"Cute, fit, slim 23 year old white guy shows off for cash - no phone wankers or time wasters please."

The very first time: no money for food and needed it quick. I'd too much pride to borrow from family or friends and there was the chat-line number, just a few pence a minute. I pitched my 'sell'. First punter was round within the hour and an hour later it was cash in cock-filled hand. Tummy filled. Result.

Nearly all clients were decent, generally timid and vulnerable folk, from twenties to seventies. All sorts: bankers, pensioners, postmen, students. There were lots of bi's and closets naturally and by no means all of them old. I was just what they wanted: something to watch, nothing too threatening or unsafe. It was just a show. Some guys didn't want to even pleasure themselves when watching, but waited until they got back home. I had found a rich little niche that worked for me out on the meat market.

I didn't mind just being looked at and fondled a bit. I remained in control, and felt safe. If I trusted a guy and he wasn't too rank then I'd maybe let him suck - but only for extra. Sometimes they wouldn't even want me to shoot so I could put the red light on again once they were gone and earn double that day.

It's fine knowing you can supply a demand, but another matter entirely finding it. Experience quickly taught me to favour the phone line route, since quicker and more direct and you could sooner tell if someone was a psycho or - worse - a time-waster. Also that line was cheap back then - cheaper than print ads and faster than the internet anyway. And no, I never hung around street corners.

Give the pitch in 30 words or less - full of info, no question unanswered - and then bring it to a head with, "If you're genuine, here's my number. Call me in five." Clinch it or ditch it. Go big or go home. Of which negotiations only about one in ten convert - if you're lucky. But cast your net wide and you do pull them in. I would be brutal with my scatter and move on, catching the pickings in my wake.

Yet I'd never agree to have anyone over who didn't call or text me with a known number just "as they were setting off" first, so I knew they were pretty much on their way and I had a number I could in theory hand to police if things - heaven forbid - ever got nasty.

At last: the first sight: putting them at ease. A broad smile: think warm eyes. The same script always: "Easy journey, not so far is it? Gorgeous day! Not too wet I hope? Watch the step. Like the place? Unusual isn't it? Would you mind: shoes. Sound like Gran, don't I? Water or juice? Any questions? I'll just go over the ground rules and remind you what I do, and what I don't do." Repeat your terms. Daft not to.

About half paid up front as if post-coital payment was just too cheesy. I always liked that. It relaxed me to know they planned on enjoying me and it would take a real cock up - or cock down - to blow it all away. I normally checked up front - once I'd charmed them a while - "OK for you am I?" They always said yes, and I was then covered should they later claim I didn't do it for them and refused to pay.

I loved the money. I loved to smell it after they'd gone - flatten out the wrinkles. It always felt beautifully debauched - payment for sexual services rendered. And very direct is the oldest profession: harvest of own fruits. I would quite truly get turned on by the money alone. See it heaping, day by day.

Then when you feel the guy's mind relax and start to visually undress you, just flick that switch and -with the music playing - get on with the job. Start in front of the mirror. Cut the punter out, go into your own private world. A little concentration and the pleasure begins. Slowly, staring, rubbing, playing - at the very least, look like you're enjoying it.

Fondling though my old jeans to get hard; then off with the top; then pop goes the fly buttons, one, two, three and swoosh, away. I never worked in socks - unless by request - so just me and my own thinly veiled manhood remained.

More fondling and then - plop, boing - it's whipped out hard, with the balls, cupped and fondled. Always a relief this moment, since you know the rest's a breeze hereon in - like taking candy from a babe. A side-on pose and then turn, to gasps of "Nice arse" - prompting a few extra seconds' lingering just to please. And front again.

Closer, for sir's touch: his gentle groping of the balls, scratching the light downy fur, all shorn back, before stalling for a moment on the chest, then feeling the curves of your buns. Bolder - and a timid grasping of the dick, breaking into a wank - either too firm or not firm enough. Face too near provokes a pull-away "tut". The same for a fondle that brings you too close too soon.

On track four of the CD by now and I know almost instinctively to change the pace and scene - to draw back and rebuild the charge. Up stairs.

Many don't get their dick out until well into things, if at all. I could rarely look when they did - if they were really rather unattractive I would just glaze over as if in bliss. Always jealous if the client started to get more into my porn than me.

Of course, I had a bit of a laugh with the regulars - those I saw at least once a week - not least the older ones who wheezed and gasped away, through teeth bright yellow and often not their own. And I'd sometimes really get into the younger ones - touch them and get off every bit as much as they did on me. No fucking or kissing though. If anyone ever got carried away, especially after my initial reminder, I'd get briefly pretty cross and that would be the end of the trouble.

My eyes subtly clock the clock. He arrived at such and such, so his hour is almost due. Does he want his full fix or might sooner be better? I ask. Might just be able to squeeze another in before close of play. I need a good three hours' break for that, just to be sure - second comings never were easy.

Living on the breadline as I briefly was, I enjoyed the knife-edge thrill and challenge of this existence: will I or won't I earn tonight? Some nights you'd be searching for hours and nothing - probably with a few time-wasters thrown in for your trouble. Other nights you'd strike early and then relax - a night-off so to speak. Other nights you'd hit lucky almost at the final hour, and all the more satisfaction for it, though I hated working after midnight - the waste of time, the stress of it all.

I soon dragged myself up above mere hand to mouth, to kick the financial ball ahead and save - I opened up envelopes for forthcoming needs - a bill, a holiday, a big night out and such. I began to claim back some control over my buffeted, Spartan student life - felt like a hunter gatherer, farming my own natural assets. I remember it was a liberating feeling, drawing back to your own basic primitive resource to put food on table and keep wolf from door.

Yet addictive though sex for money can indeed be, the moment I had some proper dosh in my hands from other more orthodox means, I remember breathing a huge sigh of relief. I was glad to get my own life back - my sexual and social life. I realised I needed to revive the almost forgotten notion of sex-for-pleasure - oh and something called love.