mysterious sexual knowledge, presumably from the ancient Orient, and got to wear the coolest outfits: thigh-high red vinyl boots and sexy garter belts. They lived in fancy penthouses with white shag carpeting and slept all day. I knew deep in my teenage heart that whores were blessed with the secret key to true love: they could make any man fall in love with them with a single, mind-bending blow-job. Oh god, would I ever be good enough to be a beautiful hooker?

Unfortunately, there weren’t many hookers or pimps in the small college town where I grew up, so I began stealing books on prostitution from the local college library. My panties would get totally wet reading page after page about these cocky women who so easily embraced being sexual criminals. I would fantasize about moving to LA or New York and getting caught by a famous pimp, most likely at a bus stop. He’d romance me with his smooth rap and in no time at all make me his "bottom bitch." I would make one bad-ass hooker.

It wasn’t long before I discovered there actually were hookers and pimps in my hometown, and I began working at a gentleman’s club as a hostess. That lasted a week, and I started turning tricks. It wasn’t quite as I had romanticized it, and I was both thrilled and terrified most of the time. A few months later, I actually did get caught by a pimp passing through town, who took me first to Phoenix to learn how to work the streets and then to Hollywood. It was 1978.

Working the streets in the 70s was a lot of different than it is now. My stable sisters and I would dress like the models we saw in magazines, and my pimp Woody would drop us off on various streets to work long shifts. There were all sorts of rules: never smoke on the stroll (it wasn’t classy, although apparently sucking cock in some random motel room was), never talk to another pimp’s girls, and so on.

Eventually, the glamor wore off and the stress of the job, the weirdo tricks, and the fear and shame took over and I had to stay mildly drunk just to get through the day. I got mugged by another pimp when I broke a cardinal rule about not getting in another pimp’s car. I talked my way out of it and started hiding out in hotel lounges instead of working. Woody threatened to drown me in the Pacific Ocean. By the end of the year, I had had enough, returned home, enrolled in college and got married.

Flash-forward twenty-some years later. Divorced, mid-40s, single mom with two kids in a good career that just didn’t pay the bills. I started going to open mics with my poetry about my days as a hooker and met P. there. She, too, was an ex-hooker, and we became friends. In three years after my divorce, I fucked fifty-seven guys (almost all one-night stands), and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. P. and I started doing a lot of sex worker activism together, and pretty soon all my girlfriends were either former or current hookers, strippers and porn actors. P. decided to start escorting again, even though she was in her 40s like me. She was making money hand over fist, and it took a few more years, but I decided to give it a shot. I made a contract for myself that included such things as, "I will stay sober," "I will process my experience with others," and "I will never sacrifice my safety for money."

I’ve been an internet escort now for almost three years. I’m approaching fifty, am forty pounds overweight, attractive, and am still somewhat surprised by how much money I make. I charge as much as the younger, "hotter" girls do, and I have a total niche. While the young chicks and I share a lot of the same clients, I tend to get the ones who aren’t comfortable with the younger girls, or who want a mature woman with sexual experience. When I’m in bed with a client, I often get a sense of total bliss. I feel so incredibly blessed and lucky. I was born for whoring, it’s my true life’s calling. Working as a whore has been an incredibly empowering experience for me, the money of which is not the least of that, and my only regret is that I struggled financially for so long as a single mom until I started escorting.

I’m currently dating a former client who pays my bills, gives me a steady flow of cash and just bought me a car. He loves the fact that I’m a whore. It’s a turn-on for him. I’ll probably always work to some degree, whether I need the money or not. I just can’t imagine ever being chained to one penis for the rest of my life. It just wouldn’t seem fair.

I Did It All

It all started when I finally had access to the internet at home. I did what I think most people do when living alone (men AND women): I wandered around looking at "naughty pictures." At some point I discovered that most of them led to a particular "hook up" site, which shall remain nameless.

Frankly, seeing all those people on that site seeking out NSA relationships, mostly in various stages of undress, turned me on. It all began with me snapping nude photos of myself and posting them (headless, of course). From there, it was just a spiral further and further into the abyss. Not that I have ANY regrets whatsoever.

First a series of wild one night stands.

Then a series of fuck buddies

Then I was led to phone sex, since many of my new "friends" (and, indeed, they were friends) said I had the knowledge (most men have some kind of kink), open mindedness, and a nice phone voice. While I was doing phone sex, I noticed that most of the high-rate calls went to dominatrices and this wonderful thing called Financial Domination.

I never had the nerve, or just maybe too much morality, to do straight out Financial Domination. But I was avidly curious about domination. One of the friends I met on the "hookup site" told me of a free site where I could probably find people to teach me all about BDSM.

From there, it was easy. As with most sites, there are plenty more men than women (at least "real" women not looking for money) on those sites. Most of them were perfectly willing to teach a newbie, since they got their kicks for free. I had a few men teach me various things... sometimes rather extreme things. Basically I did it all: bondage, strap-ons, verbal abuse, CBT, golden showers, fisting, stomping, foot worship, spanking, hot wax, electric shock, and various other things that would warp most people's minds. But the men loved it and longed for it...and there were so few women willing to do it all.

So, naturally, that eventually led to me charging men for my time and effort. I never became a "pro" domme, since I have a day job and probably wouldn't really make enough to survive on, one hundred percent. Word just spread amongst a few select people, and men would either pay for me to abuse them in various ways or buy me nice gifts, either BDSM related or not.

It's actually quite exhausting work, much more so than I think straight sex for money would ever be. You have to mentally prepare yourself for it all, and often there is a lot of prep work ahead of time and clean up afterward. I still love it, though, and think I fit naturally into the role. Even when I was back on the "hookup" site, sex was always about power and control for me. So, I suppose this path was eventual.

I do fantasize about having my own dungeon someday and just doing this full-time, but I live in a conservative state, and my mother would probably have a heart attack. Plus, I think someday I'd like to settle down...naturally, with a submissive man.

I'd Settle For Somewhere Between Monogamy And Full Blown Prostitution

I'm not sure how I first got addicted to casual sex ads online. I think I'd been a single lesbian for so long that I was sick of everything – sick of the label "lesbian" and curious about men, and sick of having no sex life.

I started sleeping with fairly safe ordinary vanilla married men that I found on Craigslist and other sites. I screened them carefully – phoning them at work, getting real life details that I passed on to my friends so they always knew whom I was with. It really was a grand experiment. But I loved the thrill of it all and it wasn't long before I was seeing kinkier guys, and engaging in more extreme situations such as partner swapping and threesomes. I came to have a regular lover and we even explored swinging parties.

All of this boosted my self-esteem, my sex drive and my joy in living. I always had a smile on my face. I posed for a lesbian sex magazine as a centrefold – even though I was a size 16. I felt like I'd claimed my body and its sexuality. I started wondering if really I was bisexual.

Most of the time it an amazing journey. On the odd occasion, it was dull-as-dishwater sex with men who really bored me and had no skill in the bedroom. During those moments, I did wonder what the difference was between myself and a prostitute. After all, I was sleeping with men I didn't care for, that I'd met on-line, and would never have emotional attachments to. The only real difference was that I wasn't getting any cash at the end of the hour.

I started to put some of my own ads on-line – seeking dinner and drinks before sex, or even a sugar daddy arrangement. None of this I thought qualified me as a pro. Then I received an interesting offer. $1500 for my "anal virginity."

I considered the offer carefully, and talked to a few trusted friends. I found out that once of my friends did have a secret whoring past, while another admitted to working in a brothel as a "receptionist." I was surprised. I decided they seemed well adjusted enough, and that I'd take the money. I emailed the guy to say I'd be up for it. But he never came through with a time or date, and I eventually figured he was stringing me along in exchange for the few naked photos I'd sent.

Figuring I'd already come so far, I posted ads for my services – marketing myself as a curvy F cup, bisexual prostitute. I asked for an outrageous rate, about $2000 an hour, and planned to book a hotel room in a different city for a few days to see how it all went. The emails flowed thick and fast – but none of my potential johns could match the $2000 an hour – apparently the going rate for a BBW woman was about $200, even if she was bisexual and double-degree educated!

I thought about it. $200 an hour didn't actually seem like a lot of money, considering I was earning about $1000 a week just to work in an office. And working in an office was at least a job I felt I could admit to. So I didn't go through with it. Mostly because I didn't think the money would compensate for the stress of a secret life on the side.

Two years down the track, and I'm in a monogamous relationship with another woman. I do love her, but I'm sexually frustrated, miss sleeping with men, and miss the excitement of online hook-ups. I'm glad I never actually accepted cash-for-sex but wish I could negotiate some middle ground of excitement. I'd settle for somewhere between monogamy and full-blown prostitution.

I Figured This Would Be A Little Psychological Experiment

I did not consider myself as a former sex worker until I began reading these blogs from women just like myself. Actually, I don't know if you would consider me as a former "sex" worker. I sold my voice, imagination, and an image instead of my body. Plus size girls don't exactly have a niche carved out for them in the high-priced escort business. Not that I know of anyway!

I was putting myself through college when a chance meeting with a new friend put me in the phone sex path. She told me all about it, and it sounded so new. I went to a private school my entire life and had always been very interested in sex and the psychology of it. I figured this would be a little psychological experiment. Little did I know that I would end up evaluating why I was fucked in the head instead of strange men who wanted me to talk about fucking them up the ass with a carrot.

My friend was giving me a pep talk before my first night. "Make them feel special." "Keep note cards on what they like." "Stay with the same story about how you lost your virginity so no one knows you are lying." I made $300 my first weekend. $300! For just talking! I could not believe it. I was addicted. Literally.

I could not stop. If I was ever away from that phone, all I would be thinking about was when I would be getting back. The money was my drug. I was with a guy, and he knew what I was doing. He was cool with it, but we never saw each other. I became a shell of myself.

I was hearing things from my Johns that I had no idea existed. From men wanting me to laugh at how small their penises were to men wanting me to talk about them getting fucked by a bunch of black men. Men would talk about beating me. I would get calls from all over the world. Some men just wanted to talk, though.

After a while of doing that I realized I had to stop because I was not living my life for me. I was living for the money.

Then the bomb dropped. It had been happening all along, but I had just noticed it after I quit. I was completely and utterly disgusted with having sex. Whenever my boyfriend touched me, I would push him away. The thought of having sex was revolting. I could not stop thinking about how dirty I felt.

I am not saying that anyone who is or has been a sex worker should feel dirty. I think it comes down to the fact that I, myself, felt cheap, in a way. Maybe if I were making the big bucks in the city, I would feel different... Just kidding.

To this day, I am still very open with talking about sex. I still find sex and the psychology of it interesting. I even toy with the idea of being a sexologist. I am now about to marry to the guy I was dating back then. And, my family has no idea that this was ever a part of my life. And, yes, my fiance can touch me without me trying to kick him in the balls.

I Felt Like Being Destructive

Just out of college and mad about my loans, I moved in with my sister and her fiancé and started looking for a job. It took me about a week to land three part-time jobs that I hated and did not pay enough. The “bad boy” I had fallen in love with had just stepped out of my life, and I had replaced him by dating an “Average Joe” that I was sure would bore me to death.

In my post-college slump, I felt like my life was in the drain. I had three crappy part-time jobs, my checking account was overdrawn, so I started browsing for “exotic dancer” want ads. In college, I had worked as a stripper in a sort of rinky-dink club for about two months and loved the dancing. The money was great for a part-time job, and it catered to my love for being the center of attention.

Now that I was in a new city, the area strip clubs were more plentiful. I went to one “audition” (which, for a stripper, means taking off all of your clothes on stage and dancing in front of customers so the management can see if you are for real and that you can bring in some cash). The club was so low-brow I was shocked. The girls were snorting coke in the dressing room, and the bouncers seemed more malicious and oversexed than the customers. I did not go back to the place. Instead, I went home and surfed the web in the hopes I would find the job of my dreams: something that required a B.A. in English, did not take up all my time, was fun and paid well.

I remembered a roommate I had in college who signed up as an escort through an online service. She was a pale, mousy thing who often concocted wild schemes but never followed them through. She had set up a date with a guy, got a cash advance and charged him a hundred dollars an hour. She wimped out at the last minute, though, and never showed up to meet him. Remembering this episode, I decided I could and would go through with it.

Quietly, so as not to wake up my sister, in my bedroom in the middle of the night I set up my digital camera and used the timer to take photos of myself in my underwear. I posted them up on an escort website along with my prices (a whopping $200/hour, which I figured was worth asking, since I have real red hair) and called myself Kitty. The next day, I was shocked to get an email from a guy who wanted to meet me at a hotel, then a voice mail from another guy who wanted me to come to his condo. They kept calling me. Apparently, asking $200 an hour was not outrageous. They were figuratively knocking down my door.

My first escort “date” was with a guy who called himself Tim, and I led him to believe that I had done this before. I drove two hours to his house in a snowstorm. I was driving white-knuckled in anticipation of what I was about to do, but I managed to play it pretty cool once I got to his place. He was middle-aged, divorced and had a daughter that he never saw. He was pretty average looking--balding, in OK shape. We didn’t talk for too long and really just got down to it.

I don’t want to seem flippant when I talk about the sex. There was nothing special about it except for the fact that it was the first time in my young life that I was actually literally prostituting myself. In my head, I was constantly waffling between being overly dramatic about the way I was compromising myself, and being blasé about the fact that everyone in the world sluts themselves out for money in some way, shape, or form--therefore, what I was doing was just fine. It was as terrifying an act as it was thrilling and rebellious. I could imagine myself continuing to work in this business just to “get off” on the danger. There are many unknowns, so there is no way that you can feel assured of your safety. In retrospect, my opinion of prostitution is that it is fine if you have straightened it out in your head as to why you are doing it and what you get out of it, but you are risking your safety and your health. Can you charge a price high enough to compensate for that?

And the sex was nothing I remember anything about. He left his television muted on CNN the whole time. I was shocked when he asked me if he could fuck me without using a condom. How can someone even consider not using a condom with a woman who does it for a living? Once we got that issue... covered, we finally got down to having sex. My biggest concern was that I had very little experience and that it would show (I had only had sex a couple other times in my life). It turns out that most men don’t notice. Faking the big orgasm is a must--easy enough; you don’t need to be a prostitute to be good at that. My next worry was that I would not be able to fill in a full two hours of time with sexual entertainment. It was not that hard. Most people are easy enough to talk to, and once the sex is over it is just pillow talk and back rubs. Two hours went by, he actually handed me $400 in cash, and I was on my way.

My first experience not a bad one. Aside from an almost overwhelming sense of danger the whole time, it went well. I got paid and the guy was decently nice. So, I did it again.

The next guy I met with was Bob, who lived just around the corner from the minimum wage job I was working. It was a dumb risk, but at this point I was on my second escort job and feeling confident enough (though still terrified) to consider just quitting my shitty job and selling my snatch to make a living. I could work for two hours and make more money than I could make in a week slinging coffee. Bob was at least four inches shorter than me and had a thing for tall women. Dominatrix sort of stuff. I didn’t really bring any props, but I acted the part and he loved it--a little too much. He came all over his bed only fifteen minutes into our scheduled hour. So, I filled up the rest of the time sitting on his back, giving him a half-assed back rub while I told him fictional tales of my life. Easiest $200 ever! I didn’t even have to have sex with him.

This job being even easier than the first just paved the way, and I continued to land jobs that month. The list of new numbers in my cell phone was getting confusing, so I started organizing all my clients by preceding their names with Jon: JonBrian, JonTim, JonRob... I did not meet with half of the dozens of men who contacted me, but enough jobs panned out that I was doing very well. Most of my clients lived at least an hour away from me, many were divorced, and some were still married. JonPete was a machinist who could not stand his wife and kids. JonTim liked women who acted childlike and naïve and wore black lacy underwear.

After two months of this, I started scheduling dates with men and then not showing up for them. My relationship with Average Joe was getting more serious, and I was really starting to like him. Naturally, I was beginning to feel really bad about fucking men for money while dating a really nice guy who deserved to be treated better. I also was starting to get real about why I was fucking men for money. I had been feeling rejected by a former lover, and I was angry for being in debt and was discovering that my college degree was essentially worthless. I felt like being destructive.

My last job scared me out of it for good. It was something set up with a guy named Carl, who I was meeting in a motel. We first started talking over email, and he spent a lot of time haggling over the price of an hour. He wanted to just get 45 minutes. He wanted me to give him a discount for gas since he had to drive so far to meet me. I should have dropped it as soon as he began to try and get me for a bargain. But, we arranged to meet. We settled on a full hour and I would charge him $175 (to make up for the room he had to rent).

He was a short bald man with a big spare tire around his middle and smelled like cigarettes. I showed up at the door of his motel room in jeans and a tank top and dark sunglasses. It is hard not to imagine myself in a movie scene: a tall beautiful redhead strides up to room number 16 in four-inch black stilettos. A seedy looking Jon opened the door a crack and then let her in...

We started off our meeting by playing a little strip poker. His idea was that since I did not know how to play poker, I would quickly be down to my laceys and we would be on our way to sex. Somehow, though, I managed to kick his butt at Texas Hold ‘Em, and he ended up sitting at the table in his boxers and socks while I had only removed my top. The sight of him sitting there with his belly hanging over his boxers and his hairy chest was less than appealing. After twenty minutes of cards, we decided that it might be a good idea to quit playing poker and just get busy. I pulled off my jeans and left my heels on while he got all heated up watching me while he was touching himself.

There really wasn’t anything odd about what he was doing, but I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable (this was a first for me). I continued to play along, though. He asked if he needed to wear a condom. (I have since discovered that about half of the men I was with would ask this.) I put the rubber on him, and then he spun me around and pushed me up against the dresser. The force of this maneuver was unexpected, but as I was pressed up against the motel mirror, I continued to play along, all the while feeling more freaked out. He tried to get me to let him fuck me in the ass, and I had to struggle to avoid it. It was starting to feel more like a violation than a situation that I was in control of. I was thrown across the bed and he fucked me doggy-style (but at least not in the ass). I was scared, but I didn’t let on, and I continued to play the seductive hooker right up until I left his hotel room with my envelope of cash.

I did not get hurt, I did not get any diseases, and I came out of that experience a little bit shaken, but intact. It was a wake-up call, though. I have always had confidence in my physical strength and my wits to keep myself safe, but just a small taste of how quickly I might get overcome if I wasn’t on my guard was what made me decide to quit. Now it is three years later, and I live with the guy I was dating when I started working as an escort. I did eventually tell him that I had been sleeping with men for money, and our relationship survived that revelation.

I Wanted to Fuck Like a Man

I became a "working girl" because an odd confluence of events in my life.

First, my fiance left me, quite abruptly, for a stripper. I was, of course, traumatized. I needed to get my mind off him, and entering a series of forbidden encounters with relatively anonymous men seemed like the only thing immersing enough to do the job. It was perhaps a way to punish him (he knew what I was doing, and felt awful about it), and was also a strange way to remain attached to him. When I started, I'd find an aspect of the men I was seeing that reminded me of him, and focus on it completely. Essentially, I wanted to fuck like a man, but as a woman, I needed an extra constraint so as not to become emotionally involved, particularly so in my delicate state.

Additionally, I was fascinated by the stripper he'd left me for. We'd had lunch. By Western Beauty Standards, she was much less beautiful than I (although her body was pretty fucking fantastic). But there was this certain way that she was sexual: she felt powerful, in control, confidant, like she knew every crevice of her sexual being. She was, quite obviously, a professional. I was an amateur then. I didn't know a thing. I wanted to be a professional too.

My background played a part as well, no doubt. I come from a very wealthy family, and most of the women in my family married, at least in a large part, for the money. I felt pressure to, and yet rebellious at the idea. This seemed the perfect compromise: I'd shatter the rescue fantasy and sell the pieces on the open market.

And, I think what was most important of all is that a good friend of mine had started dating a high-class Manhattan call girl. It normalized the endeavor for me: knowing someone else, not so different than myself, was partaking and enjoying partaking.

My experience: I loved it. I loved every second of it.

My only moments of guilt come from the risk of someday my activities becoming public in a way that would harm my legitimate career that I've worked very hard for and greatly enjoy. Also, I fear that my someday-husband might not be able to tolerate my sordid past. But those are anxieties produced by societies' view of the endeavor.

I did worry about disease too. But I was always safe, and really wasn't all that promiscuous: I did very high-end work, and usually only had about four clients at a time, all in long-term relationships. I would get tested frequently, and never caught a thing. By this point, I think the risk of disease is serious, but inflated: it's probably safer to be a call girl than have a one-night stand. In the industry, there's an economic imperative compelling safe behavior whereas off the clock I think things quite often get sloppy (if my girlfriend's stories are representative).

I did break up one marriage during my time, which I will forever regret (I had been being unprofessional), but I know that I saved at least four marriages, and strengthened many more.

For me, it was just incredible: I met men and woman that I adore and will be lifelong friends; I had lots of exciting sex and interesting conversations; I traveled everywhere; I put myself through graduate school without debt while buying all the expensive lingerie I pleased. Mainly, I just learned a lot about myself: I learned what I really wanted in a relationship; I learned how to set boundaries; I learned to be seductive; I learned how to care less and love more. Most importantly, I learned what type of sex I liked. I learned to have mind-blowing sex almost all the time, with anyone -- turns out it's a skill, not a matter of chemistry. Previously, I thought I'd had good sex, but I was wrong; I didn't have much to compare it too, and I didn't even have a clue about how fantastic sex can be. I learned how to please men, and I learned how to please myself.

Of course, I now know that my ex-fiance was all wrong for me, and I dodged a bullet there. I also have a strange equanimity about my future ability to have a happy marriage. Well, it will be difficult to find someone compatible -- I'm an odd mix of completely conservative and wildly wanton -- but once I do I feel that I have a copious amount of knowledge about the psychic dynamics of imperfect marriages and all the skill needed to avoid one.

I Was on the Stage

When I was 21, I got a part-time job flinging packages around at UPS, and after a few months, found myself in the best shape of my life. I started looking at myself in the mirror and thinking I was almost hot enough to be a stripper.

My only experience with strip clubs had been a couple of very upscale clubs with good lighting and fresh-faced girls and very strictly enforced "no touching" policies. They were terribly exciting and sexy, and I loved them. I am an introverted tomboy with short hair and no rhythm who never did learn how to put on makeup; I didn't end up in one of those clubs. I tried out at a lot of different clubs, and I ended up in a seedy place in East St. Louis where a "private dance" meant the girl sat on your lap and humped you for four minutes.

I didn't make very good money there; I only stayed for about 3 weeks before deciding that the job would destroy me if I kept at it. I was too shy to really approach the customers, and I was terrified of diseases I might catch if a customer came while I was grinding on his lap, so I mostly only made money when I was on the stage. I think I made about $300 on my best night ever, but most nights were $100 or less. $300 is damn good money for one night's work, though--I can see why so many of the girls kept at it.

My worst night ever was the one I got robbed without even knowing it. The private dance booths had little shelves where the dancers would put their purses, so I put mine up there and started doing my thing. This was about halfway through the night; I'd made almost $100, including the $20 this guy had just given me. After a minute of grinding and gyrating, he stood up, with me still wrapped around him. I was kind of confused by it, but this was maybe my third private dance ever, so I just went with it, and let him push me up against the wall. He kept shifting; I assumed he was trying to get more friction or something. By the end of the song, he'd sat back down, and I finished up with a kiss on his cheek and a "thank you," then took my purse and led him out of the booth. He left a few minutes later. It wasn't until after my next rotation up on stage, when I opened up my purse to put my tips in, that I realized what he'd been doing. My purse was empty. I went home that night with less than $40 for a 10 hour shift.

I guess it was just one of many clues that I wasn't meant for that job. I've long since lost my 21-year-old figure, but I still keep thinking that maybe, someday, I could start working out again and try to get a job at the kind of club I wanted to work at in the first place.

I Am 26

I am 26. I'm a grad student in New York. Internet men pay to spank me.

If I don't maintain certain grades, I lose my scholarship, and at the beginning of the semester I was flipping my shit about this one class, insisting I was going to fail and whatnot. I was wondering how I was going to pull three or six thousand dollars out of my ass, depending on how bad I did, and my friend said, "It's too bad you don't live upstate, because my friend Mary has a dude that pays her a fuckton of money to just spank her. No sex." So I had to figure that if Mary can find a dude like this upstate, there HAS to be people like this in NYC I can find. And I have a high tolerance for pain and a passing interest in spanking, so it was on.

I didn't even have to post on CL. In the erotic services section, there were even men that posted stating they were looking for that and would pay for it. So kind of on a whim (with a lot of encouragement from my friend that gave me the idea) I went into Manhattan to meet a southern banker who was in NYC for business. We agreed on half an hour but he seemed nervous and rushed me out after about 25 minutes. I really think he was suddenly feeling guilty about what he just did or I could be making that up because of whatever stereotypes I have in my head about clean-cut married guys from the south.

It's weird though, and I'm not sure if this happens with other types of sex workers... But when he emailed me again to say he'd be back in NYC and wanted to meet again, he was concerned about how HE did. He wanted to know if he spanked too hard, how things were for me, what else I like, what he could do better, etc. I was thinking, "Seriously? You're paying me $360 and YOU want to make sure I am happy?" I really do wonder if that is common, so I hope you get letters from other girls.

Since I don't have sex with these guys, I have convinced myself that it isn't really "sex work" and I am not really a sex worker, but I kind of know that's bullshit. Oh, and of course I ended up getting an A in that class I was so worried about in the first place. But I will probably keep doing this, because getting spanked for money is kind of more of a turn-on than getting spanked in my personal life. In my personal life it always seems so contrived and scripted and set up, and I have a hard time playing along. But a bunch of money is a powerful motivator for me to play along, and it's kind of a thrill.

One problem I have is that I bruise REALLY easily, so after I meet someone for this, I end up with a purple ass for like a week. Which is annoying because it prevents me from having sex during that time, since there's only 2 people that know I do this, and there is no way I am explaining to someone I am about to have sex with that, oh, my ass is all bruised today because a man with several umlauts on his name gave me "the strap".

I know it's dangerous, and I'm not gonna pretend like I'm safe because I only pick "trustworthy" people to meet. You never really know, and no matter how careful I am, there's still a nonzero chance that I'll end up stuffed in a garbage can in Brooklyn and some dude will find me 3 days later when he's walking his dog. Or something.