13 Men Who Bought Me: C2: The One Who Wanted To Buy Innocence.

Note: This is a series. The prologue can be found here and the catalogue of all the posts is here. These pieces can be read as standalone pieces but you will get the best out of them if you read them as a series. In the end, the series will be compiled into a book and all Patrons can have a kindle-copy of it for free. 

Chapter 2: The One Who Wanted To Buy Innocence. 

In many ways I live a very lonely life, and have for many years. It wasn’t always like this, when I was on the precipice of adulthood, I had a lot of friends, and a boyfriend. I didn’t really want a boyfriend but I acquired one because I needed to have sex, or to be more exact, I needed to lose my virginity. I don’t like that term nor its implication but it’s the most easily understood term when it comes to expressing the concept. What I mean is not that I needed my hymen broken, that has no bearing on sexual experience or maybe even reality in any way, I needed sexual experience. By that time in my life I had already begun communicating with (alleged) former sex-workers online, looking at websites of escort services and I was fascinated by everything they did or said to me. Once or twice I reached out to the “managers” of these sites and pretended I was a man looking to hire an escort, I was amazed at the exorbitant price of these women, but I wasn’t surprised, they seemed extraordinary to me.  They were veterans of my chosen profession, it was like an intern at CNN meeting Christiane Amanpour on the first day of work. It was magnificent, but it had the quality of make-believe, because I was just a young girl in front of a computer living out a fantasy-life that most of the women I spoke to didn’t believe would ever come to be. Some of them were openly discouraging, telling me that this wasn’t a path I should take, but at least those women seemed to believe I wasn’t a horny teenaged boy getting myself off by talking to hookers on the internet.

One of the strangest pieces of advice I received was from a woman in one of those chatrooms. I had been speaking to her for a few weeks and she seemed to relish the role I had cast upon her as a mentor. She said her name was Anjali, but even then I knew better than to believe that. Not that it matters, a real name or a fake name, they’re all just sounds we use to refer to a specific person. Anjali said she had been doing this for a long time, and while she made great money in the beginning, as she got older, it was harder and harder to get quality customers. When I told her that I had begun dating a young man, she was taken aback.

“Don’t have sex with him,” she said to me, “Save your virginity so you can sell it, men go crazy for a virgin, they’ll pay so much for it.”

On the face of it, and based on all the books I had read about prostitutes, her advice seemed to hold water, but it made me sick to my stomach. There is an equivocation between virginity and innocence, and I never set out to be in the business of selling innocence. That aspect of the business always seemed exploitative to me and it’s not because I believe your first time should be with someone you love, it’s because it seems singularly designed to feed the toxic ideologies of men. Innocence and fragility in women has always been defined by the yardstick of men, whether that’s enforced through fainting couches or hymens, it’s all part of the same unreasonable expectations. Besides, it makes no sense, in any profession, to pay the most amount of money to the least experienced candidate, not even for their promise or potential. If that’s what they were even paying for, but they are not, the male willingness to pay more for an “untouched” and “unbroken” woman is entirely about conquest. It is driven by the same sentiment as exploring the oceans and being the first to plant a flag in a piece of land. I am not a piece of land, I am a service and I was never willing to put myself up for sale based on my inherent value as property because I refuse to see myself as such. I am paid for the skill I provide, not the breasts I was born with. I am good at what I do because the manipulation of psychosexual interplay between people to maximize pleasure and joy is what I love doing, and that is what I insist on selling. When I told Anjali, she called me idealistic and naïve.

I may well be idealistic and naïve but I have always felt that the people who say those things to you as if they are accusations are people who are afraid of anything that falls outside the status quo. I mean, think about it, how does my idealism (or that of anyone) hurt you at all? How does my refusal to sell my virginity affect the industry of sex-work? Anjali didn’t take me very seriously after that and eventually my interest in online whore-consultations declined, and I focused instead on sex. I didn’t make a big deal out of doing it with my first boyfriend, but I didn’t rush it either. I didn’t rush it because I wanted to explore allied concepts and I have a strong belief about young men — the ones who are good in bed as grown men are often the ones whose first partners wanted to do ‘everything but’ penetration when they were younger. My friends, the ones who were having penetrative sex, often needed twenty or thirty minutes alone with their partners to do it, but I needed several hours, because we were doing everything else. By the time we actually did the penetration, it didn’t even matter so much because exploring our sexualities had so much depth by then, it was just another thing to add to my repertoire. I found I enjoyed sex and my sexuality, contrary to what people thought about me. For some reason I had gotten the reputation of being a little bit frigid and cold, and I understand where it came from, but I also believe I wouldn’t have gotten the same reputation if I were a boy who behaved exactly as I did. Women who are clear, concise and don’t outwardly express a lot of emotion often get told that they are cold. Girls must partake in sunshine and silliness, but it’s not that I refused to be silly, it’s that womanhood is often reduced to silliness and that creates a whole lot of connotations for women who do and don’t participate in it. It’s not silly to be giggly or emotional, nor is it cold to be confident and understated. All of it, much like women, is just being human, and to me, the business of sex is the business of humanity.

Not selling my virginity never short-handed me in the business, but many years later, it taught me something.

I was twenty-two and it had been two years since I had taken the independent route after spending two years working for an agency with a "manager". I had built myself a clientele that spanned the entire country and a lot of it had been stolen from the catalogue of the man who first put a price on me. They often criticise us for doing this. They call us disloyal because we come in through their agencies and then work our own angles until we don't need to agency anymore. They try to scare us and convince us that we need them more than they need us. They'll tell you that you go it alone you'll eventually lose your clients and have no idea how to get new ones. They tell you that you won't be able to manage your money and know who to turn to when you need protection. They tell you that you would be lost without them and end up in a ditch. The good ones tell you with love, the bad ones beat it into you. They fill your head up with information because they are trying to keep you from seeing something very important: If you didn't put yourself on the market, they would have nothing to sell. I never owed anyone loyalty, only a percentage of my earnings, and I always paid that. They expect women to act emotionally when it comes to money and business, they expect women to be easy to emotionally extort, but you never would be that again once you realise that to them you are nothing but business. Even when they protect you, they're protecting an investment, not a person.  

I would never sell my blood because I am more than a container for it, but I will made myself bleed as part of an act because I can always put on a great show. Having the reputation of being disloyal does not deter me and it did not deter me back then from striking out on my own because they were miscalculating to whom I actually owed loyalty. It wasn't my manager, it was my clients.

One of the ways I met new clients was through referrals from previous clients, and contrary to what may seem obvious, men don't mind discreetly referring you to other people or introducing you to them at events. Some of them even see it as a power move. Although those ones fall in a niche new-money playboy type category but I've always resented the snide allegations that there's something wrong with being newly rich. I come from one of those "old" families that turn their nose up at everyone else and hate people who have to work for their money. My mother came from a different background and as a result of that she spent a lot of her life battling the nouveau-riche connotations that were applied to her but the way I see it is that my mother is the only person who had the compassion and respect for me to continue to have a relationship with me through everything I chose to do professionally, the old-money people just tossed me out of their lives. Still, I was able to use a lot of what I learnt from them and the people I met through them to get ahead. Their name sells and I find it a lot less dignified that they objectify their name to stay ahead than me spreading my legs for money. They don't see it that way, and they did not appreciate that I made that argument so we are at a permanent impasse. I have to do what I have to do in life, and I learnt to network better doing what I do than I ever would have at business school. As a result of the networking, an old client that I had introduced me to a man when I was twenty-two. I set up to meet him at a coffee shop because he wanted to see me in person before things went any further which to me was extremely odd because who gets a hooker to not fuck her immediately, but it happened frequently, because it's not just about the fucking, they need the experience of conquest sometimes. Especially men who are rich and could get women easily just through that, for me there's also the added element of discretion and safety, and you have to make that area your expertise. In all my years doing this no man has ever feared that I would betray a confidence, that's the only loyalty I can give, the loyalty that is based on an openly stated agreement. We met at an outdoor cafe, they had their tables sectioned into individual little cubicles separated by bushes and hedges filled with flowers.

I got there half-an-hour before he did and bought myself a large cup of coffee and paid for it. This is important to me, I always make sure that my clients see me as willing to spend a little bit of money but there's a caveat, I have to spend the money on myself (in their presence), or it has to be spent on them in a manner that is extremely casual. Like if we're in a street or outside a nightclub, I would buy them a bottle of water, but never a present. I can run out for a painkiller for them without expecting the cash, but I wouldn't bring them a tie or pay for lunch. I only broke that rule once, and I can make a very good case that it wasn't a betrayal of my principles in that instance, but we'll get to that. I do this because I think people like to know that you're not in it just for the money, even with whores who are considered extremely transactional people, and seeing that you're willing to spend money in a situation that would normally be catered, sends that message. If you go to business school you learn that from a textbook, if you don't go you can still buy and read the textbook like I did. Knowledge is never forbidden to the willing, it’s never wasted either.
He arrived ten minutes before we had agreed to meet, and I liked that, I have only one pet-peeve and it is people who are habitually late. I had a friend who would tell you that she is on the way, and arrive three-hours later, we are not friends anymore. The thing that surprised me most about him is that he wasn't very old. I don't mean that only old men hire prostitutes but the people who hire women in my price-range tend to be in their late thirties to seventies, there were the occasional young boys from rich families wanting to lose their virginities but for the most part my clients had the mean age of 45. That guy looked like he was thirty. See, it is not just that younger men don't have the money for hookers and that's why they don't buy them, there's more than that to hiring a person to have sex with you. It's that older men who hire hookers have committed to a life that includes us as a habit and they rarely hire women only once, most of them will have a regular girl and the ones who don't will regularly hire different girls. Men in their thirties are still dipping their toes into the waters and you can't tell whether this is novelty or desire for them, you can never tell whether they will be back. There's still time for them to fall into the type of love or marriage that keeps you away from people like us for a long time. I watched him, after he entered, without ushering him over. I recognised him from a picture he had sent me and I wanted him to recognise me from mine. In a few seconds, he was waving to me from across the arena.

"Savera, right?" He said, walking to my table.

I stood up immediately and put my hand out to shake his.

"Ladies don't stand up to greet men," he said, gesturing to the chair.

"I'm not a lady, sir," I told him, stepping out to pull his chair out for him.

"Don't do that," he said, "And why are you calling me sir?"

Indeed, why was I? I go with my instincts, and my instincts told me to say it. My instincts also always tell me to stand up to greet people, my father used to chastise me for the same thing. No matter who approached me, regardless of gender, I would stand up to greet them. My father would tell me each time he witnessed me doing it that women didn't have to do that and each time his explanation would make me angrier. I'm a woman, I'm not wearing fins instead of a tail, standing up is not so hard for us.

"I'm sorry," I told him, taking a seat, "What would you like me to call you instead?"

He laughed a little.

"No, no, I'm just a little nervous," he said honestly, another characteristic of younger men, they were always more honest, "I've never done this before."

"Why don't you just relax and order something to drink?" I told him, pushing the menu towards him.

"I suppose now you will also tell me to relax and that you're just like any other girl?" He asked, studying the menu.

I didn't understand why he was there. It's not entirely true that only men who can't get otherwise laid hire sex workers, but with younger men it is more likely to be the reason. Yet with him it made no sense because he was handsome, charming and confident. I couldn't put a finger on what he was there for. He ordered a lemonade and complimented my appearance. We talked a little about dogs and lakes, and for a moment it almost felt like a date and not work.

"So..." He began, lowering his voice, "Are you a..virgin?"

On rare occasions, men shock me, and that was one of those occasions. No one had asked me that question is years and I had no answer prepared.

"You meet a lot of virgin prostitutes?" I asked, finally, trying to laugh off the strange inquiry.

"No, no," he said looking at the table instead of meeting my eye, "But you can, like, pretend, right?"

Immediately, I thought of Anjali, and I wished I could locate her and tell her I finally found one. I finally found one of those guys. It finally also made sense why he was there, I suppose he could have only dated virgins and then taken their virginity, but it seems like a lot of work to do that each time you want to have sex. I suppose he could have also told women he dated to enact it but I can see how that would get weird real fast. I had vowed never to see my virginity, but I hadn't counted on someone asking me to fake it, and somehow, that didn't offend me. It was almost exciting.

"I can pretend," I told him reaching out to lightly graze his hand, "Is this why you wanted to meet in advance?"

"I guess," he said, holding my hand, and gripping it, "I just wanted to make sure everything was clear and that I could, trust you."

Men. Seriously.

The next time we met I was waiting for him in a hotel room that he had booked. I had spent a couple of days trying to figure out how to play a virgin. The request had really thrown me. On the one hand it felt like I was betraying something, something that I had promised not to betray so many years ago, I was willing to let a man believe I would sell him my innocence but on the other it didn't feel like I was doing that at all. After all, I was putting on an act and an act is a skillful execution. I wasn't being a virgin, I was playing the role of one. Yet, I couldn't figure out how to play that role and I was worried I was leaning heavily on tropes. I dressed myself entirely in white, even underneath my white dress I put on white lingerie. I kept the make-up to a minimal only using the little innocence trick I learnt from the only woman who could make me orgasm and applying eyeliner only to the edges of my eyelids and a little pink to my cheeks.

When he got there I was waiting on the edge of the big, grey armchair in front of the windows. I had been sitting there a while, thinking about how much feel for a young girl who was about to be fucked for the first time — what would she do to express nervousness? Would she feel pleasure or just dread? Would she take initiative or just fumble? He had told me in detail about his fantasies about virgins, about how they seemed so pure and unsullied, and how he liked knowing that he could make them bleed. It was a very jaded and masculine view of virginity and I was trying so hard to put myself in that state of mine, I lost myself entirely. I must have been thinking so hard and long, I didn't even hear the door open. When I heard it slam shut I jumped up in my spot. For a second I really believed I had never done this before, it's amazing what a few pensive moments spent convincing yourself of a lie will do for your frame of mind.

"I'm sorry," I said, standing up, "You scared me."

For just a moment I expected him to walk over to me and tell me he understood how I felt, how this was all so new and difficult for me. For a moment I even thought he would tell me he would take care of me. That's the great difficulty of preparing for everything by youself and in your mind, often you've reached places you haven't communicated to the person following you. I felt like I was about to cry.

"I texted you," he said walking towards me, "You seem.. different."

I felt different too. I felt like a girl I had never been before. The way it had happened with my first boyfriend, it didn't qualify as a stereotypical first time. I didn't feel any of the things I was feeling at that moment. Back then, when I took a cock in me for the first time for my pleasure, I felt nothing but the excitement in the pit of my stomach, and an eagerness underneath my skirt. With that man, the one paying me to fake it, I felt no eagerness. I felt nervous, and a little bit broken. Perhaps I couldn't shake my own morality, and selling it a little made me feel just exactly as violated as being taken is supposed to feel. I couldn't tell.

"I'm not different," I said, putting my arms around his hips and looking up at him, "I'm just so nervous."

I started talking to him about it being my first time. I talked for so long I started to really feel the emotions in my wretched tale of being a small, fragile woman who was so scared of the big, fat cock that was going to go inside her. I could see it working for him, especially when I put myself in his lap and talked into his neck about how I had heard it was very painful and how that scared me so. Before long he was promising to take care of me but doing it in that breathy lowered voice that comes from deep within all of us when our insides are put on display. He started to undress me and I would have played a bashful young girl if I hadn't actually become it, I felt an actual shyness about removing my clothes that I hadn't ever felt before. I let him carry me to the bed and even hid my face inside his chest. When he tossed me onto it, I dressed my face up in fear and tepid excitement as I watched him undress and climb into bed with me. He smelled nice and kissed well. I guided his hands onto my wrists so he could hold me down for a few seconds. Every once in a while, I let myself get a little something out of the job. I like being held down. He seemed to like it too. I didn't have to pretend.

It seemed harder to pretend when he wanted to teach me how to suck his cock. That one stereotype about whores is true, we give great head, because when we don't they shove our heads into it and it's better to be skilled than to splutter helplessly. Even though, I like that too. I watched his cock in wonder, as if it was the first one I was ever seeing, and pretended ever little pulse and throb surprised me. When he got on top of me and tried to push inside me, I resisted. I let myself feel fear, and in the process of method acting a deflowering, the fear really did become real. It even felt like he was hurting me with the tip of his cock.  I begged his to be gentle and he seemed to appreciate it as he throbbed against my pussy. I cried out loud and in a moment of sheer genius I took my hand down to my cunt and with my freshly-manicured nails, I nicked myself just a little. The mere site of the blood unleased something in him that I hadn't seen before. He thrust inside me. In the force of it, more blood gushed from the little cut onto the sheets. It hurt more than any sex had before and I cried out more realistically than I may ever have before. When he finished, I held myself for a moment, as if none of it had been an act, and I really needed the moment to recover from the lies I had bled all over that bed.

"Fuck that felt so real," he said getting off the bed to fetch some water.

I didn't want to freak him out by telling him that in some ways, it was. It wasn't my blood I was selling, it was my willingness to cut myself for the job. I would never sell my blood because I am more than a container for it, but I will make myself bleed as part of an act because I can always put on a great show. Just that this show had hit too close to home. Not my home, just a home that could have been mine if I had lived on a different street.

Afterwards we he ordered dinner, before wanting to do it all over again, because when you pay for the entire night you don't waste 6-hours sleeping and making small-talk. We sat together, I drank coffee as he ate, and I watched him. Looking at him, clumsily cutting a slice of pizza with a knife and a fork, I felt like crying. Something about what he wanted me to do made me sad, I felt so sorry for him, that he had to believe women must bleed and lose their dignity for his pleasure.

"May I asked you a question?" I enquired as he finished his meal.

"Yeah, sure," he said, looking up at me.

"Why didn't you just pay for a real virgin?" I asked, "You know there are many women who do that."

"Well.." he started, seemingly unsure, "I thought of it but..it was too expensive."

That made me laugh, I am not sure why, but being a discount virgin tickled me someplace deep inside my soul.

"So I was the cheaper first-copy of the real thing?" I asked.

"Not like that," he said, as if he really had to protect my feelings, "It's.. it was just very expensive."

I guess Anjali was right. I could have sold my virginity for lot of money but that's not what I learnt. Unlike the real thing, you can sell the fantasy over and over again. Each time more believable than before. I should know, I gave him my virginity a dozen more times after that, and each time, he was as willing to believe my lies as the first. That's not innocence, I don't sell innocence.