Chapter 4
How I got this job posing in my skin is sort of interesting, but I suppose I should tell first how I got out of the mess the motorcycle creeps left me in.
What happened was, when I woke up that morning-my second in New York City-I felt pretty good again. Sore and bruised and ravished, of course, but pretty good.
I took another hot bath, looked around the loft for food-which I didn't find-then sat down to think. The summer dress I'd worn to New York was all torn to shreds-little shreds-so I couldn't wear that. On the other hand, I couldn't very well go out on the street naked!
The creeps had left my handbag-minus what was left of my thirty dollars, of course-but that was all.
No matter. I was alive, which was what counted most. Also I had my health. Thank heavens I was unimpregnable, physiologically speaking. I mean, being ravished by thirty boys is bad enough, but if I'd had to file a paternity suit against thirty John Does well....
Well, I still had shoes. And, after about five hours of hard work, I made a kind of shift-type dress out of some old monk's cloth crutains I found in the loft. It was a pretty lousy dress, and since I didn't have needle and thread it was just a wrap-around, but with some cord I cut from a Venetian blind and threaded through it I got it to stay up.
I tied my hair into a pony tail, put on my shoes, and made tracks.
I thought about staying in the loft, at least to sleep, but I didn't know who they'd "borrowed" it from, and I didn't fancy being arrested as a burglar or something. Also, the door had the kind of lock that has to be opened with a key, which I didn't have.
So I just got the heck out. Out on the street people kind of looked at me and my monk's cloth dress in a funny way, but I didn't let that bother me. I just asked the first person I met which way was Greenwich Village, and then started walking that way.
And in about ten blocks there I was-in Sheridan Square, the Heart of the Village. Or so I'd read.
On the way I'd remembered something. Today was the tenth of August-which meant it was my sixteenth birthday. Well, I thought, if something nice doesn't happen to me today, nothing ever will.
Thus cheered I walked into the first bar I saw and ordered a bottle of beer. The bartender gave me a sorta fishy look, like he didn't figure I was eighteen-which is the drinking age in New York State-but after glancing around the place he slid a glass and a bottle of beer across the bar.
I pretended to look in my handbag, which was empty, of course.
"My goodness," I said. "I seem to have left my pad in the Village without any money."
"That's okay, girlie," said the bartender, pulling the bottle of beer back. "You just trot home and get some bread. I'll keep your beer cold for you."
Well! I gave him a Look. First a dirty look, to make him feel small. Then a friendly look, to make him feel generous.
"No use shoving your boobs at me," said the bartender, flicking a thumb at my breasts, which were kind of oozing out of the top of the dress I'd made, "I don't go for that kind of stuff. I'm gay."
I looked at him with interest. I'd never met a real pansy before. He looked just like a normal man; and I told him so.
He smiled. "Thanks, little girl. I guess. That straight goods about you forgetting the bread?"
I shook my head. "I don't have any money at all. I-I'm looking for a job. I ran away from home with thirty dollars but some-some people took it all."
The bartender looked at me again, nodded slowly, shrugged, then slid the bottle of beer back across the bar. He turned to the cash register, rang it up, turned back. "Here's the change from your five," he said loudly, and slapped four dollars and fifty cents in front of me.
Which taught me my first lesson in the big city second lesson, I should say. Namely, that gay boys can be very nice to girls if they want to be.
I thanked him and put the four-fifty in my handbag and took a sip of beer. Then I looked around the bar. It was early in the day, about noonish, and there weren't many people. A couple guys with beards playing chess at a table, a pair of girls in tight black pants and black sweaters drinking beer and mooning at each other like they were in love or something, and a sad looking guy with a handlebar mustache frowning at his beer glass.
If this is Greenwich Village, I thought, it's sure tame. Only maybe it gets livelier at night. Which is true, I learned later.
I sipped more of my beer. Pretty soon the bartender strolled back and said, "What kind of job you lookin' for?"
"Any kind," I said.
"Ever wait tables?" he asked.
"Huh?" I said.
"Ever wait on tables. Like in a coffee house." I shook my head.
"Too bad. The San Demo is short a chick, I hear. But they want experience."
"Well," I said, thinking of the gang job I'd been through, "I've had a lot of experiences. Only not waiting on tables."
The bartender frowned, looking thoughtful. "Ever model?"
I shook my head.
The guy polished the top of the bar, frowning at my breasts which-like I said-were kind of sneaking out the top of my homemade dress. "Willing?" he asked.
I swallowed hard. "You mean ... nude modeling?" Even while I said it I wondered why I was acting so shy and all. I mean thirty guys had not only seen me nude but had ravished me just a while ago. So I said quickly, "I'm willing to try, yeah."
The bartender nodded, like he'd figured I'd be willing, and then he moved down the bar and started whispering to the fellow with the handlebars.
Pretty soon they both came over to me, and the one with the mustache took a stool next to me. "This is Joe Janaro, the famous painter," the bartender said.
"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," I said. "My name is Sharon Chablis."
The famous painter didn't even both looking up. He just kept studying my boobs, which, truth to tell, were almost all the way out the top of my dress. I thought about trying to pull the thing up, but I decided that would appear too prudish.
"Joe," the bartender went on, "uses a lot of models."
I opened my mouth to ask how he used them, but then I shut it again. Like, who cared how he used them, just so he paid?
"For himself," the bartender went on, "and for the classes he teaches. Right now he's having trouble. The models have organized unions, you know, and Joe can't afford union rates. You aren't union, are you?"
"Me?" I gasped. "I'm from Maine. Where I come from they taught us all about unions in high school. Like, all the unions want to do is exploit the poor capitalists. I've been taught to hate unions."
The fellow with the mustache raised his eyes to mine then, and smiled faintly. "Speaking as a former radical, I deplore your statements. Speaking as an exploiter of the masses, your words are music to my ears. Dollar an hour?"
The bartender cleared his throat.
"All right!" snarled Joe Janaro. "Dollar seventy-five."
"Deal!" I said.
Joe took out a piece of paper, scribbled an address, handed it to me. "Tonight. Seven sharp."
He looked me in the eye again, winked, slid his right hand quickly down inside my homemade dress, found my right nipple, squeezed it affectionately, then got up and went out.
"Gosh," I said. "Me an artist's model!"
"Don't let it throw you," said the bartender. "Joe's an okay guy, but what he's paying you is murder. Still, if you need the bread bad, it's the price of a meal. Don't make a habit of working for one-seventy-five, though."
I nodded. "Right. And how can I ever repay you?"
"With money," said the bartender. "See you around." And he went down the bar to talk to a young man with curly blond hair and long eyelashes who'd just come in.
Me, I finished my beer, left a quarter tip, and went out to wander around the Village.
It was sure interesting. Heaps of young men with beards and dirty, paint-streaked trousers, and girls in tight pants and so on. Artistic, you know. I walked around and around the Village, after stopping at a newspaper office-The Village Vice, it was called-to get a free map. Before I knew it I'd spent most of my four fifty on beer and hamburgers, and it was almost seven o'clock.
I headed toward the address Janaro had given me. It was on Horatio Charles Street, and I found it without any trouble. A sign on the door said, Life Classes-Voluptuous Female Nudes, Yours For the Painting.
And in I went. Voluptuously.
Inside was a big bare room with maybe twenty men and girls sitting around with sketch pads. A thin young man walked up to me.
"Two dollars for the first hour," he said, "and a dollar an hour after that. Class ends at eleven."
"I'm the mode!" I said.
"Oh," he said, looking me up and down with interest. "This way." And he led me through a door to a tiny room with a mirror and a chair and a hook to hang clothes on.
"I'm the monitor," he explained. "When I call, model! you come out. Hang your dress there." He pointed at the hook. Then he went out, closing the door behind him.
Well! Was I every excited! My first job-and a modeling job at that! What a sophisticated way to start my career in the big city!
I took off my homemade dress and hung it on the hook. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked pretty good, I had to admit. True, I was still a bit pink in places where the motorcycle creeps had whacked me with their belts, but all in all I looked pretty voluptuous.
I put on some lipstick, added a touch to my nipples, then settled back to wait. Pretty soon I heard the monitor guy call "Model!" And out I went.
I felt a bit funny, to tell the truth. I mean, sure, boys had seen me without any clothes on-lots of them, if you included the motorcycle club but this was the first time I'd posed professionally in the nude.
Everybody in the room was staring at me. Admiringly, I presumed. I walked up to the monitor and smiled.
"It's customary," he muttered, "for the model to wear a robe-her own or the one hanging on the back of the door-until she mounts the stand.
However ... This way."
And he led me to a raised wooden stand.
"Let's try a standing pose," he said, "like this." And he struck a pose, standing with all his weight on one foot and his shoulders kind of slanted. I took the same pose. "Fine," he said. "Now just hold that for half an hour."
Which I did. And believe me, it wasn't easy! I'd read paperback books about models who posed nude, the model just kind of lounged on a couch for a few minutes and then some lusty male artist would lunge at her.
The real thing is much different, believe me. Like your muscles start to ache. And you itch and want to scratch. And hours and hours go by. By the time you've stood in one pose for ten minutes it feels like ten days!
After a while-when I'd got my balance good-I began to let my eyes slide around the class. I'd expected to find lots of young, handsome artists leering at me with passion in their eyes. But no. For one thing, half the students were girls. For another, all the students were busy sketching. They just glanced up at me from time to time, and then like I was an object. They might have been sketching a hunk of stone, for all the lust in the glances they gave me.
After half an hour the monitor tossed a robe at me and yelled, "Okay. Break."
I put the robe around me and climbed down from the stand. Joe Janaro showed up about then, and began wandering around the room making sarcastic comments about the drawings. To hear him talk they were all lousy. I sneaked a look at some of the sketches, and I had to admit he had a point.
What a letdown! I mean, here I was posing in the nude, and nobody cared a hoot about how sexy I looked. All they cared about was half-tones and shadings and lines and stuff.
After a few minutes the monitor called me back on the stand and I posed some more. Quick poses this time, just five minutes for each one-standing or sitting or kneeling or reclining on a couch.
The class sketched like mad. Me, I felt like yawning.
So this was the wild life nude models led. Some wild life! All that happened was your muscles started aching, or you itched where you couldn't scratch.
And so it went until eleven o'clock. Then Janaro stifled a yawn, called, "That's all. Wrap up for the night, kids." And my first nude posing session was over.
Big deal!
I'd always dreamed about posing in the nude for bona fide artists, but in my dreams I'd been blushing and feeling nervous while some burning-eyed hero dabbed at a canvas with his brush, and then lunged at me for some bona fide fun.
I went back to the little dressing room and started combing my hair. A moment later the monitor came in-without knocking. I glared at him.
"Don't you have any knuckles?" I asked.
"Relax," he said. "I've had plenty of chance to see what you look like naked. Here's your pay." He handed me an envelope. I opened it. Seven dollars.
"What's the matter," said the monitor, smiling at me in a nasty kind of way. "Not enough dough?"
"I'll say not," I said. "That was work."
He nodded, took out a cigarette, lit it. "Right. A girl ought to make more than a buck seventy-five for posing naked, right?"
I just nodded, still combing my hair. I hadn't bothered putting on my dress, since like he said, he'd already seen me nude plenty.
"Don't be so high-hat, Sharon," said the monitor. "My name's Wilbur. My friends call me Will."
"I'd just as soon call you Wilbur," I said.
"Don't be that way," said Wilbur. "Those lousy painters bug you? Don't blame you. They don't care a damn about feminine beauty. They'd just as soon sketch a wart hog as a gorgeous dish like you. Lines, planes, compound curves: that's all they care about. The creeps."
Well, I had to smile. Like at least he appreciated the fact that I was voluptuous.
"That's the spirit," said Wilbur. He lowered his voice. "I could tell right off you weren't like most of the models we get here-snobs and snooty dames. Willing to do anything for an artist-for a couple bucks an hour-but too stuck-up to pose for photographers. What's the matter with photography? Ain't that an art?"
"Sure," I said. "Do photography models make more money?"
Wilbur winked. "I'll say they do. Even the real prudes can make five bucks an hour. Swingers can make maybe ten, fifteen, even twenty."
"An hour?" I gasped.
Wilbur glanced behind him, nodded. "You bet. Don't let these doodlers snow you. They'll tell you photographers are a bunch of creeps. Hell! Photographers are swell guys. Swingers, you know what I mean? I didn't, but I nodded my head. Twenty dollars an hour....
Wilbur lowered his voice even more. "I know a photo studio that's hummin' right now. Care to trot over there with me? You can maybe make fifty, a hundred bucks yet tonight. Clean, easy money. Okay?"
'You bet," I said, climbing into my homemade dress. "Lead the way."
And he did.
The photo studio wasn't more than a block away. But what a difference! Like, there were hardly any women at all-just a couple beefy-looking females looked a lot like men. All the rest of the customers were real men.
Lusty-eyed, wet-lipped men. With sweat popping out on their foreheads.
They were all clustered around this wooden stand where a blonde chick with big hips and droopy boobs was posing. She was posing flat on her back, and the guys around the stand were taking flash pictures from every angle. And I mean every angle!
Wilbur disappeared for a minute, and came back with a fat, greasy-looking guy wearing glasses and smoking a cigar.
"This is the dish," Wilbur said. "Fresh from Maine and never been photographed nude. Real eager for a quick buck, too."
I opened my mouth to make an angry reply, then stopped. What the heck? He was right. I smiled sexily at the fat man with the cigar. He was the boss, I figured.
He looked me up and down. "You got the shape," he grunted, chewing on his cigar. "You ain't some kind of nut, are you?"
"Certainly not," I said.
He leered at me. "I mean, you ain't no fanatic about showing guys what you got? You don't mind a few guys taking pictures of this and that-or maybe some other things?"
"Oh, no!" I said, getting kind of excited and tingly inside. This is it, I thought. This is the kind of posing I've dreamed about.
"Okay," said the fat man. "Soon as droopy-boobs gets off the stand, on you go. And don't go gettin' shy on me. You get paid for how you perform, remember that. The customers like you, they tip big. They don't like you, you get the minimum: buck an hour. It's up to you. This way."
I followed him into a dingy dressing room. Another girl, a bleary-eyed brunette, was hooking up her bra when we walked in. She looked me up and down. "Welcome, sucker," she sneered.
The fat guy reached out and smacked her across the face.
"Get lost, Betty," he said in a real cold voice. "Go buy a quick fix. Beat it."
Betty gave him a sullen look, buttoned up her blouse and flounced out.
"Here," said the boss. "Try this costume on for a start. And if the customers want it off, take it off. You got only one rule to remember here: the customers are always right. Also, they tip-or don't tip."
The costume was a bikini-a real small bikini, all covered with spangles. It looked keen!
I pulled my dress over my head and started to pull on the sparkly panties. Wilbur and the man with the cigar just stood there kind of leering.
"She's got a shape, huh boss?" said Wilbur.
"Stop sweatin'," snarled the boss, mopping some sweat off his brow. "You'll get your cut. You're okay, Sharon," he said to me. "You're great, in fact-for a rank amateur. Maybe you and me'll have a little ... talk-after closing, huh? Like that?"
"Oh yes," I said, figuring right off he meant to jump me; and deciding I'd better let him, since he was the boss.
I fastened the bra of the spangled bikini and smiled at him. A real sultry smile, the way those French girls smile in the sexy foreign movies.
"Yeah," said the fat man. "Just the way I-I mean my clients-like 'em. How old are you, kid? Never mind, I'd as leave not know. But if you've got more years than a pound has ounces, I'll eat-well, I'll eat somethin'." He licked his fat lips and studied the lower portion of my jazzy costume.
At that moment a gong sounded, and a moment later the fat girl who'd been posing slouched into the room." Goons!" she snarled. "Real goons out there tonight. One slob got his thumb all the way...." She noticed me for the first time, looked me up and down.
"Well, Sam," she said to the man with the cigar, "what cradle did you rob her from?"
"You got a complaint?" asked Sam, chewing on his cigar. "You want a fat lip, maybe?"
The fat girl shrugged. "No complaints, Sam." She shot me a quick look. A real complex look. Like, I'm no psychologist or anything, but if a girl every looked amused and contemptuous and jealous and a bit sad all at once, that was how the fat girl-not that she was really fat-looked at me.
"You're on," said Sam. "Go out there, climb on the stand, and do what they ask. Got that?"
I nodded and trotted into the studio. A big chorus of catcalls and whistles greeted me. "That's more like it," yelled one guy with sweat all over his face. "Come on, girlie, we won't bite you. Not right off, that is."
I smiled and kind of wriggled my way through to the posing stand. I had to admit Sam's customers appreciated my femininity. They pawrd me and pinched me and patted me like mad all the way to the stand.
On the stand I kind of hesitated. "Kneel down," yelled somebody. "Do a kneeling pose first."
I knelt down, sat on my heels, threw my chest out and smiled-just like the girls in the pin-up magazines I'd studied. Thank heaven I'd studied lots of men's magazines back in Denaquid. I knew heaps of sexy poses to get into.
The guys clustered around leered and grinned and started snapping pictures. A few flash bulbs went off, but not many. I decided the rest were using real fast films. (Later on I realized most of them didn't even have film in their cameras, but right then I didn't appreciate this fact.)
I posed for a while sitting on my heels with my breasts jutting out and my arms folded behind my back, then some guy said, "Lean back a little, baby like this...." And he cupped a hand under one of my breasts and pushed back.
Well! I knew right off photographers aren't sup posed to ever touch a model. On the other hand, I figured this wasn't the kind of studio where photographers followed the rules.
So I just grinned and put my arms behind me and leaned back. The men moved around me, clicking cameras and drooling.
"Spread the gams a little, huh?" said a guy.
I wriggled my legs wider apart.
"Take off that bra, huh kid?" said a man with drops of sweat in his eyebrows.
I winked at him. "You want it off, take it off yourself."
That got me a cheer-and some jeers directed at the guy who'd asked. He blushed and backed off, but after the guys around him kept jeering and telling him not to be so chicken, he reached his hands under my back and fumbled loose the bra strings.
He yanked the bra loose, and another cheer went up. Sort of a cheer, that is; in all truth it sounded like a lot of hungry animals sighting their dinner. Kind of a lusty growl, you know.
The guys snapped more pictures-or went through the motions. After a bit another guy called out, "Lie on your back, huh?" I did so. "Look at that!" gasped another guy. "They don't sag a bit."
Well, I had to feel a bit proud. I mean, I knew from personal experience that when I lay on my back my breasts just jutted up toward the ceiling without lolling to one side the way most girls' do. But knowing something all by myself and having a lot of men comment admiringly on same were two different things. Believe me!
Pretty soon-as I'd been expecting-some guy said, "How about those panties, baby? You wanna take 'em off?"
I grinned at him, remembering what Sam had said about tips. "No," I said. Moans. "But if you want to take them off, go ahead." Cheers.
The guy who'd spoken wasn't as shy as the first fellow. He just leered and reached for my hips. I lifted them clear of the stand so he could pull the panties down easily. It sure took him long enough! He was all thumbs and fingers-'not by accident, either. He just about seduced me pulling those bikini pants off.
He got a big cheer when he got 'em off, though. Or maybe the cheer was for me, on account of they were glad to know I was a bona fide redhead.
I put my legs together real prim-until some guy said, "Spread 'em a little, baby, huh?"
So I spread 'em, and the cameras clicked like popcorn.
A guy asked me to roll on my back. I did so, and still the cameras clicked. Another guy asked me to turn on my side, and I did that; more camera clicks.
Then they asked me to stand, legs together, then legs apart; they asked me to kneel; then crouch; then sit; then lie on my back again with my legs in the air ... And so on.
In a way it was exhausting, shifting poses so often. But in another way it was fun. Like, the men really appreciated everything I was doing. Not like the painters I'd posed for earlier. These guys got a sexual kick out of having me pose in different positions, and listening to them gasp and grunt and sigh kind of turned me on. Like, I'm not made of stone or anything. ATI girls like to be appreciated, physically speaking. And me more than most.
Finally they had me pose on my back again, with my legs even wider apart than before. But not wide enough to suit them. A man with red hair-who'd been sipping from a pint bottle on the sly, I'd noticed yelled, "Wider, baby. Like this!" And he grabbed my thighs and pushed.
"Easy, friend," said Sam, coming over and tapping the red-haired guy on the shoulder. "Don't rough up the body."
"Aw, relax," said the guy. "She ain't complainin', are you baby?"
I shook my head. What the heck, I was enjoying myself!
Sam shrugged. "So have fun."
More cameras clicked. You'd think they'd never seen a young girl with a voluptuous figure lying on her back with her legs like that, the way they kept snapping pictures-or pretending to.
Me, I closed my eyes and relaxed. Just then I felt something short, cold and steely prod me where a girl's sensitive to being prodded.
"Hey, Gus," somebody yelled, "you don't need a light meter there!"
But he swore he did, and then a few others did too. Some of 'em didn't even have meters! So, I thought to myself, it must be true what they say about photographers: that nine out of ten are more interested in sex than photography. What a swinging profession! Or hobby. Non of this art-for-art's-sake bilge like with painters; these guys are hip. Or else perverts. Either way though, they were like alive. And appreci ative of my charms.
Finally-and about time!-the session ended. Sam came out and yelled, "That's it, guys. Pack up for the night."
He leaned over and whispered in my ear, "You want 'em to tip you, baby, say you want tips."
I nodded. I might be from a small town, but I didn't want anybody to think I wasn't quick to pick up big city ways.
I wiggled into a sort of sitting position, my legs crossed and my arms kind of holding my breasts close together.
"You want to tip me," I said real loud, "go ahead. I need the money. Five-dollar bills up here...." I nodded down at my breasts, "and ten dollar-bills there."
They laughed, and one or two clapped, kind of sarcastic like. But pretty soon a couple guys shoved a five-dollar bill between my boobs, and then the fellow with red hair came up with a ten and slid it right where I'd suggested. After that they all started crowding around and shoving money at me.
Inside of a minute I had money sticking out of my mouth and heaven knows where else.
And then Sam yelled, "That's it fellows. Beat it! We're closing!"
And everybody-except Sam-left.
Me, I counted my money. Eighty-five dollars!
Sam leered at me. "Make out okay, kid?"
"I'll say," I said. "Can I have my salary now?"
Sam swore. "Money hungry," he snarled. "All you chicks are money hungry."
Nevertheless he counted out some money and shoved it at me. Four dollars.
"Hey," I said. "This is only four dollars!"
"Buck an hour, I pay," said Sam. "You started at midnight, it's four a.m. now. What you kickin' about You must have made sixty bucks easy."
I nodded. I didn't have anything to complain about. Heck I'd made eighty-nine dollars, counting my salary. Just for four hours of fun.
"Kid," said Sam, unbuttoning his shirt, "you're wasting your time in a racket-I mean profession like this." He took off the shirt, started undoing his trousers. "You like a little action, you can make a lot more." He started tugging down his trousers. It didn't take long. He wasn't wearing any shorts, either.
"Yep," he said, stubbing out his cigar, "Sam's the man who can steer you to the big money-if you're not a prude, that is." All the way naked now-and kind of fat and repulsive-he reached for me. "If you cooperate with me, that is."
So I cooperated. Why not? He was my boss, and this paperback book, I'd read. Advanced Personnel Practices, said a girl who's anxious to get ahead should be willing to play ball with her boss.
So I played ball with Sam.
Of course, I didn't know then all the kinds of ballgames Sam had in mind.