Chapter 1
My name is Annette Gallo and I'm a hooker. I have been turning tricks for the past four years, on and off, even though I'm only nineteen years old. I really don't consider myself to be a hooker in the strongest sense of the word, even though I've turned hundreds of tricks over the past several years. I'm a person first and foremost, and the fact that I've turned so many tricks doesn't really entitle people to label me 'hooker,' as far as I can see it. Not that it really turns me off or anything. It's just that there's so many more dimensions to me that this, to me anyway, is just a sideline. I mean, I don't really plan to be turning tricks in a couple of years, say... well, then again I might still be doing it, but I don't think that'll be my main number.
But before I get into telling you about my experiences at hooking, I guess I should tell you a little bit about myself. People say that being a native Californian is a rarity, but that's not the way with my generation. True, my folks, and a lot of people of their generation, came from another place, but many of the kids I grew up with in the San Fernando Valley, a group of suburbs north of downtown Los Angeles, are native born. In fact, we only moved once in my life, and that was just from Van Nuys to Northridge, a distance of only about six or seven miles, when my father decided to buy a bigger home in a better neighborhood. We didn't really need all the extra space at the time, as I was their only child, but my father's promotion at the bank where he works, gave us access to upward mobility, and he wanted me to grow up in a nice neighborhood. They were just beginning to develop Northridge in those days, and the homes were in an upper middle class neighborhood.
At any rate, they hadn't moved into the bigger house because they were expecting a bigger family. As both my brother and I were delivered by C-section, the doctor advised against her having any more kids, but then maybe they made the move because our family was smaller. You see, my kid brother had some kind of childhood disease from birth, I'm still not sure just what it's called as it's sort of rare, but it killed him when he was just three. I was five at the time myself. I think it sort of wiped my parents out when Peter croaked. I think they began to associate the place where we'd lived with him, and that may have been part of the reason for the move. Also, like I've said, my dad was making much more money now that he was managing one of his bank's branch offices, added to the fact that they didn't have to lay out as much for doctor bills as they had been doing- they must've dropped a small fortune on Peter's illness.
My brother's death had a profound influence on me as well as them now that I look back on it, but for much different reasons. I guess a shrink would look over the data and say that I got a guilt complex of some kind over my brother's death, although I would be overstating the case if I said that it affected my entire being that much. Being only a bit over two when he was born, I really don't remember all that much about it. All I .have are these emotional impressions, plus a few memories of when I was a little older. I guess it's a fairly common syndrome to get sort of jealous over a younger child, at least that's what I hear.
It's a fairly classic thing, though, for an older child, particularly an only child like I was up until his birth, to feel somewhat resentful of another child. That's the way I felt anyway. Not a real hatred-in fact, I sort of liked the idea of having a little brother that I could help 'mother,' even though I felt sort of threatened at the same time. I suppose where I really started to feel jealousy for him! came later, maybe a year or so, at the time when my parents discovered that there was something seriously wrong with him. They were taking him to the doctor's all the time, lavishing, at least what seemed to my little mind, more attention on him than me. Of course, I couldn't realize the seriousness of the situation being so small. All I knew was that my folks seemed to be paying more attention to Peter than me, and I felt left out.
I don't think it was a really conscious thing on the part of my folks. It was just that they were so shook up about my brother. Also, I don't want to give the impression that they ignored me totally. But I was no longer the center of attention that I'd been.
When he finally died, I started having all these guilt feelings for awhile, as if I'd been responsible for secretly wanting my parents to pay more attention to me. Not that it was a full-fledged thing-I was too young to really understand. But the glum manner in which my folks went around right after Peter's death, did little to assuage my guilt.
Then too there was the religion thing. My folks, particularly my mother, were devout Catholics. They were a mixture-my dad being a second-generation Italian (no there had been no Mafia ties), my mother Irish. A few words about this:
I guess the reason so many immigrants cling to religion so heavily is due to the fact that it is often their only relief against poverty and oppression. You don't find the rich from Europe immigrating to America, so it's easy to see that they had strongly religious ties to see them through in the old country. Feeling alienation in the new country, this whole pattern continues.
My dad was the first guy in his family to make it through college. His grandfather had to scuffle when he came to Akron, Ohio, and his father became a barber, scrimping to put his two children, my father being the eldest, through college. My dad was torn between the family obligation and his own future after graduating, but he decided to move west after marrying my mother, a girl he'd met in college, Mom dropping out in her freshman year.
Enough family history. The whole thing boiled down to the fact that they felt too guilty about my brother's death, my mom going to Mass all the time, lighting candles. When we moved into our new house in Northridge, my folks decided to enroll me in a parochial school, so I was taught even more about guilt. Luckily for me, my folks got out of this phase after awhile, and they allowed me to change over to a public school when I was in the third grade. In fact, they even stopped going to Mass, except on holidays and special occasions, for what reasons I'm really not sure. I guess the guilt had worn off or something, although they never have really gotten over the fact that their only son had died.
This had a curious effect upon my upbringing. It seemed that my folks got much more protective and strict with me, while at the same time, lavishing more love on me. They weren't real hard on me, not physically anyway-I can only remember one or two spankings, and these were small affairs. But they were overly concerned with my welfare, although I suppose most parents are. Mostly it was nagging, constant nagging. Be sure I wore this, be sure I didn't do that... Jesus, no wonder I'm so fuck- ing neurotic. At the same time, they were overly-indulgent of me, showering me with presents and spoiling me with material things.
This really came out when I grew older and began dating. Up until then, I could remember being pretty normal-playing with the kids and all from the neighborhood. I wasn't particularly fond of school, but I could make good grades without putting much effort into it. I don't remember learning anything sexual until I was eleven or so, and this was just the usual gossip and rumor passed on by peers, my folks never bothering to go into the discussion of sexual things, probably figuring that if it wasn't mentioned it would go away. Oh, my mother finally did give me some lame stories about the first time I menstruated, but it was pretty weak. She wasn't a particularly sexual person herself, and the talk made her uptight.
I was really shocked the first time I bled ... I think I'd just turned twelve. My mother just hadn't prepared me for anything like that, and when I awoke one morning, the sheets flecked with blood, I thought I was going to die. After she'd explained things to me, I was even more confused. She kept interspersing her explanation with things about not doing nasty things with boys and stuff like that, and I really didn't know if she meant that I was bleeding from being around boys. But so far I hadn't even kissed a boy.
All that changed in a hurry.
For some biological or social reason, I began to get very interested in boys not too long after that. And it seemed that they were more than interested in me.
Kids in the Valley began dating at a very early age back then, in fact it's the same today. This was back when the youth movement was sweeping the country-Anti-war, LSD, Marijuana, all was shocking the parents of the nation. My folks didn't like the idea of me going out with boys, but they were unable to stop me as I had become very independent by this time, running with a crowd of girls who were fairly wild that I'd met at my junior high school.
I didn't actually ball anyone until I was thirteen, but I began making out with a lot of guys. My girlfriends, in addition to my own practical experience, more than made up for all the sexual things my mother had failed to tell me. My mother would get all shook up with me, arguing and screaming, whenever I'd go out with a boy, but this only brought out the rebel in me and made me defy her all the more.
My father pretty much stayed out of the hassles, having curiously retreated into himself more and more, still suffering from the fact of my brother's death from what I can tell.
I never took any of the boys very seriously. Like many of the girls my age, I'd just sort of tease them along. I was getting very aware of the fact that my budding body was enough to drive the boys out of their minds. I guess it was sort of an awkward age, and I was really giggly, sharing my innermost thoughts with my girlfriends, Joanie and Linda.
I think I flipped out over several boys during my first year of junior high, judging from looking back at my diary I used to keep, but I never would go all the way with them. My friend, Joanie, had made it with her boyfriend by this time, an older guy who was in high school, but they'd been going steady for just ages and ages... four months or so. I wasn't adverse to getting into sex myself, despite the fear and guilt inside me, and was even anxious to find out what it was all about. But at the same time, I had that romantic thing about wanting to save it for someone special. As it turned out, approaching the end of the school year, I didn't have to wait very long.