I did not have a network of sex worker friends. I had friends who traded sex and who knew as little as I did. No one had told us: Negotiate from a distance. Don’t wear big earrings that can get pulled out. Wear mentholated chapstick in your nose to cover other smells. Instead they’d told us: Never get in cars with strangers. Sex means disease. Whores get killed. We believed we had to choose. We believed that trading sex meant never asking for help.
Deep in the woods, John stopped. He began to unbutton his shirt. His hands shook, and he looked back toward the road, checking if we’d been followed. He kicked out of his shoes and took his pants off. He handed me the camera he’d taken from his car trunk.
“Take my picture,” he said.
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