An escort friend of mine met this man before I did and said he told her a story about intentionally hitting a cyclist with his car without stopping to see if he—or she?—was OK. “This sums up his respect for humans in general,” she emailed me in her reference. “I almost left the date right then.” And yet she didn’t. “He’s not a cop,” she told me, “and he’s good for the $.” The money was my excuse for taking the booking despite her anecdote, just as it was her excuse for staying for the rest of the date, but I didn’t need the money badly enough to use the word “need,” and I doubt she did either. I was there because of my curiosity and my arrogance, and many escorts I’ve known, the expensive ones anyway, are the same. Barring a history of nonpayment, stalking, or physical abuse, we say yes because we believe we’re tough and special. We want to prove that our peers don’t have our unique skills—they can’t seduce or civilize the way we can. We also find ways to dress up the greed; we pretend we’re Robin Hood, reclaiming money from bad people to spend it among the good (ourselves, our lovers, our friends). We convince ourselves the money is better off anywhere else than with the Man—than with That Man, at least.