If I Became a Sex Worker, Could I Keep Using Meth?

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 10 Part 5

From Harlem to Midtown to the East Village, I spent the weekend binging Tina and fucking strangers. As the sun set on that Sunday evening in March, I walked the shadowed streets, drifting westward.

After seeing Reily off on his train back to North Carolina, I’d met back up with Noah. He gave me the straight up sweaty fuck I’d been looking for all weekend, all while his partner of several years sat unfazed in the other room.

In the brief afterglow before Noah fell asleep and I let myself out, Noah took my face in his hands, kissed me, and said, “Oh, we could make a lot of money off of you.”

“What?”

“Turn you out. Sell that delicious ass of yours.”

I couldn’t tell if this was post-coital flirting or seriously offering to pimp me out.

“Would you like that? Wanna be the little whore boy you are and make a little money out of it?”

His question lingered like an aftertaste as I walked past purple signs and banners for NYU.

I knew quitting my job and dropping off the grid had sent up red flags and raised alarms. My phone blowing up with text messages and voicemails was proof of that. That was the point. I had intentionally set myself up, forcing myself to face the music.

But would I?

Would I face the music?

There was no explaining anything away. When I quit Chipotle, I told my manager I’d been struggling with meth and needed to focus entirely on getting clean. They had no doubt called Roger, who got me the job. Roger most likely called Jason and Jason probably called everyone else.

Now everyone knew, and that was on purpose.

But did that mean I had to face it?

Did I have to stop?

Or could I…

I found myself at the arch in Washington Square Park. Its glowing white stone stood like a gateway between old and new New York.

The intersection of Waverly Place and 5th Avenue became my crossroads.

I had been awake for well over 48 hours. My limbs were heavy with fatigue. My veins felt tight from dehydration. I needed to re-up the high soon to fend off an inevitable crash.

Yet, while part of me fished around for where to get my next high, I was much more focused on the path in front of me. It was as if I’d been turned into an undead creature of the night all those months ago and was seeing the world as it truly was with my vampire eyes. Parked cars refracted streetlights with a warm spectrum of colors, like the sheen of motor oil. The sidewalk sparkled with diamonds as countless as the stars. Everything pulsed with a preternatural glow.

By the wash of white light from the arch, I saw myself split and walk in opposite directions, both paths leading deep into shadow.

One path led back east, back to Noah.

To becoming a sex worker.

To be honest, the idea had occurred to me long before Noah. On its face, it seemed like a no-brainer. Get paid to do something I enjoyed? “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Isn’t that how it goes?

Only I wouldn’t be living a clear-eye, sex-positive lifestyle.

I wouldn’t be a sex worker because I enjoyed it or because I had a talent for giving pleasure to others. I wouldn’t be a sex worker to pay the bills or put food on the table.

I’d be a sex worker to support my meth addiction.

An act of desperation.

And desperation, regardless of profession, isn’t sustainable.

Still, it would let me keep slamming.

I could turn around, head back to Noah’s and … keep slamming.

Or I could… keep walking … and …

Time stretched before me, showing me these divergent paths.

One path led deeper into the rabbit hole.

Away from family.

Away from friends.

Away from theater.

Away from John.

Forever a creature of the night,

Fucking and slamming,

For the rest of my life,

A life cut short.

The other path…

The other…path

Would lead…

Lead me…

Back.

Back to myself.

Back to John.

To accountability

To responsibility

To the difficult work of rebuilding trust.

To the stage

To a damaged John.

To a changed John.

To a John who had a story to tell.

To a John who wanted to tell his story.

I turned and looked through the arch into the park.

I signed, knowing I had made my choice.

And it made me sad.

In the end, I wasn’t ready to let go,

Of my family.

Of my friends.

Of the stage.

Of my dreams.

Blame it on our puritanical, heteronormative society — in my mind, becoming a sex worker was a line of demarcation, a point of no return. If I became a sex worker, the scandal of it would bar me from any dreams of an acting career, of Broadway. It was as if, once that line was crossed, I would never again know the joy of that little boy who donned a monkey helmet and bounded on stage to find his purpose.

I had given up so much chasing the slam.

But I’d never given up on my dreams.

Beneath the drugs, beneath the sleep deprivation, beneath the pain, beneath the trauma,

Beneath the enslavement to Tina

There was still a solid, central part of me,

That would never give up my dreams.

So I walked west on Waverly Place toward 6th Avenue.

Away from Noah,

And toward a hard unknown.

A turn on Greenwich Avenue, then down 7th, St Vincent’s Hospital standing tall behind me, I walked toward the broken and lit up skyline of lower Manhattan.

Toward Christopher Street.

Toward Richard.

Toward Richard?

Toward Richard!

He was walking right toward me about a block away.

He didn’t see me until I burst out laughing.

When he looked up and saw me, relief washed over him, but only for a moment.

“Bill told me I’d find you here,” he said as we met, as if he knew all along he would meet me on the corner of 7th Avenue and Perry Street.

I didn’t know who Bill was, and I didn’t care.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“Out,” I shrugged. “Partying.”

“You know everyone is looking for you?”

“Yup,” I said, oddly proud. Of course it was a cruel thing to do to my friends, but I was in the giddy phase of sleep deprivation, and I was just so pleased with myself and how clever I was to successfully trick myself into accountability.

Tomorrow was going to suck.

But that was tomorrow.

“Well…now what?” Richard asked.

I took a deep breath and looked around.

“Let’s go home,” I answered.

When we arrived at Richard’s apartment in Fort Lee, he’d barely taken his coat off when he said, “I’m gonna shower.”

“By all means.” As he disappeared into the bathroom, I walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed.

I lay down.

And slept until late Monday afternoon.

When I woke up, I called the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and made an appointment to start substance abuse counseling.

Then I called everyone and told them I was ok.

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