The Happy Birthday Hooker

Get the picture? It's TJ Hooker. Hahaha.

“I’m going to get you a hooker for your birthday,” my buddy Tom text messaged me.

“Alrighty,” I replied.

A few moments later, he called. “Listen,” he said into the phone, “you can’t drink, you can’t do drugs, you get screwed every year because your birthday is right between Christmas and New Years. It’s YOUR day. Let your hair down and do something crazy.”

“When you put it that way…” I replied.

To be honest, I had never really thought about getting a hooker until that very moment. For one thing, it has been kind of a slow couple of weeks. With planning this fucking book tour and the second book coming out, things have been quite hectic. Which translates into me having nothing to write about so hanging out with a hooker for a night would at least give me an endless supply of material if nothing else.

Tom sent me a website to look over the various hookers to chose from. There really is something to that old saying: “there is something for everyone.” Looking over the website that Tom sent I saw so many varieties of men, most of whom I wouldn’t have sex with for free, but I guess everyone has a type. I narrowed my search down to two eligible hookers and sent them to Tom. One was named Tomas (I’ve changed his name to protect the innocent – his name was really Tommy. Woops) and the other was named Peter, who goes to my gym. Upon seeing him, I literally yelled out, “Oh my God, HE’S a hooker?” in the middle of Starbucks and the people surrounding me looked at me in disgust. Eh, fuck them.

Tom told me he would take care of the logistics, i.e., he would pay for it, figure out where I needed to go and then relay the information back to me. Now, technically I was not paying for a hooker personally, so the fact that this was a gift made the whole situation a little better to stomach. Within minutes, Tom got back to me with details.

“OK,” he said, “get this. The hooker lives in my building.”

“What?” I asked.

“Yea,” he replied, “He lives on the 41^st floor. How crazy is that?”

“That’s great. I can come and gossip before I head to his place.”

“I know right?” Tom said, “And after, cause I know your sorry ass is gonna have story. Anyway, I’ve taken care of everything so all you have to do is come over here beforehand, pick up the money and then…” he laughed, “wait for it…go upstairs. How fucking crazy is that?”

“Seriously crazy,” I laughed.

Then I thought to myself, I had picked the wrong vocation. Tom lives in possibly the nicest building in the city and his rent has got to be at least five thousand dollars a month. If a hooker could afford that kind of rent, I needed to start thinking about changing careers. I have always thought I would have made a great whore, (I mean I may as well get paid for it at this point) and seeing first hand the literal lap of luxury they live in furthered my interest in becoming a high-class escort.

The only problem with Tom’s brilliant plan was that I was seeing someone at the time. Note how he has never been mentioned once in this blog until now so you know what that must mean…it went south. Right after Thanksgiving I met a boy named Evan who reached out to me via facebook because he had seen me at a bar with a few mutual friends a few nights before and added me as a friend. He was the tallest person I had ever met and we had this whole Paul Bunyon/Thumbalina thing going on and I liked it. Throughout the following weeks, we became close, or so I thought and went to a show, out for dinner and finally hooked up a few days before Christmas the night before he was to leave to go home for the holidays. All along, I am thinking to myself: “I am about to go on book tour for three months, this couldn’t possibly work out. But how amazing would it be if it DID? How amazing would it be to have someone on my side while I took this amazing, life altering adventure?” Evan knew from day one that our time together was fleeting, but just because someone is leaving town for a few months (which in the grand scheme of life is not long at all) doesn’t mean that you cannot continue to develop a relationship. So, in an effort to make sure that we could continue getting to know each other, I invited Evan to come to San Francisco for a few days while I would be there. He thought that idea was fun and the next day (the day after my birthday) called to tell me that he couldn’t do the long distance thing. In all honesty, the most we would have gone without seeing each other would have been three weeks between my coming back to New York for obligations I had before the book tour started and flying him to various cities using my points. The thing that kills me, is that he knew all along that I was leaving so my question is: “Why bother?” I am twenty-nine years old, I don’t need any more friends (you know my old saying, I barely like the ones I have now, why the fuck would I want any more?) and if that’s all he wanted, why was he sleeping naked in my bed but a week before this conversation took place. I think was just another of God’s little reminders to get the fuck out of New York while I’m ahead.

My feelings were very hurt, yet again because this all seemed so out of the blue. It’s not like I woke up one day and told Evan: “you know what? I think I am going to leave for three months.” Anyway, feeling particularly low and severely annoyed, I decided to take Tom up on his offer.

The next night, I went to Tom’s apartment to pick up the envelope full of money that I was to give to my hooker, who lived upstairs. I got back into the elevators of Tom’s building and went up to the 41^st floor. I knocked on my hooker’s door and briefly wondered if I should refer to Tomas as “Vivian”, since we had this whole “Pretty Woman thing going on.”

“Hello,” Tomas said, opening the door.

“Hi!” I said as I entered.

I took my coat off and looked around his apartment. Everything in his apartment was Versace. The mirrors, the rugs on the floor, the couch, literally everything had to Versace logo on it.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

What I wanted to say was: “this whole writing business is for the birds and where do I sign up to become a hooker?” but I instead replied: “Oh nothing, your apartment is just very nice, that’s all.”

“Oh,” he said.

“So,” I began, “What do you do?” I asked.

He gave me a look that said: “Are you kidding me?”

“Oh, right,” I retorted. “I mean do you do anything else? Like other activities, you know, like a book club. Because if you do, I know this really great book…”

“Nope,” he interrupted.

“Oh.”

“Shall we?” he said as we gestured toward his bedroom.

“Oh ok,” I said. Apparently we were skipping the small talk all together and just going for it. This hooker really needed to work on his hospitality. I wasn’t even offered coffee or cake.

Once entering the bedroom, I noticed that the hooker had leather sheets on his bed. I almost lost it.

“What is it?” Tomas asked.

“Oh, nothing,” I replied.

Tomas began taking his clothes off and got on the bed. I was still standing there, fully clothed and ready to ask one thousand questions because I am a nosy ass piece of shit.

“So, like, do you get a lot of old guys?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” he replied, “but sometimes not.”

Tomas was a man of few words.

“So am I one of the better looking guys that has been here?” Here I am ALWAYS fishing for a mother-fucking compliment, like…well…a whore. “Because I would have never done this if my friend hadn’t bought you for me for my birthday.”

He looked at me with a funny face. How awkward this hooker must have felt to have someone say “my friend bought you for me…” but it didn’t seem to faze him for long.

“This isn’t a Grindr hook-up, dude,” he uttered. “You can cut the small talk shit and we can just do what you came here to do.”

“I know,” I replied. “I just feel weird getting right to it.”

Then the hooker came and kissed me. I kissed him back but couldn’t help but notice for someone whose profession is to service and pleasure others; he was pretty terrible at kissing. I pushed him off of me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Oh nothing,” I said as I turned away and looked out of his window to his amazing view of Manhattan. All I could do was think: “I cannot believe that a. I am leaving all of this for three months and b. I am in a hookers apartment.” I turned and looked back at him.

“So where are you from?” I asked.

“Long Island,” he replied. I had figured as much from the accent.

“Nice.”

Silence.

The hooker rolled his eyes again, “Where are you from?” he sighed.

“DC,” I replied.

“So what exactly is it that you want to do?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I replied, “I’m kind of scared to be here as it is. I’ve never done anything like this before in my life. So you’ll have to bare with me.”

“It’s OK. I just don’t like chatting too much. I mean, some people think I am like, their fucking physiatrist and just sit here and talk forever.”

“I get that you’re not a therapist. If you were, you’d be way overpriced and most likely not covered in my health care package.”

Still, didn’t get a laugh out of him. This was a stone cold, serious hooker. He meant business and was quickly tiring of my smart ass segues into conversations about our hometowns.

“So, what do you like to do in bed?” I asked.

“Again,” he replied, “this is not a Grindr hook-up. It’s all about what YOU want.”

“Seriously?” I asked as I suddenly realized why people got hookers in the first place. I could just lay back and do nothing and get off. This was better than a Grindr hook-up and probably better than having a boyfriend. I stood there and looked into my hookers eyes and realized that if I didn’t have sex with him, I would not only be wasting Tom’s money but Tomas would be running off with 250 dollars of someone else’s money without doing anything for it and that is simply just not the American way. I mean, I wouldn’t go all the way to Mount Everest without attempting to climb it so I could get at least get a fucking bumper sticker so I decided that yes, I should sleep with a hooker tonight.

So I had sex with a hooker. And to be honest, I’ve had better and I didn’t have to pay for it. I love sex as much as the next guy, but when someone is yelling things like “fill up my hole” and “take that dick”, etc. it’s less so much less of an enjoyable sexual experience and more of a bad, low-budget porn come to life.

Two days later, I went to Tom’s apartment because I needed some help getting materials together for my book tour when who should get on the elevator with me but my hooker from two nights before. I smiled at him but he looked down. When I waved, he turned away. Apparently even when paid to sleep with me, the people I have canoodled with refuse to acknowledge my presence upon seeing me. God I hate everyone. Looks like 2012 is off to a banging start…in more ways then one.