My Year as a Prostitute

I had no job, How I used what I had to get by.

I was never close to my mother. I was actually brought up by my Gran, and only moved in with my mother when I moved into secondary school when I was 11. I became part of her new family, but I always felt like a cuckoo in the nest and felt that she resented me. I moved out at the earliest opportunity when I was 16, to live with my boyfriend who was 8 years older than myself. I was pregnant within six months and gave birth to my daughter when I was 17.

My boyfriend turned out to be very controlling, which only increased once I was pregnant. He used to lock me in the house alone when he went out and forbid me from seeing or contacting anyone. I felt as it was all my fault and that I just had to accept it and make it work, but he became unstable and eventually violent, and after the police became involved due to one incident I managed to leave him. I spent some weeks in a woman’s shelter where I felt very cared for as the baby of the group and my daughter was well looked after too by the other residents.

The shelter was only meant to be a stopgap and then we were moved to some other temporary accommodation. During this time I met the man who was to become my first husband. He was also 8 years older than myself and I also became pregnant shortly after we met.

He initially took the pregnancy as good news and proposed. The thought of being able to settle down with my now three year old daughter and be part of my own family with the stability of marriage to support us was very welcome after all I had been through, so I happily said yes.

Again it didn’t take long to sour. He wasn’t violent, just selfish and not interested in setting up a proper home. The biggest red flag for me was when he went to America for a month when I was seven months pregnant, to visit a female penpal he had been corresponding with for a number of years. I felt that was who he really wanted to be with and finding myself stuck once again I reached out to my mother for help. She had come back into my life when I invited her to the wedding. I could tell that she hated him.

He was in the pub drinking with his friends when I was in the hospital giving birth to his son, with my mother as my birth partner. I was 22, and it was the last straw. My mother managed to accommodate the three of us back in her own home for a short while, once I was feeling strong enough, and made a big fuss with the council until they gave me a house. I think she was trying to make up for our past, or trying to be the world’s best grandmother to my kids. I have to admit that I would have been lost without her at this time, but part of me still thinks that it was because she hated him more than she loved me.

So, through some emergency list, I managed to get a three bed council house for me and my children. I was 23 and seemed to have landed on my feet.

It was still tough getting by though looking after two children and a home with little money. I was young and didn’t want to miss out on my own life. My mother would have the children on some weekends, which was very good of her and allowed me to let my hair down.

If I say so myself, even after two children I was quite attractive and still had a good, slim figure. Long dark hair fell to my shoulders and I wasn’t short of attention, but I was also aware that it was the attention that hadn’t led me anywhere good so far. On one night out I got talking with someone I used to know through my husband. He said he had always fancied me, and that he was glad I was now single. He straight out asked me if I would have sex with him for £50.

That was a lot of money to me, and maybe even to him. Although he wasn’t married I knew that he had a long-term partner and a child. I still didn’t hesitate to say yes though and we went back to my house and fucked, and I gratefully received his money on behalf of my electric and gas meters.

It was actually his idea, and I’m not sure if it made him my pimp or not, although he never took a cut of the money, but it was his suggestion to mention me to some of his friends if I didn’t mind doing more. I lived a few minutes walk from a Mcdonald’s restaurant and he came up with the idea of meeting men there first to make sure I was ok with them. It felt safe, it sounded exciting and the money was very attractive.

So that is how it worked. He gave out my number to other men, they would text or ring me and I would arrange to meet them at Mcdonald’s for coffee while I vetted them. By this time my daughter was at school during the day, but I do wonder what they thought when I would arrive pushing a baby buggy with my son into the restaurant. It didn’t seem to put anyone off though, and I don’t know if it says more about the calibre of my potential clients or just the excitement of it all, but I never turned anyone away and they all came back to my home.

It was a simple set up. There was no menu of services or prices, just a £50 flat fee for whatever they wanted. Surprisingly it was mostly quick fucks in the morning or early afternoon. Once I knew a man I would allow him to call in the evening once the kids were in bed, some even stayed the night for a little extra bonus.

So it started with a small group. Some men I knew slightly due to the social circle I had previously mixed with. Then their friends, then friends of friends. All had my number, and after the initial Macdonald’s vetting, my address. I was kept busy. I never had to advertise or walk the streets soliciting, the men and the money just kept coming.

Married men, older men, business men in suits who could afford multiple meets. Then there were those who you knew £50 was a lot of money for. They were even more flattering given that they had chosen to spend it on me.

I no longer had to struggle for food and to pay the bills. I could now decorate my home in a style of my own choosing. The kids had good quality toys and clothes. I was doing really well and it was so easy.

I only did it for the best part of a year. It became harder to meet in the day due to my son becoming more mobile and vocal, and unlike my daughter wasn’t old enough to be packed off to school. I was also aware that neighbours were talking about me and the number of gentlemen callers, and I was nervous that someone would report me, and I didn’t want to lose my benefits or the house that I had put so much work into. I slowed down and only did the occasional evening with men I already knew.

Then I returned to the more common type of prostitution that us girls don’t like to talk about. Clubbing and allowing men to pay our way with a payment of sex at the end of the night. That’s how I met my second husband who latched onto me at a nightclub. I was still young, only 24, and he was twenty years my senior. He wasn’t put off by the children and he was a professional and well off financially. It was to be a second marriage for the both of us.

In hindsight I don’t know whether it was catching a 24 year old wild beauty like myself (ahem), or the business proposition of being able to buy my house at a reduced rate due to the right to buy, but he quickly moved me and the children into his large home, bought my house and rented it out. We never went short for money and I no longer needed to sell myself. I changed my mobile number, cutting off the contact with any remaining clients. I don’t know if our new tenants ever had strange men knocking on the door, if so they never mentioned it, or if I would still be getting messages to this day if I had kept the same number. I felt I had finally found the stable environment to bring up my children and once I had my divorce we married and I moved into a new chapter of my life.

We stayed together for ten years until we inevitably split. That twenty year age gap seemed to get bigger year on year. But it got my daughter through school and gave a solid start to my son’s life, with opportunities that they wouldn’t have had with me (or my ex) as their sole parent, and for that I will always be grateful.