I am sitting here, naked, a notebook on my lap, his cum still leaking from my cunt. Cunt. God, I hate that word. But that is how he referred to hit, and so will I.
He is -- was -- my first paying customer. I have just turned my first trick, joining a sisterhood of countless others who have worked in the world's oldest profession.
I never intended to be a whore. Ugh. I hate that word, too. And it's not as though I'm out walking the strip wearing a tube top and hoop earrings so big I could hang my ankles from them. On the other hand, I'm not the two-grand-a-night "escort" hired by international businessmen to keep them company in a strange country. If I continue with this means of making money, I think I'll have to come up with a different name for my new occupation.
Right now he is sleeping beside me. The sun will be up soon. I assumed I'd be long gone by now, but he asked me to stay, to make sure he wakes up by six so he can be at the hospital for rounds at seven.
I find it ironic that a handsome doctor would pay for sex. At roughly 6'3", with a ball player's body and intensely green eyes, he should have no problem finding a woman to warm his bed. But that's the problem, he says. With his long hours and hectic schedule, he doesn't have the time or energy a relationship requires. But he needs sex to relieve the tension he brings home at the end of a long shift. And that's where I come in.
{Sigh} I think, perhaps, I'm getting ahead of myself. It's not quite 5, so I think I have enough time to tell this story from the beginning.
* * *
I moved to LA to -- surprise -- act. I was 18 with a head full of dreams and 3 grand in the bank. By the time I was 23, I was sick of going to 7 a.m. casting calls after working until 3 a.m. waiting tables for drunk B-listers. I knew I wasn't going to be discovered any more than they were. And, like everyone else, I was living paycheck to paycheck.
As luck would have it, a girl I'd worked with at the Sand Bar came in one night. She'd managed to get herself into a nursing program, and suggested I give it a try. At that point, I'd have given just about anything a try. I applied the next day, and after my first semester, I transferred into the midwifery program. That's how I met him.
He was one of the highlights of my orientation at the Saint Anne Women's Clinic, which provided medical care to low income women and their children. Doctor Dave, we'll call him, is a pediatrician with a desire to save the world, one child at a time.
I'd never met someone so dedicated before. He was there before the clinic opened, and was still seeing patients at 8 or 9 some nights. Sure, I thought he was easy on the eyes. And he treated the nurses like gold -- a rare trait in a doctor, from what I understand. But as soon as clinic hours ended, he left. Drove off in his Jeep, a baseball cap covering his wavy brown hair. But about a year ago, he cut back his hours at the clinic, coming in only on Saturday mornings. His father, a successful plastic surgeon, wanted him to pursue something a little more, well, well-paying. Not that he needed it -- from what I heard, he had a pretty hefty trust fund. But someone his father knew was looking for a new partner in his pediatric practice, and it was Dave's for the taking. He couldn't very well pass it up.
I'm 28 now, knee-deep in student loans. I'm still working at the clinic three days a week, trying to get my fledgling midwifery practice established enough to rent my own space. But funding is low, and the grants haven't come in to the clinic like we had hoped, so I'm waiting tables at a diner nearby on my off nights. That's where I'd run into him again, about 2 weeks ago. I had to pay the student loans somehow, and my rent was due soon.
He was my only customer, so he invited me to sit with him for a few minutes. We talked about the clinic, and about how if some funding didn't come through soon we might have to reduce our hours or cut back on some of the services we offered. He started talking about how much he missed working more at the clinic, but how his dad had put him under so much pressure to go into private practice that he felt he had no choice. As near as I can figure, he makes more in a week than I make in a month working two jobs. And then things got weird.
He said he knew he might offend me, but he was willing to take that chance. "You need money. I need sex. It's a fairly simple arrangement."
