It wasn't too long ago that I was in Amsterdam. Me and two buddies went out for a girl's weekend. They made the sensible decision to end the evening after a delicious supper. But I went out to the notorious Red Light District of the city by myself. I spent an hour trying to find the confidence to approach one of Amsterdam's Red Light hookers, and in the end, I was able to pay a prostitute in cash to have an interview.

One girl approached me first, standing at her doorway. "You're not allowed to take photos," she shouted in a Dutch accent. I put down my phone, apologized, and said that, although it wasn't entirely accurate, the females weren't in the photos. With that, I made my introduction. 

"Can I pay you to hear your story?" I enquired. "I don't need to know your name, but if you could be absolutely honest about everything else, that would be great." She cast her gaze up and down the road. An untidy-looking man in his older years stepped at her window. "Sure, why not?" she asked, glancing back at me.

She led me back into a little room that had a sink, a clothes hanger, an emergency panic button, and a small, bare bed. A RED LIGHT THAT GLOWED ALL AHEAD.

Her fee was "50 euros" for a duration of 15-20 minutes. "Upfront."

I handed her seventy and settled in as the two of us reclined on a mattress covered in vinyl that many others had slept on. It was the only place to sit.

"What would you like me to call you?"

She grinned and asked, "What would you like to call me?" It was as though she had said that statement a thousand times, changing from being nothing to everything to everyone in that room.

I went on without naming myself.

Among the thousand questions I had, the most obvious one was how it all started?

Her 22-year-old boyfriend "put her in the window" while she was just shy of turning eighteen." She was lovely, young, and unspoiled. "I was in love," she admitted to me. "But I was too young to know that love doesn't look like that." "The money was simple," she remarked. "Even though it was the first time, I recall being dirty. I soon found myself earning more money than I had ever seen.

"Money is like an addiction, not the sex." THAT'S WHY QUITTING IS SO HARD.

The nameless girl is now forty years old. Gorgeous, sun-kissed, and Dutch, with her long, black hair styled in a high ponytail. She talked about the good old days when she could make a few thousand euros a night.

"ANYONE AND EVERYONE" WHO SHOWED UP AT HER WINDOW SHE WOULD TAKE.

I said, "Would you do it privately?" She said, "No," without hesitation. "None of the males are trustworthy. This place is safer."

I said, "WHAT WON'T YOU DO?"

"If there isn't a condom, I won't have sex. Some girls choose to, and it's their body, but I won't." She also doesn't kiss, just like Julia Roberts's Pretty Woman role.

I had told her once that my time was over, but we spoke for almost an hour. She grinned as though she was looking forward to this sentimental diversion, "I will let you know when you have to go."