It didn't take long for word to spread about my sexual talents, and my availability for a fair sum of money.
I made the rounds with Uncle Bill's friends, usually fucking them gratis the first time, to establish in their minds just what I could do. After they had me once, they always came back for more, but for a price.
Like I've said, I was good. I loved sex, and I didn't mind being known as a whore, at least not initially. Somehow, in my mind, I believed it was what I'd always been. I was just being honest about it now, rather than denying it, and getting paid for it, to boot.
By the time I graduated from high school, Uncle Bill's new bar was just about completed, and over the next few weeks, we established our routine and started building up our clientele.
The location helped us. In this part of the country, there are no strip joints, no such thing as escort services, nor are there any real prostitutes readily available.
So when word got around that a young, good-looking girl who loved to fuck was available for a reasonable price in the middle of nowhere, men started coming from all over the place to see me.
Bill and I quickly established a fee structure, and we never deviated from it. Twenty bucks got you a handjob, and it was $50 for a blowjob, $60 if you wanted to cum on my face. Straight sex went for $100, and it was $200 for anal.
During the summer, I got Sunday nights and Mondays off. During the school year, I took off those two days and Tuesdays. I was expected to get any serious studying done on those nights, freeing me up to work the other four nights.
I usually started around 6 p.m., after the store closed. I'd work the bar, done up in one of my whore dresses, making the rounds for an hour or so, letting the customers get a good look at what I had to offer.
When we had a half-dozen or so lined up, I'd take them upstairs, one after the other, and start working them, giving them whatever they wanted. No money changed hands until after they got upstairs, and they had put in their order.
We set a half-hour limit on each encounter. I figured that if you couldn't cum in that space of time, you had more problems than I could fix. I usually got 10-15 minutes between clients to give myself a chance to clean up a little bit, either a quick shower or a douche.
Saturdays were often a little different. After awhile, Bill started selling me to clients for special occasions. For $1,000, you could buy my services for the whole day and night to do just about anything you wanted.
For the most part, these were clients who didn't want to be seen at Bill's Place, men, women or couples who would have had a lot to lose if it got out that they were partaking of a prostitute's services.
Of course, there were others who liked to role-play, men who got off on the idea of fucking a girl who looked underage. They could have the fantasy of sex with a girl who appeared to be very young and virginal, without breaking the law.
That was a part I could play easily. For a long time, I could pass for a 15-year-old, until I was older, and the psychic and emotional weight of what I was doing began to show on my face.
There was an element that was missing, however, and that led to the first really intense night of my new career.
Uncle Bill and I had talked about how long it would be before the sheriff's department started sniffing around, and how we would react when it did. This was not the problem it would have been in some other jurisdiction. Or, rather, it wasn't the same problem it might have been somewhere else.
During the whole time I lived in that part of Missouri, the county was under the firm control of the sheriff, Charles Henning. By 1988, he'd been the sheriff there for 14 years, and his control was total.
Mr. Charley, as everyone called him, was an average-sized, pleasant-looking man in his mid-50s. He was soft-spoken and quite gentlemanly - until you crossed him.
Behind that pleasant exterior was a man who kept the whole county under his thumb. Nothing went on in that county that he didn't know about, and there were whispers of kickbacks and payoffs for protection, and worse. Some girls at school told stories of being stopped on county roads and being forced to have sex with deputies.
My Uncle Bill, however, was convinced that we could do business with Mr. Charley. He believed that if they came around, we should be ready to pay them off in some way. As it turned out, I was the one who provided the payoff, and it was some kind of experience.
It happened on a Monday night in mid-July, when the bar was closed and Uncle Bill had gone to Kansas City for some supplies.
It was about 8:30, and I was reading a book in the den. I heard a knock on the door, and nearly jumped out of my skin. I have to say that I was afraid. All sorts of thoughts crossed my mind as I slowly walked to the door. I mean, that place was pretty isolated, and I wasn't expecting anyone to come by.
I looked out the window, and my blood ran cold. There was a man in the uniform of the sheriff's department standing by the door. I vaguely recognized him as one of the deputies who sometimes came around for coffee in the morning. I opened the door, hesitantly, but refused to open the chain.
"Y-y-yes, what can I do for you, officer?" I said nervously through the cracked door. He was a tallish man, with dark hair that was slightly receding from his forehead, a dark moustache and sideburns.
"Sophie Trotter?" he said in a flat voice. I answered yes, and he continued. "I'm Bob Wilson from the sheriff's department, and I've been ordered to bring you in for questioning about the business y'all have going on out here."
Although his voice was a monotone, he had such an obvious leer on his face that I knew something was up.
"Now?" I asked, still a little fearful.
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Sheriff's orders."
"Am I under arrest?" I said.
"Not if you cooperate," the deputy said, with just a trace of menace in his voice. I felt a trickle of fear run up my spine at the way he emphasized the word, "cooperate." I knew exactly what that meant. But I also knew I was helpless, so I had to go with him.
"Let me slip some shoes on," I said. "I'll be right out."
I slipped on a pair of sandals, grabbed my keys and my purse, turned out the lights, locked the apartment and left with the deputy.
Deputy Wilson opened the passenger's side door to let me in, then he climbed in, but made no move to drive anywhere. He looked over at me with this sickening grin, and reached for me.
"Like I said, you've got to cooperate," he said. "So what are you waiting for?"