My cousin, my escort
Paying for sex is a lot more complicated when you’re family
It’s amazing what little details a person notices when they’re trying to think of something, anything, to take their mind off of a stressful situation.
As Tony sat in an unfamiliar bed roughly an hour away from his home, his brain scanned the room around him looking to find something to focus on besides the lump in his throat, his elevated heart rate and the thoughts about why he was there.
He could hear the low hum of a muted television to his left. A half hour or so ago, he was watching a replay of a fairly boring episode of Modern Family and trying, unsuccessfully, not to stare at the clock on his cell phone.
To his right, there was a hint of an orange or yellowish light coming through his hotel room’s blinds. It looked like the headlights of a passing car.
“Was that her? Is she here?,” he wondered to himself as he got out of bed and looked through the blinds. “No. It’s not her. Not yet.”
Even though Tony knew this was a tourist hotel, and assumed it would be busy on a week night, he looked around at the cars driving in and out of the parking lot around him and couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps this hotel was TOO busy.
Maybe he made a mistake booking it? What if someone he knew saw him check in?
The questions swirled through his mind as the minutes passed. He was nervous, and with good reason.
After 38 years of leading what some would call a “boring” life—-one where a person goes to college, meets their partner, gets a job, gets married and buys a house—-Tony was about to do something he never thought he’d have the courage to do: He was going to pay for sex.
For over a decade, he’s had this particular fantasy and, in just under 20 minutes, he was set to experience it for the first time.
Whenever he pictured this moment, he assumed he’d be excited. He thought he’d find it erotic. But now that it’s here, all he can think about is finding a way not to throw up.
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Three hours earlier, in a room far warmer and more welcoming than Tony’s, Cassie stood in her kitchen and had only one thing on her mind: Text notifications can be a real pain in the ass.
Standing in her kitchen wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and a pair of black leggings, Cassie had just finished washing the last of her dishes from dinner the night before when she heard the familiar buzz of her phone going off.
She was always conflicted when the sound came.
On the one hand, that little black box on the counter that she feels chained to at times makes it possible for her to live in this house. If she doesn’t answer a potential inquiry fairly quickly, someone else might and when you’re working in the sex industry, the only thing more frustrating than being on the clock all day is being on the clock all day and having nothing to show for it.
This lead was promising. This might actually happen.
Finally.
Thumbing her password into her phone, Cassie jumped over to her email and saw the reply she was waiting for.
It was him. It was Roger.