People have asked me: what is it like to turn a trick? They want to know the mechanics of it for sure, but they are also curious about the emotional state of the lady who does the work and gets paid for it.
I do remember a certain incident that happened in April 1974 near the end of my first stint as a hooker. Nothing unusual happened in that particular pay-to-play event, but the details of what I did and what the john did have stayed in my mind. Memory is a strange thing, and sometimes the most prosaic and routine occurrences will stick in one’s mind while more dramatic events are less well recalled.
As I have said, within a few weeks of starting as a hooker the previous fall, I had become the campus working girl and I was well known among the male students of City College. I could just be minding my own business, doing something else, and a guy would recognize me and ask for my services. Often I would say yes and I would accommodate what he wanted. That was my job, and getting cash for a brief and usually easy period of labor was always a temptation.
One afternoon I was sitting in a lounge at Finley Hall, reading a book that has been assigned for one of my classes. I was dressed pretty well that day in a wool pullover top, black denim skirt, thigh-high wool stockings, and gray wrinkled-leather knee-high boots. My outfit was perhaps a bit more upscale than the blue jeans that were so common back then. But my appearance was not that different from the other 4,000 women attending the college.
Suddenly a guy was standing there right in front of me. He was tall, had bushy hair, and a somewhat goofy look on his face. The first thing out of his mouth was, “You’re Mora Meara, right?”
I decided to mess with him a bit. “Why do you think that?”
“Because everybody knows about the girl with the dark-blonde hair and steel-rimmed glasses. I’ve seen you around the South Campus myself at times.”
“So, what do you want?”
“I was just wondering if you were working today.”
Well, was I working at that moment? I had already turned two tricks since Monday. I pondered the situation for a moment, and I thought about the money I could earn for maybe thirty minutes of my time. I could get back to my book later.
In a few seconds, I had decided, but I had to know more. “Okay, let’s sit on one of the window sills in the hallway. It’s easier to talk there, away from all of these people.” The old windows in Finley had wide sills, low to the floor. I knew that I’d be closer to him on that sill than I wanted to be, but neither did I feel like standing up and leaning on a wall. Some privacy was needed that was difficult to obtain inside the lounges.
As I sat there, I folded my hands and went into the standard hooker mode of indifference I had perfected over the previous months. I wasn’t exactly rude but neither was I friendly; I had to project an attitude of detachment in order to protect myself from whatever emotional games those clients wanted to play with me. Yes, there really is a vast difference between paying someone to cut your hair and paying them to engage in some sex act with you.
He started the transaction before I could say a thing. “So, hi, I’m Josh – it’s short for Joshua.” It was an irrelevant detail, but for an instant, I could imagine him blowing a horn and the walls of Jericho would come tumbling down. “So, Nora, how are you doing?”
If that had been some more normal kind of engagement, I might have looked for some joke about Jericho (the old walls of Finley might collapse?), but that would have been a waste of my time. Instead, I asked one of the hooker’s standard questions, completely ignoring his attempt to be sociable. It didn’t matter how I was doing personally and I certainly wasn’t going to tell him anything about myself.
“So Josh, have you ever hired a working girl before?”
“No, this is my first time ever. As I said, I’ve seen you here before – I mean in the Finley lounges.” He was smiling in such a way that indicated he was both amused and a bit embarrassed by his lack of experience.
So I had a newbie on my hands. That meant I had to quickly make it clear to him that any sexual activity with me would be purely physical. I didn’t have to like him in the slightest bit. In fact, it would be better if I showed a subtle feeling of contempt for him.
I got right down to business. “So how much do you have to spend?”
He told me, and I hoped he wouldn’t say how he had obtained his cash. That wasn’t of any interest to me. Then he revealed more of his expectations. “Ah, Nora, so what can I get for that amount?” Jesus, this guy is really clueless; he doesn’t even know what he wants me to do for him.
It was up to me to suggest some options. “Josh, for that price I could give you a blowjob.”
He seemed slightly disappointed. “Okay, yeah, and I’ve heard that you won’t do, ah . . .”
Well, I wouldn’t accept a spanking from him, but I knew that he probably meant something else. “Do what exactly?”
He got it out somehow as if it was shameful to even name the activity. “You know, vaginal sex.” I considered asking him if he was a virgin, but I figured I would be able to tell that from his actions.
“You’ve got that right; it’s one act I won’t do for money, at any price.” I wondered if he had some condoms in his pocket that he had brought for this special occasion.
He got more courage from somewhere because he asked me. “Well, then, would you do anal?”
I briefly smiled. “Believe me, you have nowhere near enough cash on you to afford that.” It was time to start closing the deal. “So do you want a blowjob or not? Just to remind you, the payment is due upfront before your zipper even comes down.”
Josh manfully made the best of the situation. “Sure, honey, I’ll pay you right now.”
“No, do it when we get upstairs.”
I didn’t like being called honey, but it didn’t seem worth making a big deal about it. I also didn’t do anything to boast about my cock-sucking skills. Josh would find out about those soon enough. Then I told him a place we could go to at that time in the afternoon.
“There is a sort of attic room at the very top level of Finley; it’s right above us now in fact. The only thing in there is a big water tank, but the door can be latched from the inside, so we can have some privacy.”
He said, “I never knew about that place. How did you find it?”
“Some guy showed it to me once. Now, listen to me. You are going to have to take your shirt off so I can kneel on it. The floor is covered with some kind of gritty stuff, and there is nowhere to sit down.”
After that, we negotiated about some extras, services that would cost him extra changes. He already had one in mind. “Nora, would you pull up your blouse during this so I could see your bare breasts?”
“Keep in mind that I’ll be kneeling in front of you and you won’t be able to reach down to touch them.”
Also, he obviously didn’t like the price I quoted. “Wow, that’s a lot just to look at them. This reminds me of the options car dealerships will sell you.”
Yes, sell was the keyword there; he was starting to catch on. Also, he wasn’t the first customer to bring up the car-buying analogy. I had to remind him of something else. “You should know, that if I swallow, that’s an extra charge too.”
Josh looked confused for a moment, then he got it and said, “What else could you do except swallow?”
“I could just spit it out, that’s what.” That was like the baseline price, comparable to a stick-shift transmission on a car.
“But it’s going into your mouth anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter, that’s the way I handle it.” I had long since lost track of how many times I had to explain the concept to various clients; I had also stopped trying to justify it. There was, however, the possibility of a “facial;” he could just spray his load into my face. However, that was a mess to clean up and thus it was even more expensive than swallowing. It wasn’t worth bringing up that issue with him.
I did say, “Instead of spitting it out, I could give you a discount if I pull your cock out and I stroke you at the end to make you come. You have to make sure it goes on the floor, not on me.”
I told him how much money he could save if we did that, and he pondered the deal. Then he said, “Okay, that sounds fine; we’ll do it that way.”
I had one more alternative to offer him, a cheap one I often presented to blowjob customers who were low on cash. It was easy for me to do, and most guys liked a red, purple, or hot-pink set of lips on them as they got blown. “One thing I could do for you is put on some bright red lipstick. I think you’d like to see your cock going in and out and getting some lipstick marks on the shaft.”
The price must have been right because he went for it. “Definitely, that sounds really cool.”
I didn’t want to spend more time on chat. “Okay, since we’re in agreement on everything, let’s get up there already. I’ll tell you which way to go. One thing, I want you to walk up in front of me.”
“Why is that?”
“Never mind, that’s another thing I just want that way.” The reasons, which I didn’t state, were that I didn’t want him gazing at my ass or trying to look under my skirt when we ascended the stairs. A lot of guys returned to a junior high school level of thought when hiring a prostitute.
Josh briefly went in that direction too, but I quickly shut him down. Just as we reached the steps, he commented on my gray and white striped stockings. “I like your socks. Are they thigh highs or do they go to your waist?”
I got a bit rude. “You have nothing to do with anything in that area, so I’m not going to talk about what I’m wearing.” He didn’t seem to like what I had said. I merely pointed to the stairs. “As I said, after you.”
At the highest level, above the fourth floor, was a door that could be latched from the inside but it had no lock on the outside. We went in; it was mid-afternoon on a sunny day so plenty of natural light came in through the window slats. Josh was impressed by the huge water tank that filled part of the room. “Man, that thing is big. What is it used for?”
“I don’t know, not for drinking water, that’s for sure. The water in there is a scummy green color.”
“You’ve been up that ladder to look at it?”
I didn’t feel like spending more time talking about the tank or the building’s water supply. “Okay, the money is due now. Please give it to me before we start.” I had thought the cash transaction might look a bit conspicuous if done on the crowded first floor.
When I had it I stowed the money in my purse. It may seem strange, but I was oblivious to any danger I might have been in by being alone with him. I couldn’t even confirm that he was truly a student at my school. My intuition was important, and it told me that he was completely harmless. Or maybe I was just foolish in my pursuit of money and any threats to my personal safety didn’t register in my mind.
Then I started issuing instructions. Josh was wearing a casual button-down shirt over a t-shirt. “Take your shirt off and cover part of the floor with it. I’m not kneeling on all of that grit, as I said. You probably will be more comfortable leaning with your back against the tank.”
While he did that, I took a tube out of my purse and I started to apply the red lipstick to my lips. I didn’t have a mirror, but frankly, it didn’t matter much what the results looked like. Josh stared at me as if he had never seen a lady put her make-up on before.
Just before I knelt down, Josh was visibly nervous and he said, “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.” I didn’t ask him if he had even been blown before; I knew what I was doing, which was the most important factor. Perhaps I tried to reassure him a bit; I’m not a completely heartless person.
“Just stand there and lean on the tank, I’ll get this going for us.”
“Nora, you’re very pretty.”
That statement did bounce off my emotional armor. It was an attempt at a compliment, but I couldn’t afford to let a customer’s opinion of me, good or bad, get through to me. In my mind, I translated what he had said into a piece of meaningless blather.
“Now remember, don’t come in my mouth; you haven’t paid for that.”
“Ah, how can I be sure when it’s going to happen?”
“Believe me, I know when a guy is on the edge. I’ll pull you out and stroke you to a climax. But, really, be careful to point it elsewhere, and don’t get any on me. I’ll be really pissed if you do.” I didn’t say what the consequences would be if he did that, because I didn’t have any in mind beyond a good tongue-lashing. Plus, I’d never take him as a repeat customer if that was ever on his mind.
Just to be careful, I had already taken my glasses off and put them in my purse. There were no guarantees that he would remember what to do as he reached his climax.
“By the way, you may touch my hair or shoulders. You might call those freebies.” It was too much to expect from a guy to just press his hands against the tank in the middle of a bout of oral sex.
When I got down on my knees, I could still feel the floor’s grit through his shirt. I had known that was likely because I had taken customers to the tank room before. Something like a winter jacket would offer the best comfort on that floor, but in that season it would be damn cold in that room which had no heating. That was among the compromises whores have to make.
I reassured him again, “Just take it easy, I’ll start us off as I said.” One option, if we were in a place where we were at risk of getting caught, would be to just unzip him and have his stiff cock stick out. In the tank room, I reached up to unbuckle his trousers and I pulled those below his knees. His underpants went next. I had the whole operation done in a few seconds.
One advantage to the full pants lowering was that I would have the opportunity to stroke his buttocks as I blew him. That almost always resulted in a faster climax by the client. In prostitution, getting the john’s orgasm done as quickly as possible was usually the best route to take. I would then soon be back in the lounge studying for my class as I had been doing when Josh showed up.
Josh wasn’t particularly erect. “Sorry, it looks kind of droopy.” Maybe he expected that the mere idea of being with me would excite him, but it failed to happen that time.
However, stiffening a limp cock was something I had plenty of experience in doing; I had become an expert at it, in fact. I reached up and grabbed his organ at the base. Then I began to gently kiss and lick his glans, and soon I was moving my lips up and down along the shaft. I also licked his dick along the underside, the most sensitive place to touch. At that point, I didn’t yet attempt to take his prick into my mouth and suck on it.
Blowjobs require some subtlety, not merely jamming the penis into one’s mouth as is sometimes shown in porn movies. Josh quickly responded to my careful ministrations, and his cock rose to meet my probing tongue and lips. When he looked down, the first thing he said was, “Oh, Nora, you really are leaving your lipstick on my dipstick.” That wasn’t very original; I had heard that trite phrase several times before.
He was soon moaning and saying some ridiculous statements. One thing I remember was, “Nora, you are so beautiful. I think I’m in love with you.”
It was striking how some johns I barely knew claimed love for me as I stimulated them with my mouth, hands, or, occasionally, my anus. They were setting themselves up for a big letdown when the action was over, and I knew Josh was going to be one of those disappointed ones. The men who knew it was purely a physical transaction – they were happier with the results they had paid for.
When the time came to reach the final stage, I was ready to take the outer half of his penis into my mouth. Just before that happened I stopped long enough to issue more directions. “Josh, put your hand down and stroke the inner part of your cock while I work on the outer half.” That whole Deep Throat trope is a cinematic sham and usually results in gagging by the female.
During this climactic phase, Josh was running this left hand rather insistently through my hair, but I had given him permission to do that. My left hand went up to stroke and fondle the back of one of his thighs, and then I used it to rub and squeeze his bare buttocks.
The whole procedure worked perfectly, from my point of view. Only a few minutes passed from the moment I took his erection into my mouth to the time of his ejaculations. First, I could taste his pre-cum, but that didn’t violate the prohibition against swallowing because I knew he couldn’t do anything about that.
For those last intense minutes, Josh was obviously happy with his blowjob although he would regret how brief it all was. He rocked his hips rhythmically back and forth while I didn’t have to move my head much at all. During that, he was moaning loudly while uttering various endearments to me. Those didn’t register with me and I don’t even remember what he said.
It was soon obvious that he was nearing his peak. As an experienced working girl, I could feel through a man’s cock when he was about to shoot his load. Josh’s dick got even bigger and stiffer, and it seemed to throb within my mouth. His voice and hand movements became frantic.
The timing was just right. I pulled Josh’s cock out and aimed it to his left, away from me. Both of my hands stroked him, and there was enough saliva on his cock so that it was very slick under my palms. It only took a few seconds for him to come. He yelled something incomprehensible and ejaculated a few spurts. The biggest one went up and out a long way and pattered down on the wooden floor. Luckily, it missed landing on his own shirt as well as on me.
Being a thoughtful whore, I kept massaging him until the last spasms were finished. Then he leaned back on the tank and breathed heavily. I said, “It’s all right, you can sit down if that is more comfortable.” He simply slid down the metal side and landed on his bare ass on the wooden floor. His backside was on some of the grit, but he didn’t seem to notice it.
Meanwhile, I had stood up and taken a handkerchief out of my purse to clean his spunk off my hands. I’d have to go to one of the ladies’ rooms to complete that task.
Since the client had gotten what he had wanted, my work was done and I was just about to leave the room. I certainly wasn’t going back down the stairs in his company. I assumed Josh would have some parting statement, and he did. “Nora, what you did for me that was great, but I still feel very horny.”
“You’ve got any more money?”
“Ah, no, not on me.”
I made an elaborate shrugging gesture. Then I reached into my purse and took out one of the tubes of Vaseline I kept with me. “Just to show you that I’m not all bad, you can use this to masturbate after I leave.”
“Will you at least watch?”
“There is a charge for that too.”
There was a note of annoyance in his voice. “Everything with you is an extra charge.”
Now I was feeling some annoyance too. I knew he was inexperienced, but every now and again – maybe twice per month – I delivered a little speech to set a john straight about what we were going to do or what we already had done.
I replied, “Josh, I’m running a business here. Like, you wouldn’t expect to get a free drill set from Sears.” Sears just happened to pop into my mind at that moment. It wasn’t enough for me to leave it at that. “Just to be clear, you hired me to blow you. I’m not your lover, girlfriend, or even a friend with benefits. If you see me downstairs, don’t come near me unless you are ready to pay me again for something else.”
He was saying, “Nora, let’s do it together – I mean we can both masturbate and then we can then watch each other.” He must have known that was a Hail Mary play on his part.
“I just told you that you would have to pay for that.”
After responding, I turned and unlatched the door. I knew he was noticing the seat of my black skirt as I walked out. A moment later, I had closed the door and I was going down the stairs. I knew he was going to use his memory and imagine doing something with me as he jerked off in there.
I decided to use the larger ladies’ room in Wagner Hall across the way. After I had washed off my sticky hands, I realized something: I was horny. After about one out of every ten tricks, I felt that way. Of course, there were a few times when I did come during a job by fondling myself as Josh had suggested I do with him. Once in a while, a customer paid to finger-fuck me, although they were mostly rather inept at it and I’d usually had to finish it with my own hands.
On that day, it wasn’t Josh himself that was arousing me, merely the idea of his big cock and the large amounts of semen it had put out. I went into the last stall and removed my panties. Josh would have liked to have known that my stockings were indeed thigh-high and thus I didn’t have to remove them.
Then I took a dildo out of my purse and sat down. My legs were spread and I propped my boats on the stall door. All I thought about was being penetrated in my cunt; in my fantasy, there was no man attached to the thrusting dick going into my body.
It was a very nice dildo too, a thick plastic rod with many little bumps on it that felt delightful, particularly on my clitoris. No electric assist was needed. If another woman came in while I was in there banging myself, I probably wouldn’t have stopped unless she was in the stall right next to me – an unlikely case in a room that big. I was trying not to moan, and the dildo sliding in and out didn’t make much if any sound.
In any case, I didn’t really care what a stall mate thought. I didn’t want to lose the beautiful momentum that was I building up. It was so strong that I peaked in a few minutes. My legs slammed together and I leaned back. I opened my mouth at my climax but I tried to stifle my voice, and only a few soft gasps of pleasure emerged from my throat. If I had yelled as loudly as I wished, then probably I would have been heard in the hallway.
Then I sat there and relaxed on the seat. It was amusing to see my panties hanging from the coat hook.
It didn’t seem worth going back to Finley and trying to get back to my book again. Also, I had a premonition that some other guy would try to pick me up, and I’d have to refuse him. It was rare for me to turn two tricks in one day, and I was feeling weary at that point.
Just to be naughty, I stuffed my underpants into my bag and left the room bare under my skirt. As I walked up to Amsterdam Avenue to catch a cab to the subway station, I swung my hips back and forth. Yeah, guys, there is a very sweet little backside under this skirt, but you’re not going to see it, much less touch it, without giving me some cash first.
On one hand, after nine months of this job, feelings of shame and guilt were well developed in my mind. I wasn’t a whore in the colloquial sense of being a bad girl. Rather, I was truly a prostitute. Although like most prostitutes, I had gotten into it almost by accident.
And I felt fear too because I was often carelessly putting myself in unsafe situations. That Josh guy turned out to be okay, but I was alone with him in that room and nobody knew where I was. I coped with my emotions by covering them over with a false sense of hyperbolic, and nonsensical, bravado.
Nora, you truly are a sex goddess, the hottest chick on this campus. Almost every one of the 5,000 men up here – the straight ones, anyway – would like a crack at you, but they all have to pay what I demand for that privilege. That’s okay; let the horny little fuckers give me their money. They mostly have contempt for me anyway.
And no price will allow them to enter my golden vagina, or to spank my evil but divine backside.
I was feeling so good with Josh’s money in my purse that I decided to take a cab all the way to my home in Queens.
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Both Finley and Wagner Halls were left over from Manhattanville College days and have since been demolished. The water tank room was a real place in Finley.
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