Hookers: Their Lives in Their Words Read online

  I had quite a lot of cash left over from working in London plus I’d left without paying a few bills but I needed to get back to work. I was a little relieved when Steven started phoning with work for me. I had to give him twenty-five per cent of everything I earned, which seemed fair. He said he took it on good faith how much I was bringing in but I bet he checked with some of the clients how much they had paid me.

  The first customer he got me owned a chain of supermarkets and after taking me for a meal I let him come back to my home. As soon as we got through the door he was all over me, kissing me and trying to get me undressed. I led him to the bedroom and we both stripped off in seconds. At first he was on top of me, then we switched positions. I hadn’t had sex for a few weeks so I took my frustration out on him. After an hour I ended up with my arse in the air and him pounding me from behind. I had to keep a firm grip on the headboard as it was banging against the wall and I thought it would take the fucking plaster off. In the morning we woke up together and he climbed on top for a quickie. I made us both breakfast and charged him £650 for the whole night. He didn’t complain about the price and asked how he could meet me again. I told him to just phone Steven and he’d sort it out. I could have given him my number but felt that maybe Steven was testing my loyalty.

  That morning Steven called around and I gave him his share, which came to £165. He was very happy with that and smiled when he stuffed it all in his wallet. ‘I have some more work for you tomorrow, if you want it,’ he said. I told him I needed all the work he could get me, as long as it was a few miles from my home. I didn’t want to meet local businessmen as I may bump into them in the day time or the word would go out that I’m the local hooker. I’d get hundreds of horny men knocking on my door.

  Money was coming in fast. I had earned more in London but the cost of living in Blackburn was a lot cheaper. Steven suggested that I learn to be a masseuse, take a few courses and improve my business. I paid for a few courses but quit after about four and just bought a few books. I just didn’t like the woman instructor and she took one look at me and took an instant dislike. She was a snotty-nosed fat ginger bitch and looked down her nose at me and others in the class. On the night of the last class that I took with fatty I parked my BMW right next to where she parked her little car. When I took my coat off I was wearing very expensive clothing and all my best jewellery. I could tell that the fat ginger bitch hated every minute that I was in her class. When the class was over I made sure I didn’t drive away until she saw me get into my car. She was pig sick and I loved every minute of it.

  Now after the few classes that I took and all the research I had done I felt that I could perform a massage on any of my clients. If the customer was a little shy to ask me for sex I’d mention that I had massage oils in my bag and offer to massage them. They never say no and in no time at all they were up for anything, putty in my hands. The trouble with the shy ones is they contact an escort for sex which hopefully will build up their confidence with women, then they are too shy to ask for it so unless the escort makes a move the night can be uncomfortably boring.

  I was taking less coke as I didn’t have to get up on a stage and strip any more. I joined a fitness club and started looking after myself a little better. I even watched what food I ate and cut back on the alcohol, which was hard to do seeing as every client stuffed full glasses in my face most nights of the week. Everything was coming together and I was enjoying things. I had made friends who I went out to clubs with when I wasn’t working and didn’t have many debts. Then Steven came around one night to tell me that he was moving to Ireland to run another club out there. I wished him all the best but realised I’d have to find my own clients now. He said he would contact some of the wealthier clients and give my mobile number out to them, that way they could deal directly with me and I’d have Steven’s cut as well. I put adverts in newspapers and on an online website where I got more customers because my photo and rates were up on there. I was advertised as an escort and masseuse. Only once did I get someone who thought I was a real masseuse: some old man phoned to make an appointment because he had shoulder trouble and asked would it be all right to go for a swim before he had his massage. When I told him that it would cost him about £250 for a home visit he couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Isn’t that a bit steep, the man from the local gym only ever charged fifteen pounds,’ he spluttered.

  ‘I know that,’ I answered, ‘but does that include him sucking your dick and riding you so hard you’ll be walking funny for a month? Because that’s what I do.’

  He hung his phone up after that, how rude.

  A few months ago I had a phone call from my mother. I don’t bother much with the family as it always ends up with arguments but I still keep in touch and visit now and again. My mother said that my younger sister had got mixed up with the wrong crowd and started taking drugs and not coming home at night. There had been a court case with her being fined for shoplifting and it seemed like things were getting worse. I asked would it be better if she came and lived with me for a while. By the end of the week I had picked her up from the train station and she was stunned to see the car I was driving. My dad only had a battered old van so being picked up in my new £20,000 Mercedes came as a shock. I knew when she walked into my apartment and looked around she’d know I wasn’t working as a gym receptionist as I’d told everyone back home. I had to come clean and tell her the truth or she’d eventually find out and we’d get into an argument.

  I was sure she would be disgusted with me but decided telling the truth was for the best. I explained that I was a stripper and one thing led to another and I ended up as an escort. She looked at me with that stunned look a rabbit gets when your car headlights shine on it. Suddenly she jumped up and said, ‘You’re a fucking hooker, I knew it as soon as I saw the car, excellent, well done.’ That wasn’t really the reaction I expected. When I was younger if someone was a hooker they’d be shunned by family and friends but in the eyes of a streetwise nineteen-year-old girl I’d become some sort of hero. I explained that from now on there would be no drugs and don’t get any ideas about following in my footsteps. She agreed and it’s been a pleasure having her stay.

  Now the hairdresser downstairs has taken her on and she’s slowly learning the trade, though I won’t let her cut my hair quite yet. When I’m out with a client my sister sometimes takes calls for me and makes appointments. I’m now in a long-term relationship and it looks like it won’t be long before I pack the escort work in for good. He knows exactly what I do for a living and after a few tears he’s come to terms with it. We’ve talked about moving in together but I think I’ll wait a year or two first. I try not to take too many clients on these days, if I can get between four and five a week I’m happy. That way I can make about £1,000 a week, which is really more than I need.

  Chapter 16

  Simona

  Age: 42

  Lambeth, London

  MY HUSBAND WAS ten years older than me and he developed a heart condition that made him give up work as an engineer. We had three children and my wages as a shop manager didn’t even get close to paying our bills. Our sex life had come to a complete halt because of his illness and he suggested I find a lover. I was never promiscuous or anything remotely like that, so I turned his offer down.

  The bank had contacted me and told me that there was not enough going into my account to pay the mortgage and direct debits. My youngest was having piano lessons so that was the first thing we cut back on. Then we couldn’t get new clothes for the kids and with Christmas coming up things were turning into a nightmare. They thought everything was all right and were asking for expensive gifts that we couldn’t afford.

  One night my husband showed me an advert in a local paper which said I could earn £250 a night as an escort. I told him that they were all hookers so that was no good to us. He explained that maybe it was, and he thought that then I could get something that he couldn’t provide and make good money as w
ell. Two days later I phoned the escort agency up and gave them all my details. I was told that during each appointment I had to stay with the customer for between one-and-a-half and two hours, charge £250 which the customer must pay in cash, and send the agency £60 for setting the appointment up.

  The phone rang the next day and Stewart, who worked at the agency, gave me an address in Hackney. I must be there at seven o’clock, he said. I was nervous getting ready but also kind of excited. I explained to my husband about the phone call and where I was going and he just nodded and started preparing food for the kids. I told my children I was going out to meet a friend for a few drinks and wouldn’t be out too late. I turned up at this very posh-looking apartment, with a huge, expensive car outside. I rang the bell and a tall, skinny man in his forties answered the door. He asked me in and showed me around the apartment. It was rather small but very well and expensively decorated, but I got the impression that there was no wife or girlfriend living there. He asked me how long I had been doing the job and I told him it was my first night. He laughed, thinking I was joking, then after I explained my situation he realised I was telling the truth and apologised.

  He explained that he had been to prison for fraud and was finding it hard to get back into society. He’d been a financer and was done for some sort of insurance scam and while he was away his girlfriend left him for his brother. She did try to take money out of his bank accounts at first but he had already put a hold on them. He explained that the housekeeper who was looking after his house for him had actually called the police to stop her from cleaning the apartment of all his items. I started to warm to him, he seemed sincere and friendly. I got the feeling it was just the company of a woman he needed, not sex. He seemed lonely. If I was single at the time and he had talked to me in a wine bar or somewhere I would have gone out with him. I wouldn’t have had sex on the first night but I would have dated him. Funny that I had the morals not to sleep with a date on my first night but I would take money for sex.

  After about twenty minutes there was a pregnant pause in our conversation and I asked, ‘Shall we go into the bedroom?’ I had to say something or we could have been there all night making idle conversation. I’m not usually so forward but if I was going to reinvent myself as a prostitute then I had to change my attitude. By the way, from the moment I walked into his home to when I left, my legs felt like jelly. I had never even kissed another man during my eighteen years of marriage, let alone had sex with one. His bedroom was impressive and I had to suppress the urge to ask him where he got the curtains and wallpaper from. I slipped out of my dress and shoes and lay on the bed as he undressed. For a while I just lay there while he explored my body. It dawned on me that I wasn’t supposed to lay there but to get stuck in, so that’s what I did. When I think back to it now, I feel that maybe I needed it just as much as he did. I stayed there for the full two hours, maybe a little longer. For a while we just lay there talking about anything that came into our heads. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience at all, in fact I enjoyed it and it was a nice introduction into the world of prostitution.

  I thought that I’d feel dirty when I left but it wasn’t like that. Maybe it was because I had such a nice first customer – who became a regular for many years – that I felt at ease with myself. I walked around to my car and sat there counting the money. I didn’t even have to ask for it, as that again I felt at the time would have been awkward. He had made me a coffee while I showered and handed me the money as I entered his kitchen. He had to pay me £250 but gave me £280 so I had a £30 tip. I didn’t think that prostitutes got tips, it’s not as if you’re a waitress is it?

  Taking out the £60 agency fee I was now £220 in profit, so I could get a few things for the family. Two of my girls needed new shoes and I could put the rest towards the ever-mounting collection of bills we had.

  I could see when I got home that my husband had been crying at some point. I felt a little upset but on the other hand I was the one who had to go and sleep with strangers to keep a roof over our heads. I just kissed him and made a cup of tea for the pair of us. The girls were in bed and he was just watching the TV on his own. He asked me how it went and I told him that things were fine and the bills would get paid. I got the feeling he thought it was his entire fault but we’d had discussions about it all for weeks and the dirty deed had been done, so to speak. Guess like me he had to come to terms with things and eventually he did.

  Now I was living another life, a life as a sex service. I kept it hidden from friends and family, just my husband and I knew. It was a little strange that I could go around harboring this secret. I could go to, say, a parents and teachers meeting at the school and I’d look around and think, but I’m a hooker. I didn’t think that prostitutes had real lives, strange really. I could be in my day job and be thinking, what if everyone knew? I was supposed to be a respectable woman. How would my family take it? How many other respectable women out there were doing the same thing?

  I had loads of questions but pushed them out of my mind and got down to paying the bills. I was making an extra £700 to £900 a week and our lifestyle was changing. Our bills were getting paid and we could afford a better standard of life, well apart from me getting screwed three to four times a week for cash. The bulk of our bills got paid quite fast and we started getting some well-needed luxuries in our life. We bought a bigger car for cash, had an extension built on the back of the house and even bought a new dog for the kids. Things we could never dream of getting otherwise were now possible.

  John was OK with it at first but when our money problems were sorted we were in the garden watching the builders putting in the windows to the extension when he confronted me about it. It must have been on his mind for a while and he mentioned that I no longer needed to ‘work overtime’, as he put it. We chatted for a while and I explained that I wanted to keep doing it to get the kids a better lifestyle, after all anything could happen to put a spanner in the works. I told John that if he wanted me to stop I would, straight away, but somewhere down the line the money was going to run out. He thought for a while and said, ‘Well in that case I’d like you to carry on for as long as you think we need the extra money, I’ll leave it up to you.’

  I always felt that he needed to have some sort of control over it all. It was as if as long as he said it was all right then he could handle what I was doing. If it was my decision and mine alone I guess he would have felt he wasn’t the man of the house, if you get my drift. It was just a male ego thing where as long as he was the one who said yes or no then he was happy. That afternoon I went out and bought him a present. He had been feeling weak so I wanted him to smile a little more, once in a while at least. He found it very tiring walking around so I bought him an Xbox and five top games. He was over the moon and whenever I was out working he would be on it killing aliens or fighting vampires to take his mind off where I was, and what I was doing.

  For the first year or so I didn’t have any problems but the agency had sent me to this one man’s house in Lewisham a few times and I found him to be a little creepy. I couldn’t put my finger on it but there was something about him that wasn’t quite right. He was a dealer in old books and sold most of them online where he seemed to be making a lot of money out of it.

  One morning I was at my day job at the shop when I look outside and I could see the book dealer walking up and down the street past the front of the shop where I worked. Later when I finished work I spotted him following me to my car. I didn’t really know what to do because if I made a scene he may tell people about me. The very next day I’m in work and he walks past again and again, each time taking a quick look at me. On my lunch break I noticed him following me as I went out to get some food and made up my mind to confront him face to face. I turned around and walked up to him and asked why he was following me, which of course he denied. I told him how I’d been watching him follow me to my car and hanging around outside the shop. He said that if I give him free sex once in a wh
ile he wouldn’t tell the people who I worked with that I was a hooker.

  I was stunned. What could I do? He may even tell the police and I’d go to prison. I told him that I had children and my husband was ill, and I had to make the money up some way or lose the family home. I said to him softly, ‘Do you really want to do that to me? Are you really the sort of person who would hurt me and my family? I always thought you were a nice man, who could be trusted with my secrets.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, ‘I don’t know what I was thinking, I just got lonely and when I first saw you working there I thought of getting some company but not to pay for it.’

  ‘That’s OK, we all make mistakes in life and this isn’t really a big mistake to make,’ I said to him gently and off he went. I’ve never to this day seen him again. I guess he was really just lonely and needed company. I actually feel sorry for him.

  As for the police, one Saturday afternoon I had two plain clothes police officers come to the house, one officer in his late thirties and a younger woman. They asked to speak to me in private and I took them into the kitchen where we all sat down. They explained that the agency I worked for had employed a woman who was working as a prostitute and had stolen bank books from a client. My name was on the company books, along with loads of others, and they were checking all the names. They asked me was I a prostitute and had I ever taken money for sexual services. I explained that I was just an escort who was paid to attend parties and functions with the customer. I assured them that sex never took place as I was a married woman and hadn’t a criminal record or done anything wrong. I also mentioned I would take anyone to court for saying any different.