Cécile's Calling

1

Mommy lay on her back, perfectly still, mouth open, arms and legs splayed. She took sleeping pills so she wouldn't have to know what went on in the house at night: she was out cold. I found her purse where she usually left it, on the dresser top. I took out her wallet; there was one ten-dollar bill in it and less than a dollar in change. I couldn't believe it. Here she had this ridiculously expensive Fendi bag, and it had a measly ten dollars in it. I rooted around in the purse but didn't find anything but a dime and a few pennies at the bottom. I fingered her checkbook and BankAmericard, but it would be too risky to use them. I took the bill and Mommy's keys and put them in my pocket with the two dollars.

Back in my own room I changed into warm things-jeans, blouse, sweater, thick socks, sneakers. My purse had two dollars in it. There was nothing else but a dog-eared learner's permit, expired more than a year ago: Daddy had never let me get a license.

Downstairs I put on coat, hat, and gloves. Daddy had put in locks with keyholes on both sides; I used Mommy's key to let myself out the front door, not bothering to lock up behind me. I drove her new Imperial to the bus station-slowly, it had been a long time since driver's ed-and left it parked by a yellow curb. Then I walked the two miles to the Amtrak station, dropping the keys in a trashcan on the way. The ticket seller was a pimply kid with a hungry gaze: I asked him for a ticket to Boston, but he said that would be eighteen dollars. I asked how far twelve dollars would get me, and he said New Haven, Connecticut.

I'd been to New Haven once before, when I was very little, and Daddy had some kind of business there and took Mommy and me so we could see a show. I thought the big buildings looked like palaces, with their towers and gargoyles, and when I asked about them Daddy said the king and queen lived there. I used to daydream about going to New Haven and pleading with the king and queen to take me away and make me a princess.

But now I was all grown up, and I knew better. The palaces belong to Yale University. It's very wealthy and famous, but if you go round the corner onto Chapel Street at night you meet a lot of people that don't give a fuck about Yale.

I became one of those people.

I got off the train and wandered around until I saw the towers of Yale. There weren't any places to buy food there, but around the corner on Chapel there was a store open late at night, and I still had some change in my coat pocket so I could buy a little food.

But I hadn't thought about where I'd sleep. I found a courtyard somewhere and slept for a little while on a bench, but woke up hungry and shivering.

That's when I knew for sure that I was really in trouble, because I had no money left but a few pennies, and nothing to eat, and nowhere to sleep.

I tried to beg, but it's hard to get people to believe you really need money when you have a nice coat and gloves and your hair is still neat. And then there are a lot of people begging on Chapel Street, so by the time people that are willing to give money to beggars get to you, they're tired of giving, or maybe they don't have any pocket change left.

I could go into the underground library and keep warm and sleep during the day until the security guards caught on to me, and then they started looking for me and they wouldn't let me stay. Or I could go to Chapel Square, the indoor mall, but there was no place to sleep there. And for days I just wandered around, and I was getting thinner and dirtier, and I must have looked a sight.

And then Davis found me. He was black, and he had kind eyes, and he just came up to me on Chapel Street and said, "You look cold and hungry."

I'd almost started to think I was invisible. I couldn't believe this man had not only seen me but also noticed I was cold and hungry. He smiled and introduced himself, and he asked me my name. I said Cécile. It was a name out of a book I'd found in Daddy's study, one of the ones I'd smuggled to my room. Cécile was this young girl that got seduced by the bad guy, and she got sent to a convent at the end. At the time I didn't like the way it ended, but now it seemed way better than things were turning out for me.

When Davis asked me my last name I said I couldn't remember. He asked me other things too, like how old I was and where I was from, and I said I couldn't remember those things either. When I got on the train for New Haven I decided to forget everything about my life, and I'd already managed to do a good bit of forgetting.

Davis looked at me curiously, then laughed. He said, "You ain't nobody and you don't come from nowhere. And your name ain't Cécile either."

I said, "It's the only name I have."

"It a good name," he said.

He took me to this diner and bought me a huge dinner which I couldn't eat much of because I wasn't used to eating anymore. And afterwards he took me home to his apartment on Dixwell Avenue, and he let me take a long shower and settled me on his stained and threadbare sofa with a pillow and blanket. I was so happy to be warm and full, I slept until very late the next day.

In the morning Davis gave me coffee and cereal with milk, and it was easier to eat now. He didn't eat much himself, but watched me eat and asked me more questions that I wouldn't answer: did I have a boyfriend, what did I do for fun, all kinds of things. His staring made me nervous, and I was afraid he'd get mad at me for not answering questions. Then he'd beat me, or worse, he'd throw me out, and I'd be back wandering the streets, begging and shivering.

So after I'd eaten I did what had mostly worked before to keep me out of trouble. I got up and took my clothes off, watching Davis's face carefully to make sure it was all right. Because sometimes it isn't, you know. Sometimes you get in trouble even if you're good and you do everything right.

Davis stared, and when I was naked he said "Oh man!" and stood up.

I knelt in front of him on the worn tile floor and pulled down his tight black pants, then his underwear. His cock was a little darker than the rest of him, not too big or scary, nicely curved, and getting harder every second. I leaned forward and let the smooth brown head of it slide between my lips.

"Oh man," Davis said, and he tipped his head back and closed his eyes while I sucked his cock, massaging it with my tongue, tasting its warmth, and feeling it swell in my mouth. Sometimes he'd look down at me and catch me peering up at him to make sure he wasn't angry, and he'd say "Oh man" again.

Then he pulled away from me, and for a moment I thought he was going to hit me, but instead he said, "How 'bout me and you make love now, babe?"

I followed him to his bedroom, feeling less worried now. I lay on his bed, opened up my legs, and said, "Okay."

He undressed-he was thin and wiry, I could see his ribs-and he got on top of me, and his cock just sort of slid into me. It only hurt a little, even though my pussy wasn't all that wet.

He fucked me a long time, sometimes kissing me or squeezing my breasts, gazing into my eyes and telling me I was beautiful, and I started to get bored-it didn't feel like much. I said to him, "Do you want to put it in my ass?"

He said "Oh man" again, and I giggled. The way he said "Oh man" all the time was starting to seem funny. He went somewhere to get some lubricant and was back in a few seconds, and I got on my elbows and knees. He put some lubricant in and around my ass, and he pushed in. This didn't hurt as much as usual, but at least it felt like something. Davis breathed heavily, and gasped, and finally came in my ass with a loud moan.

Afterwards he said, "Seem to me you didn't like that."

I was afraid he was going to beat me for not liking it, so I said, "Oh yes, I liked it very much."

"But you didn't say nothing. You didn't make no noise."

"I thought you weren't supposed to. It might wake people up."

"Well," he said, "you can make noise if you want to."

After that he kept me with him for a whole week, and we fucked every day. I just stayed in his apartment, even when he had to go out on business. We'd have breakfast, and then we'd fuck, and it wasn't very interesting, though a lot of the things I knew how to do really turned him on. Like he'd come in my mouth and act like it was a big deal when I swallowed it. Or I'd ride his cock facing away from him so he could play with my ass, or I'd lick his anus or sit on his face, and those things excited him. I learned how to moan and pretend to come, and that was a big thrill for him. Once he kissed and licked my pussy, and that was a new thing, it was nice, almost as good as masturbation. But he didn't hit me, not even once.

In the late afternoon he'd shoot up, and then he pretty much ignored me until we went to bed at night. A pretty black woman named Sasha brought in groceries every few days, but she was kind of sleepy and didn't take much notice of me. I took to cooking for both of us, things like TV dinners and Shake 'N Bake, and I made sure he ate at least a little of it. I tried to clean his place a little too, though it was impossible to make it look really good: the furniture, the carpet, and everything was old and shabby.

You do what you've got to do to stay alive, and what I had to do was fuck Davis. It wasn't so bad. He was good looking, though kissing him would have been nicer if he'd flossed his teeth: his eyes were soft and warm, his skin was a rich dark chocolate, and he wore dreadlocks before they were cool. He was as kind as he knew how to be, considering he was a drug addict. Before long I wasn't even afraid of him, and it's not like he was asking a lot from me. But by the time I'd been with him a week, I was just about out of my mind with boredom.

2

So I wasn't sorry when Davis turned to me one morning and said, "Listen, baby, this has been a great week. You really are my girl. And I wish I could just keep you here with me forever. But I got expenses, you know? I got to work myself, I got a business to manage. And if you want to stay with me, you gonna have to earn your keep."

I was an adult now, and I'd also been thinking it was high time I started to earn a living. So I said, "What do you want me to do?"

He said, "Sasha, she do my shopping, but she also do the job I got in mind for you. She gonna take you out and show you what to do."

That night, Sasha took me shopping and bought me some very tight pants, a satin top, and a little fake fur coat to put over it; also some glittery high heels and a ridiculous little glittery purse. I would have liked the look of those things when I was ten, but I didn't now.

Sasha was driving down Chapel Street in Davis's Lincoln, listening patiently to my complaints. She said, "You can't be lookin' like just any girl on the street, baby. You got to dress so the johns know you available to party."

I looked at her in shock. "You're a prostitute," I said, feeling stupid for not figuring it out before.

And she said, "You mean Davis didn't tell you nothin' about this?"

I said, "He just said you'd show me what to do. I don't think I want to be a prostitute."

"Baby, you got to have some money when you go back to Davis's place tonight, or there gonna be trouble. You been livin' with him, but he ain't gonna go on keepin' you if you don't make some money. You gonna be back on the street by yourself."

"I could beg and give him the money," I said.

"You can't make enough money beggin', sweetie. Davis got to have money for his habit, and he got to buy food and pay his rent. All the girls work for Davis bring him what we make, and he give us money and H."

"Why do you do that?" I asked.

Sasha had pulled up in front of a run-down apartment building on Dwight Street. She said, "Honey, just come with me," got out of the car, and strode towards the building. I hurried after her. She took a key out of her purse and opened the door of an apartment on the ground floor. It was musty and dark and furnished like Davis's place. She said, "This our trick pad. Best thing is you bring a john here to fuck him cause that quickest. Or you can get into his car and give him a blowjob. But if he want to take you to a hotel, make him give you five dollars extra, cause that take more time, and you probably gonna have to find your own way back here." She took a key from the drawer of a little table and gave it to me.

I said, "What do johns pay?"

"It depend what you do," Sasha said. "If he want to fuck, fifteen. Five for a blowjob. Three for a handjob." She looked at me critically. "Why don't you try chargin' five more for everything. Twenty for a fuck. You a pretty white girl, they gonna go for you."

Before long we were hanging out along Dwight, waving and calling out to men as they drove by, and if a man liked the look of me he'd stop and roll down his window and ask how much, and I'd ask what he wanted, because a cop isn't allowed to say he wants to buy sex. So the johns would say they wanted to buy a fuck, and I'd say twenty.

My first john was a paunchy older man that smelled like cigarettes and beer. I don't remember a lot more about him except that he helped me figure out that I have a strong stomach, which is pretty important for a girl in my line of work. I leaned into the passenger window-I could smell him already-and told him the price for a fuck was twenty, and he grumbled that it was goddamn robbery, and I said if he wanted he could have a blowjob instead for ten. He looked at me closely, and after a few seconds he said he'd pay the twenty, but it was still goddamn robbery.

So I took him to the apartment, made him pay me, told him to undress, took one of the washcloths and a little towel from the bathroom, and cleaned off his cock, which was just sort of half hard. Then I stood in front of him and stripped and sucked his cock for a couple of minutes. When he was hard enough to fuck me I asked him if he wanted to be on top or on the bottom, and he said on top. It was a little gross having his wrinkled and age-spotted face above me like that and his hairy paunch pressing down on me, and his breath was all stale tobacco and beer. But he only took a few minutes to come, and then it was over. He dressed and went away, I cleaned myself up with another washcloth, thinking, Well, that could have been worse, and went back out on the street. The whole thing, from the time the john's car pulled up to the curb, took less than a half hour.

Five of my johns that night decided to pay the twenty for a fuck, and just two went for the ten-dollar blowjob instead. So that was a hundred and twenty dollars, which I thought was a lot of money. Davis was sleepy, but I think probably he was pleased too. It took a lot of money to keep him and his girls in heroin.

But Sasha said, "Baby, I ain't gonna do this with you no more, because the johns all be stoppin' to talk to you, and they ain't payin' no attention to me. I got to make some money."

After that night I was on my own, and it was a little scary without Sasha, but she hadn't been much of a protector anyway.

3

One night, maybe about two weeks after I started turning tricks, a long black car pulled up beside me, and the window slid down with an electrical hum. The man inside asked if I wanted to go to his house with him. I asked him where it was, and he said Wooster Square. I knew that was farther than any of the hotels, so I said thirty instead of twenty-five, and he said there'd be a lot more than that in it for me.

So I went with him.

The house turned out to be a big plain one on Lyon Street. The man led me through a living room and kitchen and down some stairs to a sort of finished basement with a pool table, an upright piano, shelves on the wall with trophies, photos and books, a big shag rug on the linoleum floor, and an overstuffed chair and sectional sofa that went around a corner. There were five other men sitting on the sofa and the chair, watching a game on TV. They looked at me, and then they all got up.

"Shit," I said. I was getting kind of potty mouthed, hanging around with all those whores.

I was a little scared, but I was even more excited. These six guys were all Italian. They weren't fabulously handsome, but they were in their twenties and thirties, dressed in jeans with sneakers and college and team tee shirts, and none of them were fat or really ugly. It wasn't their looks, though: it was the number of them, and the way they were staring at me. They looked like they wanted to fuck me, but there was another look, one that Davis never had. It was like there was dry kindling smoldering there behind their eyes, about to burst into flames. Or maybe it was the way they were standing, like steel springs under tension. They looked like they were itching for a fight. A sort of thrill ran down my front, between my breasts, across my belly, and down to my crotch, which started to feel warm.

I looked around the room and did some arithmetic in my head: twenty for each of them and ten for the extra travel time. I thought What the fuck, rounded up, and said "Two hundred. Up front. Extras are twenty-five each."

"Extras?" said the man that had brought me.

I said, "If you hit me, that's an extra."

He said, "What else is extra?"

"Anything that's not regular fucking. Anal."

"Blowjobs?"

I looked at the men again. They seemed clean enough and better looking every second. "They're included," I said.

"Three hundred then," said the man.

I said, "What extras are you buying?"

And he said, "We're paying up front for four extras, and we'll just see which ones we use."

The men took out their wallets and came up with three hundred dollars, which I stuffed into my little glittery purse. Then I excused myself and went to the bathroom and squirted lubricant into my pussy and anus.

When I got back the men were sitting and watching the TV again. I went over, turned it off, and stood in front of it. Then I took off my coat, tossed it onto a chair, and pulled off my top. I had on a little lacy black bra, not that I needed one, my breasts aren't all that big, but two weeks as a whore had taught me that men like to watch me take it off. They were all staring now.

"What's your name?" asked the guy that had brought me; I decided to think of him as Tony.

"Cécile," I said.

"Right," he said. "How old are you, Cécile?"

"I can't remember." I raised up one foot at a time and slipped off my heels. This isn't easy to do: it takes practice, like everything about heels.

"You from around here?" Tony said.

"Why don't you boys all take your clothes off?" I said, and wiggled out of my tight pants.

"All of us?" Tony asked, eyebrows raised. "Here?"

Suddenly I realized that they'd been planning to take turns with me, probably going off one at a time to a bedroom while the others went on watching TV. Funny how it hadn't occurred to me that they were expecting something so boring.

"Everybody that wants to fuck me," I said.

Tony shrugged and started to unbutton his shirt. The others glanced at each other nervously, but then followed his lead. They were shy, careful not to look at each other. When they were naked I took off my bra and panties.

Their cocks were getting hard already. I've noticed that men like to look at me. I'm five foot two and slender, with long blond hair. I have a thin face with small features, except my eyes. I'm fair-skinned and I've never had any problems with acne or eczema; just now I didn't even have any bruises. When you're a whore it saves a lot of time and effort if men just look at you and get hard. It's a thing I like about myself.

I picked out the man with the biggest cock and decided to call him Guido. I went up to him, said "You first, babe," pushed him down onto the sofa, sat right next to him, and went down on him. He was amazed at the way I could get his whole cock into my mouth. This was like February or March, and Deep Throat wouldn't come out till summer. After that all the johns would want deep throat, and all the whores would be scrambling to learn how to do it, but now not many people knew it was even possible. In my life, before, it had just made sense to figure out how to suppress my gag reflex, so I'd taught myself that a long time ago. "Fuck me," Guido said. I could tell he'd never seen anything like it.