The Making Of Alexis Valdez: Final Chapter
FULLY ME
Reader advisory: The following episode includes descriptions that may not be suitable for younger readers, including discussions of sexual content and trauma. Reader discretion is advised.
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I was out of the game for five years before I made the decision to return. During that time, I led a life that people may describe as “normal;” raising my son and working full-time at a restaurant. I earned a lot less money as a waitress, but I found comfort in my freedom from others’ judgement. There’s a stigma that follows us women who choose to work in the sex industry. Raised eyebrows, condescending questions and judgemental tones are typical responses whenever I mention what I do for a living. So it felt freeing to be seen through a lens of positivity for a while.
Although I didn’t mind returning to the work I’d been doing for the majority of my adult life, this time there was a reason. Sponsoring my son’s father, a man who I had met in Cuba, was costly. I had started the process while working as a waitress, but once I covered all of my expenses, I barely had anything left over to put away.
Around that same time, my son began to experience complications with his health, which became another mental, emotional and financial strain for me to deal with. Going back to the industry meant the potential to make enough money to take care of all of our needs. And even though I would give up on sponsoring his father—for very good reason—I still needed more money to not just stay on my feet, but get ahead.
When I returned, the game was a whole new monster and I had to adjust to compete. I earned every tiger stripe that covered my full thighs and stomach from birthing my son, but it made it tough to get picked by men who favoured the slender frames of my peers in their late teens to early twenties. Not only did I not look like them, but I was also not as liberal with my offerings.
My only service at the time was providing erotic massages, which was rare when everyone else put out for a hundred dollars or less. I wasn’t earning close to what I was used to years before and eventually the industry pushed me into offering full-service to customers.
But like everything else in my life, I chose to do it my way. Similar to my massages, I decided that I would only offer sex if it could be an experience that made me feel just as good as the men I serviced.
My first full-service experience was in a hotel with an older gentleman in his sixties who had been a client of mine for two years.
I was so nervous that I made sure to call my friend Jamie to let her know my exact location and room number.
“If I don’t get back to you by midnight, send help,” I warned her.
But I had nothing to worry about. What I remember most about that night is how gentle he was and how special he made me feel. It’s like I was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman!
We were in a beautiful suite overlooking the city. A gorgeous lounging outfit was laid out for me on the bed and he had dinner set up and ready for us in the living room. There was no rush. We just talked and talked for the majority of the night while sipping champagne. I’m not much of a drinker, so the bubbly got me pretty tipsy.
Soon we were kissing on the couch. I was already comfortable with his touch from our years of interactions at the parlour, but he was so tender with me that night. I know this may sound silly, but it was actually very beautiful. The sex lasted about a minute before we collapsed on the bed, with our limbs entangled, cuddled up under his chest. The whole experience made me feel special.
At the end of the night, he handed me an envelope of cash that I immediately slipped into my purse. I didn’t even count it—I knew he was good for the money. That night I made $500.
A lot of people think that those who pay for erotic massages or sex are losers or perverts, but in my experience, they haven’t been. The men I meet are from all walks of life—they’re successful, they’re good looking, they’re young guys, they have a wife and family, maybe they are widowed.
They are normal.
They also treat me very well. Often, even better than my own intimate partners. Many clients send me sweet texts and emails everyday, buy me gifts, offer to pay for anything I need. They really do think of me as their girlfriend and I see them as my special friends.
I learned that once you start sleeping with your clients, your relationship with them deepens. And as someone who believes in getting to know the people I serve on a more intimate level, providing full-service became a natural extension of who I already am.
One of my most memorable experiences was with a 20-something year old engineering student who spent $10,000 for three nights with me. Paying his way through university and the high pressures of his program was getting to him and his mental health was suffering. Those nights I was both his lover and therapist.
Sex with my clientele is a minor part of what I have to offer them because I understand that true intimacy is about having a safe space to be vulnerable. I am intentional about ensuring all of my experiences feel safe and comforting because for many years, sex was an act of obligation, trauma and shame.
It was a perspective shaped by the names my father would call me as a child to scare me from losing my virginity. Sex was the accusations of betrayal that my mother hurled at me as a teenager. “Intimacy” was the time some guy I was dating forced himself on me when I was fifteen years old.
The night I got home from that attack, I got in the shower and tried my best to vigorously scrub away the vivid images. I wanted to drain out the sound of his voice and wash away his smell. When that didn’t work, I decided that sleeping with an ex-boyfriend who I still had a great relationship with would be the best way to help erase what happened.
That experience led to many years of deep pain that I suffered through alone. I told no one about the night that I was assaulted. Coupling that with witnessing Big Mike fall to his death just years before became too overwhelming to bear. Those series of events are what eventually resulted in an attempt to take my own life. In the hospital, getting my stomach pumped to empty the handfuls of prescription pills I had swallowed is when Mom discovered that I was pregnant.
Days later, she went with me to the clinic. Filled with the devastation and confusion of not knowing if the father of this child growing in my little tummy was my ex-boyfriend who I loved or the man who attacked me weeks before, I made the best decision I could.
Afterward, my life became a blur of appointments with various Psychotherapists to talk through the trauma, but I could never get comfortable enough with any of them to let my guard down. I left my dad’s house after that and didn’t speak to him for nearly ten years. My assault triggered something in me, and the physical and mental beatdown I suffered in his home for years made it impossible for me to even look at my father after my abortion.
Then when I turned to Mom for support, she wasn’t there. The outpouring of emotion and love that Mom displayed when I was in the hospital soon disappeared not long after leaving. Days when I was afraid to be alone and asked for her to stay with me at home, she chose nights out to play BINGO instead.
Mom stopped choosing me for years. Her biggest betrayal happened when she welcomed my father into her household after he was injured in an accident at work. Between her turning a blind eye to my pain and my father’s denial that he was ever abusive to me, I knew that in order to survive this world I would need to craft a new life of my own design. I’ve always been alone in my pain, but I’m a fighter who will not allow myself to drown in the emotion of my past.
Sex work provides me the opportunity to be the woman I choose rather than a victim of my previous circumstances. So there’s no shame in what I do; only empowerment, intimacy, and the money I earn that makes it possible for me to take care of my son.
Even the discomfort I initially experienced as an older woman in the game has vanished. I cherish my role as someone who can school some of the younger girls. They come to me for advice and I try my best to provide a safe space so they know they always have someone they can depend on and trust.
And there’s no one in this world who I trust more than myself. Life forced that reality on me. But learning to depend on myself has taken me down a path that I would never have envisioned as a little girl. But here I am, fully grown, fully in control, fully Alexis Valdez.