Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
Dinner parties. How I hate them.
I sit, one wine too many, and watch myself as if through a window, laughing and talking and being the charming hostess.
Our friends have no idea. The happy couple. Still finishing each other’s sentences and correcting each other on the details of “remember that time when…”.
It is an out of body experience.
I wonder what my children think about daddy sleeping upstairs. It’s been going on for so long it’s their normal, so maybe they don’t think anything about it. In any case, the little one wakes and gets into bed with me most nights. I wonder if I should discourage it, but I haven’t got the energy and anyway, I like feeling her little cuddly body curled up next to mine.
I realise I am starving for physical touch. Skin hungry.
I look in the mirror. Even though I look tired, I still call bullshit on his “not attractive anymore” narrative and give myself a pep talk. I am fine. There is nothing wrong with me. I am small, slim, fit, strong. And still juicy.
I am reading the paper at breakfast one Saturday morning. My eye is caught and held by an article on male escorts for women. I read it surreptitiously while my husband is occupied on his phone. I am quietly gobsmacked. Here are stories of women just like me. Attractive, professional women, whose relationships have gone wrong. Whose husbands won’t touch them. Who can’t seem to untangle the intricacies of their lives together.
So they pay a stranger to touch them. I mean I wasn’t completely naive – I knew there was such a thing – but here it was in black and white.
Respectable people, it seems, actually do this.
I can’t get the story out of my head. I reread it a few times. I hesitate. Until I’m alone one day and then I google the escorts in the article.
One is a dark brooding latino pretty boy, exceedingly gorgeous but too young. One is a handsome blonde haired blue eyed porn actor. I don’t quite feel right about him either.
I can’t immediately see a photo of the third one on his website. It doesn’t matter. I like how his writing sounds. Intelligent. Articulate. And there is a photo of his hands. They are masculine and sexy. Something stirs in me and I immediately imagine them on my body .
I clear the browser history.
A few weeks go past. I have read his entire website, every blog entry and every testimonial. I know what he looks like. 40ish. Handsome. Nice. I tell no one.
I am not quite ready, but with shaking hands and my heart in my mouth I call him anyway because I want to hear his voice, to see if how he sounds in real life matches how he sounds in my head. It does. He sounds real. His voice is sexy. He is clearly practised at this because he takes no notice of my nervous faltering attempts at conversation and does the talking for me. I tell him I’m not ready yet but will call when I am.
I hang up, already breathless and save his number in my phone.
Eventually I call again. Luckily he doesn’t answer, because my heart is pounding out of my chest, my mouth is dry and I don’t actually know what I want to say. I don’t leave a message. I compose a sensible sounding text and send that instead.
He calls me straight back – calm, self assured, matter of fact, no problem at all. I calm down a bit and we make the booking for a weeks’ time.
The week drags by in a haze of distracted fantasies. I worry about what to wear. I buy new knickers and get increasingly nervous as the day approaches. I confide in a friend with all the details because #whatifheisanaxemurderer and arrange to call her afterwards. She is shocked but supportive. She lectures me about condoms and contraception.
It’s the day. I get up and go through the motions – coffee, no breakfast, school drop off. My booking isn’t until the afternoon, so I do the groceries, a load of washing, some housework. Eventually I have to get ready. I have already waxed off everything in sight and had a pedicure. I take the longest, most detailed shower in history. I brush and floss my teeth twice.
Hair done, a bit of makeup and I’m ready. Hardly.
I look critically in the mirror and consider what I am about to do.
I am a fit and attractive 46 year old married woman, mother to young children and I am about to pay a man I’ve never met to have sex with me.
Entirely reasonable behaviour.
Shit.
I get in the car and drive. I am full of adrenaline and am at the address before I know it. Way early. I wait in the car with the airconditioning blasting cold air onto me because its a warm day and I am paranoid about being all sweaty. Finally it’s time. Shaky but determined I make my way up to his apartment and hesitate at the door. He doesn’t know what I look like and I’m worried he won’t like me.
I take a big breath and knock.