Hookers: Their Lives in Their Words Read online

  Things seemed to be going fine for about two weeks. The fact that he was shagging Beth’s brains out seemed to take his mind off the rent money. Beth didn’t even fancy him, it was just that without him we had nowhere to live, no food, drink or drugs. We would steal handbags and shoplift to get extra cash in.

  One day Beth said that Karl was asking for money again. We had started selling drugs but ended up taking more than we sold, so we were both broke and in fact we owed money out. Beth informed me that Karl said that if I slept with him a few nights of the week he would forget about the money and work harder to pay the mortgage. I agreed to it because it was either that or starve to death on the streets. One night I would shag him, the next it was Beth’s turn. The system seemed to be working well for the three of us.

  This one morning when Karl was out getting his drugs we heard the front door being knocked. Suddenly two big ugly blokes just barged into the house liked they owned the place, pushing past Beth who was knocked to the floor. They marched from room to room looking to see who was living with us. I thought they were the police and explained that Karl was in work. Turns out Karl didn’t own it, the real owner had paid these hired thugs to reclaim his property from the squatters. After loads of threats they told us to get our things together and fuck off out. We explained that we would leave but needed more time. They left the house and said they would be back in two hours and if we were still there they would break our legs. They were big steroid-type fuckers and when one was shouting at us his face went bright red and the veins on his bald head pumped up.

  While they were gone we gathered our things together and then it dawned on me what Karl had done to us. The wanker was fucking us for our share of the rent but he wasn’t paying anything, the prick was just a squatter. We knew Karl would be back in about twenty minutes so our plan was that when he sat down and smoked his weed we would smash him over the head with a piece of pipe and steal all his cash and drugs, the idea being that before he awoke we would be long gone. We filled our bags with all our belongings and hid them in the cupboard by the front door ready for a fast exit.

  Right on time Karl turns up and as usual he sits down in the old leather arm chair with his back to the kitchen to roll up his joint. I’m in the kitchen and Beth comes in and tells me that the prick is in position. I take a few practice swings in mid-air with the pipe and I’m ready to deal out the justice on Karl’s humongous head. I walk in the room with Beth pushing me forward. His back is towards me and I step closer and with all my strength I bring the pipe down on his huge head. I actually hurt my arm as the pipe bounced off the fucking thing. Next thing he jumps up out of the chair and lunges at me. I hit him again and down he goes. The arsehole still isn’t out cold so I panic and drop the pipe. Both Beth and I make a run for the front door and our belongings. He’s up off the floor and beats us to it. There’s blood pumping out of his asteroid-sized head but it doesn’t bother him. He grabs Beth and throws her to the floor and as I turn he launches a haymaker, which lands right on my chin. Suddenly the lights go out and I haven’t a clue to what else happens, just that I’m sitting on the doorstep of the house with Beth walking up and down the street picking up all our belongings that Karl had thrown out the door. Beth’s nose is bleeding and she’s talking to me but I can’t make out what she’s going on about. I must have been knocked out cold and missed the part where Karl stuck the boot into the pair of us. My head starts to clear and I realise we have both had a good hiding and have nowhere to live, no money or any prospects. We sit on the doorstep and after I’ve thrown up a few times we get our things together and walk off.

  A few hundred yards down the road a car stops and the two thugs we met earlier get out. Before they can speak I explain that we have moved out and won’t be coming back. Beth then tells them that her boyfriend is still in the house and he said he would batter the both of them if they tried to throw him out. They march off to the house and from what I heard from friends they kicked the door in and smashed the fuck out of Karl, which was the nicest thing that could have happened.

  We spent two nights in a homeless refuge and then moved into a squat with this Scottish girl we met there. She was a heroin addict but as long as you didn’t lend her any money or show her you had any you’d get along great with her. The squat was a flat that the local council had boarded up and once again it was stinking. The place was a haven for drug dealers and users. There were needles and syringes everywhere, it wasn’t safe to walk around bare footed, that’s for sure.

  Beth eventually phoned her grandfather and he posted her up £100 in postal orders so we could get some food. It took a few days to come, which when you’re starving seems like a lifetime. We had to be up every day for the postman as he would have seen the flat was boarded up and not delivered the letter. Beth had to show him identification before he handed over her letter.

  I don’t recall the name of the Scottish girl but it doesn’t really matter as we always called her ‘Scotty’ anyway. She told us that she was selling her body to pay for her heroin and whatever drugs she could get her hands on. The girl was in a bad way. She never seemed to eat and was slowly turning into a skeleton in front of us. She may have been a pretty girl once but with her teeth turning brown and the weight falling off her she looked terrible. I know Beth and I took drugs but Scotty was something else. It’s been years since I last saw her so it wouldn’t surprise me if she was dead now.

  Scotty told us how much she charged for a blow job, straight sex or sex without a condom. Even though most of the guys who picked her up could obviously see she was an addict, I was surprised that they were willing to pay extra for sex without any protection. She showed Beth and I the areas where she would just walk around waiting to get picked up. She said that some of the girls she had got talking to could earn up to £300 a night, but they had to work hard for that. Scotty would only work until she had enough for her drugs. Her whole life revolved around getting money for her next fix.

  Beth and I had run out of money and she said we should consider going on the game and pooling all our earnings together. I said wouldn’t it be a better idea if she went on the game and I arranged clients for her. Of course she wasn’t having any of that, and we both agreed that the only way out of the mess we were in was to sell our bodies.

  The three of us turned up at an area widely known for hookers: Beth, Scotty, who was showing us the ropes, and me. There were other girls walking up and down this road next to a small park with a residential area nearby. Some girls were working alone but most had at least one friend with them. Scotty said that if she was working alongside someone else they would both try and catch the number plates of the other punter’s car just in case they are never seen again. That information really didn’t really help settle my nerves. Beth had a small bottle of spirits in her bag and the both of us necked it down. We must have been there only about ten minutes when a large blue van pulls up. The driver was a big builder type, must have been in his late thirties, and he beckoned me over.

  ‘Want to take a ride?’ he asked.

  ‘As long as you’re paying, I will,’ I replied.

  I was just getting into the passenger seat when Scotty pushed forward. ‘Do you mind if I take a look in the back of the van?’ she asked. Before the driver could reply she had leaned in and had a look around. ‘Looks all right to me. Can’t be too careful, there could have been three or four guys in the back waiting to jump on you.’ Now I was scared witless. I felt like running for the hills. Most of the time Scotty was just drugged out of her mind but sometimes she could amaze you by how streetwise she was. The driver seemed to know the score and we drove around the corner behind some garages.’

  ‘How much, for you to ride me?’ he asked.

  ‘Forty pounds and I’m good at what I do,’ I said. I should have been, I’d been riding Karl almost every night of the week for the last few months so we wouldn’t have to pay rent.

  We both got in the back of the van and he laid flat on his
back and I unzipped him and pulled down his jeans and boxer shorts. He was already worked up so I slipped a condom on him and climbed on board. I was thinking how strange it was shagging someone you didn’t know. All right, I’ve had one night stands before but at least there was some sort of introduction, kissing even, before we did anything. I took my time and just before he would come, I’d stop then start riding him again, stop and start until he came. We adjusted our clothing and got back in the front seat where he threw the condom out of the window of the van. He paid me my £40 and within two minutes I was back with the other girls.

  Beth wasn’t long picking up her first customer and Scotty had a couple in the first hour and fucked off to buy her smack. We had made about £200 each in just a few hours when I suggested we call it a night and get some food on the way home. I could see by the look on the faces of some of the other girls working that night that they resented us being there. Maybe it was because we were a lot younger than most of them but I knew that one day we would get trouble from some of them.

  After about six months on the game, Beth and I moved from a squat to a flat that we were paying a fortune to rent. The landlord knew what we were up to but as long as he got his cash he didn’t mind. The place was a bit shabby but we had more money than we had ever had and were slowly getting the flat redecorated. Each week we’d buy something like a TV or fridge out of our money. We took great pride in our little home and very rarely brought any of our customers home, unless they were regulars who we knew and could trust. I said to Beth that we should find some other areas to work as the local hookers were making life hard for us. Some of them were nasty bits of work and they were dead jealous of us taking their business. We moved around by asking some of the girls where the best spots were.

  This one night we were just starting out when this big hooker came over to us and screamed, ‘Why don’t you two sluts find somewhere else to work? You’re stealing all our customers. Some of us have children to feed.’ With that Beth told her to fuck off and quick as a flash she slapped Beth with the back of her hand, which completely spun Beth around. Before I knew it three more turned up and I knew we were in trouble if we didn’t leave the area. I grabbed Beth’s arm and pulled her away, she could be hotheaded sometimes and these girls looked like they could fight.

  ‘I’m not fucking leaving,’ Beth screamed.‘These fucking ugly old hags don’t fucking scare me.’ She turned around and before I could stop her she marched back to the bitch who had slapped her. I could see the big fucker clenching her fist ready to punch her but as soon as she got within striking range Beth put her hand into her handbag and pulled out this fucking big Bowie knife. She put it up to the big fucker’s face, who by now was trying to back away with the others, terrified.

  ‘Next time you ever lay a hand on me I’m going to stick this bastard in your huge fanny and slice you up to your fat flabby hairy tits,’ she yelled out. ‘Now fuck off out of my face you bunch of fucking whores.’ They soon moved to some other area.

  ‘Beth, why the fucking hell have you got that thing in your bag?’ I asked.

  ‘Just in case someone tries their luck with me,’ she calmly answered.

  As we walked to a better pick-up place I asked, ‘How do you know if she has hairy tits?’

  I’d been a hooker for about ten years when as coincidence would have it two of my regular customers asked me to stop. They both said they would help with my bills and seeing as they didn’t know each other I agreed to stop selling my body. I balanced my other customers so they wouldn’t bump into the two mugs that were both paying all my bills between them. One day I was busted getting into an unmarked police car after I said I would blow the driver for £30. The judge sent me away to prison for sixteen months, which was more like a holiday camp. I had good food, a television in my cell, worked out in a gym twice a day and made loads of new friends.

  When I got out, one of the guys who paid my bills came to my house and asked me where I had been. Seeing as I had been arrested and charged under my real name, which he didn’t know, he’d had no idea where I had been. I told him that he had got me pregnant and I went away to have the baby. I knew he was married so I didn’t want to burden him. The make-believe baby was being brought up by my make-believe sister in Ireland and I was sending money over each week. I then pretended to cry and the mug bought the whole charade. He came back a day later and gave me £2,000 to send for the baby’s upkeep.

  A few weeks later the other mug turned up and I gave him the same cock and bull story. He then gave me £1,200. They were also paying my bills and my regulars started phoning so things were hunky dory. This went on for about ten months and I even gave them a photo each of a friend’s baby and told them it was of their child. I also wrote them both a letter, pretending it was off my sister, thanking them for the money and saying how generous they were. Life was great, everything was working out like clockwork, until one morning when I answered the door.

  They were both standing there wanting to know who the other was. From what I could gather, they literally bumped into each other on my doorstep. One said that he was the father of my baby and before long they were both comparing photos. The dafter of the two said, ‘The babies do look similar, don’t they?’ ‘You daft prick!’ I shouted, ‘It’s the same baby and the photos are identical,’ and slammed the door. I had to shout through the letterbox that I was phoning the police and having them done for harassment. They soon fucked off, and after a few angry phone calls in which they threatened to have me ‘chopped up’ I said I would tell their wives everything. I even threatened to have everything they both did in bed written in a letter to be presented to their wives by my solicitor at the reading of my will. That’s if I got found ‘chopped up’. I didn’t have a will, or a solicitor, and didn’t know where they lived or who their wives were but that done the trick and I’ve never heard from them since. Maybe I should phone them up as the baby would be in school by now and could use a school uniform, satchel, pens, pencils and a holiday in Jamaica maybe.

  I still work from home and I really am close to giving it up soon. I’ve lost contact with Beth over the years.The last thing I heard about her was that she had had a baby and moved away. I’ve faced everything a woman possibly can while being on the game. The most trouble you get is when some man thinks he owns you and becomes some sort of pimp. They get close to you and when they find out you haven’t got a husband or boyfriend they start coming up with all these big ideas for you to earn ‘loads of money’. I tend to think they’ve watched too many films and think that because I’m on my own I need some man to look over me. At the end of the day all their ideas end with them getting a cut out of my money. They must think I’m stupid. I have friends who I can call if somebody tries to take advantage of me.

  In this game there are other factors besides the police that you have to consider: other hookers, rapists, violent men, drug pushers, clap clinics, muggers and every low life you can imagine. If I could turn the clock back then I think I would have listened to my family and studied at school, not become what I have become.

  Chapter 8

  Zhila

  Age: 27

  Mashhad, Iran

  I HAVE BEEN working as a prostitute since I was thirteen. My family is very poor and my mother and father forced me into prostitution. About twenty-eight per cent of Iran is unemployed so work and food is hard to come by. The first introduction I had to prostitution was when I was about twelve. A young girl who was a few years older than me at the time came from a very poor family, even worse off than we were which is hard to believe. Her family told us she was leaving home to be married off, as a man had come to her house and given her family money. A few years later she returned with the story of how she had been taken away by the gang to work as a prostitute in Pakistan. She was beaten and starved until she became their slave. Her family was shocked to hear about her ordeal but wouldn’t let her into their home out of shame. She was forced to live on the streets, again as a pr
ostitute. The last I heard of her she had been taken away by the police and hung for selling her body.

  When I was thirteen my father took me to another town where I was taken to a large building where he left me with a woman who was a little older than my mother. I couldn’t understand why my father would leave me there, but I do remember him receiving money off the woman so I assume he sold me to them. Most of the girls and women there had also been sold into prostitution. I stayed there for four years working as a prostitute and waited for my father to come and get me, which he never did.

  When I was seventeen I refused to have sex with one man because he was extremely fat and ugly, like a big frog. He was known to like hitting some of the girls and he scared me. I was taken to a room at the back of the building where I was beaten until I lost consciousness by two of the men who ran the brothel. I woke back in the room I slept in, lying on my blanket covered in blood, bruises and whip marks. I made up my mind there and then that I was going to run away and find my family, even if they didn’t want me any more. I read once that about ninety per cent of girls who run away from home in Iran fall into prostitution. Well I did things the other way around, running from prostitution to get home.

  It took me about fourteen hours of walking to get to my old home. My family were overjoyed to see me and shocked that I had been beaten so badly. I asked my father why he had left me in that terrible place and he said he had been told it was a factory making clothes and thought I would be looked after well. I know he was lying but I kept quiet for my mother and younger brother’s sake. Things at home hadn’t changed much since I had left and my family was still very poor. My father would do any work he could find, from digging to helping a builder, but the money never lasted.