Off by heart

My party drug addiction had led to prostitution. I don’t know how long some of the other people have been able to last in this line of work, but I’ve been doing it for almost two years now, so I’ve seen a few things.

This isn’t the way I’d imagined my life going. Almost every night, you’re somebody’s physical and emotional rag. The drugs help you numb yourself to what’s going on, even though they’re what you’re doing the job for in the first place. You do have to try and hold yourself back on the drugs, though, otherwise you tend to get these red, bloodshot eyes with dark, puffy circles under your eyes that turns customers off as soon as they get a good look at you.

I market myself online these days under the technicality of being an ‘escort’, since the law explicitly bans prostitutes, but not escorts. One day I get a guy, Marcelo, who takes me out to a park. I’m not unfamiliar with trying to make small talk with these kinds of guys; the escort thing is just an act; a prelude to one of us initiating sex that ‘wasn’t for money’. As you might expect, most of them aren’t known for their small talk. Or their looks. Some of them I even feel sorry for.

Some of these guys can be pretty spineless when it comes to steering conversation towards the bedroom, so I usually have to do it for them. Not that I wouldn’t mind getting paid without having to have sex with strangers, but it’s not how you get repeat business, and it’s not how you get recommended to others. This guy’s different, though. Even when I try to make the conversation sexual, he stops me. He tells me that he does want me, but that he has something very specific in mind.

I start bracing myself for whatever act in the bedroom he’s going to suggest, start bracing myself to have to make it explicitly clear what I will and will not do in the bedroom. To my surprise, though, he pulls out a small black notebook and hands it to me. Tells me that he wants me to memorize the first part of it; it’s a conversation that we’re going to act out. He also says that he wants me to be on a pill, and for him to not have to use protection. Where have I heard that before?

I start to protest, but he puts his finger to my mouth to quiet me. He says he’ll offer me twenty thousand dollars to do it. It sounds ludicrous, almost too good to be true from my point of view, but he says he’ll pay me a quarter of it now, and the rest after the job is over, as long as I give him back the notebook.

I think briefly about the future. Twenty thousand dollars wasn’t an unreasonably large amount of money for me to make; I think I might’ve made that amount in two months once, but it would sure set me up if I could make it in just one day. I’d always been worried about going cold turkey off the drugs; I knew I’d go into withdrawals and get sucked back in again. But if I had a little extra in my pocket I could try to wean myself off the drugs without having to be a prostitute anymore, and get myself some professional help while I’m at it. This could be the last job I ever do. This will be the last job I ever do.

I tell Marcelo I’ll only consider it when he gets an STD check and comes back clean, which he agrees to. He tells me to take as long as I need, and that he wants to send me an outfit to wear for when we meet up again. Finally, I agree, and he quietly passes me an envelope with the money in it.

When I get home, there’s almost ten pages of dialogue that I have to memorize, even though Marcelo left out his lines. I mean, I act all the time in the bedroom, but I haven’t done this kind of acting since middle school; I’m out of my element here. There’s a particular eye for detail in these notes; occasionally there’ll be a side note asking me to have a certain expression on my face, such as surprise or sympathy.

It seems to be too long to be some recreation of pornography, especially since I’m supposed to ask Marcelo questions that seem tailored specifically to him. The STD check he takes passes, the doctor’s notes arriving at my place around the same time as the outfit he wants me to wear. It doesn’t look like anything I’d imagine to be in porn; it’s not casual, but not necessarily classy either. The clothes are all tight, so either he was bad at guessing my size or he gets a kick out of me wearing tight clothes.

When I finish my first read through, there’s some notes about what I should do when it comes to the bedroom, but it’s nothing I’ve really done before. In a split-second of curiosity I turn to the next page. It’s the start of yet another script. I keep turning and find that the notebook’s filled completely. Each and every last page dedicated to these scripts.

Since none of Marcelo’s lines are ever in the notebook, I never see the name of the person I’m pretending to be, but it definitely feels like all the conversations happened with the same woman. It feels like the progression of a relationship, and he’s been able to commit every last word of it to paper. I start to realise how my client could afford to splash out twenty thousand dollars; he must be at least somewhat smart.

The notes are mostly a normal conversation; there’s not as much flirting as I would’ve expected. Was this woman I’m pretending to be someone who died, or is she someone who dumped Marcelo who he’s never been able to let go of? He’s around mid-forties; either story would make sense. The fact that he’s gone to the effort of writing down the expressions on my face tells me that he’s interested in my face specifically, not just some random escort he found. Even if my face and maybe even my voice are just some strange fetish for him, I can’t help but feel sorry for him knowing that I was intending for this to be my last job; he might never be able to experience the rest of these scripts the way he wants to for the rest of his life.

Memorizing the notes is hard. It takes me almost a fortnight. I think about it when I’m eating. I think about it when I’m sleeping with other clients. My lack of being able to focus really shines through when I stop being able to remember things perfectly. I try to stop taking some of the stimulants I’m on and it works out. Knowing that there’s a future for me on the other side of this makes me extra disgusted with the work I do, and I stop taking requests from other clients. It means I stop taking drugs right before sex to try and avoid some of the emotional toll of it. The flow of money starts to run dry and I start to have to wean myself off the drugs earlier than I would’ve liked.

The big night arrives. I’ve memorised every line. I’ve practiced every expression in the mirror. We meet at Marcelo’s house. I’d spell out the details, but I’ve read ahead and almost everything goes as I’d expected. I get to hear his lines this time though; I was definitely a woman that he personally had known, that he’d had a relationship with. It’s not all completely introductory, but it is kind of nice to be able to slowly unwrap his personality, or the person he used to be, all the while being in the comfort of this scripted conversation.

We have parts of the conversation while we have a light meal in the kitchen. At one point there’s a pause after I speak, then I realise that the pause is intentional and that he’s waiting for me to say my next line. For a split second I’m paranoid and worry if I’ve messed the whole job up and won’t get paid, but then the conversation just goes on smoothly.

It moves to the bedroom. There isn’t a point where I’m able to have my usual pill beforehand. Marcelo doesn’t try to have sex; he tries to make love to me. He’s not the first person to try it. Still, it is the first time I’ve done it without the guy using protection; I have no idea what it feels like. This guy’s the way that I’m finally going to get out of this life I hate; for a short moment my mental and emotional barriers come down and I start to make love with him too. Then it’s over, but it’s just down time, he still has me for another half an hour.

Then, we hear steps from another part of the house. It’s not part of the script, and Marcelo’s just as surprised as I am. He looks from me to the door over and over again. It’s as if he’s trying to figure a way out of the situation, but can’t.

The door opens and a woman in a business outfit comes in, then stops when she sees what’s going on. She looks like a slightly older version of me; she and I could be sisters. Marcelo freezes up; he knows there’s no running away from this. Her eyes widen and tears start flying as she starts hurling insults at him. I didn’t feel like I was the third wheel in a failing relationship; she screams at him for minutes about how she loved and trusted him.

I can’t leave without the money, it’s my way out of this life, and after what Marcelo’s done, I don’t trust him to just send it to me if I run away right now. So, I just stand there and wait with his seed slowly trickling out of me, down my leg. I’m the rag that I’ve always hated being.

The woman screams at me to get out of her home. For the first time, I speak to her, quietly saying that I need to get paid, that I need it to start a new life. I can’t look her in the eye. She pauses; she hadn’t caught on I was a prostitute and not just another woman. She makes a noise in her throat. Is it disgust? Pity? At him? At me? She tells Marcelo to hurry up and do it, and then he and I can both leave. I get the money, put on the bare minimum of the clothes he gave me to wear, and then leave before he does, still hearing the woman shouting at him as I walk down the street.

I was never this woman’s replacement. Marcelo had been in love with falling in love, the act of forming a new relationship with another person. Did he really care about this woman? I don’t know. He didn’t feel like he could have asked her to go through this scenario with her, instead of me.

I realize that the memory that Marcelo wanted to recreate was like the drugs I took. I had to wean myself off of them. Despite all that he had written in the notebook, he learned from his mistakes, and I never heard from him again. Time and memory are feelings that few people have the chance to wean themselves off of. But maybe I can help them. So I go back; back to these confused, temperamental things called men.