The Hen House — Ch.2

The Hen House – Ch.2

Jessica Comes Onboard
By reddear

On the Beach of the East Bay

I’m Jessica. As in Mitford, though that’s not my last name. My parents teach at UCB, and it’s a Berkeley thing. It could have been worse, but they never met Emma Goldman.

I just finished a journalism degree at Stanford which, I delight in reminding my parents, has a better reputation for such things than UCB. I interned at a newspaper in the East Bay during the summer between my Junior and Senior years, and I’ve been engaged in the game of trying to persuade them to hire me for several months. Practically, this means phoning the under-editor who supervised me last summer and wheedling them into giving me another follow-up follow-up interview every three weeks or so – whereat three or four members of some board whose name I haven’t been able to work out make encouraging noises about how much they’re impressed with me and assure me that they have great hopes of ‘bringing you onboard’ someday. I’ve heard that they have great ambitions of netting a Pulitzer, or three, and they want to corner all the talent they can – cheap. Sort of like a bottom-of-the-league sports team.

I hoped that was about to change when they called me yesterday and set up an urgent meeting this morning. This time the Features Editor, my mentor, a 40ish senior reporter named Catherine (not Cathy – last name classified), a 30ish guy photographer who wasn’t named and I were present.

“Welcome, Jessica,” the Features Editor (henceforth FE) began. “We’ve called you in because we’re planning to do in in-depth piece of investigative reporting, and we’re considering taking you onboard, conditionally, because we think you may be a good fit and a valuable member of the team.”

“Gag,” I thought, “does any senior editor in the world really talk such drivel? What reporting isn’t investigative?”

“The subject is legalized prostitution in Nevada. It will be a multi-part series and Catherine will be the lead reporter. She’ll cover the legal angle, history, and with some help she’ll interview some illegal prostitutes in Reno and Las Vegas and elsewhere. The focus will be on legal brothels, though, and the women who work there. I’ll let her tell you a little about her ideas”

“It has been suggested that women who work in the legal brothels are little better than white slaves. It’s been said that the brothel owners collude with the girls’ pimps outside the brothel because it makes the girls more controllable, and that working there is nothing but, in effect, signing a contract to be raped. The prostitutes are confined for weeks at a time, not allowed to live in the county where they work and are nickel-and-dimed out of much of their fifty percent of their gross earnings, being charged for lodging, housekeeping, food, condoms and sexual supplies. We intend to investigate this injustice and blow the lid off. It’s as simple as that.”

“Where we think you may be able to help, Jessica, is by infiltrating one or more of the brothels,” the FE said.

“Your youth and attractiveness should let you apply to work as a prostitute. The way the law works is that each prostitute must have a health check once a month and be checked for AIDS once a year. The health check is basically a pap smear and the AIDS check involves laboratory blood work. We’re told that results of the lab work generally take about three days to be processed and be returned to the local Sheriff’s Department so that Work Cards may be issued. Most of the women applying for Work Cards come from out of state and stay in the brothel for several days waiting for their cards to come through. You can see where this is going. If you were to go to a brothel and apply for a card you would have several days to befriend the women working there and find out from them the secret of what’s happening in such places.

“If you’re willing to take on the position of inside investigator we are prepared to offer you a three-month contract, renewable by mutual consent and contingent upon the success of your mission.”

“God,” I thought, “somebody’s been watching too many 60s TV adventure capers.” But I said,” Yes, I think I’d be interested.” After barely three more tedious hours I had a job, or was gaffed – in the FE’s fishing metaphor.

…………

Armargosa Valley

On Monday about a week later I pulled my old and battered car, with its California plates, into the gravel parking lot of the Hen House Too near Armargosa Valley, Nevada — conveniently located between Death Valley National Park and the Nevada Test Site about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Cunning agent that I was, I’d scraped off the Stanford parking stickers. There was a surprisingly professional and grammatical website with an Employment link, and I’d simply sent an email saying that I was interested in a job. Within hours I got a reply from the Manager (unnamed) saying that yes, they were looking to hire “girls” and suggesting that I pick a day within the next week or so and show up for an interview at noon. I suggested the next Wednesday and my appointment was confirmed an hour later. The plan was that if the tests took three days to come back I’d have all weekend to interrogate the working girls before doing a bunk. Brothel keeping was obviously run much more efficiently than the newspaper business.

The place looked to be a 50’s vintage trading post (Indian Jewelry 73 miles. Cold drinks! See the rattlers!!) with four stuccoed arches, and a mish mash of trailers and modular units behind a six-foot cyclone fence. A barbed wire arbor funneled me to the Entrance — Push Button and I was let into a knotty pine bailey (seemingly without murder holes in the ceiling) and through another door into a large lounge in the midst of remodeling, full of mirrors and deep cheap burgundy carpeting. It was probably better than the green shag it had replaced, once. The person who let me in was Tammy, a buoyant twenty-something blonde. After she told me her name she confirmed mine. “You’re Jessica. Sorry about the mess. We’re still moving in and getting rid of all the disco dancing crap. I’ll take you to see Joan.” If she was a good example of the girls who worked here, there went the oppressed sex slave angle of the story.

She led me through some confusing jogs to the older stucco building and then into a large white plastered office with oxblood tiles on the floor. Pointing to a cowhide-covered sofa she said, “Have a seat. Joan’ll be here in a minute.”

Joan was tall, confident and striking. Dressed in freshly pressed khaki shorts and a safari shirt, she was slim, athletic and large-breasted. She looked only a little older than I was, and like a patently successful businesswoman.

Shaking my hand, she said, “Hello, Jessica, it’s good to meet you. Would you like a cold drink of something?”

“Maybe an iced tea if you have any.”

“Sure,” she said, getting one from a small bar refrigerator. “So tell me a little about yourself and why you think you might want to work here. “

“Well,” I said, “I went to junior college in San Jose for a year and a half, but then my mom got sick and now I want to make some money and pay off my student loans and help my mom out and then go back to school, I guess. I’ve never done anything like this before but, really, I need the money and I think I could make enough here so that I wouldn’t have to wait so long to go back to school. I’m not very experienced about sex, but I’m not very shy and I think I could do it.”

“You’re certainly pretty enough,” Jessica, “and as long as you’ve made the drive here you may as well come with me to the county seat and do some paperwork and such. I have business in Tonopah this afternoon, so you can ride along with me and we’ll file your papers for a Work Card and get your health check. They’ll each cost fifty dollars, but the House will pay for them. It’s take a few days to do the medical stuff and get your card, so you can hang around and look things over and see if it’s for you. It’s a bit of a drive but we’ll get a chance to get acquainted on the way. I’ll make a call to confirm your health check and we can get going.”

A few minutes later in the car, a little Mercedes, she said,” The reason it’s called the Hen House Too is that the original Hen House is near Beatty, about 26 miles down the road. Rusty and Faye, whom you may or may not meet today, bought the place five years ago and I started working for them two years ago as their accountant/bookkeeper. I was a year out of UNLV with degrees in accounting and computer science and desperate for a job. Six months ago the original Hen House — the home place, as Rusty calls it – was doing very good business and there was a chance to buy out an operation in Armargosa Valley that was going bust and I bought in as a partner and moved here to manage the place. You’ll be amused when you meet Rusty, so I won’t spoil the treat for you. We’re open for business now, but as you saw we’re still refurbishing and staffing. We’re always hiring because the business keeps expanding. I think that’s largely because we’re efficient, but mostly because we treat the girls better than anyplace else, so they find out about us by word of mouth and want to come work here. I’ll tell you more about the pay and benefits later, but after your drive I suppose you might like to put your seat back doze off a bit. I’ll wake you when we get to Tonopah.” And I soon did.

Filling the papers at the Sheriff’s Department didn’t take long, and the doctor turned out to be a woman gynecologist named Sybil Hauser. She was in her mid-30s and quite pleasant; she obviously wasn’t contemptuous of working girls, and after the exam she asked me if I was on birth control. I wasn’t and I told her so. Then it struck me that I’d have to go on it to stay in character. That’s when I found out about Lybrel, a low-dosage daily pill that suppressed periods altogether. Not being a Cosmo reader I’d never heard of it, but I signed up on the spot and she gave me a sample packet. I’d believe it when I saw it. Maybe it came with free magic beans.

We had a late lunch at a family Mexican place and then headed back. Joan decided that we had time to stop briefly at the home place and I got to meet Rusty and Faye. He was a big, handsome 40ish guy and when I saw him I immediately thought “drugstore cowboy,” a term I didn’t know I knew. Fay was a pretty blonde in her mid to late 30s, and she spent a large part of her time riding herd on her cowpoke’s enthusiasms. I was grinning when we left for Armargosa.
“He was actually a commercial realtor in Las Vegas for years,” Joan said, “and he met Faye in a house near here. He’s really quite shrewd, and I love them both, but if he ever wants to make me line dance with him it’ll cost him dearly.”

We got back to the Hen House Too just at dinner time. It was cafeteria style and quite good. I sat with Joan and Tammy and five other girls and started to plan my interrogations. I started to feel guilty about it but, hey, it was my job. Then we moved my luggage and laptop into my room in one of the modular units. There was wifi and Tammy gave me a card with the code on it. Each girl’s room had a card on the door with her name in ink. Mine was in pencil, so I assumed that I was on probation. I was tired after driving and riding all day, but I spent an hour writing up my notes and then sent them, encrypted, to Catherine using a secure program designed to protect me on public connections in places like Starbucks and airports. I was asleep by 8:00 o’clock.

…………

The next morning I was up early and there was fruit and juice available in the kitchen. I didn’t meet anybody else until around 10:00, when girls started trickling in. Tammy made a point of introducing me as a new girl and I tried to be subtle as I started talking to various girls about life in the Hen House Too. Unfortunately, for my purposes, they all seemed to like the place, though when I got some of them to talk about their experiences elsewhere I began to see that Catherine’s horror stories were probably partially true. I began to confirm my impression that if I was going to dig up dirt I was in the wrong house, or it’s garden. The FE must have affected my talent for metaphor.

I got to wander around and I met the bartender, the maid, the cook and, unfortunately, some carpenters and carpet layers who leered at me as if they were picking out choice cuts. Tammy was everywhere, bubbly and irrepressible, and she and Joan explained that although each girl was considered an independent contractor, there was a system of individual bank accounts where a portion of wages accumulated and were used to make quarterly 1099 payments. The house also helped keep track of deductible expenses and had an investment fund of some kind. Finance is one of my many weak points and I took their word for it. Somehow the day went by, and after dinner when things started getting busy for the night’s business I felt a bit left out as I went back to my room to write up my notes and send them off. I’d managed to learn everybody’s name, but I noticed that one door had a card for Nicole, whom I hadn’t met. I surfed the web and went to sleep.

The next day, Friday, was much the same and I was starting to get bored, but I was determined to stick out it for the weekend before I did a bunk, to get whatever story there might be. I found that Tammy was unofficially the head girl and had come here with Joan from Beatty. Tammy was genuinely and wearingly vivacious. They seemed great friends.

Tammy decided that I was getting bored, so she’d come up with a plan to let me get a feel for what went on in the House after dinner, though of course I couldn’t join in because I didn’t have a Work Card. She would dress me up in lingerie and I could hang around the bar and the edges of the lounge and get a feel for what went on. I was reluctant, but I managed not to let it show, and I knew that I needed to get firsthand experience of how a brothel worked if I was going to write about it. So after dinner I went to her room and she found me a voluminous but fairly modest baby doll nightie to wear and then did my makeup and gave me some low mules for footwear.

I haven’t described my appearance yet, but I guess I should now. Although it embarrasses me to admit it, because I’m determined to succeed in life using my brains instead of my body, I actually look like a stereotypical California surfer girl: blonde, 5’7”, 36-25-37, 125 lbs. with C-cup breasts. There, you have it: the full catastrophe. I’ve been slouching, dressing down, hiding from boys and holing up in my room studying since I was thirteen. Now when I looked at myself in Tammy’s full length I saw a brainless bombshell. Damn it, this was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. When this was over maybe I’d cut my hair to a buzz cut and turn dyke. Lipstick dyke with my luck, I supposed. My homegirl Gertrude would disown me. But duty called and there was nothing for it but to grin and go out with Tammy into the business end of the brothel.

We went to the bar and each had a glass of something pretending to be champagne. Tammy warned me that working nights were long and it was a very bad idea to get into the habit of drinking for courage or to pass the time. She explained the system of line ups, where a buzzer would sound when gentlemen came in the door and all the girls not otherwise engaged had five minutes to form a line in the lounge. Each girl would then step forward and tell the guy (or guys) her name, simper a bit and step back. The guy would then choose a girl to open negotiations with, go to the bar to ponder, or leave. If a girl was chosen she’d take the guy to a negation room, where they’d discuss what he wanted to do and they’re come to an agreement on a price, based on what he wanted and how long he wanted to spend doing it. Then she’d do a dick check, to see that he was free of disease, and then collect his money and take it to the sift manager – usually Joan – and return to take the guy to a bedroom. Condoms were mandated by law for oral, vaginal and anal sex, and the guy had to wear a rubber glove if he wanted to finger her pussy, or use a dental dam if he wanted to eat her. There was a lot more, but I gave up trying to follow it when the buzzer went off. Tammy had me wait at the bar while she went off to the lineup. She wasn’t picked and was back with me in a couple minutes. I was trying to remember it all so I could transcribe it later, though I’d noticed in my surfing that there were entries on brothel etiquette. I’d avoided than because I‘d always found trying to sort out what fork to use next tedious and I hoped not to have to get into the brothel equivalent.

The buzzer went off again and Tammy left for the lineup, but she was back in a minute with a guy in tow. “Hank,” she said, “this is Jessie. She’s new and I’m sort of breaking her in. You don’t mind if she comes along with us for a little bit so she can see how things are done. It’ll be like having an extra girl for free, kind of.” Hank, a handsome, tall and lanky cowboy type, was very biddable and off we went.

When we got into the negation room she whispered into my ear, “Just smile and look sexy.

“So, Hank, what do you think you’d like to do?”

“Well, I don’t have all that much money, so I guess just straight.”

“Would you like like thirty minutes for $300? We could have a really good party.” she said.

“Well,” he drawled, “I don’t know as I got enough for that.”

“How about $200 for twenty minutes? That’d be neat!”

“Well,” he said, “I guess I could go that.”

“Great!” she said. “I’ll just do a check and we’ll get down to having some fun,” whereupon she got a big ceramic basin from someplace and filled it with water and brought it to the counter near where we were all standing. Then she came up with a towel, a small bottle of soap and some wet wipes. She then put one hand on the bulge of his penis growing in his Levis while she used her other hand to undo his trousers. She pushed his pants and briefs down around his thighs and began a close scrutiny of his pubic hair, penis and testicles. I’d been standing there grinning and staring fascinated at the choreographed performance through all this, but she now turned to me and said, “See, you want to make sure there are no sores or anything anyplace and you want to start getting Hank nice and hard, like this, and try to get some pre-cum, just like this, see? Yup, you’re fine Hank, and how! If you give me the money I’ll take it to Joan and we can start our party.”

He paid her and she disappeared for a minute while I stood there smiling ingratiatingly and staring at his semi-erect penis. Then she came back in and pulled up his pants and said, “Come on. I want to show Jessie how to put on a condom and then we can really have fun!” She grasped his dick through his flies and drew us both a few yards down the hallway to one of the lushly furnished bedrooms that were reserved for things other than sleeping. Once we were through the door she was out of her clothes in seconds, and starting taking off Hank’s. She stroked him gently and cooed, “Do you like that honey? It sure looks like it.” She giggled and said, “Except it looks like Jessie sure has a lot of clothes on. I think she could at least show us all her tits, don’t you, Hank? Wouldn’t you like that, honey? I bet it’d make you super hard extra fast.”

He nodded as his mouth dropped open and his breathing grew ragged. Tammy turned to me and said, “Well, Jessie, don’t you want to help Hank out? Jessie’s got to have super nice tits.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off his hardening cock, and my hands moved to take off my nightie and flimsy bra. Hank stared at my tits while Tammy brought him to full erection.

“Now watch this, Jessie,” she said as she took a condom from a bowl and tore off its foil wrapping. “You hold this nipple thing on the end and roll it down like this so air doesn’t get in it and it’s all done. I said there’s another way and that’s with your mouth, but I’ll have to show you another time. Hank and I are gonna party now. I’ll come and see you later.”

I left, flushed and panting slightly, to wait for her at the bar. To hell with Babycham, or whatever, I needed a big jolt of mediocre white wine.

After about ten minutes she joined me and giggled conspiratorially. “I’ve got some news for you and I’ll tell you when they do the next lineup.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What’s….”

But then the buzzer sounded and she drew me into the lounge to join the line of girls. “I just talked to Joan and you paperwork went through, so you’re good to go. Isn’t that great?”

I was stunned. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wanted to run out the door, but if I did that my first job as a journalist would be over. I stood there frozen and she whispered, “Just step forward and say your name and step back. …It’s Jessie.”

I did. “Hi, I’m Jessie.”

“I guess I’d like to try Jessie,” the guy who’d been inspecting us said.

”That’s great. This is Tom, Jessie. He likes to try out the new girls and he’s a super nice guy. I’ll stay with you guys for a bit because Jessie’s new. Come on.”

I let myself be led to the negotiation room, unable to make the decision to resist. When we got inside Tammy was still in charge. “So what would you like to do, Tom?

“Well, I think I want to take my time and I’d like half and half. Maybe forty minutes for $400?”

“Come on, more like five hundred. You know that.”

“OK,” Tom said.

“Jessie,” she said, “you get to do the check yourself this time. I’ll show you where things are. Take this basin, and these wet wipes and soap and towel and put everything over here. Now fill the bowl with warm water. That’s good. Now undo Tom’s pants and get him out and wash him real nice and dry him off with the towel. That’s right. Now have a good look at his pubes. And his cock, and his balls. That’s good. I showed you how to do it. Now stroke him and get him hard. Try to get some pre-cum. See, it’s nice and clear. You’re all set, Tom. If you give Jessie the money we’ll be right back.”

He handed me the money and Tammy led me out the door and around the corner to a little room where Joan sat. “Forty minutes of half and half for five hundred, “Tammy practically shouted. Joan took the money and said, “Thank you, Jessie. Work room one. Good luck.”

Then Tammy took me back to get Tom. She took my hand and wrapped it around his cock and said, “OK, we can go now,” and we trailed off down the hall to bedroom one. All the way I was thinking something like,” I can’t do this. I’m not a whore. But I am a whore. I’ve got a Work Card and I’m walking around in a brothel leading a guy by his dick.”

And then we were in the room. “OK, Jessie, you can get naked now and show Tom your great body. Go ahead. I know he wants a sexy striptease.” And I did. “You can touch her now, Tom. You can feel her tits and grab her ass and stroke her pussy. Look at her nipples. I bet she’s soaking wet already. Here, we’ll both help you take your clothes off. Half and half means you suck his cock and then fuck him, Jessie. Did you know that? You do now. And that other way to put a condom on, with your mouth? You get to try that now. See how hard Tom is? Here, I’ll tear the wrapper off and then you put it in your mouth between your lips and your teeth and then you push it down his big hard shaft. See how easy that was? Now just suck him. Make your mouth into a pussy and fuck him with your mouth. That’s right, try different things and see what get’s him excited. Use lots of spit and hold the base of his cock in your hand. When he’s ready he’ll lay you on your back and fuck your brains out. You want him to do that, don’t you?”

“I guess you two can take it from here,” she said to us, and she slipped out the door.

Something had happened to me. I was mad with lust, sucking and slurping and stroking Tom’s wonderful cock. I never knew cocks could be so beautiful, and so much fun. Somehow he lay down on the bed and moved me to where he could reach my clit with his fingers, all without breaking my oral connection. I wanted to drive him to the best orgasm he’d ever had in his life. I wanted to make him explode with cum for an hour and suck every ounce out of him and swallow it while I smiled evilly up at him and swallowed every drop.

But then he stopped me and laid me on my back on the bed, and he spread my legs and then he was in me. I almost passed out. I started cuming and I came and I came as he fucked me with his big, hard hot cock. He pounded me and I came and came and I wanted it to go on forever, but finally he groaned and roared and came inside me. I wrapped my legs around his waist to hold him inside me and we lay like that for minutes as we slowly came down from the heights of our passion. Then he kissed me and dressed and left, and soon Tammy came back for me. “He left you a hundred dollar tip. You must have been good. Come on, we need to get you cleaned up now.”

She led me back to her room and I slowly deflated. “Oh, hell,” I thought, “I did it. I’m a whore now. I fucked a guy for money. I loved it.”

Meanwhile Tammy said, “Here, let’s get you cleaned up.” She washed my pussy and my chest and face and armpits, and then said, “I just need to do a couple things and then we’ll fix your makeup and your hair and put you back in the ring. Just lie back.” And she found some electric clippers and trimmed off my pubic hair. “Now we’ll just shave you and then there’s just one more thing.” She went away and came back with an electric razor and some alcohol and a small piece of paper which she eventually wet and then pressed onto my right buttock for a minute. “There, HH, a temporary tattoo. It looks great!”

“Not in the ring,” I babbled, “back on course, a fair wind and a following sea. We’re doing sailing metaphors.”

She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but finally I was dressed and ready and she led me back to the lounge to wait for the next lineup. The buzzer rang almost immediately, and I got chosen again, by a guy named Stan, I think. He said Tom had told him about me and how hot and wild I was. He ended up paying $400 for thirty minutes, straight. It was calmer than my party with Tom, but he left me a $50 tip and kissed me on the cheek as he left.

Tammy said she thought I’d done enough for my first night and she didn’t want me to be sore, so she led me to my room and undressed me and tucked me into bed. I barely remember it.

…………

Late the next morning I awoke as Joan knocked on my door. She handed me a glass of cold orange juice and said, “Here, it’s a tradition.

“You did quite well last night. And you made $550 net. A lot more than a beginning journalist gets. Oh, don’t bother to protest; I have my sources. Actually, I think dead tree journalism is nearly finished. You’d do much better blogging, or writing a tell-all confession about your experiences at the Hen House. If you’re any good at all as a writer every third woman in America and Europe would buy your book. In the meantime you can take your time and rack up experience. Do what you came here for and write about the place and the girls and their lives, but take your time and write in sympathy for the girls rather than to sell papers in some shock horror exposé. Do a great job of it and snag the byline for yourself.
“You’re a licensed prostitute. You’re the most beautiful girl in this place and you’ll make a mint at it. You’ll also love it. I do. I saw you looking at the card on Nicole’s door the other day. I’m Nicole, and I fuck for money. Actually, I specialize in slightly kinky stuff – bondage and such. I’ll tell you all about it later, and I’ll probably take you to the home spread to find out how much like me you really are, but I’ll leave you to clean up and have breakfast now. You have a lot to think about, and work to do today and tonight. By the way, check out the name on your door.”

Then she left, and on my way out to breakfast later I remembered to glance at the card on the door. It said Jessie, in bold black ink.

…………

I took my time that day and organized my notes and wrote them up to send to Catherine. I wrote honestly about my experiences as a working girl the night before, though I toned down the bits about my long minutes of sexual frenzy a bit. Let ‘em wait for the book; they wouldn’t print it in a newspaper article anyway. And I talked with some of the other girls, trying to find about their lives and their histories and their goals.

As the evening drew near I found that I was looking forward to it. I looked into Tammy slop chest (it’s a nautical thing – look it up) and found a flowing white gown and teddy that became me a lot better than last night’s nightie. Tammy found me some matching Malibu heels. I don’t know how she does it.

A while before things were likely to pick up, Joan found me and drew me aside. She was wearing a deep purple outfit rather like mine. “I’ve been breaking Tammy in as shift manager and she’ll be handling the money and running things tonight. It’s time for Nicole to come out and have some fun.

”Word about you as the pretty new girl has gotten out and I think you’ll be busy tonight. You’re not experienced enough yet to know what services are on offer or how much to ask for them. We don’t want you disappearing for ten minutes at a time, like a car salesman, to ‘run your offer by the floor manager.’ We’d give the profession a bad name, and I have no idea what the female equivalent of orange polyester golf trousers is and I don’t want to find out. I suppose Tammy can give you a crash course and you’ll have to wing it. I’ll try to be around for you as much as I can.”

Tammy took two minute to tell me more than I could possibly remember. What stuck with me was that I should ask for $400 to $800 to start the bidding. Then the first buzzer rang and Nicole was beside me in the lineup. Of course I got picked immediately. The gentleman wanted straight for half an hour and we settled for $800. “Hey,” Tammy said when I gave her the money, “you’re doing better than I expected. Change what I told you to $500 to $1,000.” I don’t remember what all I did that night. There was a lot of half and half, and I did cowgirl and reverse cowgirl — which had to be explained to me – and doggy style, which I figured out for myself. One guy asked me if I did anal and I told him that I’d never done that and he didn’t push it. I think I did nine guys before I got sore and worn out and had to quit.

The next morning Joan was there again when I woke up and she told me I’d made a little over $3,000 in fees and tips. I said something about being afraid the other girls would be jealous of me but she said, “A rising cock floats all boats.

“I bet you’re sore though. You should try raising your minimum to $1,000 to try for the most money for the fewest fucks. Actually, I’d like to take you with me to the home spread in a couple days. I’ve got us some bookings together and I’d like to spread you around a bit anyway. I’ll introduce you to some light kink and see if you’re as much like me as I suspect you are.” With that tantalizing comment she walked out and left me to my orange juice.

I talked with the girls again that day, and wrote and then sent off my report to Catherine. I hadn’t heard back from her since I’d started sending her my candid reports, and I wondered if she was too busy doing her own thing to notice my emails.

That night I raised my rates and did six gentlemen for about the same money. I’ve never been interested in economics and I don’t know the term for it, but I suppose the price for my services was finding its level. It’d need sandbags soon. The next afternoon Joan and I left for the home place near Beatty.

…………

The Home Spread

The original Hen House was much nicer than the branch in Armargosa. The décor was western and tasteful. Although there were a dozen girls working there it was a much calmer place, probably because it wasn’t a constant construction zone.

Watching the give and take between Faye and Rusty was as good as a play. What a team.

The house was run much like the Hen House Too, unsurprisingly, with Faye supervising and handling the money at night.

During dinner Joan grinned and said, “Tammy did quite a job on you, didn’t she, breaking you in? I hope you don’t resent it. She did the same thing to me a year ago, and it wasn’t a plot in either case; she’s just that way. What a character.

“Anyway, I brought you up here to try you out on some of the kinky stuff that I like to do. You won’t be doing any lineups because I’ve booked three sessions of light bondage play for us both tonight, at 7:00, 9:00 and 11:00. Let me tell you about it. There’s a theory that smart forceful women in positions of authority — such as lawyers, businesswomen and teachers – drive themselves mercifully and then a lot of them find release in submissive roleplay. I believe it; I’m a submissive. I like being controlled and restrained and forced to orgasm. I wonder if you’re like me, and that’s why you’re here, to find out. You’re so pretty that you don’t need to cater to any special kink to make lots of money in this business, but I want to find out what lights your fires. I think you should be interested too.

“We’ll be doing light bondage and submission — BD without the SM. We don’t do any hokey dungeon stuff here, with black leather and whips and dumb dialogue but… you’ll find out. Anyway, anytime a girl gets tied up we require that the gentleman pay to have another girl in the room as chaperone, though we don’t call it that. I think you’ll have a lot of fun… about an hour from now, so we’d better get ready. Oh, if it gets too intense just waggle your eyebrows three times, like Groucho Marx, and I’ll back off”

I’d been intrigued ever since Joan, or Nicole, told me that she was a submissive who loved to fuck men for money, and after she said that I might be like her that way I’d had constant butterflies in my tummy. No, stomach, damn it. Why do I go all twee when I talk about this sort of thing? Anyway, Nicole had me dress in my white teddy outfit and took me to a working bedroom at 6:45 and told me to sit on the bed and wait. It may not have been a dungeon, but there was a sling-type thing of nylon straps hanging from a hook in the ceiling and a miniature vaulting horse thing with a figure eight top in an open area near the bed. I knew I’d find out all about them soon.

When she came back just after 7:00 she was dressed in the campy black leather dominatrix gear she said she didn’t like, and she had a handsome executive-type man with her. “Jessie,” she said, “this is Charles and now that I’ve introduced you to him we can introduce you to bondage and domination. Stand and strip, please.”

I hadn’t been expecting anything quite like this and I’d never seen her in this stern role, but I flushed and my heart rate and breathing quickened as I stood up and took off my clothes.

“Charles, if you’ll open that drawer you’ll find the restraints that Jessie deserves and desires. Find the collar and two sets of joined cuffs. Jessie, place your hands behind your back.” We both did as we were told.

“Now, Charles, bind her wrists behind her with cuffs. Good, now do her ankles, I think. She looks lovely, doesn’t she? Such beautiful breasts. She seems agitated though, and you should probably caress her nipples to soothe her. Yes, keep going. Humph, that doesn’t seem to be working, so we’ll have to try something else. Let’s leave her standing there while I help you disrobe. Ah, that’s better. Sink to your knees, Jessie, and you may suck Charles cock after I put this condom on it. Good, you may begin now. Is she satisfactory, Charles? From your look I suspect that she is not. I apologize; she lacks experience, which we can give her now. Stand up, Jessie. If you’ll look in that drawer again, I think she’s ready for her collar. Yes, now the wiffle gag. Good, good. Now if you’ll attach her leash we can take her to the horse and begin her training. Stand at the end, Jessie and bend over.”

I did, and Nicole spread my legs apart and clipped them to the sides of the vaulting horse thing. By this time I was breathing in short gasps and my nipples were as hard as, well, to avoid clichés, any girl’s nipples ever get, and my pussy was dripping. I was bent forward at ninety degrees over the horse, and he fastened a strap around my waist and clipped my collar to a ring at the other end of the horse.

“Ah,” said Nicole, “I think her nipples need a bit more attention. We might use some of those little rubber suckers, but I think by the look of her that some butterfly clamps might serve better. If you’ll just fondle her nips until they’re engorged, yes, you may fasten the clamps to her tits.” The horse was narrow in the middle and my breasts hung down, readily available. I had to admire the design.

Oh, damn, it hurt when he put the clips on my nipples, but I didn’t wiggle my eyebrows. I wiggled my ass, trying to draw attention to it I suppose. I don’t know. I was losing it.

“Ah, that’s better. She seems to be revivified, but I think she still needs a bit of warming up. Here, Charles, use this crop to give her five modest strokes on each buttock. Yes, good, and now the other. That’s good. I think we might top her up with a vibrator, but we don’t want her going over the edge on her own, so I think you may as well fuck her now. Are you ready, dear? Just nod. Good.”

Charles plunged into me and I came before he was all the way home. Actually I’d had two mild orgasms from the cropping and I was ready to explode when he entered me. He must have been dosed to the gills with Viagra because I swear he pounded me for an hour and I came a hundred times. I may exaggerate, but I couldn’t see my watch. All good things come to an end, though, and he eventually came and went and Nicole set me loose.

She helped me to the bathroom to clean me up and then let me lie down for a bit before she did my makeup and got me ready for the next appointment.

The second session was much like the first, though they left out the gag and my warming up involved a wand vibrator and rather more cropping. I had only one line, “Please, Master,” but I delivered it with great sincerity. And frequency, in a couple senses of the word. Come to think of it, there were a lot of orgasms involved in the warm-up too.

During the third session Nicole let herself be cuffed and fucked in the webbing swing to show me how it was done before I had my turn. Then, mercifully, it was time for bed. Nicole says that she’s not much good at being a Domme; if that’s true I don’t think I want to meet someone who is. Professionally.

The next morning she was by bedside when I woke up, of course. (What is it with this orange juice thing?) “You seem to have survived,” she said, “so how was it?”

“I loved it. Whatever you were trying to prove, you did it. I suppose you’ll tell me about it now.”

“The verdict is that you’re a submissive. You love being restrained and teased and driven to orgasm. You’re into erotic pain though, which I’m not. As I said, you’re so pretty that you can make all kinds of money doing vanilla sex, but it’s interesting to find out what your kinks are, isn’t it?

“For as long as you work for the Hen House I think I’d like you to alternate between the two houses, a week at a time. It will help both places and you’ll be able to do more interviews and gather more information for your reporting, don’t you think?”

‘Yes,” I said dreamily.

“And one more thing, I wish you’d agree to get your temporary tattoo turned in to a real one. What do you say?”

“Yes,” I said again. “Yes.”

…………

Back to Hen House Too

I’m not sure whether Nicole took advantage of my blissed-out high, but when we drove back to Armargosa my tattoo was a real one and I was wriggling in my seat trying to get comfortable. Really, it was less than a thirty mile drive and I was proud of my sexy new tat.

I wrote up a much-abridged account of my adventures in Beatty and sent it off to Catherine. When I didn’t hear back from her within six hours I called her on her cell phone and she ended by calling me a turncoat and hanging up on me. I sent off an email to the FE, but my heart wasn’t in it. I no longer cared about working for a newspaper in the East Bay. I kept on with my writing and my research and my interviews though, during the day. Every night I fucked five or six guys and made about $3,000. My night job was more fun.

My long feature article, and eventual book, were coming together, but I was pouty and fretful and I eventually unloaded on Joan, or Nicole or whomever.

“I can’t do this,” I whined. “I don’t have anybody to sell this to. I want to be a journalist, not a prostitute. Well, a journalist and a prostitute. No, I want what I’ve always wanted. I want to make it on my brains, not my beauty”

“Brains and beauty,” Joan replied, “everybody should be so unlucky. They didn’t stop Vanessa Bell, or her sister, and they won’t stop you. Newspaper journalism is withering. You don’t want to be one of those ‘on the one hand and then on the other hand pundits’ at the Times or the Post. Blogging is OK, but you want to be a real journalist. You certainly don’t want to be a pretty meat puppet on local TV news, and you don’t want to be a blonde news personality on a cable network. You’re too smart for that. I don’t have any privileged vision about where real journalism will come from in the next ten or twenty years, but I think you should try to make enough money, here at the Hen House or someplace else, to let you write about what you care about. You’ve don’t have to become a working girls’ activist, but your really should write a book about legal prostitution in Nevada. There’s a niche market for books about the stripping and sex business, seen from the inside and written by smart sassy women. Put on your makeup, stare ’em in the eye and tell it like it is. If you’re any good as a writer and a journalist you’d be a best seller. If you’re as smart as I think you are you’ll be a phenomenon. Do what you ought and damn the torpedoes.

“There, I feel better for that.”

After we both calmed down I sent my resignation in to the East Bay paper. I finished up my article and shopped it around to various feminist and literary mags for a week and Rolling Stone snapped it up and I was suddenly famous. They ran a photo of me in my white outfit, chin up and eyes front, and nowadays I’m spending way too much time every day working on a book deal. Surprisingly, Rusty is a big help and he’s almost my agent.

I’m still in the lineups every night, in one house or the other, and I don’t want to give that up. We have some bondage furniture and toys at the Armargosa house now, though I’m the one who uses them most.

Joan came around yesterday and we drank some good champagne for a change and celebrated my Rolling Stone success. As she was leaving she said,”I still need a couple accountants.” I have no idea what that meant.

Damn those curséd torpedoes!

Jessica

#

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