I Got Paid for Sex for Months and No One Knows

Only one person in the world knows about this. And it wasn't even because I told her, but because she found out by chance years later. Sometimes, when I'm alone and the memory comes back, I wonder whether I should have talked about it with someone else. Other times, I'm grateful I didn't.

I was twenty-two and had been with Inés for almost three years. The first time I saw the way she looked at me, I knew I was going to lose my head over her. I wasn't wrong. What I hadn't calculated was how much losing her was going to cost me.

Inés was the kind of person who had no filter. She tried things, asked for things, said out loud what any other girlfriend would have kept to herself. She asked me to fuck her against the bathroom wall at her college in the middle of the morning, sent me photos of her open pussy with two fingers inside while I was in class, dropped to her knees as soon as I closed the door of my apartment, and pulled my cock out before even saying hello. I learned more about sex with her in six months than I had in my entire life before that. I learned what her cum tasted like, learned that she liked me to pull her hair while I fucked her from behind, learned that she came twice if I licked her ass while masturbating her. And I also learned that you don't find that kind of intensity again—or at least not at that age.

When she dumped me, she did it by text. Three lines. It wasn't me, she'd thought about it a lot, I wasn't to look for her. It took me days to get out of bed. I told my friends I was fine. I told my mother I was fine. I even told myself the same thing every morning in front of the mirror, and every morning it got a little harder to believe.

Three months passed. Just long enough for me to start going out again, to laugh at stupid things, to think I was finally climbing out of the pit. And then I saw her.

She was in a bar downtown, one she'd never gone to with me when we were together. I'd gone in with two roommates for a quick drink before heading somewhere else. I saw her in the back, leaning against the bar, laughing with a guy I didn't know. It wasn't a polite laugh. She was laughing the way she'd laughed with me. Then he kissed her, and she closed her eyes.

Something inside me broke in a very specific, very physical way, as if someone had dropped a weight into my stomach.

I left without saying anything to anyone. I walked aimlessly for an hour and ended up in a part of downtown where I'd never been. I went into the first bar with music and lights. It took me ten minutes to realize it was a gay bar. It took another ten to order my third drink.

The guy who came over to talk to me didn't appeal to me. He was older than I was, had an unkempt beard, and wore perfume that was far too sweet. But he smiled, offered me another drink, and asked if I was all right. I told him no, that I was a mess, that I'd been a mess for three months. He laughed. He told me he knew that look. He invited me back to his place.

I said yes because I didn't care about anything anymore. That's exactly what I thought as I climbed into the taxi: I don't care about anything; let whatever's going to happen happen.

At his apartment he barely turned on the hall light. He shoved me against the entryway wall and put his tongue in my mouth before I had time to take off my jacket. His breath smelled of gin and cold tobacco. He groped my bulge through my jeans, squeezing my cock with his open palm, and whispered in my ear that he'd been imagining all night what it was like. I didn't say anything. I let him undo the button, lower the zipper, and put his hand inside my underwear. I got hard by reflex, not desire. He smiled as if that meant something.

He took me into the living room. He made me kneel in front of the sofa and sat down with his legs spread. He pulled out his cock and held it an inch from my mouth. It was thick, with a purplish head, and already dripping. He pushed it in without asking, forcing my head down with his open hand at the nape of my neck. I gave him a blowjob I didn't want to give. I forced myself to move my tongue, to suck him all the way to the back, to swallow my gagging when he rammed it against my throat. He moaned under his breath, called me boy, told me I sucked cock so well, told me to keep going, not to stop. He squeezed my cheeks with his fingers so I'd open my mouth wider and fucked it for a long while, looking down at me with a smile that stayed etched in my memory.

Afterward he stood me up, tore off my pants and underwear, and laid me facedown on the sofa. I heard the snap of the lubricant bottle and the crinkle of the condom wrapper. He spread my ass with both hands and slathered me with two fingers, pushing them in to the knuckles without any gentleness. Then he set the tip against me and thrust all the way in with one stroke. It burned. I clenched my teeth against the cushion. He fucked me fast, one open hand on my hip, grunting every time he reached the bottom, while I stared at the ceiling and let it happen. I felt nothing. No pleasure, disgust, or arousal. Just a strange distance from myself, as if I were watching another guy do it, a guy getting his ass fucked in a living room that smelled of sweet perfume while he counted the stains on the ceiling.

When he finished, he gave two deeper thrusts, came with a long groan, and stayed leaning against my back for a few seconds, breathing into the nape of my neck. I waited for him to move away. I got dressed without looking at him, told him I had to go, and ran down the stairs two at a time.

Outside, I vomited against a wall. It wasn't the alcohol. It was the way I'd turned myself into someone I didn't recognize in less than six hours.

***

The logical thing would have been to stop there. The logical thing would have been to call a friend, ask for help, see a therapist. I did none of that. I did the exact opposite.

Over the following weeks I convinced myself of an idea that sounds stupid now: if I didn't care about anything, if I couldn't feel anything anymore, then the only thing that made sense was to take it to the extreme. Turn sex into something mechanical. Strip it of every trace of emotion. If Inés could leave like that, if I could let a stranger fuck my ass without blinking, then nothing meant anything and it didn't matter what I did with my body.

And I also thought I needed money. That was the excuse I used so I wouldn't have to face the real reason.

I signed up for a website a classmate had mentioned half-jokingly months earlier. I uploaded two faceless photos: one of my torso, another of my hard cock pressed against my hip, its size estimated by measuring it with my hand. I wrote a short description. Three days later I had my first client.

He was a man of about fifty, married, wearing a wedding ring he hadn't even bothered to take off. We met at a hotel on the outskirts of town. He smelled of expensive cologne and fear. He paid me in advance, asked me not to kiss him on the mouth, and started undressing me as soon as he closed the door.

He lay me down on the bed and sucked my cock for a good ten minutes. He took the whole thing in, eyes closed, as if he'd been waiting years for it. He licked my balls, ran his tongue up my groin, then took me all the way back in. Drool ran down his chin, and he spread it over my stomach with his hand. Then he put the condom on himself with his mouth, with a skill that didn't match how badly his hands were shaking, and sat down on top of me. He impaled himself slowly, his face twisted with pain and pleasure at once, and began riding me without speaking. The only sounds were his ass slapping against my thighs and his harsh breathing. He dug his nails into my chest every time he sank down all the way. I held his hips, followed his rhythm on instinct, and came inside the condom without looking him in the eyes. He came over my stomach almost immediately afterward, squeezing his cock in his hand and splattering me up to my navel. When he was done, he dressed in silence, left an extra bill on the bedside table, and left.

That night I didn't vomit. That night I counted the money twice, put it in an envelope inside the wardrobe, and went to sleep.

***

The following months were a collection of hotel rooms, borrowed apartments, and cars parked in dark places. Most of my clients were older men. Married men who didn't dare say out loud what they liked. Single men who lived shut inside closets built decades ago. Bisexual men who had girlfriends and wanted something different on a Tuesday afternoon.

Few of them attracted me physically. Almost none, really. I learned to disconnect. I learned to stick my ass out while thinking about my shopping list. I learned to suck big cocks, small ones, crooked ones, uncircumcised ones, tasting of soap or sweat, and to pretend I loved every one of them. I learned to come on command with my hand while the client licked my nipples or put two fingers up my ass. I learned tricks I'm not proud of now: tightening my sphincter at exactly the right moment so the man fucking me would come sooner, moaning loudly when someone asked me to even though I felt nothing, counting the ceiling tiles while a stranger pounded into me. I also learned what kind of man paid for what kind of thing: executives wanted me to suck their cock under the desk at the office; family men wanted me to fuck their asses slowly, tenderly, as if I were their first lover; retirees only wanted to caress my chest and come in my hand.

I had some women too. Few. Almost all of them were older, separated, or widowed, women who hadn't been touched by anyone for years and paid to feel desired for a while. With them it was different. It was easier for me to pretend, I don't know why. Maybe because they were kinder, or because they reminded me of something else. I ate them out slowly, gently bit their tits, made them come two or three times before fucking them. They asked me to fuck them while looking into their eyes, to whisper that they were hot, to take my time. I saw one of them cry afterward, holding on to my shoulder, and I stroked her hair until she calmed down.

And then there was Lucía.

***

Lucía wrote to me one Thursday afternoon. The message was awkward, full of misplaced commas, and couched in conditionals. Would I be available on a Saturday? Could I do it with her the first time? Would I mind that she had no experience at all?

I had to read it twice to understand what she was asking me. I called her. We talked for almost an hour. She was nineteen, from a village seventy kilometers away, had come to the city to study, and had never been with anyone. She told me she'd read things online, that she was afraid, that she'd rather her first time be with someone who wouldn't judge her and wouldn't come looking for her afterward.

I asked her if she'd thought it through. She said she'd been turning it over for months. I asked whether there was someone who could do her that favor without charging her. She said that was precisely why—because she didn't want to owe anyone anything—she preferred to pay.

I agreed. Not for the money. I agreed because she inspired a tenderness I hadn't felt in months.

***

We met at an apartment I rented for the encounters, in a quiet neighborhood. I opened the door and saw her, petite, with her hair pulled back in a low ponytail and a cross-body bag against her chest. She wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans. She hadn't dressed up. I liked that.

“Come in,” I said. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Water, please.”

I poured her a glass. I told her to sit on the sofa. For twenty minutes I talked to her about anything and everything: college, the village she came from, a band she followed. I touched her knee only after I'd seen her laugh three times. I told her we'd go very slowly. I told her she could ask me to stop at any moment, that she could change her mind, that she could leave and I wouldn't ask her for the money.

“I don't want to leave,” she said.

I kissed her cheek first. Then her neck. Then her mouth. Lucía was trembling. Not from the cold.

I led her to the bedroom by the hand. I took off her sweatshirt and saw that underneath she was wearing a white camisole without a bra. Her nipples showed through the fabric, small and hard. She had the body of someone who still hadn't grown accustomed to being looked at. For a long time I did nothing but kiss her, stroke her back beneath the fabric, talk into her ear, and laugh with her whenever she got nervous. I slowly lifted her shirt and kissed her nipples one by one, sucking them with the flat of my tongue, pausing every time she drew a deep breath and pressed my head against her chest.

“Can I take your jeans off?” I asked.

She nodded.

I undid the button, lowered the zipper, and gradually pulled her pants down while kissing her stomach. She was wearing simple white cotton panties, with a damp spot in the center that told me everything I needed to know. I kissed her through the fabric, breathing against her pussy, and felt her part her legs a little without realizing it. I hooked my fingers into the sides of her panties and lowered them just as slowly, letting her see what I was going to do the entire time before I did it.

I kissed her stomach, her hips, the insides of her thighs. I asked permission before each thing. When I asked whether she wanted me to kiss her between the legs, she closed her eyes for a second and nodded again.

I spread her pussy with my thumbs, very slowly, and ran my whole tongue from the bottom up to her clitoris. A short moan escaped her, as if she'd been startled by the sound of her own voice. She was already soaking wet, with a clean, gentle taste, and had the smallest labia I'd ever seen. I licked her in circles, without pressing, learning her rhythm. When I found the spot that made her squeeze her thighs against my head, I stayed there. I sucked her clitoris with my lips, brushed it with the tip of my tongue, kissed it as if I were kissing her mouth. I slid in one finger, just one, with great care, and felt her close around it. She was tight, hot, and every time I curled my finger upward, she moaned involuntarily.

I stayed there for a long time. Without hurrying. I felt her body relaxing, felt her stop squeezing her legs, felt her breathing grow deeper. I added a second finger when I saw she was ready, slowly sliding them in and out while I kept licking her clitoris. When she came for the first time in her life, she did it silently, her back arched high and her hands buried in the sheets. I felt her walls pulse around my fingers, squeezing in waves, and she let out a long shudder that traveled all the way down her legs.

Afterward she lay very still, looking at me as if she were processing what had just happened.

“I want to do something for you,” she said.

I sat on the edge of the bed and she knelt between my legs. I showed her how. I took her hand and placed it around my cock, closing her fingers with mine, and showed her the rhythm. I explained where to squeeze harder and where to ease up, how to turn her wrist when she reached the top, how to run her thumb beneath the head. My cock grew harder in her hands, and she watched, fascinated, as if she'd never seen one so close up. Then she leaned forward on her own and tried with her mouth, with the sweet clumsiness of a first time. She took just the tip at first, her lips very tight, and lowered herself little by little. Her teeth grazed me once and she pulled away, frightened. I stroked her hair and told her not to worry, that she was doing fine, that she should open her mouth a little wider and cover her teeth with her lips. She tried again. She sucked me slowly, looking up at me with her eyes wide, and it wasn't the best blowjob of my life, but it was the most sincere.

When the time came, I went even more slowly. I laid her on her back, carefully opened her legs, and positioned myself on top of her. I asked whether she still wanted to do it. She said yes, yes, please, yes. I applied lubricant. I put on the condom. I ran the tip of my cock over her lips, up and down, wetting myself with her moisture, brushing her clitoris until I saw her close her eyes again. I entered millimeter by millimeter, watching her face, stopping whenever I saw the slightest shadow of doubt. She exhaled sharply, squeezed her eyes shut, and dug her nails into my back. I felt her give way inside, felt myself making my way in, felt her squeeze me so tightly that I had to bite my lip to keep still. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at me.

I began to move. Very slightly at first, pulling out barely a couple of centimeters and going back in. I kissed her nipples, her mouth, her neck. I asked whether it hurt and she said it didn't anymore, that I should keep going. I lengthened my thrusts, going a little deeper each time, until I reached all the way in and she let out a new moan, lower than any she'd made before. It was a slow, quiet fuck, full of eye contact. I lifted one of her legs onto my waist to get in deeper. I found her clitoris with my thumb while I fucked her and rubbed it in circles. She came again around my cock, her eyes wide, and squeezed me so hard inside that I nearly emptied myself into the condom without warning. It wasn't the best sex of my life, not by a long shot. But without question, it was the most beautiful.

When I was about to finish, I asked where she wanted me to come. She said on her chest. I pulled out slowly, took off the condom in time, and jerked off over her with two hard strokes. I came in streams over her breasts, spilling between her nipples and running down her sternum, and she watched it come out, hypnotized, her mouth slightly open. Then I carefully cleaned her with a damp towel, slowly wiping her chest and stomach. I held her for a while and asked whether she was all right.

“I'm more than all right,” she said.

She thanked me several times. I told her I was the one who should be thanking her. For a moment I considered giving her money back, but I understood that this was something she needed to leave paid for, so I accepted the envelope.

***

Lucía was an oasis in the middle of a desert. Afterward I kept working for another four or five months, and almost everything else went back to being the same as always. Married men who wanted to try anal sex because their wives wouldn't do that for them, who asked me to fuck their asses slowly at first and then hard and fast, coming while they stroked their cocks as I pounded into them. Single men who paid more for companionship than sex, who only wanted to fall asleep holding someone with my hand on their package. Broken people, like me, trying to fill holes that can't be filled that way.

I quit the day I understood that I wasn't doing it to forget Inés anymore. I was doing it because it had become a habit, and habit is a trap worse than pain.

Two things remain from that time. One bad and one good. The bad one is knowing that for months I treated myself as if I were worth very little. The good one is Lucía, and the feeling that at least once, I'd been exactly the man someone needed me to be.