By Liz Goff

At the ripe old age of 23, Keeki has seen it all. The whole seedy underside of the world of prostitution. For more than 10 years, Keeki (her street name) has sold herself as a streetwalker. She has sold sex over the telephone, and she is now "for sale" at a brothel, hiding in back rooms and basements in Queens.

She has been robbed, raped, beaten and busted – yet she is really not interested in seeking out a different profession.

Keeki has been arrested for prostitution and related offenses more than 90 times in the past 10 years. So often, in fact, that she has lost count.

"I’d say that 80 or 90 times is about right," she said. "Who can remember?"

She likes working in a brothel. "It’s more protected," she said. "I don’t touch the money (except for her "salary"). I’m not walking the streets at 2 or 3 a.m. in some dark, empty neighborhood, and there’s less chance that I’m going to get a black eye, or get beat out of my money by some jerk in a fancy car."

Keeki walked the streets of Flushing, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Long Island City from the time she left home in late 1987 until she "went indoors" to a sex-by-phone service in 1993. That job, though more comfortable, didn’t last, she said. Too much pressure and too many "weirdos" where she worked.

Queens Vice cops load mattresses seized from brothels onto a Police Department truck for disposal.

Keeki ended up in a brothel after she agreed to let an "organizer" pay her bail following a 1995 arrest. She was picked up by Queens Vice cops for prostitution and held in jail after her record came back with an outstanding warrant for a prior robbery/assault conviction.

"I had to book from the island (Rikers Island)," she said. "Can’t make no money in that place. There you give it away just to survive," she added.

Keeki agreed to work off the charge by working in a brothel. "It took some time to get used to," she said. "But now it’s not that bad."

Keeki said she has learned a great deal – more than she expected – about the men who seek out women in brothels. "It’s a lot different than on the street," she said.

She has learned that many of her "customers" are not driven so much by sex, but by a lust for companionship – a warped need to belong.

"A lot of these guys want to talk," she said. "They talk about their wives and children back home, about what they did last weekend and about work." Sex is definitely on the menu, she said. But first, the men often try to establish a bond.

"I guess that makes them feel less lonely, and like they’re not doing anything wrong," she said.

Queens Vice cops round up prostitutes taken from a brothel and wait for the bus that will take them to the precinct for arrest processing.

Keeki dresses the part each evening, usually in cheap lace or spandex. She then enters a large room where she may be one of six or more prostitutes who sit in a circle on chairs positioned around the perimeter of the room.

The men, who range in age from 16 to 60, come from a wide range of backgrounds, she said. There are no racial or social barriers among these purveyors of the flesh.

"They’re white, black, Hispanic," she said. "Some are well dressed and some are dressed like pigs."

To most of the men, their marital status doesn’t enter into their decision to pay for sex, she said. Of the dozens of men who walk through the door each night, only "one or two" seem to feel a twinge of conscience. They say they really should just go home to their wives and kids.

"Of course, there are always one or two men who make flesh crawl," Keeki said. She described them as "creeps" or "big shots."

"They come in flashing gold and wearing expensive clothes," she said. "They always offer extra cash to girls who are willing to go for ‘something different’ – once they get us alone.

"Some girls take it, some don’t. I tell them to get the hell out," she said. "They’re the ones who beat you."

Each night the lights are dimmed and rock or Spanish music plays softly in the background. The men walk around the room – maybe two or three times – "checking us out. Then they walk over and reach out for one of us, and we take them into a back room," Keeki said.

"It’s kind of like a supermarket – it can be a real kick to see who they pick."

The rooms are scantily furnished, most containing a twin bed (with or without sheets), a small nightstand filled with accessories – body oils, lotions, massage cream and, in some instances "toys." The men are supposed to use a condom (a $1 charge is added to the price of the girls’ services for the prophylactic). But some men just refuse to use them.

"It’s not worth arguing over," Keeki said. "Just get in and get out is what I say. Everything is a risk."

Money earned at the brothels isn’t bad, Keeki said. The girls get only a small percentage of the payments made by their customers, but they are given "not bad" room and board. They’re relatively free to leave. Except, of course, for the girls who are working off some sort of "bondage" owed to the house.

Keeki said she has never come across a girl who has a very high price tag to pay the house. For the most part the girls who have a debt come to the house owing only a few hundred dollars, she said. They choose to stay because their living conditions are okay, and they realize they are better off in a house than walking the streets.

"If you leave the house, where else do you go but back to the street?" she asked.

In addition to the personal safety the houses offer, the girls stay because they feel they stand a better chance of avoiding arrest than if they were on the street.

"It takes longer for the police to find us," Keeki said. "And even then, they need paperwork to get in."

What Are They Doing, Where And How Much?

Communities impacted by the plague of prostitution feel the sting of related criminal activities and a diminished quality of life. They feel it in many, often unspoken ways:

• Take the Queens apartment dweller whose children run to the door when their bell rings.

How do you explain to your kids what the man meant when he asked for the whores – that he meant the folks in an adjacent apartment, not yours.

•And what about the youngster who went outside the family’s private home one morning to wait for his errant parents (late again) to take him to school.

Imagine the parent’s horror when the six-year-old ran into the house holding a "balloon" he found on the street outside. The child was holding a discarded condom. Panic turned to rage as doctors told the parents their child would have to be tested for HIV/AIDS for at least 11 years.

These are just two examples of how prostitution impacts on neighborhoods.

Prostitutes no longer ply their trade in dark alleys – they’ve taken over our streets, causing traffic jams and invading spaces too close to home.

They’re brazen, like the young woman who sold herself from a fire hydrant on one of Queens’ busiest thoroughfares. Their customers come in all shapes, sizes and colors – with and without a bankroll. One determined john pedaled his way to a prostitute riding a bicycle.

Flushing is home to mostly Asian-run brothels (massage parlors), offering time with girls who are working off huge debts they incurred traveling to the United States. Streetwalkers frequent Prince Street in Flushing where they are protected by "enforcers."

Asian pimps and madams run most of the "massage parlors" in Woodside, authorities said. And you’ll find a number of hookers in brothels in Glen Oaks, Woodside, Sunnyside and Jamaica.

Roosevelt Avenue was a prostitution playground until a special team of cops and prosecutors shut down most of the brothels on the strip. Jackson Heights and Corona offer a change of pace – transvestite hookers.

Maspeth and Astoria share hookers who frequent streets, then take clients to nearby motels. And Long Island City is plagued by streetwalkers. The industrial part of the area hosts two separate "offerings."

Prostitutes on the north side of the Queensboro Bridge openly flaunt their bodies, naked or almost naked in dead of winter or heat of summer. These are women of independent means, unencumbered by pimps.

The south side of the bridge is a different world.

There is a mix of streetwalkers with pimps and brothels here, and drugs are readily available along with sex.

If you’re going to get yourself killed patronizing a prostitute, this is where it will likely happen, sources said.

The going rate for sex with a streetwalker in Queens is: $10 for oral sex; $15 for intercourse; $25 for oral sex and intercourse (patrons must buy a condom for $1). Total: $26. Prices may vary with independent prostitutes.

Time in a brothel can cost between $40/hour to $80/hour, depending on what you want. Some houses and girls who utilize motels charge from $200 to $800 for one visit – money most of the girls will never see.

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