Whenever two adults in New York exchange sex for money, each commits a Class B misdemeanor. So one might think it would be difficult to procure a sex worker. It takes about three minutes. The website of one local spot is your basic HTML slapdash job. It says that "they" would like to be with you very much and uses lots of exclamation points. There's a gallery of women, young and mostly blond and carelessly dressed. Most of the women look like they could be in The Bangles, a bit more on the side of Debbi Peterson than Susanna Hoffs.

Each girl has a requested "donation" listed—this amount was uniformly $300. Most ladies of this outfit are located in Midtown East and in-call only, which means you must needs to them go. Clicking through to each woman's page, one finds more salacious photographs and their measurements. Almost all are "new to the biz" and many are "22 years young."

To think that every girl is lounging about in some centralized prostitute clearing house or some pretty brothel would be incorrect. There's no house at all. There is instead a series of unoccupied apartments used for meeting men and also, unrelatedly, exchanging donation money.

To ascertain which girl is working on any given night, visitors to the site are asked to click on the copyright banner at the bottom of this outfit's website. This leads you to a collection of Craigslist ads.

And a phone number is given. So you might call the guy.

"It's a busy night," he might say. "All we have is Jane." Busy! "She'll meet you on 63rd and 2nd. Is eight O.K.?"

What if eight is a little early?

"O.K., nine then. I don't want to rush you. Give me a call when you get there."

"Wait, wait," you might ask. "Do I tip? I mean, I just show up?"

"Nah," he'll say. "You don't gotta tip. Just give me a call when you get there."

Then you'll wonder if you should shower before you meet a prostitute. You'll wonder if you should go at all. You'll probably wonder for a moment if you'll be arrested. And then, most probably, you'll jump in a cab for the lower Upper East Side.

Continued here.