Day Two: Little Postcards

(Finally)

Also, there is a paragraph in here that has previously been posted, but this story is where it belongs. Indulge me.

* * *

I go to a big city and meet Folk Rocker. It’s been a year. We have exchanged photos and flirty emails, texted occasionally, finally we end up in the same city at the same time again, both for our respective jobs, though I am fudging, my job is technically over, I have other reasons to want to be here.

I pick him up at his hotel, the lobby sleek with stripes and overstuffed chairs, the breakfast room at one side. We both need the same bank, we plan to “hang out” at my hotel. He has been so equivocating in email, so sometimes taken aback by me, that I am treading carefully. I have no plans.

The phone rings, I always take Husband’s calls. I drive and chat, Husband’s ill, I suggest a cup of tea, a hot shower, I tell him it will be alright. I worry that I sound like I’m speaking to a child, that I’m being rude to my passenger and rude to my husband, having a private chat and trying to wrap it up reasonably quickly at the same time, worried that I sound like a mom. Soothing is done and I press the button. As I fold my phone, Folk Rocker says, “I’d give anything to hear my wife speak to me like that, so tenderly.”

I can’t imagine any other way.

* * *

My favorite hotel in Big City, a suite, brand new, lucked out on Hotwire. He pulls my suitcase while I check in, we go to the room, explore the possibility of room service. He draws me to the bed, we make out a little, his mouth large and open over mine. He’s nervous, he’s not comfortable with cheating, I am happy with anything, I am happy with nothing. I have no expectations. I have surprised myself that after a long hunt, I am honestly, truly, delighted just to spend time, I have no desire to push him or nudge him or draw him into one single step that betrays himself. He is over me and under me, gentle, sweet, hesitant, and in my head I write off sex and content myself with a cuddle, just as he puts his left hand on my wrist and presses it over head and his right hand on my throat begins to squeeze. And then I have been rolled over without knowing how I got here other than the heavy fingers in my hair, and he is behind me and above me, his mouth on the back of my neck and his hand coming around to my breast.

* * *

I am learning a new language.

It takes him awhile to get hard, which I prefer. I am used to younger men, I am used to older men popping pills, taking my sore pussy a second time, a third, ready to go again right after the bang. This fortnight I have been with four men and each time there was a moment where they slowed. I am puzzled, and then Folk Rocker says, “don’t want to come yet, feels so good…” and it all falls into place.

* * *

I suck his cock, bent over him, kneeling beside his hip, mouth warm and wet, him warm and smooth and slick on my tongue, the head his penis velvet-textured like the skin of a blueberry, the little drag of skin on taste buds every time. His hand reaches, holds back the curtain of my hair. I put my hand on his, gently, it’s ok to pull a little and he takes the cue, tightens his fingers on the back of my neck (so primal, so hindbrain) and pushes until I gag. I come up for air –

“I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d like it rough.”

“I like it all ways. You seem like you’d like it rough.”

“Yes.”

And then his hands are on my shoulders, pushing me on my back, prising my legs open and his cock thrusts into me hard, catching a little at the entrance of my pussy, that first thrust that speaks of virginity every time.

* * *

He’s fucking me from behind, first standing while I’m on the bed, then kneeling between my calves. I hear a noise, I feel a sensation and realize he just spit on me. Spit. On my ass. Holy shit, this man watches too much porn…no, wait, it was actually…kind of nice. Close. Like the time I took Lover into the bathroom, took his hand and held it against my pussy while I peed, so very intimate…

* * *

His room, past midnight (I agonized a little over whether to come at all this late), he’s packing for the next leg of his journey. I curl on the bed, watching him pack, watching his rituals so like and unlike mine, so hard to feel at home on the road unless you fight for it to an absurd degree, I have pictures of my cats and Husband, a light blanket that feels the same on every bed.

“I want to hear you sing “I’m On Fire” sometime.” He already does a little Springsteen occasionally.

As he picks up things from the desk, the bedside table, the coffee table, lays out tomorrow’s shoes, pants, he sings it softly, his voice husky with late and drink and the show:

Hey little girl is your daddy home
Did he go away and leave you all alone

And right now there is no place better in the world than being up too late, listening to this song, listening to this man.

Whore Sex Vs. Not Whore Sex, Episode 3

Be My Real Friend calls, or I call him, I don’t remember, it was a month ago, we talk about the election, about the weather, about his sons, about sports. He has an idea – we’ll meet in another city, get some sun, avoid the pressures of time and being recognized – even in a city as big as his, he was asked the morning after our first meeting, “Who was that redhaired woman you were walking with last night?” I call him to set dates, I get the voice mail.

He emails:
I'm sorry I missed your call yesterday because I wanted to talk to you about my latest thoughts regarding our rendezvous. I know it won't happen soon enough for me, but I'm very excited by the prospect. I think it takes our relationship to another level; one I hope you're looking forward to as much as I am.

I think, I should charge him more, overnight is more time than evening and morning, and then I think, greedy bitch, let it go. This man is nice, this man is good to you. He calls me back, says he’ll get the hotel, he wants to take me shopping. This is a little message from God – calm down, you will be taken care of, the net will be okay. Trust. Even this “another level” shit, let’s see what he really means and if it’s as scary-real-relationship as it sounds before you freak.

We decide on Southeastern City. It’s the city where I found out about Lover and Cute Girl. I have to go back through contracts, daysheets, find out what hotel we were in, warn Be My Real Friend not to book it, Motel 6, Super 8, Crack Whore Arms, anywhere else. I price plane tickets, rental cars, think of things to do. He visits Asia. I spend time in the Southeast, hang out with Power Girl, reconnect with Husband. I tell Be My Real Friend about what I’m going through.

He emails:
I know it's odd that I would get cold feet while I'm half a world away, but that's what's happened. I can't believe I'm writing this, but I think it's best we call things off. I did a lot of thinking on the flight, and something you said and wrote has me thinking that I need to focus my energies on my wife. Although I've really enjoyed our adventure, I realize that it can't compensate for everything, and I need to figure out what I want/need in my life. I hope you understand.

It catches me, unexpectedly, in the gut. But I write:

I understand and it's totally OK. I'll be disappointed not to see you, but we're still friends, I hope, and feel free to call when you get back - love to talk to you and know more about what you're going through and thinking about! (And if you need to not talk to me as part of this process, that's OK, too - just let me know) Have a safe and wonderful journey.

He answers:
Thanks for being understanding…The main thing I got from our last conversation, is that cheaters like us need to be honest, with ourselves if no one else, about what we're doing. In your case there's more room to be open with your husband, but I felt that we're both is similar situations. Cheating comes from being selfish enough to put our own sexual needs ahead of our respective marriages. Like you, at one level I'm ok with that. After all, it's not like we're withholding ourselves from meeting our spouses' needs in that department. If it's selfish to want our (greater) needs met as well, then so be it.

The downside comes from letting that turn into something through which we would also fail to meet other, broader, needs that contribute to having a successful marriage (aside from the cheating)…My concern is that I not lose what I have in order to get what I want. I hope it's possible because when you told me what you wanted in a lover, I knew that it was also what I want. Fucking you has been one of the true joys I've experienced this past year, and I ache to be the man next to you who wants to wake you with his cock sliding into you…

I haven't actually canceled my reservations yet. If you're interested in talking about whether we can be cheaters together, maybe we can still talk through this process.

I tell him yes, I’m interested in talking.

I’m not completely sure what I’m signing up for.

Cheating 101

Here’s the why. This is the how.

Husband and are coming up on fourteen years together, thirteen of them in a legal tax-sharing agreement recognized by our state and celebrated drunkenly by my dad, angrily by my mom, and privately by us in our home a month before the big day when, after the Reception Location Skirmish, the Battle of the Invitations and the Mother of the Bride’s Dress Melee, we realized that getting married and having a wedding are two only coincidently congruent events. I have cheated for at least ten of those years, maybe twelve, had permission to do so (of which I nonetheless violated both the spirit and the letter) for two, campaigned for that permission for six or seven years, and prior to that, just slept around.

He almost always knew. He almost always knows. I’m not that good a liar. But I’m a damn good cheater. Which brings us to our lesson for the day.

There’s no point in hiding your cheating if you want out – use it as an excuse, or better yet, pack your bags and leave the key behind. Sometimes cheating is an outlet, a vent, or a window through which to step back and view your full-time relationship. Ex-Lover was much kinder to his wife once he started sleeping with me. Their relationship got better. Better enough that he realized, even when it’s good, I don’t want to be here.

And your fulltime partner must want to keep you. It’s very, very easy to get caught, unless your partner has a vested interest in the status quo. When they want to believe you, to believe that things are okay, they will wrap their minds around excuses and alibis you wouldn’t buy from a class-cutting ninth-grader.

Yeah, people were running around with water balloons at the barbecue lunch today, James got me right in the head.

I got pulled over for not having a headlight, I think I should stay in Next State Over tonight and come back in the morning

I’m just a little edgy tonight, I’m gonna go for a drive.

Try to pick someone who has as much to lose as you do. At that early stage when you notice you really like them, that’s a good place to say to yourself, will this person lose their marriage, their job, their image, their security if they tell about me? If the answer is no, it’s worth turning your attentions elsewhere, filing them under Would’ve Been Nice.

Establish and maintain a reputation. I’m flaky about some things – I can leave the house for milk and come back three hours later with a new couch – and rock-solid on others. My friends all joke about how Husband and I talk on the phone nine times a day. Which means anyone I’m with has to be okay with me ducking into the bathroom, the other room, or the car to make call number eight. If I can’t take his calls because I’m fucking, I turn off the phone so I can claim bad reception later. Likewise, make your alibis realistic – if you’re in a restaurant, be in a restaurant. If you’re out of town, be in the same town you said you were. The easiest alibi is the whole truth minus your lover’s presence. And making your friends lie for you is hard to control, difficult to get the details straight, and rotten to your friends, who shouldn’t have that burden.

Lying to two people is hard, so don’t cheat with someone if you can’t tell them the truth. Why deal with angry vengefulness because you forgot to mention your fulltime partner? Why hurt someone who thinks you’re a potential permanent relationship if you don’t have to?

Finally, keep something sacred. Beyond health and safety (duh), if your partner is really worth keeping, it’s good to have something or things that keep you mindful. After our private wedding, Husband and I went for sushi, the food we love, the food we eat wherever we can. I do not eat sushi with lovers of any stripe – not takeout, not happens-to-be-at-the-Chinese-buffet, not one tuna roll from the grocery store. I have eaten sushi with ex-Lover once, before he was my lover. It was the night he became my friend.

It hurt me more when Husband took his girlfriend for sushi than that he had a girlfriend.

Ex-Lover still refuses to eat sushi with me.

Because.

Because yesterday was my birthday, and the best present would have been a book or a ten-dollar itunes card and the second best present would have been a backrub and the third best present would have been him empty-handed before me like a man instead of needing me to console him for not remembering until the last minute and not having any money.

Because the long drive through Boring Southern State would be much less boring if I could lean over and unzip, wrap my mouth around his cock, maneuver awkwardly around the wheel and suck until he comes or we pull over or just until we’re both giggly and happy. Or lie back in my own seat, slide my hand inside my jeans, amuse him and the truckers both.

Because I want to wake up at 7 to his cock sliding into me because he just can’t wait, has to wake me, has to have me without warning or foreplay and then his hands on me, my hands on him, sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking in each others’ arms, admiring the way the sun looks on his skin.

Because fucking one a month mish and cowgirl while fighting hard so he doesn’t come until I do because the vibrator makes him nervous and uncomfortable, isn’t enough. Because of the blush and the change of subject when I talk about spanking, about hair-pulling, about control, about even a hint of dominance. Because if he’s submissive he hasn’t mentioned it or responded to hints in the past 14 years.

Because swearing and promising and vowing never to leave him is demeaning to both of us when it happens daily and on request.

Why don’t you leave? I like my house.

Why don’t you leave? We have cats.

Why don’t you leave? I like the trappings of the life I live. It makes me look more successful to have a husband, a house, a place to go in the off-season. It makes me feel like my wild nature, my travels, my risky job, my personal risk-taking, all have a safe place to return.

Why don’t you leave? I don’t know if I can find a person who satisfies me sexually and emotionally and intellectually and professionally, if there is such a person, so a man who tolerates my slutting around and supports my work and can deal with me being gone six months a year is worth keeping.

Why don’t you leave? I like working with him, on the increasingly rare occasions we work together. When he’s not so insecure that my time is spent reassuring him that he’s doing a good job.

Why don’t you leave? He’d die. I don’t think he could keep food on his own table, I don’t think he could take having been left.

Why don’t you leave? Because the slutting around is, in the end, what makes him so insecure, probably what makes him not fuck me, likely what makes him so needy. I made him, and now I am responsible for what he is.

A Gentle Reader writes:

[compliments] You seem to be in a happy marriage and I can't understand why you are doing what you do now. How do you get away from hubby not having any clue about it?

That’s why.

And how? That’s coming up next.

Cooking With Mandy: Get Your Ass In the Kitchen Slut and Spend Some Quality Time With Your Husband Pasta with Shrimp

I know, the name is cumbersome but I find it effective.

You need:

The Killers: Sam’s Town
Sweet onion the size of your fist or bigger
Box of baby or cut-up portobello mushrooms
Bag of baby spinach
Box of angel hair pasta (I like Barilla because the box is pretty)
Pint of whipping cream
Olive oil
1 pound of uncooked shrimp
A small block of really good Parmesan cheese, don’t skimp here!
Whatever leftover white wine is lying on the bottom shelf of your fridge since you only know one person who drinks white and they’re out of town and by the time you have another party it will be – does wine get stale?
Large pot
Large sauté pan with lid – not just a frying pan, because the deeper sides of a sauté pan will later be helpful
Sharp knife
Pasta drainer
Cheese grater
Slotted pasta scooping spoon
Sauté-ing implement of choice – I use whatever flattish utensil is in the big jar on the counter

Put on The Killers and wash your hands. I actually plugged my little ipod into the dock of one of those dock-your-ipod boomboxes and hit shuffle, but while I was peeling the shrimp, songs kept playing that reminded me of Lover (Vindicated, Suerte, Scusami, Jesus Christ why did we listen to so much music?) and it was a pain in the ass to keep washing my hands to press skip. So just go with The Killers. It’ll still remind me of Lover but you probably don’t have the same associations.

Fill the pot with water and put it on to boil.

Put the sauté pan on low heat and pour in a little olive oil.

Cut the onion in half and then cut it up in thin wedges. Break up the pieces and throw them into the sauté pan. Leave them alone and don’t stir – I’ll tell you when!

Start peeling the shrimp, unless you were smarter than me and bought them already peeled. Muse how there’s nothing like the texture of the female parts, except maybe a fresh fig, and that’s really more of a metaphor.

When the onion sounds “sizzle-y”, give it one quick stir, just to change sides.

Sing along to “When everybody else refrained, My Uncle Johnny did cocaine,” and speculate on whether it would in fact take away your pain, and if so, how much it would actually cost to stay high until the end of the month when maybe you wouldn’t care anymore. Imagine what you’d wear at Studio 54. It probably involves lamé.

Keep peeling shrimp. Call your significant other to help, which will be a lovely shared moment and get your mind off the cocaine. Imagine them at Studio 54, and do a little disco together in the kitchen. Then stir the onions again.

When the water boils, throw in the angel hair pasta and time it for one song or four minutes.

When the onions are brown around the edges, add the mushrooms, wait a minute, and stir.

Take the pasta out of the water with the pasta spoon and drop it into the drainer, leaving the pasta water in the pot. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, like not constantly checking Myspace to find out when you get moved out of the number one friend slot, but trust me, it will pay off with a similar lack of heartache. If you can manage it. Which I can with the pasta but the Myspace thing already stung me in the lip.

Add a little tiny bit of olive oil to the pasta and stir it around to keep it from getting sticky. Then add some hot water to the pasta water and put it back on the heat – voila! You’ve saved waiting for that sucker to boil from nothing again. Insert your choice of metaphor here.

Give the onions and mushrooms another stir, then add the whole bag of spinach on top. Pour in about a cup of wine and put the lid on the sauté pan.

Toss the shrimp into the boiling water for as long as it takes to pour something to drink and set the table for two.

Toss the pasta into the sauté pan and mix it all around. Drain the shrimp in the pasta drainer (you can dump the water this time).

Pour the whipping cream over the pasta-veg mix and salt and pepper to taste. Add the shrimp and ménage everything.

Dish out pasta. Top each serving with a generous grating of Parmesan. See if you can stay focused on the person you’re with for the duration of dinner. Bon attention!

Live Through This

And this is the flip side, the sitting at the computer knowing that hey, if you can just write some porn it will all be ok, the readers will stop deserting you for newer, fresher content and you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that someone likes you, someone still wanks to you, but all you can do is try to make the solitaire game come out right, over and over again. Because the thing that stops me from being a really good whore is the truth, and the thing that stops me from writing you, Gentle Readers, some damn good porn, submit to Sugasm, make it all glossy and fun, is the truth.

And the truth is, I want to die.

Monday, I wake, weeping. Husband cradles me, wants to know what’s wrong. And so I finally tell him – I broke up with someone. I worry that I’ll never be their friend again. And Husband, the strongest man I know, soothes me and holds me and tells me that it will all be ok, it’s just my pride. We go out together instead of alone, and spend time, spend money. It’s lovely. I decide, midway through Target, I Am Over It, which is what I text to Lover. Beautiful Girl reminds me in a long chat, don’t give up your power, don’t let him be your equal, this has been coming for a long time.

Tuesday, Lover texts me, Will It Make It Any Better to Know That Cute Girl and I Have Imploded? This makes me happy, of course. They have finished because she logged on to Facebook at 8:39, saw all the public flirting with Yet Another Girl, and finished him at 8:51.

Tuesday night, I unavoidably see Lover. I resolve to treat it as a first date, and I am not impressed. I’ve dressed, new shoes, new top, taken pains to look like Not From the Discard Pile. The way he speaks of women does not impress me. He is slightly unkempt, not on time, takes the last bite of asparagus. We are cordial. My allegiance shifts slightly, how dare he pick Cute Girl over Yet Another Girl because the plane ticket costs less? Do I want to even be friends with someone who plays the game this way? Our ability to be polite is hopeful.

Wednesday, Cute Girl learns through a complicated and high-school-reminiscent system of Facebook, Myspace, and LiveJournal comments that I have been her lover’s lover. She and I talk. I make it clear I’m not mad at her.

Thursday Lover calls me, wistful. We again discuss a week in winter in Foreign City. He reminds me of special times we’ve shared in the place he is now, texts me about songs on the radio that have to do with the Us That Was, laaaahh da da da daaaahhhh…

Friday, when I have been sick all week through all of this – truly, snottily, nastily sick, not just heart-sick – Lover rings again to see if I will mind his seriously dating Cute Girl.

Well, let’s see.

What he can do:

- Date my friend/co-worker without any social disapproval, since we have been secret and must remain so.

- Suck her in deep before she even knows she’s screwing me over.

- Continue to flirt with lots and lots of other girls in a way that I will have to be aware of, that will be unacceptable to Cute Girl, and that I can’t pass on to her because 1) I will look like a jealous bitch (which I am) and 2) she’s a big girl.

- Force me to continue being “friends” with him so there won’t be talk.

- Force me to continue working with her so there won’t be talk.

What I can do:

- Nothing.

And thank God for writing, thank God for words, thank God for the few, the brave Gentle Readers sticking it out through what by now looks like the cover of Hole’s first post-Cobain album, because as I write the urge to count out the number of NyQuils it would take onto the counter fades and in comes righteous anger. Thank you Cyndi Lauper, thank you Dresden Dolls, thank you PowerGirl and Beautiful Girl and Secret Scientist who are there and Computer Girl who would be there if I called. Thank you Husband, for telling me it’s not OK to bring this into our home, but loving me anyway while I can’t stop crying, can’t get out of bed. Thank you Lover’s Ex-Wife, because this is what your end was like and I was part of that. Thank you Be-My-Real-Friend, because Just Clients don’t listen to me whine like this. Thank you patient S and D from GC, thank you G, whose emails haven’t yet been answered, who send hugs, who trust anyway. Thank you words like bricks, building the wall, the shelter, put up the yellow triangle on the door because this relationship is now radioactive and while half my heart (ok, more than half) wants to take pity, let him in, it’s only until the world ends, there is no room, no room, I only have enough left for me and anger.

They Say It Broadens the Mind

A trip. Two trips, one inside the other, the everyday (to me) shell of another business-related trip, the hidden yolk a side trip to Be-My-Real-Friend’s city for our first meeting. I want to sightsee (with him) in his city, I want to see my girlfriend Computer Whiz who also lives there, I want to see if being my real self works, I want to see if we like each other in person, I want the cash.

Husband’s red suitcase on the bed. Easier to pack a larger bag than make choices. Outside big zippy pocket: files I don’t need handy on the trip. Outside little zippy pocket: extra pens, razor, tampons - Oh dear God, I’ve timed my period wrong.

(I take my pills continuously instead of taking the week off, I can go three months in a row, no mess, no expensive tampons, and it lowers the risk for ovarian cancer. Having had part of my cervix chopped already, I’m in no mood to go another round. No, wait – count the days. Stop bleeding Friday, new pills on Sunday, fly on Tuesday to see Be-My-Real-Friend, it’s all right. Back to cancer – Lover found the lump in a place Husband’s fingers hadn’t been for months and didn’t know well enough to compare.)

Main compartment. Underwear, socks, tights, remember there will be laundry, I only need four days’ worth.

Plus some extras.

Plus tights I might be in the mood to wear. Plus one more pair of socks for sleeping in. Plus pretty underwear, in case I meet someone. Whore underwear doesn’t count against the I-should-pack-less-total. I don’t know if I’ll wear mine or the whore’s with Be-My-Friend.

T-shirts (three exactly alike, I know what I wear), a long-sleeve shirt. Call out to Husband, “Can you look up the weather in Big City and DC for me?” I’m going to travelogue later so I might as well reveal – it’s a big enough place. Husband reports back – two more long-sleeve shirts.

Bag of sex toys, I love masturbating alone in hotel rooms. They probably won’t come out with Be-My-Real-Friend, I’d rather just be with a person the first time. The tiny glass dish from Epcot Japan, there’s a real branch of Mitsukoshi there. Lucky Cat (white for patience). Two plastic pigs from Husband that touch noses on hotel bedside tables in Prague, in Dayton, in Seattle. Two pictures in tough plastic frames, one of the cats, one of Husband, cooking something for his fellow workers three summers ago. He looks up over the pot, white collared shirt open at the neck, his hair in two tiny pigtails, I forget why.

A carefully timed dash to my office, while Husband changes the laundry, nets my whore bag, the phone off for more than a month now. I discard the candles that have been at other appointments, substitute some ginseng tealights, a new smell for a new plan. The bag with condoms, lube, toothbrush, mouthwash, not sure how much I’ll need but it’s faster than sorting and I don’t want to get caught. I add four outfits, I don’t know how dressy dinner will be. Kenneth Cole heels with a Mary Jane strap, my favorite, bought in Vegas years ago and still in style, still the most expensive shoes I own. Patent boots with spike heels. Stockings. Garter belt. Whore underwear, the bits of lace only suitable for being seen in and rubbing on.

Guidebook. Metro stops. Restaurants. Hotels (I still haven’t booked, trusting in Hotwire and faith). Markets. Helpful articles about the history of the city, about which I know very little. Shopping. Sights. Museums. Useful Addresses. Emergency Information. Sadly, no section marked “Tricky New Relationship, Navigation Of.”

Relief! (Bits and Pieces)

...I woke up with the sun in my face and a cat by my legs, finally feeling better! Husband brought breakfast in bed, bacon, eggs, cut-up berries, and I feel ready to attack. Yes, Gentle Readers, it's time to plan my summit of Mount Laundry! Trek through the Wastelands of Overdue Contracting! And generally get through a long list of slightly-overdue-but-fortunately-not-urgent things that have been gently shoved to the side while I enjoyed the opportunity to take a few sick days. Oddly, I always get more done when I'm busy...

...Had a lovely chat with Lover, left the house, drove to the shopping center and sat in the car while the rain gently pattered on the windshield. It was raining where he was, too. So nice to actually be alone, not surrounded by co-workers and hangers-on and busyness and just be able to waste long distance daytime minutes on nothing in particular. We tentatively planned a meeting and I...can't...wait...

...I've decided to shelve the whoring for a bit - I have one date coming up in May with the guy who wants me to really like him, and it's a nicer operation all around - an overnight, flight, nice hotel, and I'm hopefully walking with an amount of money I'm pleased with. I spent some time yesterday browsing pricy hotels in his city, and was pleased to find a four-star on Hotwire that I think will work nicely - it's a bit of an art, looking on Expedia and then matching up the amenities, location and number of stars to guess what Hotwire's going to give you. I can usually nail the Small Mid-Atlantic City Sheraton every time...

...Meanwhile, I've been reading "sophisticated travel companion" blogs and sites and thinking, well, maybe I'll put up a site with some nice pictures and an outrageous price, and if I see one guy every six months, fantastic, that'll do. I've definitely fucked my last fat old white guy...

...Also meanwhile, I'm debating stopping reading the whoreboards altogether - there's too much spite and ickiness. Why bring negative energy into my life when I don't have to? And it sure is a waste of time I could be spending doing other, nicer things. Now I just have to rein in my curiousity...

Sick Day

Picture from the lovely magnet selection at House Mouse. I'm trying to get out of the habit of randomly stealing pictures and not attributing them...

Here's where I am: 90 minutes from Husband, 20 minutes from the airport I need to fly out of tomorrow morning very early (opposite direction), sore-throaty, not really looking forward to Sexual Athlete, scheduled for 2PM in an effort to make a little extra on my day off, extra which is now un-needed due to some circumstances not worth explaining.

Husband's vehicle is "making a funny noise," therefore he cannot come to see me. I did not think far enough ahead to plan to rent a car, go to him last night, spend two nights (or one and a half) and get back to my flight.

I can't rent him a car, due to some stuff, and I'm debating whether it's worth it to drive the three hours RT to see him, which I am desparately craving. Lover once said he'd "drive five hours to have dinner" with me, and that's kind of how I'm feeling.

On top of that, I'm sick, lounging in the hotel room, waiting to be hungry enough to eat something so I can go sit in the sauna and try to sweat out the germs without passing out on an empty stomach.

I feel like I'm going to have to make a trade-off between my physical and my emotional health.

Sexual Athlete comes at 2. Let's see if I feel rich enough to solve the problem...

After

After he comes in my hand, aiming for my breasts but missing, there is no more time. We feed each other bits of fruit until I get up and start handing him his clothes, hoping it reads as sweet that I’m turning them right side out. He tells me the nipple clamps are mine to keep, but asks that I only use them with him or in my personal life, not with another client (no fear). When he walks out the door it’s goodbye to Leonard Bernstein and I put in Bif Naked and turn up the volume. I take a tub bath, hot as I can stand, watch the pale winter skin on my thighs turn red.

While I’m waiting for the bath to fill – this hotel has hot water, thank heavens, but is afflicted with low water pressure, what is it with me and hotel showers? – I enter my latest receipts in an Excel sheet, totting up what I’ve taken in from clients, spent on hotels, gas, condoms, lube, mouthwash, stockings, cell phone top-up cards. I’ve set aside about a third in cash in a little box, I’m saving up for something, and another third has gone to expenses and personal treats – massages, cashmere sweaters, nice face wash, sushi, Thai, the upscale salad bar at Nature Yuppie Foods. The remaining third has gone to the maintenance of my household. Oil changes. Groceries. Breakfast on the way to Husband and my mutual work engagements, we're working a lot but haven't had a check in awhile. Gas. Cat food.

I’m not sure where he thinks the money is coming from.

Bits and Pieces

I'm still musing over what to write about my second appointment yesterday, so I'm invoking my girlish right to dissemble and I'll get to it tomorrow. It was good - good enough to need to keep it private for another 24 hours. For now, some sidenotes...

...Yes, Anonymous, you can hire a whore without references (from previous women you have seen). Some SP's are "newbie friendly" which can mean anything from "I don't care as long as it's green," to "yes, but we have to meet for coffee first," to "you have to make a deposit by buying me a gift card first," all the way up to "I'll be checking your home address, correct phone number and confirming your employment." No shit, there are ladies that do this. Alternatively, there are 'verification services' such as DateCheck, that verify your identity and employment, and the whore in question can check that you have been verified without actually seeing your info herself. My policy is that since I meet everyone in a non-appointment setting first, I'm working more on my guts than on your references...

...Sexual Athlete texts me about three times a day and sends me several emails a day, many of them one-liner 'hi' messages. He asked if it was ok to do this, I said, sure, fine, but don't expect me to answer them all. I've a day saved for him next week and I'm hoping he arrives with an ipod...

...After my mini-Bonkathon yesterday, I have decided I can't stand to be away from Husband on one of the few weekends we'll have together this year (due to my other job) and am going to just be a Bad Friend, failing to fly to another state to see my best friend who is arriving from another country. Though I have to admit, it's 50-50 not wanting to be away and not wanting to be around her 7-year-old twins...

...Also yesterday, the bad parts of whoring (driving, getting ready, dealing with the details, fucking someone I don't really love being with) were outweighed by the good parts of whoring (money, having a nice time, money, money) to the point where I thought, hey, I could finance a couple of major non-frivolous purchases with a few more days like this. So I think I am going to try and set up a Bonkathon in the next two or three weeks - try to see two clients in a day to ease the whole getting ready and putting together a cover story process, once or twice a week until I meet my goals. After all, as I said to PowerGirl, when she asked how it went, "The memory of fucking them is already fading, but the money is still in my purse." I think it's actually less traumatic to do them in a row...

I'll leave you with this, Gentle Readers - Bubblegum/Peppermint Candy was transformatory. Deliciously so...

Gone Fishing

Folk Rocker is in town, or rather, he and I are in the same town at the same time. He called a few days ago, he was already there, free from the tour manager and handlers for three whole days, released like a salmon. If he had let me know the week before I’d have moved – not heaven and earth, but definitely my schedule, to get there.

We met in Amsterdam – he opened for my high-school favorite, and I liked his music, politically edgy, praising of women of a certain age, the opening song, about love (they’re all love or politics, sometimes both) and a rose, gripped me and lifted my guts – I’m here, I’m in Amsterdam, I’m at the Paradiso, there were tickets left even though I found out three hours ago, and when the guys lounging on the front steps in the last of the cold June sun asked about my bike and found out I was American, I asked them what *they* did and when they said, “Ummmm…we play music…” I realize, they’re the band.

Later, I’m with the band. In the bar at the Holiday Inn, a roomful of recoverings, the table full of orange juice and Sprite and club soda. The tour manager has a bum knee, and I do a little acupressure and massage. The compact drummer, perfectly formed at 5’0”, tells me the story of his wife’s soul, and how it’s carried with him. I curl into the guitarist’s arm, and make eye contact with Folk Rocker. Later still, on the steep Dutch stairs, he is headed for bed and I am headed for the washroom (only North Americans are so coy, it’s the ‘toilet’ everywhere else) and we meet on the landing. We do not touch. He looks. I say, “You’ll be glad in the morning.” He says, “Yes, but it’s dreadful now.”

Another country. He opens with the song about love and the rose again, opening again. I end up with the guitarist, and in the tiny room of a British hotel, we make out passionately, his nipples are incredibly sensitive, he fucks me with his fingers from behind. I kneel, and he comes on my face and in my mouth, then uses his hands to rub it over my face – it is so loving, so gentle, he is so amazed, I am blissful with how much gratitude is in the world and touched that he steps into the bathroom of his own room and shuts the door to smoke. The next morning, I kiss the tour manager in his room. In the lobby on the way out, Folk Rocker is eating breakfast, and I wave. He looks. I look back. He does not know why I am still there in the morning.

Milwaukee. Oxford. Washington DC and the story of how, after a failed affair that turned ugly, he has committed again, he wants to see if it can possibly be worked out, he must be able to say in ten years to the children, I honestly tried my very best. We shiver on the bench outside the club while a strange 70’s cult band plays.

The connection hasn’t caught. I want to say something about fly-fishing here, but I don’t know anything about fly-fishing, so I will say instead that I do not want to scare the prey.

Tonight, another missed connection. My thing runs late, he leaves from his show to the next location. It’s only an hour, tomorrow I will hear the song about love and the rose and he will, at last, be opened by someone else. I will say my name “plus one” and Folk Rocker will carefully not look at me during the show, and I will let him know that Power Girl will be ok driving back to our hotel alone.

Cast. Set. Play. Net. Land.

Wish me luck.

“So, you’re ready to hire a whore!”

The Holiday of Love has once again arrived, and though your heart yearns to spend a cuddlesome evening by the fire, where the sweet nothings exchanged are only a prelude to the hot, lubricated passion on the bearskin rug; in which you and your beloved will out-bonobo Casanova and his Top Five in the space of the mere hour betwixt the children’s bedtime and the moment you drop from the exhaustion of yet another thankless work day in which your dignity (not to mention your libido) has been crushed beneath the knock-off-of-a-knock-off-Prada snow boot of your whiny, undeserving boss and the meaningless chatter of your fellow drones; you are in fact more likely to spend it wishing you had bought – or been given – a nicer/more expensive/more appropriate present, then dropping off after a half-hearted mounting attempt during which you actually pictured Pamela Anderson, Yasmin Bleeth, and for some of us, Eddie Izzard, in a vain attempt to get off a medium-sized one instead of one just good enough to stop.

Gentle Readers, for those hunting for an alternative way to spend this, most over-marketed of holy days, I present:

A Primer on Negotiable Affection, in Honour of St. Valentine’s Day

Option A
You cruise the streets in the seediest area of town and pick up a hitchhiker who offers to suck you off for $50. You bargain her down to 40, then when she passes out you bareback her and leave her at the next gas station. Later, you develop an oozing sore on the side of your scrotum that just won’t go away.

Option B
You approach a likely lady in a hotel bar – short skirt, lots of makeup, stiletto heels. Her boyfriend, Vito, appears from the men’s room just as you think you’re about to close the deal. Cost of setting broken nose – about $475.

Option C
You browse websites or social sites dedicated to ‘the hobby’ and pick out a lady you like. Maybe her pictures are great, maybe she’s gotten great reviews. That’s right, reviews. Other gentlemen she has seen have posted information about their time with her, how much they paid, whether she tried to upsell you for additional services, looked like her pictures, showed up on time, seemed clean and sober, was a C&D (Cash-and-Dash), right down to how much makeup and perfume she wore and whether she had stubble. Not only do you know more about what you’re getting, you know that other fellows have seen her and she didn’t arrest them, impound their car and add their mug shot to an embarrassing website that will cause your co-workers to abruptly stop talking each time you approach the break room.

Her website says call her with your references (What is this, a job interview?). You give her the names and contact information of other ladies you’ve seen (usually three). Now it’s her turn to research. She calls or emails the ladies with your information – usually a physical description, your phone number, email and internet handle, plus the info you gave her about when and where you saw the lady she’s calling.

“Great time at the Comfort Inn! She’ll remember my enormous Manhood! It was the biggest she’d ever seen!”

The ladies try to remember you: “Let’s see, balding, paunchy, middle-aged, Comfort Inn near the airport, I told him he had a big one...can you be more specific?”

They note whether you smelled nice, paid in full, had bad stubble (works both ways, buddy, ask me about my beard burn) wanted more than one shot, and were easy to get off. Most importantly, they’ll tell whether you were a NC/NS (No-Call-No-Show), a tipper, or an asshole.

You and the lady confirm by phone an hour or two before your appointment. You arrive, check out the room to make sure there’s no friends hiding in the closet and lock the door – or she does if it’s at your room. She wants her money up front, on the table, and without talking to her about it. If she’s smart or doesn’t trust you, she discreetly counts it and hides it. You chat. You ‘get comfortable’. You both watch the clock while trying not to get caught watching the clock, and you leave with a hug when the time is up. She emails you to say she had a nice time and she hopes to see you again. You spend the next week and a half pestering her with text messages, emails and voice mails, until you realize time is money and she wants you to book before she talks to you again.

Behind the scenes...the very smartest girls also search your name on the hobbyist boards, checking to see if you post mean reviews or racist comments. They’ll check the lists of “Good Boys” and “Bad Boys” posted in the deny-it-exists Ladies-Only area (I suspect the men have similar lists in their private area). They’ll find out if you have a rep for seeing streetwalkers, if you’ve bragged about barebacking, if you shorted the fee, and if you were dumb enough to mention any of these things on other boards.

It’s not all that safe – but hey, Ebay taught us we can trust a million strangers based on their feedback from other strangers. So why not in this venue, too?

Gentle Readers in “the hobby,” I welcome your thoughts on anything I’ve left out.

As for me, I'm spending Valentine's with Husband (when he gets home from work), pizza and cupcakes. Meanwhile I'm wading through pm's and e-cards from clients, and sending out a few myself (go, marketing!). Lover is far away, and he knows better than to try to celebrate this particular holiday with me.

Wish he didn't.

Outcall

I’m seeing Circus Guy again. Fidgeting in the hotel room, using the internet, already set up with candles on the bedside table, little cookies (last time he hadn’t eaten), condoms size XL and wearing my nifty beaded net chemise. I’ve got Peggy Lee on the CD player and spoke enough Arabic to the desk clerk for him to upgrade the room to a Deluxe King. (For the record, “Shukran” is enough.)

I’ve tried on four outfits, different permutations of bra and panties and cover-up, it’s the first time I’ve met a client without being fully dressed. He’s a little shy at the door, I’m right by the elevator, there’s a woman going up. Unlike me.

The outfit ends up off in a flash – I join him in the shower and scrub his back, using the soapsuds to massage him in long, even strokes. I kneel in the shower and take him into my mouth, remembering that he likes slow, lazy head, firm but tender, just mouth, no hands blocking the view of his rather large cock. More than halfway on him gags me, normally I’d use my hand around the base, but hey, different strokes…

We go to the bed, the spread still on (I always remember J. throwing the bedspreads off first thing into the room, “They’re covered in hooker juice!”) and I spend more time on his cock, first sideways, his hand stroking my ass, then kneeling between his legs, his hands in my hair, his hands gently on either side of my face, definitely there but not pressing, guiding me to hold still as he slowly fucks my mouth.

“Your turn,” and he guides me to kneel over his face, adjusting the pillows. The headboard is exactly the right height to rest my forehead on my folded arms, look down at his face, eyes closed, thatch of thick silver hair, smooth skin the color of the café au lait in Madrid, where I kissed Beautiful Girl and fear stopped me from so much more. I’m over him, he’s very good, his tongue on me as slow and firm and tender as his cock was in my mouth. He reaches up behind me and rubs my back, his hands are strong and soft, it’s beautiful, I can’t believe no-one’s thought of it before. There is a moment, perhaps fifteen minutes along, when the sensation is building and it’s just the right amount of intense and he slides his lips around me and gently sucks my clit and I realize, oh! This is what all the fuss is about! This is why guys are so into head, this is what they feel, why the ultimate fantasy is me or her or Britney Spears on the first album cover, looking 14 and looking up.

I almost came.

I put the condom on him, XL the right size, last time it was awkward. I ask him how he wants me and we roll over, he slides into me slowly in mish. I tease him, ask him if he wants my legs by my ears, he’s surprised I really can but it’s only a novelty for him. Roll over to cowgirl, I’m feeling very, very good, not insane-crazy-intense but slow and soft and brimming over.

I say, “I think I can come, and I’d like to, if that’s ok.”

“You come away,” he says, and the familiar motion, rubbing my clit on his pubic bone, the feeling of his wide cock slightly scraping the front of the entrance, the tip pressing hard into my cervix on the backstroke, his legs a little too bent but all right all the same, and then the soft shouts of release, trying to be moderate, trying not to frighten him, and he still says, “Wow, you’re crazy.” Maybe porn is all a lie and the rest of the women in the world are arriving in silence, their bags bumping gently in the porters’ hands, their heels clicking softly on checkerboard marble, not even echoing in the vaults of the station ceiling, while I alone am Auntie Mame stepping out of the open touring car, flinging back a boa of dead and glass-eyed animals, hollering, “I’m here, boys, get the gin!”

He swivels in me again in mish, we’ve done the complicated rollover without separating twice now, and God, he swivels like Big City Lover (My racist brain: maybe it’s a black thing, this swiveling, how would one research that? And if it is a black thing, where do they learn it? Standing on corners in hoodie shirts, “yo, man, you got to swivel in the bitch”? Shut up, dumb white girl brain, shut up, your privilege is showing). I feel him pulse in me and he comes, silently – perhaps he’s the maroon-suited porter, gold braiding and a little cap, but no, it’s his time, his money, his privilege to have the white woman on her knees, over, under, tell me again I remind him of his red-haired mother and no empty tree limbs in sight, nothing ready to bear fruit.

We lie together for a long time after he teaches me how to gently remove a condom with a warm wet “washrag”. My (monthly) blood is rusty on the cloth, if he was all white it would show. I don’t think he notices as I sponge him off.

My head on his chest, we talk – the first time he saw me it was cold and I wore layers and a hat with a feather and rushed him to the circus, and he thought I looked like Cyndi Lauper, that I was a little crazy. I tell him, I have lots of crazy, and I’m here to give him some, he needs some crazy in his life. He asks me:

“Why don’t you have a boyfriend, why don’t you get married?”

Pause. I should have a line here...

Pause. I like this guy, I like seeing him, I’d like to tell him...

Pause. Yeah, but I’m a whore.

“Well, how much about me do you really want to know?”

I don’t remember his response.

“Actually, I’ve been married for twelve years.”

His look asks the next questions.

“No, he doesn’t know. We have an open relationship. I’m not monogamous. It’s not in me.” We talk about people having different levels of sexual need.

He says, “Maybe if my wife paid more attention to me, I’d...do this less.”

He had a girlfriend for five of the first seven years. She lived in the same building, he’d call her at 3AM, go downstairs, “she’d answer the door butt-naked and we just went at it…she had a foldout sofa, we fell down between the couch and the head of the bed and just kept going. Took me about a month to get used to how tight her, (pause, uses same word I used as least offensive choice), pussy was, used to come just like that. My wife was upstairs asleep, didn’t even know I’d gone out, thought I was in the other room watching TV the whole time. Only time she wanted to have sex was when she wanted to get pregnant, go-go-go for a month or so, then back to once a month. Same thing again, all the time ‘til she get pregnant again, then back to once a month.”

I went two years once, I think but don’t say. It’s not my turn to reveal.

He likes that I’m low-profile, I don’t see many people, I don’t get into petty spats on the board (arguing on the internet, Special Olympics, we’ve all been there). He jokes that if I’d ever like to see him for free, he’s up for it. I tell him I’ll never see him for free, but we’ll always have a nice long appointment and I’ll never charge him more. We’re at two hours from the time he arrived, nearly three from when we thought we’d start, it ends up at two and a half.

I want to be open, to tell him more of the truth, to truly connect, but I still count the money he lays down. He is slightly offended. We kiss, I tell him I’m eager to see him again, to spread some more crazy around. He wants to see me again, when he can afford it. And then he’s out the door and I’m in the mirror, touching up the lipstick so the girl I see can walk across the parking lot to the restaurant where Ramen Guy is waiting.

Unclear on the concept

I've got the reality show "Cheaters" on the hotel TV, and the camera crew is egging on a wounded wife as she bangs on an escort's apartment door. They've already chased the husband out of the parking lot, filming his desperate attempts to change the subject:

(referring to light, two cameramen, boom operator, "detective" host, gaffer and best boy) "Baby, what's all this? What's all this?"

Ummm...this is the people who showed your wife the non-pixellated version of the footage I'm guessing was the escort blowing you on her balcony. This is why smart clients close the drapes.

At the door, the wife pounds and yells.

"Are you coming out here? Are you coming out here?"

Yeah, sure, I'm coming out. You want a cup of sugar, right? Or did you take in a package for me?

The "detective" host (or maybe he's a detective "host") "consoles" the wife:

"We should just end this here. I don't think she's coming out."

We? You got a little white mouse in your pocket?

The wife, still in anger/anguish, says, "she's been seeing him for months!"

"He's been seeing only her, but she's been seeing a lot of different men."

"But she's been seeing him for months!"

At this point, I want to reach through the screen, grab her scrawny insert-hick-state-of-choice (let's make it Arkansas) neck, and shake her until her already exopthalmic eyes drop out and roll around, still searching for answers in the asphalt lot of yet another suburban apartment complex with shiny, scuff-resistant doors.

Lady, he's not "seeing" her. She's not "seeing" him. He's a client. She's an escort. She hugs him goodbye because he pays her. He knows she doesn't really like him. She knows he doesn't really like her. But she's got a vagina and he's got cash, and really, that's all there is to it. You're yelling at the plumber for unstoppering your disposal, when maybe you should just stop throwing not-tonight-I-have-my-period down it.

At the show's conclusion, they flash an ad for an affiliated internet dating service "where you can meet faithful singles!" Equal vocal stress on "faithful" and "singles" - bet that took a few takes.

Hey - new market...

Well. The deal is...

I've been getting the question a lot - "what's the deal?" with Husband and Lover and Big City Lover and other lovers and whoring and Me. And I was waiting to write something poetic and cool, but it's late and I didn't post yesterday and I feel guilty because Tom Paine wrote me something really nice and I have something in mind to write for him and C., and I haven't had a chance. Bitch, whine, moan. So here's The Deal.

Twelve years ago, I *thought* that what was happening was that I was getting married before I was ready. In fact, what was happening was that I was buying into the idea - widespread in America - that once I, a normal healthy girl, met the right normal healthy guy, I would stop liking more than one guy and stop wanting to have flirty fun sex and dirty raw sex with lots and lots of people.

Wrong-O, Mary-Lou.

At first I thought there must be something wrong with me. Everyone else manages to be monogamous, right? (Wrong)

After 12 years of lying and cheating - I am now at the age where I used to think I would get married, except I've been married the whole time - and 5 years of advocating for an open relationship, and a lot of therapy and going to the SAA meetings where I was the only girl but my therapist said that was fine because I tend to look at relationships like men do, anyway - I finally said this. Apropos of nothing. We were in the car. I wasn't currently in therapy. We weren't even having a relationship discussion.

Husband: Is everything all right?

Mandy: Yes.

Husband: Oh, good.

Mandy: I love you with all my heart and I don't ever want to leave you and you are my soul mate. But I am not monogamous and I don't think I ever can be. I will give you anything that is in my power to give you, and monogamy is not a gift I have in me to give. It's not something I'm capable of, and I don't want to be. I understand if you can't be with me any more because of that, but that's what I am and I can't lie to the person I love best in the world about who I am.

Husband: Have you been sleeping with other people this whole time?

Mandy: Yes.

Husband: Are you now?

Mandy: Yes.

Husband: I just don't want you to leave me.

Mandy: I'm not going to leave you. Ironically enough, I feel like if I was going to leave you, I've already gone through the "wow, this is a great new guy, what if?" stage and learned that it's not permanent and I don't want to leave.

Husband: Oh.

Mandy: I don't sleep with anyone you know and I don't do anything in our town. And it's important to me that you still come first all the time, like always taking your calls.

Husband: Well, that's good.

(Interlude with hugging, crying, and reaffirming that we want to stay together)

Mandy: So do you want to know details or anything like that?

Husband: I'll ask if I want to know.

("And...Scene!")

So it's just like when I was lying and cheating, except I'm allowed to be. He doesn't ask, I don't tell. I don't shame him or rub his nose in it or make it obvious - I mostly see people when I am already out of town. Though I do make some special trips for Lover.

However...I am still technically lying and cheating, because Husband has expressed his preference for me to have one-night stands, rather than an ongoing relationship with someone who he feels might threaten our partnership, and what I in fact have is occasional sex with friends and an ongoing, serious secondary partnership with someone I say "I love you" to and who owns part of me that no-one else ever touches.

Oh, and Husband has specifically and by name forbidden me to have sex with Lover...

Ah, sluttiness. How I dishonor you.

Bits and Pieces

...for me, the money buys my instant availability rather than overcoming a lack of desire, though I am walking that line a bit...

...If your spouse sucks at cleaning, hire a maid. If your spouse works too much to care for the children, hire a nanny. If your spouse hates cooking, hire a cook or order in. But God forbid the spouse can't/won't have sex - they're an injured innocent and you're a lousy partner if you try to fulfill *that* need without leaving them...We spend our whole lives being brought up to believe that we must only have sex with people we are in love with, and that it's wrong and bad to enjoy being with more than one person in that way, that we are wrong and bad if we keep expressing a basic need, and we just have to 'deal with it' if the person we love best cannot provide for us. We'd never say that about food...

...Lying with Client, talking about Amsterdam, I say that I would like to visit a live sex show, and Amsterdam would be the place to do it since it will probably be a good one there. Thus far, I say, I have not been to Amsterdam with someone who would go to a live sex show with me, and I don't want to go alone because I'm worried I'll be mistaken for a prostitute. Oh, wait...


...My latest dilemma. Perhaps the idea that will come to be the overriding theme of this blog. If a client is doing things that do not turn me on, or feel actively bad, do I stop them, redirect them, teach them, or let them keep going and fake/enhance my enjoyment so that they think everything is just fine? On one hand, I am not there for my pleasure (we could argue), I'm there for theirs. That's why they're paying. The product is Girl Who Thinks You're a Fabulous Lover, and my job is to make them feel like the world's greatest athlete. On the other hand, the kind of personal experience I am starting to be interested in having is the outreach aspect - getting compensated like a therapist for much the same job, minus some of the professional detachment. With my circus client, I was honest about what oral was like for me, and I asked him his reasoning for a certain position for oral for him, just as I would with a personal lover. Sooo...can I make money and not offend clients if I treat them like a lover I care about being with again, and like I want to be genuinely having a good time? Or will they just feel instructed and put off by an overbearing bitch instead of the compliant little slut they paid for?

So the question, Gentle Readers - better for you if the lady, for all you can tell, is having a lovely time with no instructions to you, or if she says wait, do it like this? The client cannot (so far) tell the difference between my real and faked good time...