Myth: “Sex work” is immoral

Reality: Everyone has their price

I despise today’s fashion trends – the baggy, loose fit gypsy dresses, the super casual fits of cheap fabrics in garish colors. I’d rather drop dead than wear anything described as ‘slouchy’. I prefer old school. Tailored. On my off days I go shopping, and if it’s form-fitting, classy and well made, I buy it.

Lord knows I’ve felt frail and puny in this life, but at least a small, defenseless body has its charms: it’s hot, or so I’m told. My hips are slim, my belly tight. My feet always fit into the most expensive, narrowest Italian heels, and I have a neck that looks slender even after you knot a little silk scarf around it. I will never completely appeal to the kind of man that wants a flouncy, full, fluffy girl, but luckily, I’ve yet to meet a man that hasn’t been willing to alter his tastes once he sees me in a thong and suspenders.

I was making my way down Rodeo Drive, a few designer shopping bags in my hands, when I realized I had skipped breakfast and was hungry. I lifted my sunglasses to peer around and settled on a cute looking bistro that I had always passed but never tried. A few people cast sidelong glances at me as I walked inside and found a seat, carefully placing myself and all my purchases down carefully. It was a beautiful, clear, easy California day and just the thing to make you forget about all the debauchery that happens just below the surface.

I scanned the menu.

Of course, in the past, I used to mind when people stared at me a little more than what I felt sure was normal. As though they could almost smell something deviant on me. Like I had forgotten to scrub off some dirty clue that told them I wasn’t one of them, or my cover was blown because I stared a little too deeply into someone’s eyes, or held my head just a little higher than any decent woman should.

I used to care, but now I take it as a compliment. What can I say, when you spend hours of every day acting like you’re a literal sex goddess sent to earth to be worshipped and served by lowly men, it’s hard not to get a little swagger in your hips when you’re out of character and just at the gas station …or sitting at a café ordering lunch.

“Ma’am, what I can get you?”

I placed the menu off to the side and caught the waiter’s eye.

“I’ll have the steak tartare, please, and some ice tea. Lemon.”

He smiled shyly.

He knew I saw him.

And I did see him.

He had the face of a man begging to be told what to do, and how. I briefly pitied him all the girlfriends he’d have to go through before he finally realized that he could come and see someone like me instead, and get what he really wanted. But that wasn’t any of my business – I wasn’t working today.

“Oh, and a big glass of water please, no ice,” I added, handed him the menu and flashed him a megawatt smile. He looked as though I’ve just given him an expensive birthday gift.

In fact, he was so bashful he completely ignored the woman at the next table who tried to catch his eye and wave him down. But he rushed off and I was left staring at her instead. Her hand was still frozen in the air mid-wave as her eye caught mine.

I saw her, too.

She was with her husband and toddler, and her poor posture and her tired crochet sweater and her mom hair. In that milliseconds-long glance, we understood one another.

The look on her face went a little sour, she realized she’d been ignored, and she also realized that I’d witnessed the whole thing. I could tell she’d already done a complete inventory of my face full of high quality, expertly applied makeup, my firm figure, and my white jeans that look as though they were painted directly onto my ass. Her child and husband were oblivious to this miniature drama unfolding at the table, and in a heartbeat she tore her eyes away from mine and went back to her life.

It’s OK. I judged her right back.

She thinks there is something immoral about me, something brazen. She doesn’t think people like me really exist. Not really. The women who are disgusted by the idea that I am selling my sexuality are only embarrassed because they didn’t realize they could have asked a higher price for theirs. Trust me, I’ve done some dirty things behind closed doors, but I’ve never sunk so low as to wear a crochet sweater like that out in public.

I smiled and leaned back in my seat, feeling smug at how much juicier it was than even she could guess. What would she say if she knew that at that very moment there was a man caged in my basement waiting for me to release him? Old Ralph was a faithful and decent client, and not the first client I’d kept under literal lock and key. I briefly wondered if I should pick him up something while I was out, but then forgot about him and idly decided to shoot off a text message.

Nora: You in town? Feel like a coffee or something? I’m at that little bistro we always talk about but never go to, the one with the bicycles in the front.

The response from my old friend Melissa came back almost instantly.

Melissa: Good timing, I’m like a five-minute walk away. Sit tight I’m on my way.

I smiled.

Melissa was the only non-client who knew about my secret identity, and the only person I retained from my old professional network after I gave up my previous job and decided that torture by the hour was the better gig. Melissa was by far the most open-minded person I knew, which by now was more or less a requirement for knowing me. She was a respected psychotherapist, and we trained together back in the day. Even though her offices were just a few streets away from my, ahem, studio, we seldom found time to meet like this.

“Nora! It’s been too damn long!”

I turned to see her come through the door and make a beeline for me. The crochet sweater mom was trying hard to hide the fact that she was looking at us. I got up, give Melissa a big hug and she sat and placed her order. She smiled broadly at me and looked down with amusement at my shopping bags.

Do you want to know what Melissa looked like? That’s an easy one. Whatever first thought jumped into your mind when you thought ‘psychotherapist’, well, that’s exactly what Melissa looked like. Kind, crinkled eyes, and a warm and comforting demeanor that made you feel like you were talking to your cool aunt, or a kind Classics professor who bought vegan shoes and made quilts. I loved Melissa.

“Engaging in a bit of the old retail therapy, huh?” she said.

“Has it really been so long, Melissa? See how I have to soothe myself when you’re not around,” I pouted and smiled.

We chatted easily and comfortably, like the old friends we were. Therapists have to stick together. What’s that? You’re surprised I used to be a therapist? Well, I wouldn’t say that’s the most surprising thing about me, but yes, I used to be like Melissa once. We chatted about her husband, her endless woes with her building renovations, about TV series and how quickly time went. Then, as I knew we would, we circled around and landed up talking about me.

“You know what I’m going to ask you next, right?” she said and took a sip of her coffee.

“Oh God, let me brace myself, I’m about to get therapized, aren’t I?” I said playfully and grabbed the edge of the table. She smiled.

“Well, I am curious. Go on, are you…?”

“Yes. I am still.”

“And is it…?”

“I’m good, Melissa. It’s all good.”

She gave me that look.

“I’m serious,” I said.

She sighed and fidgeted with the sugar packets.

“That’s it? I don’t get any details?”

I laughed.

“I’ve tried to tell you details before and you’re always freaked out.”

“That’s not true!”

“It is. What do you want me to say? I still beat business executives for fun and profit, yes. Still not a prostitute, no.”

Her ears pricked at my use of the P-word. We had had a near argument once before, Melissa and I, when I tried to explain why I was finally trading in my therapist’s license for leather thigh high boots and a whip. She hated that word. I didn’t. Still, prostitution wasn’t what I was doing. I didn’t expect people to understand my motivations …not even Melissa.

She flopped back in her seat, sighed loudly and began stroking out a lock of her hair in that way she always did when she was deep in thought.

“OK, there’s no need to use that word. Anyway, you know you had me thinking a lot after our last conversation. But I have to admit I still don’t get it. You said you’re calling all the shots, that you have control…”

“That’s right. I do have control.”

“And you say you get to take charge…”

“That’s right, I do as I please.”

“But don’t you only do that because someone’s paying you to?” She stopped twirling her hair and caught my eye. “I mean, I don’t want to get into a big philosophical argument, but it still seems to me that you’re always doing what someone else wants, and at the end of the day they’re always paying you for that. So, you’re in charge… but only because you were paid to be, you know?”

When she saw I didn’t have a response for her, she continued.

“It’s like, you’re still submissive to them, even though you play at being dominant.”

It was my turn to flop back in my seat.

“But that’s not the whole picture, Melissa. There are plenty of women who do this work and genuinely love it. Nobody’s forcing them…”

“But are you one of those women?”

I sighed and stared at the mom at the next table, who I just knew was straining her ears to eavesdrop on our conversation.

“God, Melissa, now I remember why we haven’t hung out for so long. Besides, it’s not even about sex. It’s about power.”

“You need a shrink,” she laughed, and I smiled warmly at her.

“A shrink? No thank you. I know how that sausage is made. And speaking of which, if you want to talk about prostitution, I was way more of a prostitute then than I am now.”

I took a sip of my drink. The mom at the next table couldn’t help casting us astonished glances as she dabbed up her kid’s spilt ketchup from the tablecloth.

“Nora, you know I love you right? That I adore and support you in everything you do, right?”

“Naturally,” I said and gave her a wink.

“Well, then I have to say, aren’t you curious about what happens in the long term with all of this? Where does it all go?”

“What? Why do I have to have a big grand plan? Do you? I don’t know where it goes. I adore you too, Melissa, but I’m getting bored of this same conversation, you know?”

“Ok, so let’s have a different one then. Stop telling me you’re fine and everything’s under perfect control.”

“Everything is fine. Everything is under control.”

She laughed good-naturedly.

“Suit yourself, Nora, but seriously, I’m always here, ok? People like us should stick together.”

“People like us?”

“Yeah, I think your methods are a bit weird, but at the end of the day you’re still a therapist in my eyes,” she said and smiled.

“Thanks, Mel. And at the end of the day you’re still a prostitute in mine,” I said breezily. She stopped laughing and raised her eyebrow at me.

“I told you, don’t use that word, you know I hate it,” she said with mock seriousness.

“Yes ma’am.”

“What do think? I hope you’re intimidated. Do you think I’d make a good dominatrix?”

I couldn’t help but smile as she tried to pull her kind, soft face into a scowl – and failed miserably to be anything remotely intimidating.

“Nah, not even close,” I said, just as the waiter came around with the bill and placed it gently on the table. Melissa stared down at it then up at me.

“Go on, pay for me, you lousy girl you, I command you,” she said in her best dominatrix voice and crossed her arms. I laughed and reached for my purse, happy to pay the tab. We both giggled together as we walked out the restaurant, but as far I was concerned, I had gotten the last word. Melissa could say what she wanted, but at the end of the day I paid. And she let me. I made more in a month than she did in a year, and as for the mom next to us, she would never in her life know the financial freedom I did. They wanted moral superiority? Fine, they could have it.

I popped into a few more stores after I hugged Melissa goodbye but I wasn’t quite in the mood for shopping anymore. It was getting late and I was feeling the pull to go home, alone, where I could enjoy my precious free time and do nothing at all. No appointments. No red lipstick. No schedule book, no client folders, no ceaseless parade of men with endless games of push and pull, all so different and yet all exactly the same. No, just me and my pajamas.

Let me take a moment to tell you about my home, OK? Melissa likes to say that houses are models of the psyche, you see. I know that you and I don’t know each other very well, because I’m not about to share all my secrets with a stranger just yet, but I don’t mind telling you about my home.

You already know about the dungeon. Custom built into the cold, compacted earth under the house, a room that’s a part of that hidden second city that the perverse among us inhabit on a part-time basis. The house on top is light and clean, though. Elegantly empty. The hand-blown glass vase in my entrance hall was on the cover of a decorating magazine once, and I have silk flowers on my bedroom dresser that have gold and crystal stamens, and they were made by women artisans in Mongolia who’ve preserved the craft since before the Han dynasty.

Anyway, the room I spend most of my time in is the ‘library’, which is a shabby room away from the central part of the house and was never renovated. It’s small, and the carpets smell a little. I’m not sure why, but I like it here the best. I read, nap, and while away hours online in this room, and I like to do it with the doors and windows closed. With a blanket.

I kicked off my shoes, dropped my shopping bags in the entrance hall and made my way immediately for this room. I passed the kitchen, grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and padded over in bare feet to my little sanctuary. Then my phone pinged. I froze and momentarily considered ignoring it. What if it was Melissa? What if it was an important new client?

I sighed loudly and headed back to the hall to pull my phone from my bag. And then my heart sank.

It was him.

I stood there for a moment in my pristine white house, banana in one hand and phone in the other, and my good mood instantly shattered. He only wanted a session tomorrow, so why did I feel so upset? Tomorrow was an eternity away. I could still retreat to my special room, just like before. But somehow just seeing his name on my phone screen made me feel like he was right here with me, spoiling everything.

Fuck.

I replied with my own message.

Mistress finds your proposition acceptable. Don’t be late.

And then, on second thoughts, I started typing again.

And for interrupting a perfectly pleasant afternoon, I hope you’re not stupid enough to try and pitch up here tomorrow empty handed, pig.

I sighed, sent the message and watched as my words floated off into the ether and presumably landed out there, somewhere in his grubby hands. Melissa was right, of course, my life made no sense.

I flung my phone back into my bag and walked back to my den, determined to scrub the thought of this man from my mind and enjoy my afternoon off properly. But off course he followed me right in there.

Are you wondering who he is?

Well, you already know him.

That laptop you used this morning? That phone in your pocket? Yes, him. Entrepreneur, businessman, inventor, billionaire and tech revolutionary, the man behind the devices that the world runs on. Are you surprised I have such a high-profile client? I was too, until I understood why he picked me. He may have been a genius, one of the wealthiest men in the country and certainly the most influential …but he was also a fucking pervert. I could handle him, of course. I just didn’t like the idea of having to use my day off to prepare mentally for his bullshit.

I closed the door on my little room and flopped down onto the sofa, munching my banana angrily and burying underneath my favorite blanket.

Now, before you go ahead and make assumptions, let me explain that this guy is not the usual sort of client. Not at all. He has all the usual markers – he’s older, slightly greying, a little intimidating – but that’s just an illusion. I could never quite put my finger on why, but something about Jeff Cane always, always put me on edge.

Maybe it was the way he moved. It wasn’t like a robot or machine, exactly, but more like a …reptile. Like a snake, who freaks you out because even though your eyes can see one thing, your brain tells you that that kind of motion shouldn’t be possible, that something weird is going on. Jeff Cane was like that. You weren’t sure what was really happening behind the scenes, or what powered him. And that made him feel dangerous somehow.

I grabbed my sketchbook and began idly dragging a pencil over a fresh page, waiting for the random curves and arcs to suggest something to me and come to life as a coherent image. The graphite scratched quietly but all I could think about was him. I wrapped myself more tightly in the blanket and kept scratching.

I know what you’re wondering, so to answer your question: he’s into humiliation, lots of violence, exhibitionism. He pretends he’s an innocent little boy and I pretend I’m an all-powerful, domineering older woman. Not his mother, of course, I spare him the embarrassment of ever pointing out the obvious, but him and I both know what the vibe is.

His name is ‘pig’ or sometimes just ‘boy’, and I punish him for each and every little tingly feeling he gets down there. Sometimes he’d get off on me forcing him at random hours to don some embarrassing piece of clothing or nothing at all, and then take a photo of himself in some public but quiet place and send me the photos as ‘proof’ that he’d completed his punishment.

Doesn’t sound so bad, right?

Just wait, you’ll see.

I looked down at the nest of dark grey scratches on my page and was irritated that I couldn’t seem to pull out a shape from them. I tore the page off, crunched it into a ball and tossed it aside, then tried again. The same thing happened. I realized after my fourth failed attempt that Mr. Cane had taken over my off day and ruined it completely. You could even say, dominated it.

I threw the sketch pad aside and snuggled deeper into the sofa, deciding that I’d just have to nap to get away from the thought of him. Melissa - god damn her - was annoyingly right about everything. The most annoying thing about Melissa was how spot on she was about people, and she was spot on about me: I was still the one taking orders. And nobody drove home that point better than Mr. Cane.

I tossed off my blanket in a huff and decided that there was no point pretending I could relax, not now. I left my den and headed out again. I could go to the gym. Take a walk or go shopping again. I could even check on Ralph to see if he was still alive. Anything, really. Out there, it’s easier to be the pulled-together, stinking rich uber-babe with the world in the palm of her hand. Better than moping around indoors stewing over nonsense.

But I want to tell you a secret, dear reader, one you can probably already see coming.

My life is a mess. It’s all a lie. You know why I’m good at treating men badly? Because I mean it. Because I’m more messed up than they are.

When I first realized I could charge money for treating men like dogs, it almost seemed too good to be true. In the beginning, it seemed like a solution. I could turn the tables and be the hurter for once, I could get my own back.

That was the plan at least. I don’t know when I started to lose it. But things never quite worked out that way.

Shall I tell you another secret?

The best place for a sad, sexually insecure girl to hide, the one place where she can truly be invisible …is as a dominatrix. She can become a bossy seductress who makes all the rules before they can be used against her. When you zip up that uniform, you realize what powerful armor it is, and then you don’t want to take it off again, even though your skin can’t breathe under the rubber, and you’re hot, and uncomfortable.

It’s probably obvious to you that underneath it all I’m a timid, weak little thing. You’ll have to take my word for it that everyone else out there buys the façade, except maybe Melissa. But you’re still listening. You’re still here, aren’t you? I’m showing you all these ugly things now, so you’ll really understand what happens next. I’ve told you the truth so far. Not pretty is it? Don’t worry, I didn’t like myself much back then either.

But keep reading.

You’ll see.