A Prostitute Quits the First Day of Her Work

The ancient profession is far from being nice and easy

All the information about the job was available on the telephone: the wages would be about $1,000, the first three days would be given as a probation period, so that a girl could see, if it was a good job or not. If a girl was coming from another town, the firm would pay her trip to the capital and back.

"I arrived in Kiev, Ukraine. A man of 30 years old met me at the central railway station. He turned out to be a driver. There was another girl sitting in his car, she came from the city of Kharkov. She was a 25-year-old blond, a pretty one. The man was driving very fast.  When I saw his old car, I was disappointed. I did not understand, that it was just a driver, not the boss. We were driving in Kiev, there were a lot of cars around us. Then we finally approached an old apartment building and went up to the third storey. A man with an ugly belly opened the door. As I found out later, he was one of the main pimps. He was looking at us for quite a while, kept the blond for himself and told the driver to take me to another place.

"The driver took me to another apartment, where I was introduced to a tall man, he was younger than the previous one. It was a three-room apartment, there were two other people in there  - another young man and a very young girl. The tall man asked me to go to his bedroom. In the evening, they took us to the place of our work, somewhere in the center of the city. We stopped somewhere in a nook, near a kindergarten. They left us in the car with the young girl. I was 30 years old, but I looked 25. Other cars were coming too - girls were stepping out of them and then getting in the UAZ vehicle that was parked nearby. It was stuffy in the car, but we were not allowed to get out.

"A woman of 36 years old wearing a track suit came up to our car soon - she was a "madam." As it turned out later, she was supposed to get girls out of various difficult situations and solve problems with the police. She looked us over and asked us to give our passports to her. I was promised that passports would not be taken away from us, but the madam said that she needed our IDs to solve problems with cops. I did not really believe her. Cars were coming and coming, girls were getting out of them - a lot of them were not pretty at all. Soon they gave us the address where we would live and work. When it got dark, they took everyone to a narrow side street between an administrative building and the kindergarten fence. Clients were driving in the side street one by one. It smelled awful, everybody was smoking. I was very nervous, I wanted to drink something, but it was impossible. I was not supposed to go anywhere.

"Girls were divided into three categories according to their prices: $100, $70 and $50. I found myself in the group of $70-girls. When a client was driving up, the madam screamed out the price that a client was able to pay. Girls were supposed to get in line in front of his car. That process seemed absolutely wild to me, so I started thinking of getting out of the place. I have not had an experience of working with pimps, lining up in front of clients' cars. Nobody told me such details, I thought everything would be happening in a more decent way. I was struck to see that with my own eyes. Other girls told me, emergent situations were rather frequent. I learnt that clients would often keep girls for several hours, although they paid only for one or two. In addition to it, I learnt that girls had to work a certain sum of $400 or $500 to get their passports back. The first money would come only in a week. Stories were rather messy, maybe they did not want to tell me the whole truth. I did not believe that I would be earning a thousand bucks a month.

"I did not know, why I decided to do that. Nobody was keeping me in my hometown – I had no husband, no children, no job there. I wanted easy money, an adventure, taking into consideration the fact that I have never been indifferent to sex. I decided to take a risk, but the reality turned out to be disgusting. I had to be there in the line of girls three times that night, but clients would not pick me up for some reason. I was very tired, I could not stand that tobacco smell any longer. I decided to get out of that place. A guy came up to me and asked me if I was a new girl or not. I told him that I would not be able to work under such conditions. He started asking me to stay, but I was persistent. The guy brought me to the madam. She started yelling at me, called me a fool, and then she wondered, which girl had frightened me with silly chatting. I just said that I was not willing to work there. The madam finally gave me my passport back. I have to give credit to pimps – they took me to the railway station with all my stuff. That was the end of my unsuccessful career in the Ukrainian capital.

"I would like to warn the girls, who dream of easy money. The ancient profession is not easy , it is far from being nice.  They treat you like cheap goods that have absolutely no rights. I would advise to think a lot before making such a decision."

Alyona Argo