The Sex Worker

John ground a cigarette butt on the ashtray built into the top of the litter bin. He checked the time on his phone and drained an energy drink, crushing the empty can in his hand and popping it in the mouth of the bin. It was better in these circumstances to be absolutely punctual. John checked no one was around and lit a one skin joint and glanced at his phone again. 12.50pm. He'd been standing there for around 15 minutes and thankfully he'd seen no fellow punter exit the block. The very thought of seeing who had preceded him made him nauseous. She'd texted him time (1pm) street name and flat number. The flats were numbered 1 to twenty in 4 blocks containing 5 one bedroom flats spread over 2 floors. He checked the online profile again to make sure he'd got the price right.

Selena, 32, oral and sex with condom, rimming(receiving) £60 for thirty minutes. Strictly no CIM, bareback or A Levels. OWO £20 extra. John had five crisp 20 pound notes in his wallet that he'd got from the cash machine at the corner shop. He felt weak legged off the joint and paranoid. John had smoked it to take the edge off his nervousness and he enjoyed being sucked off stoned but it had accentuated the anxiety he felt because of the familiarity of the area and its close proximity to his home. Some teenagers were walking towards the flats, passing a cigarette and a can of lager between themselves. He was feeling genuine panic now, too stoned to deal with the mildest of meatspace interactions. 12.55. Fuck it. His mind was trying to will his legs to purposefully stride to the flat entrance but all he managed was a breathless stagger to the doorway. He stabbed a finger at button number 9 on the intercom.

She'd buzzed him in before he had a chance to introduce himself. 'Open,' came the staticky voice. He pushed open the door and went into the block and was greeted by a row of bin lockers with the residents' numbers daubed on each one. All was grey, from the battleship coloured walls to the concrete floor no one from the council had bothered to tile or carpet. She stood at the top of the first flight of stairs, a forlorn, strangely ghost like figure in a blue hooded top, the hood pulled down to cast her face in shadow, black leggings and tatty gold sandals. Her toenails were covered in faded red nail polish.

Her flat looked like it was actually lived in unlike other sex worker apartments that he'd visited that looked like anonymous hotel rooms. Curtains drawn, it was gloomy in the flat, the only light from a bedside lamp with a low watt bulb. It was cleanish enough anyway. Disconcertingly the far wall next to the bed was painted a fluorescent pink with a 'Hello Kitty' mural daubed upon it crudely and competently, giving it an unsettling creepypasta vibe. And here he was, a bovine dullard in the copious flesh. John felt momentarily disoriented, thinking for a moment there was a glitch in his simulation, that everything would suddenly pixelate and break up but no he was still immured in this version of reality.

Early thirties it said on her profile but she looks late twenties

"What's your name," croaks John, his throat dry and scorched from the joint earlier.

"Selena."

He told her his name.

"John...John..." she said twice, like she was trying the sound of the word out. He asked her where she was from.

'Ruska Roma.' Selena asked John what he wanted. He told her and counted out 4 twenties. Selena took the notes and left the bedroom, pushing the door shut behind her. John began to undress and Selena rattled around in the tiny kitchen.

They stood naked before the sink in the bathroom despite his protestations he had showered not long ago. Selena was short and petite, about chest high to him, a round pretty face with a slightly bulbous nose,beguiling green eyes, hair cut short into a natural blonde bob, thin lips, fantastic skinny tits and a peachy arse that was a corporeal piece of art. She had a tattoo on her lower back of a butterfly, out of which flowered an ornate spiral pattern. John stroked her shoulders and saw her suppress a shiver of revulsion.

"You've a great body, you should be a model,'' said John nervously, immediately loathing himself for uttering the banality.

Selena laughed and said "Too fat." She was staring at his gut as she said it. Running the cold water tap, she took his half erect prick and held it underneath the flow, scooping water onto his cock end with her free hand. The water was icy and Selena just kept repeating 'That OK?" to which he passively assented as she cleaned his cock.

How sad this all is, he thought, the pair of them caught in life's abject transactional embrace. John felt a little sleepy off the joint now its initial paranoid jolt had lessened. His ennui was dispelled when she shut off the cold water and turned on the hot tap and with no warning stuck his dick under it, in a peremptory manner in total contrast with her previous slightly pedantic concern for the comfort of his prick.

"Fucking hell," said John,'"that tap runs to hot quick." He recoiled with his scorched member in hand. A shy smile danced on her melancholy features.

Selena, with a sudden vigour to her movements that surprised John, sprung on the bed and cheerfully spread her legs, planting the soles of her feet onto the bed. It looked fucking hot. Her blonde pubic push was trimmed into a tiny triangle, a small tattoo of a red rose just to the right hand side to it. There was a gold stud in her clitoral hood and she had neat labia lips. John knew not to kiss her so headed for her breasts.

"No," said Selena, guiding his mouth between her legs.She tasted delicious.

"You hungry, eh? No breakfast huh," said Selena, looking disinterested. Her pussy must be numb, thought John.

"Your turn," said Selena, pushing his head away. Her phone started ringing. She raised a finger.

"One minute." He watched Selena send a text and set her phone to mute. Selena got a condom, some body wipes and a tube of lubricant out of the bedside cabinet.

Selena sucked him off stop start, pausing every few pumps to wipe the saliva off his cock with a body wipe. The erection he had nursed earlier while licking her out had wilted, but if nothing else his bell end was gleaming. She sucked his cock in frantic bursts and John could not really feel anything. The joint he had smoked before entering the building had worn off and now he felt abstracted, the only sensory data he recorded was the musty odour of the room and the pink glare of the 'Hello Kitty' wall. I need to get hard and fuck, he told himself but really he could have just rolled over and had a nap. Sensing the malaise, Selena started to lick up and down the shaft of his cock then rapidly flicked her tongue on his glans, retaining eye contact the whole time. It looked sensational, pure porn.

"Suck my balls."

Selena wagged a finger, "Your balls. Very hairy."

John feared it would be his epitaph.

She took the head of his penis in her mouth and finally built up some momentum. John felt relief flood through him as he hardened again. Selena was concentrating on sucking the crown of his cock hard and John slipped into the groove. As he felt orgasm near he said, "Stop I'm going to come. Sit on my cock."

Selena rolled the condom onto his cock, John gladdened that she had not reached for the lubricant and his hard on hadn't deserted him. She opened her pussy lips and directed his cock into her pussy. It thrilled John to see her slide down his cock and her pussy felt tight. Selena fucked him hard with a vigour that fostered the delusion that this was mutual desire.

"Just one kiss," said John. She pressed her lips tightly against his and abruptly climbed off his cock.

"You like doggy?"

From a tentative start at least John finished with an illusory flourish. He even had a luxury of a few last few slow pokes in her pussy before gearing up for the vinegar stroke, wanting to stay inside her body but Selena kept intoning 'Come...come...'

Fucking her doggy style and staring at her magnificent arse, he thought for the first time this is wonderful, doing this, this is being alive. Yet after the overpowering spasm of orgasm the afterglow had receded as soon as he had peeled the condom off.

"You strong," said Selena.

"Thanks," said John. He appreciated the scaffolding thoughtfully provided for his collapsed ego. She passed him a cardboard pouch to dispose of the condom with, a little envelope you unsealed and then resealed once you had placed the soiled contraceptive inside. John pressed his bare foot on the pedal of the flip top bin and his stomach lurched to see two wraps already residing at the bottom. He feared he had turned himself into a viral hand grenade.

"I'm hungry. Going to make pasta." Selena seemed chirpier and more relaxed, knowing it was all done and he would be on his way soon. As he sweatily dressed a nightmarish feeling of there being only darkness ahead overcame him. The light was definitely behind him, he never thought he would be this creature in his youth. Selena had hastily jumped back into her leggings and was slipping into the hoodie as John struggled to locate his socks.

"You are kind," said Selena, which John took to mean harmless, a safe repeat booking. Selena told him that in two weeks she would be gone and he should visit her before she went and he promised he would. John asked her where she was going.

"I move on," shrugged Selena, "Maybe somewhere here, maybe another country I don't know yet but I go."

As John thanked her at the doorway, Selena scrunched her eyes tightly shut and awkwardly leant into him to awkwardly plant a kiss on his lips. She had an aura of benevolence and decency, an innocence despite working at the coal face of dysfunctional male sexuality. John waved farewell as he passed the bin lockers. Selena stood at the top of the stairs reciprocating his wave and smiling. He turned back for a last glance as he exited the block but she had gone inside.

Selena was as good as her word. John checked all the local listings three weeks later, finally in a position to make his promised return visit, and all her profiles had gone. John wondered where she was holed up now. Moral and ethical issues aside, stripped down sex work was arduous and unpleasant manual labour with numerous health risks both mental and physical, and not just the fucking, there was all the other shit as well, the weird phone calls off punters, missed appointments and the sheer mundanity of hours and hours spent in a mouldy flat in a shithole town waiting for the next customer, always waiting. And the dicks just keep coming and coming, himself included in the number.