Businesses in central London are complaining that a wave of daylight kerb-crawling by professional women in search of ‘rough trade’ is adversely effecting their trade. “It’s bloody disgusting, they come cruising down here at all hours in their Audis, BMWs and Mercs, looking for dirty old vagrants and ragged homeless men to have sex with,” says an outraged Reg Burrowes, who runs a printing business near Centrepoint on Oxford Street. “It’s probably worst at around lunchtime – you can’t move for women in smart business suits and high heels picking up tramps. I was hoping that the congestion charge might deter them – but obviously five quid a day isn’t enough to put these degenerate bitches off!” According to Burrowes and his fellow local traders, once the women have picked up a vagrant, they drive either to a back street or a nearby multi-storey car park to have sex, before returning the tramp to his cardboard box fifteen or twenty minutes later. “Don’t they know this is a respectable business district?” asks Harry Chan, proprietor of a delicatessen on York Road, near Waterloo station. “Not only are they causing massive congestion, but they’re driving away my trade – what upright respectable man wants to have to see that sort of thing going on when they’re trying to eat, eh?”

Whilst the overwhelming majority of Chan’s customers are far too well dressed to attract the attentions of these middle-class female sexual predators, some have had the misfortune to be propositioned. “I know a few clerks who have been returning from work looking casual – no tie, open necked shirt, no jacket, that sort of thing – who have had to suffer harassment from these harpies; asking them if they want to take a ride, offering them ten quid for a ‘Hugh Grant’. Bloody disgusting!” he explains, adding that he did hear of one junior clerk actually being dragged into a Jaguar and subjected to a terrifying sexual ordeal at the hands of a bored accounts manager. “Apparently she kicked the poor bastard out of the car in the middle of Drury Lane with no shoes and a fiver stuck between his arse cheeks!” Not only are the kerb-crawlers driving away respectable customers, but they are encouraging large numbers of down-and-outs to loiter on the street, in the hope of picking up business. “They flaunt themselves out there at all hours – particularly lunchtime and evening rush-hour – arses provocatively hanging out of their ragged trousers, beards matted with snot and flashing their decaying smiles in the hope of attracting some sad attractive professional woman in her flash car! They’re lowering the whole tone of the neighbourhood,” sighs a despondent Chan. “Can’t they just bugger off to the suburbs to do this sort of thing? At least there they’d only be upsetting a few uptight middle-class residents, instead of destroying people’s businesses!”

The kerb-crawling women are unrepentant, claiming that the problem is exaggerated and that they are merely satisfying their natural female urges. “We just want real men,” one thirty eight year old Audi driver – who obviously wishes to remain anonymous, identifying herself only as Mrs X – told The Sleaze. “I’m married with two kids – my husband is a successful businessman, but, quite frankly, his clean cut looks, six pack and Armani suits just don’t do it for me any more! Besides he’s only interested in his business – he never talks about football, drinks beer or slouches in front of the TV every night like a normal man! As for sex – he spends far too much time trying to be ‘considerate’ to actually get on with it!” Most of the other women The Sleaze spoke to expressed similar sentiments, claiming that they could only find genuine satisfaction amongst the ‘real men’ they found on the streets. “You don’t know how good it is to feel that straggly, matted beard against your skin, or smell the odours of a real man – stale sweat, tobacco, urine and vomit, rather than having to put up with the stench of deodorant and aftershave,” explains Mrs X. “Women have urges that need to be satisfied! There is nothing so wonderfully erotic as having your breasts fumblingly groped by the grimy hands of some toothless old vagrant, or running your fingers through his lice-infested pubes!”

For their part, the vagrants and down and outs are generally enthusiastic as to their new-found popularity. “I can make twenty or thirty quid on a good day, it’s bloody brilliant,” says ‘Smoky Joe’ Dreck, a down-and-out who can frequently be seen walking down the Charing Cross Road brandishing a cardboard sign saying ‘Will show cock for change’, or ‘Can perform fellatio for food’. “The secret is to spend it all on booze and drugs. I’ve seen some of the younger lads use it to try and get cleaned up – spending it on clean clothes, haircuts and shaving. Bad mistake – they lost all their custom. These women like it rough!” Dreck – who usually sleeps under two threadbare army blankets at the back of the National Gallery – has quickly become one of the most in-demand of London’s homeless, with businesswomen coming from all over the Capital seeking his services. “You’ve got to let them feel they’ve got their fiver’s worth. Personally, I find that keeping it simple and straightforward is best – I just bang away for a couple of minutes, then belch and fart as violently as possible when I ejaculate,” he confides. “Mind you, some of them like it kinky – there’s one graphic designer from Ealing who always wants me to vomit over her breasts as she comes! She prefers it chunky, if possible.”

Despite the enthusiasm of homeless lotharios like ‘Smoky Joe’, social workers and homeless groups believe that the down-and-outs are being mercilessly exploited. “These are vulnerable people being preyed upon by affluent bored housewives,” declares Mike Critch of homeless charity Shelter. “There have recently been cases of homeless men being ‘pimped’ by ruthless young girls, who tout for business in London offices whilst posing as sandwich sellers. The men never get to see any money, just being fobbed off with stale sandwiches. If they don’t co-operate, they can find their cardboard boxes being torched in firebomb attacks!”

Indeed, it is even rumoured that, such is the demand for tramps as sexual playthings, organised criminal gangs are now organising the wholesale illegal importation of Eastern European vagrants into the UK. “Clearly, the only solution is to decriminalise this activity and move it off of the streets and into licensed premises, where it can be properly regulated,” opines Professor Jerry Mire, an expert on male prostitution and chair of Sexology at East Acton College of Further Education. “The Greater London Authority should be setting up more legalised homeless hostels and soup kitchens, where top totty can indulge their filthy fantasies under safe conditions without causing a public nuisance.” London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s office has so far declined to comment on Professor Mire’s proposals.