On Learning to Love a Locked Door.

There's something about meeting new people that I am addicted to. I'm not sure if that's why I was attracted to sex work, or that I loved sex work so much because it helped me discover this secret need in me. The longing to reinvent myself, to go into a space where I am a stranger and a blank slate. I can be the caged animal whose door was just slid open. Do I want to slink away quietly into the forest? Maybe I will turn around and lick the hand that freed me, or maybe I will bite it. The power and choice to be whomever I want, freed of the constraints of prior expectations, or past behavior.

I long constantly to reinvent myself. I want to be more poised, creative, controlled, elegant, wild, biting. I miss the way sex work used to make me feel because it was fun to go onto stage and figure out in seconds what my role is supposed to be. Am I supposed to be lithe, cool, and haughty? Small and impressionable, cute and innocent? Maybe a client is looking for a listening ear, or a shoulder rub. Maybe they want a pet for the evening. I loved the possibilities of it, like a night of improv, every night. Similarly, when I dated, I could be whomever I wanted. I kept my photos on tinder and bumble purposefully vague for that reason; I wanted people to project an idea on me so I could make a game of how easily I could become that thing. While this feels like an exercise in extreme insecurity, it was actually the opposite for me. It was a practice of the highest form of narcissism and self discovery to see who I could become. I felt like a shopping addict, going into dressing rooms to try on personalities to see how well they fit. This person looks good on me, I would preen. This character brings out the gold flecks in my eyes.

I miss that, the multi-faceted complexity of fucking multiple people at a time, sometimes more than one in a day. I loved the rush and the excitement of it. I felt like Carmen Sandiego. I was powerful, invincible. I loved the feeling of being able to pick and choose my sexual partners, which didn't always feel like the case. I liked being in charge of who I was in any given moment, and I loved the creative freedom it afforded me to express myself without the harm of permanence or even accountability.

The pandemic was about slowing down. It was about things coming to a full stop for me socially, an abrupt end to casually sleeping with so many people. I settled on one or two partners at the most, people I had to thoughtfully choose and then plan around, based on whether I could trust them, and how well they could fit into my calendar between the weeks of self-quarantine after every meeting. After the first year of casually sleeping with J, he asked me if we could be partners. But not like the partners I had had in the past; ones where we were couples in name, but I was essentially allowed to run around and be free, but more intentional, and yes, monogamous partners.

My initial reaction was to immediately run away. I was allergic to the idea of being controlled, monitored, or limited in any way. I didn't want people close to me. I enjoyed intimacy as a performance, or a game, or even an appointment. If I heard a door close behind me, my first assumption was that it had also been locked. We talked about it for hours and for days, carefully laying out expectations and specific rules of engagement. I didn't want to feel trapped, I wanted to feel protected, comforted. But like a stray dog, I've been struggling to get used to having a food bowl and a bed of my own.

Impermanence has been my protection, and now I feel like the veil is inevitably shedding itself. Something that I hold onto more ferociously and more protectively than anything else is, ironically, my anger and my rage. I am not a patient woman. Nor am I a lenient one. I have the wrath of a dying mama bear when provoked, and this part of me, the monster in me, is my greatest weakness and my biggest ally. She cannot be tamed, and she will embarrass me on the highway or in a swanky restaurant, but she will also protect me from bullying boyfriends or creepy bosses. I don't like people seeing my secret weapon, recognizing the wolf under the wool, because she is secretly me.