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.

Anniversary

It’s been exactly a year since I began writing here.

In that time, I’ve discovered something about being a whore:

I’m not one.

Not to say that I’m stopping exchanging money for sex, when it really boils down to it. I have an assignation planned with Be-My-Real-Friend. I’m being sweetly and aggressively courted by a Mystery Man who has recently entered my professional sex life.

Not that I’m any less slutty. I’d like to see Fucked-Up Guy again when I get the chance, my path will be crossing quite soon with Secret Scientist and Zurich (in the same room, no less…what a shame they’re both solidly straight), Big City Lover has been back in touch, and I’m contemplating changing my social networking profile photo to decrease the frequent expressions of interest, so time-consuming to sort through (never know when you’ll find a pony).

And not that I’m resigning my role as muse. In the past two weeks, I’ve read quite a bit of poetry, part of a novel, consulted on an album or two and given writing assignments to some stuck writers.

But just as hourly dropped away as I discovered it felt icky, so, too, is whoring in general fading from my life. Case in point: Tourist has been texting me and leaving messages for months. Finally, I pick up the phone out of pity on Christmas Eve. I agree to meet for coffee, which suddenly becomes lunch and then how much would it be to eat your pussy in the car afterwards? I tell him I’ll email him. I mull it over, I use the calculator, I figure I’d ask $750-900 for the three hours of getting there, lunching, and, er, dining, a bargain considering his normal rate. And then I email him lies on Christmas Day: My mother has come in from out of town, don’t you hate surprises? I send him a naughty picture to “tide him over”. And I realize:

There is no amount of money worth feeling icky and bored with this man.

- Would you have sex with me for ten thousand dollars?
- Yes
- How about for fifty dollars?
- What do you think I am?
- We know what you are, now we’re just haggling over the price…

I don’t want to see any man whose only attraction is that he can afford me. I would see Be-My-Real-Friend for less. I talk to him on the phone because he’s the person I feel like talking to at the moment. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually fuck Mystery Man – I’m still waiting to see if I like him like that. I won’t see them for free, because I don’t have enough room in my life to add another thing to do without being compensated for my time (I don’t, in fact, want a social life and friends). Their gifts overcome my lack of time, not lack of desire. Am I burning with the need to fuck them? Not at this point. But they don’t have to buy their way past revulsion.

Retreat

I have left the big TO and am now happily ensconced at the home of a fellow writer and longtime friend, for our semi-annual writing retreat. Sounds a mite fancy, means we meet at one of our houses, curl up in a warm room, and write for three days. Blog posts will likely be part of this, but if there is a little silence, that's why.

For those of you interested in "Process" (a lofty title for the painfulpleasurework of writing), here's the morning's schedule:

- Slept until 10, lay on my back in bed thinking and noticing the grey quality of the light until 11, mentally planned the day's attack.
- Morning toothbrushing, etc.
- Wrote a few pages in my notebook about a realization I had, one that has been directly prompted by available mental space I've gained by honoring my promise to self and the Girls (Power and Beautiful) to stay back and not call, text, message or poke ex-Lover (not since Wednesday, and believe me, every day is a victory, not a little one, but a full scale lap-around-the-track, gilded laurel wreath, hoist-me-to-your-shoulders-boys-and-trot-me-round-the-goals triumph), pages that will end up refined and tightened and show up here later this week.
- Yoga with Fellow Writer.
- Yogurt, internet (have to ration it so it doesn't eat the writing time), posting here.

There are four projects on my plate for this three-day span. Finishing the first draft of a medium-length project in another genre; writing out from my scribbled notes in the margins of the map balanced precariously on the wheel and with the occasional accidental honk (but I can't pull over because forward motion lets the words come), a poem that came to me last night on the dark, rainy drive here, radio alternating between Philip Glass and new Canadian pop/rock I've never heard, thank you Canadian Content; a very short piece in still another genre; and sitting with the printed out pages of How About Now? and organizing them in a few ways - likely, chronology, topic, ?? - and seeing where additional material needs to be written to answer questions, clarify, fill in backstory, make it flow like a book and not a diary. I'm planning to start with the poem, because it will hopefully be something I can knock out reasonably quickly and feel accomplished. (And hey, this post counts, too, because I say so).

A side note: Thank you, very, very much, Gentle Readers who have contributed to my Amazon Honor System box (to your right). I randomly checked it this morning and my contributions have tripled since last week. So thank you, not only for thinking of me during the holiday season, but for letting me know that you like and appreciate my work, and value it as something that adds to your life and is worth paying for. I've also had several recent emails from people saying they enjoyed reading, and that means a great deal to me, too. Both of these gestures are truly helpful to me as I work on rebuilding my self-worth lately, and I thank you so very much for visting that construction site. Hard hats required. And of course, this offer (see section marked 'Gratification') is still open - perhaps a little holiday pressie to yourself?

Now I'm off to the warm room...

Retail Therapy

Power Girl and I have a Theory of Retail Therapy. Not to be confused with “shopping.” Or “browsing.” Or even “hanging out at the mall.” Retail Therapy is when the list is not the point, the looking is not the point, even, to some extent, the hanging out with your dear friend who knows almost everything about you, tucks away in her own small heart the whoring and the slutting around and the desperate insecurity, is not the point. Retail Therapy is when your dog dies, your cancer comes back, your relationship is over and you’re reduced, physically and/or emotionally, to frantic dry heaving before every meal. Retail Therapy is about regaining control. Being in charge of your own life despite the forces of death, love and metastasization.

The Theory: If it is perfect, it is worth any price. If it is imperfect, it is to be instantly forgotten.

Shopping in this way, purchasing in this way, is intensely powerful. Meeting the saleslady’s eyes over your armful of potential, knowing that if the item is right, you will make her day, if the item is wrong, there will be no regrets.

Expedition One: An exclusive (how exclusive can it be when Banana Republic is there? We think it actually means “no food court”) mall on the East Coast. A grey, rainy day. Power Girl and I plunge into Bloomingdales and try on perhaps forty formal and cocktail gowns with two specific occasions in mind. Our saleslady is a treasure, one who has the guts to say, “No, that’s not you,” rather than shark us. We have her hold five dresses and head to Bebe, where we are requested to leave our clutch purses at the counter. Next! A small boutique of many designers. One dress is great, but not exactly what I need. Next! Another is smashing, but not special enough for $800 (I think I can get something similar for under $500). Next! Coffee break. Power Girl has chai and an almond cranberry pastry, I have warm milk with a splash of coffee (my new indulgence) and an orange and chocolate croissant. Ladies who lunch are lunching around us, petit fours on tiny china plates, incongruous plastic spoons. We return to Bloomingdales and end up with seven dresses. Damage: $1500, including clearances, bonus markdowns from the saleslady, and a 10% thank-you-for-opening-an-account-with-Bloomingdales discount. Not too bad considering the biggest chunk was a $785 floor-length formal, fine-pleated navy chiffon, Grecian, stunning. It’s my first formal that looks nothing like any prom from any era. Mary Pickford would have worn this before shedding it in a heap on the floor to frolic in the indoor pool, Douglas Fairbanks a slick baby seal by her side.

Power Girl hunts fruitlessly through the rest of Bloomies, Coach and Banana for a bag (we eventually find it at Target for $5 on last-chance clearance), I pick up a little red ipod and accessories, we head to Chinatown, park in the first spot we see, enter the first restaurant by the car, and plunge down rickety stairs to a room in which we are the only non-Chinese. Metaphorical chopsticks drop to the tables before the room resumes chatting among themselves in Cantonese. Jackpot! Even the college students who drift in cross the language barrier at the door, sound-sound-sound-“computer lab”-sound-sound-long syllable-“research paper”. We invite a lady waiting for her party (there’s no wait-seating) to sit with us, and she teaches us about vinegar in the soup, gives us her card, invites us to call next time we are in town. It is the best Chinese I’ve ever eaten.

Damage for the day, including parking, lunch, dinner and the airport tolls from picking up another friend and Secret Scientist who squeezed next to me in the backseat with the bags and softly held my hand the whole way home: $2135.

Expedition Two: I have measured my finances (I’m saving up for either new windows or a trip to Europe as a present for Husband, not sure if warm toes and a lower gas bill or the alleys of Amsterdam are a better birthday surprise) and decided that I will blow all of my last present/fee/ill-gotten-gains from Be-My-Real-Friend on happy shopping. I count the already-therapeutic ipod in this. Power Girl has decided her latest bonus is meant to be perfect boots and some new clothes. We head to Toronto, land of shopping, though the dollar right now is hurting rather than helping us. Screw it. It’s time to pay any price for perfection.


Esprit: t-shirts from clearance.
Roberto Couture: boots for Power Girl. More than she has ever spent on shoes.
Some Sort of Older Woman Store I Normally Wouldn’t Shop In But That Turns Out to Have Amazing, Sexy-Classy Shirts and Blouses: two blouses and a skirt. More than I would normally pay, but two weeks later I’m still getting great feedback on the shirts.
Food Court: Bagel sandwich for Power Girl, spicy tuna roll for me.
My Favorite Lingerie Store Ever (Tacky Name, Ugly Lighting, and the Greatest Bra Saleslady in the World): Four bras of a brand I love that is about to be discontinued, and cutie panties for Power Girl. The saleslady here is another wonderful woman, she adjusts everything “Put it on the second hook for trying on! Always the second hook! OK, I am sorry about my cold fingers but let me just pull you out a little here, and tuck you in a little there…good fit, but not your color, take that off and put this on” and will not let us buy a bra that doesn’t fit. Not that we want to this time.
Godiva: Chocolates for sustenance. I have a cappuccino truffle. Power Girl has dark chocolate raspberry.
H&M: The mother lode. Skirts, dresses, shirts, accessories, and finally the purse I’ve been looking for. We call to each other in the dressing rooms – “do I like this?” “God, yes.” “Hell, no.” "It's cute but not perfect." Lover calls in the middle of trying on and I am flustered enough to pick up a pair of formal shorts. The Fug Girls would be gripped by seizures, but they’ll be cute with tights and boots.

All day long, we do not agonize. We do not question our finances, worry if something truly matches, mess around to see if we can fit in the wrong size. If it is perfect, we buy it. If it is not, we hand it back without a second glance. There is no “Gee, maybe it will work if I…” If there is no medium in the back, we’re outta there. As a side effect, the money from my client transforms into a present from my friend, the means to have a good day at a time when I desperately need one, a happiness that he has made possible, a gift certificate for self-medication. Suddenly, I realize, it’s not about the money, if I can make it not about the money, if I can make it about spending time with Be-My-Real-Friend, treating him like I’m not a sure thing, letting go of the crushing sense of obligation for him to have a good time and let him treat me like a girl, it’s actually pretty fun. It’s not that a sure thing costs, it’s a fair trade – pleasure for pleasure, with the bonus of enjoying the time when I can calm my ass down and enjoy the time. Where else is there a man who is happy to talk to me, asks very little, cares what I think of him, listens to me whine and gives me a big cash present every time we meet?


Damage: under $1000. It’s a small price to pay for the perfect happiness of being better dressed, in control, and carrying four bags filled with potential. We cab back to the hotel, we try things on again, we rest. I silently thank Be-My-Real-Friend, then just go ahead and call him. For once, it’s good to be a whore.

Tourism, Wrapping Up

Part One is here.
Part Two is here.

Tourist, freed from his gentle bonds (just in case you need to know, even stockings loosely tied around wrists eventually start to hurt), goes down on me for...well...eternity. It’s actually about 45 minutes, during which I plan and furnish a Mandy Dream House in my head. Like a Barbie Dream House – cute well-endowed girl, no visible means of support, boyfriend who isn’t around a lot – only not pink and with a bathroom. Picturing a stone Japanese soaking tub on a slate floor with runnels between 12-inch square tiles so that the bath overflows on purpose and a separate shower with rain faucet and body spray jets makes me put a little more heart into my faux moans. I calculate: 4 hours down, only a few more to go... I don’t technically keep track of time, but he must depart by 8 as the business reception alibi-ing him will be done by then.

I’m still hoping that tease and denial will be enough, but we do end up adjourning to the bed. I spend a long time with oral, licking the head of his cock, sucking up and down the shaft, running my hands over his thighs, rubbing his cock on my breasts, every minute or so looking up and ordering him not to come. He has silent, shaking, come-less orgasms three or four times, each time is still not much less startling. This is a fetish slave – to what fetish, I don’t know yet – waiting to happen. It’s a damn shame this man is only at 50 discovering what he likes.

I suit him up and he asks for me on top. I’m able to come, which he likes, and it’s a midlevel orgasm, and I allow myself to be as vocally free as I can. Not the best ever, but again, Auntie Mame is in the house, apparently. I ask him to beg to come, and he does, very sweetly, so I let him know it’s ok to go ahead. Epilepsy’s got nothing on Tourist when he finally lets go. He nearly squirms out from under me while slamming his head repeatedly into the pillow.

There is a nap. Paid to sleep, that’s a new one…

There is one more go.

And then Tourist takes his leave. He ruefully refuses my panties, which might get him caught, and gives me a fat envelope. Over the course of 8 hours, this man has gone from “I have to be honest, when you told me your fee, I gasped” to “Is this enough?” From the hotel room window I watch him walk, still a little shaky, to his car, and then I count his money.

Not bad. A little boring, but not actively icky. Worth $2000? I’ll try to be...

The Middle-Aged and the Misguided

(I haven't forgotten Tourist, we'll get back to him...)

Oh, Circus Guy...

In my inbox, after I responded to a mass forward from him (why would you include your whore of choice on your visible cc list?) and told him to check Snopes:

Hello [Whorename]. How have you been? I bet your doing good--you have a lot going on with your [real job] and things. Ive been well keeping busy at work and playing golf when I can. I miss you but cant afford your donation. Would love to see you again. If you are out my way and have a little time for me please let me know.Maybe you can be generous and let me go for 250kisses.
Love ya,and hope to see you soon.
[Circus Guy}

When I last saw him, my rate was $275, and after I had a really enjoyable time with him in which I overstayed more than an hour at no charge, he whined about the price and criticized how I deal with money.

I really don't have the heart to tell him I now cost two grand...

Bits and Pieces

...One of the greatest feelings in the world is, after resolutely remaining as asleep as possible while the children across the aisle watch a bad, loud dvd with their father hovering over them in the aisle, forcing everyone who passes to whack me in the head with their rear end (and damn, despite the bathroom being on the other end of the plane there are a lot of passersby) and then waking for real, bleary, dry, hoping against hope that we are more than three hours – halfway – through the flight, and hearing, “Flight attendants, please prepare for landing, crosscheck...”
...here’s what makes a well-paid job: 1) Providing services not available elsewhere (whoring, specialized medicine); 2) High levels of personal danger when carrying out the job (logging, drug dealing, whoring); 3) Lack of willing job applicants (air conditioner repair, whoring); 4) High level of personal responsibility for the service recipient (medicine, whoring)...
...On the continuing theme of Mandy’s Not A Very Nice Person Now Is She, I made an intern cry yesterday. In the middle of an intense part of our job, I sent her to get me something I urgently needed and used a nasty tone of voice. After the hoo-hah was over, I noticed her teary and apologized profusely, explaining that no, it wasn’t her and in fact she had done fabulous work all day, and my tone had nothing to do with her performance and everything to do with my hyped-up state of mind. There were more apologies and a cash bonus later for all as our client was very pleased, and other people who work with me let her know that yeah, sometimes Mandy does that and it’s so not you. Internship Lesson for the Day: sometimes the boss is a bitch. There’s nothing you can do but your job until it blows over...
...On the continuing theme of Mandy’s A Self-Aggrandizing Egomaniac, one of my favorite quotes: “If everyone likes you, you must not be very good.” Discuss.

The Necklace

I find myself in a funky, artsy southern town, with a quilt shop on every corner and cobbled streets. Shining like a lost koruna in the street (and about as out of place) is one sleek, minimalist, polished-concrete-floored gallery of stainless steel jewelry, handcrafted by the gay couple behind the counter. I think, perhaps I will buy Lover something from here. We’ve been a bit disconnected, challenged by distance and lack of coordinating schedules, and I’d like to give him something heavy and expensive and permanent, but not intended to be worn all the time (see gold earrings). I choose a necklace, but intend to come back later and pay cash following a time of agony about whether or not I want to a) buy a meaningful present for him at all and b) spend that much money outside my household.

I return shortly before closing…except that they are already closed. There is no phone number on the window, or on the front of the business cards face up on the display table inside the window. They are not listed, as a business or as proprietors (their names are in the window). Myspace to the rescue, and later that night, I reach them at home and they agree to open up the shop for me. Gotta love small towns.

This time, I have Husband with me, as he has come along on this primarily business trip. We have also been rocky, and I add to my purchase a heavy bracelet as well as the necklace I claim is for me, or possibly for a girlfriend if I can bear to give it up. The bracelet has a dull sheen, and I tell him, I will get it engraved inside, I will have them put, I would marry you again in a minute. Husband is moved, we are both connected. Lately, it has been a very clear connection. I wear the necklace out of the store, and am indeed half in love with it myself.

* * *

Lover has a new friend. That kind of friend. I call her the Hershey’s Kiss. You know, like when you really, really want chocolate, and you’ve promised yourself that you won’t burn calories on crap, you’ll hold out for Belgian dark chocolate, not that sugary crap that gives you a headache and a weird feeling in your mouth, but then you find that bag of leftover Halloween candy or maybe there’s a bowl on the receptionist’s desk and it’s just…soooo…easy…

This is demeaning to her and unworthy of me.

I’m supposed to be this liberated free spirit, fucking my way around the world and far, far too busy and happy to be jealous and irritable that Lover is FUCKING SOMEONE ELSE.

I meet Lover in another town, one of our last private meetings for months. He has driven a long way to see me. I have told a lot of lies to see him. The necklace burns in its tissue in my bag, and at first, I think, well, no. The hello kiss is nice, we take it slow, he’s very respectful and supportive of my numerous conversations via cell with Husband, who is having a rough night/week/marriage. Good food, a good walk, good conversation. Caution.

It’s not that something’s missing. It’s that something’s there. Focus is divided. He is only with me, yes, but I am also with her. When his cock slides into me, I wonder how tight her pussy is. When he kisses me, I think about how she’s an easy come, it strokes his ego that he got her off with kissing. When he goes down on me, I worry that I take too long, it’s unfulfilling, the few times – very few – I actually come this way aren’t enough.

I sleep all night in his arms, thinking only a few times, do you do this with her? We have already decided that the boundary is no anal, that’s saved, and he tells me fancy dates are also only for me, TGI Fridays is fine for her. I feel a prickling of female solidarity. If I’m truly out for maximum happiness for others and not solely my own selfish gratification, it would be nice if other people had nice things, too, and not just what they’ll settle for, machined corn syrup lowers him and me both.

In the morning, he is actually fucking me when I ask when he’ll see her again. This is not as stupid a question as you might think, given that they live in different states, she has a full-time not-traveling job and he is not due back in her state for quite some time.

She’s coming to see him in three weeks.

He blathers on about how she’s not up for a relationship, he natters about how they’re both only into this part time thing, he whinges about how it’s not a big deal but it would be rude to back out now, and I’m weeping in the shower, washing him off me, packing my things, blind with pain and fury and the realization that men are utterly, utterly stupid. Then I put my contacts in.

A brief note to my Male Gentle Readers: GIRLS WHO TRAVEL TO ANOTHER STATE TO SEE YOU ARE INTERESTED IN MORE THAN A QUICK FUCK. No matter how “busy” or “not into commitment” she is, no matter how many “other people she’s seeing” or “doesn’t have time to see,” NO GIRL NEEDS TO LEAVE HER CITY, LET ALONE HER STATE, FOR A QUICK FUCK. Your friendship isn’t that good. If she doesn’t have another reason to be there (and “my girlfriend was coming up anyway to see her boyfriend in your city” sure doesn’t count – who the hell wants to be a third wheel on a fuck trip?), this is not a no-strings-attached fun time. They may not be the strings you’re expecting to dodge, but trust me, they’re there.

I round up my things in the hotel room, I can’t bear to have him touch me. He says, “I’m terrified that I’m going to lose you.” I say, “you already are.”

Somehow, we achieve détente. And I arrive at a solution. We will break up. I’m not sure if it will be only nominal, if the convention will be enough to relieve the sick, burning jealousy in my stomach, but I have to do something. I will see him one more time this month, and then we’re done. If we want to get back together after he sees her, perhaps. But I can’t be his if he’s with someone else. And the thing I value most about Lover is being utterly, completely his.

A brief note on hypocrites. I AM ONE. I’d like to be able to fuck whomever I like and have them only fuck me.

Breaking up seems, thus far, to be working. I don’t think about Lover fucking the Hershey’s Kiss. In fact, I don’t think about him much at all. I’m certain this is a compartment of some kind, but really, I’m a bit busy for pain right now. And hey, if subpar chocolate is worth using up the calories you’d spend on the good stuff, well, at least it was easy, cheap and available when you needed it.

I gave him the necklace. I told him I hoped it would be something he’d like wearing, and that he could never wear it around Husband.

(“It was worth, at most, five hundred francs…”)

Not Worth Doing Unless Done Well

Planning my next meeting with Tourist:

White stockings and garter belt
Nurse smock with zip front
Nurse skirt hemmed above the knee
Nurse hat
Horn-rim glasses
Clipboard and pen
Medical forms with increasingly personal questions
White heeled shoes
Wrist restraints – blood pressure cuffs?
Patient gown
Thermometer
Tongue depressor
Stethescope
Access to rented medical office with examination table, counter, sink, etc.
“Secretary” to register “patient”

And that’s why your whore wants a deposit.

Dispatches From the Front

Found in Translation

In my inbox, a missive from a man I had exchanged emails with earlier in the year, smart, claims to be in good shape (runs), articulate, well-spelled.

I promptly confuse him with someone else. Fortunately, my comment to him about thinking he had quit the hobby (the someone else had posted a little board drama about focusing on his personal life, especially after the STD scare ) wasn’t a big deal.

In the spirit of the Third Way, I reply that I am no longer seeing gentlemen on an hourly basis, only long dates. Back he comes – he has just last week flown in a young lady from Minneapolis, dinner, dessert (points off for “desert”), breakfast.

Now we’re both speaking the same language. Call it Whoredu. Like Urdu, but spoken by mostly aspirational ladies, a couple of native ladies and a few select men mostly living in urban centers. I had honestly not expected to encounter it in Midwestern Region, and here I am confronted with, not a native, but an earnest student, showing off his ability to locate the pencil of my aunt. (Here’s what I speak – English, French, Japanese, ASL, well enough to discuss the weather but not well enough to talk about God. Whoredu is coming slowly but I think I’m a natural.) Doctor-fucking-Livingstone, I presume?

I ring him, speeding along through Indiana as is my wont, putting on the cruise to avoid racking up another $200 a year on the insurance. His voice is an orange, round and heavy and a little rough. I tell him very clearly and in small words that I am only looking for men I genuinely want to be with, where the gift is genuinely to compensate for time lost from my other life. Il comprend, wakarismashita, forefinger flicking upward. He mentions that part of what he enjoys about ladies on the side is exploration and fantasy. My mental robot indicates that an untranslatable sign has been given. For once, I catch it the first time instead of realizing later that I have, somewhere back at the beginning of the conversation, missed something vital to comprehension.

“You sound like you might have something specific in mind when you say “fantasies”…?

His tongue unlocks, suddenly he is fluent, there are naughty nurses giving private exams while the doctor has stepped out and hot teachers making students stay after class to rewrite essays and slutty business women coming back from the ladies’ room one more button undone than they started with, panties in their hand for him.

“Do I get a ruler?” I giggle engagingly and listen.

A grammatical misstep from lack of familiarity, he tells me he’s getting hard just thinking about the role-playing, native Whores know this is crass, don’t touch the fruit in a British market stall. I let it slide, tourist, and then there’s a bing! on the magic words

tease

and

denial.

Do I want to set up an elaborate role-play with emails and phone calls in character, meet my little tourist, chaperone him through the fun of roleplay (no-one’s played this particular type of game with him yet), quietly mention the etchings in the back room, very rare, sir, but some scholars like to… Feel the way down the passage where I think he’s heading, mild D/s and perhaps the intercourse is adjectives, complex-compound sentences, the subjunctive clause, not the topical noun in the present tense at all?

Damn right I do.

I have grown powerful through conceptual mastery, and I tell him I want a picture of him. I let him know at the last minute (mostly unintentionally) that no, sorry, tomorrow won’t work but how about another day? We settle on a day for a get-to-know-you lunch. I raise the price 25% from Be-My-Real-Friend because Tourist is not cute in his picture, he wants a lot of time and planning, and I will have to be both responsible and creative. I am ready to walk away at the slightest provocation, Gillette, Z, Juno, C, LFM, Beautiful Girl holding a seat at their table, Gentle Readers waving phrasebooks, travel essays, a magazine for the train, these great pills that totally did the trick.



I hope he will be as nice as he was on the phone, better-looking than his picture--it’s truly awful, he can’t possibly be worse...knock wood, merde, gambatta kudasai, fingers touching lips L-U-C-K.

Bits and Pieces

...At a business meeting, an attorney tells me his one case that made news, two children killed when a driver hit the back of the tractor they were riding. “The fact that my client was intoxicated when he hit them was not relevant,” he earnestly volunteers. “It was a rainy night, the road curved, and the tractor did not have rear reflectors. The tractor driver and his wife later divorced, one of the children was theirs and I think they couldn’t handle being at fault.” I think, there's not enough money in the world...

...I write in a word document and then copy-paste to the blog. I’ve decided that when I’m at 100 pages I will start looking for literary representation to make this sucker (or the content thereof) a book. 78 single-spaced and counting...

...One way to tell if you would whore – how much could you charge? Check out the Provider Price Predictor, which will weight your age, sex, looks and personality to advise you on a fair rate in your area and across America! Get a friend to help you rate yourself, it's a great way to acquire some hurt feelings! Is my face really a 6 or is Power Girl just working from a different generational reference? (It's best you not answer that, Gentle Readers)...

Practical Whoring (Part One)

A Gentle Reader, Anonymous Girl on the Verge, writes:

[nice compliments] May I ask you about something you touched on only briefly in a very early post?

At what point in your initial contacts with prospective clients do you first send them photos of yourself? How identifying are the pics you send? Is your face clearly visible? Is anything less than that acceptable to clients? How nekkid are the pics? What are your concerns about being recognized, and about losing control over your pics, for ex by someone posting them elsewhere, whether or not they're accompanied by other identifying details?

This is the easy part:

You send photos when you damn well want, of what you damn well please.

Some ladies post identifying pictures to their websites or on client/provider bulletin boards. Some put them on Craigslist, faces and all. Some have only a physical description and send photos via email. Some may never send photos and get the clients to take them on faith, based on a coffee meeting, or by turning up at a Meet&Greet event thrown by a local bulletin board. (I could have booked ten appointments from the M&G I went to without sending any pics at all, *and* I got to weed out guys I thought were creepy or icky without having to do ten coffee dates). I’ve looked at a lot of boards and a lot of websites, and the most common tactic is to post a decent body shot with your face hidden, cropped out, blurred, or wearing big sunglasses. I’ve also seen ladies who post absolutely non-sexual shots of themselves in normal street clothes, showing their face, and those who publish thumbnails of different parts.

I personally do not send face pictures to clients at all, though this may change now that I am seeing very few (right now, one) people whose real names and real jobs I know. The face picture I sent to Be-My-Real-Friend when it became clear after about fifteen emails that he was serious and legit was fully clothed and non-sexual. If you have a social networking page, send a photo from that (renamed) and then your line is, “Officer, I have no idea what you’re talking about – is some creepy stalker downloading my Myspace pictures?”

If you *want* to send pictures to a client, be aware that anyone who can’t make a decision to see you or not based on *one* photo that shows your general body shape and condition and *one* photo that highlights your best feature, is using your pictures to wank. Do not send them more until they pay and you want to use a photo as a thank-you or a lure for more business.

A sample interaction on a local board:

Desperate Guy With No Money: hi goddess how r u? pics?
Mandy: Hi there, nice to hear from you! I only respond to pm’s written in complete sentences – thanks!
DGWN$: Oh, i understand. I think u are hot! Can i see some pics?
Mandy: If you’re interested in booking an appointment, let me tell you a little about myself… [2 paragraphs with big words, it’s a cut-and-paste] …If I sound like your kind of lady, will you tell me about yourself and where you’re located?

DGWN$ responds, I tell him he’s too far away to be my client, he says he understands and continues to send me requests for pictures about once a week. Delete!

For serious clients who introduce themselves, have references and write grammatically, I send one photo of my body in a form-fitting dress and one of my chest in a bra. I don’t send any nekkid pics (“nekkid” – Naked and Up To Something, thank you Lewis Grizzard) to men I know in a professional capacity. I don’t wear the clothes or underwear in my working girl pics in non-professional contexts. And if someone ever says, “Hey, isn’t that…” I’ll say, “Damn! That does look like me! I wonder how much she gets?” My pictures aren’t porn-ish enough (I think) for anyone to bother posting them all over the net, and I send them out at low res – enough so that they aren’t even clear if viewed except as an email attachment.

One thing that sticks out, though, in Anonymous Girl's phrasing:

Is anything less than that acceptable to clients?

It’s not what’s acceptable to them that counts, it’s what’s acceptable to *you*. You You You YOU YOU. If whoring is an option for you, it’s very, very important to draw your own lines and set your own boundaries, and it starts at first contact. If you’re shy about saying:

“Sorry, I don’t send additional pictures until you book”
“No, I don’t give out ‘pink’ pics”
or even, “I’d like to see a picture of you, too, will you send me one?”

then where will you be when it’s time to say,

“I need your gift first.”
“I can’t talk about that.”
“Don’t call me that name.”
“Don’t touch me there.”
“I don’t swallow.”
“I don’t do anal.”
“I don’t bareback.”
?

I realize that Anonymous Girl is not dumb, and that she’s asking about marketing standards rather than jumping off a bridge with all her friends. But it is a slippery slope of self-perception, and remembering that you are (and must be) in charge of every step of the transaction is really important when you’re a whore. This is where review boards can be a blessing instead of a curse (read Compartments for an excellent summary of the bad side of boards. There’s usually a ladies-only area where you can ask questions and get a sense of what everyone else is doing. There’s almost always a thread about “Is this lame guy wasting your time/trying to beat down your rate/asking for more pics from you, too?” And the answer is always yes, yes, yes, I’ve put him on ignore.

I would say that more ladies don't show their faces than do. I would also say that the higher the price, the more likely the lady has professionally-taken magazine-quality shots, and the less likely she is to show her face. Check out the escorts at Demimonde and Pearl Elite Independents for lovely shots from which no-one could be identified.

And finally, Gillette has written some great essays on courtesanship and how she went about it. Lots of links within those posts and some very valuable information.

This has been the Practical portion of our lesson. Tomorrow: Theory (on Whoring, Privacy, and Choice).

10 Things About a Woman (Whether or Not She’s a Whore)

1) If she offers you a shower, it’s not a suggestion or a request. Many service providers have this on their website as a gently-worded section of the “What will our time be like?” page. Maybe you already are squeaky-clean…but she hates your cologne.

2) If your hands are empty, hers should not be full. This goes for when she’s got packages and is passing through doors as well as when her hands are full of cock. Put your fingers in her hair, your palm on her back, do something with them in return. Unless you’re acting out The Sultan and the Nubian Slave, in which case you’re paying extra not to carry her packages, so to speak.

3) If you’re not wearing a condom, she’s ovulating and HIV+. Don’t put your naked penis in a woman unless and until you like each other enough to hold hands in the waiting room.

4) Listening is not waiting for your turn to talk. If you have no clue what she’s babbling on about now, repeat her last sentence in a questioning tone. She’ll explain further. If you’re paying, you can say, “let’s not talk.” If you’re not paying – in cash or with commitment – try not to date her again if you can’t stand listening to her.

5) As discussed in my treatise on the one client who understood this, don’t ask her during sex, “What do you like?” The answer is either complicated or embarrassing – we want to pretend you automatically know, and if you’re paying us, we may not want what we normally like – we want what gets you off. Do something and ask “Do you like that?” If it’s personal, go for the play-by-play afterwards in the orgasm haze...

6) Don’t ask her where she keeps her money. Don’t ask what she spends it on. She may be saving up to be independent of you. Be a gentleman and wish her well.

7) No matter how tough she is, some days she needs to lean on you.

8) Apologize when you are not wrong. It costs you nothing and she may apologize back. At the very least, it defuses the situation.

9) Stroking her ego is part of foreplay. Telling her she’s hot makes her feel hot. Be as specific as you can.

10) Gentle Reader, your suggestion for number 10...?



(Note bedsheet marks.)

Sugasm #78

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Thank You, George Bernard

Lack of money is the root of all evil. - Shaw

So I’m participating in Problogger’s Top Five Group Writing Project contest , which is really more of a lottery (hurray, no hurt feelings if I lose!) and mostly a way to connect with other blogs and bloggers and boost traffic for all. Thanks, Always Aroused Girl for posting Orgy Invitation: Top 5 Ways to Get One, which is how I found out.

In honor of my brand-new Amazon Honor Box (look right) and my surprise first donation ($25! The first day! Cool! Thank you!), I present…

The Top Five Reasons to Give Me Money

Adventure. You can claim the experience of hiring a whore without risking robbery, AIDS, herpes or a boring and/or icky time. Plus, you don’t have to guess which cologne I will find least objectionable. (Trick Question! The answer is None!)

Philanthropy. You may consider yourself a patron of the arts, without having to pretend to see deep meaning in plain blue panels, elephant dung, chainlink fencing, re-creations of the artist’s bedroom, spatter painting or anything by Jasper Johns. You need not wear black, Imitation of Christ or Vivienne Tam, and on days when the creative juices aren’t flowing for you, you may consider it an offering to the muse. (Hsnar, hsnar)

Gratification. Give $50 or more* and I will custom write a post featuring your favorite sexual acts (as performed in my head, or possibly in life, I’ve been around). Or a topic of special interest, if you’re feeling extra classy. There will be an associated picture…which you may choose to share with the Gentle Readers or keep to your greedy little self. Remember, though – even work to order must serve the dictates of this Muse.

Superiority. After contributing, you may look down on other, Less-Gentle Readers, secure in the knowledge that you have done your bit and may relax while they enjoy your sloppy seconds.

Seriously. It takes 1-2 hours to write a solid post, plus thinking time. As Be-My-Real-Friend aptly summarized, “I’m actually not paying you for sex, though it’s nice that it’s a sure thing – I’m paying for the time you would otherwise spend making a living, focused on your personal life, or having fun of your choice.” This is not a threat – I don’t plan to stop writing anytime soon (see here, here, and here). But I write better and more often if it’s putting cock in my mouth food on the table and cashmere sweaters on my back.

A little crass? Perhaps. But then again – you already know what I am. Now we’re just haggling over the price.

(thank you, Power Girl for the idea and Tom Paine for help with the box)

*if you wish to follow this plan, comment or drop a line and I will tell you how to donate anonymously and yet so I will know it’s you.

Bits and Pieces

...Sitting at the Metro waiting for Computer Whiz to pick me up. Little white PT Cruiser pulls up, two white girls with heavy makeup and heavy breasts, waiting in the pickup lane. Five or six minutes later, a blue sedan pulls up next to them. Two young black men inside, thumpy-thumpy music. The passenger in the sedan reaches out of his window, passes a roll of cash to the girl driving the PT. She briefly inspects it, says something, and the men drive off. The PT drives off. Guess I'm not the only one in town on a secret mission...

..Power Girl and I invite Secret Scientist over for guacamole and hanging out. He kisses me while she’s in the shower. We watch Discovery and mock the Jeff Corwin Experience. I walk Secret Scientist out to his car and tell him I love flirting with him, but don’t let me infringe on his life. He doesn’t have a problem with kissing me some more. Or letting me touch his cock through his pants...

...Hairline Boy has continued to give me sparkly eyes, and I learn through sources that he, too, has a girlfriend. I no longer feel guilty for not liking him back. However, he is deeply sweet. When he hugs me hard I say, "Are you having a Jimmy Carter moment?" He looks puzzled. I say, "I hay-ave committed aduhltery in mah heart many taimes." Recognition dawns. Later, another hug. "Jimmy Carter moment?" "Jimmy Carter moment."

Tired and Tremulous

I feel like Madeline Kahn.

My last full day off was Easter (I used it to clear my desk). My next full day off is Tuesday the 24th. I went into work today with a terrible attitude and was horrible to my co-workers, one of whom is in charge of a large project that she's feeling overwhelmed by. If I tell her it's just not that big a deal, it demeans the project, which is a first for her on a few levels. If I agree that yes, it's a huge deal, it just puts more weight on her shoulders.

But back on topic.

I've been corresponding with Be-My-Real-Friend, by which I mean he writes me long emails, I answer one out of ten and call him when I have time. He doesn't nag, or phone at bad times. So far, this is working great, as far as I'm concerned. I like reading what he has to say, and I'm glad he is OK with my getting back when I can. The battle is to make sure I keep my head aligned on, "I've talked to him about as much as I've talked to Beautiful Girl this month, and she's my best friend. I am not short-changing him as a friend, and he has expressly said he doesn't want my paid attention, he just happens to be giving me money so I can carve out the time to see him."

We've set a date for me to fly to see him. He's sent a deposit for the plane ticket and hotel. It's a city I enjoy visiting, and we're going to look at buildings and stroll through neighborhoods. Battle #2 is to stay me, to not defer past politeness into customer service, to act like the superior bitch I am instead of the "woman who can't wait to have sex with you" that I act like with clients. To truly take him at his word, make him work for it the way I would with any non-client, be the tease I am, make it feel edgy and slippery and doubtful.

It's still a sure thing.

I'd feel like a very, very bad person accepting the plane and hotel, let alone the cash, and not follow through at the moment of truth. The Victorians had a point when they restricted what presents a lady could safely accept without compromising herself. But we've had enough chat that I find him likeable, and he's cute in a craggy sort of way.

I'm very curious to see if I can pull this off. If so, it's the first step into courtesan-ship. If not, at least I'll learn something. And I do think he's the kind of guy who can laugh and say, "That sucked, let's do something else." Hopefully, even (if necessary), "someone else."

What I Like About You

The best kind of money is money I made myself, on my own time, that doesn’t count. It’s not for the house or the groceries or the bills, it’s not share and share alike. It sits in my purse and buys each little caprice.

Getting off the airplane and buying a chai latte and a water right there at the airport instead of choosing one or the other and then buying it at the convenience store thirty minutes later to save 75 cents.

Going into Target and choosing five things from the travel size and sample aisle, Kleenex in a purse pack (not the store brand), lotion that I might not even like, contact lens solution, ibuprofen, handiwipes for my purse, not buying more because there’s nothing that catches my eye.

Sitting in my first choice restaurant and ordering what my body says it wants, extra side of vegetables, maybe I won’t even finish, won’t even take it home (though nothing’s great like cold steak at breakfast).

Trashy checkout magazines even though the newpaper’s cheaper.

Not driving across town to save 35 cents a pound, not caring too much if the “regular” pump is out of order, an extra pack of mints at the checkout, not worrying and saving and hoarding every last penny because good people save up for what they want for twenty-five years and bad people call home from the airport, “I’m in Reno, Atlantic City, the Bahamas, I’ll be home in a few days, honey.”

Once she packed us up and took us to her parents, two babies on the plane must have been a nightmare, God only knows what last-minute tickets cost back then. Perhaps if she’d come back after he did, something might have happened.

On my first big road trip, he gave me $100, two fifties, in case of emergency. I didn’t use them when the alternator went, when the head gasket went, when I took the bus from Cleveland to Buffalo and then hitched to Syracuse. My brother flew me home. I still have the fifties, they’re the older kind.

As long as they sit in the back of my planner, I know…something. Maybe someday I’ll know what it is.

That’s why he gambled. That’s why I whore.

History: Famous

“So what do you do?” I ask, because he already knows what I do, we’re at my work.

“I’m a musician,” he says, and we both know that’s not all, that the twelve people in the private room and the tension in the dressing room on his arrival don’t have a lot to do with music. But we pretend it is, pretend we can have a normal conversation, pretend there’s lots to find out about each other and that we both care.

He’s nearly forty now, or perhaps on the far side, it’s hard to tell grey from blond. In the poster on the wall of my rented one-bedroom, over where the funky part of Dallas becomes a bad neighborhood, he’s thirty, or maybe a drugged-out twenty-five, fronting a band that will be famous always but always a little less famous than him. He’s drinking brand name gin and tonic, three green olives on a plastic sword balanced on the edge. I’m drinking champale, which is house code for a six dollar cranberry juice and ginger ale. I’m underage, my Poloroid’s on the Do Not Serve board in the back hall, but I don’t drink anyway. He’s either a boobs man or a brains man, because if he was an ass man, I wouldn’t be here, being a little softer around the backside than the rest of the Dallas girls. My bet is on brains. I’m hoping it’s brains. I figured out pretty quickly I wasn’t a Barbie body, was never going to be the tightest girl in the bar no matter how many reps I did, my money comes from conversation and climbing – they’ll pay twenty bucks for the fun of watching me climb two stories up, wrap my high boots around one of the cage bars, lean back and slide down, squeezing my thighs to stop short when my hair brushes the platform. Sometimes thirty.

We’re supposed to do two sets in the cages after two songs on stage, but he’s had a word with the manager, or rather, his manager’s had a word with my manager, and a girl who never liked me to begin with and now is into full-blown hate is taking my sets. Lock my locker for sure tonight, or better yet, take everything home, shoes, dresses, makeup, anything that can be ripped or cut with nail scissors or smashed on the tile floor. I learned in Florida never to leave money in a locker, as fast as you can make a hundred and eighty bucks it still burns to lose it. Dallas is better, there are house mothers who police the dressing room and iron and bandage and pass out cups of liquid latex in the clubs inside the city limits, where if the cops come in, your fake nipples have to peel off in one piece and be opaque to a dollar bill. Here outside the city limits, we’re bare up top, but in the Cabaret we’re also in dresses “appropriate for street wear” when we sit with the customers and we don’t cross the invisible wall in front of their knees, the barrier between us and their groins.

I’m not even supposed to be here. I work next door, in the less-exclusive room of this two-club complex squatting beside the ring road, fronted like a mansion with pillars and a fountain and a circular drive where even the dancers use the valet. In my room, Club Concert, the girls can wear lingerie on the floor and the men don’t have to have ties. We are also less pretty. They call it “a different look,” which means we have smaller or possibly real breasts, softness in the belly, baby fat still around our cheekbones. My placement in the second room seems to me a logical extension of high school, the punchline of finally finding out I am pretty and I can be popular, as long as I leave school at 2:30 and work the 3-to-10 shift.

In Dallas, it’s 7 to 2, but there are so many girls here they check our ID cards when we come and we leave when we’ve made enough. It’s Sunday, slow, but Sundays have always been my lucky night. Tommy closed our room at midnight, told us, “Since it was so slow tonight, you can go over to the Cabaret if you want. Don’t forget, ladies—” and we chorus back, “Appropriate for street wear.” We are a mixed blessing to the girls in the other room. More girls means less time on stage, where no-one makes money, but it also means more competition for dances on the floor. I go up to the same two songs as always, and near the end while I am getting bored and cursing the lack of pole on the main stage, a man comes to the edge of the stage.

“He would like you to join him in the VIP Suite.” I know who “he” is. Even in the other room, we knew he was here. Bulletins came through the dressing room mom — he’s here, he’s in the Suite, he’s not buying dances, he’s sending people down with tips, no, they’re going on their own, no, it’s his money. The DJ finally locked his door and announced that he wasn’t going to play the song, that song, his song, for anyone, so could everyone please stop whining?

I tell the man at the edge of the stage I have to do four more songs in the cages before I can come up, and he nods and goes to arrange something because the room manager comes to me before Annie Lennox finishes her final “hey” and tells me that Dani will be covering my cage sets and would I please put on my dress and go upstairs immediately. Backstage, I struggle into my dress as Sassy waits for her music. “Good luck,” she says, because nothing is secret, and I am grateful that she’s a nice person who talks to the new girls in the dressing room and just laughs when they ask her why she’s called Miss Six-to-Eight.

The door to the VIP Suite is shut, and I don’t know whether to knock or just go in, finally deciding to knock on the grounds that servants don’t. The man who came to the stage opens the door, asks me what I want to drink, and motions to a wing chair by the window. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, the lights are lower here, so we can watch the floor through the glass window.

He leans back in the wing chair, watching the girl on stage through plate glass. The music is piped in, the DJ announces Crystal who is one more whining voice refused the song, the song we all want to dance to tonight, his song. Crystal plays to the floor crowd, refusing to look to the second level, ignoring the window we’re watching her through, you can either be starstruck or you can pretend he isn’t here. I’m with Crystal – I’d rather act like everything’s normal, as normal as the VIP Suite can be, just like oil money or software money or Cowboys money, only it’s famous money. In the end, what matters is that it’s money.

He’s telling me about his wife, he misses her, it’s hard being on tour without her, she couldn’t come this time. I have seen their wedding picture. She’s in a red dress, on horseback, the lead rope falling to his hand, both laughing. He is at this moment unfamous to me, one of many, working on Topic #2, My Significant Other, after a quick slip through Topic #1, My Job. There are only three topics. I pray for the sake of being able to listen to his music forever after this that he will not get to #3, Will You Go Home With Me. As Sassy says, why would you leave the bar for a hundred-dollar blowjob when you could stay here and make six to eight? I do not know if he would offer money or expect fame to pay, but I also do not know if I cost enough to say no.

“Would you like to dance?” he asks, and it takes a moment to realize that that means for him, not with him, because my brain is remembering the Prom and thinking, yeah, you fuckers, look at me now. “Next song, so you get a whole song?” I say, realizing, I am rationing out pleasure to the face from my poster.

The DJ is psychic, or perhaps Sierra has blown him in the booth because as she walks on stage he puts it on, the song, his song. The guitar is laying down the rhythm and every girl on the floor is up, arms overhead for good breast position or hands on the parts we want to emphasize, never bending over past the ninety degree limit set out in the training video that also showed us where the line was and how not to fellate our drinking straws.

I drop my appropriate-for-street-wear dress to the floor around my ankles and give the eye to a hanger-on, who turns away. It is just us. I would like to pretend that it is just us, that we are alone in the suite, alone in the club, alone in the world. What rock star would you like to be on a desert island with? I turn away, I arch my back, I brush him with my hair, I turn back. He is mouthing the words. His eyes are closed. So I dance for twenty bucks, and for me.