After twenty-odd years faithful service to the same company I arrived at our building one morning to find the place was locked and deserted, none of my fellow employees out on the street with me any wiser as to what had occurred than I. However, with the passage of time it became clear that our employer had grabbed what he could before skipping the country with all of our financial entitlements accrued over many years.
With the economic downturn I was, like many single mothers, unable to get a new job quickly and reliant upon welfare while eating into my savings. It was while picking up my younger daughter from school that I got into a chat with Wendy Fallon who, it transpired, had been made redundant about a month before I found myself unemployed. For a modest cash consideration I agreed undertake sitter duties for her kids and to collect them from school as she was trying a new occupation. She chose not to share the details of her work with me, but seemed much more animated and happy with her world when taking her kids from my place in the evening, so she was obviously enjoying whatever it entailed.
"She's stuck with it then? The job I mean?" asked Cam Elmore when she saw me with Wendy's children. "I thought she'd be too stuck-up to make a go of an occupation like that. Now she's stuck up all the time."
She laughed inanely at the joke she thought I was in on, but wasn't. With my non-comprehending expression she suddenly realized that I didn't get it, looking rather embarrassed at having said more than she should have.
"Forget I said anything, Leigh," she whined. "It's not important."
"It obviously is," I challenged her. "Otherwise you wouldn't have said anything. You thought I knew, didn't you?"
She nodded sheepishly. "I thought that because you were looking after her youngsters that she'd have told you. I can't tell you. Ask her."
Although I wheedled, cajoled and did everything else to prise whatever it was all about from her, Cam steadfastly refused to break her vow of secrecy to Wendy. That evening when Wendy called in to collect her kids, I asked her directly.
"Oh," she squeaked. "I can see why you'd wonder. I wish Cam hadn't such been a dumbo in assuming you knew, but hope I can rely on your confidence in this. The truth is that I've undertaken a job in a bordello to keep the wolf from our door. It's not something I'd have tried voluntarily, but now that I've experienced it, I'm finding it a not unpleasant way to earn a living. Nothing like the horror stories one reads in the woman's magazines about the exploitation by men and the shame I should feel at having fallen so low. I'm a whore, accepting that fact is important to me in ensuring that I have no misconceptions as to my present occupation. There's nothing romantic about it, but I find it more pleasant than onerous. Does that shock you?"
It was my turn to squeak in surprise. Although I'd read of women wanting us to believe it was a morally legitimate occupation that one could really find rewarding, my view was still coloured by my mother's disapproval those she describes as "putane", together with the promise of hellfire for their sinning. I, along with all my friends, had read Xaviera Hollander's book, finding the idea of being so morally free and easy exciting and worthy of envy by convent schooled girls. On growing older I'd come to see it as just a piece of erotic fiction as no woman could enjoy sex that much, I thought, although a couple of promiscuous sexual interludes in recent years made me wonder at the validity of that view.
"How...I mean...?" I stammered.
"Oh," she interrupted my confused thoughts. "Cam knows a somebody who's into it and got her to call me, as much for a joke as anything else as she was certain that it was the last thing I'd consider as an occupation. They were looking for a couple more ladies, it's nice to be referred to in that manner, Suzanne insists upon it, so I looked in on the place to see if it was something I could do. I was nearly broke at that stage,so it would have to have been something pretty unappealing for me to knock it back. Because there aren't any guys involved in the running of the place and all my potential colleagues were friendly and forthright about what they were doing, I felt welcome and went for it almost immediately. To me there was no hardship in having sex with a few blokes, in fact I rather enjoyed it, having been without for so long. And I average more than four times my salary as an executive PA. I've got money in the bank again and my mortgage is right up to date, so it wasn't all too bad as a career move."
"But you'd go back to your business career if the right job came along?"
"I'm so not sure about that at the moment. Who can we trust in the corporate world? I'd be everlastingly worried about the firm folding on me again. I'm now free from most worries and being well paid for my efforts, so I think I'd be a bit dumb to go back to all that, particularly in that I work shorter hours and fewer days to give me much more time with my brood. The other thing is that having been engaged in prostitution, someone could use that knowledge to ruin any further business career by revealing it to my employer. Guys have no problem with using our services, but some seem to see us as lesser beings. Anyway I like things as they are right now."
I nodded uncertainly. She had a point, from a philosophical perspective, but it was the reality of having sex for money that I had difficulty with, it just wasn't me. I'd had a couple of unplanned sexual adventures which I'd enjoyed for no particular reason that I can think of, apart from a few drinks at last year's Christmas party, when I had a quickie against the table in the boardroom with a much younger bloke. Then there was the good-looking, silver tongued chap at the garden centre whose eyes made no secret of what he desired to do with me, given any encouragement at all. It took only minimal flirting on my part to find myself accommodating his gorgeous cock within my inner sanctum. On recalling the matter, my eldest child, Pamela, had remarked on my happy mood for some time after those two events, so they had seemed to have done me some good.
After a month or so it became clear that nobody was ready to employ me with my history with a single firm, particularly one that had gone under in the odd circumstances my former employer had done. There seemed to be some suspicion of criminality by association in my case and there were so many equally qualified young women ready to step in without the expectations or habits I might bring to the job. One morning I woke to find it cold, gray and wet. I dressed before getting the kids breakfast and seeing them off to school, but the idea of a day tramping the streets of the city and fruitlessly seeking interviews was more than I could bear, so I stayed in. For the first time I gave serious thought to what it would entail to make myself available to a man to satisfy his needs in a purely physical sense. Would it really be so hard to endure, or might I even find something in it for myself? I certainly did in the most recent cases of promiscuous sex I'd indulged in, although I hadn't really expected to. Having been denied so much as a child I found it difficult to refuse someone asking for that which was within my ability to grant, without feeling guilty.
While I didn't see myself as vivacious or confident as Wendy, I knew I at least had as good a body and looks as she and the others of my peer group whom I then knew to have undertaken sex work, so I felt no real embarrassment in that area with as much to offer physically. Perhaps I should just pretend to myself I was doing a quick, promiscuous freebie with the chap, I hadn't come to terms with the term client yet, without there being any money involved.
Without thinking about it I'd phoned Wendy, hoping she'd be in as I knew she wasn't at work that day.
"I think I might give it a try, you know, sex work" I told her without hesitation. "What do I need to know and who should I see about it."
"You sound pretty positive about things, Leigh."
"Well, I've come to realize that in my position I'm pretty well without a lot of options. I can't even get a checkout or hash slinging job. Anyway it seems to be a more laid back position, if you'll forgive the unintended pun, and a lot better paid for doing what comes naturally. The only thing worrying me is meeting someone I know, a man friend, or my kids finding out."
"I know what you mean, but look at it this way. If you meet any bloke you know you'll both be in the same boat. In the very unlikely event that a kid found out, do you think they'd believe it?"
"I suppose not..." I agreed, somewhat uncertainly.
"Okay then," she laughed lightly, "I'll pick you up in about a half-hour. You can have a look, try before you buy, so to speak."
"What should I wear?" I asked
"Whatever you've got on now. Working attire is provided by the co-operative."
Wendy took me to a suburban duplex in a street which showed no indication of life, empty driveways and only a few cars parked along the kerb beneath the street trees. Looking at me, but addressing my friend, a smiling older man asked,
"Who's this then, a new recruit, I hope?"
