Note For Rent

Moving Day

2006-09-26T11:29:00.000Z

This blog, and all of it's further content, will be found in slightly fancier digs.

But only slightly, mind.

noteforent.typepad.com

Technical Glitches

2006-09-25T07:03:00.000Z

Hrm...

Something seems to have gone horribly awry with my blog layout, if this computer is any judge. For the interim, I've reverted to a standard template while I figure out what's gone wrong.

It's distressing, but I think I'm going to move this operation over to TypePad anyway, and maybe get someone to design me an original, now that I'm a professional again.

A Confederacy of Whores

2006-09-24T07:08:00.000Z

My bread and butter in the sex industry have always been regulars. I have a knack for being defying expectations, and I must have that certain je ne sai quois, because they do keep coming back: oh, the Johns; bless them.

This also defies the norm, according to my associates.

That's right, associates.

I now belong to a loose confederacy of boy prostitutes, and this, besides changing my perspective on sex work considerably, is not something I ever considered, up until the point that I am now faced with it: a group of professional peers, with whom I can talk shop and get down to the somewhat bizarre and disturbing business of normalizing the trade, which (as I see it) is both a good and bad thing, all at once.

The boys are fairly diverse, the attitudes towards the work variable to the extreme; and the personalities are decidedly gay. Gay, gay, gay. Which is stupendously amusing. My experience has got me a little used to the straight boys who take it for money; these ones are lighting their cigarettes off of one another.

"You're the new girl on the block honey. Everyone's gonna want to try you once."

They do. The ones that go for the younger looking fellas, the slim ones. I've got that market cornered; but some of the bitchier lads were also adamant:

"They get over you quick though."

Maybe, but early signs show my old pattern asserting itself clearly. After a fairly modest opening week, my second has closed decidedly more flush than the first. A full third of my busniess this week were repeats, and yesterday one gentleman booked me early in the day, then called in the evening, to have me again.

I'm curious to see what happens when they start to clue in, those sharp, critical ones. Getting into this arrangement, I am also now prone to something else I hadn't expected, that sickly green hue of professional jealousy.

"What did we do that was so special?"

Nothing special really, but, as I've said before, I like to be good at what I do; and I have a great bag of tricks.

Other Mundanities And Concerns

2006-09-12T05:19:00.000Z

Shelter, and a working concept of the geography of my new home.

I have managed to secure residency at a bare-bones facility that should give me enough elbow-room to turn around (barely) and properly work through the classifieds to find myself a decent place. It's dawned on me that if I wish to live in comfort, like a functional middle class westerner, I'm going to have to get a room in a shared flat; preferably a house with a garden and climate control. As much as I adore living alone, and as much as I think it would afford me fewer complications if I didn't have to lie to the people I share with about my lifestyle and profession, I don't want to have to buy cookware, and the cost of a decent furnished apartment is a little beyond my ken. There are other things I'd like to be spending the money on: bring on the six hundred thread count sheets.

The advantage of being on an opposite schedule from the professional set is that I won't have to see the flatmates too much if I can suss out a living arrangement with say, a bunch of bankers, or quorum of accountants. Additionally, if I can find people unimaginative enough, it won't ever occur to them that they're living with a genuine whore.

As for discerning which way is north, the character of the distinct neighborhoods, and where I'm going to buy wine and unpasturized cheese, the only real solution is to walk around and drink enormous bowls of coffee to stimulate the discovery process.

I'd better get going.

Addendum

2006-09-10T07:49:00.000Z

It should also be noted that Mr. Difficult yesterday didn't want me to suck him off. At all.

You just try and have sex with a man for an hour, when you don't have a boner and he won't let you perform fellatio. Just try.

Raise The Bar

2006-09-10T02:29:00.000Z

Only two clients in, back to business; the second, he could have been a deal breaker. He perhaps would have been if I hadn't had any previous experience. Let me be clear: there was nothing overtly repulsive about the man, but there was also nothing erotic. I've said it before: I get off on desire, and the atmosphere of Eros. This guy... I didn't have an inkling about where his head was, what he was thinking, and he was pretty tight lipped about what he wanted.

And, to be honest, I'm a little rusty. My bedroom ambassador skill-set needs a little brushing up -- I'm also a little nervous and shy after coming back from hiatus. I need to find my, um, rhythm again.

His touch was erratic. He kept moving my hands to different zones of his body with no warning, and without indication of approval or discomfort. He didn't kiss for any longer than a brief second, and when he did, it was tight lipped: a closed embouchure that tasted faintly of scotch. I usually like scotch. It felt like he was somehow resistant to me, but when I think about it now, it's more likely that I was just a prop for him; whatever was going on in his head only required me to be there visually. He had a good relationship with the mirror, the me in the mirror, just not with the me in the room.*

"What do you like?"

I told him twice, because he asked twice, but I don't think he was listening, because not much changed. I started to worry about how this was going. God, a bad review on my second day.... It's not like I wasn't trying. I looked helplessly at my semi-erect state. That, in itself, was a feat.

And then, he wanted me to fuck him. Grand. Simply grand.

That didn't go well. Although we tried. This... and that, but we definitely weren't meshing.

Alright, it's time to change tactics. "I want to see you hard," he kept murmuring. Fine. I started to ignore him, and keep his sporadic touch from interfering. I pushed him back on the bed with one hand, closed my eyes, and worked on it.

Worked on it, and made sure he didn't get in my way.

This, apparently, was the right thing. What he wanted was a bit of an asshole. Oh, right...

So, in the end, it came out fine. All over him in fact.

And I felt rather pleased with myself.

~ ~ ~

* He did, however, have that uncommon ability to cum without direct stimulation. No part of me was anywhere near his cock when he got-off. Twice.

Neat trick.

Landing

2006-09-07T06:32:00.000Z

Not so good at waiting, and even less at being poor, October looked an awfully long way off.

So at the airport last weekend, disembarking, I looked around, took a deep breath, and felt relieved. Back to basics. Back to work kids. I'm on a roll, off one bed and onto another. After all, you can't have a blog about prostitution without prostituting; and sometimes the solutions to your problems can be solved by running away. Flying away. Taking flight.

I woke up one morning. Made coffee. Looked out the window over the view, and thought:

I think I'm over it.

So I've up and left. The normal job's history. I've also threw out most of my wardrobe in a fit of pique (I was feeling an aesthetic impasse every time I went to put something on), so considerably lighter and more mobile, here I am, signed up, randy and waiting to work tomorrow.

You've got to admit, I can move quickly when I have to.

God I love travel. And sex. And dirty old men with money.

"World Peace"

2006-08-23T20:15:00.000Z

Whatever. I think I'd rather eat tacks.

I'm Not Plotting Anything, I Swear

2006-08-20T00:17:00.000Z

Aside from the fact that I’ve had to deal with the fallout from hookus-interruptus, my huffed issue with the pedantic, toddling maneuvers of my current lifestyle is the fact that I don’t have the time or energy left to read anything engrossing: after work and the gym (the gym, the gym, the gym: at this point, I look at it like money in the bank) I’m spent, and vocabulary-less. Text just swims like ancient hieroglyphs -- I can’t dredge up the effort to translate it; and this, I’m beginning to realize, is tantamount to a cardinal sin, because I feel guilty all the time.

When I was speaking with my mother the other day, and the conversation turned to how I felt about my life presently, what came out of my mouth was “I don’t have enough time for books”, in a kind of sad, depressive capitulation.

She looked at me with concern. “You’re really not one to get energy just from doing something for the sake of doing it, are you?”

I’m unsure of how to take that; or what it means about how she sees my character. Whatever she suspects about how I’ve made money to live in the past (I get the impression that she thinks I was a drug dealer for a time) she does like the idea of me aspiring to something in the field I work at now, and that I would be quite good at it. (I have no doubt I would be good at it, but fear that I may have to seek serious psychoactive medication to keep it up for the length of a career.) Mind you, she also doesn’t want me to peruse it here: she’d much rather I was doing it back home, even though she’s polite enough not to say. She at once was pleased and concerned to hear my dissatisfaction, and I was acutely aware through the affection of our visit that she worries. “Paychecks are nice,” she reminded me, at one point. I know that she can sense when I’m turning over an idea that I’m not prepared to share with her.

What she doesn’t know is that I keep staring at that XXX on the calendar, or what exactly I can exchange for reading time.

Fruit. Juicy Fruit.

2006-07-27T14:26:00.000Z

Some things just make me happy. Like artistic demonstrations that sum up every dirty-creative impulse in my brain. Like this.

Remiss;

2006-07-27T14:01:00.000Z

Remorseful, reproached, regretful; rueful, rebuked, reproved; rattled, rote-ridden; and I haven't even gotten to "S". Not properly.

To think, all those "R"'s, and not a ravished among them.

Now that I have a timetable, there's a terrible XXX marked on the calendar, right across the month of October. That's when I relocate. That's when I get my 'ho' back on.

It frees me up a bit mentally, now that I have a timetable for departure, and a plan of attack; I can give up on here, Business-wise, rather than just wasting in Doldrum Alley, wondering how so many people manage to manage their lives so minutely, and sequentially, for such long periods of time; without interlude or hope of escape. (I don't knock it though -- thank god for all the little people, making the wheels turn. Yes. Thank god.)

The freed mental state should also help with freeing the words that have been congregating -- but then dispersing at the first signs of authority; which (truly emblematic of Big Brother) seems to be blank oscillations of the computer screen.

Maybe it's time to purge some of the stories of being up to no good, before I got to where I am now. There's a big, elephantine vault of them somewhere in the back.

But will you respect me in the morning?

Inertia Creeps

2006-07-21T10:46:00.000Z

Probability moves.

I can't wait.

I Love Her

2006-07-05T09:32:00.000Z

If we take it as a given that most out gay men in western society have a special, teenaged squeal set aside for some designate diva in their heart, be it Madge, or Kylie; or for a younger princesses like Britney or Christina, I find myself a tad outside the norm. If I had to choose, it would probably be my dear Peepshow Queen, whom I love.

While I can respect the absolute vacuous superfluity of dear Miss Spears, so completely manufactured as to be almost anti-substance, a pop anti-matter, inasmuch as she represents the present apex of the dollar magnate (perhaps magnet?) masquerading as an artist, the giddy faggot in me can't help but adore the other girl who uses the three ring spectacle of the glossy industry to laugh at everyone.

Observe.

Quickie

2006-07-03T22:56:00.000Z

No sex. No drugs. Nor very much rock and roll to speak of, besides what comes out of the radio. Still trying to figure out what the next move is, still a little squandered in all areas.

Life'll get more interesting soon, I'm sure. It always does.

My Roving Eye

2006-06-18T05:11:00.000Z

While working in a regular job is nice and everything, and the crazy regimen I've been keeping at the gym has reduced my body fat percentage to something ridiculous, this inability to whore safely is starting to irk me something fierce. I don't imagine that I'll even want to do it much longer; it'd be better to make use of the motivation while it's still available. Making the decision to start in first place came out an intention for it fund my travel ambitions, and now I seem to be mired in a deadly dull routine, somewhere I don't find particularly inspiring, which is leaving me neither enough time or energy to peruse any of my other projects; this blog being one of them.

I also don't like being poor. What happened to going out to restaurants? I love eating at restaurants.

So let's make a list, shall we? Nations and their legal positions on prostitution. Where should an increasingly buff Note be off to next?

Opinions are welcome but may be disregarded.

Australia: Legal, with some restrictions on streetwalking. Possible. Not streetwalking, mind.

Canada: Legal, with restrictions on incalls and streetwalking. That's fine. I don't like incalls, and I don't like walking on the street. Cabs were invented for a reason.

Israel: Tel Aviv specifically. Um... after weighing the pros and cons, I don't think I care whether prostitution is legal or not.

France: Oh, the French. I can speak French, barely. I don't know if it would be enough, given that no French law has ever been produced to be anything but deliberately obtuse. That said, sex for money is apparently legal.

Germany: Legal, but I have no ability with the German.

New Zealand: The most comprehensive legalization of sex work I've been able to track down, with legal recourse mapped out and everything; but more people live in London alone than reside in the entire country.

Spain: Unless I can live in the Guggenheim Bilbao, I don't care.

U.K.: Although you can legally be venting every orifice in public due to alcohol toxicity, you can't peddle your ass. Interesting, no? Not surprising, but interesting. More reserved forms of prostitution are fine. I like the U.K. well enough.

United States: You've got to be kidding.

Not Greece, because I don't like Greek men. Not Eastern Europe, because I only want to hang out there and drink. In Brazil I wouldn't stand a chance. In Russia I might end up dead, either that, or the mistress of an overly affectionate, middle-aged crime tsar; and who needs an overly affectionate partner?

Suddenly the world doesn't seem so big of a place.

I Do Feel A Little Stiff

2006-06-18T03:23:00.000Z

Opened my eyes and saw a grey chest hair.

Hunh. What did I get up to last night? Let's see... wine. More wine. Drinks with a friend up the street, then dancing. Oh, dancing. Oh, dear.

I'm coming to the conclusion that if I don't have a nap after getting up early and working all day, before going out on the town, it ends badly. Which is to say, I end badly drunk. I don't weather exhaustion very well. Not when paired with the booze. I'm not sure if I ever did, but it's especially bad now that I don't drink as much or as often as I used to. I used to drink a whole bunch.

The grey hair was attached to a tight little torso, a taught stretch of abdomen, and only a little furry. I slid my hand down. Oh, and a nice ass. Nothing for it, then. Toss it up.

Sex in a morning shaft of sunlight. Life is good sometimes. I've been working on a concordance of kisses, a la Nicola Six; this morning I brought out The Wet One and The Hungry Gardener: both are aggressively slutty, which is what you want to start with when your already naked with a stranger, and you need his cock hard; fast. They worked just fine. I made him come with his head and shoulders hanging off the bed, deep down my throat, with two fingers up his lubed, slippery ass, his prostate hard as a stone.

"Wow," he said.

Then he made me breakfast.

This time, I didn't make the same mistake as the last time I went home with someone for recreation: no phone numbers were given. I'm still getting wiggy, stalker-y texts from the last one.

He was kind enough to drive me home. We were coming over the bridge, and I was looking at the water: "I can't believe your not hungover," he said.

"I don't really get hungover."
"What?"
"No. Not really."

That was the last thing we said to one another. I didn't really have anything else.

So, what else to accomplish today? Maybe this bottle of Pinot Noir has some ideas.

I Don't Take Tests, As A Rule

2006-06-18T02:14:00.000Z

But I just had to know.

You are best described as a:

Socialist

And here I thought I was an autocrat.

The Green Fairy and Her Party Pronouncements

2006-06-04T01:37:00.000Z

Since you all asked:

Flatemate and I set off to find the party, hopeful that the location would be both sumptuous and entertaining.

We should have also mentioned in our oblations to the gods "easy to find".

An hour after we got off the bus (don't ask -- it seemed a good idea at the time) we found the house... which ended up being full of middle-aged lesbians, and the guest of honour was too blissed out on ecstacy, rolling on the couch, to be remotely capable of entertaining us.

She was also the reason we came.

We did make the best a remote and desolate situation. We danced (artfully). We talked (animatedly). We stuck a pose (devastatingly). Then I got hoary on the green licorice drink and Flatemate had to get us both into a cab.

I miss home.

Unveil The Geek In PVC

2006-06-03T02:34:00.000Z

What I've had to contend with, on a fairly regular basis, is the examination of who I am, in relation to who I've been, and what, if anything, that discrepancy means.

For example, a number of years ago, while I was shaking a handful of dice, rolling up a character for Dungeons & Dragons, I had to ask myself, how do I see ME? I mean, was I actually this chaotic evil, grey elf illusionist? Were my choices of presentation determining my inherent quality as a person? Was I a team player or an anarchist? Did I want to relate to my fellows, or did I want to contribute to their demise? What was my sense of fashion? Was one eye differently coloured than the other? Did activity concerning role-playing games factor into my long-term life goals at all?

Alright. I give up.

To be honeset, I wasn't rolling up a character in that instance I was describing. Those were questions plaguing my peers. I was more in control.

I was the Dungeon Master.

And Apologies

2006-06-02T01:59:00.000Z

I've been trying to adjust myself to my new schedule faster than has probably been wise. I've been falling asleep at the keyboard when I get home, instead of typing out anything remotely readable. Once I get over this melting-the-wax-phallus-at-both-ends thing, more will be forthcoming.

And incoming, I expect.

Alright. Sex.

2006-06-01T13:49:00.000Z

I’ve had a lot of it. Not much of that has been with the same partner, but I did have a boyfriend once. Well, more than once; but one time it was love; and I had a lot of sex with him specifically.

Breaking up was (I am unafraid to say it now, even though I was afraid at the time) the hardest thing I have ever done: the meanest decision; because what’s left after you’ve done away with love? What happens when you’ve been choosy, and careful, and still, there, in the fucking muck, is love? Bleeding….

I drank, of course. In (and out of) the relationship; but after with a particularly extravagant flourish. Who remembers going home in a taxi? Why should you? Taxis (I’ll attest from my sober moments) are boring. As long as you can still press a crumpled bill into the poor immigrant’s hand, you’re in the clear. Home free.

Is this my house?

Point being, the breakup was not all that great; and sex, after being sex combined with love, was unbearably desolate without. Alcohol was a fine surrogate for emotional and physical intensity.

That was, until I discovered that you can have it in a group.

When I started go-go dancing, it was to satisfy curiosity first, and pay the bills second; and besides basic hypotheses about my character, I needed to know whether the experience would inadvertently increase, or retard, my libido.

Where I was living at the time, promiscuous outdoor homosexual sex was relatively easy to find. I had, for the most part, abstained; but as I was coming home from work -- or what seemed to be work, seeing as I got paid for it: the gyrating; and the frottage; and the necking in the back rooms…

I was fit to be tied by the time I got on my bike to ferry myself home.

Add a few cocktails, and I predictably ended up, straddling my bike in the park-grounds at 4am, scanning the darkness:

One. Two…. Three, Four Five. All together, against a picnic table.

As it often occurs to me:

Why not?

And that was fun: a release, after the teasing; after being the tease, for hours.

I approached hesitantly. They were well involved. All of them; and I was unsure of the etiquette. Do you just insert yourself? Do you wait patiently for an invitation?

A little from column A, and a little from column B, it turns out. In no short time at all, I had my tongue down one man’s throat, while my cock was out and being sucked by another, and hands… hands were everywhere, with mouths. The one I was so deeply making out with brought my right paw around his back to his ass, so I could feel the Fifth fucking him, right at the join.

(The Fifth, interestingly enough, was the only one that seemed a little less than interested in my arrival.)

This, I thought, was the way to spend an hour before going home. Yes, Group Sex. The answer to the highly driven, yet emotionally unavailable, young gay male. Thank god we share that libido. Thank god it’s (mostly) only jealous when we’re not getting off. We’re more giving when we’re horny, and if your disguised in a crowd afterwards, so much the better.

That night was a good one, and prompted me to stop fairly regularly after I was “dancing”. (I’m an expert now at inducing the group sex dynamic in a public space – so long as it’s dark… and certainly not past dawn.) The thing that makes such activity so palatable, especially after a break-up, after love dies, is that it has nothing to do with that heart wrenching emotion – three people are not replacing one, and one can never hope to accomplish what you can get by being the centre of naked attention, braced backwards over a picnic table, staring up at the stars still seen between tree branches and the urban pollution of light. That’s just fun. That’s just recreation.

That’s just sex.

It’s the conversations you have to avoid, have to scuttle before they make their appearance when you bring someone home, or have to excuse yourself from someone else’s.

I’m not looking for…

Thanks for a wonderful time…

I don’t think this is right for….

I've have had enough of apologizing, and winging, and making amends. I’ve also had enough of parrying the emotional destitutions of others. When I catch my breath again, I’ll fall in love. It’s inevitable. As for now, I intend to travel, and play, and do myself proud; and make the money that allows me to keep some distance, even as I orgasm.

Especially as I orgasam.

Seeking the Green Fairy

2006-05-27T05:53:00.000Z

Well, kids, I've got the night off: no business, no appointments; nothing pending, nothing earned.

I also have a bottle and a party to go to.

Is this a recipe for disaster?

I don't rightly know, but on the back of the bottle it says Artemisia absinthium, and it's 72.5% alcohol.

That's right: me and the poets, old school.

"I'll Be Joining That Guy"

2006-05-24T08:58:00.000Z

For me, the assertion: "I want to take you to dinner," is usually delivered in a breathless, and sometimes sweaty, moment. My response is always a smile.

I do love a good gastronomist; apatites being better indulged then fended off.

And I happen to be good dinner date. Professionally, I mean (casually too, I suppose; but dining-for-pay is so much more fun); though I’d rather go to McDonalds by myself than be forced to sit through a tasting menu at Truffles with some boorish, new-money twat, so, if it's up to me, I only accept if I know there’ll be a measure of good conversation.

I also enjoy being the surprise. A lot of men automatically assume: a) that I'm stupid; and b) that I somehow fell into sex work because I have no other knowledge or skill. Getting "invited" to dinner lets me cannonball both of these preconceptions out of the water, in an entertaining and endearing sort of way, rather than a challenging one. I generally choose the restaurant, as well as the wine -- no one’s going to be having me drink a Pinot with my steak, thank you.

Plus, my skills at drawing people out have been improving. My dinner flirting is (I hope) desirable and engaging, and as I’m genuinely interested in other people, getting him to talk about himself is not necessarily a torturous experience; although, monologues have gone awry and seriously tried my goodwill.

When I was a young, nubile buss-boy at a fairly upscale metropolitan restaurant, there was a tall, gorgeously muscled red-head, who dined frequently with companions. His multiplicity of older urbane gentlemen were always quite polished, and he himself was probably one of everyone's favourite regulars: he was affable, and charming, and lovely. He was also the subject of a great deal of gossip. Which is something of an honour, when you consider that restaurant service staff are really more interested in gossiping about themselves than any two-dimensional patron. (The dirt really is all in the kitchen, let me assure you.) I watched him during lunch one day, and it recently occurred to me, that it was a moment delineated and filed for later reference. There was an attraction for me there: I wanted something of it. It wasn’t the redhead, and it wasn’t the older man; it was situational. It was the dynamic.

Curiosity and wonder; they’re a potent mix. Evidently, in me it can take a while for the combination to bring up much of a driving force, but when it happens watch me go.

Ah, subconscious goals and their fruits.

Needs Working Out

2006-05-23T18:49:00.000Z

Hey, look!

A "respectable" paycheck, with tax taken off and everything....

Fuck me.

Why do I feel so cheap?

Oh, Pheromones; What Mischef You Sow

2006-05-22T22:32:00.000Z

Boys smell good, don’t they? Especially when they’re hot and bothered; especially when they’ve been running around in the sun.

A cute courier boy (CCB, if you will) came into my place of employ at the Interim Position: tall, unkempt and a little rank. He reached across me to grab the parcel, and suddenly nothing fit anymore: my skin tightened. Then he flashed me a smile, and jumped off, out the door.

I felt I should sit down and put a book in my lap.

For someone who thinks about sex an awful lot, I can get perplexingly broadsided by random desire. Maybe it has something to do with subject: my libido is oft ordained to be driven by situation, not individual; and to be honest, since entering into sex work, I’ve been become astonishingly picky about what I find attractive… well, at least in comparison to what I was before. I don’t expect to get breathless much anymore.

What a pleasant surprise when it happens.

Sabotage!

2006-05-18T12:33:00.000Z

I'm having problems with Codename B; issues which relate primarily to organization and communication. You'd think that I was dating him. Perhaps if I did, I would be having fewer troubles.

Strike that; I would have more.

Accordingly, I have been forced to find myself a more regular sort of job for the interim, which is to be distinguished from the Stupid Job, for that had been brought upon by more dire circumstances, related to the change of physical location. This new employment, though tedious, at least comes with a few perks.

Having to get up before 10am is not one of them.

There are a number of concerns that come up before renting yourself out for intimate services: most relate to safety, the others relate to your schedule and its management. The commitment required to manage all of them yourself a little more than I can garner at the moment: I have other projects that need my attention. One of the things escorting provides is free time, so long as you are still available to redistribute your focus on short notice. Fielding phonecalls and screening clients can eat of lot of that time up, most of it through waiting; I would rather be doing other things. There is also the need (which I consider non-negotiable -- much like the condom) for someone to know where I am at all times. As Flatmate is the only local person I know that is aware of my trade, this is impossible; Flatmate does have a life of Flatmate's own. I need someone to represent me.

I have always been of the philosophical school that would rather pay for convenience, so it's time for me to go shopping: Codename B has to be reassigned. That's the good thing about codenames, they can belong to a long line of esteemed successors, each (one hopes) more effective than the last. In the meantime, I can at least console myself that the Interim Position, as it will be henceforth named, is at least in my field.

But the pay is shit.

Never Trust A Mirror

2006-05-15T22:02:00.000Z

Or a smiling crocodile, from what I've heard.

The Flatemate took contention with a something I said in an earlier post:

"I wouldn't say you're not drop dead beautiful at all."

Shucks.

I suppose a mild case of body dysmorphia has to account for something; and you get sorta inured to what you have to stare at every day.

Isn't it nice to have friends?

Slapped by the Happy Juice

2006-05-14T15:40:00.000Z

Slightly off topic, but personally pertinent: how about books?

I mean, really: how about them? I've been reading a while now (a couple of years, on an off), and I have liked half of what I've read well enough; and wanted to toss the rest into the ocean soon after I've closed the cover; but what about that stuff that you read after the fact, that stuff that brings you to something previous?

(It's not mad, it's incisive. I mean, if you people didn't care, you wouldn't be busying yourself with a text-form stranded in the middle of a multi-media format, now would you?)

Having just read Nausea by Sartre for the first time, it shocked me to realize that I'd formerly read another novel, a much more recent invention, that had obviously been created in reference to the famous (and randy) existentialists work; one that I had completely dismissed. I didn't know it at the time, but as soon as I put the old philosopher's narrative down, then -- THEN -- I figured it out: that book I'd been ready to let the tide take out to sea wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was better educated than me.

Shit. I need to reconsider.

I'm only sharing because I've had too much wine in a sitting. Flatemate and I were watching DVDs. I promise that I'll get back to the basics of concupiscent wranglings over cash sometime soon; I just thought it might be worth while, the message in the medium:

Don't discount what you don't understand: context is everything.

PS. Except rape and murder.

PPS. Mind you, if you don't know how to place a period, I still don't want to talk to you.

PPSS. But if you ante up, I'll get you off.

Idle Nightwork

2006-05-12T13:00:00.000Z

There are little asides that you make in darkened hotel rooms, waiting; when he has gone into the bathroom for a quick shower, and you're left with the bare bed; stark, empty furniture. I question why this happens. It's not as if you're not expected, or that he's not happy to see you. Is it the last minute sniff before he opens the door that gives him the impression that he should lather and rinse? Or perhaps it's the fear of missing the knock at the door as soon as you turn on the taps, or flush the toilet -- like what happens with room service.

Or maybe, it's a realignment of the power structure: now you wait.

I usually gravitate towards the window. I watch the lights in the buildings light up and shut down. I quietly address all the other people, up to something at 2:30 in the morning; the quiet confederacy. What are they up to exactly? What I'm up to seems a lot more titillating and daring when I'm thinking about it at home (I get an odd flight of butterflies everytime I take a strange elevator), but in the moment it can seem hopelessly mundane.

Waiting for a stranger to come out of the shower. It's not that I don't appreciate the effort. Clean is first-rate. Bang-on.

I've watched hundreds of lights turn off in the dark while I'm still awake, and my mind is still racing; still busy.

Hundreds.

The Trade

2006-05-09T08:52:00.000Z

There are any number of things which can distinguish someone from the crowd, but they can still be ranked by regularity. The most common is beauty. The second is raw charisma.

The most successful escorts, prostitutes, strippers and grifters all have the latter in common. The former, though not worthless, can often be immaterial. Some of the most attractive men I have ever known haven’t been sell themselves based on that fact alone, and we’re not just talking about sex.

I will not suggest that I haven’t been dealt a favorable hand. I have, but I’m not drop dead; I’m not stop in your tracks and look at that guy kind of attractive. I’m more second take kind of attractive.

“Who was that?”

Me. It was just me.

Just me gets harder and harder to define under a workable heading, and the "me" that’s for sale is a curiosity. How much of myself goes into that transaction? If I was just a prostitute, that would be one thing; or even if it were the first thing -- before I found that something else, before I managed to seek out some other defining factor -- but escort is such a small crest: the tip of an iceberg’s finger. The sex-trade does not define the best and brightest of its participants, by any means, on either side of the bed, even though cultural onus tries to do that for us. You sell sex for money. Or (not to leave strippers out), you sell the suggestion of sex for money.

Either way, Culture doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

Let’s be honest: people sell far worse things for money: arms, for one; debt, for another; and those individuals get off with a lot less disgust and moralizing thrown in their direction, and considerably less legal trouble.

What really sticks in peoples craw, what brings them to such retrogradation of their usual tempers and demeanors, is that some of us can put a dollar value on intimate activity.

“Quelle horror!” They exclaim.

It is horrifying.

Not the act itself, but the fuss, this interminable palaver over sex and paying for it. Something we should all be asking is: why? World’s Oldest Profession, the title reads. Why is that? Why is it that every culture has a reference point for it, a strata of society, whether dirty, pitiful, regular or sublime?

Has human history been paying for beauty, or charisma?

And how can it be considered morally horrifying? After all the taboos, the false starts, the superstitious interpretations, it still remains: prostitution, an individual compensating another individual for their intimate attention.

But that may be it: outside of procreation, sexual expression remains a mystery, and completely unexplained. Commonly, it is something that occurs between individuals, in private; but it has no express purpose, and that (especially to Western minds) is where it all falls down. Collectively, collectiveness is something that we have required, as a species, to grant authenticity. Sexuality doesn’t have a cultural value, by itself. It needs a function. It needs to be interpreted, and defined, by communal effort. There is the fact that we need to make babies, and the reasoning that’s the whole purpose behind attraction and erotic play, but that doesn’t hold because all of the mammals on the planet busy themselves with sexual pleasure when they can find it, procreational or not. Climbing into bed with someone, uncovering another person’s modesty, has been confused by so much misinformation and mystification that it’s been locked down. Even in this day and age, no one really wants to talk about it.

Stigma is the only thing that has given sex the power of the dollar.

Which is why the prejudice against its trade is a farce. You can’t make something which is relatively innocuous, yet completely ubiquitous, hard to archive and not expect there to be demand for it. The sex trade is a service, nothing more. And it would be a safer one, if it weren’t for the fact that culture defines it as invalid.

So what am I vending, really? And am I diminishing my distinctions from the crowd by putting whatever they are, out there on the market? Am I better served as a person to save up my youth and my erections, and lend both on the value of merit, rather than cash? When a masseuse charges sixty dollars an hour, a pedicure costs twenty a pop, and a psychiatrist can take hundreds at a go?

Now, I know I haven’t had training per se, but I am good at what I do, and I have a certain amount of charisma, which I’m certain is what has gained me regulars, more than my physical appearance. Selling a version of an ideal is really what the sex trade is about: having immediate access the semblance of a fantasy; and when it all comes down to it, perhaps the opprobrium against the trade is initially produced out of fear: that the regular partners (the wives, the girlfriends and boyfriends) won’t be able to measure up, or compete with a buffed professional object of desire.

They needn’t worry. Paying for a fille or garcon de joie is simply a digression, it’s not the everyday. No illusion is proof of being dispelled, and no matter what glamour any of us put on, we still all wake up with sleep in our eyes, leave dirty dishes in the sink, and fail to pay enough attention to our loved ones. Our flaws still show through, if you spend enough time staring. God knows, we still have our bad days.

We’ve just decided to auction the better ones.

An Expiration Date

2006-05-08T13:49:00.000Z

The vast majority of my clients have been older than me, which I suppose is no surprise, but most have been solidly middle-aged, not (using the term kindly) old.

I made arrangements to see a particular mature gentleman, independently. He booked me in advance, and seemed oddly nervous about it. This can’t be your first time, I thought suspiciously. I mean, come-on.

I arrived at the hotel a little early, wearing by best smile, but ready to go if anything appeared out of sorts. He was much more relaxed once I was in his room: turns out that when he comes to town, he has a boy that he usually rents for the occasion, and this time had decided to trade up, in may favour. Nothing the matter there, I assured him.

He agreed, but was a little paranoid that the other boy would find out.

“You’re worried about cheating on your hustler?” I asked.
“He’s on the streets. I almost always end up running into him when I come here,” he explained, “and I’m on a budget this trip. I can only afford one date.”
“You’re leaving tomorrow, then?”
“Yes.”
“Scott free,” I told him and took off my shirt.

The only pause that I have with older men is that they can, well, smell like old people. Which brings to mind all sorts of acutely un-prurient thoughts and associations. This man was well groomed, and well scented, which broadened the horizons of what I would have been willing to do with him significantly.

“So what would you like?” I asked, letting him pull my underwear off.
“Do you kiss?”
“Passionately,” I assured him.
“I just want to roll around and grope and kiss, and I’d like to come with your dick in my mouth.”
“Alright.”

A great deal easier than I expected; downright simple, in fact. It definitely wasn’t his first time, he was an old pro: the money was in my hand before I put down my bag, and he stuck rigidly to his outline. Straddling his face, my hard cock thrust firmly down his throat, he dutifully came, half and hour before I expected to be out of there.

“That was great,” he said. “It’s usually takes me longer to come these days.”
“You should switch up more often,” I told him.
“Actually, it was nice to have someone that doesn’t seem in such desperate straights.”
“Fair enough.”
“I’d like to see you again when I come back in a few months.”

We’ll have to see where I'm at, but I gave him my busniess email.

Weekend Precis

2006-05-07T12:39:00.000Z

There are a few things in this world that I know:

* The most extraordinary human beings I have known in this world have been women, and none of them have ever been given their due.

* Oppression is assuredly a state of human society as soon as any community puts down roots and decides that it CAN'T change with the seasons.

* It's impossible for me to get hard if I'm stupid enough to take a line of cocaine.

Clients are advised to make peace with all of the above.

Stamp of Authenticity

2006-05-06T06:28:00.000Z

How refreshing! There really is a service out there on the net for everyone. Want to know just how deplorable your content is? Check it out:

It's just the right amount of evil, really. Additionally, I think it also relates to the percentage of clients I've had who would probably self-identify as "heterosexual".

Quelle bizarre.

Nothing Quite So Sordid

2006-05-05T12:29:00.000Z

This past week, I've been watching more bad telly than is good for any articulate, sane, inspirited person. Besides the dispossession, I've been feeling restless; which could be the invariable turn of the seasons, but it's possibly entrenched in other anxieties that I'll explain in good time, I'm sure.

Sadly, none are rooted in the sale of sexual companionship. Well, not directly. I have received a couple more hyperbolic text messages from my ill advised one night tryst, one of which claimed that he had been robbed and needed my company. I would like to point out that besides the brief encounter itself, I've only sent him the one text in return. C-R-A-Z-Y, I say.

Note to self: no giving your phone number to johns or random exploits. Ever. All I need right now is a stalker.

The consequence of all this nervous energy is my pacing the apartment (Flatmate is away), and that I'm having a hard time knuckling down to read any of the stack beside my bed: every time I try, I start getting agitated... my focus wanders; so I've been resorting to such bad company as Pimp My Ride. The senselessness stupefies me into submission.

Don't judge me.

Everything finds its resolution in due course, I suppose; all rivers find the sea. I just need to travel the route in my little boat. (I imagine it one of those origami paper jobs, and myself shrunk down with a tricorn hat and a telescope, standing on the bow.)

Oh, look: Quills is on.

[A curiosity: rivers find the sea more languidly than blind reason suggests that they should: most weave their way through sloping plains and lowlands by twists and turns that amount to three times that the flight of the crow: 3.14 to be exact; which is the value of Pi.]

What's The Sound Of One Tap Dripping?

2006-05-03T12:10:00.000Z

In an attempt to anchor myself and my present emotional maelstrom to an audible anchor, I have been seeking out new music. Everything I came away from home with has emotional resonance with streets I now no longer walk, clubs too far away to attend, and (most horribly) friends inaccessible.

Consequently, I find myself gazing, cloud-eyed, out of windows whenever I put the iPod earphones in.

So far I have got myself onto M83, Pluto, and -- what I can't stop listening to -- The Knife. The Knife really got something. Finally, listening to some music specific to my experiences here, I feel more at home.

Something which I need. I've been woefully dispossessed lately. Hmm.... Maybe if I sprayed this can of Ennui-Away....

Ten Toes Accounted For

2006-05-01T07:50:00.000Z

Gay or straight, male or female, foot fetishists are da bomb... and thank God I have cute feet.

According to the foot fetishists themselves, anyway. I can't really make distinction between the average okay foot, and the apparently delectable wonder of an enticing foot. Enough enthusiasts have told me that I have the latter to take it to heart, although really, when you think that I could regularly be making money off of them, I should be going for pedicures more often.

The predilection accounts for the easiest of clients, and in many ways, the most personally amusing. Being paid to lie back naked and allow someone to massage your freshly washed feet while you play with yourself, is right up there with staying in bed all day with a good book, far as I'm concerned. The last time I had the pleasure, it was a kindly, bespectacled, middle-aged man who, when you looked at him, brought to mind a whole colour wheel of earth tones and beiges. He set, enraptured, while he took my feet and worked on the toes, and the heel; would push his thumb in a firm arc up the arch. I wiggled my toes. He let out delighted little sighs.

I couldn't stop smiling the entire time. Near the end, I ground my heel into his cock (which was still in his trousers) and he came. Just like that.

I'm telling you: da bomb.

What Did I Study In School?

2006-04-28T11:07:00.000Z

I dearly want to share the new backstory that I've come up with for work with you folks here, but it would compromise what is quite accurately surmised here and here. Suffice to say, unless I'm disingenuously flippant, I'm not very good at hiding that I am, in fact, educated; and, as they say, a smart cookie. My humor, especially, gives me away. In the past, this has worked for me (before I came here, a disproportionate majority of my regulars were from, shall we say, academic professions); however, it does make one more conspicuous in a trade where the average formal education level is quite low.

A particularly frightening relationship I had with a client last year taught me that my precautions, which I had started to think a little excessive, were valid. The fixated are Fucking Fixated, let me tell you... another time, though.

What has to be evident when a client asks you what you really do (or what you're studying, or what's your background) is that you're transparent: that there's nothing more to see, nothing occluding their inquisition. Irresistibility starts with a mystery. Especially if you happen to be the distraction, the excitement, from their usual life. Most people are capable of devoting strange (re: scary) amounts of resources towards personal projects. You don't want uncovering your own background to be one of them. Putting on an act is all well and good, but it's tiring; and having sex with a stranger completely sober, and without the butterflies of possibility, is exhausting enough; the idea of keeping up an elaborate charade makes me want to faint:

Oh, you know, this and that. I teach orphaned teenagers the piano on Tuesdays, and I'm out of town most of the week, taking care of Mom -- she's off the meds, but in terrible pain -- the rest of the time, I'm researching English Medieval Linguistics. Sorry? Should I loosen that for you?

Keep it simple; keep it safe; and for god's sake, make it boring enough that no one has any interest in following it up.

That being said, the story I've come up with this time is positive artistry; and it relies on me delivering it with boredom, which is part of its excellence. I mean, chances are, if we're talking about me, I am bored.

Must be off. Flatmate is writing flatmate's own name in light with a sparkler off the balcony. Pictures must be taken.

All The While, Harangued By Time

2006-04-28T06:51:00.000Z

It takes so much @%$!in' effort to get out of the house: shower, scrub, shave, scent; then the clothes, then the other set of clothes, because the first made you look stupid; but what's with all the accoutrement? When did all that happen? Besides the regular kit in the bag, there's book (chippy enough to focus on in transitional or noisy spaces), notebook (with empty pages, not all scribbled on), iPod (charged), pen (working), and the phone (also, charged)... that is, the phone. Where's the bloody phone? You can't leave the flat without the bloody.... ah. Phone.

And the fucking keys, which are smaller than the phone.

I may have to reconsider the amount of lead time I need before getting out the door.

Trouble With (ahem) Love

2006-04-25T23:57:00.000Z

I slept with him on Friday. The barrage of text messages which followed were for the most part ignored, the calls deliberately unanswered. Yesterday while I was shopping, by some crewel stroke of coincidence, I was accosted by the fellows flatmate (I had met briefly before the night's naked wrestling commenced) who pleaded with me to get in touch with the guy. "Um. Okay?' I said, before beating a hasty retreat.

Last night, inching down to sleep, I heard a siren. Flummoxed in my duvet, I twisted, reached over, and looked at the blinking screen of my phone:

...what did last weekend mean? Was it just one night, or something more? You never answer my phone calls or reply to text messages... tell me what you want from us... I think about you alot, please give me some answers.

What did it what? With all the words in the English language, how can you choose to arrange those 45 or so into such a clichéd, maudlin whine, with seemingly so little effort? I blame the proliferation of poor melodrama on set and screen: if Jennifer Anniston wasn't ejecting this crap from her mouth, I wouldn't have to deal with it now.

In the four conscious hours that I knew him, he seemed a nice sort. Balanced? I couldn't really say, but nice. He had a nice cock, certainly; and it was nice of him to drive me home in the morning; but I mean really, have some self-respect man: "sometime" does not mean every hour, on the hour. Those are time-s. Presumably, up until the time we met, those 10 hours previous, to when he started this little digital-stalk, he had a life independent and free sexual obsession. What's stopping him from returning to it? Perhaps my lack of response: silence is being interpreted as a quite pining.

So this morning I sent him off a text, that was (I hope) a polite, firm, let-down. Much like our pick-up, come to think of it; but, maybe I should have sent him back this:

I'm a hooker. The first one was free. If you wanna go again it's going to cost you; and no discounts.

Sorted

2006-04-24T06:13:00.000Z

"You're sure you are, only, you know... active?"

I sighed. "To be honest, I can probably go so far as being versatile with a regular. If we get along well."

"Oh, I see," he said nodding sagely. "You're inexperienced. It's okay."

Now, I know I didn't say that. I've ridden that pony Backwards Cowboy, thank you very much, especially when I was younger. I just don't like it much; unless I'm real comfortable, or he's a fucking hot, down and dirty, slam me up against a wall and do me sorta fella. That's alright, but I take serious issue with those stupid boys who complain that it hurts, and they don't like it, and then want you to do all the work, slam back into them, climb on top and get them off all the while they murmur about beauty, and wanting you so much. I can feel my eyes rolling just thinking about it.

If you're going to top, fucking top already. I certainly do.

B can think what he likes, as long as I don't have to fend it off too often. It turns out that he'd been in the middle of domestic commitments: visiting family and boyfriend issues; and I had been getting seriously concerned. With the Stupid Job now out of the way, if work didn't start materializing soon, I was going to have to find another, probably even more puerile activity to pay the bills. Or skip the country, which would defeat the purpose of me coming here at all.

"Is there enough work?" The concern that kept me up last night was that maybe the community wasn't in need of a man-on-man action Agency as much as I had imagined it would be.

"Oh, yes," he said with an affirmative eye widening. "I have you're pictures. It took a while to get organized this past week--" it's been two, "but I have two men. Nice guys. They're interested in you. Now that you're free there'll be no problem."

I also realized that not everyone who comes through B's door is likely to actually be any good at this type of work. It might seem like a fine idea at the time, but you don't really know until you're in it, naked, sweating and with a mouthful of something or other, that you find out if you can keep it up; and for men that's the real issue: keeping it up.

I happen (happily) to get off on Eros: the situation, the basic aromatics of lust. Even a whiff gives me a boner. Beauty's nice and all, but sex, sex doesn't have to be beautiful; it just needs to smell and taste right.

B's being cautious because he's not sure I'll be any good. "You seem like a nice boy," he said to me when we first met, and I realize now that that might be a dubious quality in a prostitute, indicative of one that might not stay around; or, get scared and run off. Maybe even in the middle of something.

Oh, dear. So little does he know.

Condolences

2006-04-24T00:35:00.000Z

On call has turned out to be not called. At all. Which is problematic, as it's hard to be a hooker if you're not hooking. I'm willing to accept that Easter is not a busy time for whores of all varieties, but I mean, really. I've read four novels, one book of criticism, a comic book anthology, and still no escapades to speak of.

So I had to resort to the more usual sort, and set out on Friday to slake my bodies randy-tom feeling the old fashioned way, and pulled at the bar. He was smaller than me, and it'd been a while, so there was a certain amount of me tossing him about, pulling him up to my face, holding him there while I attacked him with my tongue; then twisting him round so I could fuck him. You know, recreation. I do think I was still drunk when I got up in the morning at his, because I made the careless, kind-hearted gesture of leaving him my phone number before he drove me home.

I've had five dead-click messages and several texts in less than two days. I miss you so much, was one of the last ones.

Funny how you can go from zero, to needy, to crazy in such a short period of time.

I'm going to sort out this Agency nonsense this afternoon. I mean, it's not like I'm not hot. I've been at the gym and everything, and this boy needs new shoes.

Alright.

2006-04-23T17:57:00.000Z

I have an excuse. Not for the madness that overtook me or the infatuation that I suddenly had with in media res... certian things have no explanation, but for the lack of posting, yes. Let's just chalk it up to too much time being spent cooped up in the apartment with no where to put my boner. Thank goodness that some things come to an easy resolution!

As for the formatting issues, after I have a nap, I'll be going back and fixing everything.

Light Comes On, Light Goes Out

2006-04-13T22:33:00.000Z

Whilst working at the Stupid Job, I was intrigued by two young women. They were conspicuous in their beauty and remarkably well done up, especially for the venue: not quite in evening wear, but deficidedly not formal; tony, but not vulgar for the situation: black straps, a shimmer of silver, and high high-heels. It became more mysterious when I overheard their conversation. Both were from obviously different backgrounds, their accents were more than half a world apart; which is not unusual in itself, people do make friends outside of their heritage, but their body language was decidedly remote. My first impression was that they were waiting to be collected by their dates, at which point a tidy foursome would depart, but they continued without the anticipated apparition. Then one said to the other:

"You have to make them think they're getting more than what they wanted, by doing something unexpected. Then they don't push you."

The second nodded empathetically.

I looked again at their long, well coiffed but decidedly unbound tresses.

Oh, I realized. Working girls.

Ring My Bell

2006-04-11T10:56:00.000Z

An unexpected side effect is that I am now paranoid about leaving my phone behind for any length of time; out to the gym and the grocery and the Motorola left at home on the kitchen table. I started to worry about ten minutes into my workout, and practically ran home with my milk and eggs. Of course, I hadn't missed anything: no bookings, and no friendly calls. Either or both would make me feel loved, though in decidedly different ways.

Professional?

2006-04-09T09:56:00.000Z

I don't like the photos much, but I'm in the book: mounted, so to speak.

Let's hope novelty makes up for refinement... at least until I can get the flatemate to take better shots.

I'm on call as of Monday.

The Stupid Job

2006-04-07T08:59:00.000Z

Blah blah blah, clean-up, blah-blah blah blah, those need to go upstairs, blah blah pay more attention, yadda yadda blah-diddy-blah blah blah and a something something..."

It's not that I don't care, it's just that tomorrow I'm going to quit.

Which reminds me: book an appointment for a Brazilian.

The Maid's Uniform

2006-04-06T12:00:00.000Z

The desires of men paying for sexual contact with other men run in two broad, avid rivers, and for the enthusiasts, never the twain shall meet. On the one hand, the muscle gods: big, immovable, and often, as a plus (as these things go), indifferent. On the other, we have the boys: the young ones; beautiful because they’re fresh, and open, and either guileless or clueless (to varying extremes).

These are the two flesh-brand identities generally marketed, and as they are common, I presume requested regularly. I guess I fall into the category of the latter; a demi-athletic variety. The most amusing thing about the variety system is that presumption is part of the fantasy, and therefore, as a good business boy, I’m out to help them buy into it.

Gay male stereotypes relating to the sex trade have yet to develop into as wide a range as present in the straight world. This could probably be attributed to the fact that being the payer is assumed to be dominant to the payee. Women have been regulated to the strata of biddable comport by society for eons; the variations on the theme have had centuries to develop, and have given us the array of saucy examples: the schoolgirl, the librarian; the secretary and the nurse. The attitudes are definitely similar across the gender gap, except for one cardinal point. Implicit in the domination or seduction of the young man by the older is the promise that that boy will one day be a man. One day his rod will be the rule. The same cannot be granted assuredly for women. To take advantage of the window time allows for taking advantage of the boy, the declarative senior has to make his move before a certain age, or the tractable will become intract soon enough: opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.

(After that, your option is to lust for the other unattainable, the devoted bodybuilder: he who took the path you couldn’t get off the couch/out of the office/away from the wife for.)

So what have I got to work with? The young jock. Um… the studious dreamer. The unusually wise youngster with so much promise….

(There’s also the openly gay, single minded, sex-starved, hormone driven twink; but I consider him to be a sub-genre: he’s the psyche all those daddies want to discover in their guileless protégés.)

It remains to be seen how well I’m going to be able to pull this off. I’m going to be practicing rapt attention in the mirror. Maybe say “um” a lot, and answer everything like it’s a question.

Then again, I might be giving this whole process too much credit.

“Hey. Come in. Take off your pants.”

Can and will.

Sorry About Yesterday

2006-04-06T05:39:00.000Z

"Come in Saturday."
"Saturday?"

Saturday.

2006-04-05T13:46:00.000Z

I just want to have sex with middle aged men for money. As goals go, how hard can that be to accomplish!?!

Alright, if we're being honest, LATE-middle aged men.

The Only Thing

2006-04-05T11:07:00.000Z

Worse than getting in my way, is wasting my time when I haven’t brought something to read. Waiting an hour for a photographer who doesn’t show, or answer his phone, falls into this category. Foolishly thinking that the errand would be a quick one, I was mired in the irksome purgatory of the Gay-Kitchen, as the boyfriend of the absent paparazzo fiddled with the little dog, and I was subjected to broad hints, being dropped by one of the Boys, of an impending career in glossy print; where, presumably, he would be subjected to the ministrations of more punctual shutterbug.

It’s not like I don’t have anything else to do with my time.

That, coupled with payroll issues courtesy of the Stupid Job, has filled this day with half-starts and un-accomplishments.

Bah! I say. When do I get to the naked suction leading to release? The release foremost in my mind being from this relative poverty: that which makes it impossible to live my life as a real person.

There’s an irony here.…

But you get over the hurdles, figure out you can handle the bloody thing, then just want to get on with it; and in the meantime, the Stupid Job, continues to be stupid; and not even pay on time.

What’s left to do?

I know! Let’s make a bushel of pomodoro sacchetti, drink a bottle of Coonawarra Shiraz and watch disturbingly funny cartoons on the Internet.

Up To It

2006-04-04T09:15:00.000Z

After spending a certain amount of time preparing, I stepped out into the living room, drained the Heineken, and cleared my throat.

"I'm off," I said to my roommate. "Am I cute enough that strangers will want to fuck me?"

"Um," I got back, "you put it so crassly."

"Oh. What I meant to say was 'play with me naked'. I'm like a big action figure with movable parts."

"You're sure that you want to do this?"

"Sure. I think it'll be a kick." Truthfully, I was rattled enough that I needed the beer to even out my nerves.

On the way over, Nine Inch Nails' "Eraser" randomly played from my iPod:

need you

(okay.)

dream you

(might as well.)

find you

(I'll be easy to find.)

taste you

(probably.)

fuck you

(there are so many words for it.)

use you

(I guess...)

scar you --

I turned it off.

The Agency, as it advertises, is discreet: little door, little bell, and out of the way (shocking I know). It turns out that B is of Eastern European stock, though what specific variety is still to be determined. When he opened the door, he made an appraising kind of "hmm" sound in the back of his throat. Three times. Considering the industry, I was expecting sleazy, what I needed was sleazy on a manageable level. Idiosyncratic lechery, not creepy; and I wasn't about do to anything ridiculous like audition for free.

"So, you've done this kind of work before?"

I told him yes, and in what capacity.

The set-up for the entire operation is different than I expected, which (oddly enough) is what I expected; and, given where I am, figured that the money would somehow be less than what I would think to be reasonable, which it is; but only marginally. Going over my details was easy enough, both real and imaginary. (By the time I'm done working in this field, there're going to be a small handful of innocuous names I'll be able to answer to without batting an eye.) It looks like I'm going to actually have to work there, at least initially. There's a two week trial period, what it takes to "see how it goes".

I didn't really go through my entire questionnaire, but enough is enough. There is something familiar about the place, the smell of sex, and an illicit back-room feel to the dim corridor. It's an atmosphere I can manage. I can fill in the blanks tomorrow when I go back to get my portfolio shots done.

On the way home the iPod played Norah Jones. "Turn Me On."

This I Know

2006-04-03T11:07:00.000Z

Three things I am certain of leading up to tomorrow:

* I will not be doing incalls.

* The Agency will not be taking more than 30% of my fee.

* No one is going to be sticking anything more than a finger up my bumb for money. Maybe for fun, but it's not something I want to tackle on the job.

Codename B

2006-04-02T10:12:00.000Z

My phone rang several times early this afternoon, each time the display announcing Private. I took this to mean the Agency, as the numbers of all the people I know here are already in my directory, and none of them are classified. No message was left after any of the calls, which to my mind implys a certain amount of canny discretion; either that or paranioa.

B answered the phone when I did my follow up later. He has the indeterminate accent of someone who has learned English in a variety of locations, so is presumably not originally from the country I reside in now. We discussed when I might come in for a meeting.

"Yes. Come in for a chat and we'll see how it goes."

Which I figure is a euphemism for "see how hot you are and if you know what you're getting into."

Indeed we will.

The Waiting Game

2006-04-01T04:51:00.000Z

The outgoing message at the Agency is actually very nice: clear, masculine tones; it's professional and direct. I've left a message, in a foreign accent. My accent, but I can only hope it speeds up the process.

What was that I said about patience?

Less Resistance

2006-03-31T11:58:00.000Z

The cleverest function of my gym, the fact that it's so shiny. State of the art. Everything's well oiled and serviced, leveled and sub-leveled into designations of form and fucntion. It grants, by mere association, the anticipation of bringing your body in line with the aesthetics of the surroundings: here such things are possible, it says. Poor body, so maligned by pastry shops and street vendors; here you might get your due. It doesn't look hard, stained and frayed; it's inspiration not intimidation.

The genius to this is that the impression lasts long enough to get everyone to join, pay their membership fees, sign some mephistophelian contract, and return home with the best of intentions; before the weight of the weights actually has a chance to tear their protean strands apart. Once that reality stiffens the joints, grinds down the initiative, the money keeps siphoning into the complex without the vexing members themselves.

I'm not exactly a gym rat, but I go through my periods of faithful and productive attendance. What I don't like is people getting in my way.

Now well beyond the New Year, during the day I can practically bounce through the vacant space between stations. Why did I ever go to the Y? No one dreams there. It's the realm of the destitute, they're just getting by: day by day; and they do, in that dingy, manky, carpeted basement of a workout room. You need something upscale, attended by people who are used to getting what they want, who then abandon their ambitions when they become inconvenient.

All you really need to get what you want is patience; and something to read while you're waiting.

Initiate

2006-03-30T10:42:00.000Z

I haven't called my contact at the Agency yet, as prior commitments (re: current dependency) to the Stupid Job have precluded me from doing so.

I should mention that the Stupid Job has not forced me to my present course of action. It was already in the possible column of my agenda before I took in my resume. In fact, said Stupid Job has probably granted me the necessary lenience with which to weigh the real endeavor in my mind -- it's not very demanding, my means to a (paltry) paycheck right now. I have a burden of time to think. I have been heaving through it considering what I have to gain, what I have to lose, what it will cost; and trying to distinguish if I can actually see myself as the thing: a male escort.

In order, I have come to these conclusions (and they’re all quite simple): money (duh); the respect of those who know about it (I have no illusions -- outside of the industry, there is a decidedly negative cultural onus attached to getting paid for sex, no matter how liberal the judge might be); completely unknown (and truth be told, I may never); and I can.

The first time I charged anyone for a sexual act it was unexpected; at least on my end. It started with someone I was completely unattracted to. I had been happily charming him to pass the time, but as I turned away to say hello to someone else, he inappropriately took hold of my arms, brought me back, and kissed the nape of my neck. Which I liked; but not enough to find him attractive. “What are you doing later?” he asked me.

“Going home,” I replied.

“Would you come home with me?” He asked.

“Well, now,” I laughed. “That’s an expensive proposition.” I still don’t know why it came out of my mouth. I think I was joking… half joking? Perhaps more I was putting out a dare, for him and for me.

“I don’t pay for it,” he replied.

I shrugged. “Suit yourself,” and walked away.

When I passed him a few minutes later, he stopped me. “How much?”

I told him.

He laughed, but I didn’t negotiate. The price was fixed. He caved. I took my own dare, and it wasn’t as hard as I had somehow imagined it would be; and not so different than a friendly fuck between strangers, eager to wrest into each other for release. He had enough lust for both of us; and when it comes down to it, I like sex. A lot.

Plus, I’m good at it, and he wasn’t very hard to please. I didn’t even have to dip into my bag of tricks.

His only complaint was that he kept noticing my eyes, drifting towards the clock beside the bed in the hotel room.

“I’m sorry, but there’s only so much of this illusion I can give you. I really do have to be out of here by three.”

I should probably work on filtering lines like that out of my pillow-talk, if I’m going whole-hog into business.

I left the hotel, showered, amused, and decidedly more solvent than I had been before I left my home that evening. I thought, well, if ever there has been a case of negative reinforcement… and there was a stack of bills in my pocket.

I left the Stupid Job this evening with a list in my pocket. Untitled, as I had a mild paranioa that co-workers might spy it and somehow discern its purpose:

*Call
*Doctor
*Haircut
*Wax
*Tan

Five things to all systems go.

Never Fear

2006-03-29T04:24:00.000Z

It's a good mantra, as far as mantras go, but it's fatally flawed, as most wishful reductions of the human condition are: fear keeps us safe. Or, at the very least, it keeps us aware of the reduction of safety: it lets us know when safety is getting ready to take a hike. Prostitution has never been considered a secure occupation, and existing outside of certain parameters (such as organization and legal recourse), it can be downright dangerous. First off, I'm not stupid. I intend to minimize the risk.

I had said that I was going to leave the sex-industry, when I left my last location; but in all honesty, I knew I wasn't done. Not yet. Even when the plane was closing in its wheels, there was that little black box in the back of my mind, the answer inside the question: is that really it?

I haven't made the call yet, but my mind's made up. I'm going to give it a whirl. A serious one this time.

I'm not sure if I'm afraid; but I am nervous... even though I've been down this road before. Briefly, and not entirely unpleasantly, though it was a different sort of forum. Who was it that said confidence is like the tides? I'm jittery in the way you are before calling a romantic interest for the first time; I'm uncertain of the first step. It's a preamble in both situations, setting yourself up to be judged; and, let's be honest, I am the only commodity to be sold in this circumstance.

I don't do porn. My picture won't be appearing anywhere public anytime soon. The modeling I've done has been private.

But I will be sharing how this thing goes. Keep reading.