I cleaned my room. I cut up magazines and made a collage on the wall. I could do whatever I wanted. I played music, and I read a book about Chinese factory workers. I was pretty grateful I was not a Chinese factory worker. I was lazy.
I took a bubble bath and felt like a movie star.
The weeks flew by. I scoured craigslist personals and met men. I vetted them through e-mails and phone calls and made sure they were my particular type, older white businessmen. Here were the surprising things: they were attractive, smart, and funny, and most of the time, I would have hooked up with them without getting paid. Except I needed the money.
They liked to tell me their philosophies. “You always have to pay with a woman. You can pay in installments by taking a woman out to dinner and buying her presents and taking her to shows. Or you can find a nice young woman and just give her the money up front and know for sure you are going to get laid.”
“If I go to a bar and pretend to be interested in whatever she is saying and hook up with her and then lie to her, that’s somehow more ethical by society’s standards than telling you what I want up front and paying you for it.”
They all told me how much they wanted me to enjoy it too.
Among my friends, there was a gender divide when it came to turning tricks. The women were interested. Amy told me she was kind of jealous. Elizabeth said she could never do it, but she could see how it was perfect for me. My male friends thought it sounded like the worst thing ever. But girls know it’s really not that big of a deal to give head or get fucked or have a guy come on your face. As a girl, you’ve probably been pressured into fucking at least once, and have probably pity-fucked some loser once, and over time you’ve done enough stuff that you really didn’t feel like doing that eventually it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.
I didn’t think the response from my male friends had anything to do with safety. But they knew all their ugly, nasty desires and didn’t want to think of some man doing those things to me. And no matter how progressive they were, they didn’t think I could actually enjoy hooking up with these guys. If I did, that only meant I was damaged somehow. They all implied I was dumb and naive, that these johns were the ones winning, and I was dumb for being happy to get paid.
I was worried that after having these experiences, sex would be boring forever. When it was plain vanilla, or when I would lie there, thinking, I could be getting paid to do this.
People said women who did this kind of thing had no self-respect. I had no idea what that meant, because I got off on doing it. I liked meeting these dudes and hearing their life stories. I liked being told I was hot. I liked being told what to do. It was the first time in my life I felt like I was getting paid for being me. When they handed me cash, I felt like a champ.
Sometimes I wondered if I was harming my psychological well-being by validating my inner desire to be treated like shit, but what turns you on turns you on, I figured, and if being treated like shit made me feel really fucking good, then good for me, right?
Imagine a world where people didn’t have hang-ups. Where I could have gone to a job interview, and said, “I’ve been hooking up with men for money, but I think I want to try working here now.” Where I could talk about it with people the same way other people talked about their jobs. It wasn’t fair I had to have these secrets when I didn’t feel like I was doing anything secretive.
It isn’t always so straightforward. Sometimes they will say things that stick in your mind. You don’t know why, but once in a while, they talk to you in a certain tone and call you a whore, and you want to punch them in the face.
You meet a real estate agent at a bar on the Upper East Side. He tells you the story you’ve heard before, a million times over, about why he is on craigslist: “I work all the time. I don’t have time to meet anyone.” You giggle too much. You are giddy. He eyes you. You shift in your seat. He doesn’t. He talks about work. He drops names, acts arrogant, shows off. You act like you can’t believe how talented and rich and well connected he is. He asks about school. He asks you where you’re from. You lie and say Virginia. He asks about your background. You lie and say you’re half-white and half-Indian. He asks you how old you are. Twenty-five, you lie. You grow tired of answering questions.
It’s easier to lie about everything. You’re playing a role. They aren’t falling for you. You’re a twenty-five-year-old college kid whose boyfriend dumped her. That’s your story. They all say, “Fuck him. Believe me, you’re better off this way.”
They all get off on the age thing.
“Twenty-five? That’s hot.”
“I hope I’m not too old for you.”
“Have you ever been with an older man?”
“No,” you answer to every single one of them, “I’ve like fantasized about it, but I’ve never actually done it, so. .”
“The truth is, I don’t really have a lot of experience with guys. Like, I’ve only had two boyfriends, but I was with them forever,” you say, acting as if you’re embarrassed.
“That’s cool,” they smirk.
There comes a moment, when you haven’t registered any obvious signs of psychosis, that you just need to decide whether to go or not. Because once you enter one of those short-stay hotels, or their apartments, you will be alone with them, and they can do anything.
You giggle in a cab. This is an adventure. He tells you to smoke a cigarette and wait five minutes and then go into the building with the black awning and tell the man behind the counter you are here to see apartment 4C. “You are here to look at an apartment you are considering renting,” he tells you. This is fun. You walk in and look around like you are considering, “Hmm, this is a nice lobby.” The man behind the counter cradles a phone between his head and shoulder. He nods and smiles. You get in the elevator. You ask the real estate agent to give you a tour. He does. The apartment is beautiful. Stainless steel everything and granite counters. Flat-screen on the wall. Comfy couches.
“Does it come furnished?” you ask.
“Yeah, it can,” he says, as he puts his hands around your waist. He says you’re pretty. You go down on him. He asks if he can come on your face. And then it’s over in two minutes. He says, “Hold on,” and hands you a tissue to clean up with. You both arrange yourselves by the mirror in the foyer. He hands you 150 bucks. You walk out together. He gives you a kiss on the check and says, “Stay out of trouble, kid.”
You meet a banker at a bar, and he takes you on a train to Queens. He has you bend over and beats your ass. It fucking stings. You say, “Thank you, Daddy.” He slaps your face. You say, “Thank you, Daddy.” He feels your pussy and calls you a slut because you’re so wet. Then he fucks you hard and it fucking hurts. It feels like his cock is banging right into your cervix. You take it for as long as you can, but it hurts too much, so you yell out the safe word, and he instantly stops. He takes a puff off his bong and then says, “You okay? Did Daddy hurt you? Come here. You like South Park?” You watch South Park, but then you just want to get it over with. He bends you over and fucks you from behind. You are screaming. “Never been fucked like that,” he says. Then he smacks you. Then he pulls your hair, “What do you say?”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
You leave with 350 bucks. You feel weirdly relaxed, like just leaning back in the cab you could pass out.