She found me outside one Sunday morning
Begging money from a man I didn't know.
She took me in and wiped away my childhood,
A woman of the streets, this Lady Rose.
Begging money from a man I didn't know.
She took me in and wiped away my childhood,
A woman of the streets, this Lady Rose.
A prostitute (most likely a Hooker with a Heart of Gold) provides a home to someone who needs a place to stay. Whether that guest sleeps with his or her benefactor is optional.
Compare Platonic Prostitution and Need a Hand, or a Handjob?
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Sin City has wrongly accused PI Dwight McCarthy on the run from the law and badly injured after being betrayed by the title character of the story A Dame to Kill For. The girls of Old Town patch him up and allow him to stay for a while. He ends up using them to get his revenge on the people who set him up.
Fan Works
- Used in "Relax"
in a rather heartwarming way. The girl allows her regular client to spend the night with her after they have sex instead of making him leave.
Film
- Dead Man has William Blake taken in by a former prostitute who is trying to make a living selling paper roses.
- Hobo with a Shotgun the title character is taken in by a prostitute whom he rescued from the villain's son.
- Irma la Douce had Shirley MacLaine's title character taking in Jack Lemmon's character after he lost his job as a cop.
- Leaving Las Vegas has Nicholas Cage's character taken in by Elizabeth Shue's character, another streetwise hooker.
- The Machinist: Trevor Reznik is cared for Stevie, the hooker whom he frequently visits, after his paranoia becomes too much. Unfortunately, he eventually believes that she's out to get him as well and drives her away.
- Macho Dancer: After Pol is beaten by Kid, he is nursed back to health by his call girl dalliance Bambi.
- The Novices: Agnes doesn't have a place to stay or a penny to her name when she first arrives in Paris. Fortunately for her, Mona Lisa lets her stay at her apartment out of the kindness of her heart, which is how Agnes finds out she's a hooker and eventually gets involved in the business in various capacities as a way to pay her share of the rent.
- Trading Places has Louis Winthorpe III taken in by Ophelia, a streetwise hooker.
Literature
- It's mentioned in one of the Aubrey-Maturin books that Stephen Maturin stayed in one of the brothels in Jakarta, where the ship is docked on a diplomatic mission, because it was simply the cheapest place to stay, not to mention convenient for carrying out his trade. The girl he shares the bed with is only initially surprised that he's not interested in sex. The crew of the ship, naturally, don't know about his job as Britain's premier spy and come to the obvious conclusion about his, er, stamina and prowess.
- In the Bardic Voices novel The Lark and the Wren, the heroine is housed in a brothel; she plays music for the customers, and it is made clear that no more is expected — or wanted — from her.
- In Devdas (both the novel and the numerous film adaptations), Chandramukhi offers Devdas a place to stay.
- Older Than Dirt: In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the temple prostitute Shamhat takes in wildman Enkidu for one or two weeks as a means of introducing him to civilization. Sex is explicitly part of the deal, initially to convince Enkidu that human company is preferable to living in the wilderness.
- In Fraternity of the Stone by David Morrell, the protagonist spends the night with a prostitute to avoid sleeping in a hotel, as he's on the run from people who have already gone to great lengths to track him down and kill him. However, he has trouble convincing the woman he doesn't want to sleep with her (he's a monk), yet isn't planning something nasty instead. They do share the bed; he pretends this is out of a desire to just hold her for comfort when actually it's to ensure she can't sneak out of the room without waking him up.
- In the Green Rider book First Rider's Call, Karigan G'ladheon stays the night at a brothel. Unfortunately for her, she happens to be staying in the same room as Trudy, a prostitute who only caters to lesbians. The morning after, Trudy won't stop implying to Karigan's friends that they, ahem, had relations.
- In Guards! Guards!, Carrot ends up lodging at a brothel after saving one of the Seamstresses from muggers. He has no idea of his home's true nature. He also misses the point when he tells this to someone else, and they are impressed that he can afford it, and by his stamina. They don't charge him rent in exchange for his services as a bouncer, which he also doesn't quite grasp. The offer included access to the place's usual services too, and it seems like the owners never quite figured out that he wasn't just being a gentleman in not taking advantage.
"She kept waking me up and asking me if I wanted anything but she didn't have any apples."
- Oliver Twist: Nancy, a prostitute, takes the novel's title character — a young street urchin — under her wing. Unlike most other examples on this page, there are no sexual relations between the two; Nancy's motives are pure in that she vows to reform Oliver into a respectable young man.
- Quiller has been known to do this from time to time when he needs a place to hide out. In The Peking Target, while in South Korea the hooker he's with is an American who provides this service on a regular basis for lonely US officers fresh out of West Point who just want to hear someone who speaks English.
- In The Stainless Steel Rat, the Back-Alley Doctor who does the plastic surgery to Jim has been reduced to that after losing his job. After he finishes with the surgery, Jim gives the doctor the final part of the payment... in marked money, explaining the hooker deserves some compensation for supporting him, so he sent the sum to her instead.
- In the novel The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz, Said runs from law enforcement after attempting to murder his old friend, Ilish Sidra. He hides for the next several days with his old friend, Nur, who just so happens to be a prostitute. "Intimate" relations between the two are implied.
- In The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Brownfield winds up staying at a brothel when he gives up searching for his father. It turns out the prostitute was his father's ex-lover, and he sleeps with her too. And her daughter, who's another prostitute. Then he marries her non-prostitute niece, and the father comes back and marries the first prostitute, and it's really just a big, dysfunctional mess.
- In Twig, after they defect from the Radham academy, Sy and Jamie stay at a brothel, treating it basically like a safe house.
- Wagons West:
- In California!, Melissa arranges for the runaway Isaiah to stay at Big George's while he ran away from home.
- In Utah!, Kale Salton has Beth stay at her home after the trial.
Live-Action TV
- All the Light We Cannot See: Von Rumpel shelters in the abode of a prostitute. His cancer treatments have left him with no libido so she instead nurses his injuries and listens to his exposition on the Sea of Flames and his search for Marie-Laure for the audience. Knowing that she'll be considered a traitor for servicing the Nazis, she gives up Marie-Laure's location in hopes that he will get her out of Saint-Malo.
- The title character in I, Claudius sometimes stays with a hooker named Calpurnia, especially when Caligula is in power and staying in the royal palace is getting dangerous.
- Long Susan and Homer Jackson in Ripper Street.
Music
- The Trope Namer is a song by The Statler Brothers; a young man is taken in by the titular Lady Rose, and it's made clear that he has indeed slept with her for the first time.note
Mythology & Religion
Video Games
- In Assassin's Creed II, Ezio, Maria, and Claudia seek refuge in a brothel while the Auditore men are being rounded up and arrested. They remain there until they can leave the city.
Webcomics
- Get Medieval has poor Asher solicited by Belle, a lady of the night, in the most deadpan pickup line ever: they're cold, wet, and it's raining cats and dogs, and neither she nor Asher is willing to ask questions about exactly what they're getting into. They just wind up having a heart-to-heart, from which both profit. They eventually hook up after Belle does a Sweet Polly Oliver, albeit briefly.
Real Life
- The ladies of Whitechapel would sometimes share rooms, and in the days leading up to her murder, Jack the Ripper victim Mary Kelly shared her room with between one and two women, Julia and possibly also Maria Harvey.
- Rebels during the Boshin War often sheltered with prostitutes.
- There are rumours that Benito Mussolini himself during his turbulent youth (when he was a regular client of prostitutes both in Italy and abroad) lived for some time in a brothel. For free. Given his reputation throughout his adult life, he might have had reasons.
- Kawakami Gensai (the real-life inspiration for Rurouni Kenshin) once hid out in a brothel after an assassination and was said to look so feminine that he was able to pass for one of the girls.
