Chapter 22 – “Love Is Blindness” — U2
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HENRY
I’m missing her tonight, and my insomnia is acting up.
We’ve settled into bedtime calls every night—just not tonight.
A friend of hers is going to be on TV, and the phone girls are watching it together.
I got dinner upstairs at the bar like I always do when I’m in Dublin, some to-go sticky toffee pudding, and I’ve settled into my room for the night.
It’s bedtime, but I’m wide-awake, staring at my laptop. I want to see Kait’s friend. I like the idea of seeing part of her real life, even by proxy.
The theme song plays while the words The Girlfriend Experience appear on the screen.
“Tonight, we are speaking with Chad”—they flash to a middle-aged, average-looking guy, dressed in frat boy chic—“who says he was scammed out of three hundred thousand dollars over ten years by his girlfriend experience. That is what high-end sex workers call their premium offering. It feels real, right down to exchanging birthday presents and vacations in French Polynesia—complete with couples massages.”
This sounds fascinating. I grab a beer and settle in. Scammed. Why do I suspect the use of the word is inaccurate, given he got the sex he paid for? And French Polynesia with Kait? Sign me up. Right now. Take my money, please.
Kait’s voice is in my head. “Henry, Tahiti is lovely this time of year.” Then she would spin a tale of a week of hot sex in an overwater bungalow. I smile, imagining it. What more could a guy ask for? Aside from a woman I can see. Or touch. Or taste.
The commercial ends, and the show starts with Chad walking alone, an undisguised attempt to make the viewer feel sad for the poor guy.
“The girlfriend experience is the pinnacle sex worker offering: high-end sex for money that feels more like dating for the discerning client who can afford something special. This simulates emotional attachment and, for some of these men, may simulate it a little too well.” Chad’s face is on the screen, with a chyron that says, “Man Spent $300,000 on Sex.”
“These prostitutes aren’t surgically sculpted beauties and bunnies.
No, these women are far more approachable, more natural, more girl next door—because they might be.
Working the streets, unrealistically romanticized à la Pretty Woman, is a cash transaction.
The girlfriend experience is the opposite—working to erase all hints of fees in exchange for a romantic interlude. ”
Chad starts talking. “I was lonely and reached out to Courtney through her website. The shortest appointment was six hours. Her site talked about warmth and comfort, and that was what I needed.” They show a screen grab of Courtney, smiling and pretty, wearing an apron while cooking dinner.
She’s going to be busy after this show airs, no question.
“I signed up for the girlfriend experience. I had to send her my ID, references, a deposit, and answer lots of questions about likes and dislikes.” It wasn’t Chad’s first time if he had references. Just saying.
“How much, Chad?”
“It was fifteen hundred for the six hours.”
The newsperson tries to wince, but too much Botox just makes him squinty. “So, what made this a ‘girlfriend experience’?”
“We met at her place. She had started making dinner, and she was making my favorite thing, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. She also poured me a glass of my favorite Scotch. I felt spoiled, understood. We had a leisurely meal and talked, got to know each other, like a date. We had sex, but we eased into it. After dinner, we moved to the living room, and she rubbed my shoulders and asked me about my day.”
“Chad, did you feel like her boyfriend?”
“I did,” he says on a sigh. “It was wonderful.”
“Then you had sex?”
“We had sex twice, then took a shower together that first night.”
“Chad, forgive me if I seem callous, but you got what you paid for?” A bargain, I say. Sex with someone as annoying as Chad should be more expensive. “Which doesn’t align with a scam. Illegal? In some states, but scam… tell us more about that.”
“I did get what I paid for, but she got her claws into me that night. I felt like… I was her man.”
“But it was a lie?”
“It was all a lie. Her name is actually Margaret, and she was seeing dozens of other men.”
Ewww. Red flag city. Talk about poor boundaries. I bet he was watching her place, and she caught him trying to stalk her. Trying to find out her… real name.
I hit the minibar and grab two airline bottles of Irish whiskey and pour them over ice.
“How long did you see Courtney, Chad?”
“About ten years.”
“Why did you stop?”
“She said she couldn’t see me anymore.”
“Did she say why? You were spending a lot of money and planned to continue?”
“She said boundaries were getting blurry.” Oh damn, Chad turned into stalking creep Chad.
“I felt abandoned,” he says, his eyes sad. “I had spent so much money, and I was nothing to her.”
That hits. That’s my biggest fear these days, Kait walking away to go to grad school and she just leaves. Abandonment would gut me.
“How much did you spend seeing Courtney, uh, Margaret?” They have another not-blurry-enough photo of her, and I’m horrified by the doxxing happening here. I hope she sues them. In my opinion, she’d have a strong case.
“Over three hundred thousand, including the traveling she insisted we do together.”
The narrator’s voice cuts in, smooth and clinical, like a commercial for a prescription medication with a list of horrible side effects that must be disclosed. “The hallmark of the girlfriend experience is that anything that makes the interaction seem like a transaction is deliberately obscured—”
Of course it is. There is a reason why businesses keep your card on file. Make the purchase painless.
“—the duration of time spent together is increased. The financial aspects are handled well in advance and rarely discussed. A credit card may be kept on file, so there’s no need to take payment. Barriers to access are decreased; the best clients have direct access.”
I nod. I can see how something like that would be incredibly enticing for a busy single guy with a career and not a lot of time to date.
Or frustrated with dating. Relationships can be hard.
I can appreciate how cutting through dating and having an on-demand girlfriend would be enticing.
As a guy who hasn’t had sex in well over a year, I empathize.
The interview switches to a gorgeous woman—blonde, with peaches-and-cream skin, deep blue eyes, and a toothy grin, wearing a pastel pink cardigan she somehow manages to make look girl next door and sexy. Kait’s friend? Maybe.
“Marin was an Ohio State ‘Girl of the Big Ten’ for a famous adult website. Her issue featured coeds from all fourteen schools that make up the Big Ten.” Ohio State. Yup, Kait’s friend.
“Tell us about your experience, Marin.”
“After posing, I received some interesting offers. A girl with a ‘title’ such as Playboy Bunny or Miss Ohio or Miss Circleville Pumpkin Queen is a status symbol. I was asked to provide the girlfriend experience to men asking for me by name. The escort service that called me charged incredible fees and offered significant compensation. I know several other women who were in the same issue also received generous offers for their time.”
“Was sex an absolute requirement of these offers?”
“There was an unspoken expectation. I was told that some gentlemen would be happy without intercourse, but not all.”
“They were inquiring on behalf of multiple individuals who were interested in meeting you?”
“Right. You can call this service and name the woman you want, whether she’s a sex worker or maybe an up-and-coming starving actress or musician, and they’ll attempt to make that connection, matchmaking for sex work.”
“Did you do it?”
“I did not.”
“Why not, Marin?”
“I was on academic scholarship, so I didn’t feel the financial pressure that many of my friends did, and I was in a monogamous relationship at the time, so it wasn’t appropriate for me.” Go, Marin—smart and beautiful. Like Kait.
“Is there ever a time and place where being paid for sex is appropriate?”
“I would never presume to tell someone else what they should do with their body.”
“Even prostitution?” He’s harder on Marin than Chad. Interesting.
“When you offer people with no money tens of thousands of dollars for a few hours of their time, you shouldn’t pretend to be shocked if they accept.” I like her. She’s… ballsy?
Back to a whining Chad. I bet ten dollars that Kait will tell me how much she hates this guy when we talk next. “I turned down dates because it was like cheating on Courtney. I could be married with children now. Instead, I’m out over three hundred thousand dollars and alone.”
“Did you ever try to end things, Chad?”
“I did. I needed to break things off, but when I told her, she made up a story about her sick grandmother and how she needed a few days to lean on me, then she would let me go.”
“What happened?”
“I was there for her during the rough patch, supported her emotionally and physically, then we were back into our pattern of every other Friday. When I mentioned wanting to stop again a few months later, Courtney came up with a getaway I couldn’t resist.”
Okay, now that wasn’t at all cool, Courtney/Margaret. Not at all. Throwing Granny under the bus to keep him nice and spendy is not okay.
“Do you have any advice for men out there?” Yes, Chad, tell all of us men your wisdom. Sigh.
“If it’s too good to be true, it is. She sent me gifts, but in retrospect, she would send me small things that cost nowhere near what I was paying.”
It’s not about the money, Chad.
It’s about the effort, the thought behind it, the pleasure of opening a gift chosen with so much care that it takes your breath away.
It’s about her handwriting being so beautiful that it reminds you of calligraphy, a small piece of art made exclusively for you.
It’s about someone notoriously frugal putting postage on a cute little note sent for no other reason than kindness.