Anything’s better than reality

The cinema took your mind of the daily shit. I started going to one near Charing Cross where a good “X” was always showing such as “Rocco and his brothers” stuck in the Via Dolorosa mould. Films like that whetted my appetite for the seamy side of life and particularly for prostitution. An Italian version of sex and violence was just as good as what took place round the corner. Kenny Fraser had told me about his experiences of picking up streetwalkers in Blythswood Square so I was keen to mug up on the subject. Near the Arlington Baths in Arlington Street was the red light district, always a thrill packed with offers of £2 to £3 for a short time. The women on the game were easy to spot with their slow, waddling style of walk and the long lingering looks of unfulfilled promise. Grim tenement blocks housed large numbers of leisured ladies who were up for it. I knew that instinctively that West End Park Street, Arlington Street and all the streets around St. George’s Cross were filled with the lure of crude commercial sex. I walked near the Art School of Rennie Mackintosh fame. An old tart threw a used condom from a doorway. It landed at my feet. I was really turned on by this as I was by the dame with a large mole on her cheek. She went up a stair and I got a flash of lurid silk pants with black stockings. She smirked down at me.

“Even my boyfriend pays for his hole “ she said. “Although he only pays £1. How about coming up for a fuck? £2 darling.”

However I crapped out this time, as I felt too inhibited to actually hand over the cash, unlike the rest of the randy hordes who kept the whores in business. I had been brought up in complete ignorance of the oldest profession and the nature of its patrons. I would have been shocked to see stalwart pillars of respectability drive up in a Jag to a brothel door flashing fivers. I gave myself full marks for total naivety. One day I took the plunge. A window opened and an inviting look pushed my mind into paroxysms of desire. I took up the offer of £3 for a go. I looked and she looked. I got out of the Sunbeam Talbot, hard as a rock and ready to come any minute. She led me downstairs into a dingy bedsit reeking of old sweat, dirty bodies, stale vomit and the rancid sperm of a hundred men. She lay on her back on a filthy mattress, keeping her bra on and exposed a huge cunt normally kept hidden under a vast tuft of pubic hair and squashed under a rubber girdle. As she rolled on the condom I came at once as she had intended. I made empty conversation as you do in such a situation, wiping myself off and disappearing out the door. I wanted to get away as fast as possible; the experience was such a downer. Subsequent impersonal couplings convinced me that the bottom end of the sex mag world was as arid as a moon landscape. Yet I had to continue my search for the Sea of Tranquillity.

Once I was working as a van driver going down to Girvan to make deliveries. At the side of the road I noticed a real piece of brass thumbing a lift with her tits almost falling out of her blouse. I screeched to a halt. The brass came over pointing to the other side of the road where a lorry was parked.

“My mate’s fucking down in the woods” she said. “Want to make a foursome?”

I looked over and could see the steady movement of a white bum rising and falling in the breeze. This was a most entertaining sight I thought but I was unable to get in on the action since I was out of funds. The ride got into my van to cadge a smoke. I was bursting but didn’t even have the ten shillings she wanted for wanking me off. She got out then I drove a few hundred yards up the road to jerk off. Another night I wandered down West End Park Street. I asked a tart for a pull.

“A quid through the back of the close “ she scowled. Her face was twisted with hatred as I came in her hand. “Dinna touch me ye fucker” she spat in disgust as I made attempts to fiddle with her tired hardware. “It’ll cost ye anither quid if yous come ony nearer” she grated in an angry, grating Glasgow accent.