On the other hand, the fact that I work through Alexandra may guarantee my protection – although in a very flimsy way. Most of her clients are people she knows, or the friends of those people, or the friends of those friends … which means that our mama has some useful contacts for finding a girl if she gets into trouble. So there is some sort of security. Unless, of course, the client happens to lose his mind and stops worrying about the consequences of his aggression … or Alexandra’s rescue action is too slow; or … Crap, what am I thinking!
I leave the bathroom full of steam, wrapped in a towel and my not-very-optimistic thoughts. I carefully browse through my wardrobe looking for the right dress to wear: sexy enough to make me look desirable, but not too revealing, so I don’t feel uneasy. Then I grab my vanity case, sit on the bed and start doing my make-up. The phone buzzes, texting me the address, time, cellphone number and name of my rendezvous. I look at my watch, trying to ignore my anxious heartbeat, thinking about how a shot or two of tequila or a little joint would definitely calm me down.
‘Do you want me to call you a cab?’ Inna asks, removing her headset. She is sitting on her side of the bed and watching a movie on her computer. I nod, without taking my eyes off the little mirror, applying another coat of mascara to my already heavily made up eyelashes.
I finish my make-up, put on the black dress I’ve chosen (not too short, but still quite sexy) and my summer high heels that are graced with multi-coloured stones, and stuff my little black purse with condoms, cigarettes, money for the cab, and a few tampons, just in case. I almost forget the photocopy of my passport (the front page and the page with the visa) that we made earlier today on the way home. As Inna explained with an I-am-so-smart expression on her face as she handed my passport to the guy in the copy shop, ‘Trust me, Jul, you really do not want to lose your passport, but you still have to carry ID. So this is my compromise number two.’
I frown, remembering her compromise number one – the ultra thin condoms – kiss her on the cheek, say ‘Wish me luck!’ and head outside, where the taxi is already waiting for me.
36
The cab pulls up at the apartment building. According to the driver, who looks very suspicious (I guess all of them, with their dark hair, and even darker eyes, a couple of days’ bristle on their faces, finished with a set and severe stare, look suspicious to me), it’s the right place. I dial the number that Alexandra sent me earlier.
‘Hello … Murat? It’s Ju– it’s Victoria. I am here.’ I exhale.
The man on the other end of the line okays and tells me that he is coming down to let me in.
I ask the cab driver to wait until my ‘date’ shows up. Two minutes later, a man steps out of the entrance and waves towards the car. As I climb out of the back seat, making sure that my skirt is in the right place, Murat approaches the car, asks the driver how much I owe him, and pays.
Hmmm … that is a pleasant start to the evening …
We walk up the stairs to the third floor and enter the apartment. Only after the door is closed, Murat smiles, extends his hand to me and with a heavy accent (at least he speaks English), introduces himself: ‘Nice to meet you … come on in … Victoria, right?’
He is a tall, young chap with friendly eyes and a charming smile. I shake his hand, also smile and follow him along a short passage into a spacious living room. It’s fitted out with big, heavy couches and a huge fretted coffee table; two cabinets stuffed with a display of plates, glasses, and white and blue crockery stand between big potted plants. The interior looks rich, but it’s old-fashioned, and doesn’t match Murat’s youth and his trendy clothes.
I bet it’s his parents’ place. They are probably away, so he can finally enjoy his temporary manhood and independence. In his late twenties and still living with his parents? Loser!
The coffee table catches my attention: glass of whisky on the rocks, ashtray full of cigarette butts, large dark ceramic plate, used as a tray, with two tidy white-powder lines and a tiny but very promising white mountain.
Murat shows me to the couch, and notices my stare. ‘I hope you don’t mind …’ he says.
Then, ‘Would you like to have a drink, Victoria?’ he asks, with care. ‘Yes please – the same as you,’ I answer and my eyes lock, again, onto the big plate.
I cannot help it! That’s exactly what my tortured nerves need tonight …
Within a few minutes we are settled on the couch, holding our frosted whisky glasses. A few gulps later, I am pressed into the backrest, Murat’s possessive hand searching under my skirt while his confused jelly tongue wanders inside my mouth.
Urgh! I guess if he could kiss properly, there would be some devoted girlfriend next to him instead of me right now …
To endure these moments of sharp displeasure or disgust, I’ve learned to disconnect my brain from my body. I imagine, for example, that my mouth is not a part of my body any more. It helps me to fight the natural urge to tense my muscles and the impulse to push the sponger away from me.
Luckily the ‘kiss’ doesn’t last long and Murat finally proposes, in a sweet and courteous manner, that I take a hit. I do not hesitate and drown myself in the feeling that starts off pleasantly numb then grows into a stream of energy and sexual arousal.
He pulls me off the couch and drags me into the bedroom. There, he throws me onto the bed, and tears off our clothes, giving me just a second to roll the rubber onto his erection. He lets me do it but I notice the displeasure on his face. It reminds me again about Inna’s compromise number one.
The kid crawls on top of me, resting his forehead on the pillow, and starts banging me – thrusting and digging my slit, allegretto furioso20, as deep as he can go. I have no choice but to stare at the white ceiling.
I don’t know how much time has passed, but my pussy is completely dry now and starts to hurt. The euphoria from the coke has vanished, shifting to an annoying drowsiness and irritation. I wait and wait, dreaming of him coming and us snorting some more. But no – no such luck.
‘Let me fuck you without rubber! I am clean, you can trust me!’ Murat’s passionate jabber draws me away from the chandelier. ‘I am sorry, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t fuck without condoms,’ I answer, trying to sound congenial but with firmness in my voice.
He moans in frustration, lifts me up, turns me onto all fours, and, even more vigorously, begins to fuck me from behind. Some indefinite time later, which feels like forever, I realise what the phrase ‘to fuck the shit out of someone’ means.
Eventually he gets tired, and flabbily falls on top of my back. Wetting me all over with his sweat, he presses me flat into the mattress.
‘Aşkım!21’ he starts again, rolling the worn-out condom off his still-hard dick. ‘I beg you, let me come,’ he continues, fidgeting his erection against my ass.
‘I am sorry, I can’t,’ I say, pumping even more strictness into my voice.
He sighs and stays silent for some time, and then starts again … he says the same words over and over, ignoring my rejection, topping up his speech with new, stupid arguments.
‘I will have you for the night and tip you well … we’ll have some more fun with the nose candy … please, Victoria … I am not sick …’ He goes on and on, pretending not to hear my response.
Then, Murat starts slowly pushing his dick between my legs. After his annoying, non-stop efforts, I’m too tired to resist. I want it to be over, and ‘his way’ definitely seems to be the easiest. Yet I hold my muscles tight, showing my resolution. I know he is not going to force me. He is just waiting for me to give up. It is up to me to decide and I am definitely not going to change my mind …
Arghhh!
But if I resist, he will be displeased, and I will have to get up, dress and go home with no tip or money for the cab. I will be stressed, instead of having fun with my white-dust friend, which I deserve more than ever now.
I am tired. So fucking tired.
I let him in …
 
; 37
The painful strike into my genitalia wakes me. Murat is already on top of me, treating his morning erection with my dry, still-sleeping pussy. I groan and close my eyes again – it is too late for me to object and insist on him wearing a condom anyway. I turn my gloomy face away from his smelly morning breath, trying to brush away my thoughts of last night’s surrender, which are not helping to cheer up the morning.
The stream of warm sperm that sprinkles all over my belly interrupts me from bitching at myself and finally frees me from Murat’s heavy weight.
Thank God he is at least thoughtful enough not to come inside me.
He jumps up off the bed, too energetically for a person who’s consumed and fucked for most of the night – I can’t even lift my eyelids.
‘Get up, Victoria!’ His voice wakes me up. I probably fell asleep again without even wiping the now dried come off my body. ‘There’s coffee on the table. Please hurry up, beautiful, I have to go to work.’
Fifteen minutes later I am sitting in a taxi on the way home with $200 ($75 of which belongs to my pimp), a dry mouth that tastes like I have being drinking vinegar all night, and an agonising conscience that sours the taste in my mouth even more disgustingly.
When I get back home, Inna is still sleeping. I take a quick shower and quietly crawl under the blanket, grabbing her computer. I open my mailbox and find an email from Lena.
Hi my little Poppy-seed
How are you doing? Hope everything is going well with you.
A warm, silent stream of tears covers my cheeks. I stop reading to wipe them off. I feel so lonely and vulnerable. It has been only four days, but it feels like I’ve been gone for ages.
We finally received our contracts from France and are ready to go to the embassy. Next week we are off to Kiev to do the applications. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two. As soon as we get our visas, we are flying to Paris, and then going to Nimes in the south of France by train.
The business is picking up. Nata and I are advertising the salon. For the last three days we’ve been giving out brochures on the streets for a 10 per cent discount on all kinds of haircuts. We’ve handed out close to a thousand each! I feel exhausted, but you know our big sister, she wouldn’t get off my back until we were done.
Mom is getting used to being a ‘big boss’ and now she can take care of almost everything on her own. Fast learner! Not like me.
I am so excited about the France trip and so sad you are not coming with us. We all miss you. Please, please, please be careful – and email me as often as you can!
Love you xxx
I quickly type a short reply, saying that I am fine and miss all of them very much too, and drift off into a deep but troubled sleep.
38
Alexandra was right. I am quite a busy call girl. Thin and blonde – nothing else matters! For some reason, Turkish men love to fuck skinny, bleached women, regardless of their boob size or looks.
So here I am, after two weeks of elbow grease, still in my pajamas at 4 p.m., sitting on the bed and counting how much money I’ve made so far. Inna is out on duty – our whoremaster-employer phoned her two hours ago. She quickly geared up and left. It feels so comfortingly pleasant to have the place to myself for a few hours. I enjoy these moments of privacy and even loneliness a lot – I can soak myself in my thoughts as much as I want.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been hired every single night; plus, once in a while Alexandra gave me a day job too, which I hate as much as I hated the Luxembourg day shift. The sunlight customers, as usual, are mostly boring, married guys who need a quickie and who are never up for the consumption of stimulants during their sessions.
Of course, I like the night calls more. They always involve booze and, quite often, drugs. From time to time I love to have a little bit of white powder – it makes me feel more confident, lulls my anxiety, and sometimes even encourages my horniness. It helps me to handle those dull or I-cannot-come-for-hours fuckers more easily. The only problem that I bump into every time is that as soon as the blow appears, I become much more compliant, and if the client is very persistent, I often agree to sex without protection. I’ve found a very stupid way of dealing with this problem: I do not think about it.
Yes! Latex-free intercourse is a common feature of the local clientele. Damn it! Every time, all sense of this being a highly civilised country slams into ‘Aşkım, you can trust me. I am clean. Let’s not use a rubber – I hate it!’ This collision makes me feel like I am working in the middle of wild Africa.
Also, what is with the fucking-for-hours thing? In my short but quite experienced career, I’ve never met so many men in one place who struggle through rushed convulsions for hours each time they want to come.
In Inna’s opinion, it has something to do with circumcision. ‘I think the absence of the foreskin on the head of the penis – unlike members left in a primordial state – exposes it to unnecessary friction. With time, it loses its sensitivity.’ My roommate pulls her favourite I-am-so-smart expression. ‘First I thought it was a coincidence, but then I realised that I’ve fucked too many men in this city to consider it my ill fortune.’
I nodded, wondering where Inna gets all these theories, and tried to joke. ‘I think this annoying problem has a simpler explanation. Maybe they just like to masturbate too much?’
On the other hand, the lack of perversion among Turkish guys – with the exception of the creepy yogi, and unlike my almost daily Luxembourg experience – is really helping to reduce my stress and tension during working hours. Most of the time, Turkish guys prefer straightforward sex in traditional positions.
In my two weeks here I’ve had only one case of the routine being different – I had a threesome. Alexandra sent me with another girl to join two young guys for a couple of hours. They were having a good time with booze and dope. The only thing missing was a duo of sexy girls. Sadly for my co-worker, neither of them liked her, even though they were both pretty hammered. So they apologised, gave her money for the cab and sent her back.
This can be unpleasant, but it’s not the end of the world. All call girls are rejected once in a while.
The moment my teammate left, one of the guys called my pimp to ask for a replacement. Alexandra apologised, explaining that it was a weekend and all the girls were busy, and promised to send somebody as soon as possible.
We decided to wait a little while drinking, smoking green goddess, talking and laughing a lot. Then my clients left the room, ‘to have a word with each other’, as they put it. When they returned, they timidly explained that they both liked me, and asked if I wouldn’t mind fucking both of them. Either because I was already quite smashed, or because the guys were really fun, the idea didn’t seem that bad at all, and I agreed. As a result, we ended up performing all sorts of sandwiches in the fusion of drugs, fun, and lust.
So, after two weeks of intensive whoredom in Istanbul, I’ve made $1,560. Of course I want to make more, but I am not disappointed.
I am not feeling used and have nothing to complain about. It is my choice to do what I am doing. I could choose another route, like most of my schoolmates: enter the Kherson State Pedagogical University and go to work in a school, teaching history or Russian literature. Of course, one salary would not be enough for me to live a decent life. No matter how many extra hours I’d work or private lessons I’d give, there would still be days when I would go shopping for some basics like food or clothes, and would have to choose the tights over the kilogram of bananas because I wouldn’t be able to afford both. Eventually, I would get married to some decent husband, not because I’d be madly in love with him, but simply because our union would hopefully help us both to pay the rent or make our lives more affordable.
No, this is not the way I want my life to be. My situation is not the model of perfect living, but at least it is a realistic attempt to grab a chance to improve things.
The lively melody of my cellphone interrupts my thinking. I see Alexandra’s nam
e on the display.
39
It is about ten o’clock in the evening. I am standing at the front desk of a very fancy residential building in Şişli. Inside and out it looks like a luxury hotel, the only difference being that these are fully serviced apartments instead of rooms and suites. I am waiting for the receptionist to check if I am an invited guest. He nods a few times into the receiver, then shows me the way to the elevator.
‘Floor seven, madam.’
I smile my thanks at him, and head towards the wide, shiny elevator doors. Inside there are predictable full-length mirrors. I take in my reflection critically, trying to judge my appearance as objectively as I possibly can. My fairly pretty face is enhanced with skillful make-up (something good and useful, at least, from my friendship with Masha – all her life she suffered from a fear that she didn’t look feminine enough, so she mastered the art of war-paint perfection). My wavy blonde hair flows down my shoulders. I’m in a modest, chic outfit – short-sleeved, light-blue blouse, knee-length flared white chiffon skirt, and some elegant silver high-heeled sandals that are high, but not overdone. I look sexy, but without the candid ‘I AM A UKRAINIAN WHORE’ look. I hate those I-know-who-you-are-and-why-you-are-here looks of the staff and guests of these hotels, and try to make sure that each time I cross another lobby, I at least plant a seed of doubt in those minds and make it harder for them to draw such conclusions. I’m happy with the reflection in the mirror, except for the obvious weariness in my eyes.
I look and feel exhausted! No wonder – it is my third call for today.