When I was twenty-four years old, a woman who once bought me clothes and made me think it was love, sat at the end of the box, pointed at me and asked the manager:
"How much does he cost tonight?"
Four years ago, I was just a poor student in an ordinary university in the provincial capital. My mother was undergoing dialysis for a long time, so I was studying and working part-time at the gym. It was also there that I learned for the first time that companionship could be converted into money.
Later, I walked into the nightclub by mistake.
At first, I thought that male models just accompany people to drink, chat, and say a few nice words. Only after I actually stood in the box did I realize that what guests spend money on is never just youth and body.
Some people buy respectability, some buy listening, some buy revenge, and some just don't want to go home in the early morning without anyone around to talk to.
In those years, I have seen the most expensive wine and the cheapest sincerity; I have seen well-dressed people collapse in the middle of the night, and I have seen people in the mud holding on to their last bit of dignity.
I thought all I was selling was time.
Only later did I discover that the price tag also included feelings, dignity, and the age of twenty that would never come back.
