There was money, and then there wasmoney.
New money was flashy. It dressed to impress. It had designer clothes, name-brand everything, and dripped in its urgency to tell you that it could afford whatever you charged.
Old money—trueold money—had nothing to prove.
I wouldn’t have taken Noah if he hadn’t come recommended. Taylor sent me his contact along with two words:Trust me.
It was one of the moments that made me rethink my entire life. I stood outside of the unimpressive apartment building in a poorly lit neighborhood looking down at my phone, then back up at the building with square, intermittently amber windows. I shivered on the curb for the better part of ten minutes before having a conversation with myself about what this boiled down to. Either I trusted Taylor, or I didn’t. And if I didn’t trust her, I shouldn’t have gone to Bali, I shouldn’t have taken her client in Japan, I shouldn’t have done any of the million things she’d coached me through or advised me on—all without percentage or cut or pay. She was no pimp. We were a network. We were friends. We were family.
I put on my Maribelle mask and smiled my warmest, falsest smile when he greeted me. He chuckled and told methat the place was a shithole. I didn’t have to pretend I was happy to be here. He had furniture. A bed frame. Clean sheets on the bed. No trace of dust or filth or obvious red flags. I just…didn’t understand.
“I can do cash or bitcoin,” he said.
“Cash, I think,” I responded cautiously.
He smiled and sent both. He handed me an envelope of cash that was too heavy to be my rate. A notification on my phone told me I’d been tipped in cryptocurrency. At the time, it seemed like nothing. A few years later, I’d understand the money tree he’d planted in my front yard.
Noah was nice.
He was a little stiff. His jokes were a bit dry. His bids for attention were slightly desperate. But he was kind.
I often wished clients would just hurry up and finish. I’d spent months being annoyed by men who attempted to get me off when we both knew why I was there. When Noah asked to dine at the Y, I hedged, but the man was the wagyu steak of oral sex. I’d gone in with the expectation of patiently waiting for him to finish and very quickly was transported to my favorite memories. I was no longer in a shitty, sparsely decorated apartment. I wasn’t even with a human. He sent me to true disconnect. A place where I could experience pleasure without corporeal form.
When I came, I came hard.
The shock on my face as he wiped the droplets from his chin was no act, and he knew authenticity when he saw it.
Noah booked me three times in total.
It was later I learned who he was, what he did, and what he earned.
His family had been wealthy since before the pilgrims first had gotten on their colonizing ships. They’d granted him bottomless pockets before their great-great-grandchildren had been born. He was so rich that he was bored by money and was no longer interested in the flash.
Years after our encounter, I reaped the benefits of thebitcoin plants that had grown roots and budded in my yard. One, I’d harvested too soon. The others, I’d let blossom until I truly appreciated their worth.
Noah had money. Real money. Deep money.
It took me a while to reflect on our experience for signs I’d missed. Three men in T-shirts and jeans side by side were indistinguishable from one another to the untrained eye. Perhaps they’d all thrifted their outfits. None were in fashion, tightly fitting, or obvious. Maybe they all lived where they wanted, drove what they wanted, listened to what they wanted.
But there was a difference in the defensive posture and speech of the man who was poor but wished he was rich. There was an obnoxious piety to the granola-eating man who was poor and made it a core pillar of his personality to have transcended the need for wealth. And there was a relaxed, secret smile to the man who sat on billions but revealed it to no one.
I developed an eye for the small changes, the tiny details, the subtle things that could transform someone from bankruptcy to quiet wealth.
It seemed like the sort of skill that only mattered when speaking of cold, hard cash. It was important as an escort. Hell, it was as valuable as an author taking meetings and rubbing elbows.
But it was a vastly different experience when slapped with true wealth—ancient wealth—when it came to the game of gods.
