Chapter 21 The Whore Tour
The Whore Tour
THE NEXT DAY, I MADE brEAKFAST FOR J AND HIS crew, and then they headed out on tour.
Now, remember, I was a call girl. Men promising me the moon and the stars was an everyday occurrence. So as much as I wanted to believe everything J had said the night before was real, I wasn’t going to hang my hat on that. To me, it was a sweet moment I’d always remember—even if that’s all it was.
But after a few weeks on the road, J and I were talking every day. He seemed to have meant what he said. One night, he called and told me he was missing me. A lot.
“Get on a flight and come hop on tour with me. There’s no better way to tell if this is going to work than if we’re out here together,” he chuckled, drawling out each word in his sweet little accent.
“Are you sure?” I was floored. Wasn’t tour time for the guys, no girls allowed? Would I ruin it? He didn’t seem to think so.
“You’re one of the guys,” he said. Still, I had a problem.
“But how will I make money?” I held the phone to my ear, trying to calm my panic. Making money for myself had always been the way I kept myself safe. I couldn’t stop.
But then, a brilliant idea hit.
“Would you care if I saw clients on the road? I’d be on my own tour?”
“Not at all,” he said, totally calm. “Whatever you gotta do, baby. Just get to me.”
“Okay,” I said, shaping up a plan. “I can book clients in every city you’re in. It’ll be my own little Whore Tour.”
* * *
CONFESSION: I MIGHT HAVE A slight obsession with clothes.
And when I say slight, I mean terrible, terrible problem.
I have multiple closets in my house—and I always have.
I usually only wear my going-out outfits once, and I have to have new clothes on if I’m going out.
Likely, it stems from being that fourteen-year-old runaway who had nothing but a few T-shirts in a trash bag.
And even when I couldn’t afford clothes, I stole them.
My clothing accumulation must be the strangest habit I have.
I’d never been on any kind of tour before, and all I knew was that I wasn’t going to be home for at least a few weeks and possibly months.
So I loaded up every suitcase I had in that penthouse—which ended up totaling four.
I figured this would get me started. And if I ran out, I could always buy more clothes on the road.
When I finally landed, J picked me up at the airport in the eighteen-passenger van they were using to tour. When he saw me, he lit up in excitement. And then he saw my bags, and boom—his face turned annoyed. But sweet man that he is, he didn’t say a word.
“Okay, honey,” he said. “There aren’t any more bags, right?” He kept his voice steady, but I could read the room. I knew I’d fucked up. But how the hell was I supposed to know? I just wanted to look good for him.
But he couldn’t stay annoyed long, and we kissed and snuggled all the way to the venue. Our tour had officially started.
* * *
THAT NIGHT WE MADE OUR five-year plan, J had asked me point-blank how I made my money. I was honest with him—I was always honest about what I did for work. Hell, even my own father knew.
“I’m a call girl,” I told him that night in my bedroom, “and I make a lot of fucking money. There are levels in this business, and I guess you’d consider me ‘high class.’”
Usually, people are either intrigued or disgusted when I tell them, and I hurried through it to try to preempt any questions. Still, I broke the whole thing down for him: how I got clients, services I offered—every detail. I figured that if the shoe was on the other foot, I’d want to know.
“I won’t even go to dinner with someone for less than a thousand dollars, and you can’t touch me for way more than that, at least five thousand.
” J was listening so attentively, it was like he already understood.
He even had a tiny smile cracking the corners of his mouth. He wasn’t scared or put off in any way.
“I respect it,” he said. “You’re a fuckin’ hustler, and I ain’t got a problem with it.
” From day one, he never once made me feel bad for what I had to do to survive.
He’d listen wide-eyed as I’d tell him stories, crazy things I’ve seen, big piles of money I’d made, wild tales of my high-profile clients.
He’d grown up with girls like me in the streets, and he’d also hustled himself.
By then he was slanging music, but back in the day in Antioch, he was slanging rocks in some desolate motel.
My main hustle in those days was a website called Eros, where I paid a hefty fee to place ads for my services and for them to designate me as one of their top girls for more exposure and more clients.
Clients could log on, find a woman in their city, and book her.
Some of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen were on that website—it was like the Louis Vuitton of hookers.
A lot of girls were on Backpage, but that website scared me.
There was no protection, and any- and everyone had access to you.
I was always extremely selective with who I saw, because I’d been arrested for solicitation before by an undercover cop.
I checked IDs, social media, and business cards before I’d see someone new.
On Eros, clients were at least somewhat vetted and paid a membership fee to even speak to me.
I’ve always fully believed that if you’re good at something, never do it for free.
Charge what you’re worth—even if the prices are astronomical. People will pay it.
When I was in the lifestyle, I never did “in call” until I moved to Nashville—I was always “out call,” meaning I would go to my clients and they would never come to me, unless they were a trusted regular.
It was always business with me. Some clients liked the professionalism while others wished I were more affectionate or loving, but it was a transaction, and I treated it as such.
Overnights were out of the question—the idea of sleeping next to a trick makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
(I’m not saying I haven’t done it—I did, with some of my big sugar daddies.
But those were rare occasions—and very expensive. We’re talking $20,000-plus.)
Before I packed up my four suitcases, I updated my profile to announce I was going on tour. Before the plane landed, I was fully booked.
* * *
HERE I WAS, ON TOUR with my rapper boyfriend and doing my own tour myself. I never wanted J to worry about me while he was pouring his soul out onstage, so I decided I’d see my clients before his shows so I could be there for him. I created an efficient routine.
While J was at that night’s venue doing sound check, I’d meet up with whoever had booked me for the hour.
To be clear—no one ever lasted longer than ten to fifteen minutes, except for the occasional guy who wanted to use the whole time.
We’d talk and talk to build up the suspense until the last few minutes, when he’d be eating out of the palm of my hand.
For the first time in my entire life, my boyfriend wasn’t jealous of my clients or threatened by my work.
J just didn’t flinch—he trusted me and knew that what I did to make my money didn’t have shit to do with us.
I think he could see in my eyes when I’d work that I was a different person.
Almost like an actress in a movie. And when it was over, I was right back to who he knew I was.
While this should have felt incredible, it scared the shit out of me—much more than the abusive and controlling relationship I’d recently escaped.
Just as I’d learned from an early age that you love with violence and control, I learned from the men I loved that I was an object—and a possession.
If J wasn’t jealous of the other men I let touch me—even if I was charging—did that mean he didn’t care about me at all? Did it mean he didn’t love me?
J knew that my clients were a means to an end.
He knew I was used to making my own money and that he wasn’t going to take that from me—he wouldn’t ever want to.
It was the first relationship where my boyfriend didn’t want to change me—and I didn’t want to change him either.
He’s a Sagittarius and he doesn’t like to be tied down—just try and tell that man what to do and see what happens.
I’m an Aquarius, and I don’t like to be tied down either.
Neither of us wanted to control the other.
We both so deeply understood each other exactly as we were, and we were committed to those versions of each other, not some version we could manipulate into someone else.
He let me just be me. But at that point in my life, I wasn’t even sure who I was.
* * *
INSTEAD OF SHOVING MY BAGS and myself into the van full of dirty, smelly men, I figured out a solution: I rented my own vehicle.
I didn’t need his crew lugging my stuff around—and it gave me some of my own freedom and space.
And if you’ve ever been stuck in an eighteen-passenger van with twelve men, are you really living?
Whew. And with a little breathing room, we had an absolute blast every single night.
J would play in these seedy bars that held three hundred or so people, and after each set, he’d make sure he shook everybody’s hand and signed their merch.
Some nights he would perform to thirty people or less, and he still played like it was a sold-out house.
I’d never gotten to experience anything like it.
Being on the road was a totally different way of life.
Once I got my own vehicle, J would drive with me for three, four, six, or even thirteen hours at a time—just us caravanning behind the van.
Asking each other every question we could.
Playing each other the music we grew up on.
Comparing traumas. Laughing and giggling and learning each other. What better way to fall in love ?
* * *