Most escorts who use the same persona for any length of time, and stay in the same place, will have regulars at some point. Regulars, for those who don’t know, are repeat clients who you see frequently. I usually consider someone a regular when I have seen them 4 or more times and expect to continue seeing them.
When clients ask me questions, I lie. I make up answers to their personal questions, based on what I think they hope to hear and will lead them away from anything identifying about me. If I’m seeing someone regularly, I have to remember what lies I told them and try to avoid saying anything that contradicts, if they ask me questions later. That’s why I now try to stick to answers that I’ve designated for my persona. The character I’ve created for sex work is cis and bisexual (I’m neither), is a student (I’m not) and has supportive parents (I don’t). I have a basic story that I try to stick to, and that works.
This means that when clients think they’re “getting to know me” during sessions, they aren’t. They’re getting to know a person who doesn’t exist, because I’d never answer their questions honestly. It would put me in danger to tell them so much about myself. I don’t care if they say or think they’re a good guy, I have no way to know and it’s not worth the risk to trust them. Not only that, can’t exactly tell them that I’m not sexually interested in men at all. It would kill the fantasy I’m providing, where I pretend to like them and I make them think they’re good at sex. I’ve had two real orgasms, in my time as a sex worker… through hundreds of bookings. I do a lot of faking.
Clients will think I like them, because it’s my job to give them the fantasy of thinking I do. A problem arises when they forget (or choose to ignore) the fact that they’re paying me for a service and take my behaviour as genuine. I smile, laugh at their jokes, pretend the sex was amazing and make them feel good. They convince themselves that we’re friends and that I’d be interested even without the money!
This leads to clients asking me on dates, which I refuse. They get angry. I don’t see them anymore. Or they tell me they can’t see me anymore, because they’ve fallen for me. I say okay, and they get upset that I didn’t confess similar feelings. If I stop replying to a regular’s texts and don’t let them make a new booking, they get upset and send me 10 or 20 messages going on about how they don’t understand why I’d suddenly ignore them. As if we were dating or something.
Not all regulars are like this, but enough are that it’s always a concern in the back of my mind. You might wonder why I don’t just stop pretending to like them so much. Well, when I do that, I don’t get repeat customers. Which I need, to earn money.
I’ll give you the example of one client, who we’ll call “Gavin”. Gavin first met me and was a very relaxed client. He showed up for an hour, to my flat, and there was nothing particularly surprising about his behaviour. He wanted me to enjoy myself, so I pretended to, nothing shocking or out of the ordinary from a john.
He booked again, for 45 minutes the next time. That time he was more insistent on me enjoying myself, and made a point of saying he wanted to “make me orgasm at least 3 times”. If he was having sex with someone who was actually enjoying it, that’d still be a ridiculous standard, but I pretended to. He asked me personal questions, I lied, he seemed interested.
He continued to book me for 45 minutes or an hour, each time insisting that I “orgasm” more times. It got to the point where even though all of them were fake anyway, I started saying “no, I can’t” just to see what his reaction would be. His reaction was to get angry and insist that I could, and I pretended again. Odd. He also started to imply he wanted anal, by using fingers to prod, with me pulling away and laughing and re-directing him every time. Uncomfortable, and obviously pushing my boundaries because he was well aware I don’t do that.
Then, during his 5th time meeting me, he pushed open the curtains slightly while we were having sex. No-one outside saw me, they’d have had to look up at exactly the right moment, but it made me instantly very angry that he’d do that. I live here, and he could have exposed me to a neighbour who didn’t consent to see that. It also didn’t help that he was holding me and hitting me against a counter in a way which left a 1-inch-wide and several-inch-long bruise on one of my legs. The bruise lasted a week. Gavin often left bruises on me, from his fingers, because he was kind of rough.
After that, I didn’t reply to his messages. He’d kept trying to push my boundaries more each time, never explicitly asking for anal but trying to finger me there more than once despite me pulling away every time. He kept texting, insisting that I must be busy and he understood. Eventually, he almost started pleading in his messages, clearly wanting me to tell him why. He didn’t this many times, over a month or so.
From his perspective, I was a sex worker with whom he had become friendly and gotten personal details from, who he had amazing sex with and who came many times during it. He’d convinced himself of that, completely ignoring his actual treatment of me. From my perspective, he was an angry and somewhat violent man whose temper I was managing, that was slowly pushing my boundaries more and more in a dangerous way.
What clients need to understand is that when they hire a sex worker, they’re paying someone to do a job. Unless a sex worker texts you to suggest meeting without payment, as friends, you’re not friends. Men who book me want a good service, but when I give it to them they assume that means I’m genuinely interested, and now they expect it for free.
Due to Covid-19, I’ve needed money more. I got another text from Gavin, after 6 months of ignoring him, and this time I replied. This was roughly a couple of weeks ago. I knew him already and that he wasn’t going to murder me, and I figured that if I met him at a hotel then I’d eliminated the risk of the curtain opening thing happening again. That booking, decided he wanted anal, and this time actually pushed a finger in. Without asking, obviously. It hurt. I told him to “be gentle”, and got him to stop quickly by pulling away after about a minute and distracting him. I didn’t point out that he’d violated me, knowing I didn’t want to do that after my numerous refusals. I didn’t point out that he hadn’t asked me. I didn’t yell at him. I finished the booking, feeling kind of sick, and then went home with my money. Making a fuss might have made him hurt me, or refuse to let me keep the money. I figured, well, it’s already happened and I’m going to feel violated either way, so no point risking him getting angry.
He texted me again after that booking. I blocked his number. I didn’t explain, because what good would it do? It’d only cause problems for me, maybe lead him to fixate on me further or do me harm, and I’m so fucking exhausted with trying to teach abusive men what they’ve done wrong.
This is just one client. I’ve had worse experiences, I’ve had ones where the regulars weren’t hurting me or scaring me but just assumed we were friends even though we clearly aren’t, and I’ve had clients who I kind of liked.
The point being, this client thought we were friends. He probably still thinks I enjoyed sex with him, which I actually found uncomfortable, annoying, gross and painful. Maybe he still texts me, not knowing I’ve blocked his number. When clients tell you they’re friends with a sex worker, I am telling you, they are almost certainly wrong. Not only that, the type of men to convince themselves of that are often particularly bad clients who we only keep seeing because we really need the money.
I usually know better than to meet clients like Gavin, after they cross a line like when he opened my curtains. I hadn’t seen any clients in a couple of months, almost, and Covid-19 had thrown me off a little. It was an awful experience and a good reminder that I need to trust my gut, when I see a red flag.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 