It has been said that desperate times call for desperate measures.
We've all had a problem along the line that appeared desperate, but Yankee ingenuity or sticking to a plan often found a way out of the dilemma.
I was thinking about this recently when my niece called and asked for a loan. The little twit ran up thousands of dollars of credit card bills just as a start. Over bought a new car, way beyond her means, and lived in an apartment too expensive for her pocketbook.
Faced with eviction, the repo man and maybe even bankruptcy. I wanted to help her, knew I should help her, but in the back of my mind I wondered why she wasn't resourceful, didn't get a second job, and hadn't gone the extra mile to alleviate her debts.
Once I had been in desperate straits. My dad lost his job and wasn't able to help with post-high school education. Student loans were available, and that's the route I look. Once in school though my lack of discipline allowed spending to get in the way of student frugalness.
I got into credit cards way over my head - why do they seemingly give them away to people who might not be able to repay.
As part of my student loan I did have a job at school that was not too taxing, being an aide at the library. But that paycheck barely paid for bare necessities. When my car died I started bicycling to school but that's no fun for a 20-year-old in a northeast winter. Relying on rides, I began missing classes and that was affecting prospective grades and on and on went the downward spiral.
Along the way I befriended a very nice girl, Taylor, who never seemed to have a problem with cash. She would pick up our check at the coffee house, telling me I could pay her back when things got better. She had an off campus job and was relatively quiet. Something in customer service, working with people.
One Saturday night when I was particularly down Taylor tried everything to cheer me up. "Look girl, you're smart, your attractive, you have guys all over you and you are a rock solid friend. Cheer up, already. It will get better.
Just think of the end game, when we get out of school and get real jobs and make some real money!"
Of course she was right, but there was something about today's pain I hated. Washing my hair with hand soap borrowed from a rest room at a local hotel, or eating salad after salad wasn't my idea of having fun. Oh, there were dates, and that was fine. But those guys were also on a strict budget so burger joints were the thing. Videos or TV at their dorm was a big night out.
More than once I asked Taylor if her workplace was hiring. She emphatically said, Robyn, you wouldn't like the job. It can be treacherous."
The more she said no, the more I wanted to know more. It's like a guy on a date, the more you tell him no the more his hands attempt to roam my body.
Don't know if it was my constant questioning, or desperation on her employer's part, but Taylor confided in me one Thursday afternoon something secret she'd held close to the vest for months from me.
"You can't ever, ever repeat a word of this," begged the girl. 'Not a single word."
Telling her she could count on me, that my lips were sealed, I asked if she was robbing banks or stealing wallets from drunken sailors or something untoward.
She didn't smile but did tell me a story. If I were wearing socks, they would have been knocked off!
"I ran into a woman at the spa I was working at, and we struck up a friendship," explained the pretty co-ed, batting her long blonde hair away from her picture perfect face.
"We were friends for weeks when she hit me with something that made me blush. She worked at a massage parlor on the other side of town, just outside the city limits. She said was on the up and up and didn't require girls to do improper things that I guess I just thought happened at those kind of places.
Taylor wove a tale about the place well away from campus that catered to men who liked massages, and she worked there for a fee plus tips. She said the hours were great and most of the customers good too.
"Do you, uh, have, uh, sex with them?"
"Robyn! I'm not a whore! I just massage the guys.
I had to watch videos on how to do it, I mean there are schools that train you, but, well, Crystal wants to keep costs down and knows the guys love to have younger girl's hands all over them and the younger the better. I rub them down, especially around shoulders and legs before turning them over and working shoulders again and around the towel they wear then their legs.
"It's a half hour, of rubbing and talking and a little cooing and time for the next customer. Generally I massage three or four guys and then I'm home. Sometimes the guys jerk off while I am finishing up, sometimes they ask if they can see my boobs. But it's harmless stuff. I surely don't have sex with them. In fact, Crystal requires the girls to sign a document saying there will be no sex."
She told me stories that night over a bottle of wine. She had a little too much to drive me home, so it was time for a girl's sleepover. The timing and the alcohol worked, because right before finding sleepy time she admitted to jacking guys off if they were nice and promised a good tip.
"You jerk guys off? Damn, girl, you are naughty."
Taylor laughed as the wine continued to act as an incentive to say more.
I have to admit to you readers that my fingers spent time between my legs while she told of the naughty things she'd done with guys in the search for the perfect massage.
"Some of them are so needy, helpless really. One told me his wife never had sex with him, and he just needed some female release instead of his own hands whacking off. He came a bucket. Others are embarrassed, others demanding. But I've never had a problem, never had any cross the line.
"Oh, they will play with my ass or beg for a blow job, but I remind them of the rules and Rocky."
Apparently the manager, Crystal, had a boyfriend, Rocky, who watched over the working girls. Nobody messed with Rocky, nobody.
Taylor caught me cumming on my fingers as she spoke and she laughed, telling me she expected a tip. As an alternative I complied with her request to tell her about a guy I'd dated that she liked. Ethan was a studly guy who all the girls dreamt about.
Ethan and I dated several weeks, and after being a picture perfect guy on our first date the next few were mostly me pushing away and saying no. On the third day I gave in an unzipped his pants - his dick was tiny! I mean, at first, but also after I'd been stroking him off. It couldn't have been much larger than four inches at full staff.
