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That’s a no. “Two weeks,” I counter. “Give me two weeks and I’ll tell her myself.” I have no idea what I plan on doing between now and then. I’m just trying to buy time.
“Okay,” she agrees finally. “Ifthe Dud asks for a refund, I’ll back whatever story you tell her to explain.”
“Thank you. I appreciate you, Lyla.”
“Oh, girl. Youoweme.”
“I do,” I laugh. “Within reason.”
“All right. Let me know when you’re on your way home.”
“Bye.”
“Use protection!” she shouts before hanging up.
Slipping my phone back into my clutch, I explain. “If I hadn’t called, she would have worried.”
“One of you always stays home?”
I tense in my seat. Warning signs flash in my brain like bright neon lights that say: STOP. DO NOT ENTER. And TURN BACK NOW.
He must sense my hesitation because he adds, “We’re off the record for tonight.” I still don’t reply, but after a while he adds, “In your interview, you started to say, ‘It was my turn to stay home,’ but Joan Stark cut you off.”
I did say that. I remember it clearly. “You have a good memory.”
“For the most part.”
I wonder how best to approach his question. I, who am so good, practicallytrained, to handle every social situation, am completely out of my depth. So, for the first time in my adult life, I start with whatI’dlike. “Could we pretend, just for tonight, that you don’t know what I do for a living?”
He doesn’t answer me right away, but when I look over at him, I can see that he’s thinking about it. And I find that I like that about him, that he wouldn’t just tell me what I want to hear, that’s he genuinely considering it. “I guess it depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“If it’s for your sake? Or mine?” Before I can reply, he elaborates. “If it’s what you want, if it’ll make you feel safer, then yes. Of course.” His eyes are sincere when he looks at me. “But if it’s for my sake, then no. I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter to me because that would be a lie.” He gives me a moment to absorb that. “But I’m not ashamed of you. And I won’t shame you by pretending that knowing you’re an escort is going to stop what we’ve started.”
There is an ache in me, it starts deep in my chest and spreads like wings unfolding on a mythical Pegasus. I wish he knew. I wish he knew how good it feels, how my heart expands with wonder, to hear honest words, especially when those four—I won’t shame you—are included.
Shame. It’s such a simple word, really. Shame.
But there are no simple emotions or actions attached to shame. We are acquainted with it before we even know what the word means. As children, we learn shame from our parents. ‘I can’t believe you pooped in your tutu during ballet class!’Or, ‘Why would you cut your sister’s hair?’Or,‘Boys don’t cry’. And by the time we’re adults, we’ve mastered it so that we wield shame to not only defend ourselves but to hurt others.
And God help you if you’re a woman.
My life has been a study in shame for the most part.
As a young girl, there was the shame of privilege. As a teenager, the shame of addiction and ostracism. Now,as a woman who sells her body for sex…well, the shame comes from every direction, all the time. From other women. From men. And, even, from those who are supposed to care the most about us, our families and friends.
Eventually, you convince yourself that it doesn’t matter. You become brazen. Bold. Shameless. And, if you still flinch every time a man calls you a whore or sink into the corner when another woman can’t even lower herself to look at you in an elevator, you lie to yourself. You balm your shame with emotions that are easier to handle. Like anger. And disdain. And hate.
“Where did you go?”
Aiden’s question, quietly asked, pulls me out of my reverie. “Sorry,” I flush. “I…What you said just now, about not being ashamed of the fact that I’m an escort…Nobody’s ever said that to me before.”
“People love to feelmightier than thou. And sex, whichever way you look at it, has always been about power. All of our instructional information tells us that nothing good can come of it.”
“Religion.” I give him the first example.
“Corinthians six, eighteen,” he says, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”
