I was sitting at the end of the bar in a club called Club Victoria in Chicago. This place was a dive. It reeked of alcohol, the wall paper was chipping off by the yard, the barstools always had some kind of sticky substance attached to the stool, and the music was played over two close and play speakers. But, it was a gig. It was barely 1980, I was a showgirl, and it was one of the only places in town that would hire me. I was twenty years old, and I lied about my age, but the owner had a crush on me, and most importantly, I had no idea how much to charge, so I worked for about 25 cents and a bag of Gummy Bears.

So there I sat on a Friday night. It was hot, hot, sticky Chicago hot outside, and the rickety air conditioner shook from fright above my head. I was sitting in the only cool spot in the club. I remember it was a Friday, because we had three shows that night, and I was exhausted and cranky and I remember the next day I had three more to do as well. I also had no money and no food at my apartment, and I used to order Cokes from the bartender with extra cherries. The coke was my main course, and the cherries were dessert.

It was 2 am, and my make up was caked on my face. I could feel the lip stick start to congeal, and my face powder was cracking like an egg and peeling off my forehead. My hair was teased, my legs were sore, and I was hunched over my coke slurping and sighing. I must’ve looked like Boris Karloff.

Then, from out of the blaring air conditioner, and from behind the thumpety-thump of an old Abba song, came a tall, white, white man with blonde hair and a three piece suit. He sat next to me. Directly next to me, and smiled.

I was hunched, but I managed to smile back.

There were few men left, and a couple with their tongues down each other’s throats at the opposite end of the bar. I sat there listening to Abba screech away, and he nudged me with his elbow.

“What?!” I asked aggravated.

“Nothing. Nothing. Wanna nother drink? Whactha drinking’?”

He had a Jersey accent. I thought it was kinda cute for some reason. I smiled.

“Coke with three cherries.” I said to Babs.

Babs was the bartender. Her name wasn’t Babs, I nicknamed her that. I always loved saying Babs The Bartender, it made me happy. It stuck. Babs was Transgendered, and for some reason was stuck in the 1940’s. She was about 35 (so she said), and she never stepped out of the house without a Gladys Kravitz hat and a pair of Joan Crawford Come Fuck Me Pumps. She was odd, a bit quirky, and had a laugh like a backed up drain, but she was one of my first friends when I moved into the City. Watching her in her bathroom mirror at 10 o’clock in the morning, in her off-white slip, and sheer fuzzy slippers shaving her beard was always a sight that still haunts me.

Babs waltzed (and I do mean waltzed) up our end of the bar wiping a glass clean with her polished long pink nails, and the Jersey Guy ordered my special coke. Babs nodded, and then winked at me. I had no idea what the wink was for, but I took as a sign of good luck.

“Where ya from, Sailor?” I asked, pretending I knew what was going on.

“I’m from New York. I’m here visiting my broth-uh.”

“Ah. Where’s you brother?”

Babs returned with my coke.

“He left. He liked da show. We both liked da show. You’re hot.”

“I know.”

I was an ass. Also- I assumed he was blind.

“What else?” I said really feeling my Wheaties.

“You wanna go somewhere?” he asked smiling.

He was sort of cute in a non threatening Joe Pesci sort of way. Rough sounding but smooth looking. I liked his hair. I remember really liking how blonde it was and how white he was. He seemed to sort of glow in that damp, dark, noisy bar.

“Go and do what?” I asked sipping my Coke and lighting a cigarette.

I always had props.

“How much?” he asked.

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Absolutely none.

“How much what?”

He laughed. I laughed as well, and had no idea what I was laughing at.

“Nice.” He said, assuming I was in on the joke. “So, really. How much?”

I still didn’t get it. No one had ever asked me that before.

“You wanna know how much? You couldn’t afford it, honey.” I said, still clueless.

“I’ll bet I could. Besides a babe like you is worth a million.”

A light went on.

This guy thought I was a prostitute.

A prostitute. Me?

Something happened. Something changed in that five second assumption. For some reason I became attracted to an unexplainable urge to be bad. I was excited and thrilled by this seedy idea that I was a prostitute sitting at the edge of a filthy bar in the early morning entertaining this trick.

My first trick. In a long, long, line.

“I don’t do it in a car. Get a room, and get a cab, and we’ll talk on the way. Are you a cop?”

I began quoting Klute.

“No. I aint.” He said getting jittery.

I knew that if you asked, they had to tell you, and I didn’t want to get arrested on my first job. I also knew that you shouldn’t talk price in a public place, anyone within earshot could be under cover, and I could get hauled in for that as well. The only thing I knew was that I had to get the money before anything happened or I might not get it all.

“I’ll get that cab. I’ll mee-tcha outside. Jeez you’re hot.” He said practically panting.

“Keep that thought, Honey.” I said smiling and blowing smoke out of my nose.

He left in a cloud, and Babs bounded up to me.

“You gonna to turn that guy?” she asked in her broad, loud Bassano voice.

“A little louder girl, I don’t think they heard you in Cleveland.”

“Be careful. He looks like a weirdo.” She cautioned.

“I’m always careful.”

Always. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Always?

I remember the sex. I also remember turning myself off. Like a switch. I had no idea I had the ability to do that so easily, but it came just as natural as eating. I simply flicked off the light and this other voice took over. This voice that was able to be funny, and sexy, and breathy, and tantalizing, and lethal. I attacked him. I remember attacking him like an animal, but feeling nothing. He was making love to an empty bottle. There was nothing there, and for some reason, I caught myself smiling about it. Not smiling in pleasure, but smiling in recognition. I found something inside of me, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. I liked what I did, and I made $150 that night. I was there for approximately one hour.

I wasn’t one of those prostitutes that were shoved into it. I wasn’t forced by a pimp, or a boyfriend, or because I was destitute or trying to keep up my heroin fix. I was a prostitute because I was good at it, and for a while, I enjoyed it. I didn’t do it all the time, it wasn’t necessary. I did it when I wanted to do it, and I always charged a lot of money. Sometimes and outrageous sum of money. It wasn’t until later, that I was forced to work the streets and shuffle along Belmont and Broadway to make rent, but when I first started, I was a machine. A cash machine.

I saw a woman on Montel (I was surfing, I swear), and she was talking about how happy and how complacent she was when she was hooking. She was a divorced mother and had a kid in 4th grade. She seemed put together, well read, and was very well spoken. She put up a good front. She said what I said to myself for many years.

“I’m in control, and I’m fine. I like what I do, and I like who I am.”

Well, while I agree that in a controlled and clean environment, this is a possibility, I also know that when you sell your body, you also sell your soul. I know. I was at that bargain sale for years. You can only flip that switch so many times before it doesn’t come back on again. I began to numb. Like I was shot through the veins with Novocain. I stopped feeling, and it took me many years until I learned how to feel again. I closed my eyes for what seemed like an eternity and allowed people to ravage me in the dark, and heard so many whispers and offers that reality was skewed. I was shattered and broken. I may have started out standing straight, but I ended up hunched over. Just like at the end of the bar at the end of the night at the end of my rope.

I wanted to reach through the television and grab her by the throat and shake the lies out of her, but that wouldn’t have done any good. I’m not saying prostitutes are wrong, or shameful, or should feel the way I feel, I just know, having been one, and been around many, that in order to do it and come out whole, you’ve got to get honest. Know what it is and know why you’re doing it and know it’s not feeding you in any way.

In any human way.

I got my dignity back but it took years. Years of kindness from both men and women. It was a long time before I could be next to a man and not want to run into the other room and hide in a black hole. Men frightened me. They intimated me and I assumed they only wanted to talk to me in order to get my price down.

That took years to wash away. And to be honest, it still creeps up every once in a while.

Then one day, when I was still in my twenties, I met Paul. He was standing at the corner of Sheffield and Belmont waiting for the bus and I was walking. It was just starting the Chicago winters and the air was getting to that painful point. No snow and no wind, but bitterly cold and grey. I stood at the corner, and he peeked out from his over sized blue parka. He smiled at me; He had the nicest teeth I’d seen in a while. And then out came these liquid blue eyes. He tilted his head back, and I knew what was next. I walked up to him, we chatted, and his voice was low and sexy and reverberated in my chest. He asked me out for coffee I said yes, and we walked down the street toward The Melrose across from Ann Sathers. It was getting colder.

“Your coat is torn, do you want mine?” he asked.

“You’ll freeze. “ I said back to him.

“So?”

He took off his coat and wrapped me in it.

We got to the restaurant, got a table, and settled down.

I started talking price. My time was money and I was losing both. I needed to get to it.

“So?” I asked smoking.

Props.

“I don’t want to hire you.” He said bluntly.

He was very tall. He was wearing a green sweater and a chain around his neck. His hair was jet black and hung in his eyes. He looked like Johnny Depp’s half brother.

“What?”

“I don’t want to hire you. I want to feed you and take you to a movie. Can I do that?” he asked.

“No. You can’t.”

I picked up my bag and started to go, leaving the warmest coat I’d known in about 5 years behind me.

“Wait. Listen. I’m sorry. I don’t even know you. I’m saying I don’t want you to hook.”

“Yeah? Really? Well that’s sweet and all but who exactly is going to pay my rent?” I asked still standing.

“I’ll pay your rent.”

“Will you now?” I asked not believing him.

Then. He looked at me and took my hand and led me back to the coat.

“Yes. I will.”

And he did.

He paid my rent took me out to dinner took me to the park took me to the movies bought me clothes and drove me to the club many, many times. We dated off and on for about a year. I was finally financially able to stop. As soon as I was able to take him out for our first dinner, I never saw him again.

I have no idea what he did for a living, or what his last name was. I only remember that a guy named Paul saved my life one day.

I never hooked again.

When I saw that woman on Montel, I saw my past in that woman’s face as she sat in her chair on my television lying about how together she was. I was thankful and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I regret nothing. I don’t. I wouldn’t change my past just like I wouldn’t change my present. The two hold hands. I just know that when I’m faced with a mirror that potent, now I have the ability to look at it, and feel something. And it’s usually something good. And more importantly, Alive.

I don’t know who Paul was, or even now, if he was real. I don’t even know that Paul was his name. I don’t know where he went or where he came from or why, in that particular moment, something stood in front of me and guided me through the fire. All I know is, for me, I try to never ignore the signs, and try never to say “no”. I am now a firm believer in miracles. Maybe someday that woman will stop and see something standing directly in front of her, and won’t walk by it. That’s the way miracles seem to work.