Semi Pro

We have all grown up with the idea of the professional streetwalker in our mind. The hooker on the stroll that's willing to trade a blow job for $40 or a rock. Or maybe you have the image of a high priced call girl in your head, someone that works for an escort agency and makes a few hundred dollars a night going with a guy to a nice dinner and then falling into his bed, like none of it was ever planned and she was just swept up in the moment. Swept up or not, she gets the money upfront. Maybe a few of you even have a very romantic vision of the hooker with the heart of gold, Julia Roberts falling for Richard Gere as he whisks her away from the wretched life she leads. That shit just doesn't happen. That's not the truth.

The truth is that there are a lot of professionals out there, but there are far more in the semi-pro category. The stewardess that has an overnight layover. The college student that needs a little extra spending money. The waitress that can't make ends meet any other way. The suburban soccer mom that got a divorce and wants to make an extra special Christmas for her kids, and maybe find a little spice in her life while she's at it. These aren't cash up front transactions. Everyone still knows the score, everyone still knows where it's going, but it has to be handled more subtly. Everyone's pride has to remain intact.

"Baby, can I have a little loan until payday," she says, and they both know it will never get paid back.

"Rent is really tight this month, do you think you can help out?"

"You see there's this darling little necklace that I've just got to have, but I don't have anyone to buy it for me", She pouts prettily.

"I would love to come with you sweetheart, but I really have to work, because my car needs some repairs."

And so the rent gets paid. The cars get fixed. Loans get lent, and all the little presents make their way into the hands of the girls that earn them one way or another. Some of those presents are just used to fill out the wardrobes. Some of them are quickly sold or pawned. Some of them even become trophies of their conquests, secret things they can wear, and have meaning to them, and no one else.

The real key here is that none of this has the flavor of prostitution. Everyone works really hard to cover up the truth that none of these things would happen if it wasn't a business transaction. The business man wouldn't get to see what her skin looks like in the shower, what her mouth tastes like, or feel the warmth between her legs. She would have to drop out of college, move to a smaller apartment in the bad part of town, or maybe Christmas just wouldn't come that year if she didn't have something worth selling. So the business transactions continue, as do the personal justifications. He tells himself that he was out of town and away from his wife, who will never know. He was feeling down, and who could blame him, really. He's only a man, and she was so very beautiful... she reminded him that he is still alive and he feels young again. She tells herself that they really had a connection. She didn't do it for the money or the gifts. That was just a bonus. What really happened is that they have feelings for each other, fate brought them together. She was lonely anyway, and maybe it's not so bad having someone in bed with you that you don't really know if you're that lonely. If he didn't give her anything, she still would have brought him back to her brightly colored apartment, still held him through the night, still told him good things in the morning about how great he was and how lucky they were to have found each other.

We tell ourselves a lot of lies. It may very well be the greatest achievement of the human race. We know how to lie to ourselves so that we believe it. In some distant future a little alien will be doing a documentary about "Earth: The Human Planet" and they will say "Their greatest defense mechanism, developed over centuries of evolution, is the ability to believe whatever they want to believe, continually making and remaking their own little reality apart from any fact or circumstance in scientific evidence." and the audience will hardly believe how these strange creatures can accomplish such a thing.

That's the way the transactions should work. But sometimes they are handled poorly. Sometimes people get offended, or the illusion is shattered. In those instances they can go very, very badly, indeed.

***

I was in Omaha, Nebraska, and for the life of me I really didn't know why. I had come here more than two weeks ago for business. At least I thought there was business here, but after trying to figure it out for two weeks, I had no idea what I was doing.

I'm a Security Consultant, and my company sent me on a red eye flight to Omaha because a very wealthy man who is the heir to a powdered beverage fortune that isn't Flavor-Aid said that he was in danger and needed help. Yes sir! Right away Sir! We are sending our best man, sir! And so I went, only to find a man that was comfortable and safe, and so paranoid that he may have very well been insane. When I got there he told me that he thought his gardener had been secretly videotaping him at night.

Alright. That's fixable. So I scoured the house for bugs, cameras and other surveillance equipment. Nothing. I talked to the gardener. He was clean. He drove an hour home each way and he was home by 8:00 every night.

Then there were important documents missing from his safe. So I ran that one down, only to find out that he had accidentally left them by his bed weeks ago, and kicked them under when he got up to drain his bladder in the night. Then he thought one of his kids was plotting to kill him. So I check it out and it turns out she lived in Auckland with two small children and hadn't talked to her father in ten years. Little Suzie Home Maker was not going to come gunning for him in the dark hours. Then it was just one thing after the next.

Nebraska, the "possibilities...endless" state. Endless possibilities to waste my time, which is a problem. It's a problem because this man was paying my company a medium size fortune to have me running around on these wild goose chases. However, I was having a harder and harder time justifying it to myself. It was just aggravating and I couldn't help feeling that I could be doing more important things elsewhere. Even if I wasn't making the same money, I could at least have a little self-respect.

So that's where I found myself on this Thursday night. I had just finished telling the powdered beverage heir about how the artist colony out by the river was not a communist collective plotting the downfall of his business. (They definitely had some socialists in the group, but he didn't need to know that. This group of rebels was staying so stoned all the time I doubt they could be trusted to piss leeward without help.)

I was hungry and I hadn't had a chance to eat that day. I was on the way back to the hotel, looking for someplace to eat that was still open. I came across a steak house that still had the lights on and I wandered in, ten minutes before the sign out front said they were going to close. The dining room had one couple of 30ish yuppies that were just finishing their meal, and a harried looking waitress that was busily trying to accomplish all of her closing duties. She saw me and her face fell.

"Hey sweetie, we're closing." she said with the best effort at a smile I could see anyone making after being on their feet in high heels all day.

"I know," I said. "It's just I haven't eaten all day and I was hoping to catch some dinner before I had to go back to the hotel. What if I ordered right here, right now, and promised not to take more than 15 minutes to eat. You could finish closing while I ate".

"Well, I guess that would be alright..." she said, a little unsure about it.

"Steak, medium rare, Salad with oil and vinegar dressing and a Jack Daniels. One now and one with the dinner. "

"That's easy enough, mister. Let me go see if they turned the grill off yet."

So she ran to the back to put in my order and I found a table near the back where I could watch the door. She came back to the front, said nothing, locked the front door and turned out the open sign, and then went to the bar to fix my drink. She returned with a double rocks glass filled with a very generous portion of that beautiful amber liquid.

I thanked her and asked "How long does it usually take you to close?"

"Well, not long at all, actually. The morning crew cleans, so it's just totaling up the register and locking the doors for me. I usually do it in ten minutes."

"Well, I'll tell you what: You total your register and then fix yourself a drink and come sit. It's on me, the least I can do for you staying open."

"Really", she asked. I nodded and she gave me a genuine smile.

It was the smile that did it, I think. I hadn't really noticed her before. When I walked in, she was just a waitress, any of five thousand I had encountered in the last few months. I was tired and hungry and pissed off at the world, and I didn't take time to see how attractive she was.

A rough guess would have put her age at around 42, but the years had been very kind to her. She had blond hair, maybe a little coarser than it was when she was younger, but it looked like her natural color. She was only about 5'8" but looked much taller than she should because she was so slender. Her most striking feature wasn't her hair or her ice blue eyes, but her extremely large breasts. They were probably not really all that large, but on her frame, they almost looked comical.

Her smile was beaming at me, and I was left momentarily speechless at how lovely she really was. She scurried off to start on the till and I was left alone. She came right back with a house salad, too small, but fresh and tasty. The croutons tasted homemade.

I had barely finished chewing the last bite when she brought my steak. It was a glorious monstrosity of a porterhouse. It was cooked the way I asked for it and came with a side of a tiny baked potato. She waited and asked me how it was.

"Fabulous", I said honestly. With as hungry as I was, I would have likely eaten anything she brought, but this was outstanding.

"Okay, good", she said. "I'll just be another minute and then I'll come join you."

True to my word, I ate very quickly. It was a big steak, but I tore through it with a great deal of enthusiasm. She came back not more than five minutes later and I was already half way through. She had changed out of her soiled waitress uniform. She was wearing an old pair of faded jeans, a nice silk ivory blouse that clung to her in all of the right places and her hair was down. The overall effect was of a woman, pure and unmistakable. She looked less harried, more self-confident and there was some challenge in her eyes.

"What are you drinking," I asked her. She had brought two glasses back with her. One was my second drink and the other was for her.

"Vodka." She said simply. "Always vodka."

"Thats interesting," I said, even though it really wasn't. "For me it's always whiskey."

"Birds of a feather..." She said, trailing off.

I gave her a big, greasy smile. "Look, if I'm going to be true to my word, and finish in time, I'm going to need you to hold up your end of the conversation. Momma always said not to talk and chew at the same time."

I got a genuine laugh out of her on that one. She smiled back at me and said "I was just trying to figure out why I accepted the drink and sat down. Ten times a week some guy tries to buy me a drink and I always say no."

"Well I don't blame them for trying", I said, "I would like to think it's because I'm so devilishly handsome, but let's assume you had better reasons than that. Why do you think you agreed? Not that I'm complaining or anything..."

She smiled at the barely veiled compliment. I had played my role perfectly. I was flirty, but not obnoxious about it. I was living up to the part she wanted me to play.

"If I had to say, I guess it would be that my feet hurt and I wanted to sit, and maybe I just didn't want to go home to an empty house so early."

"Good reasons," I said. I took note of the fact she said the house was empty. No one to go home to. A waitress would be just right for me tonight. There is something rejuvenating and innocent about being with a waitress. It's the same with nurses. They have seen too much, but at the same time, they are naive to the ways of the world. "I have to admit, I was feeling the same thing. I'm in town on business, and the hotel room was looking very lonely tonight." I said letting her know, subtly, but clearly that I was interested and alone.

"What kind of business are you in," she asked, and took a long drag of vodka to wash the answer down with.

"I'm a security consultant." I said simply. "And my name is Brett, by the way"

"Deborah," she said. "What does a security consultant do? Like those guys from Black Water in Iraq?"

Despite myself, I was a little impressed. Sure, Black Water had made the news a few times in the past few years, but this was the middle of nowhere, and a waitress knew who they were and what they did?

"Hmm, not exactly like that. Same name to the job, but those are basically private military that the government contracts out. Mercenaries to be vulgar about it. My company has a few of those in specialized positions. What I do is more on a corporate level. We do executive bodyguard work, information security, security systems, guards, etcetera."

"Oh," she sounded slightly disappointed. "I heard those guys make a lot of money."

"They do. I make more," I said honestly.

With that she leaned forward, obviously intrigued. The movement pressed her ample breasts against the edge of the table, causing them to swell and strain against the ivory fabric of her top. It made my dick twitch in my pants. The drinks and the steak had me nicely relaxed, and now I was starting to think about satisfying a much higher need.

"I heard they get to travel a lot. Do you? Where have you been?" her voice was filled with obvious excitement and enthusiasm.

"I travel all over." I said. "All over the states for sure. But I've been around the world."

"Where?" Her excitement gave her a girlish tint.

"Let's see... Ive been to Canada and Mexico. I've been to England, France, Spain." I listed the places I had been, eventually coming around to the more exotic places like South Africa, Somalia, China. I left off Chile, though. I never talk about Chile.

She was awash with questions. She couldn't wait long enough to get the answer to one before she asked another. Many of them were about tourist attractions at these places. Had I seen the Tower of London, the Arch de Triumph? I slowly explained to her that my work usually didn't allow me to see the tourist places. But I was so taken by her enthusiasm that I began to tell her what I did look for.

I told her how I liked to look for the differences between one culture and another. I told her I like to compare traditions and hospitality. I told her that for me travel was about the people I got to meet, not the places. I told her what it was like to get a drink made fresh for you on the side of the road in Matanzas. I talked about the nightlife in Cape Town. I talked about what it was like to be fitted for a suit in a shop in Savile Row.

She drank up every word, like a dying person in the desert. She was aching for it. She needed it like a person needs air. The shape of things became all too apparent to me, after a few minutes. She had lived her whole life and never traveled. It was her biggest fantasy. It was what she had longed for. It was the thing she wanted more than anything. When she got enough money saved... When she had her big chance... It was her heart's desire.

"So where do you want to travel to?" No sooner than the question was out of my mouth, she launched into a massive explanation of all the places she wanted to go.

She wanted to go to strange places for strange reasons. She wanted to go to Lisbon because she had heard the sand is pink. I almost told her it was more tan than pink, but thought better of it. She wanted to eat at a pizza place in Napoli, because she has read about it in a book. She was going to go all over, but it was always because of something she had seen on the TV or in a romance novel she had read.

"I think my time is up," I said. "Even if it isn't, you've been more than accommodating." I knew she wasn't done with me yet, but I wanted her to ask me to stay.

"No," she said a little too quickly. "I want to hear more about the places you've been. How about another drink? On me!"

"No, it's on me," I said. I wasn't ready to leave yet either. "Why don't you total me out, and fix us another couple of drinks. I need to use the restroom."

"Yeah, okay." I gave her some cash and left for the bathroom. When I took myself out to piss I noted the head of my penis was slick. I had gotten more aroused than I had realized, staring at her breasts. I wiped it off, careful not to stimulate it too much. I didn't want to walk out of with a raging hard on. I emptied my bladder and zipped up, washed my hands and returned to the dining room.

Two surprises awaited me when I got there. The first is that she had made us two very large drinks. The Jack Daniels she had poured for me was easily a quadruple measure. I made a note to take it easy. I didn't want to be too drunk to drive, or to enjoy myself, for that matter.

The second was far more pleasant, and not at all subtle. While I was in the bathroom she had removed her bra and opened another button on her blouse. The effect was striking. The blouse was cheap for being silk, but it has been tailored to fit her like a second skin. I was sure she had done it herself. Thin as it was, I could see her nipples sliding around underneath it. I could see the peach color of them against the cream of her skin. I could make out the tiny bumps that ringed the sides of her areola. The valley between her tits was glaring at me through the new opening of her blouse.

I wondered briefly where she had hidden her bra. Probably in her purse, which I assumed was under the bar somewhere.

To her credit, she didn't flaunt them at me. There was no vulgar display. She just greeted me with my drink and asked me if I would walk outside with her for a cigarette. We stepped out into the cold night air, and it had an immediate effect on her. Her nipples contracted and hardened under the soft silk, poking out firmly against the material. The night has a light misting rain, almost too light to call it proper rain. I watched the tiny drops hit her shoulders while she lit her cigarette, hoping they would hit her chest too, and wondering what I would see when they did.

On a whim I asked to bum a smoke from her. I don't normally smoke, but I felt like it would be the perfect thing to go with tonight. She smoked menthols, which are not my favorite, but I made do. We puffed and inhaled and talked more about travel.

"I've been saving up", she said. "I'm going to wait until I have enough money and I'm going to take a year off and tour the world."

"That's incredible," I said, trying to be supportive. "How much do you think you are going to save."

"My goal is twenty five thousand. But I have a long way to go."

I thought that twenty five isn't even enough to live off of for a year, but nodded that it was a good plan. I tried to maintain eye contact, but her shirt was getting more and more translucent in the mist, and her perfect tits on her tiny body were hard to ignore.

"Let's go back inside", she suggested. "I'm getting cold."

We went back inside, and I watched as she locked the door behind us. The kitchen staff had left while we were smoking, and we were the only ones left in the building. She turned off most of the lights; the two lamps behind the bar gave the room a nice, warm glow.