Two young women sat in a diner on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Both of them were about to start their senior years of college. Nora Meara attended the City College of New York, a public institution that was part of the city university (CUNY). It was located uptown in Manhattanville/West Harlem or whatever one chose to call that particular area.

The other one, Gilda Wasserman, attended New York University (NYU), a private school in Greenwich Village. It had already developed a reputation for being an expensive school, although the tuition and other costs were nothing near what they would be in later decades.

Meanwhile, in this September of 1976, Nora was about to pay her first-ever tuition bill. The free status of the city system, which had existed like that for well over a century, had become a casualty of the city and state financial crises. It was still relatively cheap by today’s standards.

Nora was aware of the higher social status of Gilda, who could afford to go to a private university. But the two did share an experience. In their freshman years, both had worked as ad hoc, part-time hookers on their respective campuses.

Both had gotten into the job almost by accident, and both had quit at the end of their freshmen years. Gilda, however, had met some people in her junior year who have gotten her back in, but she worked exclusively as a dominatrix now.

When Nora had heard about these other people, she thought, hah, a bunch of pimps and madams. She liked the idea of keeping her money for herself. Yet she knew that her independence couldn’t last forever, which was one of the reasons she had quit before her luck ran out.

Just as her freshman year ended, Nora had piled up a significant reserve of cash. At first, she stowed the money in her dresser at her home, then she opened bank accounts. She bought the 1970 Mustang convertible that she had coveted.

One thing that surprised her was the number of other girls from around the city who heard about her and came to visit her at City College to recruit her for some operation or another. Information spread quickly in the underworld, and it was difficult to keep secrets.

When her sophomore year started, and she was out of the business, she got fewer visitors. Gilda found her near the beginning of Nora’s senior year in 1976. In an unusual move, Gilda invited her to lunch at a restaurant.

Both girls were on the tall side, but Nora had dark blonde hair and steel-rimmed glasses. Back in the fall of 1974, she had tried a bob cut and decided that she liked it so much that she would keep it. Gilda was a brunette, and her dark hair was long and flowing. They were casually dressed, although Nora could see that the other woman had better quality clothes than she herself had on.

As they talked for a while, Gilda asked her, “So what motivated you to leave the business?”

“Well, for one thing, after ten months, I was getting tired of the whole scene. It was quite a stressful grind after a while.”

“I can understand that; that happened to me too.”

“The event that really convinced me to get out was that I got a boyfriend. The strange thing is that he started out as a customer.”

“Would you tell me a little about that?”

“Okay, but it’s going to take a bit of explaining.”

“That’s fine; I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay, in my history class there was a guy named Paul who obviously had noticed me. By the way, it was also obvious that he was a virgin.”

Gilda found that amusing, “Somehow they always give themselves away through various clues.”

“So he said very little to me during all of that time, although I knew he was looking at me. Finally, near the end of the semester – well I knew he was getting good grades and I wasn’t. So I invited him to the Finley snack bar and made him an offer. If he would write a term paper for me, I would give him a blowjob. I think I shocked him, yet he accepted the deal. He was that desperate to get some action.”

She continued, “So at the beginning, it went quite well. We met at a college newspaper office one night, and I got my term paper and he got blown by me. I refused to swallow, however, which we had already agreed to.”

“Sounds like a reasonable deal.”

“But then we got into a fight about nothing, really. We yelled at each other, and we slapped each other’s faces. He must have been triggered by it all because he pulled me across his lap and spanked my bare ass. I was amazed to find out that I enjoyed it. I got so turned on that I let him fuck me from behind.”

“Oh, the sweetness of young love.”

“After that, we were both a bit stunned, but then he invited me to dinner downtown. I figured, what the hell, I might as well go. And, just like that, I had a boyfriend.”

“How long did it last?”

“Just over four months. I was feeling my sexual power for the first time at something beyond prostitution. I hooked up with an older guy named Greg, who had a good job down on Wall Street, plus he owned this beautiful Triumph Stag convertible.”

“I get it, you went with a bigger, better deal when it came along. That’s understandable.”

“I think Paul really loved me, but he was a young liberal arts major with no clear prospects ahead of him. He didn’t even know what he wanted to do in the long run. Meanwhile, I got a Mustang convertible I bought with the money I had made for myself.”

“Still, I feel a bit sorry for him.”

“Don’t be. By that point, I had joined the newspaper he was on, and I’ve been there for the last two years. I heard all about his later romantic exploits. Soon after I dumped him, he picked up not one, but two other girls on campus.”

“He was feeling his sexual power too.”

“Exactly. So he has been getting plenty of poontang, although the last few months have been a bit slow for him. Anyway, as you can probably tell, he and I are still friends, or maybe it’s just acquaintances.”

“Nora, could you tell me if you had any dominatrix gigs during that time?”

“Oh sure, although I refused to be submissive myself to any man, for any price. Only my boyfriends get to do that to me.”

Gilda said, “I’ve also heard that you refused to have vaginal sex for pay. Why is that?”

“I’m not sure why; that’s just where I drew the line. It’s like most hookers won’t kiss their customers. Anything else, anal, oral, manual – you know, handjobs – was up for negotiation. I’d even fluff a guy by grinding my bare ass against his bare crotch. One guy kept his trousers up, and he ejaculated into his pants.”

“What did you think of the dominatrix work?”

“To tell you the truth, that was the only aspect of being a hooker I really enjoyed. I loved verbally humiliating and chiding those guy as much as I liked the actual spankings.” Nora giggled, “I always masturbated as soon as I could after one of those sessions, reimagining the whole thing. I got some of my most intense orgasms ever doing that.”

“I’m glad you had some fun with it! You see, Nora, I could offer you a part-time dominatrix position if you wanted it. It would all be in-calls; we have apartments, really nice ones that you could use.”