My Ladies

I'm trying to remember when I first heard the saying, "She's sitting on her groceries"...it's about prostitutes, of course...call-girls...whores....it means, well, obviously: that the woman is making money, or gaining property or favors or gifts: using her sex, someway, somehow, to make her 'living'.

I can't say that I'd deny that there was something in my personality that likes the idea of living using your own body to make your wages. I have no idea why. When you like sex a great deal, and I always have, it makes sense, in an odd way, that it would be fun to do sex all day or all night for money. if you really wanted to. which, of course, I didn't. but, I could understand the whole impulse. and, I could see why many women would do all that, if they loved sex sort-of generally...even if they didn't like sex much. If you wanted money, and had no, or few, other skills, it would be an OK-way to make money for some ladies. If you really hated sex, it could be a very bad thing. Then there's the whole world of sex slavery and poor kids forced to lose their identities in the madness and terrible harm of unwilling sex, to survive...so there is all that...and much more...the drugs...the rapes...the diseases...poverties...the deaths...the horrors that humans inflict upon each other everywhere....

I'm talking here about the gentle parts, because there are kinder aspects to the lives of whores I've known...and they and I have had a bit of life cross and re-cross in common with My Ladies....first: there was the Free Health Clinic in the Edgewater-Uptown area of Chicago...

I worked as a volunteer RN there in the very early seventies... because of Gretta, I became kind-of 'the nurse' for most of the prostitutes who came to the clinic to get meds for their STDS and their birth control pills and devices and their pregnancy tests and their abortion counseling. The clinic I was in didn't do abortions. The counseling was a sad part, for many of my Ladies. and the testing and treating for the STDs was laborious. the ladies often seemed to let things go too long...I wasn't sure why they were reluctant to get treated. maybe it was just denial. you would have thought the smells and the aches and pains would put-off business....

The other memory that was sad was that not one of the ladies I met was happy, ever, really...they sometimes would have a lot of fun. they liked to party quite a bit. they were kind to each other and to some of their clients...some of the time...but I'd have to say: most often they were sad. and mad at people from their pasts. from their childhoods and their young adulthoods. their dealers. the daily 'bums' from the streets. their pimps. their madams. their 'regulars'. their 'johns'. the police who were their 'friends'...the police who were their 'enemies' - who were often the same people. especially their parents. their dads more than their moms, I found. sometimes for incest. or verbal abuse. or physical abuse. or all three...or just for neglect. for rage at poverty... then they would joke about just everything. about nothing at all. it helped to keep some things in. it helped to keep others out....

Gretta told me lots about her life. I don't think she was trying to shock me. she seemed to just like to chat with me. sometimes she'd hug me and call me 'sister'. she was about forty, but she said she was thirty. she looked about sixty. she had bruises all the time. and she would not talk about them. ever. she had three STDs that needed injections...mainly antibiotics. She denied shooting-up even in the face of the holes in her inner arms. I've always suspected she probably died of AIDS or an overdose or a massive pelvic infection or something horrible. she had that feeling about her. that something horrible was going to happen to her. sometime. any time soon. but surely later. surely. in the meantime, she told jokes and acted all fancy-free and fun-lovin'. then she cried.

It was raining at the clinic. outside was a humid mess and hot and dark with the rain. few patients were dribbling in - mainly to get out of the rain and to hang out until they were dry. maybe get a cup of coffee. she came in all crooked smiles across her face and joking about the weather and life and all...she asked to talk with me in private. boyfriend trouble, she said. I went behind the curtain with her. then she just threw herself into my arms, all wet and stinky with sweat and cried and cried and cried...

she was crying for the four abortions she had in the past, who she called "my babies"...for the kid at age three the Child Protective Services took away from her because of the drug use and her work and a lot of neglect which she admitted to...she cried about all the men she had used and how they had used her and that was a list a mile long. which she seemed to have total recall about in way-too-great detail. then there was her dad, who had deserted the family. her mom who was a drunk. her brother who raped her. her sister who was a nun and never would talk with her and was sort-of psychotic...there was too much to hear. so naturally I was crying too. Gretta's story was endless and her life was endless. to give it too much thought was to drown in sorrow. because it was all only sorrow. all the parties and the jokes and the rich-ones-who-got-away and the hot times with money and the ones she 'loved' and the few who loved her right back...all these stories were lost in the tears. absolutely drowned in the sea of sorrows....

Gretta made all my fun stories about being the nurse for the 'My Ladies' feel a little dumb. I got myself a bit numb...I felt sorry for all My Ladies and for me too. for all the ladies I knew around me who were absorbed in sex in one way or another. preoccupied with too little sex and too much sex and liking sex or loving sex or not liking sex or their sexual partners, of course...how they felt about all of them. in the past. in the future. what the present seemed to be about: Women talk about sex problems with RNs. Even strangers. It's rare for a woman to have ever said to me "I love sex, have plenty, am happy with my partner (partners), the situation is great, and so on". something was always off-kilter in the equation. Well, not always, but you catch the drift....

Women like me, who have had pretty-good, un-abused lives: either didn't talk about their sex lives much - or else we're rare or we don't chat with RNs about the whole deal. It's taken me years to tell anyone about how much I love sex, generally, without a lot of thought. The question that has popped up all these years from most of my men is "Is that all you think about?"...meaning "Sex". my answer has always been that I don't "think about it" actually, as far as I know. "It" is just always in my body, waiting for the next hit or charge or, to be nice about 'It'...the 'Intimacy'. Only when I'm sick or have joint or back pains or am unhappy about a partner, do I lose interest. That happens to we so-called 'normal' women a great often I think... Otherwise, the on-button is 'on'. the equation, such as it is, is simple - in my experience...I'm not alone in this: I've had women friends who feel all day and night as I do...but I know it's not common - but it's not rare either...at least: that's what I observe....

OK, well, back to My Ladies...
I think most of them liked me because they were hung-up on sex, for better or for worse, in the same way I am. without judgement or thought. not necessarily for happiness or romance. just a part of life. a big part. but a part of life that is always, always there. just 'there'...and very preoccupying...that's true....

So, what about the Party Bits...the jokes and so on....well, that's part of the Night Life, too, for sure. In the oddest way, it is very satisfying for women who love sex...or for woman whose work life is sex...being with people who like to play with sex just for fun. It's a relief, really: watching people coming on to each other: a little kiss here...pretending lap dancing or pole dancing...the skimpy outfits...even joking with stripping bits of the skimpy outfits...the moves...the dances...the touches...the money...the alcohol shedding the inhibitions...it's all entertainment....a lot of people deny that they party with this kind of play, but the stats are against them...a whole lot of men and women enjoy playing on this level...especially now with the net and the cameras and so on....

but it gets scary, or scarier, when it gets into hard porn or actually connecting sexually with others...lots of risk and there could be lots of problems the further you go on this level...and that's the world My Ladies worked in...so...to lighten up, they'd go back a notch to the Party Bits, and just play and have a good, even relaxing time...lots of jokes and laughs and relief at this level...very little risk...fun to do with "friends"...even just "friends" for the night...My Ladies loved these Party times..they were pleased when they had a nice light night of no work and all play...these were the times I could join in here and there without feeling weird or out-of-place....

Take my times with Jimmy...well, yes: Jimmy was physically a guy, but he was a young woman on his insides, and he saw me as a trusted 'girlfriend'. he even called my about recipes at times...but mainly, he talked about his love for his guy, John. who he adored. and, because John played around on Jimmy, who he was very sad and jealous of at times....so, he would cry on my shoulder too....Jimmy had been a PlayBoy for years. he was very popular and tiny and black and darling....
but it's mainly the "play" I recall about Jimmy, with fondness...we'd go to big-time Gay Bars in Chicago and dance with the other guys or with John and my husband at the time...and just have fun - a lot of fun! Gay guys often thought I was simply a magnificent cross-dresser... or a man who had become a lovely woman...and they were excited and happy to dance with me...Jimmy would encourage them by out-and-out lying about me! It was all for fun...and, it was Much Fun! free and happy and exciting and risk-free and fun! At least I didn't have to deal with hetero-selection-rejection moves...I felt as fun and free as I ever have....

The same thing happened when I 'went out' to a party with Gretta and her friends...there was so much sex play and silliness and jokes and good dancing and fun flirting at that party...I wasn't drinking, but every one else was, and they got more and more funny and free-spirited and sexy and fun as the night rolled on...and, no body was paired-off at all...everyone was just playing, because it was a party. no one needed to score, because they were all resting from non-stop sex work during the day... It was all just stimulation and simulation and dance and performance and much, much enjoyment...best party ever...tho I did leave when the drugs started getting exchanged and bought...that was all too heavy for me...no one seemed to mind when I "had to go home"...no judgment...back and forth....still: the excesses were comin' on...and things could get nasty and scary...so...time to go....

Once, waiting for a bus, I was suddenly lit up with a spot light and pushed up against a wall with two ladies who had been standing near the wall behind me...I was startled and scared a bit, but not much, because the two ladies, who looked a lot like most of My Ladies, were laughing their heads off...A really grumpy, serious policeman was puffing about being upset and trying to arrest the three of us for "loitering"...the scene was pretty obvious....
the Ladies kept telling him that I wasn't with them. and laughing about his mistake loudly and boisterously...just having a good time at his expense. he was flustered, but was actually trying to see the funny part of it all, and in fact, he was starting to see the funny side of it! but, he couldn't break out of the role, of course...then the bus came...
he indicated that I could go. I smiled at the Ladies and they smiled and laughed back and the three of them just stood there looking at me getting on the bus. the people on the bus were staring flabbergasted at all four of us...I got on the perfectly silent bus, paid the smiling bus driver, and rode off, literally, into the sunset, treasuring every moment I had spent with the Ladies and the Cop...wondering what happened next for them all...wondering why my life was still so different than theirs, that I could get on the bus...and they couldn't....
wondering too, what it had been about me, that gave him permission inside of his mind, to push me up against the wall with the Ladies...how he knew, somehow, that we were Sisters under-the-skin....

I have always loved My Ladies. I have no other way to describe my feelings for them...the veil between my life and theirs is made of steel mesh thin as a butterfly's wing...you can see right through it. it's beautiful and colorful. but it cannot be broken-through. we are different. yet we can see each other clearly.

What we see has always been close, kind, loving, caring...without shame or consequence, because
What My Ladies and I...we know:

is that we are very,

really...

Beautiful....