Making A Deal With God To Swap Places

I’ve spoken a lot about jealousy over the past few months–my own jealousy, the jealousy of partners, even jealous clients. Jealousy can creep into all sorts of relationships, even monogamous ones. It can be a particularly acute, recurring reaction when you love a sex worker. Our lovers do all sorts of mental gymnastics to support us as we perform intimate labor, but sometimes the mental gymnastics aren’t enough. Sometimes, the only way to truly understand is to get out there, and find a way to approximate what we experience.

This is the story of Adam doing just that.

Since the pandemic ended, I stopped seeing almost all of my full service customers, with the exception of Paul. There’s nothing wrong with full service work, it’s just hard. I had to numb out to such an extreme that I lost touch with my body for a while. I discontinued full service to reground and reexamine my boundaries. Adam has been tremendously supportive of my full service journey, at times at his expense. We’ve discussed what it’s like when I leave for an outcall: what he imagines when I go silent for hours—how he handles the anxiety that tightens around his neck; how he imagines I feel performing the most intimate of activities with someone else. I know how it feels having to share someone you love. However, I felt like there was something missing from his spectrum of understanding. The “ick factor.”

People who have not done sex work often do no know what it’s like to be intimate with someone they are repulsed by. For cis men especially, sex is experienced as pleasurable. External genitalia seems like a world of enjoyment. For those receiving penetration, sex can be a mixed bag. It can hurt, end before you’re able to orgasm, or be unexpectedly triggering. I’ve found that cishet men especially find it difficult to comprehend how unpleasant sex can be, because many men have never had to deal with exceptionally bad sex. Adam is in this camp, and I realized this perception was coloring how he perceived my full service work.

“Imagine fucking an ugly sixty or seventy-year-old woman.”

“I’ve never had to do anything like that before.”

“You should try it. Then you’d understand.”

“Oh god, Selena…” Adam mumbled with dread in his voice, “How? I wouldn’t even know where to start. Are there even sites for male escorts?”

“There are, but I’m not familiar with the ones for straight men.”

“So how will I find someone?”

“You could get on the dating apps. Set your age range higher so that you target the oldies.”

Adam let out a long sigh. Never one to shrink in the face of a challenge, I knew he would go for it.

“Selena… I can’t believe I’m gonna do this.”

“I know.”

“I hope you know that I’m only doing this because I love you.”

“I know.”

“What have I gotten myself into?”

Of course, the experiment had its flaws. Adam wasn’t working. He wasn’t dependent on the date for income. There was also no guarantee that sex would happen, but in a way that was besides the point.

“What if she doesn’t want to have sex with me? I don’t think I could do this again.”

“Not all sugar dates are about sex. I didn’t have sex with my first sugar daddy.”

“But isn’t sex with an oldie the end goal?”

“The point is understanding what it’s like to be out and about with someone significantly older than you, in spaces where you would never normally go on your own, as you grapple with how other people might be perceiving you. It’s about attending to her needs and acting like you’re really invested, even though you want to escape.”

Adam shuddered.

“I want you to help me pick.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

Adam groaned.

Over the next few days, he compiled a lineup. There were four possible candidates. The first was a white woman with blonde hair who appeared to be around sixty, even though her profile claimed she was younger. She’d gotten a facelift, lip filler, and breast implants, so it was a bit difficult to pinpoint exactly how old she was. Another woman wore a “Can I speak to the manager” haircut with fried blonde hair. She puckered at the camera with a come hither expression that revealed creases around her lips. There was a very well preserved Vietnamese woman whose profile said her age was 70, but she didn’t look a day over 60.

“Not her, she’s too attractive. It has to be someone ugly,” Adam chimed in.

I appreciated his dedication to the cause.

“I also have a primordial level of arousal with older Asian women after getting so many happy ending massages. It’s like my dick knows what’s up before I do.”

“I thought most of your masseuses were Chinese?”

“I’ve had plenty of Vietnamese, Philipina, and Korean masseuses.”

Adam is a connoisseur of sex work if there ever was one.

“Fair enough.”

The final candidate was another White woman with long, brittle brown hair. She had a few Facebook friendly pictures, but what really made her stand out were the variety of naughty photos she included in her carousel. In one, she wore a fishnet bodysuit, but the photo cut off to only reveal her shoulders and the beginnings of a bit of cleavage. She gave off spicy wine mom energy, with just the right amount of promiscuity that just maybe…

“She looks like she might be down to fuck.”

“I think so too,” I nodded in agreement.

“Should I go for her?” Adam asked.

“Yep. Sweet Miss Suzanne seems like our best bet.”

“We’re really doing this,” Adam gulped.

“We really are.”

Adam began messaging Suzanne, and while it seemed to go in a direction he hadn’t expected, it was one I knew too well.

“She’s so sweet. She just seems lonely, and like she’s looking for something real. Am I doing something bad? I don’t know what I’m doing right now.”

“Just make sure to give her a Google Voice number. You don’t need her blowing you up after you break things off.”

“Good point.”

“Look, clients are mostly good, normal people looking for connection. It can be really sad and difficult wanting to give them a good experience, while knowing that you will never truly give them what they want. It’s where the emotional labor comes in.”

“I know, but… I just can’t wrap my head around it because I’m not getting paid, and there aren’t any rules or expectations set for what she’s getting. It’s just different.”

“It is different, but you’re already learning a lot of sex work lessons. Don’t worry, sweetie. It will be fine. You’re not going to treat her poorly or humiliate her. You’re going on a date, and plenty of dates lead to nothing. People date for all kinds of reasons. Plus you’re paying for the date, so she’s literally getting something out of it.”

Adam sighed, “Okay. I’ll chill out.”

“My first sugar dates were unpaid too. I didn’t know how to negotiate a date price, so neither of the guys I saw paid me. I met one of them at a bar in Brooklyn, and we took a walk to a park. I felt so self-conscious. He was much older, big and tall likr a hetero bear, and unattractive. He wanted to kiss me, to see if he liked me. I didn’t want to, but I agreed to it. We were in public and there were families with kids around. I felt so humiliated. As soon as he pulled back, I left. It was miserable, but it’s all part of the experience.”

I knew his mind was bouncing around in all directions.

“Are you worried about getting jealous?” he asked.

I snorted, “Not at all. I’m having a great time.”

“I feel like I’ve already learned the lesson, just having to come to terms with the idea of hooking up with this woman.”

“Don’t forget the dinner date before!” I cackled, “I hope she takes you somewhere fancy like Applebees.”

“Oh god.”

Adam looked at me with eyes the size of dinner plates, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit of schadenfreude. While sex work isn’t always miserable, there are times when it is—where you’re forced to have the worst time with the worst people. Passing the quarantine as GKM’s paid girlfriend was one of the most demoralizing experiences in my entire life, in spite of how kind and gracious he was. I’d had to walk into restaurants by his side, hand-in-hand, while the waitstaff went out of their way to catch a glimpse of us. I’d eaten at terrible restaurants because he had wanted to. Adam would never know the full experience of being beholden to someone in this way, but he could approximate some of the discomfort at least once.

It took a week of courting before Ms. Suzanne was ready to meet up. She lived in Oxnard, which was over an hour’s drive for Adam. I’ve spoken to so many male strippers and escorts who regularly drive for hours to get from one gig to another. I remembered how many hours I’d spent on the road traveling to and from Long Beach or Redondo for gigs. While I felt a twinge of guilt having Adam assume this burden, I also knew it was par for the course.

“I want you to join me on my commute, the way I do with you.”

“Of course,” I assured him.

“I’m nervous.”

“It’s normal to feel nervous. I always get anxious before an outcall.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“I still don’t know how I'll seduce her.”

“Just be sweet. Compliment her. Find reasons to touch her. Encourage her to talk. Ask her what she’s up for, and let her take charge.”

“I’m only doing this for you.”

“I know, and I appreciate it.”

***

As Adam drove to his outcall, I began my commute to the club. I called him.

“She wants us to meet at Wokcano.”

“That’s perfect! Wokcano is like the Applebees of the West Coast.”

“You’re the worst,” Adam laughed, “ And the best. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the next few hours. I feel like I need a strategy.”

“You don’t need a strategy. She’s just a woman.”

“I don’t know if I could stay hard even if she wanted to have sex with me.”

“It might be a good idea to pick up some Viagra and lubricant.”

“Selena…” Adam said weakly, “How do you even think of these things?”

“What? It’s good to be prepared.”

Throughout my shift, I kept an eye on my phone in case Adam sent out an SOS. He went silent for several hours. He was in deep. I considered how I felt. I’d been in that situation more times than I could remember—on a date trying to entertain someone while simultaneously wanting to leap out of my skin. I imagined Adam spreading Ms. Suzanne’s legs apart. Pulling down her full-coverage silk underwear. I wasn’t jealous. If anything, I was curious. I didn’t know if he could get it up. It’s a lot to have to field someone’s advances, it’s another to instigate it. I imagined them sharing sushi at the Wokano, Adam teaching Suzy how to use chopsticks while she squeals with delight, impressed by how cultured he is, taking a sip from an unnaturally blue cocktail with a maraschino cherry at the bottom. Maybe Suz would take the cherry out at the end, and with an elaborate flourish, tie the stem into a knot. Anything was possible.

I texted Adam, You’ve got this, Champ!

It took him an hour to respond. He “love” reacted to the message and replied, I don’t think we’re gonna have sex. She’s very guarded. Gonna try to take her to a bar and see if I can escalate things.

Like a damn serial killer, I snorted to myself. I knew what he meant, but the way he phrased it as if he was executing some conspiracy plot. I wished him luck and continued with business.

It was a slow night, and it seemed more and more likely that I would have to stay later than I’d intended.

Right before dread set in, I got pulled into a half-hour room. That half hour turned into an hour. When I looked at my phone again, two hours had passed and I’d missed Adam’s message.

“Heading home. Text me if you leave early. Call me if you don’t.”

I did not end up leaving early. When I finally got into my car, it was around 1:30a.

I called Adam.

And called…

And called…

But he didn’t respond. Normally he’s half awake to catch me for a call during my commute home. I put on a podcast, figuring he’d passed out.

***

“I passed out. I was SO exhausted driving home. I swear the date took it all out of me. I really get how tiring all of this is for you.”

“How did it go??? Tell me the deets!”

“It was honestly just… sad. Suzanne has just had such an unfortunate life–so many men who were mean or abusive or took advantage of her, so many little tragedies. She’s really looking for someone to love her. I felt bad for her but simultaneously I couldn’t help but feel so self-conscious. I didn’t want people to think we were together. She wanted to hold my hand and I couldn’t pull away, but I kept imagining people I know from work walking by and recognizing me. I wore my hat over my eyes and tried to stay in the shadows whenever I could to make sure people didn’t see us.”

I imagined Adam slinking around, sticking to dark corners, popping his collar to hide his face.

“How was Wokcano?”

“It was… I mean was what you’d expect. Selena, you want to know what she said to me?”

“What?”

“She asked if I ate the raw fish. I was like, ‘Do you mean sushi?’ and then she admitted that she didn’t eat raw fish.”

“Isn’t Wokcano a sushi restaurant?”

“It’s like a tiki bar/sushi restaurant, so yes.”

“Wow, that’s a wild question.”

“Selena, I felt so bad! And she was so insecure. She kept saying that she couldn’t understand why someone like me would be interested in someone like her. And I couldn’t say the obvious thing, because that would have been mean.”

“So??? Did you sweat with the oldie?”

“I didn’t. I tried though. After dinner, I suggested we go by a bar she likes, or for a walk around a park. She chose the park. We talked for a while. I tried to initiate, complimenting her—I put my hand on her knee. Then all of a sudden, she’s cramming her tongue down my throat,” Adam shuddered, “I don’t know what’s normal, but it seemed like she had such a thick tongue. It was so big and wet, and jammed down my throat in a way I think she thought was sexy, but it wasn’t. She reached down and groped my dick through my pants and started jerking it so roughly that I got hard just from the friction, but it hurt. Then she stopped, and told me she didn’t want to go any further. She told me a story about a guy who just wanted to meet up with her once a week at a hotel to have sex. She said she didn’t want that kind of relationship again. God… And the worst part is, she was showing me pictures of her daughter, and her daughter was hot in a conventionally attractive sort of way. Internally, I was like, ‘I would have sex with your daughter,’ but that almost made it worse, because I realized normally I would be dating her daughter.”

“Tsk, You’re terrible,” I clicked.

“I really wanted to see if I could do it, but I don’t even know if I could have done it if the opportunity presented itself. I feel like I learned the lesson though, and now I’ll understand so much more what you go through when you’re out with Paul or Danny. It just drains you. And that tongue…” Adam cringed, recalling the memory, “I just wanted to shower—get it all off of me and be alone. I kept trying to figure out when it would be appropriate to leave. I kept making references to having to wake up early, but she didn’t take the hint.”

Adam was ruminating, turning everything around in his head over and over trying to understand the complexity of everything that had passed. While it was not exactly the same as what sex workers endure, there were many similarities. I thought back to the nights spent at GKM’s house waiting for time to pass until I could politely make my escape. I thought of the ambiguity I felt on my first paid dates with Ed, trying to decipher what he wanted if it wasn’t sex. I thought of all the tearful confessions I’d been privy to—men who would share haunting stories of trauma one minute, only to latch onto my nipple the next.

I pulled Adam close and kissed his cheek, “You did a great job. I’m proud of you.”

“You’re going to write about this, aren’t you? I want people to know what I went through.”

“I will. Don’t you worry.”