Whore Lover Part I

This is a longer piece that appeared in the first issue of my zine Whorelicious. I wrote it for the upcoming book Whore Lover, which is still seeking submissions. I will post the call for submissions in a few days. The story is quite long so I’ve decided to serialize it…hope you like it!

xxx
LustyDay

Whore Lover

Juliet and I are walking down Illawarra Road in Sydney, Australia. I am lagging slightly behind her. She is wearing her red striped dress and white flats. She is going out on a date after she drops me off at the brothel. I see a red thread trailing from the hem of her dress. I don’t stoop to grab it and fix it for her. The whole hem could unravel. And I don’t think she would really care about the thread anyways. Her clothes are always well-chosen, but not necessarily well-made.

We are walking towards Amore after the sun has set, it’s 9pm and I’m about to start my career as a brothel whore. She knows the way because she has already worked there. She is taking me there because she wants me to know the way, too.

“So one more time, what should I say to the clients in the intro?” I ask her. I am nervous. I have hooked before, but never in a brothel. Competing with other women, especially straight women, is terrifyingly about to become reality. I don’t think of myself as competitive. Or straight.

“Just remind yourself that the only thing you want to do in the world is fuck them,” she repeats. “Touch them at any moment you can – on the leg, on the shoulder, whatever. Call them handsome.”

Juliet has already lent me her knockout pink baby doll negligee from the Sally Ann. She thought it would go well with my sky-high red patent leather heels. I wouldn’t really know. I don’t know much about femme fashion other than fresh-faced admiration. My style is more clean-faced boyish gurl-nerd with sensible walking shoes. We have gone over the intro scenario before, the moment when I emerge from the girls’ room and lay my charm on the client for 30 seconds to convince him to book me. But I need reassurance, I need a wise whore to tell me I will be successful. (I haven’t learned yet that for every kind of ho, there is a client who will readily see her sex appeal.) I have barely arrived in Australia. But Juliet has already been working for nine months in brothels all over Sydney. She has encouraged me to come from Canada to have an adventure and pay off my school debts. After three grinding years in graduate school, I am ready for it.

But I’m still nervous. I can’t pace my steps right, I want to walk faster, but Juliet has stopped to examine a pile of abandoned clothes and things in the gutter. “Look!” she exclaims. “I love this shade!” She has found a half-used tube of Ruby Rose lipstick. Before tossing it into the blue milk crate strapped to her bike, she satisfactorily rolls the shiny tube closed. She tries on some shoes too. She is always picking things out of the gutter. Hardly someone you’d think was a pimp. But she is. Juliet is my pimp. Or, should I say, she got me in the biz. Isn’t that what a pimp is?
We are almost at the brothel. I want to get there and start working already! But I also want Juliet to slow down. I want her to look at me, tell me all over again how I will be admired and paid well by men. I want her to admire me, adore me. I want her to be a million things to me – and she is. She takes me in the buzzing front door, introduces me to the receptionist, and checks in on me via text message all night. And I’m fine. She knew I would be. I knew I would be. But that’s not the point. The point is to feel my apprehension is acknowledged, that no matter if I have a lucrative night or a bad one, I am not judged on my whoring skills. Basically, that I am loved no matter what happens.

Way back when, Juliet introduced me to the outcall biz back in Toronto, Canada. It started one day when I was visiting her at her day job. She worked at a sex shop. As usual, I was rushing home from the university to have dinner, wondering all the time if the degree was worth the poverty it created.

Juliet was answering emails as I came in the door. She gestured for me to close the small office door behind me. “I need to tell you something,” she said quietly. Juliet almost never hushed her voice. “I started doing sex work.” Her glance burned with excitement.

“Humph.” I said in response. I wasn’t much shocked. I’d seen her host dildo races, organize feminist porn awards, and convince art crowds to sharpen their pencils with a toothy vagina. In fact, when she said it, it felt strange that this conversation hadn’t already happened. “Are you enjoying it?” I asked.

“Damn straight,” she said. “And I think you could do it too. Why be poor?”

Why indeed? For Juliet, poverty had never been noble. She knew it well – it clawed at her, choking her in all she did growing up.

Juliet thought I’d be good at it. She said I had the right attitude towards sex: I practised sexual connection outside of love, I enjoyed sexual exploration, and was motivated to learn about others through their sexuality. Basically, she saw that I was an entrepreneurial slut capable of looking after myself.

So we made a plan to talk shop. In Queen’s Park a few days later, we scrounged for a clean park bench. There was no place to sit that wasn’t smothered by the sound of city workers’ chainsaws. I was grateful for the cover. Sex working is mostly criminal in Canada. I didn’t want anyone to overhear us.

Juliet gave me my legal education on two glossy sheets of reused paper from the sex shop. One side was plastered with images of Buck Angel’s transman pussy. I was sure no one had yet printed Sections 210–213 of the Criminal Code of Canada on the other side of such precious porno.

“So here’s a quick rundown,” she explained. “You can’t have a workplace, that’s violating the bawdy house law. You can’t work for anyone, or they get charged with procuring. Don’t employ anyone like a driver or a security person, or they get charged with living off the avails of prostitution. You can’t negotiate price in public, that’s against the communication law…” she began to rattle off.

“So you can’t do anything legally?” I interrupted. “Not really,” she answered. “But you can get smart about not getting caught.”

I looked around the park, feeling suddenly exposed, and liking it. Again, glad for the sound of fallen tree limbs getting fed into the wood shredder. This was survival knowledge. I felt honored to receive. And glad that Juliet had no shame about thriving and sharing the spoils.

At that time, we were friends, lovers, and allies. We were about to become hustlers, partners, and comrades.

Ask me how I got into the industry, and I’ll tell you: “Juliet made me do it!” Not only did she pimp me, she also trafficked me across international borders for her own nefarious purposes – ie she wanted a travel buddy, a confidante, a close friend from home to share in. Really, she could go to jail for this camaraderie. If we weren’t both white women, that is. Because the world only sees victims in sex work, and those victims are usually imagined to be Thai women workers, not ever women who choose this life, and are fulfilled by it. The truth is, most internationally traveling whores choose this work, no matter their race – the world just can’t imagine it that way.

“My only regret about sex work,” Juliet confesses to me one night, “is that I didn’t know how to start doing this ten years ago when I was 24.”

“Fuck that, I wish I’d known at 14!” I answer. For once I shock her. I already knew at 14 that I had something valuable to boys. But the exchange was never profitable enough for me. I always wanted more out of it. Now I see what I want, and how to get it, without shame.

“Yes, can you imagine? I could have sold my virginity for $1000!” she fantasizes.

“Are you kidding? That’s worth way more. Dream bigger,” I dare her. We are whores, we are whores who dare to want more. Greedy cunts!

To be continued…

Posted: November 10th, 2009 under Anti-racism, Client Stories, Sex Work, Whore Love.