My Life on the Game

They looked at each other and he nodded to her. "If you were to be given the opportunity to give up being a prostitute would you take it?"

"Just you try and stop me. Of course I would." I looked from one to the other. "Are you suggesting that you are going to give me such an opportunity?"

"Yes." She reached over and took my hand in hers. "I am in need of a Research Assistant and I'm offering the position to you. The money might not be as much as you earn now, but the hours will be flexible and I will allow reasonable time off for you to attend lectures and tutorials if needed."

"I don't know what to say." I went to her and hugged her to me. "Thank you for this, I know that I don't deserve it but thank you." I went to him and hugged him, I was reluctant to kiss him in front of his wife, but he had no such reservations and kissed me. "By the way, did I mention that I can do word processing?"

"Didn't I tell you that she was perfect?" He said. We discussed the proposal for a while before fatigue began to set in and they drove me home with the promise that they would call around on Monday morning to go over the finer details that included my employment contract.

What a headspin. One minute I was a working girl flat out making ends meet and the next I was a Research Assistant working in a field that was close to my heart. Mother didn't believe me at first. "Are you sure that this man who has been a client of yours, isn't having you on for some personal reasons?"

"What are you suggesting?"

"Well he frequents brothels so he must have some perversion, he could just want an extension of that, like kinky threeway sex with you and his wife, if in fact the woman you met is his wife."

"She's his wife, her name is on all of these Diplomas and other qualifications hanging on the wall of her study."

"What does he do for a living, he's not relying on her salary is he?"

"No, He's not sponging off her. He hasn't exactly told me what he does but I just know that it's not bad like he was a drug dealer or he owns a string of brothels or anything like that. He's a strong and powerful man with a heart for the underprivileged so I can't see him doing anything bad. They'll be coming here on Monday morning and you'll have the opportunity to ask him then."

After a couple of hours rest I took Ben for a walk in the local park. I had never felt so relaxed and settled in my life. The sun was shining and people walked their dogs and kids played on the play equipment, normal families doing normal things and I felt a part of this.

Sunday was spent making sure that the house was clean and tidy and that there was good tea and coffee for them. I got my best dress from the closet and made sure that it was wrinkle free and clean. I watched TV with Ben on my lap until he was asleep and I put him in his bed before going to bed myself. Sleep didn't come easy for me. I knew that this was the perfect opportunity for me but I couldn't get it out of my head that this was just a weird dream that was about to disappear the moment that I opened my eyes, so I just lay there, in my bed, alone, clientless, with my eyes tightly closed but still awake.

I must have eventually lapsed into sleep because my next waking moment was hearing Ben stirring in his bed in the next room. I went to him, picked him up and changed him before offering him a breast. My thoughts went back to Friday night and someone else's lips on my nipple and a wave of pleasure went through my body. It might seem strange that I was still breast feeding Ben at eighteen months but it was part of the bond that I'd set up between us, he didn't need my milk, he was happy with baby food but it brought us closer together.

There was a knock on my door right on 9:00, at least they were punctual, and I opened to them. We sat at the kitchen table (their choice) and she told me exactly what she was doing and showed me some of her research interviews. I recognised the thread of what she was being told but there was something wrong with her research. "These girls that you've spoken to, they aren't comfortable with you and are not opening up, These are all superficial comments not the real story at all."

"I'd figured that for myself and that was one of the reasons why you've been invited on board. I think that you'll be able to get them to open up and make statements that more accurately reflect what they are going through and their feelings towards the clients, the brothel owners and society in general. That's what I'm looking for, not just some hard luck story as to how and why they got into the trade in the first place. Don't get me wrong, that's important as well, but what is almost as important is why are they still doing it?"

"That part is easy. For some of them it is finding themselves trapped and unable to break free from the never-ending cycle of drug dependence and the need to keep working to pay for the drugs that the need to make their life bearable. Some of them actually like the life, they're born exhibitionists and like to think that they are the centre of attention even in a world consisting of two people, them and their client. What the majority of them don't get is sexual satisfaction, very few will admit to having an orgasm with a client, and they're not disappointed because they've come to not having the expectation of one in the first place."

"This is pretty much what I've expected but been unable to get out of the girls. What I would like you to do is to write a report setting down your experiences in the trade and as much as you can remember from conversations with other girls. I think that we can leave out your experience with my husband."

"Why? I thought that you were looking for a balanced perspective and to leave him out would omit at least one positive experience. I can write it in the third person and either make up a name or refer to him as Mr. X."

My life has been one of contrasts. I agree with Dickens when he wrote; 'It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.' (A Tale of Two Cities). It started out as the best of times, then it became the worst when fate befell my father and took away his spirit and life. The fall from the best is more sudden and catastrophic than the rise from the worst. My mother tried to make the best of a bad lot, but visiting my father in the mental hospital dragged her down more than she could recover from between visits, until eventually I persuaded her that the best thing for her was to stop going. The medication that my father was being forced to take would never allow him to get better, even if he had the will to try.

My choice to defer tertiary studies to get some sort of financial support for my studies looked to have been a good decision until I allowed my boyfriend to move from feeling me up to the next level and finding myself pregnant. It was then the bad that I had almost forgotten about in men was re-enforced. I, up until then, had thought that the way my father's boss had treated him was an aberration, a one off, but no, my boyfriend and my boss showed me that all men could be capable of bad things.

My first night as a prostitute came some three months after Ben was born. I was able to express enough milk to tide him over until I got home in the morning. My mother had agreed, after much persuasion, to look after him for me. I was shown the room that would be my client entertainment area. It was sparsely furnished with a bed and night stand, a rubbish bin to toss the used condoms and a small wash basin with a hand towel and bath towel. Not much in the way of creature comforts for the newbie, the room got more palatial later on after you'd established yourself.

My first client was a weasely little man who sniffed the whole time (5 minutes) that he was on top. He then spent the next 20 minutes apologising for his lack of stamina and finesse. I was relieved to see the back of him, but on giving it some thought I felt sorry for him and resolved that if I got him again I would help him to improve his performance.

My next client was the exact opposite, he announced that I should, "Get ready for the best fuck that you've ever had in your entire life!" It was a pity that his performance didn't match his ego, his cock was little more than average in size and his idea of great sex was to shove it in as hard as he could and bang away until he came and that was it. I was beginning to think that I'd made the wrong choice, if the first two were anything to go by, this sucked big time.

The next few helped me to realise that not everyone was hopeless in bed and some of the clients were actually polite and friendly. Talking to some of the other girls I came to realise that to succeed in this game I would have to deaden myself to the bad experiences and only think about the good. If I dwelt on the bad I'd probably end up like many of the girls, having to take drugs just to get by and I wasn't going to do that. The other bit of good advice was to set myself realistic goals, like how much money I wanted to make from this, and when I reached that goal to get the fuck out of it.

The one thing that stuck in my mind about the sex trade was that it was very much like a factory production line, no sooner had one client left than another arrived to take his place. Working the night shift was much busier than days, the down side being that the clients were not as pleasant and it took a great deal of effort to avoid falling into the trap of chemical abuse.

I had been on the game for almost a year when Mr X first came to me. It was a Friday evening and I had just started my shift and he was my first client for the night. I knew right away that this man was different from all of the others. His self assurance told me that he didn't have to pay for sex, and his demeanour was that of a caring man who wasn't about to treat me in any way that demeaned my status as a human being. I made the effort to enhance the experience for him and he returned the following Friday at the same time. Again it was a mutually pleasant experience and this led to Fridays becoming a regular thing for us.

After the sixth visit he told me that he had negotiated with my boss and that he had paid to have me for the whole 12 hour shift. I was concerned that 12 hours of sex would be physically too much for the both of us. His solution to this problem was to break the shift into short segments of sex alternated with periods where we just talked. The second night of this arrangement was when he told me that he was only staying until 12:00 and that I was free for the rest of the night. I took advantage of this, not to keep working and make extra money but to go home to Ben.

The last night that I worked in the industry was one that I remember so well. That was the night that I realised that I was truly in love with this amazing man, but that nothing would ever come of that love, and that I would have to give the game away while I could still extricate myself from the situation. It was the feather that did it for me. How could any client expect to emulate that experience, I was going to have to find a man of my own and teach him, among other techniques, the trick with the feather. This is my reason for getting out of the sex industry.

She read my report and made some comments on the way through, but when she got to the bit about the feather, a smile spread across her face and she looked at me. "It was the feather that did it for me too." She caught my shocked look. "I was on the game just like you, and just like you he gave me the opportunity to make something of my life and here I am, I couldn't be happier. Take this opportunity and run with it and let's see how far you can go with your life. Welcome to our world Hannah."

"Why are you both doing this for me?"

"As you know my husband is a very important figure in the business community. What you may not know is that a lot of his business involves government contracts and if politicians of either major party knew about this work that he is doing behind the scenes there would be hell to pay. Only a select few people know of my background and how I came to meet him and marry him. We have taken great pains to keep this a secret and want you to swear to us that you will never reveal this to anyone. Will you do that?"

"Of course, you didn't have to ask me that."

She came to me and kissed me, not in the way of a friend or a business partner, but as one who loved me as a sister would do. I believe I have found my place in this world.