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

by Audacia Ray

Married men often enjoyed talking about their wives, some even mentioned their names.

I always had to act like I was sympathetic to them being treated like shit by their wives, but half probably deserved it.

Turns out, he had no intentions of paying for my services.

This was typical behavior from men who had very big egos as well as very big dicks; they have entitlement issues.

They are the types of boys and men that would have intimidated me when I was younger. Now look whose arms they’re running to for some comfort and affection.

didn’t have sex with him anyway,

she could bounce her butt cheeks, one by one or together,

Diamond was different. Like me, she treated stripping like a regular job. She came to work every day, made her money steadily, resignedly, hour by hour, and left at six to take the train back to the Bronx.

Diamond changed her name numerous times during the years we worked together. All her other names were girl-next-door names like Josie and Katy, but I always called her Diamond because that’s how I first knew her. Other girls called her whatever name she’d been using when they first started at the club.

her real name was Rachel. It struck me as strange that she’d never told me her real name was the same as mine.

“And now he’s getting mad jealous of the customers, calling me here all day and asking me why do I have to do lap dances?”

He can’t control you like that.”

like to be controlled. Maybe ‘cuz I wasn’t raised. My parents didn’t raise me; I raised myself. And

Anyway, strippers move from club to club all the time, so it was hardly worth the effort to invest in friendships.

The club was playing the same reggaeton and pop hits that we danced to at work, but without the customers as props for conversation I couldn’t think of much to say, so I drank quickly and tried to act crazy on the dance floor.

made me feel uncomfortably aware of myself as different, as not really one of them.

though, most of these ...

from different backgrounds from each other, as well as from me, so I’m not sure why I thought I was so different, other than perh...

“People think I’m scary, but I was just standing up for myself. Sometimes I lose my temper like that and I see people scared of me and I don’t like

Diamond got rid of her controlling boyfriend and then started dating another one.

I wondered why I cared so much.

She still came into work and left at the same time every day, and so did I.

Strippers don’t think of leaving a job as final. She probably assumed I’d be back.

saw Diamond once, a couple of years after I left the club, after I’d had a kid of my own.

While the train stood in the station I saw Diamond standing on the opposite platform, waiting for the uptown train. It was six thirty, and I realized she must be on her way home from the club.

Afterwards I wished I had banged on the window and waved to Diamond, but maybe she wouldn’t have heard me.

I’d snuck out of mid-week service early to have dinner with a new dominant. I’d met him in an AOL chat room named DBM4SWFWS (Dominant Black Male for Submissive White Females Who Swallow).

but I figured Don was a nice guy. After all, he was the first guy who sent me a pic with his clothes on.

“Slaves, obey your masters,” Don read aloud. “It does not say that!” I exclaimed. “It does,” he laughed, pointing to Ephesians 6:5.

But I left that part out in my chat with Lydia as she questioned me about my sins of the previous week.

Instead, telling that heifer “I’m gonna pray for you to get some dick because obviously you’re just jealous,” I bit my tongue. And

And I’d put back the handful of sugar packets I was about to swipe after I got pissed that Starbucks raised their damn coffee prices again.

I’d tried lying about blow-jobs, but never very convincingly, especially when my mouth opened eagerly like a guppy at feeding time every time I met a new LL Cool J look-alike with a prison build, flexing “I Love My Mom” tattoos and licking his lips.

“Self-pleasure? Oh! You mean masturbation?” She paled behind her Latin tan, but I continued. “Well, sure. Of course I masturbate, all the time. I mean, how else do you think I was able to avoid a big, hard, um … making love this week?”

was getting sick of these Bible verses and commandments and decrees.

The list of what I wasn’t allowed to do was growing daily.

I’d recently met a Buddhist dominatrix at a BDSM conference when I complimented her after she’d finished flogging a very cute, red-headed male submissive. Mistress Shifu forced him to chant, “Namu Myoho Renge Kyo” as she whipped him.

“Methinks the domme doth brag too much,” I thought. Or maybe she added a few hand jobs here and there, because I would never make that much as a dominatrix. Not even close. Not even in a week.

had a professional day job I was proud of. Sort of.

I was tired of getting fired from jobs I hated, and it was only a matter of time before I lost this job, too.

had always been intrigued by the sex industry, but the thought of being a sex worker clashed with my religious beliefs.

Once again I found myself browsing through the ads in the back.

fascinated with this Queen of the Dommes.

I’d never had that kind of power over a man.

I wondered what it would be like to have a man under my control, willing to do my bidding.

Midori had men drooling over her—even the doms.

But it was her demeanor that struck me. She was classy, elegant, refined.

Not once did I hear her utter a swear word or call a man a “slimy little worm” or “a piece of shit.”

She never raised her voice as she instructed her subs to obey her wishes. She simply expected to be worshiped.

But I wondered if it were true that dommes didn’t engage in prostitution with clients.