“South by Southwest is right around the corner.”
“Around the corner?! It has officially started! Where has the time gone?”
“Well, crap. I have not begun to adjust my traffic expectations.”
“SXSW always makes me nostalgic for my first couple of years in Austin. When I had my favorite job.”
“SXSW also connects to my favorite job. Interesting that for both of us the road from SXSW to this blog is fairly direct.”
“Well, for different reasons, obviously. You weren’t fucking for money. Though you totally could.”
“I’ve always felt that writing is a form of prostitution. Actually, every form of work is prostitution. But writing is my favorite kind. And thank you for the compliment. I’d say ‘likewise’ but you already know it’s literally true.”
“But seriously, do you think you could do it? Take advantage of the influx of wealthy strangers to our fair city, please some of the ladies, make some fair cash? Or no, not for you?”
“I actually looked into that once. Decades ago.”
“What?! I want to hear this story.”
“Not much to tell. The interviewer thought I was an undercover cop, so it went nowhere.”
“You do not look like a cop.”
“Thanks. What I gleaned from the experience is that if I were a male escort—”
“An escort who happened to be male.”
“—sure, if I were, then my clientele would be pretty much male. My personal experience at SXSW, in spite of my occasional best efforts, is that the world is not full of ladies coming here wanting to be fucked well.”
“Well, then, ladies should open their minds.”
“I heartily agree in principle.”
“You know, last year during a show, I got recognized by a former client.”
“I remember you mentioned it at the time.”
“It’s so hard to believe, because that part of my life was…almost two decades and a hair color ago, but he knew my name. It really sent me down memory lane.”
“I thought by now we would have discussed that and your former profession in much greater detail.”
“I know. Up until I met you it was one of the more interesting pieces of my sexual history. But you give me so many more topics to discuss.”
“Such as last night. Which maybe we’ll get to someday.”
“Last night was unbelievable. I keep thinking we’ll hit some sort of blissful plateau that I would be more than happy to hang out on, but you keep surprising me.”
“We’ve talked about our upward spiral, so maybe it’s time to talk about the past. I think one of the reasons I haven’t talked about yours is one, it’s your experience, and two, I recognize the difficulties built into the topic. Not that you lived them, but sex trafficking, exploitation, the very reason Craigslist disappeared, etc. I would hate to be glib about all of that. You were blessed to have a hassle-free and perhaps relatively rare experience.”
“I was. I entered that world by suggestion and choice, not force or desperation. And I was taken care of by my employer, not exploited. I of course wish it had been legal — that would fix a lot of the issues that surround a black market — but even then it was still fulfilling. I loved making men feel good. I still love making men feel good. Well, two in particular.”
“For which we’re grateful.”
“I was well suited for sex work. That job made me feel like a goddess. A very hard-working goddess. I miss it, sometimes. Especially during this time of year, when I remember meeting new people here for the conference, knowing that they would never be any sort of regular client. Not that I didn’t have a repeat performance or two.”
“The allure of novelty. Are we delusional? Or just lucky? I seriously ask that question from time to time.”
“Delusional how?”
“I mean specifically about being realistic, or not, about sex work. Thinking of it as a healthy occupation or partnering option. As my Valentine’s post illustrates, sometimes things can get out of control. Judgment can get catastrophically skewed.”
“It’s easy to want to pick apart a good thing, like we don’t believe it can happen to us. But it has and here we are. The life I lived was as good as it possibly could be. But no matter how good it was, it didn’t allow for much of a personal romantic life. There’s also the fact that it wasn’t necessarily the safest — it was as safe as possible, but not the safest. There’s always a downside.”
“This blog also highlights how good we are for each other. So three cheers for the upside.”
“I’m starting to think about telling some stories. Starting with a SXSW one.”
“Lacking any personal stories, I do have a SxSW-themed piece of fiction I wrote a while back.”
“I can’t wait to read your story.”
“Likewise.”
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