Jason Loves Arielle Forever

Seeking Derangements is a monthly column by 20-something Arielle Edie, who shares dating confessions as a sex worker in NYC.

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*Names have been changed.

I wake up to an email from the address jasonlovesarielleforever@gmail.com, at 4am on a Wednesday morning. I open it to reveal… No subject line. No words. Just a lone Naruto screengrab, despite how many times I’ve told the sender I hate that god damn show. The image shows one character (gun to my clit, I could not tell you which one) cupping another character’s face in their palm. The text over the image reads:

"No matter what you do from this moment on, I will love you forever."

I could not conjure up a less appealing way to win your woman back. But he’s caught me in one of the worst weeks of my life so, unfortunately, it’s still working. Mostly because I’ve been wanting to hear this sentiment from anyone but him all week.

A little about me: I’ve been working double duty as a media 9-5er by day and stripper/sugarbaby by night for the entirety of my early 20’s. Recently, someone I love/hate very much outed me to everyone. My Mom. My Dad. And my most recent ex, Jason.

Image courtesy of Arielle Edie.

A little about me: I’ve been working double duty as a media 9-5er by day and stripper/sugarbaby by night for the entirety of my early 20’s. Recently, someone I love/hate very much outed me to everyone. My Mom. My Dad. And my most recent ex, Jason.

Jason and I have broken up 14 times over the course of our 6 month relationship. He initiated the first break up, I initiated the other 13. We met at a pool hall in Queens in the same neighborhood where our parents set the standard for dysfunctional relationships back in their day. Today, we carry on their legacy. Our first conversation was about how much we wanted to fight our dads and the second was about whether or not he’d ever done heroin. We have almost nothing in common except for our libidos and our rage, both of which are easy to come by when one of you has a pill problem and the other has a personality disorder (your guess which one of us is which). And despite everything I just said, this has been the hardest relationship to leave.

I blocked him on everything but venmo for about a month. He made at least one burner email a week to message me, but I was consistently blocking those, too. And then, an email with the subject line “LOL” came in.

Attached was a screenshot of the person I trusted most in this world DMing him the sentence: “She’s been having sex with men for money your entire relationship.”

I denied everything. I always do. And to be fair, I wasn’t having sex with men for money the entire relationship. I was mostly leading men on for money the entire relationship.

Speaking of:

“David, for two,” I tell the hostess at Boucherie later that day.

“Last name?”

“Um…”

I give her a shy smile. She knows what's up.

Seated at the most discrete table in the establishment, I re-read the last communication with my parents:

Dad: “[Redacted] thought you were the perfect one and mom and i always favored you, that’s why [redacted] said to us all your secrets and doing. To show the real you and not the one you pretend to be.”

Great.

Mom: “So not only have you been engaged in stripping, but prostitution as well?”

Love it.

I open Jason’s latest: "I know you don’t want to hear this. You don’t even have to reply. If you ever need someone to vent to or if you just want to talk to someone who believes in you then I’m always here."

As I’m typing out a response to Jason’s latest email, I look up to see my favorite sugar daddy, David, frantically approaching the hostess stand. He's usually at least 20 minutes early because he likes to help me take my coat off, but today he's five minutes late. He emailed me a few weeks ago telling me he had to destroy his cell phone and that he'd explain everything in person. That was also, of course, the same week my severance checks stopped coming in.

He spots me and smiles. He looks so relieved. I mimic his bliss, then quickly type my response to Jason: "Can I ask you something? Why do you believe me instead of [redacted]?"

I finish the message just in time to stand up and embrace David, “you ok?”

He lets out a big sigh and takes a seat.

“What happened?” I offer my hand for comfort. He latches on.

This is a man who’s spent almost a year of his life paying $500 to hold that hand at dinner once a week. He said he liked how “real” I was, which is funny because in many ways, I am the fakest bitch I know. We stopped seeing each other because he wanted more physical contact and I wanted to focus on my career and, lord help me, my actual love life. But then I got my heart broken and layoffs came for my industry and suddenly the idea of semi-nude cuddling with someone who wanted to pay off my credit card seemed more appealing than it had six months prior. So we reconnected just in time for my birthday, this time for ten times as much money and just a little bit more non-platonic contact. And apparently the thrill he got from said non-platonic contact was enough to trip him up.

“I wanted to be the first person to wish you happy birthday,” he says, “but I didn’t realize she was standing right behind me. I should’ve pretended that I was using my regular phone, but I got nervous and tried to hide it.”

Sabotaged by the power of my own pussy. There is no crueler irony.

“I told her the second phone was for Chaturbate, OnlyFans, things like that. She seems to believe me but it’s been horrible.”

Good. It should be. Fuck you.

“I’m sorry, babe.”

I give this wealthy idiot, who has just thrown a serious wrench into my best compound-interest earning years, a calming lil squeeze and listen to him prattle on.

As David discusses the state of his marriage, I consider all the lies we tell ourselves to stay in love throughout the course of a relationship. At first, little ones. We’ve never felt this way about anyone else before. We don’t think about other sexual options from time to time. We’d never leave each other for Ice Spice if given the opportunity. And then, bigger ones. We’d be perfect together if we were just different people entirely. We didn’t mean to hurt each other when we did those hurtful things, so it’s better than if we had. We won’t fuck up this badly again if you give us just one more chance to get away with it. I’m not sure what is more degrading, completely altering your sense of reality to believe that someone hasn’t betrayed you, or knowing they’ve betrayed you and loving them anyway.

Does David’s wife love him unconditionally? She’s taken her wedding ring off and is threatening to divorce him over what she thinks is a Chaturbate account, so it sounds like the answer is “no.” But I’ve seen this play out enough to know that she’ll stay. It’s his first offense, he’ll get off with a slap on the wrist and a year of probation. But if he wasn’t financially supporting her lifestyle, if he wasn’t the father of her children, or if she knew the real truth, would her answer change?

Does David love his wife unconditionally? Sure, he’s afraid to lose her, but if she stopped taking care of his kids, if she stopped listening to him when he spoke, or hell, if she began her own affair, would he still love her? Is his love for her conditional on the comfort she provides? It's an alarming thing to consider as a woman who rarely provides comfort to anyone in her real life.

“She’ll forgive you,” I tell him. “It’ll be awkward for a while, but she wants to believe you.”

“Thank you for understanding,” he says. “I know this is terrible timing for you as well.”

He reaches underneath his chair and pulls up a little gift bag. Watching me open the gift is his favorite part of the date. It’s usually a book or some jewelry I don’t like on top of a cash envelope. I always act more excited to get the book than the cash even though I don’t read. Every man who likes me, likes me because they think I’m the type of girl who reads.

Today’s book? Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami. I have no idea if that means he has good taste or not but I do know, I will never find out.

He smiles big, but this time a little more melancholic than usual.

“There’s extra in there since it might be a while before we see each other again,” he says.

I’m sure this is the last time I’ll ever see him.

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In the back of an uber, I read Jason’s reply.

"Because it doesn’t make sense. You wouldn’t cheat on me. You loved me. I loved you too. :( you wouldn’t do me like that and quite frankly from what I’ve seen… [redacted] would do you like that- as in lie about this situation."

We’re bad at most things, but one thing we’ve always been good at is believing each other's bullshit. I’ve caught him in some gnarly lies that I can’t think about today. And he’s spent most of our relationship wondering about me. How I can afford to order in every night and shop every weekend despite being on unemployment? Why am I on Signal if I don’t do drugs like that? Why do I silence all my calls no matter what time it is? He’s accused me of being who I was even before receiving an annotated bibliography with dates and times confirming every suspicion he ever had about me. But for whatever reason, he’s chosen to believe in the person I say I am. The person I sometimes wish I was. The person I’d like to be maybe someday…but not today.

I’m not sure if that’s love, but it’s unconditional something, right?

I respond: "Can I call you in a bit?"