Nora Meara describes an incident from her first stint as a student/hooker at a New York public university. She appears in the series "My Summer with Nora," although this is not a direct part of the series.
The timeline here also is slightly different from the series. In the original, Nora didn't know about the tank room in Finley Hall until Paul brought her up there in June 1974 (see
Chapter 2
). This is taking place in April of that year. From the way she is describing these events, she is probably looking back on them from a couple of years later.
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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 elsewhere, 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 had been assigned for one of my classes. I was dressed pretty well that day with 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, but 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 and he 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."