Working Through The Grief Pit

Post 1 of 2:

It’s been a challenging week. In all honesty, I’d been planning out this entry for several days with the intent of leaning upbeat. But yesterday I received more difficult news, and I’m still processing my feelings. So to give myself adequate space to acknowledge the array of feelings I have right now, the entry this week will happen in two parts. Today’s part is about grief. Tomorrow’s part will be comedic.

Last week, after I received the initial news about my aunt’s condition, I decided to take two outcalls with Longshoreman. Longshoreman, Matt, was moving out of his apartment, back in with his dad and girlfriend to save up a bit of money. I’ve contributed to his savings shortage, I’ll admit it. I don’t pressure people into buying time with me, but I also seldom turn them down as long as they schedule ahead of time. Matt wanted to have me over a few final times in his mostly empty apartment. Partially because it will soon be much harder to see me due to the obvious constraints of me being a secret he can’t exactly bring home to his girlfriend; and partially because there’s something romantic about an empty apartment. Perhaps it’s the lawlessness of the space. There’s nothing to step around or break. There’s no order to maintain. Just space to fuck with abandon.

But that first night, I was in no place to get fucked. I had spent the day crying, trying to sort through my emotions and why everything had hit me so hard. It wasn’t just the sadness of this impending loss and my powerlessness in the situation. It was my own personal terror at how I might be able to lead and maintain all of my commitments while submerged in my own grief pit.

I knew Matt would be accepting, and enjoy the opportunity to comfort and nurture me. I started calling him “Mama Matt,” which he promptly shot down, not wanting to be sissified—unsexed and maternalized by the object of his desire—but internally, for me, the name stuck. He prepared dinner for me, arranging a neat plate bread and hummus as an appetizer, followed by lamb kebab and rice with a side of lentil soup for the main course. I ate with abandon, as I do. But particularly so that night, because there’s nothing like the comfort of warm food when your body is cold with despair. Then for the first hour I ranted at him about all of the trauma of the past several months. My grandfathers, the cancer, and even further back into the gunk of accumulated trauma. It all collides together when I’m on a roll. I veered between tearful anger and monotone sadness. Then afterwards, I made him binge watch Nailed It! with me as we cuddled on an air mattress. The sexiest thing I did was give him a back massage while I was fully clothed. To his credit, he was gracious and supportive. We were both compromising that evening: I had shown up to fulfill a date we had set aside a week prior, even while under incredible strain; and he was being a faithful customer, even as I was denying him the bulk of what he had invited me over to do.

The second night, we did have sex. It was dutiful— the kind of sex one has to satisfy the requirements of a relationship—just enough to keep the bond in tact. I didn’t want to be kissed or perform any sort of intimacy. Sometimes I think I make my job too difficult by complicating it with emotional labor. If I was just performing the duty of facilitating nut busts, I could do that in my sleep. But alas, I am a GFE practitioner, and men want to feel loved. They want the spark of romance, the belief that their lust is reciprocated, that you think about them when you leave.

Matt: I worry about you. How do you not get wrapped up in emotions when you’re seeing so many people?

Matt meant it in a romantic way. How could I handle feeling love and lust for all of my clients? Of course, the answer is that I don’t have meaty feelings for them. I think of them in passing. For the most part, I only consider my clients when scheduling or whenever Friday winds around the bend and I must churn out another Patreon entry. It’s not as if each outcall ends with the steamy longing of a Shondaland production. I go home and think selfish thoughts about myself and binge art history documentaries. Is there a degree of faking it? Of course. But my skill isn’t so much whispering sweet nothings as it is paying close attention to the people who have hired me for my attention. And not killing them.