The Price: My Rise and Fall As Natalia, New York's #1 Escort

by Natalie McLennan

  It wasn’t so much that I was saying the right things as I’d done that before. It was that for the first time in a very long time, she knew I meant it. She believed in me.

  Dane woke up a few hours later, and we spent the afternoon in Central Park. I rode the carousel, and my mom took pictures. We had hot dogs at Gray’s Papaya on the Upper West Side, and then we walked all the way back to the East Side. It was like some cheesy montage in a 70s family drama, and it felt beautiful.

  When we were alone again, she made me promise to be a good houseguest, and she said that he seemed so nice. She knew he was a drug addict, too, but she tried to look past it and see him as a person. She kept hugging him and thanking him for all his help.

  She left the next day, and I was different. Usually, before she was even on the bus or plane home I was already high, but I waited with her until she boarded the bus and gave her the biggest hug and told her I loved her. I needed her as much as she needed me.

  I went back to Dane’s apartment and watched movie after movie with him. We both knew the stakes. This was judgment day.

  My mom and I started talking on the phone everyday. She had her surgery. I stayed sober. She started treatment. I kept sober, and I saw Mia, the life coach, a few times a week.

  I told the D.A. that my mom was sick, and I needed to go home to Montreal. It was the first time in seven years I had called Montreal “home.” I showed them the respect of asking, but I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. They said okay, provided I was back in New York for my court appearances.7

  Wow. They were letting me go. Now I actually had to do it. It had been six months since my mom’s visit to New York. I hadn’t seen the rest of my family in about two years.

  It was the scariest thing I would ever do. In New York I was Natalia. Who was I in Montreal?

  The pressure of facing my family mounted, and I relapsed. I started getting high everyday again. For the next two months, I would slip back into my dangerous old habits.

  I moved out of Dane’s and in with a friend in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Not a nice part of Bushwick either. I had been awake for three days when I finally somehow got myself to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I was bone-tired, but with so much fear and adrenaline pumping through me, there was no way I was going to fall asleep. No, this was one trip I was going to have to endure. I called my friend in New Jersey from some nice stranger’s phone, and cried that I didn’t want to go home. That was the addict in me talking.

  Every other part of me—my physical self that was moments away from shutting down for good, my emotional self that needed my family and knew they needed me, and my brain, that logically knew this was what I needed to do—pushed me to get on the bus.

  I got on. But when the bus stopped in Albany, a couple of hours north of the city, I went into the bathroom and did a hit of freebase. I had to fight every instinct in my addict brain not to stay in that bathroom and wait for the bus to drive off.

  During the last days of the relapse, the drugs had more or less stopped working. But in that nasty bathroom, the rush hit me hard. I had made so many promises to myself in the past, swearing that it was the last hit I would do, but when it’s real, you know it. And I knew that those last few grams of coke were going to count. So when I bent over to light, what I swore would be the absolute last hit of my life, I didn’t pray like I had in the past that I would overdose and die. Instead I let the drug take control over me, let it travel through my body wherever it wanted to go, and when I regained my sense of self, I cried. I tried to let that part of me finally die.

  I got back on the bus, and we pulled out of the rest stop.

  As we cruised through the lush countryside of upstate New York, my seven years of memories in the city rushed by like a movie. I was going back to Montreal the same way I’d left, on the bus. I tried not to take stock of what I had lost and would maybe never find again. But this wasn’t about me, I told myself. This was about my promise to my mother. About making sure my mother didn’t die.

  When we finally pulled into Montreal, I was a complete mess. It seemed fitting. I needed to hit rock bottom. I slept for a week and then slowly started to reconnect with my family.

  My mom had moved from my childhood home. She lived on the second floor of a building my grandmother had bought. My grandmother lived on the first floor. There were pieces of my old life: the bed I’d slept on as a teenager was in the guest room waiting for me, and family pictures were on the walls. It was a big improvement from the apartments we’d lived in when I was growing up. And it took the focus away from some of the more painful emotions and memories from my childhood.

  I slowly came back to life as the drugs seeped out of my body.

  For the next few days, my mom and I didn’t talk too much. She let me sleep and gave me space to be inside myself. I was too ashamed to look in her eyes. Then after three nights passed with barely a few words shared, I started leaving my childhood bed and stumbling into hers. She would hold me while I cried. She didn’t care how many guys I’d slept with or how much money I had made and lost—she loved me. I was her daughter, and she loved me.

  In the second week, I let her find the freebase pipe I had brought. I couldn’t be honest to her face, so I just left it out in the open as a sort of subconscious admission of guilt. She didn’t say anything. She just got rid of it for me. When I wasn’t around, I’m sure she cried, probably harder than I did, if that’s possible.

  She didn’t miss a day of work. She went to the hospital every morning and then straight to work right after.

  There were still plenty of doctors’ appointments. I went to all of them with her: I sat in each waiting room and held back my tears. I was so thankful that she was okay, that this wasn’t the end, and that I had another chance to be her daughter.

  I looked at her, and she would smile at me and tell me how happy she was that I was with her. She thanked me over and over again and told me how proud of me she was.

  I still felt like shit most of the time, physically and otherwise, but in those moments, I felt everything was going to get better.

  I think everyone knew not to pressure me. Everyone who grew up with me knows how I react to feeling caged, so they didn’t smother me. My mom’s treatment became the focus, but we also took the time to talk about things. Hospital waiting rooms are good for that.

  Six months after I came home, she finally said it to me:

  “It’s not fair. I look at all my friends and their daughters, and they don’t have to deal with this.”

  It was finally out there. She’d had dreams of what I would become, and I had let her down. To her, I’d been the perfect child. Now she couldn’t get over the nightmare memories. She couldn’t see the beautiful times, like watching me perform at Juilliard. She was stuck with the images of an apartment full of burnt spoons and empty baggies and the grimy, green walls of the women’s visiting room at Rikers.

  She was right. It wasn’t fair.

  * * *

  My mom got better. Her cancer went into remission. I guess we’re both really lucky. I managed to land a job through a friend of mine from high school. As kids, we were best friends and hung out all the time. We took a trip to Maine together when we were fifteen, and I decided to confess my love to him. Instead of reciprocating, he decided to confess that he was gay—and we stayed just friends.

  We went to college (to theater school) together and continued to stay in touch even while we lived so far apart. He would visit me in New York, up until I started escorting, and now he’s become the best friend I’ve ever had. He sends me text messages and tells me he’s there for me, and he loves me—all the things you dream of people saying when you’re hurting.

  His mother owns a spa in Montreal, and she offered me a job there. I began at the bottom of the spa ladder, starting out at the desk, answering phones, sweeping up at the end of the day, and doing anything else asked of me. It was an adjustment, and I had to swallow my pride a little, especially re
garding my income. I made less in a week than I used to make in a few hours. It took a few months of me paying my dues, something I’ve never minded doing, but then they sat me down one day, and I climbed the steps to manager. Life got a little better—better hours, better responsibilities and much better pay.

  The staff, who know only the basics of my rise and fall in New York, have been incredibly kind and understanding. I’m like a wounded bird they’ve taken under their wings. Early on, there were days I was too messed up emotionally to go into work, and they let me take the time I needed. Unconditional love from your bosses? That’s Canada for you.

  Still, it’s been hard. I miss New York’s energy. Montreal will never be New York, no matter how hard it tries. So I’ve finally slowed myself to the pace of Montreal and tried to find some kind of rhythm in my new life.

  When I speak to my friends in New York, I’m so proud to tell them that I have my own apartment and a real job. I know it sounds pretty lame—I’m not nineteen—but in considering where I was a year ago, it’s a minor miracle.

  I have a therapist. When I called her to make an appointment, I told her to Google me before our first session. (How many clients can say that?) It’s a slow, complicated process, but in each session I learn a little bit more about why I found that old life so alluring.

  * * *

  There’s a picture I have of myself that for a while I used as my wallpaper on my laptop. I’m wearing a dress designed for me by my friend, Morgan. We called it the naked dress because as a joke I told her I wanted a dress made out of as little fabric as possible. She made it, and it was great. The few times I wore it, it always earned double-takes from everyone—whether it was because they thought it was fabulous or thought for a second I was actually walking around naked, I don’t know.

  I would open my laptop and see it, along with all my old party pictures, and I’d be transported back to the joy of partying in a club: I would be numbed by the memory of the music, the lights, the momentary memory high I would get reliving the cocaine flowing through my veins. It wasn’t an entirely happy process, looking at this picture. I idolized my body at that time: how thin I was, how perfect I looked, how everything was beyond amazing, and I struggled with being happy in the here and now, the post-Natalia, the post-New York, new-me-life I’m living.

  Then, one day, I zoomed in on the photo, like I wanted to see more, feel more. I’d worn out the image and the memory—it wasn’t doing it for me anymore. And I finally saw the reality of what it captured. There, on my face, is a sore. It’s on the bottom of my cheek near my chin, and it’s covered by makeup, but it’s there. I was so toxic, my skin was breaking out in sores. I’d been looking at the glossed-over version of the past I wanted to remember—the version that didn’t have any pain or negativity.

  I looked around me and realized that I am so much happier now than I was then, with or without the naked dress.

  Doing drugs doesn’t make much sense now, but it can still be hard sometimes. I had to cut almost all my friends out at a time when I really needed a friend, because most of the people from my past do drugs. No one ever talks about how lonely rebuilding a life from nothing can be.

  I also stopped having sex for a while. When I was working, I siphoned all of my energy into my clients. In the end, there was little left for me, or what was left of me. My whole identity was wrapped around being a sexual goddess. By the time I got home and off drugs, sex had become so complicated and fraught with paranoia that I just quit. It felt great. Like I was finally reclaiming some kind of power over the urges and passions that had gotten me into this trouble and caused so many people intense pain.

  I realized that I did what I did because I had lost faith in myself and my talent. I had always known that I was a good actor, and I was confident I would find success, but when things stalled, doubt crept in. I thought my acting would never reach Oscar level, hell, even daytime Emmy level, so I cashed in, sold out, whatever you want to call it, and grabbed a low-hanging form of celebrity and excitement as a consolation prize. Even my struggles with drugs felt fabulous (sometimes) because I was in celebrated company—Robert Downey Jr., Lindsay Lohan, Marilyn Monroe, and way too many others.

  I still struggle sometimes with the morality of it all. The voices of the District Attorney, the cops and the countless other random people in authority, that told me how wrong what I did was, seep through, and I don’t know where to put them. I hold on to the positive memories to pull myself through the uncertainty. I made a lot of mistakes; stupid, public, self-destructive mistakes, but mistakes. I know at heart I have a kind soul, and I don’t try to hurt people. The person whom I harmed the most through all of this was me.

  It’s hard to defend screwing husbands who have made a commitment. But for some men, I really do believe that their marriages were saved by what we did together. If all it takes for a man to not leave his wife and kids is a few safe one-night stands with a stranger to satisfy his physical needs, then thank God for escorts. I grew up without a father, and I still struggle with the pain and confusion that comes with it. As for single guys, I’d rather they pay for sex than seduce some hopeful young thing at a bar who then spends the next two weeks wondering why he hasn’t called.

  Finally, you don’t have to have a PhD in Freudian psychoanalysis to entertain the possibility, that maybe, just maybe, the trauma of my father’s abandonment might have had something to do with my future behavior. It wasn’t one of the numerous therapists, psychiatrists and life coaches I would end up talking to who raised that possibility; it was me. I’ve thought about it everyday of my life. My father was a raw wound that never healed. I always thought about what if instead of leaving us that night, he’d actually gone to help out a friend and had driven his plow off the road and into a partially frozen lake. Would I be happier? At least he’d live on in my mind as a father, and not as the man who left a young girl to grow up thinking that she needed to become the object of every man’s desire just to prove that there was nothing wrong with her. It is a fear that I carried with me my whole life. The fear that it was my birth or something I did as a baby that drove him away—that in my purest form, as an infant, I caused him to do such a cold, cruel thing to my mother, my brother and me.

  * * *

  It was my first Christmas home in three years. There was the Christmas my flight was cancelled, and I sat on my bed with my heroin addiction as my only company and then the one that followed when I was out on bail, post-Rikers. Montreal was hit with the biggest snow storm in over thirty-five years. I loved it. It took me straight back to my childhood, with the snow banks that were three times my height.

  I was in love with my job at the spa. My boss/best friend had asked me to help him decorate the spa for Christmas. We hung ribbons on the bamboo and wreaths on the exposed brick, which is really tricky, but I loved every second of it.

  Now that I was home, I promised myself I’d get each of my family members something special, something that meant something. It wasn’t about the money (which I didn’t have any of anyway), it was about showing them I was part of the family again.

  As I walked through Montreal, passing new store after new store, this empty feeling overcame me. It wasn’t because Montreal isn’t a friendly place. The people are amazing. But I had no recent memories of life here. I was a total stranger. I didn’t know any of the stores, and the streets all seemed to have a different flavor than I remembered. I started worrying—was it going to be like this with my family?

  When Christmas Eve arrived, I was a ball of nerves. I drank a little too much before dinner and had to work to keep myself together. My mom, my nana, my brother and his fiancée, and my aunt8 were all sitting around the table—everyone I loved the most in this world.

  Everything was perfect. The food was delicious, even though I didn’t even have the turkey or stuffing (I had stopped eating meat or dairy). I didn’t even miss it— the familiar smells were enough to get me high. I had caught a glance at the tree and the enor
mous pile of presents spilling out from under it, taking up half the living room. We had dessert and coffee and sat around the table for hours talking. I poured everyone some Inniskillin Icewine (my favorite) and watched as they freaked out over how great it is.

  Finally, we all moved to the living room, and I saw the tree again. It was covered in handmade ornaments and glitter and lights. It shimmered. It was magical. Then I casually looked down at some of the presents, and I didn’t see my name anywhere.

  I panicked.

  I had a flashback to when I was little. It was from a dream; the same reoccurring nightmare I’d had every Christmas Eve. I knew really young that our parents play Santa, and I knew what that meant for me and my brother. Whether we were good or bad had no effect on our haul. It all depended on what was left after mom covered the rent and bills.

  The whole dream was super realistic. It went like this: I am sleeping in my bed, and then I wake up early while it’s still dark and remember it’s Christmas. I tentatively walk to the living room to get a peek at the tree. It’s cold and dark, and I see the tree all lit up and decorated to the hilt, but when I look down, the place where the presents are supposed to be is empty. There are no presents at all. Not even stockings. This lonely sad wave of emotion would overtake me, and I remember thinking this is what it would feel like to be dead. I’d run into my brother’s room to tell him what’d happened, and he wouldn’t be there. I’d go to my mom’s room, thinking to myself, I know she’ll be so sad that I’m sad, but I have to tell her, and she’s not there.

  “Nat!”

  My brother called my name, pulling me back to the here and now. I looked at him and tried to smile.

  I don’t deserve presents, I told myself. My family does. They’ve been here all these years, being a family, and I haven’t.