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looking than their husbands, Jesse. They’re envious. They want to have sex with you instead of the baldies and fatties they married.”
    “I see…”
    “Don’t tell me you don’t notice these things the moment you walk into a room,” she said, her tone somewhere between teasing and chiding. “That face? That hair?”
    “I didn’t realize I was ‘attractive’ -- whatever the hell that means -- until I was around sixteen or so.”
    “Really? What happened then?”
    Bobby happened , I thought.
    “Jesse?” Bianca said.
    “Nothing.”
    “If you say so.” She arched her back, let out a long sigh. Had we been on the beach, I’d have offered to take off her bikini top and lather a layer of sunscreen on her back. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be in New York at all. Gorgeous as the rooftop swimming pool was, it was no match for the springtime excursion Bianca took last year.
    If New York was the city that never sleeps, Miami was the closest thing America had to the French Riviera.
    “You’re thinking about Miami, aren’t you?” she said.
    I smiled. “Stop doing that.”
    “What?”
    “Reading my mind. It’s eerie. Sometimes you know what I’m thinking before I do.” I paused, thought of our pillow talk last night. “And look, about last night…”
    “The part when you were inside me, or…?”
    “After,” I said. “I didn’t mean to sound so cryptic in bed. My personal problems aren’t your problems, after all.”
    Bianca sat up, ran her fingers through my hair. I couldn’t help but shut my eyes, surrender to her touch. Her palm cupped my face, and for a brief moment it was like we were back in South Beach, with the sand between my toes and the waves crashing onto the evening shore.
    “You’re awfully young to have such a heavy conscience.” She tapped my temple with her index finger. “What the hell are keeping up there?”
    “If I start confessing now, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
    “I highly doubt anything you say can shock me. Consider it a side effect of growing up in New Orleans, the most debauched city in the nation.”
    “And that’s not even counting Mardi Gras.”
    “It seems college girls will never pass up an opportunity to flash their breasts to a bunch of drunken strangers.”
    “I’m not one to complain. And for the record, if we were back in Miami, I’d have taken your top off by now.”
    “Is that a fact?”
    “And if the beach was empty, your panties would have followed.”
    “I do recall seeing a story in The New York Post about how it’s legal for women to go topless in Central Park. Not sure if full-frontal nudity is permitted, though.”
      “Though as the saying goes, the ones who get naked are never the ones you want to actually see naked.”
    “True story.”
    “How much longer are you in the city?” I asked. “I have work tomorrow, but we could try and meet up for a drink?”
    “I’d like that, but under one condition: I want to know everything that’s going on with you, Jesse. Beginning to end. Lay it all out on the table.”
    I literally bit my tongue to keep from speaking. One of the dumbest things an escort could do is become emotionally attached to a client, let alone reveal their deepest secrets in the middle of a crowded rooftop pool. And yet… that was just what I did. Beginning from my upbringing in Philadelphia, to my “seduction” at New Hope Academy, all the way up to being introduced to the world of escorting in college.
    I talked about the shame I carried from letting Bobby do what he did to me. I revealed my deep seated fear of being discovered, of having my life in sex work splashed across the tabloids and losing everything: my friends, my job, even my family.         
    “For most people, escorting is just a stopgap,” I explained. “But for me, it’s almost become a second career. What does that say about me?”
    “You’re ashamed?”
    “I don’t even know anymore.”
    “There’s something else,”