The Street is an ecosystem of sorts. Though not delicate everybody who is part of it knows the importance of maintaining its balance. The Street ecosystem looks more like a union of the low of society; low in terms of income, power and perceptions. There are the Street people and children. There are also the watchmen and late night hawkers. Then there are the clients and us. Others who form the ecosystem include the city council askari and police who we consider parasites.

When I started having sex I used to think the end was the only thing. And by end I mean sexual climax. Of course the end mattered but it didn’t take long to learn the process of attaining the climax was also important. It is the thing that differentiates the sexual ability of girls. When I was a novice in my kind of work I was not sure why men pay for sex. Was it because they were sexually starved or because they were seeking variety? If it was the former then the end is what would matter, but if it were the latter, then the process would be crucial.

There is every reason to trust a man in his forties, who drives a Jeep and has several copies of The Economist magazine on the back seat. Such a man if he speaks in a deep voice, is collected when picking a girl, and genuinely seems interested in your welfare gives the impression he is self assured; not one to play boyhood games of the twenties. But that is not always the case like I found last night.

Mum used to spit every time we talked about sex. But we only talked sex when she was drunk, so I never got to know whether it was the sex or drink that made her spit. The talk started when I was sixteen years old. At the time, for reasons I wont go into at the moment, only the two of us were living together; dad and my other siblings were miles away. Though I call it a talk, it was not exactly that, it was more of a refrain, same each and every time. It was a quick one-sided conversation that I couldn't tell whether it was said in jest or seriousness.