From the start, there was a tension in Serena‘s and my relationship. She wanted to be paid. (She does sex work for a living, and we met in a sex work context.) I didn’t want to pay her for sex. (Although we met in a sex work context, it was not a context in which I was paying her for sex.) We navigated those difficult shoals for a while. Then, she got a boyfriend. Once that happened, there was only room for one non-paying sex partner in her life. And, while that relationship didn’t last, we never returned to our pre-her-getting-a-boyfriend state. Much to my chagrin.
I’ve tried to maintain a relationship of any sort with her – texting, having coffee, having a meal, whatever. I maintain relationships with most of my exes. Not all, but most, for sure. (I will say: there are a few who, though we parted warmly, we don’t remain in touch, in most cases because… I’m complicated for them. I have the sense this might be true with Serena.) Anyway: try though I might, the best I’ve been able to manage is the very occasional text. I text her the occasional nice thought, or meme, or TikTok video; she occasionally asks me for something (advice on something related to my work, most recently) or, very occasionally, to say something nice (“I appreciate you,” she texted, several days after I wished her a happy birthday). Suffice it to say: I miss her, and wish that any sort of relationship were possible.
I had a funny sort of falling asleep thought the other night about her. The thought was, “I wonder how she would feel (and I know I know the answer, but I enjoyed thinking about it!) about a world in which I paid her to have sex with me, but she agreed to donate 100% of the dollars I gave her to a charity of her choice.” And, I had a momentary sort of deluded, disconnected, messed-up further thought that it might be that she could get a tax deduction for that, so she could make something out of sex with me, but it would be paid for by all the taxpayers of this great country. That thought, though, reflected delusion: she can’t take a deduction because she’s undocumented, doesn’t file income taxes.
I liked the idea of (sort of) solving the sex work motivation problem in that way, allowing her some of the benefits of being paid, at least as it relates to the power and the knowledge that I would be incurring a cost that’s steep for spending time with her. But by agreeing to part with that money, she’d be demonstrating to me that she wants to be with me – simply to be with me. Or rather, not simply, to be with me.
And I’m reminded of H, with whom I had some sex back in 2004 and 2005, who, at least in my recollection, needed to be paid to come, but it was the fact of the payment, not the quantum. In my memory, we played with that, and she kind of enjoyed the difference between being, in one instance, a $5 whore, and on another, a $500 escort.
I wonder what ever became of her? I would love to have a conversation with her, not necessarily to have sex with her, although I think I’d love that too. But mostly I’d just be curious. I wonder, and I have no way of tracking her down, short of asking D [a person we learned at the very end of our previously-but-not-as-of-our-last-meeting-pseudonymous relationship was in both of our lives], which is, for 80,000 different reasons, not possible.
So, my Google alert for her continues periodically to produce news of some or other H with her first and last names, but it’s never her. I mean, I don’t know that for a fact. There are a couple of those namesakes of hers who’ve popped up over the years who I suppose could be her, but I really don’t think so. And there have been none who self-evidently were her. I feel like probably that’s because she got married and has a new last name. I think if I did successfully find something she’d written, for example, it would be identifiable. (She was a slightly successful, narrowly published writer.) So, I don’t think she’s findable, but if she were, I would certainly message her, and I would certainly propose a cup of coffee or a drink or a meal.
