Page 111 of Tips and Trysts

His face breaks into a smile. “I am?”

I nod, wiping away a tear before I swat his arm. “Yes, you impulsive asshole.”

“Impulsive? Lander and I spent all night writing that statement. It’s all true. I’m obsessed with you. I love your terrifyingly brilliant brain, your quick wit, and your powers of perception. I love how much our four best friends love you, and I love how all the food in your fridge is now vegan, and I love the way you say the word cunt with your full chest. And yes, I love you, Cora.”

Cora. He called me Cora.

“Please call me princess,” I reply. “And I love you too. Surely the evil shadows you control can dissipate long enough for you to see the way I look at you. The way I smile at you. The way I love you, Ev.”

The corner of his mouth rises. “I knew you did. I knew you loved me when you sat me down at your kitchen table and told me you didn’t believe in revenge, even though you pretended you did when I gave you my kompromat.” He leans in. “You’ve been looking for reasons to love me. I hope I finally gave you one.”

“Hundreds,” I clarify. “You’ve given me hundreds.”

He pulls me into his arms and the security of his touch unwinds the lingering tension in my body until I’m one with him—until the support of his embrace feels as integral to my being as air itself. “I’m not hiding us anymore,” he murmurs into my hair. “If what I did cost me the election, fine. I made my bed and I’m willing to lie in it—as long as you’re with me.”

Pulling back, I place my hand on his cheek. “Baby boy, when have you and I ever just laid in a bed? Yes, you made your bed—and I’m going to fuck you in it.”

Thirty-Nine

CORA

When I was afreshman at Harvard, I took a graduate level politics course called the Mathematics of Politics. Honestly, when I enrolled, neither math nor politics were important to me, and I definitely had no interest in taking courses with policy wonks (which is a delicious irony because I let a policy wonk lick my asshole in an alley seven years later). Still, my course advisor recommended it, and college-age Cora was very much in her validation-only-comes-from-my-elders’-approval phase. But by the end of the semester, it was life changing.

It works like this.

In the United States, an enormous part of politics is math. Fifty states. Four-hundred thirty-five congressional districts. One hundred seventy million eligible voters. Sixty-six percent voter turnout. All these numbers play a role in predicting political outcomes.

But politics has always been more intricate than a pure numbers game. Behind every number is a person. Every vote is the result of a complex web of decisions and influences likeweather forecasts on election day and absentee ballots living under piles of utility bills in tens of millions of households across the country. It’s finicky. It’s terrifying. To top it off, all of us—the people behind those votes—are irrational actors. We’re human.

We’re subject to our whims, at the mercy of a tangled intersection of life, fatality, money, sex, companionship, and a futile but necessary search for meaning. We’re agents of chaos. Throughout every trial, I’ve always believed this chaos is beautiful.

It makes the math complicated, however, and the mathematics of politics would have never predicted that a congressional candidate could confess to being in a relationship with a sex worker—and incite unprecedented admiration.

Over the next few days, one thing becomes abundantly clear: DC doesn’t need Everett to apologize for loving me.

DC’s congressional primary has never been interesting to anyone outside the District. For decades, most of our eligible voting pool didn’t even bother voting. Now, the primary is a trending news topic across the country. Everett’s social media accounts balloon. News outlets contact him for interviews. Reporters wait outside his house—again.

Pundits pontificate and think pieces about sex work litter the internet. Felix appears on various 24N shows and drones about the psychology of sex work. He chastises the ways “we” as a society “don’t understand what these women endure.” He plugs his book. He pimps his research.

He makes me sick.

He stayed silent on the allegations of my so-called blackmail beyond a statement that read,I am not interested in getting caught in the crossfires of political muckraking, and I wish Cora Flores the best.I know it’s a lie. He and I—and most people with a mind for marketing—know that getting caught in thecrossfires of political muckraking is the best thing Felix could have done for his burgeoning media career.

All I can do is ignore him and focus on the positive. Since Everett’s livestream, I’ve received more support for camming (and offers for threesomes) than I had in three years in the business. Women reach out to me and share their stories. They praise me for maintaining a healthy relationship while doing sex work. They ask me how to stay safe. They share their fears. Their dreams. I think about Valeria, Essie, and me, young and new to the business, sitting at a table in Tryst and feeling like the weight of the world was dissipating into glitter because we had finally found sisterhood in each other. I answer every message—every single one.

Everett recommends we keep a low profile while the dust settles, so we hunker down in the Halcyon with our friends. Essie does analytics on social media topics, Lander responds to news outlets, Valeria replies to comments on Everett’s social media, and Dalton goes on beer and takeout runs.

Warren calls. Everett ignores him. Beverly calls. Everett ignores her too. Beverly callsme, and I refuse to ignore a woman doing her job, so I convince Everett to take her call. She reminds us that Everett is hosting a dinner with his most important donors the week before the election.

And we remember: He still has an election to win.

The night before the dinner, I ride Everett on my living room floor. It’s messy—the kind of sex where we’re both damp with sweat by the end. He lays underneath me, clutching me, gritting into my ear,You’ll always fuck me like the whore you are, won’t you, princess?I tell him I will. My fingers find his asshole, plunge inside, and make him groan while he leaves his load deep in my pussy.

He presses his forehead against mine and whispers,I don’t understand how it’s possible for anyone to be so fucking pretty.He tells me he loves me. I say it back, kissing him in between, over and over again. I lose count, but the words don’t lose their meaning.

I love you, I love you, I love you, Ev.

Forty

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