My friend Caroline recently remarked that I have two great interests in life; books and men. That was an accurate observation. Some years ago I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to indulge both my passions.

It began with my long-term boyfriend leaving me. Because of this, I had to move out of our flat. Then I lost my job. When Caroline offered to sublet me her flat in Brighton for an indefinite period of time while she followed the love of her life to Argentina, I gratefully accepted. 

I hadn’t lived on the south coast since I was at school and had lost contact with most of the old crowd, except Caroline. Although I wasn’t unfamiliar with loneliness, I was miserable those first few weeks.

I got a job answering phones for an advertising agency. I think I got the position not on merit, but because I’m small and unobtrusive and unlikely to be a problem for the big egos that work in advertising. I was a woeful secretary, and spent most of my time chatting to people in the kitchen or in the corridor. There was free tea, coffee and biscuits, as long as I remembered to order them. The offices were adequate, and I earned enough to pay the bills. 

I would sit at my desk every day, staring at my computer screen, bored out of my skull. In the evenings I’d sit in Caroline’s flat alone, listening to the seagulls.

On the first sunny Sunday, I went to the café in the Royal Pavilion. I noticed a flyer for a book club pinned to a board. ‘Great,’ I thought, ‘I love books and have lots of opinions, should be a perfect way to finally meet people’. The following Friday I was sitting in a pub discussing Dangerous Liaisons with a group of pretentious humans, my least favourite being a short-haired woman who clearly enjoyed feeling offended. There was one decently nice bloke, but I never got a chance to talk to him because a fight broke out in the guise of an intellectual discussion.

The topic under fire was sex work. Mr Decently-Nice had dared to wonder out loud whatever happened to courtesans. It turned out that Ms Offended had been a social worker for ten years. She started ranting about how degrading all sex work was to women. He mentioned licensing and Amsterdam and the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, and was shouted at because that was still degrading. ‘No one was denying the degradation’, I said. ‘All that was suggested is that there are many sides to sex work.’

‘No!’, shouted the offended social worker. ‘It’s all terrible and the poor women are totally exploited.’ She and she alone knew the truth of the world. 

I left, promising myself I’d never go back and wondering why I’d gone in the first place.

Later, lying in bed, I went over the conversation in my head. Ms Offended was right, to an extent. Nobody could deny the exploitation. But as it was the oldest profession in the world, surely there must be another side to it. Were there no sex workers anywhere in the world with autonomy or dignity? I couldn’t believe that was true.

Caroline had done some naked modelling when we were students. She’d stopped because her parents had found out. It was not a respectable way to earn money, they said. She had used her body in a sexual way to get cash. That didn’t make her a prostitute. So where was the line?

As the night progressed so did my thoughts. How much was sex worth? How does anyone begin? I had a vision of myself as a modern courtesan. I’d have a series of gentleman friends who’d visit me. I’d cook him a nice dinner, as I knew only too well about the stomach-heart connection. We’d talk and then I’d take him to bed. Afterwards we’d shower, and he’d leave. The next day, another one would visit. They’d all be beautiful, interesting, charming men, and the money they’d give me would finance my lifestyle. I thought, ‘Imagine all the books I could buy!’

‘How would I find these gentlemen? There must be plenty around’, I speculated as I fell asleep.

A week later, I was in a café on my lunch break, reading, when someone came up to my table. It was Mr Decently-Nice. He asked if he could join me.

He was sorry that he hadn’t had a chance to speak to me last week, but I’d left so quickly. Would I be coming to the book club again? I mustn’t mind her, she liked going off on one, but she was harmless, really. It was an interesting discussion, wasn’t it?

I shared the thoughts I’d had about becoming a modern-day courtesan. Ha ha ha, he said, a very interesting idea. How was I planning to get started? He was a family man himself, and wouldn’t know. 

Did he mean that he couldn’t understand how someone could be interested in paying for sex? 

Well, of course he could understand, he said. He’d been married for ten years, a proper family man, and had never been unfaithful. But he could absolutely understand wanting to hold another woman. Maybe paying her would provide enough distance to make it possible. It would be a business transaction.

‘How much?’

‘How much what?’

‘How much would you pay someone? Hypothetically, of course.’

He thought for a moment, then named a sum. I laughed, and suggested that if dinner was included he should double it. He said if dinner was included, then that was reasonable. 

‘Would you like it to be a reality, not just a hypothetical?’ He raised an eyebrow. I gave him my address and proposed a date. He could think about it. I hoped I’d see him, I said. 

When he arrived that first time, he was nervous as hell. He tried to pretend that we both knew it was a joke. I poured the wine. After a glass or two he relaxed. I served the food. We talked about books, and films, and French films with nudity, and nudity, and sex. I wore a soft velvet dress with buttons down the front. His big gentle hands fumbled with the buttons.

He had obviously not had sex for some time. 

Afterwards, he paid me considerably more than originally suggested, and left. He made another appointment to see me before he went.

And that was my first experience as a sex worker. After that it was easy.

At the advertising agency, lots of nice-looking, well-heeled men crossed my path. Some were well-off, some were rolling in cash. I was surprised more of them weren’t gay. I’d drop some obvious hints, then wait for them to approach me.

Most came to see me just once. That was fine with me, as those usually paid most. Mr Decently-Nice came to see me every fortnight. I had a few regulars. I was good at guessing what they’d like to eat, and what they’d be into sexually. When I wasn’t sure, I found that asking was easy, and my men were usually willing to tell me what they wanted.

Disappointingly, none of them had any strange kinks. The closest I got to something iffy was one of my regulars, who liked to take a five-mile run with me then go to bed before we showered. Looking back, if I’d wanted kink, maybe I should have approached more public school types. All my men fitted into the same demographic: They were all middle aged, middle class, devoted dads, and incredibly lonely.

There were times I wished I could get them all together so they could tell each other what they told me, and find out how much they had in common, and that they weren’t alone in how they were feeling. They could share the lonely, frightening, boring experiences of fatherhood, instead of being forced to extol how marvellous it was. Their love for their children was real and painful, and most of them loved their wives. None of them had been prepared to face such alienation. 

Some had got married and started families because it had been expected. Some had been feeling lost and were looking for fulfilment. Some felt coerced by partners or surprise pregnancies. All had been totally unprepared.

A couple of men told me that sex became impossible after their wives gave birth, that their wives changed completely. One man used the word ‘repellent’ to describe new mothers and pregnant women. Many of them felt
a terrible jealousy towards their offspring. By and large they felt useless and helpless. These strong, capable women didn’t need them. All of them were amazed at how lonely fatherhood was.

They were unhappy, but they loved their families and didn’t want to leave. The moments they had with me, I was often told, made it easier to deal with the isolation. 

All good things must come to an end. And what end, dear reader? Should I have had my comeuppance? Should an angry group of wives have formed a circle with burning torches and forced me to skip town? Should I have had surprise pregnancy myself and been forced to choose between an unwanted love child or a risky abortion? Or should I have contracted syphilis, and ended up diseased, hideous and insane?

Sometimes happy endings are a disappointment.

Caroline wrote that she was coming back. She wasn’t in love after all, and missed her old life. She needed her flat back. I decided it was time to move on, and I fancied going abroad. 

My men were not happy, but they understood. Mr Decently-Nice wanted to leave his wife and make a go of things with me. Although I had fallen in love with him, I knew I would never be happy in a pretty little house with roses round the door and kids playing in the garden, and he would only be happy with that sort of life. I wanted something different. I wanted to be free. He gave me the idea of investing in property in Berlin, which was very cheap at the time. 

I almost got away with it. A few months after I left, Caroline phoned to say she had been accosted by an angry woman who was raving about marriage wreckers as she was leaving the house. ‘What were you getting up to in my flat while I was away?’ she asked. I admitted to an affair with a decently nice married man. She asked if I’d changed the sheets before I left. 

And so the chapter of my life when I was a sex worker came to an end.
I took my books and started over in Berlin.