Mystic River

“When did you outgrow your upbringings?”

I remember the first time I felt I disappointed a mentor by my career choice. I worked so hard to position myself in a place I could be guided by this particular idol. At this point in my life there was nothing I wanted more than to grow up and be just like her. She reminded me of my mother in many ways, the sweet smell of lotion that caressed the air as she walked past and the confidence, she shelled herself with that intimidated all those around her. I wanted to be her. I wanted the accessories she stocked her salon with; to play dress up with the trinkets and gems like a little girl in my mom’s high heels. I observed, sly as a fox stalking its prey, as she accepted my friends before me. I waited in the shadows, hoping to be noticed by her. I let myself play the side character role until she invited me to be a main character, until I was welcomed into the circle. I wanted so badly to be a part of this circle of girls led by one woman who collectively seemed to be a system directed towards common goals. I wanted to belong to this system.

The first time I stepped inside the doors of Suns Buns and Tans, I felt like a younger version of my mother who religiously frequented this place. I was beginning my life as a young woman with friends who uplifted me socially and thus would step into the lifestyle I adored my mother for living. I had never tanned before, but I recognized the sounds and smells. The location was different, not the same salon I spent my childhood waiting in for my mom. But the atmosphere was just the same, and I was no longer a little girl. I was nervous, I’d never seen final destination but I’d heard about the particular scene when my friends teased me at lunch that day. I didn’t let it show though. I wouldn’t let anyone inside that salon see how immature I truly was on the inside. I fixed my hands in a professional manner as I’d seen my mother do many times before, I channeled her through me hoping to pass off maturity plus two years of my age. See I was only sixteen when I started trying to tell the world I was something I wasn’t, and I needed to be eighteen desperately. My mom always said she was a theatre girl in high school, so maybe I could be a theater girl too, in my own way.

The lights were hot. I almost questioned if my goggles were positioned correctly on my face as the light nearly blinded me. As I lay there in fear of suffocation and claustrophobia, I closed my eyes and let myself only feel the artificial lights bake my skin. My breathe felt short, like I wasn’t allowed to breathe too deeply. And my body began to sweat. Sweat.. Gross. Although a normal reaction to laying in a bed of lights designed to act as the sun, sweat meant sweat marks. Sweat marks that would be left after my final act of departing the salon and walking as if I was a woman. These sweat marks I feared would shatter the entire image.

Two years passed and the act never faltered. My friends were both offered jobs at the salon, and I continued working where I always had, a rinky dink ice cream joint on the other side of town. My shift would end with fudge between my legs and ice cream covering my shoes. While theirs ended with new inventory of beautiful necklaces and fine scented lotions. My friends were meant to be there, and I- I wanted to be there. I wanted so badly to not be scooping ice cream for this family of five or that. But that was where I was meant to be, it was where I had always been. Even if my friends or my small amount of clothes I gathered to fit in and my passions pulled me elsewhere. I was there, scooping ice cream.

Senior year I became bolder. What more could I have to lose? I’d be heading off to college soon, so this was my last chance to rise above. After being denied the promotion I worked 3 years to achieve involving seventy plus hour work weeks, inventory, customer negotiations, blood, sweat, tears, everything! I left. I begged oh so subtly to be accepted as an employee at the tanning salon. I spent hours there with my friends on their shifts, helped decorate the sales floor, spent time after hours with the staff and the ruler of all Mrs. Cindy. None of it prevailed. No matter how hard I tried I was working class, and this was a place for the higher class.

It wasn’t until freshmen year of college that I was finally accepted into the fold. Who knew becoming a sorority girl would literally fix all the problems I had of not being accepted before. Places I had no connection in or had never dared to go in alone were now inviting me inside with a fresh place setting waiting. As a sorority girl Cindy and I grew closer. I spent more time with her in the shop one-on-one, I had deep and personal conversations and began to feel the growing buds of a relationship with the one I’d been after for years. For the next few months I’d return to my hometown almost weekly always stopping for a fresh tan with Cindy. Everything was falling into place. I was finally accepted into everything I dreamed for myself as a child, everything my mother was that I wanted to be. I had wanted it all for so long and now it was placed in the palms of my hands, gracing the fingertips so slightly with class and elegance. Alongside this acceptance into a finer lifestyle, I’d secured myself a relationship with a handsome older boy. He had such a muscular figure, I felt so protected by his side. His long, curly hair accentuated his build with a gleam of security for myself. I had everything I wanted, everything I needed to shield myself from who I was in the past. I didn’t realize how fragile all of this was until my body ached as the world fell apart around me.

I returned home for the summer after my first year of college to live with my boyfriend, further my position with Cindy and the circle around her, and finally feel on top of those who had put me down in the past. “What do you mean Cindy doesn’t want to see me?” I asked my best friend who still worked at the salon. I had barely been home for a day before I realized this summer would not be what I thought. “Cindy said she was so disappointed in you. She said she doesn’t know what drove you to do such nasty things for the whole world to see but that she wouldn’t see you again”. Nasty things… What “nasty” things had I been doing? I barely opened my eyes during sex, barely knew how to caress a cock while filming videos, barely knew how to move my body for the pleasure of others. So, what “nasty” things was I doing? From my perspective the adult content I made was the most basic, vanilla content anyone could produce. I questioned myself as I stalked my social media pages to see what she might have seen. Did I accidentally squirt when I didn’t mean to? Did it ever look like I was performing an anal scene when I wasn’t? What was it?? Then I realized. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t the degree of intensity of my scenes nor was it the implication of my scenes. It was the same thing it always was. It was the small town I’d grown up in. The southern conservative values that ruled the lives of thousands and gave them collective power to assume all had to follow their rules. It didn’t matter what kind of content I put out of myself, the fact was I was naked and producing content. This did not align with any southern values or their standards of beauty and class.

I had grown however. I grew confidence in myself that didn’t come from my new social class or those in it. I grew confident from the way I looked on camera naked, I found confidence and love for myself apart from the setting I was raised in. I fought so hard for too long to be thrown out so quickly. I decided I would not be thrown out I would walk out. I would accept the truth of myself and where I’d come from and move forward with who I am now. I’d do what’s best for me and my life, no longer dependent on what I thought I wanted but rather who I was. I’d do this for me, not for Cindy, not my friends or my boyfriend, for me.

They say to conquer your worst fears you must face them head on. I was ready to do this with Cindy. I would not simply let myself be pushed out and let it all go and move on. No, I would stand up, say my peace, and walk away with a new power in myself. This was my test of independence. Halfway through the summer I arranged for Cindy and I to meet without her knowing. So this one warm night in July, I met with my friends, bought some liquor and headed over to Cindy’s. It was late, probably eight or nine by the time we were on the way. We did not make the left turn at the fork in the road to go towards the salon, instead we went right. I had never been to Cindy’s home, but I had my expectations. The pit in my stomach grew every minute we got closer. I was headed into the lion’s den as an outcast and the mighty lioness had no idea I was coming. I thought about the rage she might feel seeing my face uninvited in her home. Or the disappointment in her eyes that I didn’t live up to the life I was so recently given. None of it would matter though, whatever was about to happen would happen and I prayed my strength would find me as I found it recently.

I felt so watched as I stepped further into her living room. Each decoration glimmered with wealth and sophistication. The couches appeared to be crafted for people just like her, never to be sat upon by someone like me. Everything in her space reminded me just how much of an outsider I was. I took a deep breathe, pulled my head up, though it felt like irons were holding me down, and glided to a seat across from hers. I watched her as she meandered around the upscale condo. She was nervous in her own intimidating way. I watched her eyes flick to me with subtle rage and possession as her beau entered the room. I knew what she felt. I knew I was threat, whether I meant to be or not, I was threatening to her. I didn’t come here to start a war just simply to confront my demons. As her man took a seat in the loveseat adjacent to us both, I subtly fixed myself in a less confident, less womanly way. I didn’t want her man, nor did I want to inflict the threatening feelings she was already facing upon her, so this part I let her win. Throughout the evening I moved cautiously, laughed cautiously, met her eyes cautiously. My plan was to wait for the one moment alone I knew would inevitably find us.

“Come out here with me for a minute” she said softly next to me. My eyes met her line of sight to the balcony outside. This was it, my moment. I’d hoped after the hours I’d spent trying to prove myself docile and warm the anger would have relieved itself a bit from her. Hoped for anything better than what I thought I’d get. See worst case scenario, she would be another version of my mother. Someone I didn’t want to be in trouble with, someone who could make my bones rattle with one glare. Someone who could break me by raising her voice slightly and staring into my eyes deeply. I followed her out on to the balcony and held my breath as I closed the door behind us. The air was warm, laced with a subtle salt breeze from the gulf not a mile away. I turned to find her gazing out beyond the edge of the balcony, maybe searching for what to say or how to start. I did the same.

“I appreciate you having me in your home tonight” I began. Our eyes didn’t meet, we both still wandered off into the distance as if what we said to each other were simply words passing us by, unattached to either of us, uneffecting either of us. “You’re not the type of model I thought you’d be” she said distantly.

“Me either”

Her eyes shot towards me finally, I let mine drift to hers. “Cindy, I didn’t think this is what I’d be doing either. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be someone else. I’m still me”

She looked me up and down as if to assess if I was in fact the same person. “Tell me how” she demanded. I took a deep breathe. I hadn’t thought to plan how to explain my story. I didn’t even know my story yet; I was still living it. I looked back out to the expanse of darkness and wind, begging the great beyond to help me. My nose filled once more with the salty air I’d been raised upon, I looked back at her, less intimidated now. Her eyes begged me to change her mind, to help her see something she hadn’t these past few months she’d spent so disappointed in me. “You’ve known me for a while now. You know who I am and my personality. They know who I am” I gestured inside to our friends pretending to be busy. “And they weren’t surprised. Were you? Were you honestly surprised when the news came out?” I could see her mind twist by the question “No.” she admitted defeatedly. “But that doesn’t make it okay” “It doesn’t have to. But it does make me, me. This is who I am Cindy. For years I tried to fit in here and be something else, to be anything but what I am. I couldn’t keep pretending anymore. I have to be true to myself”. Now she looked back over the edge. I sipped my drink hoping to gain more courage in myself. “This doesn’t change who I am, I’m still the same sweet girl you’ve known all this time. Just because this is the career I choose does not mean it changes me. Cindy, I’m not what you think I’ve transformed into. I may be a sex worker now but, I am still me”

She kept her eyes fixed on the horizon for quite some time. I didn’t know what else to say or how else to push her without pushing her over the edge itself. I looked inside towards my friends. I thought about all the many ways I could have ended up here in her home differently, and how unhappy I would have been still playing a role, fighting for the acceptance I’d never get. The warm light made the living room appear as a dream. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows I felt myself watching what could have been.

“I don’t detest you” she finally spoke. It was so soft like a whisper beneath the wind. I kept my eyes forward, I stayed concentrated on my own growth from this experience. “I don’t agree with you, but I understand” she said, her position still away from me. I finally shifted back towards her, my eyes fixed on her, longing for peace. For better or worse this experience would shape me, and this would be apart of my journey. Her eyes slowly and delicately drew to my position. I could feel the change in her as I had in me. Her uneasiness of the next steps as if her whole life had just shifted, as it had in me not long ago. I felt her wary, it was so similar to how I’d felt in the past. But I did not feel her rage nor her detestment as before.

“I apologize… for what I’ve said and how I acted before. I am proud of you.” The words pierced me as they penetrated my soul. They shook me as I shook her. “You’re becoming a strong woman; I can see that in you. And for that I am proud.”

I found it harder to breathe as she stepped towards me. I hadn’t fully accepted that I wasn’t going to be yelled at or renounced all together. Cindy set her glass down and pulled me into a hug. As I slowly allowed myself to feel the embrace, I felt safe finally being accepted as an individual by her. And it wasn’t just her as an individual either. It was what she stood for, her lifestyle, the resemblance to my mother, her character, her being. She embraced me and I allowed myself to embrace her back. Nothing would go back to being the same. I still would never work in the salon or maybe even come back over to her home as a regular guest. But I did break the wall between two very different lifestyles that lived next door to each other. I made it so it wasn’t black and white between people like me and people like her. There was a grey area. Whether she would ever step into that grey area again or I would, we had made the grey area. I’m not sure how much that occurrence affected her, after that night I never spoke to or saw her again. But for me, it meant everything to me. It meant I didn’t have to choose this way or that anymore. I could create grey areas and could live in them because life isn’t black and white, it never has been for me. And I was so tired of pretending to be one or the other, the grey area was my new home. I’d carry this meeting in the grey space with me as I learned how to accept other parts of myself later on. I’d finally find peace in myself realizing I didn’t have to choose this brand or that to be successful, or which lifestyle I wanted before compared to now. It didn’t matter. What mattered now was I was free, and I was sure of myself because of myself. I’m still the same girl who wanted that luxury lifestyle growing up, but I’m also more now. I’m me, free of definition and labels or class.