After spending a certain amount of time preparing, I stepped out into the living room, drained the Heineken, and cleared my throat.
"I'm off," I said to my roommate. "Am I cute enough that strangers will want to fuck me?"
"Um," I got back, "you put it so crassly."
"Oh. What I meant to say was 'play with me naked'. I'm like a big action figure with movable parts."
"You're sure that you want to do this?"
"Sure. I think it'll be a kick." Truthfully, I was rattled enough that I needed the beer to even out my nerves.
On the way over, Nine Inch Nails' "Eraser" randomly played from my iPod:
need you
(okay.)
dream you
(might as well.)
find you
(I'll be easy to find.)
taste you
(probably.)
fuck you
(there are so many words for it.)
use you
(I guess...)
scar you --
I turned it off.
The Agency, as it advertises, is discreet: little door, little bell, and out of the way (shocking I know). It turns out that B is of Eastern European stock, though what specific variety is still to be determined. When he opened the door, he made an appraising kind of "hmm" sound in the back of his throat. Three times. Considering the industry, I was expecting sleazy, what I needed was sleazy on a manageable level. Idiosyncratic lechery, not creepy; and I wasn't about do to anything ridiculous like audition for free.
"So, you've done this kind of work before?"
I told him yes, and in what capacity.
The set-up for the entire operation is different than I expected, which (oddly enough) is what I expected; and, given where I am, figured that the money would somehow be less than what I would think to be reasonable, which it is; but only marginally. Going over my details was easy enough, both real and imaginary. (By the time I'm done working in this field, there're going to be a small handful of innocuous names I'll be able to answer to without batting an eye.) It looks like I'm going to actually have to work there, at least initially. There's a two week trial period, what it takes to "see how it goes".
I didn't really go through my entire questionnaire, but enough is enough. There is something familiar about the place, the smell of sex, and an illicit back-room feel to the dim corridor. It's an atmosphere I can manage. I can fill in the blanks tomorrow when I go back to get my portfolio shots done.
On the way home the iPod played Norah Jones. "Turn Me On."
