It is delusion at its finest. The men would like to think they are still desired, and the girls would like to think they aren’t whores. I want you to actually want me, they say. And you nod your head, pretending it’s not about the money – that you’d willingly let a balding, overweight, social inept man have his way with you. The moans that slip out of your mouth are genuinely for him, not for your ex-lover, whom you so dearly love. But somewhere in the midst of all the disgust and self-hatred, they do become for him. Somehow, you begin to desire it, and you can’t imagine a world outside of it. Maybe that’s why you can’t sleep with men you love. Sex is foreign to you. Sex is work. Sex is money. Sex isn’t fun. And when you try to break free, you realize that it’s a poison that has seeped into every pore of your being. That no matter how far you try to get it from it, the chain is still there, clasped tight around your ankle. You want it to be a distant memory, but somehow it haunts you constantly. Run all you want, but it will take you back eventually. Let’s patent that. Hunt the whore. You pay for the things you do, by the person you will become.
I’ve become what every parent fears when they realize you’re a girl. Is my baby going to become a whore? And they do everything to protect you from it. No make-up until you’re sixteen. No dating until you’re married. You can’t wear short skirts, wear a cardigan. No one says it. But it’s there, unspoken. And is it the ultimate failure of parenthood? You always wonder, what if I had a mother and a father? What if I was loved more? And whose fault is it. Someone didn’t teach you morals, someone didn’t teach you to be self-sufficient, I don’t know how to be an adult. Maybe that should be a class in middle school: How not to be a whore when you grow up. When your family says they’re always worried about you, this is why. Even if you don’t say it, it bleeds from the sadness in your eyes, your soft-spoken demeanor, the slices on your thighs. The vodka filled water bottles and extra glasses of red wine with dinner. We had a whole bottle, where did it go? The short dresses and flirtatious personality. Crying yourself to sleep at night. And your lovers they can tell too. A forty-minute blow job? Sure. I want to fuck you in the ass. Sure. I want to suck on your breasts until they bleed. Sure. Why? Anything for you. If you want it this badly, you should have it. Somewhere in all the perversion, you start to want it too. But you never really know if it’s you. You’re the epitome of dysfunction. What do you like? I don’t know. What turns on you? I don’t know. Does this feel good? Nothing feels good anymore.
You can sift through hundreds of pages of Google searches for reasons against being a sugar baby, an escort, maybe a prostitute (if you can admit that to yourself). Except for the possibility of rape and murder, you will not find a single article warning you about the consequences of such an action. Instead, you will find articles illustrating the sexually liberating, financial stability, ego-boosting opportunity. It’s a dark secret, but the minute you meet your first client, no one will tell you how it changes you forever. You are no longer the bright-eyed, happy and hopeful black haired girl smiling back at you. You are now deceitful, you are now distrustful, hateful, suspicious, and selfish. And you wonder if your father does this. Your peach glow has suddenly turned into a mucky black. Pretend all you want it doesn’t exist, but a part of your soul has withered away forever. You’re writing this story, but you realize it’s not fiction, it’s your life. Suddenly it’s the most heartbreaking thing you’ve read. Is this really happening? I think I’m dreaming again. You forget who you are. And you forget what innocence felt like. Dream all you want, but you can never go back to nineteen again, the time when such things never existed. Haven’t eaten in a week? You beg your parents for money. Not the talent section of craigslist.
And yet, even though you know it destroys you, it lures you back in. This will be the last time you say, three thousand, that’s all I need. The cycle begins again. The cycle of whore-dom. You consider it. You do it. You loathe it. You fall apart. Hunt the whore. You’ve lost. Game over. 
