waiting...

Here i am, writing a blah article i'd hoped to avoid. You might want to check out that new Don Rickles/Martha Stewart bar mitzvah-tips site today instead.
My quest to hire a prostitute to have non-sexual naked intimacy with, is in a holding pattern. In more than a month, i've made e-mail contact with four or five women. Two or three petered out quickly. In the early written stages, i generally send a photo that matches whatever level of nakedness they've shared with me, plus a link to the article that introduces this project, and some version of these words:
If we do this, you won't have to care about me...but i will very much care about you. If you don't want me to care about you, just tell me. I still will, but i'll keep it to myself. We will be naked. Hopefully not just physically. No words, no emotions are off limits. We won't pretend our arm's not falling asleep or that somebody doesn't have bad breath (everyone gets bad breath except puppies). Any non-sexual touching will be allowed, for us both.
Deciding how much money to offer is a challenge. If the going rate for sex on craigslist NYC is $40-$250, how much should no sex cost? I decide to let the woman name her price, and accept or reject that.
As i look at the pictures attached to the CL ads, never have i felt more in touch with my visually-intuitive skills; in deciding which women to approach, it feels so easy to root out those who aren't what i'm looking for. There's such a murky, unending sea of ads to search through however (many of which are sometimes-clever fakes) i sometimes despair of finding the right woman. But i'm mostly confident that patience will be rewarded. The odds seem to be that she'll be of the "college student needs help with bills" variety.
The two interactions i've had that didn't peter out, each lasted weeks. The first was profoundly exciting. I felt an instant connection, affinity, and trust. She was open, and we talked about all sorts of things. When i saw her photos, my heartrate changed. She wore heels and just a little makeup, but it seemed like those were concessions she made for the sake of attracting the average idiot male. I based that on her short and unpainted nails, few or no piercings, and natural-looking bush. I quickly realized that she was also more intelligent than she gave herself credit for. Within a few days, i knew with a curious certainty that if i ever held her, i would fall in love. Finally though, she bowed out when the intimacy of holding a stranger overwhelmed her. Amazing. Not crazy, but amazing. To be able to share humanity's most intimate act with total strangers, but be overwhelmed by simple holding...
The second woman had a very icy quality in her head shot. Not cruel, but icy. No makeup. There was something about it that was very honest, and she told me she had some crazy stories to share. It took a while to be convinced that she was as intelligent as she advertised, as she responded to questions with the bare minimum or less. The fact that her second photo (her naked, raised posterior) should have come across as vulgar, yet somehow was eye-poppingly beautiful, was no doubt also a factor in why i indulged her postponements and bad communication (Do you know those women who have a space between the top of their legs that is conspicuously wide? Something disturbingly sexy about that, and she has it.) But mostly, i just felt i was supposed to trust her. And i was fascinated by the thought of getting to know someone who knew she was more intelligent than most of the johns she serviced.
The night before we were to meet, she was raped. Not by a client, but by someone she trusted and loved.
My focus shifted to offering her unconditional friendship and comfort. A week later, she told me that, outside of the police and her roommate, i'm the only person she's told about the rape. In addition to e-mails, we've started talking on the phone.
The search continues...