This House Is Not A Home

After I made a midnight run on my ATF/sugar baby, the dynamic between she and I changed in 3 major ways. First of all I now knew where she lived. Her community is quiet, her neighbors like her, she keeps a tight house, her sprinter van was well kept, she really knows what she's doing. She has a lot of physical books and we trade books now, mostly biographies about musicians and books about finance and sales. She can also cook like a mother fucker. A stripper that can cook like a mother fucker! I don't eat ITC but I do eat a dancers food. She makes me lunch 10-15 times a month nowadays. Sometimes I buy the ingredients and sometimes I don't. Call me crazy, I'd agree.

Things really ramped up during the pandemic. We hung out 3 or 4 times a month at her house during COVID, what else was there to do but watch old movies, eat, and screw like wild animals? Neither of us struggled during the pandemic. Most people's jobs were effected by the COVID years but I happened to be in 2 businesses that actually were fine/on the uptick during the pandemic. She said she'd saved a ton of money and needed a break anyway. Also, she had me and others I'm sure to paper over the financial cracks. Plus, what was available to go out there and spend money on?

The pandemic also highlighted the other major thing that changed about our relationship: over some movie from the early 80s to the mid 2000s we talked deeper now, about our day to day lives, about what had morphed into a quasi friendship. Because my job had me outside was people were getting COVID it was taxing watching people tubed up, doomed and damaged. She gave me someone to dump all this on that could actually understand how I felt and seem to actually care, unlike my current friends who were often too deep in there own trouble to hear the one guy not out of a job moan and the guys I grew up with who might care but now lived in a totally different world.

She also went into detail about all the irritants she almost let boil over and ruin our arrangement. It was mostly her concerns. I was/am paying her. If I wasn't getting enough of what I wanted I'd stop so I didn't have much to cry about. But she admitted the fact that she trusted me more than I trusted her hurt her feelings some (for example I could've done anything with her sexy SnapChats.) It started to get to her ego that she seemed to care more about maintaining our thing than I did. And she started getting snippy because she felt I didn't believe a thing she told me from day 1. I just took all of this in, mostly because its true and was only going to change up to a point.

But I have admitted to believing her a little bit. I started to notice my dry smug sense of humor made her genuinely belly laugh, so maybe that wasn't fake. She couldn't have been totally repulsed by my average looks, clothes and basic man temperament. Plus, I knew where she lived at that point. Dancers get stalked, SA'd and killed by tricks and I'm sure she is smart enough to know not to let most PLs that close. She probably did trust me more that I trusted her but I am still not sure what that should really mean.

Because being around her house let me know I was not the only guy she was canoodling with. There were signs in her house of men that weren't me: small patch of grey hair in the bathroom trash, a bottle of beer that neither of us drink in the garage can in the back, calls to her house she didn't want to me to hear. I'm not getting paranoid about who she's talking to, that's not our relationship. That keeps me sober minded: yes this is fun, but I am not unique here. As long as we are both getting something out of this arrangement that works I'll keep it going and I will not put myself in the position to be the simp crying in the car to James Ingram.

Now we know what the Stripper True Love Test is: stop paying her and keep asking for what you got when you were. If she sticks around then its real. To this day I never stop paying for OTC events/movies/restaurants etc. But she hasn't given me a menu for hookups since that night I carried her out of Platinum with tears in her eyes. If she calls and asks me for some money I usually just send it to her. So I haven't stopped paying but good grief I got a sort of discount and shes still a TKO. The hookups are the best I've ever had. But its not a love thing. Its never going to be, I guess I'm a typical cheap Tuscl PL: My ATF is the lady I don't have to pay as much anymore. Plus there is still an exchange.

The last major change with us was a revelation that we both happened to have at the same time. COVID showed the both of us that life is not about dying with a zillion in the bank but enjoying life while you are here. Now that I'd been in her house I noticed it needed some fixing. She knew too and had been saving for it. After COVID she got back on the road, driving and dancing and ready to actually enjoy her money instead of living scared. First things first, a remodel of her place that made it more of what she wanted. Using the money instead of just having the money.

When my ATF is on the road I check her house out and sit on it sometimes. I'll go over there before she hits the road, she'll cook, we'll hook up, she'll tell me her concerns and I'll stay over there for a day or 2. She's got a key in a lock box and I know her place inside and out. That knowledge also came into play when she was trying to get the place remodeled. I'm not a building expert I just know what the thing is supposed to look like. I know the process. So she brought me in to watch these guys working on the house because my ATF has no idea. I'd like to reiterate my ATF has no idea what the fuck shes talking about when it comes to construction.

Escalating Levels of Simptatic: You Argue With A Stripper

Yet, she had to control everything. I realize now that she has to control everything in general. So when I tried to tell her, for example, the lazy clowns used to scamming unattached women who didn't pull her old driveway up before laying down new concrete should be told to do it right or piss off there was an argument. When she hired some abusive ass clown who didn't respect anyone around him and couldn't keep staff so the damn roofing job would never get done in a timely manner and I told her so, there was an argument. And the last straw was the underpinning. I don't want to get too far in the weeds on the details of home repairs before I look like one of those weird spam articles but damn it there were HUGE gaps in that damn underpinning. That's totally unacceptable.

We'd never argued before, not like this. That wasn't our relationship before.First off, the first time I want to help her, she just accepted the fucking help and slept with me. she didn't whine about how I did it. I don't normally have the patience to argue with people outside of work, most people have no idea what they are talking about on most topics and don't care to know. I couldn't stand going back and forth when she had nothing to go back at me with. Plus she has a smart ass mouth. What did she ask me to help her for? Shows she only thinks I'm so different from other guys to an extent. I was so annoyed at trying to get her to just trust me! I felt like Ace yelling at Ginger to ignore her pimp, go home and be a mom. So I basically felt like a simp.

But again she always had a sense of me. She always knew when she was pushing me too far. After the blow up over the underpinning, she pretty much paid the money and let me dictate the remodel of her bathroom, pretty much the thing she wanted to upgrade the most. That took less time and comparatively less money than all the other things she'd had done. I think her pride was flaring again over that but I didn't bring it up. Again at this point I wasn't getting a menu for hookups. She was putting it on me the whole time she was getting her house redone so getting the nookie without payment was enough to keep me holding on. But I had to question whether I'd gotten way too close to this woman.

But you know what? She'd always stood out and would again here. She could talk about stuff other than her wants and needs. She is fit, fun, flirty and feminine. And she also did something else rare these days: she took accountability. After the dust settled and the bathroom was done, she called me to apologize. She said she realized that she turned into a burden again. She admitted that she was annoyed I didn't trust her much and the showed exactly why I shouldn't. She would offer me a romp around the bedroom but I'd get that anyway. She knew it was more important that she admitted she just made everything I was doing for her harder. I accepted her sorry and didn't rub her face in it. When somebody grows you ought not smother that.

But she still did want to christen the brand new tub. Everything was good again when I pulled up to her home, she answered the door in lingerie, then cooked my lobster without a top on, scarfed down dinner and dessert, watched a rom com, slipped in that papa got a brand new bath and then a bang. Now that's how you say sorry.