It feels like 100 years ago. I was probably about 15 years old, enjoying that early teen girl hormone rush, when a guy could be considered cute no matter how bad his sneakers smelled. It was a time when, if a boy dressed in 3 distinct madras plaids and word a live salamander on his shoulder, he was beyond cool. A time not so unlike now, despite what the young think. One night, my girlfriend called with big news, asking me to double-date with her. I told my parents that I was heading down to the public library and then over to my conveniently out-of-town friend’s house (standard practice when I didn’t want to explain the unexplainable). I shouted goodbye as the screen door slammed behind me.
Five hours later, late at night, I was standing alongside a deserted road watching 3 buffoon boys try to start an obviously-dead-as-dead-could-be car engine. There were no houses around, cell phones hadn’t yet been made available to the public, I was 25 miles from home, and I know that if the FBI hadn’t yet been called in to investigate it would only be a matter of minutes. My girlfriend, cool as a cucumber, was feeling no such heat because her parents were at the same out-of-town gig that I had used as an excuse. One of the crazy guys had fed her about 3 bottles of beed, and she was too busy throwing up in the bushes to care where we were or what time it was. My choices were to panic or to go hold her head and then chat. I chose the latter.
I asked how long she had known the boys. Since she’d described them as long-time trusted friends, I’d naturally assumed they were boys she’d met at church when she was younger. She told me she had just met them today. I nearly choked. Where had she met him? On a phone chat line. They’d talked for an hour and she’d agreed to stand on a corner and climb into a car with him and two friends, and then come and get me, who’d been led to believe he was an old and trusted friend.
We got out of that one alive. The car was fixed, the boys dropped us off at home before dawn, and as I walked into the front door my Mom hung up with the police department so my Dad could call off the Sherriff’s office. A few white lies later, I went to bed, slammed with only a month of being grounded.
I’m stunned, today, that most escort barely check out clients before meeting them alone and in person. I wonder if they should be congratulated on their brazen bravery, or chided for their out-of-their-minds recklessness. When I deliver myself into the hands of a man I’ve never laid eyes on before, the precautions I take rival those I take before pulling a jet off the runway. The gravity of that day when I was 15 apparently grabbed me, and has served me (in my opinion) well.