Prose & Lore, Issue 3: Memoir Stories About Sex Work

by Audacia Ray

I had started getting high just so I could bear to show up and drink with G.

unleashed a fury of unspoken resentments accumulated over a decade.

We spent our early teenage years in and out of foster and group homes.

blood family was meaningless

the speculative stories that swam around town, the descriptions, the descriptions of her body left blue and lifeless in that brothel near Hunts Point, her 16-year-old body that would never dance again.

We knew she wanted to run away; we all did.

We had heard she was just one of many girls that were transported from Vermont to the Bronx and lured into an underage prostitution ring.

We learned from the papers

forced to sell ...

We learned that she died with a tattoo bearing his name, marking her as nothing more to him but his property.

the connections that we did sometimes make with some counselor or some social worker were always fleeting because they always left us just the same.

After a weekend being taken care of by older homeless youth, they encouraged me to go back to my group home in Burlington, Vermont voluntarily.

Because I was under 17, if the cops found me it was likely that I would have been placed into a much more restrictive program.

My heart sank into my stomach as I recognized both her photo and her

name from the article.

She was beautiful and her singing voice was angelic. I never forgot her because of her sweet smile, her nickname, and her captivating voice.

she had invited me on an outing with a bottle of vodka to meet up with her gang of friends, other teenage queer kids, gypsys, prostitutes, and misfits

who formed their own memorial night for Tomorrow.

These were the “forgotten” girls that permeated my youth.

They were youth and beauty lost and destroyed, they were girls who lived with so much hope inside them that they dared to trust strangers for love or survival.

It wasn’t okay that even in death these girls were still being stigmatized.

and my presence. Every “Jane Doe” on Gary Ridgway’s kill list that still nobody is looking for. His infamous words that saturated my throat like blood

proclaiming he had chosen prostitutes specifically because he thought they were crazy and that nobody would be looking for them, that nobody cared.

It was her silent way of reclaiming the night and together we did.

We were jarred and frozen by the sudden sound of boots stampeding the hardwood floors in the next room.

Not sure if it meant rape or a raid,

My financial aid was in bureaucracy, classes had begun, I had no books, and was eating from my last corner of savings. I made bold choices from familiar places.

Not sex, but sensuality for hire.

When you’re broke, sex always sells— but I adamantly own and control all of my own merchandise.

shaman vibe. The training began. “The way you make them feel will determine how well they tip you.

You want to time it so that you spend most of the session relaxing them, and less time having to entertain them.

“You can make as much money fucking with their mind as you can actually fucking.

Rule One: being dominant is asking for what you want.

answered. “We’ve got dildos for sale, but, technically, it’s sodomy. So he’ll have to insert it himself. But once it’s inserted, it’s kind of a gray line and up to you if you wanna do the in and out. He’ll have to buy or bring his own

But the lube is free.”

“Cops and military love to get pegged, so I’m sure you’ll do it at some point in the police academy,”

Apparently, they thought I was kidding.

You’d think her whole body was a clitoris.

Before I reached the platform, he stuck a fifty-dollar bill in my hand. “This is for your help during training. Linda and I appreciate it and wanted you know. Don’t tell the other girls, though. We just like you a lot and think you’ve got a lot going for you. Maybe now

textbooks.” I fought back tears and thanked him sincerely before I rushed onto the train.

only he is responsible for his

own happiness.

Something about her made me uncomfortable. She was too quiet and spooky for me. I hoped that she had been indoctrinated with house philosophy.

my textbook as I waited for the client. I felt so relieved. I had money to eat and move around, and I could catch up on my missed reading assignments. A month of this, and I could quit, I decided.

In this business, you’re always hiring.

From the start I fill the room with my power; Alpha males immediately converted into stone.

That he had a girlfriend amazed and relieved me. If someone as blandly hideous as him could find a companion, I could, too.

I thought he was gonna cry. What a teddy bear.

really felt for him. I’d have blown him off as a regular yahoo on the street. Now I admired him.

We keep horny bastards from turning sexual frustration into destructive aggression.