Social Bodies (Chapter I)

My name is Anh. I’m a state-employed service worker. The conversation usually stops there. It’s not that I’m embarrassed of my line of work, but most don’t assume I’m anything other than a low-level bureaucrat: the kind of job that exists so people feel like they’ve earned their keep. Who likes a freeloader? But I know I earn my keep, and my clients tend to agree.

One was inside me right then. He knew me as Hannah. I knew him as John. His hands gripped my waist, and his hips slammed rhythmically against my behind. His dick slid in and out, in and out, in and out of me. I moaned and arched my back for him. You like that, baby? Fuck, yeah. Give it to me. He pulled me by my hair and held me up with one hand on my breast and the other between my legs, his fingers circling my clit. He kissed me from my neck to my ear and then pushed me back down onto the bed. Grunting.

You might be wondering: why is the state playing pimp? Spread open your history textbook. Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, having had the most ink spilled moralizing, legislating, and prosecuting it. A woman way back then would be considered damaged goods if she had sex before getting married, but she wouldn’t be totally fucked. Damaged goods on the marriage market are also prime real estate underground. Not even the Bible prohibits the sale of sex-time per se. It just says you shouldn’t trust a ho. Touché!

John pulled out of me and flipped me on my back, my legs over his shoulders. Then he kept fucking me. He wanted to see my pretty eyes, so I shot him a look from inside my mask. Sex is complicated, especially when it’s transactional. You have to make the man feel both like you want it—in fact, you need it—and like he is taking you all for himself. Selfless and selfish. Anyway, the two great historical enemies of sex work: sexually transmitted diseases and Christian feminist temperance organizations. No faithful housewife wants her husband to come home late one night with an itchy penis. Besides, who did that whore think she was to fuck another woman’s man when he could fuck his wife for free? Make it her problem and throw her in jail. Or criminalize demand like the Nords did, so the man will make it everyone else’s problem instead.

Socialism on paper is a transitional state between capitalism and communism. Commodity production and wage labor goes down, while production for use and consumption for need goes up, under new public management via elected representatives. However, socialism in practice is full of surprises. Three problems. The first is that the smoothest way to socialize production is to centralize it via the state, rather than there being a bunch of competing firms doing the same thing. Capitalism did the hard work in most industries by way of big firms eating each other to become monopolies, or by different firms being tentacles of the same investment banks. The Party just needs to push the red socialism button and reconfigure society’s priorities. But it’s harder when it comes to, let’s say, local small businesses.

John laid my legs over his and sat me up. We kissed while I bounced up and down on his dick, and after some gymnastics he could lie down flat so I could ride on him. His hands alternated between caressing my breasts and squeezing my ass. When he thrusted, I rolled my hips forward. Thump, thump, thump. His dick wasn’t anything to write home about (they usually aren’t), but I was impressed with how long we were at it. Most clients pay for an hour or an evening, the dine-and-wine sort. Yet, either way, most men don’t last for more than 15 minutes. Once post-coital clarity hits, they’re typically too embarrassed to go for round two. It’s a bit of honest time theft on the part of our institution, whether he chooses to leave or just cuddle in bed for the remainder of the session. But this fucker wanted his tokens’ worth. Thump, thump, thump. Not like I was complaining. Every thump reverberated from one spot to the other. I angled myself down so I could grind on him. His body was firm, sweaty, and warm beneath mine. He held me by my waist and head, and sucked on my neck. Hair, lips, tongue, teeth. He wanted to pretend to leave a mark and pretend I was his. That was fine. Part of the show. Feels okay.

The second problem is that ‘commodity’ is a misnomer if you think of the word as referring to a physical item rather than as anything considered by society to be valuable, that is, desired for mass consumption and exchangeable for money. It’s also a misnomer that, as an escort, I sell my body. No. Like in any other job, I’m selling time spent with my body. That’s the most fundamental commodity: time spent doing something desired by a clientele, especially society at large. Fruit-pickers pick fruit. Baristas brew coffee. I take dick. The values of those activities’ products—fruit, coffee, orgasms—hinged on how much the invisible hand of capital valued the time that would be spent performing them. Though, of course, the capitalist would pocket what difference they could between the product’s final value and how much it cost for the worker to sustain their productivity. Yadda yadda yadda. Doesn’t matter now.

John’s breath quickened, and I could tell he was trying not to stop. I had him. Harder. Harder. Harder. His hips had exhausted themselves, so it was up to my own to finish the job. Back and forth. Squeeze on it. Watch his eyes fade in and out. In and out. His hands clasped me again for a moment, but then he moaned and his body was temporarily relieved of its spirit. Good girl. He sighed and slid his hands down my thighs. I extracted his member from my inside, and asked how he wanted to spend the rest of his night. He wanted red wine. I wanted a cigarette. He held me in bed. We exchanged niceties. He told me he had known a girl like me when he was younger and then I zoned him out. I didn’t need to know that. Kept smoking.

Let’s put one and two together. The People’s Republic didn’t want to touch sex work with a six-inch pole because it had been an illicit black market. But then it found itself at an impasse. Men weren’t going to stop buying sex (or time spent having sex, et cetera, et cetera). If they couldn’t pay for sex, they were just going to take it—you know what I mean—for themselves. But sex work meant black markets, human trafficking, and violence, both sexual and mortal. Unless, of course, the ‘People’ took matters into their own hands, and by ‘People’ I mean the state apparatus. Sex work was decriminalized on both sides of the equation. Brothels were established to be managed primarily on the ground. Prices for clients and wages for workers were set competitively with the black market: street pimps took upwards of 50%, but Big Brother only wants 10%. That’s the power of scale. Not to mention legal protection, background checks, and laboratory test results, all handled and integrated under one system. It’s safe, it’s secure. Why didn’t Uncle Sam think of this first? My impression is liberal capitalism struggled intrinsically with sexism, racism, et cetera, since capital relied on those -isms to rationalize and regulate its own exploitation. Divide-and-conquer type shit. So, ironically, only socialism can fully realize capitalism’s potential—but don’t quote me on that.

“But how will you get out?”

“Huh?”

“Are you going to be doing this forever?”

“Till the day I drop.” I took a drag. “Not actually. I’ll retire one day.”

“But why do it at all?”

“I rode your dick, man.”

“Sorry for being curious.”

“I don’t know. I’m good at it. Shouldn’t I take some pride in my work?”

“You sure should, comrade.” John lifted his glass to me. “I’ll see you again soon.”

“Don’t tell your wife and kids.”

“Sure won’t. Just between me, you, and Big Brother.”

Before you get the wrong idea: yes, like Orwell; no, not actually. What began as a reactionary shibboleth soon became an ironic term of endearment for our society’s cybernetic infrastructure. During the economic chapter of the revolution, when the Central Committee liquidated the late great American communications technology firms, politicians in exilio fearmongered about the consolidation of online data to surveil the general population. It was just like how, when Uncle Sam was still around, they fearmongered about China accessing such-and-such data through such-and-such social platform. But the People wisened up by then, seeing as how the technology cartels of the early twenty-first century were already in cahoots with the feds to do exactly the same thing. One of the revolutionary axes, in fact, was the “Unplugged” movement whose members successfully advocated for the dismantling of datacenters and cellular networks. I was too young to remember, but my parents have a relic of their neighborhood’s old transceiver. So, what is Big Brother? It’s how you identify your person. It’s how you schedule work shifts. It’s how you order takeout. It’s how you refill prescriptions. It’s how you participate in quorums. These are all technically different app services, but they interface with each other through common means of identification and “accounting” (we don’t pay for goods and services under socialism, of course). It’s all pretty secure and, at high levels of management, abstracted from any individual. But it’s still somewhat intimidating. It’s almost like we call it Big Brother to reassure ourselves that it’s not really that scary. You can go up to the local infoteque and see for yourselves how much they personally care about you. Big Brother is estranged.

My mother was an infotechnician. I was going to be like her one day. But John didn’t need to know that. Southeast Asian; 24; passive bisexual cis-female; 162 by 84–61–87 centimeters; vagina; natural B cups. That’s what John rented for the evening. That’s Hannah.

I opened the door to give Wardell the clear. Nod up and down, not side to side. John went from my suite, into the hall, and out onto the street. Cleanup, cleanup. Our workrooms were laid out between parallel halls: one which stretched from the entrance, through which clients filtered into their appointments, and another which connected our rooms to the showers, to the lounge, and to each other. The idea is that a client enters a room and then we pop out from the aether. Peek-a-boo! Fuck me.

I peeled off my mask and tossed it into the hamper. It’s a little sexy security theater, to cover the top half of my face, with a little shadow around the eyes. Or a lot. Wiped it off. Then the rest of my work uniform. You’ll just have to imagine it.

“Hey, Anh!”

“Hey, Julie.”

“Long night?”

“He just kept fucking me.”

“God. Did he finish?”

“Eventually. How was yours?”

“Some kid’s first time. Showed him the ropes. He showed me his.”

“Nasty. Shampoo?”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Julie’s work-name was Jesse: white; 31; passive heterosexual cis-female; 174 by 98–66–99 centimeters; vagina; natural E cups. Jesse was an archetypal (forgive me) MAGA mommy of honest Anglo-Saxon stock with big breasts and child-rearing hips, the sort for whom the fascists (purportedly) fought tooth and nail to protect from rapacious barbarians. She had the displeasure of reenacting that myth with Kenny for a client who liked nothing more than to watch. Otherwise and generally her clientele leaned young and bright-eyed, whereas mine leaned old and a little racist. Diversity programs can only go so far to unfuck centuries of sexual pathology, and Big Brother doesn’t pay us to reeducate. Oh well. She and I dried off and got into our street clothes, then we slipped into the lounge for a nightcap before heading our separate ways.

“Hey, girls.”

“Hey, Madi, where’ve you been?” She was still in her robe.

“I’ve just been chilling.” Madison, known here as Melody: Latin; 22; versatile bisexual trans-female; 181 by 91–74–92 centimeters; penis; natural C cups. No, I’m not jealous.

“You don’t need to wait for us to get out of the showers. We’re not shy.”

“I’m off the clock. Made us some tea, though.”

“You’re the sweetest thing.”

“Second sweetest. Y’all going to Riley’s popup tomorrow?”

“I didn’t know she was doing a popup.”

“It’s her club, but she’s running it this time: her menu, her scones. I’ve tried them. She’s good.”

“That is sweet.”

“She thought it’d be fun for us to get together outside of work. Her treat.”

“Not us. We’d probably melt if we stepped into the sunlight.”

“I’m sexy vampire and I vant to suck dick.”

“Ain’t you have enough dick-sucking tonight?”

“Too much, yeah.”

“Well I won’t give you lockjaw.”

“Vhat a lady.”

“How was your night, Madi?”

“Fucking faggots.”

“Ah,” Julie play-gasped. “We don’t use that word here.”

“I can! They are. I’m the latest vegan-friendly pseudo-meat.”

“You’re not fake meat. You’re fish.”

“So you can eat me during Lent?”

“Year-round. My mother country good neighbor of Thailand.”

“Fuck you.” Madi laughed. “See y’all around. Going to clean up.”

“Queen of showering.”

We each went our way. 3 AM, Thursday. Streets are dead. Popups are shuttered. Terminals are deserted. Stopped at my local twenty-four-seven. Teenage stoners outside. Hot dogs. Taquitos. No. Fruit sandwich and a bag of chips. Made it home. Tapped my passkey against my door then plugged it into my television. Sitcom re-runs. Liberal yuppies in New York with lifestyles too expensive for whatever jobs they were supposed to have. Spacious apartments, haute couture, foreign cars. Or maybe that was just what New York used to be like. A bit of both? Canned laughter.

Some people watch sitcom re-runs to yearn for the past. This is what they took from you, they always say. But I don’t envy them. Everyone else is asleep, but they’ll wake up in a few hours and live a socialist dream that they make come true every day. By then I’ll be asleep.

“How will you get out?” I don’t know.

“Are you going to be doing this forever?” I don’t know.

“Why do it at all?” I don’t know.

There’s nothing wrong with waking up in the afternoon. Our days are front-loaded with time to ourselves from 12 to 9. Riley bakes treats. Madi makes ceramics. Julie volunteers at libraries. We all have nights off, too, for drinking and dancing and whatever else we can’t do when we’re too busy entertaining our clients. But what do I do? I don’t know.

Fuck it. I’ll go to the popup tomorrow.