Member-only story
Intimacy
A certain town in the centre of Ireland
The story of a friend who sold the last thing he — or she — had
Once upon a time, I knew a person who lived a different sort of life. She, or he, perhaps, was thrown on desperate times and thus it came about that they decided the only option left was to sell the last resource any of us have: ourselves.
In a sense, of course, anything we do for money involves a kind of selling of ourselves, but this selling was of the intimate kind. Not sex, exactly, although that did happen too, sometimes. But vulnerability, the ability to connect with someone, in a room, with music and low lights and conversation and the opportunity for both consenting adults to agree how far to go.
Often, this person would soften the experience with drink or drugs beforehand. After all, exposing all to a virtual stranger on the basis of what is essentially a financial transaction is not only highly risky, but also potentially extremely humiliating, and in a small country like Ireland, there’s also always the possibility that a friend of a friend might pop up out of the woodwork and nod and wink.
Most encounters took place in hotels, as far as I can understand. There were some meetings in private accommodations, but those soon caused what we might…
