There was a strong part of me that was holding onto the notion that I had experienced my one true great love. That I would never love or have have someone as special as Beau was. But all it took was him being a thoughtless asshole after we remained friends to realize that the notion that he was different and special was false and he was indeed just like the rest. That disillusionment evaporated and I was left on the other side wondering if special guys did exist over the age of 30.

I was chatting with a guest at work that had recently lost her husband and we were musing about men and dating. I told her that I think to a certain degree that there might be some truth to the good ones get snatched up quick and young.

I told her I did chase love, monogamy and procreation for most my 20s, and sure the early marriages of my peers quickly fell apart. But as I started to age into my 30s I started to notice how even the marriages that started on the best foot started to fall apart. That life appears to throw nothing but curveballs and the likelihood of surviving with your partner doesn’t seem to get better with age and adding children to the mix only seems to worsen the situation.

So I stopped chasing that dream. I started to carry myself and for a time I was content and happy with that choice.

But under the glaring light of the pandemic and the truth of where exactly humanity is currently suddenly you start to feel lonely faced with the end of the world.

But how to date now?

I’m in my late 30s and sick of men’s shit but I’ll be damned if I don’t still prefer dick to pussy.

Whereas before I was more than willing to fuck anyone that asked nicely now I’m much less interested. Now I feel like they need to work for it. Now my ego is inflated with the knowledge of what the monetary value of my body is comparatively. The irony that it took sex work to make me value myself is fitting in a country that values the dollar more than life. So possibly not ironic at all.

Also having done sex work and had sex frivolously it just doesn’t hold much value anymore. It’s not hard to find a willing dick. It’s not hard to find a willing big dick. They say this loss of value is a common side effect of having done sex work but truth be told I had always had sex predatorily.

I have Alex to thank for that. My first ‘Lover’ if you will. I was 18 and he was 26, which at the time felt light years ahead of me. Fresh out of high school moody and mourning a childhood I never had. I hung out at this coffee shop, Java Books where a collection of local young adults hung out drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and having conversations about concepts I did’t understand. I would sit, listen and absorb. Never confident enough to speak up, just a silent sponge. My only skill at that point was being able to read truth in people’s words. I could tell when people were lying. An intuitive skill I had fine tuned in my dishonest family.

One night I had brought Alicia and this night was more jovial than the rest as someone had brought a guitar. He was a new face that everyone seemed to know. He had curly medium brown hair that fell to just above his chin. He was strumming idly and he paused for a moment before starting the intro to a familiar song. A song that sparked joy. I watched as he finished the intro and then stopped to look at me.

‘Come on you know the words.’ I blushed. I didn’t know the words. I didn’t realize he expected me to sing. How did he know I sang? I hadn’t sung for this group. I hadn’t sung in a long while. When I didn’t say anything he started without me.

‘Show me show me show me…’

I watched him sing through the first verse and play the intro again before he finished. And because this was years ago and I can’t remember how, but somehow moments later I was putting eyeliner on him. I imagine some conversation of idolizing Robert Smith came about. He talked about how he didn’t know why guys didn’t like makeup because it meant a girl was touching them. Still young and a bit naive I had no inkling that he was flirting with me, that my touch was so coveted that one should be happy to wear makeup. All of this seemed normal to me as a theater kid.

It wasn’t till later after we left that Alicia clued me in. He likes you. I hadn’t noticed or thought of myself as the object of anyone’s desire. I had no ego yet.

A weekend or so later my mother went out of town and left my younger sister alone in the apartment. I decided to have a small party in our complex and invited Alex and a few others from the Java Books crowd.

By then being the obsessive teen I still was I had memorized the words to that song so that I would certainly not be unprepared should the opportunity arise again. Alex didn’t bring his guitar. Instead we drank and hung out and Alicia feeling very match maker that evening kept alluding to our attraction to each other. Something very childish, like a suggestion, what if you kissed? So we did. Which he countered with ‘what if you kissed?’ So Alicia and I kissed. Before long the three of us had found our way into my mother’s bedroom and were passionately writhing around on the floor making out and removing clothing.

It wasn’t long before Alicia stopped and excused herself.

‘you two though, she needs this.’ she referred to me before walking out of the room. We wasted no time. For a moment Alex paused and looked at me. ‘I can’t be emotionally attached or date you is that okay?’ I nodded not caring at the time. Sure I said.

I had had sex with two other people prior to Alex. But none with such passion and desire. Something about the older musician was just too much of a dreamy teenager’s desire.

After a decent amount of time we finished and laid on the ground hot and sweaty.

‘You’re really good at that.’ He said.

I modestly thanked him.

‘No.’ he sat up right to look at me. ‘You’re really good at that. Sex is not normally like that.’

I laughed uncomfortably. I had only had sex with my high school boyfriend and the neighbor across the street, how could I possibly know what was normal for humans based on my limited experience.

‘Yeah? what’s sex normally like?’ I said authentically curious.

‘A lot of girls aren’t that into it, a lot of them just lay there.’ I tried to imagine why anyone would be there if they weren’t into it.

‘You actually enjoy it. It’s very obvious in the way you move and respond.’

Okay I said still not understanding the point of telling me this.

‘Use it.’ He pressed on. I looked at him confused. ‘Use it however you want. Take what you want and from whom you want, break men’s hearts do everything a man would do. Don’t let anyone tell you you shouldn’t. You’re not like the others, you can have whoever you want and you should enjoy it.’

Somehow quiet and shy at the coffee shop Alex had picked up on this undiscovered sexual energy I would learn to hone in myself and others. He didn’t let me out of the bedroom until he felt I fully understood my capabilities and that I wouldn’t allow society to keep me from enjoying it to the fullest. It would be the beginning of our secret love affair. He had some arrangement with some girl he was supposedly engaged to.

But I did listen. I was 18, and aware that I had a super power. Sex.

So, to say that I lost enchantment with sex because I had done sex work wouldn’t be completely honest. Thanks to Alex I had started predatorily having sex pretty much from the beginning. I knew that when I walked into a room I could have whoever I wanted. So I did. I figured out how to pick up on that sexual frequency in others and in between my attempts at monogamy there was always lots of casual sex, short term lovers and occasional hook ups.

It’s been 20 years of this. I have quite a lot of good, bad and fantastic sex. As it’s not that difficult a thing for me I no longer crave it. While I was content to be alone, it would seem now between late stage capitalism/fascism historically leading to war, climate change nowhere near slowing down and disturbing advancements in AI sentience, that some kind of catastrophe to humanity is in the future.

I don’t care about sex anymore. I don’t know how to date because men are just unwilling to try anything even remotely difficult. It would be nice to feel loved again. But in this day and age and country love feels like less of priority and it feels pretty ugly to be honest. I’m not sure I want to live out the rest of my years in a self serving place. I am incredibly bored with the rhetoric I hear over and over again. There has to be a life worth living elsewhere. I wont spend my remaining years in this mess.