The first time I met Frankie, he told me he was a “lawyer turned venture capitalist,” which meant nothing to me. He also said he’d been responsible for the last financial crisis, then, after a pause, he said, “Like, literally.” The word “venture” reminded me of “adventure,” lending it a wild and dangerous feel, like a John Wayne movie, but this job would take place in the abstract matrix of money, not atop horses whose hooves pound the dry-dead earth. Frankie had an undercut, the top part slicked to the side. He wore Converse high-tops and dressed like the bassist of an early 2000s indie band. I couldn’t imagine anybody in a corporate setting taking the man seriously.
After he paid, I walked him to the front door, kissed him on the cheek, then strolled into the other bedroom, $260 richer. Misty lay sprawled on sheets in fleshy lingerie. The house laptop played a looped YouTube music video of bells and chimes that was said to bring about luck and abundance. She always listened to those.
“Got a client, finally. Fuck holiday season,” I said.
“Lucky you,” Misty said. “I haven’t had a client in days.”
Misty basically lived at the Handjob Palace. She worked more shifts than anyone, but seemed to see the fewest clients. Honestly, she looked rough. Before the Palace, she had worked at a canning factory in Queens. She posted fake pictures in her ads, of other girls from the internet. It explained why she didn’t have regulars, but new clients could have still called for her. Since she posted almost every day, I figured it was simply a matter of supply and demand. But she didn’t ask for my opinion.
“He was cute,” I said. “Have you seen Frankie?”
“Frankie? I don’t know any Frankie. I just got off the phone with my psychic though. She’s good—I’ll give you her number. She studied under the late Sylvia Browne.” Misty raised her eyebrows at me. “She said I’ll be meeting my money man soon. I’m about to have a real sugar daddy, Sadie! These one-time pops can suck it.” The glint in her eyes made me nervous.
“Did you hear back about that Craigslist gig?”
“I fucked the guy for my ‘interview’ and they never hit me back. Assholes. Some kind of agency they run.”
I left the room flabbergasted, opened the fridge, and shook the organic charcoal lemonade Frankie had left me. He had asked to be conversationally cucked. I pretended to be his wife who had just cheated. He prompted me to talk about an old friend from college, and he requested I use the name Micah. “How was it seeing Micah?” I told him all about my time with Micah, how he made me cum so hard in ways that Frankie never could, because Frankie was a sissy limp-dicked faggot. I said I couldn’t help myself—he loved that. I couldn’t help but fuck the sexy alpha man who had played football and lived in a frat house back in school. Frankie told me before our session that he loved the idea of a woman who couldn’t control her sexual appetites, a woman driven by pure sexual desire to the point of wreckage. Like a ship full of cum that couldn’t weather a storm. It was fun. He had given me an organic strawberry lemonade too, for “the other girl,” though he didn’t specify which was for her. I picked the charcoal one because it was supposed to clear you out. I’d heard once that doctors give charcoal to people after their stomachs are pumped, that it filters 60 percent of toxic substances from your system. I was always hungover, in need of purification.
When I started the job, I wasn’t paranoid. I would see any client who called, whether or not they’d been in before, or had any proof of identity. I was high on the money, averaging three times what I made from bartending and working half the hours. We were advised to ask for a LinkedIn profile, then to verify the phone number on Spokeo. If it was an internet phone, we’d tell them to call back from the real one, which they rarely did. I’d just see them. I felt safe enough in the city. Hundreds of people walked by the apartment building every minute.
But then a different location got raided. Then another. One time a cop called to ask if the ad I’d posted had been a solicitation for prostitution. I threw on my clothes, canceled all upcoming appointments, and power walked for several blocks, heart pounding each time I saw the red light of a siren. I called the girl who rented the apartment, Marcelle, and she insisted it wasn’t a real cop. “A cop would just come in undercover,” she’d said. “They wouldn’t just be like ‘Hi, I am a cop.’” I didn’t believe her. He sounded too assertive, too authoritarian. She said he must just be some sick fuck who gets off on scaring girls, and told me to get back in there and work.
I was afraid of getting caught, but Frankie was afraid of germs. I closed the blinds before I buzzed him in. If during any session he accidentally touched my bare labia, his face would turn hive red and he’d run to the bathroom. I would pass the time by peeking out the window or queuing more songs on Spotify. Every time he returned, he carried a familiar scent. It took weeks of sessions before I realized he brought his own soap, which was manufactured by one of my favorite fragrance houses. “Oh shit, you like Le Labo?” I asked once when he came back calm and clean. At the beginning of our following session, he handed me a bottle of bergamot massage oil and said, “So long as I’m the only boy you use it on.”
I liked that he called himself a “boy.” He must have been fifty, a father of two. I think it started there though, with the soap. He had a fresh tan from a trip to Mexico, and when I dripped the oil along his spine, he shone like a recently waxed muscle car. The sweetness and spiciness bergamot intermingled in the air. I pressed my clit against his hamstring as I kneaded his back, and when I switched positions, he told me to go back, to sit how I was before, that he liked feeling how wet he made me against his skin.
After he finished that day, he asked me to read him something. My RubRatings ad had mentioned I was a poet. I didn’t have my journals with me, but I did have one poem memorized.
“Okay,” I said. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’d never.”
“Cannon Beach
I accurately guessed
the height of
Haystack Rock
You fed me blueberries
Crunchy with
The texture of sand.”
Frankie stared at me as he sprayed his thighs with rubbing alcohol, then said, “I like to be monogamous with these things. Can I see you on a weekly basis?” I had several clients who came in just for me, so I was down even though he only ever tipped $20. I gave him the number to my burner app, and he texted right away. The text must have gone through as a green bubble because he laughed, pointed toward my phone, and said, “Nice iPhone.”
I felt embarrassed and restless from the phone thing, so I went to Misty’s room after I walked him out.
“Meet your sugar daddy yet?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she sighed, “but I will. Madame Hazel said it’d be during Capricorn season.” She crossed her fingers and held them in the air. “I’ve been manifesting though. You have to really imagine it happening, and feel the feelings that you’ll have when it does. This one guy put a picture of a nice house on his vision board and, lo and behold, moved into the same fucking house decades later. Didn’t even realize it until he looked at the vision board again, hidden in the attic.”
“What’s a vision board?”
“Oh it’s like . . . Have you seen that episode of It’s Always Sunny?”
I shook my head.
“Okay, well it’s like a poster of what you want, basically. Just put whatever you want on it. Money, cars, jewelry, whatever. Mine’s a bunch of cutouts of rich men from GQ and some real shredded money. The more concrete your visions are, the more concrete they become, the more materialized.” The chimes played again from the laptop’s speakers. The tape over the webcam read KILL ALL MEN.
“Does it work?”
“For that guy with the house it sure did! Jim Carrey wrote a check to himself for $10 million dated ten years into the future and kept it in his wallet. Ten years later dude was in Dumb and Dumber. Guess how much they paid him.”
“Ten million?”
“Cha-ching, bitch!”
I laughed as I went to change the sheets. I had another client in five minutes, which didn’t give me enough time to verify him.
When I buzzed him in, his appearance startled me. He looked like a murderer. He was my height, with buggy brown eyes, deep-set wrinkles, and a handlebar mustache. He reeked of cigarettes. I led him into the room and he stripped down immediately, not even bothering to make conversation. He sat on the edge of the bed rather than the customary lay down, and said, “Come over.” His voice reminded me of the cop who had called. He spread his legs open and gestured for me to sit on his lap. “My name’s Steve,” he purred.
I worried he would somehow handcuff me. His jacket lay on the floor within reach. I hesitated, then steadied myself onto his lap and said, “Hi Steve.”
He rubbed his calloused, grubby fingers along my back and unsnapped my bra.
“That’s extra,” I said.
“Money isn’t an issue. Have you been a good girl this year?”
I broke into a sweat as he cupped his hand and placed his palm over my left nipple, running his fingers around my small tit.
“Yes, I have.”
“Good.”
He grabbed my hand and placed it on his flaccid cock, which oozed pre-cum as it began to bob its head at me.
“Would you like to lie down so I can give you a nice, relaxing massage?” I asked.
He wrinkled his nose, then said, “Sure baby, whatever you like.” He pressed his thumb hard into my hip bone until I fell off his leg, and then he lay down. I pumped the scentless lotion onto my hands and began the massage, starting at his shoulders and working down his hairy spine, his pungent ass, and his drainpipe legs. I stayed silent, wishing for no more knowledge of Steve. I listened to the music I had queued up beforehand, soft dream pop. I wondered if there were YouTube videos that manifested safety or security. I’d ask Misty.
He came so hard it almost hit the ceiling, then handed me $240. I reminded him of the extra fee for undoing my bra. He laughed, pulled a crumpled ten-dollar bill out of his pocket, and said, “Keep the change.” I didn’t walk him to the door. He slammed it on his way out.
I wished Steve had seen Misty instead. If another client called who I couldn’t verify, I’d just give him to her. She needed business more than I did. Her pictures were fake anyway; it’d make no difference. I visualized her on Steve’s lap, awkward and giggling, his fingers tracing her nipples rather than mine. I envisioned it had happened to her. I tried to feel the feelings she would have if it did.
Starting the following week, Frankie texted my burner app every Thursday night: Herald Square? 10:30? And every Friday morning he buzzed right then. Twice he texted me midweek at midday just to say he wanted me, but I only checked the app while I was at work. Sometime during this period I began masturbating to him. I’d think back to our sessions, the curve of his cock, and I’d cum up to ten times per day. I wanted him but knew better than to say it back. I couldn’t give a client that satisfaction. I had to act professional and disinterested, which I did, up to a point.
On my days off, which were every day but Thursdays and Fridays, I found ways to spend my surplus. I signed up for acrobatic yoga classes, booked a flight to Iceland for the summer, and ordered one hundred TULIPMANIA shirts I designed through a website using Hulk Hogan font when I had been stoned. I skipped the yoga classes, and the shirts gathered dust in a box. My roommate Alex and I got sloshed every night. He had stolen a bottle of Fernet from the bar where he worked, and almost every hour he’d run into my room with a shot glass and sing, “It’s time to Fernet about it!” This would continue on the hour until I was drunk enough to stay in his room, where we would smoke weed and watch videos about the Mandela effect or Scientology, which further heightened my general paranoia. I became convinced that cops would access my data and use it against me in the court of law. I downloaded a web browser called Epic, whose emblem looked like the Tide Pods that people were eating the year before. Alex and I asked our landlord to install bars on our windows. I paid for rent in rubber-banded bundles of cash.
It didn’t take long until Frankie and I progressed to full service. It started when I put a condom on him so he could rub his cock against my clit. He drenched the latex in lube and dug his fingers into my hips. He whispered “Use me” as he pulled me onto his lap. I slid against his shaft until I was slick with sweat. His eyes bugged and his mouth parted like a wanting dog. I couldn’t pretend with him like I did with the others. I really did it until my legs trembled. He loved to see me above him like that, using him, as he said, like “my little toy.”
The third week of dick-as-toy, he whimpered, “Let me inside you,” so I did. I started by slowly slipping it in so I could acutely feel each rung of pleasure, then he flipped me over onto my stomach and fucked me hard from behind, eventually lifting my ankles to rest on his shoulders. I yelled, “Micah! Micah!” He came within a few minutes, then we lay side-by-side silent until my heart slowed. “Wow,” he said. “How do you feel?” I felt relaxed. I watched him spray his balls with rubbing alcohol. He excused himself to take a shower, as he always did, and I didn’t peek out the blinds or queue any songs. I fingered my clit in quick circles until I came again. The scent of his Le Labo soap preceded his return.
“I’ve never done full service before,” he said. “How much is it?”
“Four hundred more.” I lay on my stomach and seesawed my legs into the air behind me. He lifted his bent jeans from the floor, took out his wallet, and lay four hundreds next to the $260 already tucked beneath the tissues. When I walked him to the door, we kissed on the lips. He pulled my flesh against him like Clark Gable. When he said bye, my stomach fluttered. I changed the sheets in the room, which still smelled like his soap. I daydreamed about him for the rest of my shift. Flashes of his biceps followed me through the subway and the walk home.
Frankie didn’t text me the following week, but he had warned he wouldn’t. He was going to Oaxaca again to escape the New York winter. Instead I saw another regular, James. He tipped $300 for a bare blowjob, and I enjoyed a lavish Friday night supper with Alex, on me.
When Frankie returned to the city, he seemed nervous. He couldn’t get hard and didn’t say why. I assumed he had been with his wife and kids during the trip, that maybe he finally felt bad about us. Maybe he didn’t want to see me anymore. I used the oil I kept just for him and rubbed his sunburned shoulders. The heat radiated from his skin. For whatever reason, the citrus scent was more pronounced that day. I thought of essential oil warmers. For the first time, I worried about what would happen between us. When it was time for him to flip over, he sighed, then asked why I was doing this.
“Doing what?”
“You’re such a talented writer,” he told me, despite hearing only the blueberry poem I recited months earlier. I didn’t argue the compliment, but I did tell him that being a talented writer doesn’t pay the bills. He chubbed a bit. I did all the things that he liked to get him there. I talked about Micah. I rubbed my ass against his cock, tickled his balls with my fingernails, kissed his ears.
“Can you use a different name?” he asked.
“Sure. Whose?”
“Shalmaneser.”
“What?”
“It’s from the Bible. Just say it. Please.”
I’d do almost anything for Frankie, so I tried. I could hardly pronounce Shalmaneser, so I said “Shal.” I said that Shal’s cock was so big it tore me open. Shal’s cock was so big it made me scream. Frankie eventually sighed again, stood up, and headed for the shower. He returned with the soap smell, cross pendant bouncing against his chest. “I have a proposition,” he said. “How about you quit, and I’ll take care of you. So you can work on writing, and you won’t have to keep doing this.”
I told him he was sweet and that I’d think on it. He left me an extra $200 on top of the $640 and a small gift-wrapped box. “It’s an incredible gift, but don’t open it until you’re home,” he said. “You’re gonna love it.”
I noticed new freckles on his nose when I kissed him goodbye.
That night I visited Alex at work. He gave me free drinks, but I always tipped well in cash, usually two twenties. This time I left a fifty. It was still early, 6:30, and Clownie’s was empty besides two people in leather jackets who seemed to be on a Tinder date. Alex leaned against the edge of the bar, polishing martini glasses.
“I mean, what, you’re gonna rely on this guy who you already know is disloyal, at least to his wife?”
“I don’t know, I mean, it could be nice. I wouldn’t have to deal with creeps anymore. But I’d miss a lot of my clients. And the other girls.”
“Dude you cannot put all of your eggs into one asshole’s basket. Bad idea. You aren’t hurting for cash. If he leaves and you don’t have enough other clients to replace him, you could just work here again. Paul still loves you.” He gestured toward the bar I had helped set up, where we had first met.
I wanted to call Misty for advice, but I knew she’d be jealous. She had put so much effort into manifesting a sugar daddy, and here came Frankie, like a friendly stray cat rubbing my legs on a walk home from the bodega.
I decided that I liked my job. Frankie was my favorite, but it wasn’t like I’d never see him again if I stayed. I didn’t want to be someone’s private whore; it felt too obligatory. That’s why I avoided Seeking.com and allowances. It was too weird to me, the terms too ambiguous. Plus, other clients tipped better and I adored many of my regulars. I texted him from my burner app that night: Sorry, Frankie. Your offer was sweet but I don’t feel comfortable sacrificing my job.
He didn’t get back to me that night or the next. I sat on the couch, stress-eating popcorn and throwing back tallboys, worried that his wife had seen my message. Or maybe he was mad at me for declining his offer. Maybe his wife had found out earlier and blocked my number so he never even saw my reply. I knew I shouldn’t have sent the text at night, but I wasn’t thinking. Alex told me to chill.
“Dude he’s probably just salty you don’t want to be his concubine. It’ll blow over. You’ll see him this Friday or the next week.”
But Frankie didn’t text me that Friday or the following week. Instead, I saw an NYPD van parked outside the apartment. I panicked, ran into Misty’s room, and together we climbed the stairs to the roof of the building, where we shivered and smoked cigarettes, keeping a lookout. We called Marcelle, who told us it was unrelated. “I doubt it has anything to do with the apartment,” she said. “There’s a lot going on in Herald Square. They wouldn’t sit in a marked van during a stakeout. It’s too obvious.” Misty and I refused to go downstairs until they drove away, which took about an hour. Capricorn season had ended.
“Fucked up you haven’t found your sugar daddy,” I said.
“Right?” Misty blew a cloud of what could have been smoke or freezing water vapor. “It’ll be okay though. Madame Hazel says it’s all about learning that I can create abundance on my own, that I don’t need no man. That’s the lesson. Had I already been looking within, I would have met him, but now I have to work on myself until my next planetary conjunction.”
“Planetary conjunction?”
“It’s like a new beginning.”
The next week we all lost our jobs. No one told me. I came in for my shift and the door didn’t work. I tried the key over and over with varying pressure. I knocked on the door until my knuckles numbed. I called Marcelle and it rang through the first three times, then went straight to voicemail. I thought to text Frankie but didn’t. I remembered the police van as I tried my key one last time.
Months later, after my shift at Clownie’s, I dropped the remote under the couch. Alex sat next to me with a fresh bottle of Fernet. When I reached down, my hand hit something sharp with an edge. I held it in the glow of the TV.
“Oh my God,” I said. “That gift from Frankie. I must have drunk-dropped it under here back when he gave it to me.”
“Well go on,” Alex said. “Open it up.”
Blueberries, moldy on a pile of sand. 
Shy Watson wrote Horror Vacui (House of Vlad). More of her work can be found in Joyland, New York Tyrant, Hobart, and elsewhere. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Montana and an instructor at Catapult.
