Reflecting on days gone by (part 1)

Or, "The First Time I Considered Sex Work."

“So, how do you like grad school?” he asks shortly after we first meet.
“Oh,” I laugh. “I’m not in grad school. I’m still undergrad.”
“Undergrad? Isn’t twenty-four a bit old for undergrad?”

I realize that there’s been some sort of miscommunication. Do I tell him that I’m just nineteen? Do I start fabricating now, or will it come back to bite me later? I quickly add up numbers in my head. I had pictured a man in his early thirties, though we hadn’t bothered to exchange small details (like age) over the internet. Standing in front of him now, I cross my fingers and cap my guess at thirty-five. I confess my age, all the while holding my breath.

“Nineteen,” he whistles. “Nineteen. I suppose that makes me one lucky guy.” He takes my bag and we walk the few blocks from the subway to his apartment. “Well, if you can handle a forty-year-old man with the stamina of a college student, you won’t be disappointed.”

We order Chinese food and share a bit of awkward small talk. I’m nervous. I can’t recall what I’m doing in this stranger’s studio apartment. Could I be delirious? I had come down with mononucleosis a few weeks prior, and I was still feeling the physical effects. I wondered if the illness hadn’t affected my cognition as well.

The food arrives and I spoon a small scoop of vegetable lo mein onto my plate. I stare down at my tattered Chuck Taylors.

“So, why are you actually here?” he asks sometime between the egg rolls and the fortune cookies.
“I’m here to learn 'the ropes,’” I laugh, hoping he’s understood the pun.
“Oh, I’ll show you the ropes,” he says. “But I need to know the boundaries.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like, are you here to learn or are you here to fuck?”

It wasn’t that I hadn’t anticipated the possibility of a sexual encounter, but I assumed my physical state had rendered me utterly (and visibly) undesirable.

“But, the mono...” I trail off.
“Come on,” he squeezes my shoulder. “Isn’t mono like chicken pox? You’re immune by the time you reach my age."