A Terrible Whore

It was a Tuesday afternoon that I finally cracked. I'd opened the letter from my real estate agent telling me my rent was going to be rising twenty dollars a week effective the following month and burst into tears, my thirteen year old daughter had a mouth full of teeth that desperately needed braces and to top it all off, my car was making the sort of noise that you know is going to cost money.

I didn't cry, I didn't scream, I didn't crumble. Instead, I calmly decided that I'd start a process I'd been investigating for some months in the hopes that it would at least help alleviate the severity of my financial situation.

You probably have some idea of what I was going to do. Maybe you're wondering if physically, I'd be able to offer what men wanted. That's something I'd spent a lot of time thinking about. I was thirty-five, slim and tall-ish, but my breasts were small and I wasn't exactly free from flaws. During the day I worked as an administration assistant at an accountancy practice so I was well presented, but I wasn't anything special. My nails were shaped, buffed and painted by myself, not at some upmarket salon, my hair was neatly cut and regularly dyed, but it was coloured with home hair dye, and while my clothing was appropriate and professional, it sure as hell wasn't high end.

What sort of man was going to be interested in a very average single mother? Not many, I figured. There were also other problems facing any entrance into the sordid world of sex work. I would need to somehow fit it in around my job and caring for Elise. Secondly, I'd need to make very, very certain Elise's father never found out about it.

After a little research, I figured out where I could and couldn't place ads. The text I came up with was straight to the point.

Hi! My name is Alexandra, and I'm a thirty-five year old single mother. Due to financial problems, I'm seeking a mutually respectful relationship where I provide you with an hour's company each week at your house (no anal, no natural sex) in exchange for an allowance of $100 plus travel expenses.

I'm slim, clean, well presented and have a happy, positive attitude. I'd love to get to know you, so please inbox me.

My name wasn't really Alexandra, but there was no way I was going with Crystal or Kitty or anything else that sounded as if it might in some way be related to a pussy. And while you might think a hundred dollars was a pretty low amount to request, I wasn't as attractive as the other hookers, I didn't have any fancy photos, and I wanted an ongoing arrangement rather than having to find new clients each week.

I uploaded few pictures with my ad. My tits. My arse. My feet. God knows why I included the foot photo, but my toenails were painted red and nicely shaped and I thought perhaps men might like to know that while I was nothing special, I did take care of myself.

Desperate as I was, I still wasn't confident that anyone would respond, let alone anyone serious. But that assumption, let's just say, seriously underestimates the depths of male lust. Over the next week or so I received half a dozen responses.

Good responses? No. Most of it was complete shit. Some of the guys were pretty much waving a bedsheet sized red flag. Others wanted to negotiate on pricing. Some wanted a collection of nudes 'to check I was what I said I was'. One seemed lovely but admitted he had a wife, and while I was happy to sell myself for sex, I wasn't entirely comfortable with sleeping with a married man. Besides, I figured that if money was ever tight, he'd be quick to skip a week with me in order to preserve his home finances, and I wanted someone who was reliable with the cash.

I was in a terse mood when I opened a new text message the following Thursday night and assessed my latest response. If you're into good grammar and correct spelling, take a deep breath, because this is what I received.

Hey mate are you still looking for sum one to take care off you? Im interested. Give me your costs if I want to also kiss you and suck your feat. I live at Kallangur wood want to see you on Friday nights. May be Saterday would also work. Dean.

At the bottom was his phone number.

How on earth that message passed through any sort of spellcheck system was a mystery. I would have ignored it, but having had one man repeatedly message me with more and more abusive messages after I ignored his first missive, I decided to reply.

Before responding, and out of sheer curiosity I plugged Dean's number into Google and saw it belonged to 'Deano's concreting'. The address was a Kallangur one, and when I searched Deano's concreting further, I found his Facebook page. I stopped looking before I had a chance to see what he looked like. I didn't want to know those details, not yet anyway. I wondered if he knew he was so easily searchable, or if he cared.

The way the particular website he'd used to contact me worked, I could either log back in and type a response or text him directly. I decided to log into the system to keep myself anonymous for a little longer. Just because I knew who he was didn't meant I wanted him knowing who I was.

I sent him my response.

$200 plus $30 travel if you're at Kallangur. Can do Friday from either 6pm to 7pm or 7pm to 8pm.

Two hundred and thirty dollars wouldn't be a cheap fuck. I knew from my research that he could get a basic outcall from a twenty-something professional callgirl for around that amount. On the other hand, kissing seemed to go for a premium, and I was irritated and tired and frustrated enough to push things further than I ordinarily would have.

Dean didn't flinch at my price. Almost immediately he responded to say that either time slot suited him, and he'd like my phone number so we could chat.

The only phone I had was my personal one and I didn't really want to give my number to a prospective client. It scared me, to be honest. Perhaps I was also worried that Dean seemed genuinely interested in the arrangement. Other guys had played around or asked silly questions or requested more nudes. Not Dean. He seemed to want... well, sex... and he seemed very keen to get everything started.

I decided that I'd give him a call on his phone, rather than giving him my number and letting him call me. I messaged him that I was happy to give him a call whenever he felt like it. In fact, if he were available now, I'd call him now.

Dean responded. He was available now and he was happy for me to call him.

Elise was still awake, but she was watching something on television while texting her friends and when I told her I was going to put on a load of washing she didn't bat an eyelid. I went to the laundry, took a deep breath, and told myself to play it cool. All I had to do was remember Dean was a potential client. He wanted sex. I wanted his money. I changed my phone settings so my number would show as 'private' and dialled his number.

Oh God, I thought, as the phone started ringing. I'm calling him. I'm about to make leap from 'desperate single mum' to 'hooker'.

Dean answered quickly with a short, sharp 'hey'.

I nearly fainted. He didn't sound like someone white collar, or friendly and blue collar. He sounded rough as fucking guts.

'Hi,' I squeaked. 'I'm Alexandra.'

'Oh hey,' he said. He sounded less angry and intimidating this time, but he had a deep, gravelly voice. 'How's it going?'

'Um, all good. You?'

'Yeah, yeah, getting there,' he agreed. 'You're, uh, looking for someone, right?'

'Right,' I agreed. I tried to keep my tone bright and interested. 'And you would be potentially interested? I'm looking for something ongoing, not just a once off.'

'Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm after, too. I've sorta got some things that I'm particularly looking for,' he said, a hint of defensiveness entering his voice. 'I have a bit of an interest in feet. I've tried ignoring it but it just crops up again, so I'm learning to live with it. Would that be a problem?'

'No, not at all,' I replied, even though I had exactly no idea what an interest in feet might actually entail. 'I put up a picture of my feet in case that was important to anyone.'

Dean sounded relieved. 'You been with anyone like me before?'

'No, but I'm a quick learner and to be honest, it sounds quite interesting,' I said.

He laughed at that. 'Yeah, interesting. We'll see how you feel about that in a week's time.' He chuckled again, in a tone that suggested he doubted my sanity. 'Gonna be blunt here, you sound like a really nice sort of woman. You ever done this before?'

'I, uh... no.'

There was silence at the other end of the phone.

Oh shit, he was going to hang up. He was my most likely candidate so far, and I needed to keep him.

'I'm sure I'll be able to give you what you need,' I said. 'And I'm very friendly.'

'You sound really nice,' he agreed. 'But I'm kinda probably not what you're used to. I'm a bit rough. Don't really have any manners. You wouldn't take me home to meet your mother. Are you sure you wouldn't end up being a bit disgusted? I'm not too bright, either. This isn't just a once-off shag. You'd be seeing my ugly mug every week.'

'I can't see that being a problem, and I doubt you're not bright,' I replied. 'Would you like to meet for coffee first, to make sure you're happy with me?'

Dean paused. Just when I thought he was about to say 'no, you're not what I'm after', he said something completely else.

'How about you come around tomorrow?' he asked. 'Come at six. I'll have your cash waiting for you. If, after that, we both like what's on offer, we can agree to do it again.'

'Sure,' I replied. Two hundred and thirty dollars. Two hundred and

thirty dollars, holy fuck, what a goddamn difference that would make to my life.

I could have wept with gratitude. So much for him thinking I was classy or ladylike or would look down on him. I needed his money so badly it was humiliating. 'Text me your address and I'll see you at six.'

~~~~~~~~~~

I had a job that kept me occupied throughout the day without leaving me run off my feet. During the quiet periods I put in an online grocery shopping order and took a good, hard look at my projected expenses for the next month.

Without the braces to pay for, I could have kept scraping by. It was the dental work that killed me. I've known people whose kids had braces and the total cost was six or seven thousand. Not Elise. Two separate orthodontists had told me she needed significant work and the total bill was going to be around eleven thousand. My preferred orthodontist had told me I could pay a three thousand deposit and pay the remaining amount off over the next two years, but eight thousand over two years was four thousand each year, or eighty dollars a week and I just couldn't find that much money. The other orthodontist wanted a five thousand dollar deposit. That wasn't going to happen, either.

The sad part was that I'd known from the time Elise was six she'd need dental work. I'd put aside twenty bucks a week for five years, and I was just about to make an appointment with an orthodontist when I'd lost my job. My boss had been scamming the government, and when you're an office manager working for someone who has committed fraud, even if you had no idea what was going on, it's hard to find another gig. Unemployment benefits didn't come near to covering our bills and I started dipping into the savings to pay for Elise's school excursions, the electricity bill, the car registration. Plus, our government had made me use up a portion of my savings before they even thought about handing a cent over. No, they didn't care that the money was for a fucking kid's dental work, all they cared about was not giving out money they didn't absolutely have to.

The worst part of my seven months on benefits was that I'd had to try and claim child support from Elise's father. I'd left Carl when our daughter was three, when his violence had hit a crescendo and I was literally terrified for Elise's safety.

The following six months were absolutely terrifying as he did everything he could to bring us back home. I lost ten kilos and always had hives from stress, and while the medication I took to control the hives was supposed to induce drowsiness, I still found myself awake in the early hours of the morning panicking about what would happen if Carl found us. He had supervised visits at McDonalds, but he hadn't been able to know our address, and this had afforded me some comfort.

He didn't pay child support but I didn't lodge any complaints with the child support agency for fear of incensing him. I wanted everything to stay nice and calm. I wanted him as separate from us as humanly possible.

When Elise was five, he managed to ask her enough leading questions to figure out where we were living. He came around two night's later, just to let me know he knew.

I'm not telling you this so you'll pity me, I'm telling you simply because I want you to understand why I was relatively nonplussed about sex work. I'd long since learned that the only person I could rely on was myself, and if selling my body was the way to make money, I'd just have to do it. I didn't feel dirty or ashamed, just annoyed because it would be one extra thing to fit into my day, when I'd rather be at home reading a book or doing a load of laundry.

I finished work at four thirty. There was a shower facility in the building I worked in, and I quickly had a shower and changed into presentable underwear, a knee length dress and heels. I straightened my hair and put on fresh make-up. All in all, I felt I was presentable without looking like a hooker.

The drive to Dean's house was long and arduous, with the afternoon peak hour traffic causing my stress levels to shoot through the roof. In the end, I pulled into the street alongside his at eight minutes to six, and told myself to calm down.

I'd done some more investigations on Dean on Facebook. He was thirty-four, much younger than I'd expected any potential customers to be and a much as you might find this hard to believe, he wasn't a bad looking guy. He was average height, broad shouldered and stocky, a touch overweight but nothing more, with ash brown hair and blue eyes. He looked older than he was, with a good amount of wrinkles and darkly tanned skin, but that was obviously a side effect of working in a physically strenuous, outdoor job. He was a smoker and a drinker, with several faded tattoos, but there was no mention of any children. He did have dogs, though, two big things with leather and brass collars and sharp teeth.

It was three minutes to six. I started my car, drove around the corner and parked in front of his house. He lived in nineteen eighties highset house and it seemed in relatively good condition. One of his neighbours was mowing his lawn, wearing a combination of thongs, football shorts, high vis shirt and a dirty old Akubra. This was very much a low income, white Aussie, blue collar neighbourhood. It was the sort of neighbourhood I'd have lived in if it hadn't been cheaper for me to live in an older, city apartment.

I walked up the stairs, telling myself nothing bad was going to happen. My car was parked out on the street. The neighbour had seen me. At the very least, I was going to get out of this alive.

Dean's dogs were waiting for me at the front door, their noses pushed against the security screen. One of them was carrying on, yelping and jumping at the door, but not in an aggressive kind of way. Both of the dogs' tails were wagging. I took that as a good omen. I like happy, outgoing, friendly dogs.

'Hey, sorry,' Dean said, pushing past the dogs and opening the door. He turned to the dogs. 'You two! Fuck off!'

The dogs did not, as requested, fuck off, but they did calm down. Sort of. The more excitable one jumped up on me, it's arse wiggling excitedly, and it's tail moving at a hundred miles an hour. Dean pulled it off me, but not before it's nails left a few sharp, red trails on my leg.

'Shit, sorry,' he apologised. 'I've been working long hours this week. They haven't been for a walk for days, and they love visitors, so they're carrying on like pork chops.'

'It's okay,' I replied.

And, honestly, it

was

okay, because sometimes you just get a good feeling about someone, and I had a good feeling about Dean. Sure, he was wearing a pair of board shorts and a well washed tee that was fraying at the hem, but he must've had a shower after arriving home from work because he smelt clean. The house was clean and tidy and the dogs, while not well behaved, were obviously well cared for.

Dean had a beer in one hand and no sooner was I inside than he offered me one.

'That'd be great,' I said.

We walked to the kitchen area, the dogs following closely behind us. Dean opened a stainless steel fridge and retrieved a can, which he cracked open and handed over. No stubbie cooler, no glass, just a can of Fourex Gold.

'Thanks,' I said, taking a sip.

He shut the door and picked up some notes that were lying on the benchtop. 'Your money.'

I put the beer down and counted the cash as discreetly as I could while putting it into my purse. He'd given me two hundred and thirty dollars, exactly as directed.

'Thanks,' I said. I took another mouthful of beer. I rarely drank; I couldn't afford to, but I was very much appreciating this one. 'How was your week?'

'Long and hot, but better now that you're here. How was yours?'

'I work in air-con, so let's not even pretend I know what hard work is like,' I replied. His dogs were both sniffing at me. I leant down to pat each one. 'I like your dogs.'

Dean was amused by my response. Something between a smile and a grin crossed his face. 'They like you. Keep patting them and I won't have a chance of getting near you. Whether that's a good thing or not in your books... you've already got your money,' he said, his voice friendly and joking.

I found myself smiling nervously. Silly me. He didn't invite me around and pay me a couple of hundred dollars to entertain his pets. He wanted me to entertain

him

.

'Sorry,' I apologised. 'Should we go to your room, so we don't end up sitting out the back playing fetch?'

'Yeah, I reckon we should.' He paused. 'Are you still good with what's about to happen? 'Cause if you're having cold feet, I'm happy to send you on your way.'

'No, I'd like to keep going. You?'

'Definitely.'

Dean led me down a short hallway carpeted with shag pile, into a room which was carpeted in exactly the same style. He had an old cast iron and pine bed and matching bedside drawers upon one of which was a cut glass ashtray. There was a box air conditioner on the window and it kept the room at near frigid proportions, but given I was sweating with nerves it wasn't a problem.

The dogs howled when Dean shut the door. I put my can of beer on the unused bedside table and delved into my purse to retrieve condoms. I didn't want there to be any misunderstandings. I wasn't on birth control and I'd already had one STD, thanks to an unfaithful husband, and I wasn't going to risk pregnancy or my health.

'Are they the only condoms you have?' Dean asked.

I nodded. I'd picked up a box of Ansell regular during my lunchbreak and had put a roll of three in my purse. 'Um, yes. Is that a problem?'

'Nah, not really. I prefer the ultra thin ones, but it's all good. Whatever suits.'

'Sorry. I'll bring some with me next time.'

'It's okay, beautiful,' he said, giving me a smile. 'How 'bout you come over here and take your clothes off? Dress, shoes, underwear, get it all off.'

Dean sat on the edge of the bed, right where the air con was blowing. I kicked off my heels and walked over. The carpet was soft beneath my feet and though I felt timid inside, I told myself to act confidently.