It was Halloween night at the club and I was dressed as Cleopatra. My jet black bob haircut made my costume look perfect and I was a dead-on Liz Taylor (as Cleopatra) look-alike that night. Several clients asked me to dance for them – even more so than usual. It was exhilarating for me to be so exciting to all of these men and with Bunny’s encouragement, I finally consented. I told Travis that some of my clients wanted me to dance for them. He told me it was okay if I wanted to try it, but to go in the VIP area so none of the dancers would see me out on the floor. The dancers paid to work in the club and he was letting me give some dances without paying a fee.  He didn’t want any of those dancer’s with a more competitive streak giving him or me any shit for it.   

That first dance, although a little awkward, wasn’t that bad or that hard. The rest of that night went pretty well for me and was amazingly easy. As a dancer you work whatever schedule you want, day or night, split shifts, as long as you pay your $40 shift fee and tip out the managers, deejay and don’ t get totally wasted, you can do whatever you want. So that was it, I quit waitressing, started stripping and within a week I started to make enough money so I could quit my day job. I was a little hesitant, but I gave my two weeks’ notice and it was hasta la vista PWC! And hello kids and sleep…

      I really liked performing on stage and rubbing my body on strangers during lap dances, but I never liked the hustle part of the job.  I figured if men were interested in me, they’d come up and ask me to dance for them. At first that’s the way it was for me, I was making money just by walking around the club and having men waiting for dances from me. It took about a month for me to realize that I was doing well because I was new and men always like “new.”  The regular patrons also liked figuring out what I was willing to do for an extra $50 or  $100.  Besides not being comfortable going up to men asking them if they wanted “any company” there was no way in hell I was going to suck some guy’s dick for $100 and certainly not in some seedy strip club.   

     Unfortunately for me, that was the way the strip club game was played back then in Houston and I just wasn’t willing to play it.  Bunny didn’t like it much either and found her popularity waning and we were both once again heading for financial jeopardy. We went around town and worked at different clubs, but as soon as the patrons find out you aren’t willing to do any “extras” you won’t be popular for long. After several weeks of club hopping and joking about becoming hookers, Bunny boldly suggested that we call some escort agencies.  I protested, but at that point I really didn’t have a leg to stand on financially or otherwise. I had already quit my office job months before and left on questionable terms, I hated the smoke and the constant smell of booze and hated being treated like a cheap piece of trash by lowlife drunks. Most importantly, I loved being at home with my kids and I loved having my youngest with me all day instead of in daycare. 

Bunny made the call.  

Hello All!  It's been a while since my last post as I've been working steadily on my memoirs, Becoming Jayne.  Here is an excerpt  and  I certainly hope that you enjoy it.  Please comment here or email me with your thoughts.  This is just my first draft and here it goes… 

I was thirty-three years old and had never been inside of a strip club. Actually, I had always felt  intimidated even by the idea of strippers. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I called The Trophy Club. I chose that club mostly because it was closest to my apartment and it looked nice from the outside.  I was able to get an interview for the next night. I made it for 8pm to give me enough time to get the kids, get home, fix some dinner, change my clothes and get to the club. I had no idea what to wear to such a place for a “job” interview, so I chose what seemed reliable—simple black top, black mini-skirt, black stockings and especially high heels.

 Parking my car and walking up to the door of The Trophy Club, I felt the nervousness rolling around in my stomach. I took a deep breath, knowing that I looked good, and pulled open the heavy front door. A blast of cold air, smoke and a huge thump of music pressed into me. As the door closed behind me, my eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. I felt lost. I was pulled out of myself as a startling young woman at the tall front desk asked,

“What can I do for you, sweetie?”

 “Hi, I’m here to meet with Travis,” I replied.

 Right then, a girl walked in from behind a big curved wall that was situated behind the big front desk. She was a tall, lithe looking blonde with pretty perky boobs. She was wearing only a thong, an open weird, filmy robe and some very high clear platform heels. I was surprised by her youth and by the Rolling Stones tongue tattoo that was perched just above her thong.

“ Hey, baby,” the receptionist said to the blonde, the stripper “can you take her back to see Travis?”

 The stripper motioned for me to follow. I obeyed. Walking around the wall, a whole new world unfurled. The room was a huge expanse of deep red carpet with a bold black geometric pattern. Small glass topped tables and plush low chairs populated by men were neatly arranged around the space. The smoke and the music were thicker in here, and I was sure I could see men’s eyes glowing. In the center of it all was a smallish, gold-rimmed stage that was lit up with different colors shining from different angles and glowing softly in what was really a incredibly dark interior.

The center of the stage held a brass pole, and from the pole hung and spun a longish, fit woman. She was upside down as I watched her and hair cascaded a full three feet towards the floor in glorious, golden blonde curls. Her legs were criss-crossed neatly around the pole and on her feet were more of those clear platform shoes. It was just then that Tom Petty’s “Last Chance with Mary Jane” seamlessly started up from the speakers and the blonde delicately began to extricate herself from the pole, removing her flimsy dress and leaving herself covered only by those very high heels and a hot pink thong. As she glided to the edge of the stage, she was met by several patrons who were waiting for their chance to be bathed in her beauty and her breasts. I was completely mesmerized and felt myself get wet.

The interview with Travis, the night shift manager, went as well as that kind of interview can go. I walked into his office and Travis said,

 “Are you sure you want to be a waitress? You look more like dancer material to me.”

 I laughed a little and told him that yes, I was sure.

  After buying my own drink tray and some black apron thing, I started work at the Trophy Club. I loved the super sexually charged atmosphere, I didn’t even mind the smoke that much. I kept my job at the club a secret from everyone except my kids and a friend from my Brazilian ju-jitsu class, Esme. Esme was a twenty-one year old hot Latina and a Mormon. She needed extra cash and as soon as she heard that I was working at the club, she decided to start working there too, but as a dancer.  About a week into her new career, her mother somehow found out she was working at a bar and kicked her out of the house.  She needed a place to stay and I needed a sitter, so I asked her to move in with me.  

It didn’t take long for the glitz of the club to wear away for me or Esme, who was now known as “Bunny.”  I chose “Kat” as my work name. The polish on the club was about as high-grade as the gold plating on a piece of cheap costume jewelry.  The ladies bathroom was in the dancers’ dressing room and the first time I went in there to pee, I was genuinely shocked. Besides every toilet being left used and unflushed, the noise level was unbelievable.  Everything between these “ladies” was conveyed by yelling. 

Out on the floor, they appeared to be engaged in what was surely frivolous, but entertaining conversations with the clients.  In here I couldn’t believe the things that were coming out of their overly made up shiny mouths.  One of the more tame things I heard on a surprisingly regular basis went something like this,

“I done tol’ that stupid bitch if she didn’t quit with the mad doggin’ I was gonna beat her ass right there in the grocery store in front of her kids and mine.  It’s not my fault her man thinks I’m fine.” 

I let myself imagine what the lovely gem recounting this enthralling tale wears to the grocery store.  In my mind it was not much different than what she has on now which was a smirk, a thong and 6” heels.  

  The dressing room carpet was a disgusting matt of gum, food and spilled drinks. Locker doors were smeared with what looked like makeup and lipstick.   There were cigarette burns on every counter top, toilet seat, chair and of course the carpet.   The light of the dressing room had transformed gorgeous, giggly, tipsy girls into these ugly, braying messes.  The rest of the club didn’t fare any better under the lights. The crap carpet out on the club floor looked as rough as the girls and the upholstery on the chairs was unspeakably dingy and stained, much like I felt at the end of the night.  

 I hated waitressing and all of us waitresses were treated like total shit. We had to come in early and set up the club if we were day shift and stay late cleaning up the shit hole if we worked the night shift.  This included cleaning ashtrays and Windex-ing all the glass tabletops and any other disgusting hard surface in the club. We also had to tip out twenty percent to the bartenders at the end of each shift. The club wouldn’t take me part-time so, I had to lie and say I didn’t have another job. Travis told me during the interview that he didn’t hire people who had any other job but working for him at the club.  

I would get home from my fancy day job as an executive assistant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers,LLC at about 6:00pm.  I would fix the kids dinner and be at the club by seven. I wouldn’t get back home until two-thirty or three the next morning and had to be up by six-thirty to be at work on time.  It was about a month before sleep deprivation took a firm hold and rattled me mentally and finally physically.  I desperately needed the extra money I was making at the club, but I knew something had to change.

     The day I got home from my first Vipassana meditation course,  I put away my mala, all my books on Buddhism, stopped my daily recitations, prostrations and chanting.  I went to the course as a devout Buddhist and came out agnostic.  The absolute perfection of this is Vipassana is one of the 40 meditation techniques that Gotama Buddha taught over 2500 years ago.  While meditating during the course I realized that Buddhists made up Buddhism and I wanted no part of something so contrived. But I felt so lost without my regular daily routine.  I never thought of myself as religious or reliant on ritual and I was.  But all of these rituals were something that didn’t come naturally to me – they were things that someone else taught me to do.  

     The Buddha said he couldn’t tell anyone what enlightenment would be for her, he could only relay his own experiences, that it was up to each individual to discover for herself what enlightenment was.  Vipassana showed me that I was following someone else's path to enlightenment.  It was someone I admired, but I was being shown down a path to something I couldn’t comprehend. 

    The first time I planned to go to Vipassana I was feeling pretty anxious.  The course was to start November 1st and at that time I was a part of a wild party crowd that took celebrating Halloween seriously.   The night before the course was starting I was up until 7am dressed as Marie Antoinette with the big powdered wig, period piece dress undergarments and all.  I did have a head, but with makeup professionally done to appear that my head had been cut off and put back on.  Most of the night I  was tripping on mushrooms and drinking unfiltered sake right out of the bottle.  

     I had signed up for the course months in advance and about a week before it started, I began to wonder if it were such a good idea to go.  During the six weeks leading up to the course, I had undergone a strict regimen of alcohol, absinthe, LSD, MDMA, sleep deprivation and promiscuous sex.  I was having fun, but I also felt empty, shitty and alone.  

     My third husband and I had split up just four months earlier and I was ramping up my escorting career for the second time.  I was convinced that when I came back from Vipassana, I'd have to find another way to make a living.  I figured I would become so enlightened that I would no longer be able to drink alcohol, smoke, take hallucinogenic drugs or have sex with strangers for money or fun. I was ready for whatever turn my life might take.  

     The course schedule is very rigorous and requires 11 hours of meditation a day.  Besides maintaining what is referred to as "noble silence" (no talking, looking at or gesturing to anyone) you also have to refrain from using or even possessing any phones, radios, tv, books, paper, pens, pencils, malas, prayer beads and there is to be no praying, yoga or  chanting.   Participants are allowed to ask the teacher specific questions about the meditation technique if they have any but that's the only talking allowed.

     Now after several years of practicing Vipassana, I understand that all of those activities are too extroverted and take away from focusing on yourself.  It's funny because I never thought of reading as an extroverted activity, but it is because it takes you out of yourself and into another world. Praying does too…

       When I came back the phrase, "it made me more me" summed up my experience with Vipassana. It was there that I came to the realization that escorting was my path to enlightenment.  That I had to give it my all and alway be present when I was with my clients.  It was an odd revelation for me.  It made sense and I KNEW it was true, but it was just so odd.  

     The "Buddhist" practice that has always resonated with me has been meditation.  That is the most pure and beautiful thing I have ever done – get to know myself by being with just myself.   I experienced myself as myself while at the Vipassana retreat.  I experienced my own impermanence, my own pain, death, pleasure, ignorance, bliss – cycling circling, toppling stacking, stretching, bright darkness, I saw/felt/heard (couldn't tell the difference) that there is no edge.  I experienced so many things, they are no longer concepts to me – I know them I am them…at least at this moment – but that's all there is anyway… 

     “What causes you to be trapped is what we call personal importance. Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about “me.”  During the period of our education or our domestication, we learn to take everything personally.  We think we are responsible for everything. Me me, me, always me!”   “The Four Agreements” Don Miguel Ruiz

      I read  “The Four Agreements” on a plane back from Cooperstown, New York.  (Yay, Baseball Hall of Fame!)  I had to force myself to finish reading this book.  I bought this book on recommendation of a dear friend of mine and started reading it a few years ago.  I got a couple of chapters in and then put it down because I found it to be too pedestrian for learned lofty me.  It turned me off because I like very thick, heavy, philosophical texts.  Stuff by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche and Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche really fascinates me and takes my mind places I used to call “beyond God” when I was a teenager.

     The various Buddhist texts I have read and studied contain the same concepts that I read in “The Four Agreements” and I’m not sure that I could have understood don Miguel’s simple and beautiful message if my brain had not been short-circuited by the above Venerable Rinpoches.  I am so glad I decided to come down off my high horse and read this book.  I read it twice as I found it to be so deep and full. 

      “Nothing other people do is because of you.  It is because of them. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world for the one we live in.  When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world and we try to impose our world on their world.”  Don Miguel Ruiz

      This concept is not new to me. I totally believe that all the people and situations in my life are a fantasy, a reflection of what’s going on in me.  I create my life.  I have kick ass days and not so fun times as Creator.  I first realized this several months ago while lying next to someone in bed.  He was telling me about qualities he knew I possessed and things he thought about me and what kind of person I was.  As I was lying there, I realized this was coming from someone who didn’t even know me.  It was at that moment I knew that all of us do that to everyone around us.  We don’t necessarily project, but we have ideas, fantasies about who the people around us are.  It was weird and sad to me when I realized that.  Weird because I couldn’t understand why I would create so much difficulty for myself and sad, because it made me feel alone.  I don’t think it’s sad now, but weird for sure.  

     While driving around in the mountains and quaint towns of New York I was thinking about the chapter in the book that I have quoted here.  Taking things personally – how often do I do that.  I thought it was funny how I hardly ever take things my clients, family or friends do personally, but with strangers I do all the time!  People driving stupid or putting their seat all the way back on the plane or talking on their cell phones in the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum or stirring their ice tea too loudly and too long or a restaurant not serving hot chocolate in the winter or the person next to me in the meditation hall who is constantly fidgeting, Continental not giving me my luggage after a long flight!  Those people, those businesses – I know all that they do is because they are trying to annoy me, upset me, disturb me, deprive me, they all must hate me!   Of course that is ludicrous and when I put it in perspective it’s all fine.  My selfishness and self-centeredness is impressive!

      Another thing that smacked me in the head was realizing that people I’m dating really do  take my actions personally.  That freaks me out when I think of that because most of what I do has nothing to do with them.  It was very liberating for me when I saw how I have been hesitant to do or say certain things out of the fear of hurting someone and I then realized that what I was doing had nothing to do with them.  My decisions to publish this blog or move to another city or start a new career or study Vodou or not or Buddhism or not has nothing to with ANYONE.         

     I kept her around longer than I should have, thinking he would suddenly grow up and come and get her from me. I thought I was doing the right thing by giving him the opportunity to do right by her and by me. I was waiting for something, hopeful of something unrealistic and uncharacteristic of a man I am not proud to have called my husband. I kept that poor dog alive because I really thought he was going to come for her. I believed in him… I tend to do that—believe in people even when they give me every reason not to. 

     On my way to the animal shelter, I felt the same way I did driving to my friend Ardan’s funeral nine months ago. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I was very aware of my hands. They were very light and felt as if they were going to fall apart. It took a strong conscious effort to make them work to turn my steering wheel and hold the shifter. I cried hard at the shelter, on the way home and as I stopped to get gas. I sat for a few moments in my car, and let myself lose all faith and all hope I had in humanity. It was an amazing experience. I never allow myself to indulge in hopelessness. In that moment, I actually let myself feel pure hatred for what I think was the first time ever in my life. I don’t recall ever hating anyone the way I was letting myself hate Mark… I honestly didn’t, and still don’t, care what happens to him. I don’t wish him any harm; I just don’t care. Horrible things could happen to him and I would feel no pity, no sadness, nothing. I let him go. 

     My body was filled with rage, anger and shame, and I experienced it all, acknowledged it, and now I’m free. Right there I realized that none of this had anything to do with Thor. I was not sad for her nor did I feel bad about having her put to sleep—it was time for her to go. I was angry and ashamed that I had loved and put my hopes, energy and life into someone who wasn’t capable of taking care of a dog, much less a marriage and family. My keeping her around allowed me to keep denying that he was and is a miserable piece of shit. I feel free in so many ways.

     After I came home that day, I was in my room leaning on my bed taking off my shoes. Suddenly, I felt a physical force, a real and definite presence, in the whole of my abdomen, but mostly in my chest. I felt it leave me. It wasn’t something that passed through me, it was something that was part of me that left me and at that moment there in my room, I knew I could do anything. I was afraid of nothing or no one. Typing that, just now, made me cry—it was so powerful. I felt whole and still do. 

     I went downstairs and threw the rest of Thor’s food in the yard for the birds. I cut a piece out of her blanket and put it in front of the Santisima Muerte altar in my office. I asked Santisima to watch over her and I prayed that Thor’s next life will be more fortunate than this one as a dog (there’s the Buddhist in me). I didn’t stand long in front of my altar and turned away as I was still praying—I just wanted to get the hell out of the clothes I had on and be done with the day. The sun was down now, and I went to dinner with some friends who were in from out of town to work a tattoo convention. At dinner we had a good time laughing and talking. We were all exhausted from our various days, but we went to a tattoo convention party out of obligation and it was there that I saw several people who were mutual friends of Mark’s and mine. I noticed again how no one really had anything good to say about him. I figured they had been humoring me since our break-up and maybe they had. It’s weird, but I never clued in before how everyone makes jokes about his typical lack of responsibility. Dirt bag. 

     On the off chance that someone were to address me, I would immediately know our association because of what name he used.  Margie, from the underground Texas Hold 'Em games, Jill, the strip club or from when I first started escorting in Austin and then I became Jayne or if they call me Nina that tells me they know me when I ran the escort service and modeling studio in Houston and now I'm sometimes Jayne and sometimes Jill – it depends on when they met me.     

     Of course when the client would show up at my place or I at his I would recognize him with no problem.  But out in public, it's a different situation.  What we do is so secret that in my mind it doesn't even exist before or after our appointment.   

     I’ve had so many occupations over the years that involved secret associations that I always want to be careful and not rat anybody out! Cocktail waitress, stripper, underground poker game girl and dealer, madame, escort, mistress, Domme.  I've done an excellent job of living in the shadows.  

This is a journal entry I wrote March 30, 2009.  I found this in my computer today and had completely forgotten I had ever written it…  I had just broken up with someone who I thought was the love of my life a few weeks before I wrote this.  The “love of my life” is an alcoholic who had been a good friend and drinking buddy before we started dating.  At the time of this writing in 2011 we are really great friends again and actually just hung out in New Orleans this past weekend.  I write about Sean and acknowledge his being sober because I thought alcoholism was the problem with my last relationship.  Of course it was a factor, but I found out just a few months ago that my escorting really bothered him, but he never felt he had the right to ask me to stop, so he sat by tolerating it and being miserable until I broke up with him for being such an outrageous drunk.   I did edit this a little for the sake of clarity for you, my dear readers.

     It’s Sunday and I’m at Laguardia waiting on my plane back to Austin.  I am over NYC!  Any how that’s a rant for another time.  What’s on my mind now is Sean – wow – what a hottie, what a sweetie and sober!  Since we met at SxSW we’ve been having fun flirting, talking on the phone and texting and it’s been great.  He and his band are back home in Seattle now and we made plans for me to fly up there to visit him in a couple of weeks.   When I first met him in Austin he asked me what I did and I told him that I was a Dominatrix.  While that wasn’t a lie, it wasn’t the whole truth, so now in my mind, it is a lie.   At the end of that week, I had to go to NYC to work and it was then while I was up there seeing clients that I told him that I was an escort.  Since he’s a newly sober guy and I respect that, I didn’t want there to be a lie between us.  At first he was really shocked and fumbled over his words when he was trying to respond to me.  Then he said, “Well, I’m a dirtbag rock-n-roller, so, who am I to judge, yeah, I’m okay with this.”    Then he called me later that night and we talked for a while and he told me he wasn’t comfortable with it after all and I should’t come to Seattle.  I told him I understood and I appreciated that he called me and was honest with me.   Then he told me he was hesitant to tell me not to come because he wanted to see me, but he wasn’t sure if it was good for his emotional well-being.  

     We talked some more and he told me he really liked me and hadn’t felt so close to someone so quickly in a long time and hated to pass up the opportunity to get to know me.  He told me part of him was turned on and found it really exciting and thought it would be cool to have someone in another city who would be relaxed about him seeing other people and it could be a fun adventure.  I agreed with him and told him that I wanted to always be honest with him and if he had any questions to ask me.  I also told him that I was very comfortable with what I did and I made no apologies for how I lived my life.   He was a little taken aback.  Maybe he thought I might feel some shame?  He asked me some questions and then said hell yeah come on!  

     What he asked me or rather said to me was, “I want to know that I’m not going to get AIDS or some other disease from having sex with you.”  Although, its a legitimate question, the way he said it surprised and insulted me a little.  He had every right to have concerns about getting an STD, just as anyone who has sex with someone for the first time might.  I knew he was only asking me because I’m an escort and  not because I’m a sexually active woman.  It had never come up prior to my disclosing my occupation. I told him that dating an escort was his best bet against getting STDs because we were ALWAYS safe and got tested on a regular basis and I wasn’t a street-walker, so I wasn’t fucking any ol’ swinging dick who rolled by to see me.  I tried not to feel defensive when I asked him when was the last time he was tested for STD’s.  He sheepishly admitted that he never had been.  Then we talked some more and things were good again.  He sent me a sweet text the next morning and called me and was so nice and awesome and then we talked for an hour that night.  He was so excited and talked to me about places in Seattle he wanted to take me since I had never been.  Then I didn’t hear from him all the next day and I texted him that night and told him I had been hoping to hear from him and he called me right away and told me he had been moving all day.  We talked about the weather and how he hoped it would be good when I came up there, and there was no excitement in his voice.  He was tired from moving and I understand, but I’m new in his life and I want him super excited every time he thinks of me!  Now, I’m feeling very insecure because I think he’s cooled off a bit now that he knows I’m an escort.  

      I'd been mulling over the Sean situation all day and wanted to get my mind on something else.  I had a multi-hour appointment with this new client that I was sure was interesting because he was articulate in his emails and was a television writer.  For two solid hours we sat on his couch, sipping some mediocre wine while he told me he was in love with this other escort who was married and had an idiot for a husband and he didn’t understand why she stayed married to him.  He had begun this “affair” with this married escort and felt confused and lonely and upset.  He wanted her to leave her loser husband, quit her job and move in with him.   And I thought my situation had the potential for complications!   As I was listening to this guy complain about this woman, it was at that moment I KNEW that I sincerely did not want to put up with someone else’s bullshit feelings about what I do – at all – ever.  

     It’s very stressful for to worry about someone else's oscillating feelings about my being an escort.  I don’t want to deal with someone else changing his mind about being in a relationship with me after I’m emotionally invested.  I don’t want to be wondering like I was yesterday.   I was upset and distracted because I didn’t hear from him.  I may have been being paranoid, but I felt like he wasn’t contacting me because he had changed his mind about seeing me and maybe he had and then changed it back again when he saw my text.  I know its still a possibility that he will change his mind and because of that I feel ambivalent and have distanced myself.  Maybe I just shouldn’t go…why should I if he’s not totally into me?  I want him to call me and text me pictures and adorable notes and I want to be excited like I was before, like he was before.  What the heck have I started here?  I should follow my first instinct and stay excited and go and keep it light and be adored and have fun in a new city.  I’ll let him treat me like a queen and have some fun!  

     As I was resolving all of this, the client is still going on about this other escort.  I interrupted him and asked him if he were paying her or if they were dating and he said a little of both.  I told him that if he was paying her they weren’t dating.  He protested and I said something to the effect of  “Naw, don’t listen to me, what would I know about being a prostitute? What would I know about having men pay me to spend time with them and then want to act like they own me?"  If you are paying a woman to spend intimate time with you then you are not dating. Maybe that was rude, but I was tired of hearing him go on and on about something so pointless and just stupid and it did shut him up.  We go into his bedroom and finish our appointment.  While I was getting off of his bed, he tries to act cute and coy and talk me into staying longer so he can give me a walking tour of his neighborhood and so we can have sex again and he wants to do all of this without paying me for it.  I told him if I stayed without his paying me, then we'd be dating and I didn't date clients.

     I leave and go back to my hotel and think some more about Sean.  We’ll see how he acts with me this week.  I can always change my mind and last minute if I want.  Part of me wants to give up escorting to date a great guy like I think he might be, but I need a big incentive to give up what I have.  What does he have to offer me that’s any better than what I have right now?   I need to always remember that.  He doesn’t hold all the cards; I have at least half the deck…

    I thought he was trying to be polite by taking me around and not just going straight to his house.  We had a nice brunch and drank coffee and I kept thinking how I just wanted to get him alone!  I soon realized he was taking me to all of these places where he knew people.  We went to the record store and then the music store and then some book store.  He introduced me to the guys who worked there.  I was flattered I guess, but also annoyed.  Really? Showing me off instead of taking me home and doing me like we’d been talking and texting about for the past 3 weeks?   I know I can be impatient and unlady-like at times so I rolled with it, what else could I do.  I liked this guy!

     We got back to his house which was very nice and we made love like for real made love.  I hadn’t been with someone besides a client while sober in a really long time.  I’ve either had at least a glass of wine or been hungover when in a dating situation, so to have sober sex with someone I was hot for was amazing.  It was still light outside and he is 15 years younger than I am and he looked good naked.  He had several tattoos that I had’t seen even in the naked pics he’d been texting me so that was hot, too.   When he was in me and on top of me we looked into each others’ eyes and I smiled and he smiled back.  

     After that first time, the sex was good, but the rest of the weekend he seemed tentative.  He wasn’t really into – I don’t know how to put it – going at it.  He wasn’t into doing it hard and fast when the situation called for that.   It made me feel as it he were holding back.  I love slow and tender, but that’s not what we were doing, it was somewhere in between and kinda lackluster.   My ex had passion for days, real unrelenting passion. When I was with him I felt like he was giving me everything he had, everything.  He looked and acted so exposed when we had sex, we were the only people in the world and we belonged to each other completely.   I wanted that with Sean.  Our conversations were still great and we were having fun and I kept reminding myself that he was newly sober – just a few months – and was probably struggling with that and I was a hooker and he knew it.  I’d only be kidding myself if I didn’t think that mattered to him or to me.     

      We went out to a club that night to see a show and I met some of his friends and that was fun at times.  He had been a drunk and a coke head and he still acted like a coke head when we were in public.  It was hard for me because he was scattered and everywhere at once and he would leave me with his friends to get up on stage and then go talk to people and since he had just gotten back from tour everybody kept coming over to talk to him at our table and find out who I was.  It was stupid.  I didn’t care about being seen with him and  I didn’t need  to hear people praising him and atta boying him.  I wanted to spend time alone getting to know him, letting him get to know me.  Perhaps a romantic dinner or even dinner with another couple would have been nice.  I soon found out that wasn’t why I was there.  I was there as a prop, I guess. I was new and some hot chick that no one had ever seen.  I was someone smart and older who knew how to act and dress and wasn’t a drunken mess.  Hurray for me.  I’m not big on bars and nightclubs anyway, so going to out to sit in a loud dark crowded room with strangers yelling at me and me having to yell back was less than ideal.   After that went home and listened to records with two of his guy friends from AA.   I thought that was another stupid move on his part and then we went to bed.  

     I remember being sad and glad to leave Seattle and I went back once more and visited him again.  I went that one more time just to be sure he was as selfish and immature as I thought he was, to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything and to make sure I wan’t just being my typical impatient self.  He was, I wasn’t and maybe I was, but who cares.  

     Over the next two months he went on tour again  and went to Europe and was really good about texting emailing calling me.  The first week of June I finally broke it off when I realized that all the conversations we had were all about him and how he was having trouble with one situation or another and I realized that most all of our conversations (past and present) were about him and not his hopes and dreams or interesting or meaningful things that are going on, but  him complaining and venting about money, his schedule or his health or various band obligations.  I was really put off that he would tell me one minute that basically, I'm a long distance booty call and the next I'm supposed to listen to him like a devoted girlfriend.  I realized how unfair and selfish it was of him – he didn’t want to give me the good stuff, but was willing to dump the negative on me.  And then he shared with me how he’s shown one of the guys in the band a picture of my boobs that I had sent to him!  That was a real turn-off for me.  

     So, I had a conversation with him about how I felt that he was being distant with me and he told me that when he thought about what I “did”  it made him “crazy.”   So he had distanced himself, but didn’t see anything wrong with that.  So I sent him an email that said:  I've been thinking about the last "real" conversation we had.  During that conversation you let me know that you weren't going to let yourself get involved with me emotionally because you weren't comfortable with what I do for a living.  I was okay with that for a couple of days and then I started to think about how little sense that makes.  If we have an open relationship what difference does it make what I'm doing when we're not together?  

     You've shown me that its not safe for me to share with you, you don't want to get to know me as a person, you won't let me get to know you, geographically you aren't close enough for me to enjoy your physical company, so what does being in a relationship with you have to offer me?  or you? 

     I'm not upset or mad at all, I wasn't even going to say anything and let this die off, but you've kept up with me for some reason – you don't show any real interest or emotion in your emails or in the last few phone conversations we've had.  You don't seem into me at all.  I don't know what, if any thoughts you have on this – maybe you don't care – I know you're busy, but I didn't want to keep up some front or not answer your emails.” 

     He wrote me back:

 “I am sorry that you feel this way.  It's too bad really.  I enjoyed what we've had going and am sad to see it end.  It is very difficult to communicate proper through the internet and especially when I get very limited access.  I'm not mad about this or hurt either.  It's been exciting and I wouldn't take anything back.   I could go into detail about how difficult it is to get one’s life in order to leave the country for 6 weeks but I guess that would just sound selfish.  I'll miss you and often do.”

     While that was nice, he missed the point – he enjoyed it because he was getting everything he wanted without having to give anything in return.  It was like being with some of my clients but without geting paid.  I wonder if would have acted that way if he hadn’t known I was an escort?   

     I felt a lot of anger and I remember being so mad at him for being what at the time I thought was so selfish.  This time I felt anger and sadness, but not towards him.  All the anger I felt was towards me because I put myself in a situation that was so obviously doomed.  It’s put me in this super heavy introspective mode even more so than usual.  Even more so than writing my book ever did.  All of this new thinking has me going back and reading my book again and rewriting some of it in a more honest way.  Not that I was purposely being dishonest before, but now I’m seeing things differently, with more clarity and now I’ve found that I have more courage.  All of this has come from being interviewed on the radio recently, tweeting and writing to you here my dear readers.  I’m going to keep on reading my old journals and posting the entries here that I think can be interesting to you.  And new writings will come from all of this as I try to sort things out for myself.  Thank you for your continued support and awesome comments!

     Over the years I’ve had only one client that I was really attracted to in every way and if he’d asked me out on a real date I would have said yes.  He was about 12 years younger than I and a lawyer in Houston.  He graduated from a very prestigious school in the northeast and was one of the smartest men I’d ever met.  He was so dang cute, too!  I had his number saved in my phone as  “cutie pie.”  This guy was about 6’2”, light brown hair, green eyes, big dick.  Everything a girl could want! *sigh*  I loved being with him, I loved kissing him. He was always in a dress shirt and I loved the way it felt when he would hug me and hold me, and the way he smelled.  He felt lean and strong, but not too lean, or too strong. He was always eager but a little tentative and I like that in a man.  I like knowing that he wants me, but is nervous about how to proceed with me and then just goes for it.  He has respect for me as a woman and as a person.  Even though he was seeing me as a client, he was still genuinely concerned about whether or not I wanted him.  

     In my line of work  having a guy all concerned about whether or not I’m “enjoying” myself sexually can be annoying because nine times out of ten, I’m not.  I never go to an appointment with a client because I want or expect to enjoy myself.  I go there because it’s my job, I’m being paid.  I think some guys know that a sexually experienced, attractive, fit woman isn’t going to enjoy their company because they are unhappy old in spirit and boring and just want to hear me tell them that I’m having a good time.  Most know better and are happy that a pretty woman or any woman is there and leave me alone and let me do my routine.  Writing that made me laugh because it sounds bitchy, but it’s true!  

     But then you have William, he’s young, handsome and smart and hung and when a guy like that wants you to want him, it makes everything a-okay.  

     The first time I saw him was when he came into my modeling studio late one night to see one of my escorts, Sunny.  All of us girls were a-twitter!  We were so surprised to see a guy like him at our little West Houston whorehouse!  Guys like that didn’t usually come to a place like this.  Some hot guys would come in every now and again, but those guys knew they were hot, so that automatically lowered them a notch in our world.  But a real guy, a sweet, genuine, datable hot guy – they never came in!

     I would talk to him on the phone booking appointments with other escorts quite a bit over the next year and a half and we developed a very cursory friendship.  Later when I moved to Austin and became and escort myself and saw his name pop up in my email inbox, it took my breath away.  His email asked if I happened to be the former owner of a modeling studio and that I reminded him of someone he’d had a crush on for some time.  His email was charming and inviting.   I saw him right away and our sessions were passionate and real and fun.  He had a sweetness about him that I really liked, but some times it would take him a few minutes to warm up once he got to my place or me to his.  During that few minutes he could be really cold.   

     I would see him off and on over the next four years.  Whenever our visits tapered off it was because he had sworn he was going to stop seeing escorts because he felt it wasn’t good for him that he needed to date regular women. Then a few months later I’d get a text from him telling me he wanted to see me.  When we would eventually meet, he would have just broken up with someone he’d been dating, some escort.   I would always gently tease him about the perils of dating hookers.

     Last time I saw him was in Houston this past Thanksgiving.  We’d been in contact, but I hadn’t seen him as a client in over a year.  I still really liked him and was interested in rekindling our friendship and even seeing where a dating relationship might take us.  I figured he might be too from the flirty tone of his emails and texts. Since I was going to be in town, a week before I showed up, I asked him to meet me for a drink.  He sent me some cheerful flirty texts in response and then showed up over an hour late and was a little rude to me once he arrived.  It surprised me.  I couldn’t remember what I had seen in him, his eyes didn’t seem that green and now he had a little belly.  He seemed angry in general and angry with me.   I made the best of the next hour we spent together thinking he’d take it down a notch and he did, but I didn't find him to be charming at all. 

     I know that over the years, especially this past 9 months, I’ve come to terms with who and what I am and it seems that he’s angry and upset with me for that.  He didn’t seem happy for me and my personal successes, my upcoming book, my podcasts, interviews, videos.  Maybe I was looking at him with a much more critical eye because I was looking at him as a potential mate and not someone I’d only be spending a few paid hours with here and there.  Wow, getting paid sure does improve the personalities of some people.   Oh well…haha

A strange series of events introduced me to a friend, Carlos, who was a Santero, voodoo priest, witch doctor, whatever you want to call him.  We’d been friends for years and for the first time, I was going to Hammond, LA to visit him.  I was going  because he had called to tell me the spirits needed to talk to me urgently.  I quickly  booked a flight and called Carlos’s  boyfriend, Peter, to make arrangements for them  to pick me from the airport.      

I arrive in New Orleans on time  and then wait 45 minutes for Los and Peter to pick me up.   I couldn’t wait to get outside into the sweltering heat.  I was sick of freezing on the plane and then again in the over air-conditioned  airport.  This was shortly after Katrina and the  passenger pick up area was noticeably empty.    It was  me, a guy in a hard hat who catcalled me and an attractive slender black gentleman.   Los called to spew his typically long-winded empty excuses, which I interrupted to say, “When are you getting here and what are you driving?”    

He very appropriately said, “A piece of shit blue car.” 

The car pulls up; Los gets out gives me a sweaty hug and helps me with my luggage.  I notice that the car is a small 4-door sedan with all of the windows down and contains tall overweight Peter in the driver’s seat, a large teenage boy and his large 9-month pregnant teenage girlfriend in the back seat.   As we’re carefully fitting my stuff in the trunk, which of course is full of junk, the pretty slender black man walks up to the car.   His name is  Michael and he is also supposed to get his person and his stuff in this car.   I’m naturally wondering how all of us are going to fit in this car.  I’m wearing tight jeans, heels and an expensive flimsy blouse.

As we’re fitting our stuff in the trunk Los mentions renting a car, but since I had only had cash and knew there was no way for me to rent a car I just nodded and said sure, go ahead.  There was some talk of where a rental place might be which I thought was odd since we were at an airport, but I said nothing and the conversation just trailed off…

We somehow manage to squeeze four of us in the back seat built for two.  Britney, the expectant mother is in the front seat upon my insistence.  They were going to have skinny me sit up front  and have 3 big people (Los weighs close to 300 pounds) big teenage boy and Michael in the back.  

So we’re in the car and I’m practically sitting sideways with one butt cheek on Los’s stomach and Michael is squeezed against the boy…this is when it’s announced there’s no a/c in the car. We hurtled on down the road thru Kenner and some other small bullshitty Louisiana towns.  It’s hot and gross and Los needs to floss his teeth, but I’m glad to see him and the car is breezy so I don’t mind too much.  At some point during the 90-minute car ride I’m told of plans to go back into New Orleans the next night to “act foolish” all over downtown and Bourbon Street.  This day was Monday and both Michael and me have Wednesday early afternoon flights so Los suggests we get a hotel for Tuesday night.   A few minutes later it is casually announced that there is no air conditioning at the house.   But that’s okay, because there’s no hot water there either.  

The house is Peter’s mom’s house.  In the 1970’s this was a grand sprawling ranch-style home heavily insulated and thickly carpeted and thoroughly designed to have the air conditioner fucking cranked way down low, baby!  In mid-September 2007 in Louisiana it was a pressure cooker.  Peter‘s mom still lives in the house; she is an unemployed deeply depressed chain-smoker who recently underwent spinal fusion and knee replacement surgery.  Also in the house are Peter’s 30 year-old sister who hasn’t had a job in four years and her weirdo fiancé who does have a job and a new truck.  

We finally arrive at said house and it is located on a really beautiful piece of land out in the middle of NOWHERE.  I could not get steady phone reception and the only internet connection was a very dicey dial-up.  As we pull up in the driveway I see five cars in the gravel driveway’s parking area.  Only one of them runs and that’s the aforementioned truck.  The piece of shit blue car the six of us are in is named, Gloria.  Gloria strands us in the Wal-Mart parking lot later that night.  

We extract ourselves from the car and Michael and I get our bags and take them through a side door into a garage that had been very nicely converted into a living room.  This living room is connected to the rest of the house by a now enclosed breezeway.   For us to use the bathroom we have to go through the breezeway, into the kitchen, pass through a smoky living room and down a creepy dark hall.  

The living room where we took our bags is large enough for a couch, a chaise, two comfy chairs, a dining room table and an entertainment system.  Oh, and a 100 gallon fish tank that is home to a big black snake named, Isis.  The room has six windows only two of which are open because they are the only ones with screens.  It isn’t so hot at this time as much as it is stuffy.   There are no ceiling fans or any fans at all.  All the furniture is covered in heavy cloth, so the only place to sit somewhat comfortably is a hard cane dining room chair.  

I ask if there are any fans available to bring into this room.  Peter says yes and goes to get one.  He puts it in a window with no screen and it’s love bug season so the room is soon filled with their once-mating carcasses and those of a lot of other bugs.   At least now we have three open windows.  I soon find out that this room is where, Los, Peter, prego-Britney and large teen boy, Cedric LIVE.  This is their part of the house.  This is where Michael and I will be living and sleeping for the next two nights and three days.  Los and Peter sleep outside in a refurbished tool shed.   Mom won’t allow them to sleep together in the house.  

Peter and Los invited Britney and Cedric to live in Peter’s mom’s house with them.  Neither Peter nor Los have jobs and neither do the able-bodied teens.  Los does spiritual readings for people from time to time and he is truly gifted.  Peter is a very talented artist.  He painted the current concrete living room floor to look like over-sized Terrazzo tiles and it really looks like the tiles.  He has his paintings all around his mom’s house and has done murals and family portraits.  He is extremely talented.  I have no idea how they know the teens or why they were invited to live there.  I wasn’t interested enough to strike up a conversation with either of them.   

That night Los is supposed to “throw shells” (conduct a spiritual reading) for Michael and me.  What actually happens is he gets going talking about nothing. I try to recall what he talks about realize that it’s really nothing – lots of tediously long, rambling fairly pointless words that I guess at some point form a story or two.  He has so much wisdom and knowledge and it gets trampled by  the one-man drag queen show he puts on wherever two or more are gathered.   He excessively refers to men as “bitches and “girls” which is not only dumb but had me completely confused.  He  told us about the time he laughed so hard his “uterus nearly fell out.”    He also kept mentioning  his “pussy.”  After the 20th time I let him know that he did not have a uterus and he did not have a pussy – he had an asshole, nothing more.  

Finally, at 3am, I’ve had enough and tell everyone I’m tired and to get off of my bed, aka the couch.  They think I’m kidding and I assure them I’m not.  They take me seriously enough to leave and I fell asleep pretty quickly.  Throughout the night I could hear Isis slithering around in her tank and I was anything but confident these schmuck's had the top secured.  I got up a few times in the creepy night to make sure it was and even put a heavy ashtray on one of the corners.  At least that way I'd have some warning if she got out.  Despite all of that I got a surprisingly decent night’s sleep.   

The next day, I made Los stay focused and he gave me an incredible reading.  At the beginning of these readings you have an opportunity to silently ask the spirits questions.  I asked them to tell me what they wanted me to know.  Being intuitive myself, I didn’t hear much from him I didn’t already know, but some times its nice to hear  them through someone else.  I sit there for Michael’s reading and then I go outside to meditate and enjoy a slice of solitude that I so desperately crave.

We don’t go into town that night because Gloria’s starter quit.  Home-girl also goes into labor so they borrow weirdo fiancés truck to take her to the hospital.  Over the past two days I learn that this whole crew is broke, so I hand over $60 in gas money because I didn’t want them stranded or worry about getting stranded.  

So, I gave them the $60 and no one said thank you.  I didn’t give it  for the thanks but it bothered me that no one offered any.  I thought  how very important it is in life to be grateful, to be thankful, to say thank you.  I think that is the reason they have nothing and I KNOW it will be the reason they remain broke.  The night I arrived and we all went out to dinner; I  picked up the tab for my hosts.  I noticed they didn’t say thank you then either. 

I thought about the times that I had nothing and how I felt and I remember a distinct feeling of shame.  I was ashamed of not having “enough” to take care of my responsibilities.  I was ashamed that I put myself into a situation where I didn’t have enough.  I contemplated that for the rest of the time I was there, it helped me to not be angry with them.  I was really annoyed with Los making plans for us, to go to New Orleans and getting a hotel and drinking.  How was he hoping to pull that off with no money?  I realized Michael and I were viewed as meal tickets, but I pretended I didn’t know they were broke.  If they wanted anything else from me, they needed to ask for it.  My days of voluntarily and freely giving to them were over – that was a cool thing for me to realize.  I made a stand – it was a silent stance, but a commitment nonetheless!  

The next day, Wednesday, is the day Michael and I have flights leaving New Orleans at 1:30PM which means we need to leave the house at 11am at the latest.  At 9 that morning some guy was supposed to come to the house and change out Gloria’s  starter.  Eleven am quickly came around and no guy, no ride to the airport.  We later do get to the airport and of course miss our flights. Once on the plane, I finally let myself be really mad at them, really I was more disappointed.    I sent Los a text when I got home to let him know I made it back safely.   It’s been six weeks now and I haven’t heard a peep out of those assholes, excuse me, pussies.