Picking up on Love Goddess' reply to gmr in the "my ATF freaked out" thread below, I have to say that I think her advice of "KEEP THOSE BOUNDARIES INTACT!" is a bit too absolute. Yes, it is generally very good advice, but like any rule, there are always exceptions. It all depends on the people involved, their feelings, needs, wants, desires. Let me relate a little story.
I had an ATF for about two years. We hit it off early on. By our second date, she had told me her real name and some of her life story. Our third "date" was not a session at all, but an afternoon just hanging out at her place - talking, web surfing, getting to know each other as people - no nookie, no fee.
But for two years, we did have a more or less regular provider-client relationship, which occasionally strayed outside the boundaries. We would get together for a session two-to-three times a month - at her regular rate. Every now and then we would go out to eat, off the clock, or get together to just hang out. One time, shortly after she had returned from a visit with her family abroad, we had a regular session scheduled. But within five minutes after I arrived, she totally lost it and ended up crying on my shoulder for two hours about things that had transpired on her visit home. She needed a shoulder to cry on just then - and I was glad to provide one. I did not leave the envelope that day. The following week, it was back to business and pleasure as usual.
During those two years, I always said to myself (and sometimes to others) that the day we had sex without $$$ changing hands would be the day that I began to worry. Then, a little under a year ago, everything between us changed. But not in the way anyone still reading is expecting.
She had returned from a trip abroad, and we set up a date for lunch and then back to her place. At lunch, she insisted on picking up the tab - which I found a little odd. The session was wonderful, the sex was spectacular as usual. But when I handed her the envelope as I was leaving, she handed it back "I can't take this." I placed the envelope on the table "You must." She picked it up from the table and stuffed it into my pants pocket "I won't."
It was her way of telling me that she no longer wanted me as her client. Nor did she want me as a "boyfriend." We have not been intimate, sexually, since that day. But we have become very close (dare I say intimate?) friends.
She sees me as a friend, a confidant, an advisor, a pal. I see her as a very beautiful and charming woman who I am happy to have as a friend. We spend hours on the phone weekly; I still sometimes stop by her place to hang out for a while. We share thoughts and views on the business, on screening, on relationships, on life, on anything and everything. I help her out with her website and with little odds and ends. We have lunch every few weeks - sometimes I pay, sometimes she insists on grabbing the check. We exchange gifts on holidays and birthdays. (For Christmas, she said she wanted to give me a session with a pornstar and handed me an envelope containing a substantial sum of cash - the only way I could bring myself to accept it was in giving her a Louis Vuitton handbag of approximately equal value. A wierd exchange of gifts, I know - but it's the thought that counts! And I did use those particular Benjamins for a PSE session.)
In short, she is now one of my closest friends, though our relationship is purely platonic. I enjoy our new relationship as much as, possibly more than, our old one.
And the moral of this story? Damned if I know! I suppose it is simply - take life as it comes, enjoy the ride, you can never know where the road will lead.
-- Modified on 6/11/2006 12:18:28 AM
