NAME Viola

PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH Milan (Italy) 1/21/69

PROFESSION Designer

STRIKING CHARACTERISTICS Spiritual & Eccentric

CONFESSION When I was 24, I left Milan to go on a solo trip. I had been in Sinai for three months and for several weeks I had been staying in a hut on the shores of the Red Sea. Paradise. One night I was invited to a gathering of Bedouin sheiks in a huge beachfront villa that belonged to a very rich Bedouin.

I found myself in a living room sparkling with marble and kitsch lamps and packed with Arab men in jallabiah-traditional tunics, their fingers covered in precious rings. No woman came without a chaperone. For a moment everyone thought I was one of them, but when the music started and I began dancing, it was clear that I was not an Arab. As a young, tall, thin Bedouin sheik with hungry eyes lit up with curiosity and came closer, a feeling of recklessness and pleasure grew inside me. I was totally naive and scornful of the ripe danger. I was dancing freely and enjoying the reactions I was provoking. I was roaming around the room feeling like a Salome or irresistible appeal. The sheik hanging around me whispered in my ear and asked me who I was and where I came from. I kept dancing without giving an answer. Growing impatient, he grabbed my arm and asked me to follow him to his room. I do not know what came over me, but I looked at him and whispered that it would cost him a lot. I had often fantasized about what it would be like to sell my body to someone I liked. Just for the pure pleasure of experimenting with a dark and forbidden role that both attracts yet frightens every woman. My sheik smiled and took his emerald ring from his finger and put it in my hand. Then he took several 100-dollar bills from his pocket. I did not count them but it looked like more than ten. I accepted. Then I followed him into a sumptuously decorated room. On a bed with silk sheets I made love to him. Just like that. Me. With a stranger. For money.

NAME Fernando Munez

PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH Seville (Spain) 7/17/70

PROFESSION Model/Palm reader

STRIKING CHARACTERISTICS Tattoo of scorpion on back of neck

CONFESSION She got to my studio at twelve o clock. She was not Spanish. She was short and blond, with small tits. At half past two I was holding her hips for the second time, pushing hard under her skin. Her palm was simple. I didn’t tell her that she would die soon. The condom broke. Three months later she passed away together with her husband.  We met twice a week during that time. They were staying at a resort on the Red Sea. It was the first time in my life I got under someone’s skin. I’ve felt empty since. She was pregnant.

NAME Miu Chang

PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH Ko Samui (Thailand) 5/23/80

PROFESSION Beautician/Masseuse/Prostitute

STRIKING CHARACTERISTICS Speaks English, Japanese, Mandarin, French

CONFESSION I did not know who he was when he first came to the spa. After four hours together he took me to the restaurant. He came back a week later. He came every Saturday. He was the Kings son. He was very intelligent, but also cruel. He held me on a leash. He gave me lots of gifts. I was his slave. I was happy. He got married. I’m still waiting for him to come back.

NAME Gianni

PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH Ridgewood (Brooklyn) 10/30/68

PROFESSION Carpenter

STRIKING CHARACTERISTICS Rough hands, smooth smile

CONFESSION And then there was Olivia from 123rd and Lex. One fly ass chick who questioned how smooth I really was. So what that she was a sistah and I was not quite the brothah. She made you work and earn it, took no shit and knew her booty was contagious.  But the only problem was that she treated sex like a competitive sport. Shit, I lost last night and she started humming Missy and Ludacris apropos-for-the-moment track: I don’t want no One-Minute Man.

That sly vixen said she was humming a Christmas carol. That did it for me, so I punished myself with a cold shower and a rigorous Kegel’s workout every morning on my ride to work. I had to mentally prepare for each session with my favorite warm up tape. She’d whisper, Don’t lemme git chew early this time.

Swallowing whatever dry saliva I had in anticipation, I thought I was prepared and remembered what the city balers used to say if I did not play worthy enough, Come strong or don’t come at all.  Fuck it, I was ready this time

NAME Antonella N.

PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH Nice (France) 8/26/74

PROFESSION Advertising Account Executive

STRIKING CHARACTERISTIC Big brown eyes, retro glasses

CONFESSION Advice from friends is like an airplane emergency demonstration.  Nobody watches or listens. Everybody says that I’m too generous. Why go out with an exboyfriend just to indulge his ego? Why not think of myself instead of following him around when he no longer loves me? What’s the point, there is a reason they are called EX-boyfriends, right? 

Are my feelings just another facet of masochism?

Am I a victim of my own generosity?

It is an odd night. A northwest wind has swept the clouds away so that the sky is full of stars. It seems that I am seeing him for the first time, like the sky over Nice. Far away, beautiful, beaming, almost brilliant. But no longer mine. Like an astronaut with a telescope, I know now that I will love him from afar without asking for anything in return. Generosity is understanding that you can love the sky without touching it. It is enough for me to know that it is there, that things are fine the way they are. Even though he did not choose me.

Ultimately, my love is an indulgence that only belongs to me.