Getting Crushed, Part 3

The first time I retired was far from the end. I was sort of like an alcoholic who keeps trying different tricks to drink like a normal person – just beer, only on weekends, only with dinner, etc. There were many more missteps and stumbles. I tried having sugar daddy relationships with one guy at a time. I decided I could work in a sex club. I just plain got desperate and went back to the easiest way I knew to make money.

The real end came much later. But once I had really quit, I shoved the whole experience into a corner of my brain I never intended to revisit. I went years without thinking about what I’d done. I assumed I would always keep the secret of my hooker past from everyone I met.

But because of this blog, that hasn’t turned out to be true. Telling these stories was the only way to feel better about their contents, and having them heard was the key to learning from my mistakes. In that way, writing this blog changed my life.

But now that I’ve been writing here for over a year, I’m not sure how much more I have to say about sex work. I’m not out of tales of bad sex with unbelievably oblivious johns, and I’m definitely not out of stories about stupid decisions I’ve made in the name of sex. But I don’t have anything new to say about those topics, and even if I did I’m better poised to make a living on my stories than I was a year ago. I write full time now – which means I have less time to write for myself.

I’m not sure what I want to become of this blog – I lie up nights worrying about it sometimes. I’m not ready to close it down entirely, but I’m tired of talking about whoring -- at some point reliving these stories becomes less about healing and more about playing with fire, dipping my toe into the quicksand. I’m not sure if my life is interesting enough these days to write about; it’s a tribute to how much writing this blog has helped me that I’m mostly sane and boring today.

There is one story I want to tell. Someone asked me through e-mail the other day what happened to R., the client I was crushing on here and here. The answer is one of the good things that came out of my time as a callgirl.

The first time I quit the biz, I didn’t bother sending out a press release. I was done, so done, that I stopped cold-turkey without notifying any of my former clients. I just quit checking my email and answering my cell phone, and before long they quite writing and calling. But when I got an e-mail from R. asking if I had retired, I wrote back.

"I have retired. I just got increasingly more disgusted with myself. I knew I was too smart for what I was doing. I got scared I was going to end up with some kind of horrible disease or that someone in my life would find out what I was doing. Hell, it'll probably still come out someday when I least expect it and when it will do the most damage.

I liked it at first-- it seemed easy and fun and I was a broke-ass arty chick in NYC driven to desperate measures. But I really started to hate myself, my body, sex, men, money. I'm not talking about you really--maybe I'm naive, but I honestly believe you saw me as a person and not just a piece of ass. You're for damn sure the only one I'm bothering to reply to.

I don't know where rent is coming from a few months from now, but I just couldn't do it anymore. Maybe I'll change my mind when I'm broke again but I hope not. I've always been a huge sex-work advocate as a woman and a feminist but now I believe there really isn't a way to sell your body and be healthy. There isn't a way to keep from getting broken.

I like you so much. I'd love to be friends."

And back from him:

“You know, it's damn cool you wrote me back. Thanks.

I thought you may have hung up your boots, and
honestly, even though (selfishly) this probably means
I won't make love to you again, I'm really glad you
have retired.

And I am also very glad nothing terrible happened to
you. Thought maybe you ended up in some Arabian
dungeon or or worse....

You really are too smart, too sweet, too super cool
and too sexy to share any part of yourself with
strangers looking for their next sex fix.

I agree with you, I don't think sex work can produce
anything positive in the long-term. It's so
fascinating and yet so destructive. But like you, I
support someone's decision to do it. The actual female
friends I have known who got into it - it really eats
them up and drains them. Even guys I know who work on
the editorial side of porno mags - they are so jaded
and burnt out.

And you're not naive - I do see you as a person. Even
though I know our meetings were technically business,
I saw it as two friends getting together. I instantly
liked you as a person, enjoyed talking to you and was
amazed how down to earth you were. I think we both saw
through the general absurdity of what we were doing
and just had fun. Our therapy sessions helped get my
mind off some really bad things in my life and made me
feel good about myself at a time I was feeling like
crap.

I guess that's why I made a lousy John, I really can't
be myself with strangers - I'm a shy movie geek with a
bad boy complex. But I think you understood that in
me.

So I haven't done it in a very long time (our sporadic
meetings excluded). Out of the three other times I
paid for it, I couldn't help feeling degraded,
pathetic, scared, desperate and like that little old
lady on the bad end of a good con job.

But I had this fire inside me to try it, a "Hey!
You're a guy" rite of passage thing. Then I said to
myself, "You're a writer, it'll be material if nothing
else." I guess I could justify it however I want, huh?

So, as expected, I have ranted my ass off. But as you
know, that's what I do. It was good to think about all
this stuff. As it's good to know you are safe and
doing alright.

Yes, I would love to be friends, 'cause I really like
you too. And I still have your Christmas gift here,
so, like meet me for coffee or DVD shopping sometime
so I can give it to you.”

We met at The Holiday Cocktail Lounge. It was weird to hang out with our clothes on, but I soon found out we had even more in common than I had realized during our eerily intimate bedroom sessions. Every time I looked at him, I caught him staring at me, and would have to lower my eyes under the intensity of his gaze. He went to the jukebox and put “Wicked Game” on repeat. The song I had never particularly liked before now sounded sweet, not cloying, as strains of the lyrics “I want to fall in love” floated through the bar.

So we did fall in love. Our relationship was instantly the most intense of my life. We already knew our sexual chemistry was insane, but even more than that, we were passionate in our obsessions, enthusiastic for minutiae and obsessive about the offbeat. We took road trips to trashy boardwalks and scoured the Salvation Army for old records. We got turned on in used book stores. When people asked how we had met, we said “I was a hooker and he was my john,” and people always laughed and no one ever believed us. And we fucked, god did we fuck, in every way, for hours, until we fell asleep on top of one another. He was the Johnny to my June and we made each other crazy.

Our relationship is long over. (Remember all that fucking up I still had to do? I did it all over him, eventually.) But I will always love him for never once treating me like I deserved any less than 100 percent of his respect, and for affording me dignity in an undignified situation. And for keeping my secrets before I told them.