Poor Little Middle Class Whore

I often think of each hotel I stay at as just another bedroom in my own vast collection of private residences spread around the world. What woman doesn't believe that her life isn't always on its way to a scenario of extravagance made of sugar and spice, and all that's nice? Of course, the reality is that I work in the marketing department for a dull multinational corporation and the travel manager books me at the cheapest hotel she can find. She tries to put me at three and four star hotels but often a two and a halfer is the best she can do with "the state of the economy the way it is," as she puts it.

This year, I hit my own personal record, logging over 100,000 miles in 30 cities, but have still managed to get my pay cut by 10 percent. "We're all making painful cuts," the CEO tells us. Not that I absolutely need the money, at least not to survive from day to day. It's more a matter that I have no choice but to keep marching forward to pay for all the choices I have already made. There is the mortgage payment, the car payment, the insurance payments, the credit cards and a hundred other bills that just seem to go up and up and up. What kind of life would it be if I had to work a dull job with long hours and be the bargain shopper with a used car and a cheap apartment in the suburbs? Working a dreary corporate job should at least come with a little bit of wealth, no?

Anyway, life on the road brings its own routines. Return to hotel in rental car. Shower with complimentary fancy soap. Order room service. Eat in front of TV. Do a few more hours of work on laptop. Fall asleep in still freshly made bed. Repeat. I really did believe that there would be something more, some kind of wild series of adventures that would happen on the side but never did. I knew deep down that I had been pushed to the brink from the endless repetition of struggling to just make it through each day of a mediocre existence. But I never seemed to do anything about that.

I've never liked eating alone at the hotel restaurant or sitting by myself at the bar nursing my lonely drink. If I have to choose between sitting in bed watching news from some war on the other side of the world and perched at a bar talking to a chatty bartender, I'll chose the war.

"I know it's natural to feel trapped," I told my shrink on the phone. I had not only resorted to seeing a psychiatrist to sort out my issues of feeling stuck in a lifeless routine I seemed to like being stuck in, I had resorted to doing our sessions by phone from whatever city I happened to be working in. It somehow only managed to magnify the sense of isolation from the real human drama that, in my mind, I was missing on a daily basis.

I was sitting in my work suit on the edge of the hotel bed as she talked to me, watching the images on the muted TV move from one to the next. She was advising me to consider taking up a new hobby or personal pursuit to give my life a new sense of adventure. Her words made sense in theory but in reality I couldn't imagine that taking up karate or starting a book club would really satisfy what I was seeking deep down. She kept talking as I stared at the new image being shown on the TV.

It was apparently a news story about a group of young Chinese women who had been discovered in a shipping container as they were trying to be smuggled into the country. The footage showed the women as each was escorted out of the container. While some had blankets wrapped around them, others were wearing nothing but evening dresses. I thought how incredibly odd that the women had somehow expected to simply climb out of the container and immediately be dressed and ready to begin working as escorts. I sat there and tried to imagine how I'd feel enclosed in a dark metal shipping container for a week or more while it crossed thousands of miles of ocean. How extraordinarily different each of our lives are, I wondered to myself.

"Anna? Anna, are you listening to me?"

"Yes, yes. I'm here. Sorry, I was just distracted for a second."

"Distracted by what?" she asked me.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," I told her absentmindedly. "Listen, Dr. Holstein, would you mind if we cut this session short?"

"Is everything all right, Anna?"

"Yes, it's fine. I'm just feeling tired tonight and don't feel like we're going to get much more accomplished from this session."

"Ok. Are you sure there's nothing you want to talk about?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Let's continue this next week."

"Very well. Feel free to call me back if your mood changes."

"Yes, Dr. Holstein."

I hit the "end call" button and held the phone for a second. Everything was not fine but I certainly didn't want to talk about it anymore. I wanted to do something, to actually do something that was not talked about or planned in advance at all.

I don't know what triggered the switch inside of me. Maybe it was something about all those women on TV who lived their lives on the very edge of survival and never had to even think about being stuck in a dull corporate world. Their existence was painful and real. I didn't want to be in such a horrible place but I wanted that same sense of being in a place where I had to make such extreme choices. I didn't know what exactly that meant but it definitely didn't mean sitting in this hotel room in Chicago another night.

I shut my laptop and decided I'd head down to the hotel bar for a drink. But what was I going to wear? I had packed little else except for business attire and clothes to sleep in. It was only eight o'clock. There had to be a store nearby still open. I grabbed my hotel key card and flew down the hall to the elevator.

I stopped at the concierge to ask if there was a store nearby still open where I could buy evening attire. He asked me what kind of clothes or store did I have in mind exactly? I thought to myself. The image of one of the women on TV climbing out of the container came into my mind. She was wearing a short black evening dress. It looked very cheap and tawdry- something like I would never wear. The concierge suggested a few stores on Michigan Avenue that I knew.

"No, no. Nothing like that," I told him. "I just need a cheap evening dress. Something really slutty."

He looked at me in astonishment when I said that. It surprised me as well to hear those words come out of my mouth.

"Well, there's a Forever 21 store down the way. They should have something," he told me.

"Oh, that's perfect," I told him. They'll definitely have something and what better place to buy that sort of dress than at a company constantly being accused of running sweat shops. I could probably find some cheap thing that was even made by a poor, desperate girl longing to sell her body to make it to a better life.

I jumped in a taxi and headed to the store. When I got there and started browsing through the racks, I couldn't help but smile. It must have been years since I shopped for anything like this. Imagine what one of my friends would say if they discovered me in a place like this, shopping for slinky little dresses. None of the dresses, though, was just quite right. I headed back to the sale rack, hoping to find one of those really tacky pieces of clothing that was just way too over the top for most people to even consider buying. One of those dresses that you hold up to show your friends just for a good "can you imagine me in this" sort of laugh. And I found it.

The little black dress was made to be short and tight, with fake diamonds running down both sides of its low-cut v-neck. And it was on sale for $9.99. Perfect. I grabbed it off the rack and headed back to the dressing room. I couldn't get my business suit off fast enough to try it on. I pulled it down over my body and looked at myself in the mirror. I must be out of my mind, I thought. I looked like a different woman, like I was playing dress up to be the slutty ghetto girl at Halloween. It looked ideal except that I wanted to wear it right away and the kind of bra and panties I had on just could not be worn with it. I pulled off the dress, took off my bra and panties, and then put it back on. I eyed myself in the mirror once again. Could I really go out like this?

I ripped off the price tag, folded my suit under my arm and went to the cash register to pay. I stopped to quickly try on a couple of pairs of shoes and settled on a trashy pair of platform high heels. The cashier tried to pretend it wasn't strange to be wanting to wear a dress like that right out of the store. I just paid for the dress and headed out. At the exit to the store, I tossed my business suit and undergarments into the trash. Whatever had gotten into me, I knew I had snapped.

When I strutted back into the hotel, the concierge didn't know how to react. He simply nodded in affirmation that I had found what I was looking for, afraid to inquire into what sort of woman I really was. I headed up to my room to primp my face properly. I still was astonished to see my image in the mirror for a second time. I accentuated my eyes with a thick coating of black mascara and eyeliner, and then rolled on a bright layer of red lipstick. I was in such an intoxicated, frantic state of mind that I didn't want to stop to look at myself too long for fear of changing my mind.

I headed down to the bar, clacking my way past a collection of businessmen spread around the place, and settled into a corner lounge seat. I had to lift up and pull the dress down so I could cross my legs without revealing half my ass and my lack of panties.

I looked around and took a deep breath. I wondered if maybe I should call my shrink back and tell her what I was doing. Maybe I had really lost it. Maybe my personality had suddenly split. I had just read an article about personality disorders. But I remember reading that women with split personalities were really good in bed. So maybe what I was doing was fine? Maybe I should stop thinking and do whatever I wanted to do tonight, I argued with myself.

The server came over to me immediately after he saw how I looked when I came into the bar.

"Good evening miss. Something to drink?"

"Yes, a Manhattan."

"Of course. Preference of whiskey?"

I could tell he was trying to draw out the order.

"What do you recommend?" I asked him flirtatiously.

"Well there is an excellent new micro-distillery here in Illinois called North Shore that makes a fine rye whiskey. I highly recommend it."

He was trying way too hard and was too young and eager to suit me tonight.

"That will be fine," I told him. "And something from the appetizer menu. Oysters if you have them."

"We do have them."

"Then a half dozen of those."

"Right away."

I hadn't eaten anything and I had to do something while I sat there all by myself, looking like a coquettish whore waiting for her date. The drink arrived quickly and the oysters not long after. I slurped down half the drink and sucked down a few oysters.

There were a number of men there and one couple but no one who particularly struck me as the type. A few minutes later, though, as I was happening to glance out the front entry of the bar, a man who was walking by with his luggage just happened to look over and make eye contact with me. It was just one of those brief moments when your eyes lock, you feint half a smile and then the moment is gone before anyone has time to react. I could see he was wearing a dark blue suit and his dark brown hair was slicked elegantly back over the top of his head.

Only a quarter of an hour passed before he returned to the bar. He entered and gave me a direct, restrained look, obviously trying to size up my situation. He took a seat at the bar and ordered a drink. Minutes passed as he casually looked in my direction a number of times out of the corner of his eye.

Sitting in solitude in a hotel bar was foreign enough to me. Trying to look like I wanted to be hit on for the most obvious reasons was like speaking another language. Rather than pretending to look away from a man and sense if he was looking at me, I would stare at him directly every time he happened to glance in my direction. It was like I was desperate for it. I shook my hair to make it a bit more disheveled. I uncrossed my legs and re-crossed them to the other side. I slid my tongue nonchalantly around the edge of my glass. I began to imagine who I now was. What was my name? Where was I from? Did I have an accent? What was I doing here?

I began to talk to myself behind the shield of my hand, listening to my own voice and trying on different foreign accents. I remembered my piano teacher I had as a child and the thick Slavic voice that she had. I tried to mimic it, asking myself questions and then responding to the questions. Did I sound real? Would any man really notice? Could I do this? I was so infatuated with my delusional role playing that I hadn't even noticed the man approach me.

"Anyone sitting here?" he asked me simply.

I froze up for a moment and looked up at him. I cleared my throat and decided in a split second that I would try on the new persona.

"Here? With me? No," I said in a thick accent that sounded like a drunken Russian.

"Would you mind?"

"No, please," I said, offering a place with my hand.

He sat down. His sudden presence next to me was exhilarating. He had that slick banker look with dark Italian features and olive-toned skin.

"Where are you from?" he asked me.

"Latvia," I said, sounding like a school girl practicing her foreign language skills.

"You are here at the hotel?"

"Yes. And you?"

"Yes."

"Would do you do for a living?" I asked him.

"I'd rather not say, if you wouldn't mind," he told me.

"Why not?" I asked him in confusion.

"I think the answer is obvious," he told me as he smiled.

I had no idea what game he was playing. "What do you mean?"

The smile evaporated from his face as he saw I was serious. "Aren't you?"

"Aren't I what?" I asked him.

A look of embarrassment spread across his face and he suddenly went to get up. "I am so sorry. I thought ... I should just walk away," he said as he rose from the table.

"Thought what? Please tell me," I asked him naively.

He bent over to say it in a lower voice. "I'm sorry. I saw you sitting here dressed like that by yourself and I thought you were like a call girl or something."

I felt the blood rush to my head in my own embarrassment. I took a quick sip of my drink while the chaos of thoughts bounced around my mind. Apparently I had played the part a little too well. I didn't want him to just get up and leave like that, though.

"Please," I told him, "sit down."

He looked down at me, trying to read my meaning. I could tell he wasn't sure if I was a call girl and wanted him to sit back down or I wasn't and still wanted him to stay. At that precise second, I wasn't sure either. He cautiously sat back down, trying to figure it out. The awkward moment gave me time to gather my composure.

"I just like to be careful, you know," I told him, leaning over the table and placing my hand on top of his. "Didn't know if you were a policeman. Have much fear over secret service still."

"Oh ... ok. No, of course I'm not one," he said. He put himself at ease again, taking a sip from his own cocktail.

"A girl can never be too sure," I told him in a serious tone.

"Of course."

"So what should I call you?" I asked him.

"Call me Luciano."

"Luciano? Like the gangster?"

"Yes," he said with a smile, straightening his collar in mocking fashion. "And what's your name?"

I had to think for a second. "Anya."

He nodded slowly. "Very sexy name."

"Thank you." I eyed his lustrous blue suit and the white dress shirt the peeked out at his wrists. He wore shiny silver cufflinks.

"My friend told me to use a service while I was here, but I happened to see you on my way to my room and figured I'd go freestyle tonight."

"Freestyle?"

"You know what I mean. I heard it's all private services and Craiglist whores."

I raised my eyebrows at him when he said that.

"I didn't mean that," he tried to explain. "I just wouldn't go online for it. That's all."

"I see," I told him.

"I prefer private services. You are with one I assume?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a number? I mean for the future."

"Not on me ... no."

"No problem."

The waiter stopped by and we ordered more drinks.

"Do you do this often?" I asked him.

"No. I can't with a family ... I mean, no ... shit, I don't know why I just said that," he mumbled. "You just seem really easy to talk to, but no, I don't do this often."

I nodded slowly to him. I looked at him and realized that he probably had never done this at all. Beneath his slick exterior, he was a bit awkward and nervous. I suddenly felt like I had the control in the situation. I mean I was the one who was now selling sex and he was the one who was in need of it. The waiter set the new round of drinks on the table and then left. I uncrossed my legs slowly in front of him and re-crossed them. He watched me and saw that I had on no panties.

"So what are you looking for tonight, Luciano?"

He shifted forward, already excited by the flash I had given him. "Well how much do you charge?"

I had no idea what to say. I had momentarily forgotten about the money. How much could I really make from this? I wasn't really doing it for the money, but the thought of the extra cash sounded tempting. I really had no idea what to charge, though. I grabbed my phone, pretending like I got a message. "One second. I need to respond to this."

"Sure," he said, sitting back in his seat.

I quickly Googled "escort rates Chicago" and pretended to be taking care of some other business. I put the phone back down on the table. "What were we talking about?" I asked him.

"Uhmmm ... rates. I mean it's not an issue for me."

"Five hundred for two hours."

He nodded slowly. "For anything?"

"What is anything?"

"I mean whatever I want you to do."

I placed my hand on his lap. "What would you like me to do?"

"You know ... You're the professional. Like just whatever comes to you."

I nodded again, feeling like I was in a company meeting. He was really quite attractive and he had a certain elegance to him. His entire approach, though, seemed like a huge departure from his normal routine somehow. He wasn't obnoxious the way I would expect a man who pays for sex to be. I wondered what he was actually going through that made him seek out a call girl. I didn't know what other questions to ask him. I tried to put myself in Anya's mind.

"Would you like your cock sucked?" My accent seemed to grow thicker when I talked dirty.

"Maybe."

"Do you like to kiss?"

"Sure."

"Do you like me to be on top or bottom?"

"On top, definitely. Squatting position with your hands on my chest."

"Squatting?"

"Yeah, you know. With your feet on the bed and using your ass to bounce up and down."

I had never even tried that. I got nervous that I wasn't going to be able to perform.

"Can you do that?"

"It is not my specialty but you are the client."

"Yes, I'm the client ... Oh, one more thing."

"What is that?" I asked him.

He slid closer to me. "Uncross your legs and turn towards me." I uncrossed my legs and shifted closer to him. He suddenly slipped his hand between my legs. I looked around quickly.

"No one's looking. I already checked," he said. "Spread them a bit."

I spread my legs a little so he could touch me. I felt his fingers run up my bare cunt. I suddenly felt like the sex object there for a man's enjoyment.

"I love it when a woman doesn't wear any panties," he whispered to me.

"I never wear any," I told him in my thick accent.

"Really? " He ran his fingers up to my clit and stroked it delicately. I leaned closer to him. I could smell the cologne on his skin. I was also getting very tipsy from the drinks.