Chapter 3
The girls who took up the whore trade have told us various reasons: Romance, adventure, they thought they would find glamour and excitement-and money. Some of them were victims of curious rationalizations.
Some were lazy, like Rosina Scalici. It was easy to get paid for opening your legs. What the hell, that was a cash register down there. Every time a guy pops, it's money in the bank.
Katy Feaster was a money hustler. Katy had everything going for her: nice figure, looks and a come-on smile. She thought that hustling was easy street. She'd clean up and get out. She'd heard about how some dames never got out of the racket, but that wouldn't happen to her. She was smart. Get the dough and get out. Yes sir.
KATY:
"My real mother died when I was about six. I was an only child, and me and Pop were pretty close, I guess. We got along great for about six years, then he got married again.
Jesus, boy, I hated that.
Her name was Sylvia, a yellow haired dame with a flat face and tits to match. I knew she and Pop were running around together, but it floored me when they announced they were getting married. I sure didn't expect a thing like that.
Pop hunted up a cousin to take care of me while he and that woman went on their honeymoon. It was a million years long, the honeymoon.
I had to stay at this cousin's house. They had a boy named Solly, two years older than me. All he had was hands. He had his goddam hands all over me all the time. He was a skinny kid, I remember, with a wart on his hand. He had a long nose and a squint. He used to get me out in the yard and get his finger up in me.
I let him stick his goddam finger in me for a dime, or whatever I could get. Then I'd pretend to come for him while he diddled me. I never did come.
He would drag his cock out and make me hang onto it too. So I held it for him while he jerked it in my hand. A couple times I let him stick it in me. Once for a quarter, that was the most I could get. I think he swiped it from his mom. I didn't like him much.
When they sent me back it was worse. Sylvia acted like I was dirt. Pop didn't hardly notice me any more. I had to work all the time-do this, do that. Jesus Christ I hated her! If it hadn't been for her I wouldn't have had to go to that damn cousin's place. I could have stayed with Pop.
Sylvia was always trying to make fun of me in front of Pop, too. "Isn't she a pretty thing?" she would say, meaning me. Sarcastic as hell.
Pop didn't know what she was doing.
But the thing that really make me scream was listening to them in the bedroom. Our house wasn't so big I couldn't hear them if I wanted to. Sylvia would moan and groan while Pop was doing it to her-Jesus Christ, I thought I'd throw up. Why he could stand to screw her was something I couldn't understand.
Hell, I knew all about screwing. I was twelve. Guys had been fingering me in the crotch for a long time. They did it at school, down where they kept the bicycles, and behind the handball courts, and plenty of times after school. A lot of the girls did it. Some of them went all the way. Once in a while I did too, for dough. Hell, if they wanted it that bad, they could pay for it. That's what old man Dunker said.
Old man Dunker got me in his storeroom the first time and he gave me candy. I was about ten, I guess. I knew about him, because the other girls whispered it. I heard about Dunker's cock a long time before I ever saw it. The first time he gave me candy, then he felt me up. I was used to that.
The second time he felt me, and had me feel him. He had a big long one. "Suck on it," he told me, but I wouldn't do it. "Elinor does," he said.
He gave me stuff, not only candy or ice cream, but jewelry sometimes, lipstick and like that. I let him play with it all he wanted. He got it in me too, not too much, but he did. I was pretty small then. And he finally got me to blow him.
I talked to Elinor about it. She was a kind of a silly one, all she cared about was seeing movies and stuff. Anyway, she was sucking old Dunker all right. She sure didn't mind admitting it. He gave her dough for the movies.
Sylvia and I used to scream at each other. We were always fighting. I don't think Pop realized how much we fought all the time. She was always complaining to him about me. I could hear them in the bedroom, and sometimes she'd cry. She just did it to make him feel sorry for her.
I knew that he loved her more than me. He would come out and get stern with me and lecture me. Jesus Christ if he only knew, really knew, how she was. But the more I told him the less he believed me.
Then he would yell at me for cutting school. He didn't care about me.
But I got even with them. I would cover my ears so I couldn't hear them screwing in the bedroom. And I let old man Dunker stick it in me more often. And then he got a guy to go into the storeroom with me and the guy gave me fifty cents-I dunno who the guy was. But Dunker only took fifteen cents of it.
After that it got easy. I wanted to make a lot of dough so I could get away from them. I did it every time old Dunker wanted me to. I even cut school so I could screw guys. Dunker got me three and four of them an afternoon. I got fifty cents to a dollar. Mostly I got a dollar for blowing them. They called it 'Half and half.' Half screw, half blow job.
A lot of the guys wanted to know if it was fun. I always told them I loved it, but I didn't. It was just a way to get dough. Some of the kids, like Elinor, said they got a big boot out of screwing. But I didn't. I don't know why, I just didn't feel much.
I didn't like to do it much either, to tell the truth, but Jesus Christ, it was the easiest way to make dough. Every guy wanted to stick it in me. So what the hell, let 'em stick.
Blowing them was fastest. Before I dropped out of school, I used to take guys downstairs and blow them for a quarter or whatever I could get, because it was faster than booting it. Besides, it was safer. The guy only had to take it out of his pants. I didn't have to spread, and get in an awkward position that I couldn't get out of quick.
And they shot it real fast when I sucked on them. At first I used to swallow it down; I didn't know any better, because old man Dunker told me to do it that way. He always wanted to come in my mouth, so, not knowing any different, I figured that was the way it was done.
I learned better after a while.
But anyway, I used to blow them by the bike racks mostly. And I usually had three or four waiting. All the guys knew I was the one who would 'do anything,' and I collected pretty good every day. I'd go back to class smelling of jism sometimes. It's a wonder they didn't run me out of class. The guys would giggle and make jokes about me. I didn't like that at first, but old man Dunker said, "Hell, Katy, every time they tell somebody, that's a customer."
So screw it, I let 'em make jokes.
Veda Scalici had a boyfriend, Reddy, and he used to pick me up now and then. He was always after a blow job. He said I did it better than Veda. She and I were about the same age, a couple of months difference maybe. Reddy wanted me to go uptown with him and boot guys in his car, but I was doing all right alone.
I wasn't crazy about Reddy anyway. He was in the mobs and thought he was something. He always carried a gun and I was scared of that. He made me get down in front of him in the car and eat it; and a few times he just pushed me around and wouldn't give me any dough. Sucking on that thing is hard work, for no dough. The son of a bitch. I sure didn't cry when he got his.
Pop found out I was letting guys boot me.
Jesus Christ! He raised the goddam roof. He yelled at me and beat me. And Sylvia said "I told you she was no good-" and like that. That fuckin' Sylvia, I could have killed her.
"You're too goddamned hostile," Pop yelled at me. "She's your mother now, show her a little respect."
"She's not my mother."
"I try to be," Sylvia said in her damn sticky voice. "You just won't let me."
Oh, Jesus, I could have slit her up the middle, k the bitch.
"She hates me," I told them, but Pop never could understand that.
"You don't hafta go laying all over town," he screamed at me. "What kind of girl do you want to be anyhow?"
"I want dough," I shrieked at them, "so I can get outa here."
"But this is your home-" Pop really didn't understand a damn thing. "If you want money, you come to me."
I could have said something to him then, but I held my tongue for once. I wouldn't take his goddam money. Sylvia tried to pet me but I shook her off. I didn't want her damn icky sermons.
And I had trouble at school too. Because I was cutting classes so much, I got called into the office. Miss Giannini was the girl's principal and she gave me hell. She was a sharp nosed old dame, and I got to give her credit, she knew what goes on.
"Katy, you're coming to a bad end-"
"Tell me what I got comin'," I said to her. "I don't need a sermon, I get them at home."
"This isn't a sermon, it's the truth. I know what you're doing-everyone in school knows it. Do you know what happens to girls who do as you're doing?"
"Yeah, they get rich."
"They get disease. You've been lucky, Katy. For God's sake straighten up before you get diseased and your life wrecked."
Jesus, I didn't want to hear all that. She made me sore. Everyone was against me, Pop and the damn school, and everyone. "Lemme alone!" I screamed at her. "I don't want your fuckin' advice-lemme alone?"
It shocked her pretty good. She turned white, and then she sent for the big shot, the principal. He sat me down and gave me a good lecture. I just stared at him. I knew I couldn't do anything. He could make me do anything he wanted, so I just waited and tried not to listen to all that junk he was saying.
Then he sent me home with a note. I tore the note up. Pop gave me hell again.
And Sylvia sat there and smirked at me. Jesus, I hated her.
So I ran away from home."