A Man Paid Me Thousands Of Dollars For Sex. Most People Would Never Guess Why I Did It.

My goals were not glamorous: Pay for my remaining university semesters in cash. Pay off my $32,000 in accrued student loans. And, aware I had a fuck ton of cavities, visit a dentist.

I know I don’t deserve the honor, but sometimes I compare my stripping story to Cardi B’s. She, too, was working at a grocery store, struggling to make ends meet before she started dancing. I learned this in an interview she did with Howard Stern, where he asks Cardi misogynistic questions.

“Was it a horrible existence?” 

“Did it make you hate men?” 

“A lot of people want me to lie and be like I hated it,” she said. “I’m not even gonna front. It saved me. It really saved me.” She goes on to say that she initially felt ashamed of the work. Sometimes she worried about what her parents might think when she gave lap dances. But then she’d count her tips.

The main problem I had with the strip club was that I wasn’t a good dancer, and therefore, I didn’t make a ton of money. But John came in like a miracle on a Wednesday night. I showered him with attention at a corner table, an electric tea light flickering between us.

“The stage lights make it look like the dancers are about to be abducted by aliens,” I said, and placed my manicured hand on his thigh. I made him laugh. He asked to see me again. 

It was not an easy decision to meet him outside of the club for $500 plus a meal.

But six weeks later, I was glad I had, as he asked me what I wanted for Christmas while putting on his socks. I considered asking him to cover my next semester of college, but I had such a bad toothache, I blurted out, “A visit to the dentist.”

It’d be the first time I’d seen a dentist in six years, since I’d aged out of my parents’ plan at 18. I could’ve cried with relief when he agreed.

I almost feel bad remembering the moment I had to tell John the total of the bill after that first appointment. A number I’d had to text from my closet because I’d been too embarrassed to tell him any other way. The poor guy thought I’d be getting some X-rays and a cleaning. Maybe a filling or two. 

Not that I’d need two crowns in addition to 12 fillings. Not that the bill would be grazing $7,000. 

“Ouchie!!!” he texted back. “Your teeth must have been hurting you for a while!” 

It had been precisely what I’d needed — some empathy and his agreement to cover the tab. I feel a pang of retroactive gratitude — that butterfly wing’s flap of the moment, your whole world changes. And then my name is called. 

***

When I lay back in the dental chair — a comfortable, pleather seat — I let the hygienist admire the remnants of work that John paid for. She compliments my mouthful of crowns and carefully pokes around for the story behind them. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” my old dentist had said. “There is compote and silver amalgam from different visits, filling different cavities in the same tooth.” Apparently, the everyday wear of chewing with those fillings had started to crack my teeth. She nods. “That’s what I figured.”

There was a time I thought I’d let the secret of John go to the grave with me. I thought I would simply undress myself, lie next to him in starchy bedsheets enough times to pay off my student loan debt, have him pay that one exorbitant dental tab, and then live happily ever after with no one all the wiser.

But I couldn’t make sense of my life’s changed trajectory without him. 

On the other end of the bachelor’s degree that I paid off through sugaring was a fully-funded graduate program. And at the tail end of that, a career track job doing work I love. God only knows if I would’ve ever finished school without sugaring. Or even if I had, what job would I’ve immediately jumped into out of need when the six-month grace period ended on my student loans?