When people think of escorts, if they have any image at all, they tend to see girls in their twenties with killer bodies and legs forever. Blondes stepping off the pages of the now non-nude Playboy magazine. Escorts embody a social fixation on youth.

Or do they?

While many girls in college or at the beginning of their careers will escort for a few months or a year, many escorts are older. Some are much older. We had a lovely chat with a lady of a certain age who we reached by phone. "I don't Skype. At least not yet." said Nora.

"In fact I barely know how to work my smartphone. Really, in my market all I really need to do is answer calls. Which I love doing." said Nora with a really rather sweet chuckle.

I advertise a little online and in some print newspapers and that is all I really need to do.

There is a lot about the escorting business which is very youth focused. I get that. There are lots of men out there who really do want to sleep with a girl young enough to be their daughter or granddaughter and who am I to judge?

I never hide my age in my posts. I am certainly 45+. I just don't say much about how "plus". And does that really matter all that much now. Do you watch Frankie and Grace on Netflix? I do. Great show. And Jane Fonda is smoking hot and she's 78. No, really.

I am a fair bit younger than that. I escorted in my twenties when there was no internet and, frankly, in my city you either worked for an agency or you worked on the street. I worked for an agency and there really was no alternative. Somehow escort agencies could get in the Yellow Pages and that was where guys looking for a girl would go. There really was no other place to advertise in my city because there were no alternative newspapers and no internet.

I quit escorting when I got married. Never gave it a second thought and wouldn't have if my Charlie, when he got sick, hadn't suggested it. He had known I was an escort when we married. I think it turned him on to be getting at home what men had paid good money for back in the day.

Any how, Charlie got sick and then, sad to say, he died. Good man Charlie but he didn't leave me much. We had a rented house and we had a car we owed some money on. Basically he left me with a funeral bill and 20k in life insurance he'd forgotten he had. I got out of the house and into a nice little apartment near one of the suburban downtowns which sort of ring the old city. Quite near the airport which is important for this whole thing.

I looked around for a job but, you know, in retail they want young girls who'll work for the discount. I don't have any big time skills and computers are fine but I am not a whiz. So it was looking a bit grim.

I've always been a gal who gets stuff done. I can take a while to figure out what needs to be done but once I figure it out I am dynamite. I decided I would get back into escorting but this time I was going to do things differently.

My old escorting agency had long since closed and, as I looked around, I realized that the agencies which were still operating were all promoting much younger escorts. Even if they put me on their books I knew the younger escorts would get all the dates. What was the point?

So, instead of trying to compete against young escorts in an agency I decided I would see if I could go independent. But, obviously, not on the street. And I also decided that rather than hiding my age I was going to use it. I spent a fair bit of time looking at a few of the escort forums on line and I was really happy to see that there were a lot of 40+ gals making a go of it. Older, wiser and, judging from the pictures, amazingly well preserved.

Well so was I. Probably because I had been an escort when I was younger I took really good care of my skin and I knew that I needed my body to be in good condition. I mean if you go shopping and look at most of the women in your local mall, especially women my age, it is a pretty sorry sight. Forty years of chips and soda as major food groups and no walking or any other exercise take their toll.

I've always been a big walker and I have been going to fitness classes at the community center for years. I always thought it was for my health but, when I decided to escort again, all that exercise really paid off. I've also been doing yoga three days a week for the last few years and that really keeps you limber. So I was pretty confident my body would be fine for escorting.

At the same time, while those pretty little escorts can get away with mini-dresses which are really T-shirts, I knew that my body would be a lot happier with a bit of support here and there. And while my legs are toned and rather long, a pair of stockings never hurt when I was a twenty year old escort, no reason not to wear them now.

All of which got me thinking about how I was going to present myself in my advertising. Here's the thing, when I looked at escort posts there were not very many which really stood out. They all seemed to have a bunch of initials DATY, GFE – which I get as a short hand for services offered – and words like "busty" and "hot". And then the pictures. I was amazed at how remarkably unattractive a lot of these girls managed to look. Booty shorts are not a great look unless you have a perfect body. But maybe I am just old fashioned.

Which was, after I had thought about it for a while, how I wanted to present myself in my escort advertising. Mature, vintage, retro…old fashioned.

I have nice breasts and a couple of really pretty push up bras. And my legs are really toned and defined. So I thought I would wear a little fitted cocktail dress I have had for years. Nice scoop neck and, if you sit just so, the tops your stockings peek out. I took what people call "selfies" in my living room on a sunny day with the sun playing on my legs and my face pretty much in shadow. I am not at all ashamed of being an escort but I also have no great interest in people who are not clients recognizing me. And once something is on the Internet I know it can end up almost anywhere. Better not to take chances.

The headline on my posts read "An Old Fashioned Girl". I figured there was no reason not to make a bit of a thing about an older, gentler, world. One which probably never existed but so what? Those girls in the booty shorts were selling a fantasy, I was selling a different fantasy to what I thought would be an older market. My post copy mentions Mrs. Robinson which was a reference to the Dustin Hoffman film, "The Graduate". And I say that "most girls won't, some girls do." But most of all I try to emphasize "pampering" and "non-rushed" encounters. The posts were just a bit vague. My website is a little more explicit. But where most of the girl offer the GFE or Girl Friend Experience, I offer the CGE – the Call Girl Experience.

After all these years I was not really sure what to charge so I left that off my website. Which turned out to be smart when a law enforcement crackdown occurred and any girl who advertised escorting prices or had her prices on her website was contacted by the police and threatened with trafficking charges. Which is crazy because all the girls seemed to be working for themselves. But, I guess because I didn't have any prices up, not even roses, the police never called me.

The one thing I had going for me was my location. My house is in an area which is about three minutes from the airport and literally around the corner from four or five biggish airport hotels where guys stay when they are coming into town on business. These days, in my city, people really don't want to be bothered going all the way downtown because, after dark, there is nothing at all to do. But out here by the airport there are all sorts of restaurants and bars and a couple of big office parks. Which means that my potential clients are nearby.

When I was planning my new escorting business I thought in terms of one, or at most two, dates a day. I could easily get to the hotels. I have a little car or they really are a five minute walk. Or, for certain dates, I could entertain at home. My house is pretty private and my neighbours are not nosy.

For the hotels I needed to discretely, find out what their attitude was to escorts. Back in the day my agency had arrangements with most of the big downtown hotels. I have no idea what those arrangements were but I never got hassled seeing a client who was a guest. Best place to get that sort of information was a hotel bar on a slow afternoon. I put on a businessy looking dress and jacket and walked down to what I thought of as the best hotel on the strip. Might as well start at the top. I am not much of a drinker, especially in the afternoon, but I ordered a white wine spritzer and sad at the bar. The bar tender was about my age and it was easy to strike up a conversation. I swung it around to escorts and he laughed.

"You would think it would be a big deal with all the business guys flying in and out. But management in this hotel has a very strict customer privacy policy. If a customer wants to have guests in his room that is his business. Up until midnight when the rule is you have to check in at the front desk to go upstairs. No big deal if a girl only shows up occasionally; but a bit of a problem if she is here every second night. What management does not like are girls from out of town setting up in the hotel "on tour" from other cities. Escorts who do that will be kicked out instantly.

Now the funny thing is that if I am working an evening shift I will get four or five guys asking me if I have a number for some company. There used to be a couple of girls who would come into this bar a couple of nights a week to try their luck and that was not a problem."

And, of course, having given me all the information I needed about the hotel's attitude towards escorts, the bar tender couldn't help but say, "And why do you ask?" Well, I was going to have to deal with the reality of my decision at some point so I said, "I'm in the business. Independently, and just around the corner."

I was delighted when the bartender flashed me a smile, "I was hoping that was why you were asking. Look, the real trouble this hotel and the other hotels on the airport strip have with escorts is that a lot of the girls are not exactly ladies. Quite the opposite. Young, loud, drunk and often strung out on drugs. Back in the day there were call girls who knew how to behave and there were no problems. You look like you understand that whole thing. If you'd like I'd be happy to give the nicer guys a number."

Perfect I thought to myself writing down my number on a scrap of paper. "I really should get some cards." I said.

"I wouldn't." said my new bartender friend, "If you are ever shaken down by the police, and it can happen, printed cards are hard evidence which the DA can take to the bank. This is just a name and a number and I have hundreds of those behind the bar for everything from escorts to pet groomers. Much safer."

I checked out a couple more hotels and the story was pretty much the same though not quite as friendly. I was a bit relieved that none of the barkeeps I spoke to suggested I might be a little old for the escorting business. It was, honestly, just a bit of a worry.

Once I had the lay of the land and my posts were ready to run I converted one of the main floor rooms in my house into a working girl's bedroom. Nothing major, just a decent bed, and a screen to get undressed behind. There was a washroom down the hall with a shower so I could keep my dates on the main floor. I learned a little about how to "screen" clients by researching on the internet. The agency used to do that when I was first escorting, now I had to do it.

I was amazed when the first call came in on my work phone. Guy on a six hour layover who wanted an good old fashioned blow job. How much? I explained I was sure something like that could be arranged but I never discussed either activities between consenting adults or any pricing over the phone. But he could make me an offer. Which he did and, after confirming he was staying in one of the hotels and that he did indeed work for a particular company in Denver, I put on a pretty top and a nice skirt and walked the five blocks to the hotel.

Just as I had been told, there was no trouble at the front desk and I soon arrived at my first client in nearly thirty years hotel room. Certain things about escorting never change and I had the usual butterflies as I knocked on his door. A man in his mid forties, wearing a hotel robe, opened the door. He had, he told me, just that moment stepped out of the shower I had asked him to take. Perfect! Ten minutes later, business out of the way, I gave him a little show, striping down to bra, panties and stockings and got to work. In the old days girls were expected to do blow jobs without a condom, now a condom is mandatory.

It was interesting and actually quite a lot of fun to remember old skills and tricks. It may have been a long time ago but what men like has not changed a bit. I could have finished him in record time but I took my time and made sure he had a great experience. I don't much like the rubbery taste of condoms and, since last I had done this, the technology had improved a lot with a vast improvement in terms of taste. I've discovered you can get nicely flavoured condoms which I now carry with me. Who knew?

The fact I was my client's age (in fact, I suspect, a little older) didn't matter a bit. When we were chatting afterwards he told me that the "Old Fashioned Girl" headline in my post was what sold him. "Old Fashioned girls know something. When I saw that you are "mature" and then looked at your picture and figured that you were not eighty, I was pretty much sold." I told him he was my first date after a long hiatus from escorting and he was delighted. "Well, I will certainly not be your last. I come here about every six weeks for a couple of days and it is where I take the layover when I am flying back to Denver. I'll let you know a couple of days ahead of time. Maybe we could grab a bite to eat before?"

I tucked his $300 into my purse and added his $50 tip, which I thought was awfully generous for a simple blow job, and left. I was back in business.

It turns out there is a steady demand for a mature, old fashioned, escort. Especially if she is near the airport and happy to entertain from about 7 in the morning until 11 at night. I was amazed at how many calls I got wanting company in the morning, early in the morning. I never anticipated that. Three or four escort dates before 10 AM a week. Usually they have a noon flight and want to enjoy a bit of fun early. Of course I have evening dates as well. My bartender friend sends me a half dozen dates a month and I make sure to tip him very, very well when I stop in for a spritzer.

I am completely up front about being an older escort and I honestly don't think it has cost me any business. In fact, a number of my dates have said they really prefer a more mature escort. They feel safer and, if they were honest, a lot less pressure.

From my perspective, escorting as a mature woman is a lot more fun than it was when I was young. Again, less pressure. If I am relaxed about it, so are my escort clients.