Camgirl Read online

  The allowances fell into a wide range: $500 per month for “just dinner” dates once a week; $1,000 for “discreet fun at hotel”; $5,000 for a “live-in girlfriend”—free Audi included! The richest men offered upward of $10,000 each month for a sugar baby, some offered to buy cars, lease apartments, pay off student debt. Some said they expected sex, some said they wanted things to “develop naturally ;)” Some said they just wanted “a pretty piece of arm candy.”

  I glanced at their photos. These men were old. Like, older than my dad.

  I stared at one. A retired college professor. Sixty-eight and wanting to find his Aphrodite. I pictured him in bed. Liver spots, big belly.

  I clicked to the next one. Bald, sunglasses, over-whitened smile. Fifty-three, a blonde on each arm. Probably an asshole.

  Next, a sixty-one-year-old man who wanted “discreet” fun behind his wife’s back. He waxed poetic about his daughter’s achievements in college. Wanted a “good college girl.”

  Gross.

  No. I had to stop thinking about these men as individuals. They were all the same. They wanted to pay someone to love them. To tell them they were attractive. That they mattered. This was a job, not a relationship.

  I jumped up and began to dig through my closet. The other girls on the site were bombshells. They had highlights and perfect teeth and manicured nails. I stared at myself in the mirror, noting the ragged pixie cut and my big nose. I dug out my most mature outfit: white denim capris and a blue chambray shirt with a collar. I put on two bras and arranged the straps so you couldn’t see. I gelled my pixie cut and arranged my bangs. I applied coat after coat of mascara.

  I surveyed my room. It definitely looked like the room of a broke millennial: my clothes were in piles and my air mattress consumed most of the floor space. I didn’t have the hot college girl thing on my side, so I had to go for the hot intellectual sophisticate. I turned my air mattress on its side to expose some floor and the side of the closet, which I hoped looked like a chic wooden screen.

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  Photo Booth counted down the time I had before the photo was snapped. I needed relatable interests for the type of man I wanted: insecure, smart, preferably into Star Trek. Lonely was a given. I was intimidated by the confident ones. I needed someone who would fall in love with me. Under music, I listed REO Speedwagon and the Gipsy Kings. I set my headline to “intelligent, classy, fun.” I subtly slipped in my comparative literature degree from UC Berkeley and stated that I wanted to find a “genuine connection” and someone I “actually enjoyed spending time with.” Under allowance requirements I selected “negotiable.”

  A week later I had uploaded my new pictures, built a profile, and had already swiped my way through hundreds of profiles. Finally, I found my first target: a forty-five-year-old software entrepreneur named Alex. He was obese and listed that he had four children and was in the middle of a divorce. He seemed smart, which I liked, and also not like a total misogynist. He wanted a “real connection” and “wasn’t interested in paying someone for sex.” A lot of the profiles listed qualities girls couldn’t have, like “don’t be fat,” “not looking for a yapper,” and “you don’t have to be smart but you have to have a good body.” Many of these men asserted their dominance in their profiles. They made it clear: if you were their sugar baby, they owned you. And that was the exact opposite of what I wanted. Alex seemed unsure of himself, unsure of why he was on the site in the first place. He was last online six weeks ago. Maybe he had given up. This was the perfect moment for his dream girl to swoop in. I sent him a message.

  He responded moments later.

  He was wary of how young I was (after all, I had only a year on his eldest son). He was impressed that I liked eighties music and asked if I had read Ready Player One. I told him it was my favorite book as I quickly Googled the Sparknotes. He liked football, Michigan in particular, and had grown up in Detroit, running around in his father’s car dealership. He’d secured his first $50 million before he was thirty. I told him I hated football but loved cars, particularly vintage Mustangs. He told me I had good taste.

  I told him that was obvious—I’d messaged him, after all.

  Alex was very clear about why he was on the site. His wife had been cheating on him for the past eleven years. His divorce was going to be finalized in two months, and he wanted to have a revenge affair before it was complete. But he didn’t want it to be only transactional. He needed to find someone he respected, cared about. I focused in on the motive: Revenge? Affair? For cash? I was cautiously optimistic.

  A few days later, I stood outside a restaurant and elixir bar, checking my makeup in the front window. The place served crystal-infused kombucha and herb-laden “elixirs” because apparently if you soak rose quartz in tonic it’ll make the water more healing. I had never been to this restaurant before, and I didn’t know anyone who worked there, which was precisely why I had chosen it.

  Alex wasn’t just obese and old. He was a total dork. He wore Velcro sneakers and thin, wire-framed glasses, with a polo shirt and jeans that had gone out of style in the nineties. He was sweating, and as he stood to shake my hand I realized he had trouble breathing when he talked. His hand coated mine in sweat and I fought the urge to wipe it off on my jeans.

  I shook his hand, then forced myself forward for a hug. Dating the shy kids in high school was one thing. This was another. I glanced around the restaurant, hoping that people would mistake this man for my uncle or maybe even my father. This was definitely the weirdest job interview I’d ever been on, although Alex had insisted on calling it a date.

  “You look older in person,” Alex said. Then he flushed. “I mean that in a good way.”

  “Yeah, I photograph really young…” I glanced down at the menu in front of me.

  “What can I get you to drink?” Alex asked. “I know you said you already ate, but you can get some food too if you’re hungry.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll just have a green tea.” I shut the menu and tried to casually toss it across the table. It slid off the other side and plopped onto the floor.

  Alex looked surprised and bent to pick it up. “You don’t want a drink?”

  I studied his face, searching for the part of him that hoped I’d become a drunken mess he could easily take home. There wasn’t one. He was holding his breath. He wanted me not to drink. I decided to be honest. “I’m sober,” I said. “I stopped drinking a couple months ago.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief.”

  “Is it?”

  “So many of the girls on that site drink themselves half to death when they go on dates like this.” He paused, signaled to the waitress to come over. “My wife’s an alcoholic. Well, soon-to-be ex-wife. I should get used to saying that.”

  The waitress approached and he ordered two green teas.

  “My mom’s an alcoholic too,” I mentioned, watching the waitress walk away. It was a little early for the “reveal a secret vulnerability” part of my seduction technique, but I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to seduce this man.

  Alex was silent for a moment. Then he reached for my hand. “That’s very cool of you,” he said. “To not drink.”

  I nodded and told myself to chill. I placed my hand in his. “Thanks. Do you drink?”

  “No, but it’s because of my weight. Trying to lose it.” He gestured down at his body sadly. “I know it’s gross.”

  “It’s not,” I lied.

  “I have four kids, I know I mentioned. I never realized until now how much of my life was about them and trying to make my wife happy. Bigger house, new clothes, always something. I’m trying to do something for myself for once. Get healthy.” His eyes flicked to me for a second, then settled back on the table.

  I leaned forward and squeezed his hand, feeling an incredible urge to comfort him. “You’ve had a lot of other things to focus on, your kids, your wife�
�� Now it’s time to focus on yourself.” I bit my lip and tried to look alluring. “Get your divorce, find yourself a hot young girlfriend.” I giggled. It sounded fake. Too fake.

  He didn’t notice. He was staring out the front window. “Yeah…” He looked at me. “You’re right. Sometimes I need to hear it.”

  I smiled. “Just doing my job.”

  At the end of our interview, he walked me to my car. I held out my hand. He passed me an envelope containing $1,500 in cash, the first half of what we had decided would be my monthly allowance. I held it gently, unsure if I wanted to take it or not. If I did, we’d date. We’d go out to dinner, go to movies, go on trips. And if we ended up having sex, so be it. Alex made it clear he wasn’t the type of man to pay for sex. He wanted me to have sex with him because I wanted to have sex with him. He looked down at me, sweaty and hopeful.

  I kissed him on the mouth. He fell off the curb. We said goodnight.

  A few hours later, he called me.

  “I just wanted to say, given how personal things were today…”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re young. I don’t want you to fall in love with me. Our relationship is transactional,” he explained. “I want to make sure you understand that.”

  I felt a spark run up my spine. I laughed.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” I informed him. “You’ll be the one to fall in love with me.”

  What a dork. The balls on him. The challenge in his voice turned me on. He would be my masterpiece. I would bring this wealthy man to his knees and milk him for all he was worth.

  Over the next month, Alex gave me my own one-bedroom apartment, a convertible BMW, and a new iPhone. I gave him attention, validation, and the first blow job he’d had in a decade. I sat next to his naked body and stared at his penis barely poking out from behind his gut. This felt the same as any other sex act I’d ever had to do. My knees sank into his Tempur-Pedic mattress. It had already been several weeks, and his divorce was going to be finalized in a few days. It was time to give him the affair he wanted. He moaned a little, clutching at my waist. I knelt above his body and looked into his eyes.

  He nearly whimpered. It was hot. I was about to blow his mind. It didn’t make a difference to me that he was fat or old. It felt the same as with anyone else—except this time I was getting paid. And he was really appreciative. I licked my lips. I could do this. Just grin and bear it.

  I leaned down.

  Okay, don’t think about it. Think about what I’m gonna eat after.

  Alex moaned.

  No, too close to home.

  Think about what I need to buy at Target. Toothpaste. Maybe I should try a different flavor. Cinnamon? Seems gross. Alex let out a sigh. Bubblegum? It was weird that bubblegum-flavored toothpaste even existed. Didn’t it just make kids want to eat it more?

  Alex began shifting his hips up toward my mouth.

  I had a friend who ate toothpaste a lot. Her name was Michelle. Alex grunted.

  “Oh God,” he murmured.

  Yeah, Michelle ate a lot of toothpaste. And I’m pretty sure it had glitter in it, too. Barbie toothpaste. Or was it just flavor strips? What were flavor strips anyway?

  Alex let out a whimper.

  It seems irresponsible to put actual glitter in toothpaste. Maybe it was like mica? Polishing glitter? Is that a thing?

  I cupped Alex’s balls with my hand.

  I think they use silica usually. Sand. Less abrasive toothpaste is better anyway. Don’t want to sand my teeth off or or anything.

  Alex bucked his hips up one last time, his dick hitting the back of my throat. Alex came, and I sat up and wiped my hand on the sheets.

  Maybe I will try cinnamon flavor after all.

  “What are flavor strips?” I asked him, dabbing my face with his discarded T-shirt.

  “What?”

  “You know, like they put in toothpaste? What are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex laughed a bit, reaching for a towel. “Bad for you, I’m sure.”

  I decided that this kind of sex wasn’t so bad.

  Alex and I began doing everything together. He had my groceries delivered when I was too lazy to shop. I suffered through football games and willingly donned the jerseys he bought me. He took me to get my nails done and sat in the pedicure chair.

  “Not enough men know how important pedicures are,” he said.

  I told him all the gossip and drama in my life because he would always, unequivocally, take my side.

  “And then Lucy said that I yelled at her, except I hadn’t really.”

  “It doesn’t seem like you were yelling.”

  “I know! But she hasn’t talked to me in three days.”

  “You deserve better, Belle.”

  He called me Belle, his own personal nickname for my full name, Isabella. And as it turned out, Alex did fall in love with me. We were lying in bed in Vail vaping weed. I was admiring the new set of stacking rings he had bought me, wondering if I should have asked for three instead of two.

  “Remember what I said that first night we met?”

  “Hmm?” I pretended not to remember.

  “I said not to fall in love with me.”

  “And I said not to fall in love with me,” I teased.

  “No, you said I would fall in love with you.”

  I smiled. Here it came.

  “Well, I am falling in love with you, Belle.” He leaned over to kiss me.

  I kissed him back. “I love you too, Alex.”

  And I did. A part of me absolutely loved him. But I wasn’t in love with him. I had never really been in love with anyone except Jonah, and there was a safety in that. Alex didn’t really know me.

  Still, Alex was fun, and smart, and kind. And he gave me all the attention I could want. He always told me how cool he felt walking into a restaurant holding my hand or checking into a hotel with me on his arm. And, not only did I get attention from Alex, I also got attention from my friends, who were a mixture of shocked and impressed that I had done something as bold as date someone for money.

  “Aren’t you worried?” my friend Simone asked as she grabbed the six-dollar matcha lattes I had ordered for us. I threw a fifty at the barista and made sure she saw.

  “Worried about what?”

  “I don’t know, that he’s like a creep or something?”

  “It’s just the same as dating any other guy off the internet. You go on Tinder dates all the time.”

  “Yeah but this guy is so…old.”

  “Yeah. But he’s really nice. He cares about my life. I was just telling him about you the other day actually, and how you hated—”

  “You told him about me?”

  “Well, uh, yeah you’re my friend. We talk about things.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable with you telling him about me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He’s weird.”

  “He’s not weird, Simone. I was going to offer to share the spa day he gave me with you, but not if you’re gonna judge him before you even know him.”

  “That’s fine. I’m not the one having sex with him for money. I don’t want his gift cards.”

  That was fine. More for me. Alex gave me everything I needed: material or otherwise. When I was tired or lonely, I could curl up on his leather couch and binge-watch Real Housewives on his eighty-six-inch HD television. I could still go on dates with other men (as long as I didn’t sleep with them), and if I even thought for a second that I wanted something, there it was—even when I didn’t really need it.

  Once Alex and I were at Nordstrom trying to pick out a present for his thirteen-year-old daughter. He’d enlisted my help because he insisted we had similar taste, even though I tried to explain that his daughter was popular and stylish and that I wore mostly slippers and
mustard-stained yoga pants.

  “Yeah, but you make those yoga pants look like a million bucks.”

  “That’s because they basically cost that,” I answered back. “Lululemon.”

  “Did I pay for those?”

  “Of course.”

  I held up a Vince leather jacket made of baby sheepskin.

  “Natasha already has four leather jackets,” Alex said, eyeing it. “But you’d look good in that.”

  I tried it on, spinning around on my toes. “I feel good in it.” I righted myself and put it back on the rack. “I don’t need it, though.”

  That was the key with Alex, I had figured out. It wasn’t about telling him he was special. It was about not needing things. He was a gentle man with a deeply pathological need to caretake. When his daughter wanted tickets to Drake, he opened a new Amex card and spent $5,000 to ensure he was in the special Amex early release ticket line. He took care of everyone in his life at the expense of himself. I was the person who told him I didn’t need things. I didn’t want him to buy me another piece of jewelry instead of those football tickets he wanted.

  So of course I got the jewelry.

  I got the jewelry because Alex wanted me to be happy, and when I opened the box I squealed and cried and told him I could never accept such a gift. I got the jewelry because I didn’t need the jewelry, and I never demanded it. Alex was smitten. I told him I was with him because I enjoyed his company. I just needed my allowance in order to survive. And this was true. I liked hanging out with Alex. We had fun. When I told him I wanted to go to Walmart at one in the morning to buy corn muffin mix, he obliged, slapping my ass as I rode the cart through the empty aisles singing “Barbie Girl.”

  “You’re crazy,” he laughed, huffing to catch up with me. “Things are never boring with you around.”

  Unfortunately, things were beginning to get boring once the initial excitement of having a sugar daddy wore off. Sure, I could pay my bills. I had a nice apartment, cool clothes, and a shiny new iPad. But I wasn’t fulfilled. This wasn’t what I wanted from sex work. When we had started dating, there was the allure of making a rich, older man fall under my spell. And now that it had happened, it wasn’t enough. There was still a gnawing darkness inside of me that wanted, needed, something else. I needed to feed the monster. Being a sugar baby didn’t feel like a job anymore. It was just my life. Sex with Alex was the same as sex with any other guy. No better, no worse. It was something mechanical that I did because it was expected, and I found myself avoiding sex with him whenever I could: my period was mysteriously long, I had migraines, I couldn’t hang out for days in a row.