HOOK: E-zine By, For, and About Men in the Sex Industry

I first started escorting back in college as a way to make it through school. I hid the fact that I was escorting and told people I was doing massages. Often when I would date guys, I found that they would always make comments about me doing massages. I would feel more compelled to hide what I was doing.

The $ helped out tremendously but I did feel an element of shame from what I was doing. I did enjoy doing some massage work and decided to get approval of my peers and boyfriend by going to Massage College.

I ended up paying over $10,000 and spent 2 years learning about the different elements of Massage Therapy including "ETHICS." I often laughed to myself during these ETHICS 101 classes.

I eventually met and fell in love with a guy that I became involved with. He was very supportive of me while I was studying to become a Certified Massage Therapist. Some guys chided him for getting involved with someone that did massage work, but he dismissed their comments because he was in love and proud of me.

I had not shared the fact that I escorted during college. With this relationship, I felt I could let that be a part of my past. I ended relationships with clients in order to focus on my relationship with the man I loved. I wanted him to remain proud of me.

For 2 years everything was so wonderful. I felt this person was the man that I would be with for the rest of my life. In fact, I was so sure of this that I put him on the title of my house to prove to him my love. I did this in objection to my mother and lawyer's wishes. I knew best... or so I thought I did.

Most people saw us as the perfect couple. We had a beautiful home and nice furnishings. We drove nice cars and traveled frequently. We loved to entertain friends and show off our success.

After 2 years, I became unsatisfied with our sex life. My lover became complacent in maintaining his looks and weight. I was originally attracted to him because he shared many of the same values I did in financial, health, family, and other aspects of a relationship.

We both grew up poor and strived to have a better life than our parents. In 2 years, we improved upon my house and kept making more and more improvements including a state of the art HOME THEATER.

Somehow, we needed to pay for our expensive tastes. Massage therapists make good money, but it wasn't paying for our lifestyle. I began feeling the financial pressure. My escort clients had been urging me to come out of retirement. I was able to hide these sessions by seeing them only during the daytime when my lover was at work. This immediately relieved those financial pressures.

With the boom of the Internet came even more success. I started getting younger and younger clients who I was having incredible sex with. I felt I could now have my cake and eat it, too. This worked for quite awhile until I slipped up.

I had entertained one of my clients at my home for lunch. My partner never comes home for lunch, but one day, he did. It was fortunate that we were sitting at the table having lunch and not in the bedroom having dessert.

I might have pulled off the deception had I not been careless. He needed to get something off the computer when he looked at the screen and noticed an unsent email waiting to be finished. Of course, he read it and that was the beginning of the end.

I started lying to him to cover my tracks. Oh, what a horrible feeling I had in deceiving the one I loved! He was constantly suspicious of me, and I was always thinking of ways to hide my escorting.

After his threatening me to stop or it was over, I urged him to go to counseling with me. We spent a year in counseling with the hopes of changing each other. It didn't happen. We spent a lot of $ to learn that it was OK to ask for what we wanted and to find a compromise. Unfortunately, we could not find a compromise. We both wanted something the other was not willing to do.

I claimed this was only sex and that it allowed us to have a nice lifestyle. He was hurt that I would share something that was special between us with others. I believe I was able to separate "work" from "love". Yes, I had fun with certain clients, but I did not have the same feelings towards them as I did for my lover. He couldn't understand how I could separate this ... and if I loved him, why would I do this?

Eventually, he felt he could not be involved with an escort, and he left me. It has only been a month that we have separated. I live in an empty house and up until recently, I had no bed to sleep on. He originally wanted me to sell the house and give him money to buy a condo. After months of negotiating, he accepted a cash settlement and he took all the furniture and home furnishings.

It's been rough starting over again after 5 1/2 years of living with someone. In the future, I think I will only date another escort or someone who is SURE they want to get involved with me and will not try to FORCE my retirement. I will retire, but ONLY when I am ready.