'Ho, me?

I've always been fascinated with prostitution--from the first that I was old enough to understand the concept. Hooker, hustler, hussy, prostitute, whore... from a very young age, I wondered why selling sex was supposed to be wrong. I was stealing skin magazines by mid-elementary school, and unlike the cliched male reader, I liked them for the articles. The pictures were vaguely interesting--I always stared at the close-ups of the women's pussies, pink and glistening, and wondered what it would be like to touch them--but what I liked most were the stories and letters. All that breathless confession (I was too naive to consider that it was probably 98% fantasy) and filthy fiction. I read them all, the raunchier the better, and beat off surreptitiously while telling myself that the violent and degrading ones, the ones that turned me on the most, were disgusting and wrong.

There were so many stories about prostitutes, almost always written from the whore's perspective. She was picked up by a cop and forced to submit to his twisted whim to avoid going to jail. She was picked up by a maniac and kept hostage for a prolonged period, raped repeatedly and kept in a secret room in the basement. She was picked up by a handsome man and fell in love a la Pretty Woman, or loved his cock so much, she gave her body for free. She was an innocent young thing corrupted by a manipulative older man to turn tricks. She was hooking her way through college/Europe/her bored suburban housewife life. In some slight variations, she was a sex spy, a terrorist, a criminal mastermind, or a prisoner, paying for information, privilege, leniency or power with the most valuable currency she had.

My dad had pretty kinky tastes. I don't know if he knew I was stealing his porn; maybe he thought my mom was throwing it out. Every once in a while my stash would disappear from under my mattress, but they never reappeared in Dad's magazine rack, so I suspect Mom was finding and dispensing with them. They didn't communicate much back then.

I always wondered what it would be like to turn tricks, but to this day I haven't been brave enough to try it. I've had a lot of trouble with self esteem and body image; I never believed I was thin enough or pretty enough or in whatever way desirable enough to be overtly sexual growing up; I didn't ditch my "precious" virginity until I was in my mid-twenties, and by the time I realized that I had enough of the things that appeal to men to be able to get laid pretty much any time I wanted, I had decided I was a dyke anyway.

I tried role-playing a prostitution scene once, but it didn't get very far. Neither of us had a clue what we were doing, and we ended up laughing hysterically and giving up. I think about it sometimes now, with more sexual experience behind me--I have bottoms who would be more than happy to play whore for me. Some of them even have actual prostitution experience. The trouble is, I don't think that buying a whore is what I want. When I top somebody, it's all about that person. All of the action happens to them and in them. I get off on manipulating someone else's experience--making them scream, cry, beg, moan, wriggle, and come. And come. And come. I fuck them, they don't fuck me. Getting fucked is a very bottomish thing for me; demanding that someone service me does not turn me on in the slightest... ninety-nine percent of the time. I've demanded it of the Boyfriend maybe three times in all the years we've been together. Otherwise, when it's my turn to get fucked, I roll over and give it up.

I read the blogs of a number of intelligent, literate sex workers these days--whores, escorts, pro-doms, pro-subs. These women are in more or less complete control of what they will and will not give, and they do it because they like it. Or at least because they consider it an acceptable way to pay the bills and they believe they're good at it. They are not, as a group, drug-addicted, homeless half-wits wasting their bodies and their lives at the hands of a street pimp. They're educated, middle class, empowered women.

I don't want to be empowered. I want to be used. I'm not sure I'm emotionally hardy enough to turn an actual trick with an actual stranger, but who knows. Right now my fantasy runs toward a butch dyke or transguy with a hard and hungry cock who hasn't been laid in a while... but whom I know well enough at least to trust that s/he won't damage me.

She's a friend of a kinky friend, and we meet at some vanilla party thrown by that friend; we end up thrown together, both of us awkward, searching for common conversational ground. The "So how do you know X?" conversation reveals to us that we're both scene denizens, but she's local to another part of the country and I haven't heard of her before. Or maybe I've heard of her, but never met her. Or I've seen her, but don't know her well. We play the name game and eventually that leads to talk of exes. She's cynical, burned too many times, harboring a lot of anger over her last few breakups. Damaged goods. She doesn't want any damned girlfriends anymore, but by god she misses sex. I consider it. She's not half bad looking, but her anger is off-putting. These days I like my lovers and playmates to stick around. I ask her whether she's ever considered paying for it.

"Why? What's your price?" she asks me.

"Uh... um... I didn't mean...!" I stammer and blush. She looks at me impassively and I squirm, at a loss for words. She reaches into her pocket, comes up with a card, and hands it to me. Her cell phone number. She tells me the name of the hotel she's staying at, in case I change my mind, and we drift apart.

I'm horrified. I can't take my mind off the exchange all night. I look for her here and there, curious, but I don't see her again. She's given up and gone back to her hotel. Maybe she got lucky. After a while, I realize I'm not having any fun and I'm sick of looking for her around every corner, so I say goodbye to the host and head out the door.

I'm surprised to find myself driving away from home. I know where her hotel is, and I'm headed straight for it. What am I doing??? Oh god. I'm a big girl, right? I haven't had a casual fuck in so long... but it can't be possible to forget how to do it, right? I tell myself it's just sex. I'm good at deceiving myself.

In the lobby, the man behind the counter asks if he can help me and I tell him I'm meeting a friend. He eyes me suspiciously. I take out her card, my cell, punch in the numbers... three rings... four... "Hello?" I almost can't find my voice. "I, uh... are you busy?"

Inside her room, door closed and deadbolted and chained, I try to make nervous small talk. "Shut up," she says. "I'm not paying you to talk." She motions toward the bed and I walk toward it, fighting the urge to bolt as my self-deception is blown all to hell with one sentence from her. She follows me, then with one motion, spins me around and shoves me onto my ass. She rummages in a bag on the night table, comes up with a condom, and throws it onto the bed next to me. Her hands move to her fly. I don't think she was packing at the party, but she is now... it didn't take her long to strap it on between the time I called her cell and the time I got to her room. "Pick it up," she tells me, rolling her eyes a little as if I'm stupid. I jump slightly and pick up the condom. I don't know what she wants, so I tear open the package and wait.

Her cock juts out at me, black and insistent as she tightens the strap holding it around her waist. Stepping in closer, she pushes it toward my face, and before I can react, she slaps me hard. "Put it on!"

I should be pissed off, I think, but instead I'm so hot I can't see straight. I fumble with the condom but manage to get it rolled down the shaft of her cock, and without ceremony, she grabs the back of my head and shoves her dick down my throat. I gag. She shoves harder. She throws her head back, closes her eyes, and starts chanting, "Suck me, suck me baby, suck me, come on, take it, take it..." all the while holding tight to my head, my ears, my hair, thrusting against my mouth and throat mercilessly while I fight for air. There's no room for finesse, no demure looks from under my lashes, no shy smiles or licking of my lips--there's just her grunts and the monotone of her personal pornographic soundtrack and the desperate, humiliating noises coming from my throat as she slides her rubber battering ram into it again and again.

She takes a long time to come. I try to reach up and help once, but she slaps me again and pushes my hands away. "Don't touch me!" she growls, and I get it: she's stone, and she's going to get off from fucking me, and I'm going to do whatever the fuck she tells me because she's calling the shots. I forget about the money then and let myself become a thing for her pleasure: a toy, a tool, a masturbatory device to be used and discarded. By the time she finally comes, I'm so weak from exhaustion, repeated gagging and lack of oxygen that I can barely even react when she rolls me over and pulls my jeans off my hips.

It's a good thing I drooled all over her cock, because I don't get the benefit of lube. She's a real lover. She kicks my legs apart, spreads my asscheeks with her hands, and shoves her dick in to the hilt. I scream. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts! She doesn't give a shit. It feels like she's shredding my asshole as she pounds away inside me, and after a minute or two, there's enough mucus or blood or both that it really doesn't hurt much anymore. She comes hard with a strangled groan and I think she's done, but she's just getting warmed up. I think of the smart sex bloggers who've written about getting their johns to get off and get out as quickly as possible, and I wonder how she'd react if I told her I charged by the orgasm. The thought makes me laugh convulsively, but she doesn't seem to notice, and it's funny, you know, it sounds a lot like I'm crying. Damn, I am crying. Shit. I wonder if she'd let me up if I asked. I decide I'd rather pretend that I have that power than try it and find out I don't.

After she's had some number of orgasms that seems like thirty but was probably five or six, she pulls her bloody, shitty cock out of me. I don't dare move. I'm not even sure I can. I hear her strip the condom off her dick, then jump as I feel it land on my lower back. The buckle jingles, there's a bit of rustling and then I see a wad of cash land on the bed next to my face. "Get out," she says, already walking away toward the bathroom. "I don't want a fucking girlfriend." And then she's gone, the bathroom door closed behind her, the water already running in the shower. I pick myself up, gingerly, throw the filthy condom in the trash, trip over my jeans which are turned halfway inside out while still hooked on my ankles. Somehow I figure out how to dress myself again. Halfway to the door, I pause, turn back, and pick up the money, and then I go.