Page 73 of 13 Rules For Fantastic Phone Sex

“These prostitutes aren’t surgically sculpted beauties and bunnies. No, these women are far more approachable, more natural, more girl next door—because they might be. Working the streets, unrealistically romanticized à la Pretty Woman, is a cash transaction. The girlfriend experience is the opposite—working to erase all hints of fees in exchange for a romantic interlude.”

Chad starts talking. “I was lonely and reached out to Courtney through her website. The shortest appointment was six hours. Her site talked about warmth and comfort, and that was what I needed.” They show a screen grab of Courtney, smiling and pretty, wearing an apron while cooking dinner. She’s going to be busy after this show airs, no question.

“I signed up for the girlfriend experience. I had to send her my ID, references, a deposit, and answer lots of questions about likes and dislikes.” It wasn’t Chad’s first time if he had references. Just saying.

“How much, Chad?”

“It was fifteen hundred for the six hours.”

The newsperson tries to wince, but too much Botox just makes him squinty. “So, what made this a ‘girlfriend experience’?”

“We met at her place. She had started making dinner, and she was making my favorite thing, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. She also poured me a glass of my favorite Scotch. I felt spoiled, understood. We had a leisurely meal and talked, got to know each other, like a date. We had sex, but we eased into it. After dinner, we moved to the living room, and she rubbed my shoulders and asked me about my day.”

“Chad, did you feel like her boyfriend?”

“I did,” he says on a sigh. “It was wonderful.”

“Then you had sex?”

“We had sex twice, then took a shower together that first night.”

“Chad, forgive me if I seem callous, but you got what you paid for?” A bargain, I say. Sex with someone as annoying as Chad should be more expensive. “Which doesn’t align with a scam. Illegal? In some states, but scam… tell us more about that.”

“I did get what I paid for, but she got her claws into me that night. I felt like… I was her man.”

“But it was a lie?”

“It was all a lie. Her name is actually Margaret, and she was seeing dozens of other men.”

Ewww. Red flag city. Talk about poor boundaries. I bet he was watching her place, and she caught him trying to stalk her. Trying to find out her… real name.

I hit the minibar and grab two airline bottles of Irish whiskey and pour them over ice.

“How long did you see Courtney, Chad?”

“About ten years.”

“Why did you stop?”

“She said she couldn’t see me anymore.”

“Did she say why? You were spending a lot of money and planned to continue?”

“She said boundaries were getting blurry.” Oh damn, Chad turned into stalking creep Chad.

“I felt abandoned,” he says, his eyes sad. “I had spent so much money, and I was nothing to her.”

That hits. That’s my biggest fear these days, Kait walking away to go to grad school and she just leaves. Abandonment would gut me.

“How much did you spend seeing Courtney, uh, Margaret?” They have another not-blurry-enough photo of her, and I’m horrified by the doxxing happening here. I hope she sues them. In my opinion, she’d have a strong case.

“Over three hundred thousand, including the traveling she insisted we do together.”

The narrator’s voice cuts in, smooth and clinical, like a commercial for a prescription medication with a list of horrible side effects that must be disclosed. “The hallmark of the girlfriend experience is that anything that makes the interaction seem like a transaction is deliberately obscured⁠—”

Of course it is. There is a reason why businesses keep your card on file. Make the purchase painless.

“—the duration of time spent together is increased. The financial aspects are handled well in advance and rarely discussed. A credit card may be kept on file, so there’s no need to take payment. Barriers to access are decreased; the best clients have direct access.”