“Oh God. I’m so sorry. I feel like a massive dork.”

“Why?”

“It’s been so long. Like, over a year. I feel like I’ve forgotten how all of this works. Also I’m just a very awkward person in general.”

“You’ll be fine.”

She kisses me. I hold on to her arms lightly, not wanting to hurt her, not wanting to weird her out, make her uncomfortable. She’s here for me: I’d hired her for exactly that, and she agreed to it, and she’s here. Blonde cropped hair, geeky tattoos befitting her name, tall and solid with a soft touch.

She kisses me and I try to not feel guilty about the next hour being solely for my pleasure.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve been a sex work client. I’ve visited strip clubs before — sometimes with partners, sometimes alone. I had a go at Bondassage (essentially sensation play) and even tried Neo-Tantra after years of railing against its culture of white people exotifying Indian and Hindu culture only to turn to me with the expectation that I’m some sort of Kama Sutra expert. (The experience and the practitioner were sweet enough, but it was pretty much fingerfucking with a side of eclectic disjointed woo, so my skepticism wasn’t misplaced.)

This isn’t even the first time I’ve hired an escort. Some years ago I coordinated a booking with myself, my boyfriend at the time, and an escort for a fun few hours of a threesome. Ever since then I’d been debating revisiting the experience, hemming and hawing over whether I could — or even if I should.

I had tried for a long time, since my move to Melbourne, Australia, to find casual sex the “traditional,” non-transactional way. Unlike my gay male friends, especially one close friend who regularly filled me in on his exploits, there weren’t really any bathhouses or other sex-on-premises venues that I could go to that allowed entry to women. There weren’t really any local equivalents to spaces like San Francisco’s Mission Control, which hosted both social gatherings and queer-women(-friendly) sex parties. There was the occasional ladies’ only sex party hosted by local swingers’ clubs, but between their tendency to prioritize conventionally-attractive women and a past horrifying experience with one space that had little regard for consent or safety, I didn’t trust them.

My best bet was the Internet — but even then the listings were mainly “long walks on the beach” or “serious commitments only, no hookups!” The listings that were enthusiastic about casual sex, even on supposedly women-only apps like Her, often ended up being straight cis men hiding behind stolen pictures. I did give Grindr a spin when it opened up to all genders — but all I got were guys who thought I was their own messed up idea of what a trans woman was. I even started a local Queer Cruising Facebook group, inspired by the spectacularly busy Bay Area version — however, despite a substantial membership, it was hardly ever used.

It seemed like, overall, there’s not really an accepted culture of anonymous, casual, no-strings-attached sex amongst queer women — not to the degree of gay male culture or even straight people culture. No places to go, no ads being written or replied to. There have been the odd attempts, a thinkpiece or two by someone who seeks the same — but nothing that really sticks around. (Oddly, though, there seems to be this semi-casual acceptance in Australia of straight women making out or having sex with other straight women — why was it way easier for straight women to get laid with each other than it for someone like me?! Not fair.)

Once in a while I would consider, again, the prospect of hiring an escort — this time just for me. Someone whose main focus would be on me, someone whose attention and care I could enjoy without having to worry about paying back. I’d felt so worn out from doing so many things for others with very little reciprocity, from trying to keep people happy at the expense of my own happiness. I’m the pillow princess. I’m the queer queen. Please me, devour me, serve me.

Yet, as I found when I wrote the email to the escort I eventually hired, stating all that is hard. I felt guilty: guilty for being selfish, guilty for wanting someone who’d put their desires aside and give me what I want. I felt guilty for wanting anything at all, let alone anything that prioritizes me. I find it hard enough to understand why people would do nice things for me unprompted, from small gifts to throwing an entire fundraiser for me — what did I do to deserve this? I’m no hero, I’m nothing special! But to actually hire someone, specifically, to put me, my pleasure, my desires first? That felt like some kind of betrayal of propriety. Who am I to make that demand from anyone?

The guilt and angst were especially exacerbated by the price tag. I managed to earn extra this particular month from working at an event, which put me in a rare position of being able to afford an escort (legal in most of Australia, so at least that part was not a worry). Many forms of sex work are expensive for clients — not that I begrudge workers for setting the prices that they do, especially given their main clientele of middle-to-upper class cis straight white men for whom finding steady work is doable.

But I’m a mostly-independent creative type with very irregular sources of income, who only juuuuust managed to break the tax-free threshold ever for the first time this year by a few hundred dollars. I’m working on a major creative project, one that could use every dollar I could get, especially after being knocked back from other funding sources. I needed to eat, sleep, get my meds. I had many other things on my to-get, to-do, to-sort-out list. Paying someone for sex? Or really, paying someone for something that truly only benefits me? It felt frivolous; the extreme worst case scenario of those financial advice blogs that think the only reason us millennials are broke is because of caffeine addiction and avocado toast, not because of structural inequality that leads to large wage gaps — if there is even a wage at all. Who cares if it’s been over a year since anyone’s even kissed me? It’s a luxury. I can’t afford luxuries. I don’t deserve luxuries.

“It’s perfectly fine, darling,” reassures my close gay male friend, the one keeping me updated on his hookup habits, who’d just told me about hiring a sex worker himself for his birthday. “You have needs! You deserve to take care of yourself.”

“But the money though….”

“It’s worth it. You’re worth it.”

“How long did it take you to get ready?”

“Oh, just about 20 minutes…”

Just 20 minutes, yes, if we’re only talking about my look: a shiny jacket-dress, fishnets, bold red lip, deep dark eyeliner with my signature heart on the side of my right eye. I wanted to feel pretty.

But 20 minutes doesn’t cover the excursion the hour before to get a bathmat, an extra towel, and some apple-walnut pastry if she got hungry. It doesn’t cover the spot-clean I had to do of my bathroom, a job I tried to hire someone else for when illness and fatigue had limited my ability to do full cleans but eventually had to do myself anyway because everyone flaked out. It doesn’t cover the nervous pacing and waiting, wondering up until the last moment if I should just take the cash back out from the envelope and cancel it all, wondering if my apartment was too basic for her, wondering if I’d be good enough.

It doesn’t cover the years between sexual encounters, the months of my last long-distance relationship that fizzled out before it could be consummated in person, the weeks where I tried to figure out who to hire, reading between the lines to see who would be willing to see female clients.

I narrowed it down to a few options — all of whom I’d verified to be queer mainly through their active Twitter profiles. The first person I contacted was a queer person of colour with politics that seemed familiar — but come on, surely Melbourne isn’t that small? Surely I haven’t met every social-justice-savvy QPOC in town?

“Hey, I’ll be happy to answer your questions, but I wonder if you realise that we already know each other?”

Damnit.

I thanked them and said it was best we didn’t proceed further, just in case it made things too awkward.

The second option was someone named Zelda; she, it turned out, had already followed me on Twitter. I don’t think we had formally met — possibly she’d just found me from the odd semi-viral thread or two, or from the general queer Melbourne Twittersphere. I asked Zelda if she’d find it weird if I hired her; she didn’t have an issue with it.

She had billed her services (which, under Victorian law, you can’t list out openly in detail — people have to enquire privately) as “The Zelda Experience.” Between this, her stated love for gaming, and having just worked at a games-related event (whose very pay was funding this experience), I started having visions of an escape room or Alternate Reality Game where you had to crack codes and solve puzzles for sexy rewards. (Truthfully, I was a little disappointed when this wasn’t actually what she meant by it.)

I told her about wanting to be a pillow princess, and then feeling guilty for expressing that desire. About how I wanted someone to take care of me for once. About my apartment being relatively basic and unexciting, but at least I live alone. Would she be okay with it?

She reassured me that all of that was good, that she was fine with giving over receiving if that’s what I would like. She sometimes hires other workers too when she wants to have a turn at receiving. She gets it.

Let’s do it.

“Hey Zelda, I have a potentially silly question.”

“No question’s too silly. What is it?”

“You know those bookings that go on for like six hours or overnight or just a really long time? Who plans the itinerary, you or them?”

“Well… sometimes they take me out on a nice date, but sometimes we just stay in bed the whole time and have sex. Or play games, have sex, have a break for UberEATS, then back to sex.”

I had booked Zelda for an hour; it felt both like a very long time and not quite enough. I’m not sure what I would do with more hours, or half a day, or a whole weekend, that seems like a lot of time to try and plan. And I’m tired of planning.

If I could somehow afford a super long session, I would like the person I hired to plan out the day for me. My Best Day, full of surprises, specially tailored to my interests. The Girlfriend Experience, a common escort service term, but the sort of Girlfriend Experience that involves my favourite flowers (blood red roses) and my favourite desserts (dark chocolate with sea salt) and a luscious spa afternoon followed by a cabaret night at the Spiegeltent — all delivered to me via coded notes in a custom treasure hunt. They’d have to spring it on me without me knowing — otherwise I’d be trying too hard to help when I hired them specifically so I wouldn’t have to help. The sex would be the icing on the cake — a cake that was a chunk of time entirely dedicated to me and what would make me feel good.

I was already feeling a little overwhelmed by the prospect of an hour entirely devoted to my pleasure. How am I going to deal with a whole day?!

“How often do you have female clients?”

“Hmm…I think I’ve had about a dozen or less in the last 10 years.”

“WOW! Why do you reckon that is?”

I was expecting answers like low income, or not knowing where to look, or overwhelming guilt — the things that were holding me back. I wasn’t expecting her actual answer:

“I think it’s probably because it affects their pride.”

Pride? As in they think hiring someone ruins their pride somehow, like it was a “last resort”? Or because they think Zelda would outperform them in bed and make them feel bad about their talents?

Who’s to say. I can’t read their minds. I don’t think they need to have worried though — Zelda tells me her female clients are way, way better than her male ones.

We started to wind down just as the hour ended. Zelda played me some weird meme music on her phone. The whole hour was very chill and cozy, sex and makeouts broken up with more not-so-silly questions and plans to invent dishwasher-safe dildos — almost like we were two friends-with-benefits hanging out. Weird meme music felt totally apt.

She didn’t end up eating the apple-walnut pastry or using the new towel in the newly-cleaned shower.

She did help me build what one friend had described as my “personal safe space”: a space for intimacy and closeness that not only respected my boundaries, but also encouraged and centered my desires. A space where I made the rules and she was very happy to comply. A space that feels hard to occupy, to even admit to owning, because we’re not supposed to center our desires or expect anyone else to fulfil them. We’re meant to be giving emotional labour freely — not demand them of others.

But for one hour, at least, I didn’t have to feel guilty about my own pleasure.

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