“And yet you travel so much. That can’t be fun,” I say.
“You do what you gotta do,” she says. “I bet there’s parts of your job you don’t like that you do anyway.”
I think about it, pulling the inside of my cheek between my teeth. “Honestly, Maeve. I like nearly all parts of my job.”
Her eyes widen and she stops moving. “Really?”
“Yes,” I say, and I think I’m telling the truth. I’m pretty sure I am. I mean, I get to sleep with beautiful people for a living. Nearly everyone I meet doing so is kind and fun and positive. And I love sex. I love talking about sex. I love talking about pleasure. I love sharing my pleasure with other people, knowing that it gives them pleasure too.
Sure, there are lots of downsides. The stigma. The strange looks when you tell people what you do, or they recognize you on the street, and let’s not forget the abuse and harassment that lands in my inbox, but for the most part, it’s a good job.
“But surely, you can’t love, you know, every single minute of every single fuck you’ve had with… every single person you’ve fucked?” Maeve’s voice is blunt and heavy with disbelief and a deep frown creases her brow.
As Maeve asks this question, I feel something shift. By the time it’s my turn to speak, I realize it feels like she’s not asking a question about me, but rather trying to communicate, or more simply than that, understand something about herself. I want to ask her a thousand questions. I want to dive under her skin and pull out the meat of the real issue that has somehow needled its way into her heart, causing clear discomfort or pain.
But I can’t do that. This may not be about me, but she still asked me a question and it’s one I deem important enough to answer in full.
“I’m very selective about who I work with,” I explain. “Just because I fuck for my job, doesn’t mean I’ll fuck anyone and everyone. I still have boundaries and limits. As do other sex workers. And we talk a lot about what we’re going to do in a scene before we do it. We don’t just dive in without proper communication, establishing safe words and having a shared understanding of what our expectations are.”
“I didn’t mean that you fucked just anyone… or that you didn’t… I just…” Her mouth falls shut. “Nothing. I’ve got to go.”
“Maeve, I—”
“It’s fine! I was an eejit. Forget I said anything!” she snaps.
I brave a smile. “I was just going to say, thanks for calling. I liked talking with you.”
Her lips part and I see her chest rise and fall with some slightly strained breaths. “It was nice to talk to you too,” she says eventually. “I’m sorry if I just made that conversation go weird.”
“There was nothing weird about it,” I say, holding onto my smile so determinedly it takes a moment to realize why. I’m trying to make Maeve smile. Suddenly, I don’t want to let her go without seeing her smile again. “I mean, apart from when you said thatGrease 2is better than the original.”
The tension in her face cracks. “Are you fucking kidding me? There is no competition there. Not to mention the fact that both John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were practically collecting their pensions when they were cast inGrease.”
I crack up at this comment, holding my stomach and closing my eyes as I laugh. When I finally sit up and open my eyes again I am rewarded with her smile. Her real smile.
“That’s better,” I say quietly.
“What?” she asks, the smile melting into a small frown.
“Nothing,” I say. “You should go. And so should I.”
“Okay,” she says in a soft voice. “Goodbye, Loncey.”
“Goodbye, Maeve.”
And then neither of us move. We just stay where we are, looking at the image of the other on our phones. It’s a pause long enough that I’m about to ask Maeve if I can call her again, if we can make the time difference work, but before I can, I hear a soft “Fuck this,” and her face disappears.
“See you later, Maeve,” I say to the black screen with a light chuckle. And then I rush to grab everything I need and haul ass out of there for my meeting.
*****
Britney Blue is a beautiful trans woman with bright blue eyes that glitter under impossibly long fake eyelashes that are as black as the bobbed wig she wears. Every time she blinks, it seems to take great effort and yet that adds to her doe-eyed, shy-girl aesthetic. That and the way she sits in a matching baby blue two-piece, legs crossed neatly and her feet in cute low-heeled pink pumps.
“So, I just make an appointment online after I register?” she’s asking as she peruses a website on her phone.
“Yep,” I explain, putting my phone and laptop away. I need to get home as I promised my mom, Jessica and Taylor dinner. Jessica specifically asked me to make my chicken wings with rice and peas. Besides, I’ve spent a good hour with Britney Blue, answering her questions, giving her contact details for some creators I trust, and that I know would love to work with her and giving her more editing tips than I know she’s going to remember. But that’s okay. Next time we can pick up where we left off and I can show her the same things again. “As long asyou’ve registered and paid the first monthly fee you can get a test pretty much whenever you want.”
“And you get tested every week?”
