Hi Antonia,

I have been dating a beautiful, intelligent sex worker for few months. By sex worker I mean a woman who does Pro Domme sessions and gives handjobs sometimes.  She’s also been a stripper for years. She mentioned that she had wanted to land an internship or job within her field but recently decided that she wanted the time flexibility of sex work while she’s in school. She’s been paid for other kinds of sex and scenarios with men in the past—sometimes as her main job. She’s pretty forthcoming about what she does with her clients.

 Sex work seems to not be a big deal for her. She complains about work like anybody else does. 

Mandy Morbid by Romy Suskin

I am pretty ok with it but she is planning to intensify some of the work she’s doing.  I want to be supportive but there’s a part of me that knows I will pull back from her when she intensifies things.  As we get closer, it’s tapping into some issues for me.  Even though, it impacts me indirectly, I still worry about things like: How will her work affect our sex life?  If we become more serious, how do I tell people what she does?  Is there a reflection on me that I date a sex worker?  I wonder about the energy she gives others and if that means less for me.

 I also wonder about exactly what happens for her in sessions, even though she seems fine after sessions. It’s also scary to me that a few months ago, she said she didn’t want to have sex for money and now she’s changing her mind. I’ve heard it’s hard to stop doing sex work.  I wonder if it’ll be tough for her to pursue the work she wants to do in her field. That she’ll lose sight of what she’s working towards—and if she’ll ever want to have a normal job. 

 The other day she mentioned she was getting more money than usual from a client and I assumed that meant in exchange for something. Since then, I’ve been lingering on her hands, mouth, ass, cunt and wondering a little what happens. I don’t ask too many questions but told her I was open to hearing more and would understand if she didn’t want to fuck after a session.  I don’t feel jealous or anything, its just on my mind more. I also wonder during sex if it’s real or if she’s performing? Does she do the same thing for men? Could any guy with enough money fuck her? How do I feel about that?

Zoey Holloway by Romy Suskin

She told me she’s in love with me and I think she’s hoping for a long-term relationship.  I haven’t said it back even though I really like her and I feel great with her. I know I’m trying to protect myself and I also worry that once I am attached, I’m afraid she’s going to tell me that she wants to have a fling with someone else. I feel emotionally guarded with her.  I think that has less to do with sex work and more because I’m afraid of getting hurt.  I haven’t really let myself be open to anyone since my last breakup.  I feel like I’m falling in love too but there’s a part of me that that just won’t let myself surrender to it.  I’m writing you to get some advice. Do I move forward or stop before we both get hurt?

Thanks, Proceeding with Caution in Austin

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers

within yourself that you have built against it.” -Rumi

Dear Austin,

While reading your letter, I was happy that I identified with both of you very strongly. Like your love interest, I have done the same work had periods where I considered doing more or less in order to conserve time to pursue my chosen career with mixed results.  Newsflash: Sex work is very time-consuming and draining—like any nine-five. There are also countless unpaid hours used to advertise and screen clients, prepare and recover from sessions. Although the skill set used is terribly useful in any career (a book could be written here on the skills required to do sex work) it can’t be listed on a resume or CV so when I dove into the workforce, I started at ground zero in a limping economy and with protracted gaps in my resume. No one is impressed with the letters after my name or my fancy undergrad experience. In case your girl reads this, I recommend getting a kick ass volunteer job and an internship while she still has the gusto to do both sex work and school. Those look good on a resume.

Like you, I have guarded myself against being hurt in tricky little ways and big obvious ways. In relationships, I removed myself piece by piece until my feelings cooled off and finally, my lover left because I froze. I’ve been frightened too. Internally, I constructed a maximum-security blockade to prevent love from penetrating. My own sadness only made my barriers fiercer. I’ve turned away many good men. Scared off others. Only now am I beginning to melt.  Check it out: everyone has been hurt. We are all naked and melting because in each other’s presence, we want to feel.

Like your girl, I was super okay after jobs. I even asked people close to me if I acted weird or cold. I wanted to know if the work made me numb or anxious. The report was that I seemed perfectly normal. Sex work just wasn’t that big of a deal. Or it didn’t appear to be on the surface. It was an easy numb place to hide and make money for a long time.

Falling in love is a big deal, especially for women who have a lot of access to free floating desire at all times. Falling in love is the difference between performing a role with a client and being emotionally present with a lover. It’s terribly inconvenient when you discover your heart is a tender pink fish when you thought it was a stone. I’m not suggesting you feel flattered. I’m saying this is fucking major.The rope of love is being thrown to you. Grab it and swing.

O by Romy Suskin

Be brave and hold each other with tenderness.  Don’t take on the shame and stigma from her job. Be a stand for her. Trust that she’s making a sound decision for her life unless she says otherwise. Give her the dignity of her own experience. Don’t participate in the shame. You don’t have to. Tell people the truth. This is the truth: “What does your GF do?”

    “She’s in the adult entertainment industry.” I recently read an essay (The Sun: “Faithful over a Few Things” by Tarn Wilson) about a woman who visits a ninety-two year old woman every week. But the essay was really about how women have cared for each other over time forever. It inspired me to think about the ways women care for one another and how we can be more courageous and less self-serving.

    Look, I’m getting all touchy-feely. Did I mention I am melting? What I want to ask you is this: Who cut out your tongue?

You say your girl is forthcoming. Ask her things. Ask her about what she’s doing in sessions and ask for what you need or want to feel safe and good? Get tested together (Women’s Center in your area:http://www.austinwomenshealth.com/). Ask about the acts she’s doing and what they mean to you. Think about why some acts bother you and others don’t. She sounds game, smart, fun, honest and into you. Why not ask her what her experience is with clients and if she feels like she’s performing with you? Give yourself the dignity of your own experience. Be sad. Be turned on. Be scared. Be inquisitive. Be supportive.

Don’t walk on eggshells. Powerful sexy women loathe that. Your questions, concerns and fears are all valid. Sex work also provides great fodder for fantasies that could be explored with her.

Bring all of this to her. Bring  yourself to her. Talk to the woman.

Grab the rope.

Xoxoxo

Antonia

     My last apartment in San Francisco was on Folsom Street. It was a dark, barn of a Victorian with an unfinished wood floor that collected dirt.  I swept the floors a lot and mopped, but the result was an antiseptic Pine Sol smell that seeped in and stayed.  

     My room was robin egg blue, nearly turquoise, a relentlessly cheerful sky in a wet grey city. I painted my fake fireplace lemon-meringue-pie-topping yellow (sugar, egg whites and Vanilla colored). My impulse was to brighten the dark cave room with touches of muted sunflower light. Later, yellow became the intrusive warning sign of cancer and misery. The astonished yellow blaze of death. Every cracked yoke for the next three years reminded me of my mother’s neighbor with the chickens—the one who noticed her turn yellow. I found the brutish yellow of rebirth. Sometimes sadness has the last word.

Appolo by Romy Suskin

My one small window had a view of a concrete nook—the space between my house and the apartment building next door. On the weekends, the neighbors screamed at each other in one high shrill pitch. I wondered how they could breathe while screaming like that: a screeching yellow cry for a last hit of crack. Even with earplugs, I heard their chainsaw voices. They gave me recurring sound dreams. A furious thwack, thwack—the beating of wings.

I’d always wanted a red kitchen but was told red would ignite fights. I painted the kitchen anyway. Chose a feisty bright red and put up gingham curtains to match. In my red kitchen, I collected vintage mugs and overpriced 70’s dishes from Valencia Street shops. My kitchen was a place of whistling kettles and negotiation—my first paid date. I also cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for a dozen of my friends. One September, my dad called at 6.a.m. and told me to get out of the city and hide somewhere quiet. His breaths were short and his voice stern. I didn’t go anywhere. I sat on the floor and watched the twin towers collapse from my dark wooden floor.

A by Romy Suskin

I get so excited when I receive Rumpus Letters in the mail. I rip them open like a love letter from a secret admirer. Do you subscribe to Rumpus Letters in the Mail? The latest one was from Sari Botton. I love her patient prose and raw honesty. In her letter, she wrote that she doesn’t like children or pets. Sari Botton and I have discussed the risks inherent in writing memoir. When writing memoir or even autobiographical fiction, someone always gets hurt. Ask Justin Torres. 

I’ve heard it’s best to write in a way that protects people in your life. That they may recognize themselves but it’s not good if their friends recognize them (Stephen Elliott’s Daily Rumpus, entry 4/19/12).

            This isn’t always possible. For instance, I wrote an essay about sex work. The essay described a place where I worked. In point of fact, I gave handjobs for cash.  The place, the job and the women—all heavily coded and insular. In my essay, I defined our sex worker lingo and the job. It wouldn’t have mattered if I wrote that my boss was a Hoopa Indian who bred Greyhounds in Malibu or a man who owned most of Walnut Creek because every single woman who has worked there knows what/whom I referred to.

            Another example: When my mother turned yellow, her friend noticed. The town where my mother died has a population of less than 30,000 people. If I wrote that a Latina woman who lived on a dairy farm noticed my mom’s yellow skin, every single one of my mom’s friends would know whom I meant. Some things cannot be veiled. Janet Malcolm in her book, “The Journalist and the Murderer” wrote about the role of the writer in a frank way. She claims “The journalist must do his work in a kind of deliberately induced state of moral anarchy” (Malcolm, 143). It’s not my job to recreate my subjects (I can’t), but to tell an emotional truth. It’s scary to piss people off, but it happens. I have the hate mail to prove it.

      I intended to write about financial terror. Tell you about a day last week when I stood in my kitchen on the reddish orange floor and lamented my college degrees and my subsequent three digits of debt. I yelled that I’m a loser and a financial hazard to my boyfriend—who is neither of those things.  

                           They are no so far apart: Financial terror and writing terror.

     My undergrad experience? It was so goddamn pristine. Pillars and fountains and grass fields in the middle of Oakland; fancy buildings from the 1800’s with wooden floors that creaked when I walked to classes.  The lady ghosts at Mills were rumored to float on the lawns holding chastity belts that they refused to wear. Our rocker brand of feminism challenged the laced and gloved, high-tea setting. I shaved my head and eyebrows. I pierced my face. It was Courtney Love feminism— angry miniskirts and femme clans. We wore fishnets and quoted Bell Hooks. Got pre-law degrees.

Antonia and Heather by Jamie Griffiths

In my Folsom Street apartment, I finished my Women’s Studies degree. When I did, my mom brought a green pot of African Lilies as a gift. I kept them alive for eight years. In my light blue room, I believed my fancy education would mean something. My degrees would make it easier to land a job with bennies.

“I’m startled awake from my yellow-fog denial with the sun in my eyes. Full of wonder. I have a memoir. It ends in a handjob parlor—my happy ending.”

“How old are you?” The cowboy guzzled a Bud Light and squinted at me through smoke. I was teetering towards geriatric stripper and I wondered if he knew it. I grinned at him anyway, because after a couple drinks he wouldn’t give a shit. He’d get a few dances. Hand over a stack of twenties—best case scenario.

            “You’d be correct in guessing I’m not nineteen,” I sassed, sipping a Diet Coke.

Ellenina by Romy Suskin

            “I just turned thirty-three, and am fast approaching my sexual prime. You should invest now while you still have a chance.” I slapped my ass to punctuate. I could really do with about five hundred bucks tonight. I had to send my rent in the mail to my landlords and it took a week.

            How old are you?  The age stigma didn’t apply to guys—a thing that made me want to pour my Diet Coke on his lap, instead of grinding on it.  His cigar smoke surrounded us when I moved far enough to see his face.

He could’ve been anywhere between forty and fifty-five. Southern men age faster than California men. They eat fried catfish and pralines, skip gym memberships and go fishing. They smoke non-stop, adding lines to their fat faces. It isn’t fair—I Iook at a biscuit and my thighs expand. I smell a cupcake and it adds an inch to my middle. Next time around, I want to be a tall, skinny man with the metabolism of a whippet. My mom, the expert baker taught me how to worship sugar.  I begged to lick her cookie dough bowls the minute I could talk. I couldn’t shovel sugar into my mouth fast enough. She nibbled Recess Peanut Butter cups every day of her slender life.

            When her body shriveled from the first cancer, I took refuge on the treadmill. It was the place my five miles of rage could soar without anyone pressing charges. Instead of punching strangers in the face, I ran from cancer. I wondered what the cowboy was running from. 

            “How many kids you got?” he asked me, looking at his beer.

            “None.” I shook my head. Inside Visions, time was swamp-slow and decrepit. But, I played like I was relaxed and just hanging out while mentally strategizing the best moment to bring up business.

            This wasn’t that time.

            I’d wait until he hit Bud Light number two. Zoey was on stage. A skinny blonde, pretty thing in pigtails, knee socks and white skirt. She danced to Bonnie Rait. We could play whatever music we wanted at Visions so I stripped to everything from Skinny Puppy to Ike Turner, unlike the clubs on Bourbon Street that insisted on upbeat top forty bullshit: Kings of Leon and Lady fucking Gaga. At Visions, we got to be edgy.  The cowboy gulped his next beer.

            “You eat Zapps potato chips?” he asked me.

            “Why? Do I smell like onion dip?” He chuckled. One of his arms sweeped around my hip.

            “I guess it’s your lucky night,” he said. It certainly was my lucky night. Considering the quality of conversation and the fact that I didn’t have a shotgun within reach. It was a lucky night for both of us.

            “I think they have those chips in the vending machine. You want some?”

I glanced across the room, next to the poker slots, where two men chain smoked. The vending machine was swathed in yellowish-green light. 

            “No need. You’re looking at the creator of Zapps potato chips.” He puffed up his chest like a rooster.

            “No kidding,” I grinned wide wanting to smash his beer bottle into my thirty-nine year old forehead. “Well, Mister Zapp, let’s get better acquainted.” I pointed to the VIP lap dancing area, where I could finally extract some dough.

            “I just got married, and I love pussy,” he said. Still jutting his chest out, he followed me into the room where I straddled him and offered my boobs like M&M’s to his open mouth.

            “You should move into my trailer,” he said. I considered this proposal carefully and imagined a greasy trailer with gingham curtains lodged in marsh. For a moment, I romanticized it. Then I pictured him barging in unannounced, while I was curled up with Lorrie Moore’s “Birds of America.”

            “Does it have wifi?”

            The place I stayed in Algier’s Point not only had wifi but a chi-machine: a funny plastic machine that plugged into the wall and wiggled my ankles for a timed five minutes.  Mom would’ve loved that chi machine. It was hypnotic, relaxing and soothed my lower back. It was just hippie dippy enough to make her laugh and say, “It’s silly but it feels good.” 

            On the sticky, red vinyl couch in the VIP room at Visions, I stood up, with my pussy inches from the cowboy’s face. His loneliness collided with mine in a strange smoky swirl, like Mom’s cookie dough, it was comforting and also made me sick. 

            The cowboy was the first in a string of big southern cahunas that talked to me about their jobs and golf games, tweaked my nipples, try to stick their fingers in my pussy, and give me hundreds of dollars. Every night I danced at Visions, I cleared anywhere from three hundred to a thousand bucks.

Algier's Levee

            I convinced customers that I was accessible, because I was. If they got smitten for twenty minutes or an hour-I was happy. They set up camp in the empty hole my mom left inside me.  When they were gone, I disappeared them and took my wad of cash back home to California. Then I’d go running again, hearing Mom’s voice and sweating out the cancer.