Every woman has a little call girl in her

By GiaString

You can never say what you won't do. You become your strongest when your at your weakest. This story tells how Craigslist changed my way of thinking and living, follow me into a tale of my Chicago call girl moment.

The alarm clock goes off, I hit it and lay there thinking of how much I don't wanna go into this job. I know if I don't clock in on time my check will be short so I cancel my thoughts, drag outta bed, and head for the bathroom. I splash my face with cold water to help shake off the fact that I would love to just crawl back into my warm bed and awake when I want. Why couldn't life be easier, why wasn't I born into money? If only my mom had gotten pregnant with me by Bill Cosby. Or wait, why couldn't my mom just be Naomi Campbell? I was tall, slim, and dark just like her! If one of the two were the case I wouldn't have to force myself to deal with this bitch of a boss I have who can't stand me anyway. By now I'm awake and moving around. I jump in and out of the shower, lotion up, put on my uniform, and head out the door; a simple yet perfect ensemble for this slave site I call work. What's a girl to do... this was my life.

When I was in junior high appearance became God and if you weren't wearing the newest labels and shoes to match you were a peasant, kids can be so cruel. I was not the most attractive looking woman to start, I wasn't what some (or most) considered "the pretty girl". I was tall, slim, dark skin, big lips, and a protruding nose. My mom didn't help the situation, she allowed me to wear clothes that were either too little (ie. my pants almost always were floods since I stood to be the tallest girl in my school) or too big. There was always one of my mother's friends giving me her daughters old clothes knowing her daughter was on the plump side. I was a jump away from being bony. With those outfits the jokes were clearly on me. I remember going home and crying in my room asking God why he allowed my life to be so uncomfortable, so uncool, why were we broke, I wanted the newest pair of Jordan's too. I swore that when I grew up I'd never look that way again, I'd always keep up my appearance up even if that meant spending my last dime. I hated the teasing Jessie's that called me Olive Oyl[/url], or the laughing Dave's that asked how about inviting your pants down to your ankles so they could have a party. If it wasn't for my bubbly personality I could've never survived junior high. I caught on and took that with me to high school, there were still some that teased but more thought I was funny and drew to me because of that. I was able to make people laugh, that alone helped me make it. I made lots of friends that way and eventually those people took up for me and even lent me outfits that actually fit simply because they liked me.

My school days were all an act, I'd be the funny girl that was always happy but I felt like dying when I went home to empty cabinets, old furniture, and roaches. By now my mother was married to a man, clearly older than herself, he took us in (I was at that time her only child) and she later had two more children. We had family outings some would include going to one of my mother's girlfriends homes and playing with her kids while they talked, played cards, and drank all night. As a young child I didn't care, I made the best of it and have memories of Wisconsin dells every summer, family night every Saturday where we'd order pizza and watch movies... Ok, nevermind, now that I think back, my childhood sucked. If I went anywhere it was because my friends helped me out by paying my way and they could barely afford to do anything. By the time I was 14 I was determined to have my own, so I lied on a job application saying I was 16 and got my first job as a dietary aid in a nursing home. I worked that job while in high school and after graduation I got my associates in child development, this landed me a job in a motel as a wopping front desk attendant. After 3 years of working there the motel closed down. They say the owner, an Arabic guy that seemed to either not believe in deodorant or not know that it existed, got tired of the drug dealers selling dope out of the rooms and crackheads hanging around. Hell, the beds probably housed the virus that causes AIDS, it was just a mess. I guess it was good for everyone, closing possibly saved a lot of innocent people from HIV... or bedbugs at least. After two months of no work I decided to finally use the degree I spent so much time studying for and found a job at Loving Blocks Daycare as a head teacher. This was much better than Akbar's Armpit & Crack Motel but the supervisor was a Pilipino woman who seemed to be upset that she moved to America. She hated me and it seemed just about everyone, even the man she married to get here, she had been a "mail order bride" but her husband actually brought her over so she could work and take care of him, yeah her life sucked too. Life has a funny way of fucking you in your ass and you don't even realize it until your bleeding.

And who am I? Laylonni Marvins, 29 years old, going through a divorce, and the mother of a 5 year old little woman who looks up to me. As I look over my life I have seemed to follow my mothers footsteps (all except having two more children); I married a man who was at the time 40 (he's now 45), lived miserably with him for 3 years barely having enough money to pay our rent half the time, I had a baby with him 2 years after meeting him and fell out of love with him. Ok, truthfully, I don't think I ever loved him. See, when I married him I was looking for someone to take care of me so I wouldn't have to work, that's what all my friends were looking for. It was my "American dream". He stepped in and did just that until he lost his job, then I lost the love and wanted to leave. This is the truth and I cannot deny that. I stayed to save face in front of my friends but after 3 years of marriage I could no longer hide how I really felt... I wanted out.

When I met Portia 8 years ago I was mentally in another place. I had a huge group of girlfriends (or so I thought they were friends) that shared my love for the weekend (this meant off days for me, some of them worked the weekend but would go out to the club anyway knowing it closed at 3a and they had to be up to catch the bus on time for work at 6a). We all worked our pitiful jobs all week and spent every extra dime after paying some of our bills on clothes to go out on Friday and Saturday night. The crazy part is that after spending that money on some cheesy outfit that actually made me look like a 17 year old (even though I was 21) I then rushed to the club to be there by 9:30p to make sure I got in free before 11p. Once we were in we stood around posing like a beauty shop lineup hoping for some guy to choose one of us and buy at least one of our drinks for the night so we can split it. I didn't save a dime, I ran to every outing I could, sometimes I'd use my light bill money to pay for my weekend rendezvous and then take some of my rent money to pay my light bill with the following check, which naturally meant my rent was short. So either I'd pay the late fee, which I knew I couldn't afford, or I'd take out a payday loan to be on time. To me this was the normal way of life because everyone I knew was doing it. In my mind this was the hand that I was dealt, I wasn't anyone famous, I didn't come from money, so this was what my life was supposed to be. I never saw past the day, I spent every dime and barely had gas money to get to work until my next paycheck. I was always borrowing money from people and having to pay it back which would leave me short on my bills all over again and I'd end up borrowing again. It was a never ending cycle.

Portia was 2 years older than me but had experienced so much more than myself. When I first met her I thought she was weird because she didn't do things the way other people I knew did them, she was a mean bitch because she would say whatever she felt I needed to hear instead of sugar coating things like all of my other friends, she was brutally honest, uncensored, very forward, I didn't like it. Although I thought her way of thinking was weird, the proper term would probably be foreign. For example, I needed a $100 to pay a bill and I was trying to figure out how to come up with it. I sat on the phone ranting about how I needed to come up with that money, I named all the people I knew and ended with "I don't know anyone that can give me that kind of money". Portia's response was "why ask just one person for $100 when you could ask 5 people for $20, 5 people are more willing to give you $20 as oppose to 1 person giving you $100, that might be all they got". I had never saw it that way, she was smart. She broke things down to its lowest and made it seem so simple to accomplish. Portia seemed to have a carefree life, she went out whenever she wanted and never worried about how much it cost to get into the club, she got manicures and pedicures every two weeks. She lived life on her own terms, she did what she wanted to do, when she wanted to do it, and got whatever she needed to get done done. In her house she had a yellow leather living room set, a custom made glass cocktail table, and mirrors on the wall, she drove a Chevy Impala that was one year old. I wondered how she could afford all this... compared to all my other hang out buddies, particularly my main hanging buddy, Sheena.

Sheena was someone I met through a mutual friend a few months before meeting Portia. Sheena was a nice person, she was giving and didn't even have it herself, and would lend an ear if you needed to vent, she told me what I wanted to hear. If I was snotting about a guy I was dating who was not doing me right she would be my cheerleader saying "fuck him, you don't need him, you too good for him anyway, it's plenty guys out here that want you". I thought I needed that. We partied together and we stood in that beauty shop lineup together as well waiting for that someone to buy us a drink. When she walked into a room all the guys looked because she was shaped like Jessica Rabbit even after 4 kids. Sheena lived like me day to day, she didn't plan for the future, she lived for the weekend. She didn't make me think about the overall picture of things, she didn't have any goals outside of going to work everyday so she didn't push me to come up with any either. She was content working a dead end job living paycheck to paycheck and complaining throughout the entire week about being broke just to do it all over again the next weekend... She was someone I could identify with so I considered her "friend". I didn't want to do any self examining nor face my flaws and she didn't make me, I wanted to go on pretending my life was fine the way it was and she supported that so I hung with her.

The more I hung with Portia, the more she challenged me to think outside of the box and I began to face my flaws and the flaws of everyone around me. Portia dressed like she had money, like her clothes were of high quality and not the things I was wearing that came from the cheaper clothing stores. I later found that she actually shopped at the same stores I did but she was selective in the items she picked up. Her thing was, you could shop cheap but that doesn't mean you have to look like it. She was big on saving money, cutting cost in places I didn't just to be able to do more. One day after seeing me at an outing with Sheena, Portia offered to drop me off at home. She came up to my apartment and dissected my closet so much so that I had maybe 4 shirts, 2 pair of jeans, and 3 pair of shoes left when she was done tossing thing. At first I was offended but then as I compared the items she had thrown out to what I had seen her wear I saw she was just trying to make me look like a grown women. Actually her doing that is what helped me attract my soon to be ex-husband since he was an older man. I wanted out of the struggling circle of girls I hung with, I wanted to hang more with Portia. The life changing, mind altering, eye opening, soul shaking (ok, you get the picture) situation was when I lost my job at Kidz & Krayons Daycare and my rent became 3 months past due. Without a job I couldn't see a way to pay the $1600 that I needed to get back up to date. During those 3 months I still went out but only when people told me it was free. When I got there I was the best dressed bitch in the room from hair layed to high stepping in my most up-to-date stiletto, but mere lent in my new clutch. I'd party good and call it a great night when it was over just to go home and face the reality that I was about to get evicted, only Sheena and my mom knew. Sheena said things like "girl, God got you, he ain't gon put more on you than you can bear, things gon work out pray about it, I mean you could always come stay with me and my sister". This was encouraging but after praying and being encouraged in my spirit I was still 3 months behind on my rent and no way in sight of how I was supposed to come up with that type of money. I had never had that type of money at one time other than taxes or a refund check from school. I happened to mention it to Portia and her reaction was "why are you worried about them putting you out, it's going to take time for them to go through the courts and actually get the eviction approved", she didn't see my urgency. So calmly she said "it's time to hustle". Instead of telling me to pray and wait on some miraculous sign from God (she was spirtitual but practical) she gave me the roadmap of how to get it done... That's when Craigslist met Laylonni.

Portia had come across writing craigslist ads in the erotic services section to service men, "women looking for men" was the section. She'd post ads offering 30min to 1hour massages either in lingerie for $80-$100 or nude for $100-$150, handshakes would usually be included without it ever being mentioned. She would adjust her prices based on if the guy sounded like he was going to be a creep or if his job sounded like he should pay more. Portia was an ex-stripper with the mentality of getting money whether she was in the strip club or not and I needed to see some form of income so bad at that moment I followed suit.

I began posting ads and getting "clients". I was doing so well I began treating it like a real job. I'd wake up every morning between 8:30a and 9a, walk over to my computer, respond to emails from the night before, post a new ad, then hop in the shower. I made more in one day than I had ever made at any of my past jobs in one week. Doing this full time I was making $600-$700 per day, I worked (not consistently) from 9a-9p. I'd take 4-6 clients throughout the day and go shopping in between or sleep or just about whatever I wanted to do. In one situation I made $1000 off one guy. With this guy it wasn't just a massage though, he actually offered me the $1000 if I gave him a blow job and swallowed his cum. I didn't want to do this so I called Portia to vent about how I could use the money but I didn't want to swallow some strange man's cum. She told me, "bitch, you done sucked plenty of dicks and swallowed for niggas that ain't even pay you and you wasn't they woman". I thought about it, this was true. Then she said, "this what you do, suck his dick, make him cum, and when he do don't swallow but let it drip out of your mouth and down his dick, mixed with your spit he'll never know". I was leery of doing it, I didn't think I would be able to pull that off and the guy wouldn't want to pay me but she hadn't steered me wrong all this time so I did it. If you must know, yes it did work and I got my $1000 and bought me a car the next day. Doing this three weeks I was I was able to save money up $1800, buy a car for $1300, I paid up one month of my rent and kept going at it. I was experiencing why Portia seemed like she never had a care in the world. I was free, I was a new person... hell yea money changed me... but for the better.

'You don't have to work a job to get money', my mind was opened, I felt what is was like to be my own boss, I felt like for once I had control over my life. I could make as little or as much as I wanted, I scheduled people around my schedule, and my schedule consisted of shopping, running errands for the house, school, other clients, etc. I was no longer depressed, I felt like I was living. I no longer cared to get to the club early to make sure I got in for free, I could finally afford to buy someone else a drink and it felt great! Sheena noticed the difference in my behavior, she noticed I was no longer calling her to complain about my life. She asked what I had been doing and I told her, she acted as if she wanted a piece of the pie so I posted her an ad but she backed out... so I took them clients and made $900 in one day.

Years have since passed and I now have a beautiful daughter. I stopped when I met her father and we ended up marrying, we are now getting divorced, hey shit happens. I'm working a job but I'm also working my dreams. I've always had a way of talking to people so I do sales on the side for a business to business sales company and make extra money. My Craigslist episode has come and gone but it taught me to be optimistic, how to save money, that I don't have to live like I was living, and to believe in myself. I proved to myself that I could do whatever I put my mind to and that whatever work I put in life offers the same measure in reward. What I did some would frown upon but I don't care, I was an average thinking woman like most who say what they won't do until I was put in a situation where I had to make a choice to do what I said I'd never do or be homeless. As a woman whatever your reason be for your kids or for your shelter, if you had an opportunity to make the amount of money I was making you'd probably do it too.

Author Notes: This is a true store derived from an individual I encountered, all names have been changed to mask identities. This story is for entertainment and enlightenment. For more stories like this visit http://gstringspeak.com

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