As clients, we've all dealt with escorts who on first contact are understandably cautious with us. Hopefully, we're correspondingly cautious. That only makes sense. But there are limits.

Recently I contacted a popular escort who would agree to meet provided I accepted his terms. They were such that they made me feel as if I was applying to be received at St. James's. The demands and the condescension rankled me. Nobody's THAT popular. I told him my own requirements. The matter died there. I doubt that my experience is unique.

No disparagement intended, but encounters with escorts don't grant us eternal youth or guarantee us perennial happiness. (If only!) They do provide us short-term entertainment of widely fluctuating quality. Inflating their importance beyond all reason makes no sense.

I've been grateful for escorts who have been smart enough to be careful when negotiating encounters and polite enough to reply in kind when I've been respectful to them. They have kept in mind that this is a business transaction; they're not Dives and I'm not Lazarus.

And that's my wish for all of us in 2008!

P.S. I bet there's lots of bad behavior on the client side of the divide, but that's not my story to tell.

and I'm not Lazarus.

Has not the right escort, on occasion, raised thee from the tomb?

(Given the season, especially, I apologize for the sacrilege. I agree with everything you expressed. Last weekend I had a quasi-mystical experience with an escort that even now is distorting my perceptions.)

Has not the right escort, on occasion, raised thee from the tomb?

(Given the season, especially, I apologize for the sacrilege. I agree with everything you expressed. Last weekend I had a quasi-mystical experience with an escort that even now is distorting my perceptions.)

If not from the tomb, at least from a semi-recumbent posture.

I, on the other hand, have had a string of encounters that must have been wished on me by my enemies.

I hope you don't hate me for nitpicking, but that's not the right Lazarus. Mine is from the parable.

You know, if you guys keep this up, I'm going to have to break out my Jonathan Swift material to gain entry into this Poet Posse!

Seriously though, the sentiments expressed here i believe are dead-on. As a relative newbie to this world, I've already encountered some of the highs and lows....respect being one of the things thats a rare commodity.

Well written post, and funny ensuing verbal repartee! What do you call the experience that's somewhere in the middle of semi-mystical and a hex put upon you by your worst enemy?

I hope you don't hate me for nitpicking, but that's not the right Lazarus. Mine is from the parable.

Covered with shame: could not find suitable rejoinder for the other one.

I, on the other hand, have had a string of encounters that must have been wished on me by my enemies.

As I've admiringly noted here before, no one with your tally of ventures into the unreviewed unknown will be without scars. We laud your risk-taking, sacrifice and, above all, unvarnished reportage.

Earnestness adjourned. Back to our regularly scheduled ironies.

What do you call the experience that's somewhere in the middle of semi-mystical and a hex put upon you by your worst enemy?

The least we should expect and hope for, most of the time. No? Especially (music upward swell) aided & abetted by competent review sites and reviewers.

P.S. In serious reply to Stu's point, if an escort, to arrange the transaction, needs to know more about me than how long I want and what rate I'll pay, I cut it off. After successful first contact, I have no trouble disclosing just about anything. But not beforehand.

What do you call the experience that's somewhere in the middle of semi-mystical and a hex put upon you by your worst enemy?

Bewitched by the ass shot, and hoping for the best,

Professor Dumbledore conjures up the Crack of Doom.

You know, if you guys keep this up, I'm going to have to break out my Jonathan Swift material to gain entry into this Poet Posse!

Seriously though, the sentiments expressed here i believe are dead-on. As a relative newbie to this world, I've already encountered some of the highs and lows....respect being one of the things thats a rare commodity.

Well written post, and funny ensuing verbal repartee! What do you call the experience that's somewhere in the middle of semi-mystical and a hex put upon you by your worst enemy?

You and ol' Jonathan will be most welcome. Just be prepared to dodge the occasional zinger about excess of effeteness.

The semi-mystical/hex nexus? Sounds like a valid description of the Dr. Phil show.

Covered with shame: could not find suitable rejoinder for the other one.

As I've admiringly noted here before, no one with your tally of ventures into the unreviewed unknown will be without scars. We laud your risk-taking, sacrifice and, above all, unvarnished reportage.

Earnestness adjourned. Back to our regularly scheduled ironies.

I sincerely appreciate your kind words. OK, back to the ironies. You've rained praise all over my New Year's Day. I see the rest of the year stretching before me as an extended, parched anticlimax. Of the figurative kind only, one hopes.

You know, if you guys keep this up, I'm going to have to break out my Jonathan Swift material to gain entry into this Poet Posse!

So, it's a posse now? Please post your Jonathan Swift, as I for one, love him and want to see what makes him your favorite. One of my favorites is posted below, and when all is said and done, John Donne gets it done! I love this poem, as it speaks volumes to me as a gay man. Happy New Year!

The Indifferent by John Donne

"Will no other vice content you?

Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?

Or have you all old vices spent and now would find out others?

Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?

O we are not, be not you so;

Let me--and do you--twenty know;

Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.

Must I, who came to travel thorough you,

Grow your fix'd subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song;

And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,

She heard not this till now, and that it should be so no more.

She went, examin'd, and return'd ere long,

And said, "Alas! some two or three

Poor heretics in love there be,

Which think to stablish dangerous constancy.

But I told them, 'Since you will be true,

You shall be true to them who'are false to you"