A married friend recently announced that he had started seeing a young Russian woman. I asked if she was an escort, but he shook his head and smiled. “Not at all. It’s more like being a member of a private club,” he boasted.

Each time he saw her, he would leave a sealed envelope full of cash. He wasn’t the only one. “I think of it as a gift,” explained my friend.

It reminded me of the story of a woman who agrees to sleep with someone for a million dollars. She is outraged when he reduces his offer to a few hundred. “What sort of woman do you take me for?” she asks. “We’ve already established that,” he replies. “Now I’m negotiating the price.”

Everyone has their price, and in a review of my latest novel in the online magazine Women Talking, Poppy Watt wrote:

“What makes Jessica stand out is how it tackles tricky subjects like sex work, power dynamics, and personal identity with a sensitive and thoughtful approach. Hill doesn’t shy away from the complexities of the sex trade, asking tough questions: Is there a difference between a woman working on the street and one who has regular clients? What about young women financially dependent on older men? And how does all of this connect to self-exploration and struggling with sexuality? These are big topics, but Hill handles them with nuance and care.”

Polly is right – these are big topics, and how we deal with them will depend on our moral compass (Blog: 10/06/2024).

In the 1999 movie Analyse This, Dr. Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal) asks Paul Vitti (Robert de Niro) why he has a mistress. He replies that it’s because he can do things with her that he can't do with his wife. “That's the mouth she kisses my kids goodnight with!” he explains.

But it’s not that simple. There’s a scene in Jessica where Harry explodes:

     ‘For fuck’s sake. What about the guy’s poor wife?’

     ‘That’s one thing I don’t feel bad about.’

     She looked almost proud. She saw my disbelief and set her jaw.

     ‘I’m sorry, but she got what she deserved. Laurent didn’t only want sex. He needed someone who found him interesting. Who wouldn’t ignore or interrupt him.’

     ‘So why didn’t he leave his wife and marry you?’

     ‘Because he loved his family and what they had together.’

We all need to make the time for some of Poppy’s “self-exploration”. Only then will we rediscover who we are and what we truly want.