MY SISTER IS A PRODOMME:

A STORY

THE PROFESSION

Long shadows lie themselves against the cobblestone streets of Boulevard de Clichy. The smell of crepes and espresso fill the air after the sun has peeled itself from the earth and the stones have separated themselves from feet that walked them just the night before. Welcome to the Red-light District of Paris.

When asked about my sister’s profession I argue with myself for the quickest of seconds. Do I say the truth? Do I make up a lie? Do I brush it off? When I tell them, I see churning in their eyes. I can scurry to pick up the pieces of character, or lack there of, we associate with her work. Wheels turning. I cannot make up for the changing of mind and I cannot fill the space with her true identity. To me she has always been a sister, not Domme Danielle.

When I was four, my sister was twelve. I loved the way she wrote her name. I loved the way she drew flowers with four petals. I loved the way she sat next to me on our pink and green flowered comforter. Talk about boys, talk about the ocean, just talk. I loved the way she sang in the car as we drove to school. I would follow her anywhere.

When I was nine, my sister was my role model. She spoke from her heart, shot from the hip. I felt as though her very footsteps evoked change in the world around her. Her black hair twisted down to her waist. Her clear glasses swallowed her brown eyes.  She was petite, but I believed her presence consumed the entire space around her. Most of all, she was strong.

When I was sixteen, we boarded a plane to France. We stayed in the Chat Noir hotel. It was just across the street from a little espresso bar, just steps from the Moulin Rouge. Everywhere we went, to the friends we made, we were “the sisters.” Her hair now short forms big circles just above her jaw. I see the moons in her eyes have changed, they do not shine the same way. Then again, my sister stands tall because her life has required a straight spine and closed fists ready to defend. I know this is not fair, but time can change us this way. We, together, we are the sisters.

I know we rest in the so-called Red-light District, but where are the red lights?

So I ask her, “What is a red-light district?

“Jen, haven’t you ever heard the song, “Roxanne” by the Police?”

“I don’t know…ummm, what does it sound like.”

“You know it… Roxannneeee you don’t have to turn on the red light[1]…”

“Oh yeah, I really like that one. Well there aren’t any red lights,” I joke.

“I don’t think you get it.”

I do.

“Jen, how do you think I paid for this trip?”

From then on, I think of my sister’s profession as this, something I can save her from.  Maybe she doesn’t have to turn on that figurative red light. Then again, I am sixteen and misinformed.

She starts collecting whips and handcuffs. She has a dungeon in her basement. She has her own business.  She has a meditation room, a library, and a place to call her own. She has degrees in English and French.

Now I am twenty, she is twenty-eight.  She has a shaved head, hair that changes colors every month. Bleached blond then pitch black now. Draped in clothes that flow and soft words, she reminds me of a Buddhist monk. We laugh in the car, she tells me anonymous stories, her clients’ stories. They make me uncomfortable, but can I support her and not listen to what she has to say?  So I listen, and some of her stories are sweet. The stories of couples that go together are my favorites: A wife brought her husband for his birthday, he had a hand fetish, he wrote a script. A grazing of hands here, a holding of hands there. Nothing like you might think, almost innocent in a way.

In the back of her car rests a suitcase: grey, hard, textured, containing boots of leather, condoms, lubricant, latex gloves; they spill over its edges. Also in the back of her car, a yoga mat, water bottles, a winter jacket.

“So what do you want to do?” She asks.

“I don’t care.”

It’s dark out. The city lights become stars. Music spills over our bones, fills the tiny car, embraces the night sky. I feel like I can breathe again. She knows all too well the suffocating hands of a world too small.

Her conversations twist down many roads.

“Jen, I can’t do this forever. I don’t want to do this forever.”

Prideful statements: “Do you know how much money I have saved?”

And I never guess right.

“Well, if people need me to provide these things for them, then I will do it!”

Sessions pay rent, buy groceries, buy plane tickets, and give hope for future security. It comes easy. Sometimes I see her tighten her grasp, simultaneously pushing away.

“It is so easy for me to do. I just don’t know if any other profession allows so much freedom and is so lucrative.” She says.

Difficulties lie heavy in the societal pressures to move on, to grow up, and to have a back-up plan. As if sex work is only valid when there is a way out.

We walk down snowy streets, frozen in place.

“Some days I just want to hide. Sometimes I just want to cover my face with my hood so that no one will look at me.” She states.

A song plays:

“And I hang like a star
Fucking glow in the dark
For all those starving eyes to see
Like the ones we’ve wished on.” [2]

 “That’s how I feel sometimes.” She tells me.

 We sunbathe in her back yard.

She beams, “I am super excited for my session today. My client wants to learn how to eat healthy and wants me to help him. So I made cupcakes. I am going to eat them in front of him. I’ll say, ‘Oh you wish you could have one!’”

She loves it, has made meaningful relationships from it. Her work empowers her. She changes complexes about sex in a way that few can. She is a therapist.

 “It can be extremely cathartic for my clients,” she tells me. “I create a safe space for them to express themselves.”

Valentine’s day, my birthday. My sister drives to Boulder in the snow.

“What are we doing?” I ask.

“It’s a surprise!”

“Oh, come on, tell me!”

“Nope, you will have to wait and see.”

We arrive at Pearl Street, home to the yuppies and hippies. On a clean window its name, The Black Cat, sits in gold. Waiters in matching uniforms dance across a candle lit floor. The place shines.

“You know why I picked it, right?”

“Yes of course, it is like the hotel we stayed in Paris.”

We reminisce. Purple flowers rest between us. She wanted them to be waiting for me when we sat down. She hands me my present. Out of a big blue bag I dig up gift after gift. A book of mandalas, a giant card, clothes, a scarf that lays like tinsel on a Christmas tree, easy. At the end or our dinner our waiter walks towards us with a cake, homemade, purple and blue, sparkling with nineteen candles. I beam. Never in my life have I felt more special, more important.

“I learned to take care of people like this from my clients,” She explains.

Doctors, lawyers, blue-collar workers, and any other type of men; they take her to fancy dinners, buy her expensive lingerie, offer her plane tickets. Splurge. Danielle, she is their mistress. Most of them are married. For a girl growing up, trying to put trust in men, trying to let people in, this forms walls, complexes. For a woman trying to find love, this scares away the foolish.

My sister came out to the family and said,  “I’m not hiding who I am anymore.”

 The judgments ensue, “Jen, did you know what your sister does? How do you feel about what she does?”

Does it matter?

I want them to see how her arms hold the ones she loves, how she accepts everyone, how her footsteps are examples of tolerance, of patience.  If they could stop squinting, would the importance of her character above her profession be revealed? Would the importance of her profession be revealed? If she does not, who will do this work? Who will make the statement: You may be what you are; you can say what you wish. Judgment forgets to seep through the walls of the dungeon. That is why it is a fetish, why it is different.

My sister warned me when I was younger, “Jen, you can’t tell your father. He wouldn’t let you see me anymore.”

He cautions, “Jen don’t end up like your sister.”

“Like what dad?”

“She has made some terrible decisions.”

Haven’t we all?

Here I stand between two opposing forces. Understanding lies somewhere beyond his reach. My sister tells the truth. She bears her heart in her hands and lets whoever needs some take the pieces. She does not judge. I believe the greatest downfall of those who hold bricks in their hands is their judgment.  Walls founded upon their self-importance. They never hear stories on the lips of those who walk the cobblestone streets of Boulevard de Cliché, stories that need to be told.

I trace a mandala over and over as I talk to my sister on the phone.

“So we were on the top of the mountain and he just kissed me,” I tell her.

“That’s a little fast don’t you think? I mean, you just met him.”

“Uh, no, not really. I am surprised to hear that from you.”

“Jen, just because I am a sex worker doesn’t mean I am an extremely sexual person. It doesn’t mean I sleep with everyone I meet. I mean, Ash and I have been dating on and off for a month and we have only held hands.”

We argue. I am defensive. I feel judged. She feels judged, placed in a box. Sex is her work, not her entire life.

There are stories that haunt me, worries that toss my body between the sheets.

“Promise me you will get home safe.” I ask of her.

Trust.

“Jen, I trust my intuition. I know when something isn’t right, and in this line of work you must follow that.”

“Jen, I hope you don’t mind, but one of my clients lives there and I am going to do a session. You can hang out in the lobby or do something else for an hour.”

In the hotel lobby, I wait. I don’t know what he looks like. I think that’s him. I am curious. I walk the streets alone. In the hotel room my sister becomes Danielle. Rain is falling, streaking down the window of the coffee shop. I have a pit in my stomach. I hope she’s okay. I worry. Thoughts turning. I desperately wish I didn’t feel this way. A world of black and white raised me. Rewriting these grey lines comes slowly. Acceptance at the deepest level takes ticking hands. Sure, I have lined my skin with barbwire in defense of my sister, but I still sway when I hear Danielle’s stories. My ears close off, then open up, like a horror movie. That’s my sister, my best friend. We are the sisters.

“I have your back.”

“You have mine.”

 We laugh.

Not flashing neon rouge, not a dollar bill stuck between elastic and a hipbone, not heels, not back-alley hook ups. Short skirts, handcuffs, whips, latex, restraints, and psychology. Sex work is complex.

So I demand, what is the value of a dollar? For my sister, the value comes with the freedom through her work. Freedom accompanies accomplishment and a sense of power. I worry that I can’t choose between these lines. It troubles me that I can’t define this profession’s role. Sometimes it is a cage, sometimes it is a key.

What I know: We are the sisters, we are in this together, and sex work has nothing to do with that.

---