I had never had a girlfriend like Gina. She was perfect for me in so many ways -- ways she couldn't even begin to imagine. The three years we'd been together had passed as if we'd met each other only last week and yet so much had happened in those three years.
Gina was unbelievably beautiful. At 40, she got stares that even younger women didn't. Gina was petite -- just barely five-foot-one -- with long red hair, 34DD breasts, and legs that constantly got her double takes when she'd wear a short skirt and boots.
Interestingly, while she never had trouble attracting male attention even when the room was filled mostly with women, she didn't seek it out. Gina was quite conservative in her approach to sex. It's not that she didn't like it, she did. She just didn't seek it out, especially not for one-night stands. Sex, she was taught, was for a relationship.
I'm pretty much the exact opposite. Not that I'm opposed to a relationship -- I very much enjoy it, especially with Gina. However, I consider sex the ultimate pleasure to be experienced in any and every creative manner you can conceive as often as possible, so long as you aren't forcing anyone into something they really don't want to do.
Whether a need for money counts as "force" is open for debate. It certainly changes your perspective on "right" and "wrong," what you will do and what you won't do. And even what you want to do. It doesn't take very many months of scratching out enough to keep the lights and water turned on, dropping the car payment in the mail late, being threatened with elimination from the consumer credit counseling program because of missed payments, borrowing to make the house note by the deadline and bare refrigerator and pantry shelves to wear you thin.
Gina was more than worn thin. She worked six days a week and still didn't make ends meet. She lifted and moved furniture at the warehouse three days a week and styled hair at the salon she and her sister had recently opened the other three. Sometimes the hair business was good. Sometimes it wasn't. Six days a week, week after week after week with no end in sight. She needed a vacation but to take any time off would put her further behind and create even more stress. And she was already at the breaking point.
She often asked me whether I thought she could make some extra money by selling herself and I'd respond that I could help turn a very nice profit. I was serious, she was not and we both knew it. We'd laugh and let it go. Sometimes we'd do a little role playing on that theme and I enjoyed it immensely, but I knew very well that's where it ended.
I have no idea why someone else fucking my girlfriend is such a huge turn-on for me, but it is. Why is a gay man gay? He doesn't know. He just is. Why do some people like scary movies? I can't imagine. It makes no sense to me, but they do. To many, a guy enjoying someone else pounding into his girlfriend is sick and twisted. They can't fathom a MMF threesome, let alone a gangbang. I've stopped trying to understand why I enjoy those kinds of things with my committed partner at the center of it. I just do. Immensely.
Not that I share it with many people. I fully understood that even talking about it with Gina carried a great potential risk. We did talk about it occasionally, enough for her to know I never intended to push for anything like that when she wasn't comfortable with it and enough for me to realize that those interests and intrigues were something I needed to set aside to maintain a real relationship with this wonderful woman. I knew where that world was. I knew its inhabitants. And I knew the way back. But I had to make a choice. And I did.
One Sunday afternoon, Gina was particularly frustrated as she tried to reconcile her bank accounts with the bills on kitchen the counter in front of her. "I'm tired of this, Kurt!" she announced with finality in her voice. "I'm sick of everybody wanting my money! I work too hard for it."
She didn't slam the laptop shut. She didn't pound the mouse on the countertop. There was something different this time about the exasperation she felt or, at least, in the way she expressed it. It seemed she really had reached the end of her proverbial rope.
"I'm sorry, Baby," I told her.
"You don't understand, Kurt," she replied softly. "I'm over it. I'm really over it."
"I know you are, Sweetie," I responded. I felt really badly. I couldn't write a check and make her problems go away and, even if I was able, that wouldn't be a long-term fix. She needed more money coming in regularly.
I paused and thought a moment before I continued.
"There's one sure way of increasing your income," I suggested.
Now she paused. She looked hard at me and didn't smile. I braced for the anger I was sure I had unleashed. "I know what you're thinking," she said flatly.
She took a breath. I waited for the expletives and a sharply-worded demand for me to leave to follow.
"I've been thinking about it, too," she softened.
I was smart enough to let her continue without interrupting.
"If I could make another $800 a month that would take a lot of stress off me," she explained. "A thousand and I wouldn't have to worry about anything. That's my house payment. I might not even have to work down at the warehouse anymore."
It had been her goal since opening the salon to work only there and work only a five-day week. The wheels were obviously turning. She really had been thinking about it.
"What do you think is realistic?"
I didn't want to speak too quickly, realizing that the moment could easily turn the wrong way.
"What do you charge for a cut, color and blow dry at the shop?"
"A hundred-25," she said.
"That's what a typical escort service charges here for an hour," I noted. "That's sight unseen and with women who might not even be considered attractive -- nothing close to you. Realistically, you could double that."
"So......250?" she queried.
She let it drop at that point. I wasn't sure whether she was intrigued or insulted or had just decided she couldn't ever really do it. I decided not to pursue it and let it go, as well. But she brought it up again one night after work a couple of weeks later.
"I got a new client today," she announced.
"Good," I said with some enthusiasm. She needed all the new clients she could get.
"It was a guy. And he was trying really hard to get into my pants."
She knew I liked hearing about guys flirting with her.
"They're nice pants," I joked. "And there's no better place to be. I assume you got a nice tip from him?"
"Twenty dollars," she laughed. Then she got serious again. "But I think I could have gotten more."
"Really?" My curiosity awakened.
"Yeah. He didn't leave right away. He said he noticed I wasn't wearing a ring and he asked me if I wanted him to get me a drink from across the street. I told him I'd take a diet cherry Dr. Pepper if they had one and he came back with one. He wanted my phone number but I didn't give it to him so he booked another appointment for next week!"
"Wow, that's strong!" Guys hadn't done weekly haircuts since my dad was a teenager. It wasn't his coif he was interested in, that was clear. Nobody tips $20 on a $20 haircut.
"And you've got him coming back next week," I noted.
She waited a minute before continuing. "I may try to make some real money on him when he comes back."
"Oh?" I mused.
"He's good-looking," she said. "He's really nice. And he was wanting it. But how do you talk about money? I need your help with this."
I asked her if she had flirted back and she admitted she had. When he pointed out that she wasn't wearing a ring, she told him there were other things she wasn't wearing, too -- very out of character for her. She had obviously been thinking about where she might be able to take it.
"You've got his number, right?" I was treading cautiously.
"Yes."
"Why don't I call him and confirm his appointment, then tell him that 'extra services' are available if he'd like?"
She reflected for a moment. "OK," she finally said. I got the feeling she was beginning to have second thoughts about it. I tried to encourage her.
"In one hour," I reminded her, "you will make more money than working 24 hours down at the warehouse. You'll double what you make in a two-hour color at the shop. One hour."
"How does it work?" she asked.
I decided if she was asking she wanted to know, so I explained that we'd make sure this client was the last scheduled for the day when Brenda was gone and even the other businesses in the strip were closed. She'd treat him like any other client until he requested "extra services" once the cut, shampoo and style were finished. Everything would take place at the shop where there were leather chairs and a very comfortable couch. The windows worried her, but I told her we'd take care of that over the weekend by putting up some expensive decorative blinds that we could draw whenever the shop was closed.
She had one more question.
"Will you be there?" she asked.
I told her I'd be at the desk when her client arrived and take payment from him in advance. Then I'd leave and be back in an hour.
"Well.......ok," she said. "You set it up." She didn't seem nervous anymore.
