'I started working as a male escort while I was still with my wife.'

This an extract from Time for Her, by Australian male escort and author Mitch Larsson. Mitch, real name Dan Moon, lived the regular life of a married father, until a snap decision made in his forties changed his life. Prior to being a male escort, Mitch was a lawyer and professional photographer. Time for Her chronicles a two-year period in Mitch’s life where he embarked on a journey as a male escort and learned the complexities of being paid to love. 

We talked about our open marriage, my Tinder dalliance, and the launch of myself as a sex worker. But, in between, I also wished for my wife to have the same freedom I was asking for in my own life. I knew that if I was proposing an arrangement that would permit me to sleep with other women, it had to be equal, and so I told my wife that if she wanted to explore her sexuality with other people as well, it was something that would be fine with me. 

It didn’t sit particularly well with me, but it was important that I kept my end of the deal. The physical aspect of her being with someone else bothered me, but it was more than that. I think a lot of it had to do with my competitive nature.

I wanted my wife to live life to the fullest and to be happy, but the idea of another man pleasing her more than I could really affected me. Conceptually, however, it was exciting, and I still remember that time in our marriage as a place that felt engaging and alive. 

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Talking about it became a type of foreplay for us and, although she never acted on it, I made sure that it was something she felt truly felt open to – and not just something she was saying to keep us together. 

It was the least I could do.

Once the decision to become a male escort was made, the research to find the most trustworthy, top-ranking directory to sign up to was something we both dug into. My wife’s continuing support amazed me. I should also describe her as incredibly patient, as well, because if she was hoping that I’d grow out of it eventually, she didn’t show it.

Would I have acted the same way if my own partner had approached me about her desire to have sex with other people – and then hit me again with the idea of becoming a paid, professional sex worker? 

I guess I’ll never know, but what I do know is that she is definitely one of the most amazing women I’ll ever meet, and I’ll always be sorry for the pain I caused her by flirting with that mum from my son’s playgroup.

The next steps were about getting down to business. 

My own ideas about how to create enticing profile pics and a bio were informed by looking at the way the other guys presented themselves on various sites, and then by figuring out what I could do to more accurately reflect the type of man I was – as well as the service I believed I could provide. 

Mitch Larsson. Image: Supplied.

I did some research on Reddit forums, where I read tales from women revealing their good (and awful) experiences with male escorts, and this also helped – mainly because it confirmed what I already knew about what women probably didn’t want from a trusted companion-for-hire.

One surprised young lady spoke of opening her door to a man who looked nothing like the pictures she’d seen. Not even close. Another complained that her date spent most of the time in the bathroom on his phone, drank copious amounts of booze and fell asleep. The true ‘Boyfriend Experience’, it would seem.

Having professional camera equipment at my disposal was very handy, and my wife helped me take the photos for the site. She also took on the unofficial stylist role to help me settle on what would be most attractive for the audience I was pitching to.

Some shots were of my body, oiled and partially undressed; others were more akin to a guy in an editorial spread, advertising designer watches. My lovely wife was never as sexual as I was but suddenly there was a new spark, and we suddenly found ourselves loving each other in new ways – a respite from the grind of being parents to a pre-school kid, which gave us fresh hope.

She proofread the bio I wrote, and when I got my first legitimate enquiry shortly afterwards, she seemed almost as excited as I was. She advised me on grooming matters and helped me choose an outfit that was all casual sophistication, with pale chinos, a well-cut t-shirt and a dark blazer. 

I’d primped and preened myself to the ninth degree and applied the Mitch armour of some scented moisturiser (a great, inoffensive aftershave substitute by the way) and stocked up on breath mints. 

After we put our son to bed for the night, I kissed her goodbye and left for my Saturday night shift at an address more than an hour away on the Mornington Peninsula.

I was leaving our family home as a husband and father, then mentally shifted my mindset into what would become ‘Mitch-mode’. This meant shifting away from my standard reality to think of myself as a successful, confident and single guy going out into the world, getting ready to please a woman. I was stepping out into the unknown with no idea who I was about to see, with the understanding that I would have sex with them. 

And, believe me, that last part changed everything. 

As I cruised along the freeway, mindlessly taking note as the distance to my destination grew less and less on the GPS, I could only imagine what my wife was thinking as she moved around our house. Maybe she was tucking our son in again or perhaps she was just sitting on the couch watching her beloved home renovation shows. 

Each thought elicited a sharp and extremely disconcerting pang of guilt so to clear my mind, I cracked the window open a little to let the warm summer’s air in and pumped up some Eminem to try and wipe the thoughts of my beautiful little family from my mind.

I was nervous. There was no denying that.

But when I pulled up to the address I’d been given – a low-brow, two-level courtyard motel in a slightly rougher end of town – and knocked on the door to find my first-ever client visibly shaking with nerves, I felt my instincts take over. She was thirty years old, and it was her friends who had originally contacted me on her behalf. Together, they’d all chipped in to buy me as a present to help her get back on the proverbial bike after a bad relationship break-up. 

She wore jeans with a white blouse, had straight brown hair that fell just past her shoulders and she had some fairly bad acne scars, but she was still quite beautiful. 

Judging by the empty cans I could see on the table in that small motel room, she had clearly been calming her nerves with pre-mixed bourbon and coke. I could smell cigarettes but could tell by her tight, youthful body that she looked after herself and I immediately became excited for what might follow. 

There was a gentle, kind beauty to her, despite the edge her anxiousness had given her, and when I invited her to come over for a hug and I wrapped my arms around her, I could feel her bury her head in my chest as if an unseen layer of tension was beginning to dissipate. 

We stayed that way for a while, just holding each other with me stroking her hair until finally, I asked if she would like me to kiss her.

‘Oh, okay …’ Her voice was barely a squeak but again, as our lips touched, I felt another release of tension as her body melted into mine while our excitement grew.

As in all intimate situations, consent is critical, but as a male escort for women, I felt an extra layer of care was needed. If I sensed any doubt or concern, I felt compelled to clearly determine whether it was okay to proceed. I don’t know what rule book I was reading from on that particular night, but everything I said and did just seemed to come naturally to me and after more kissing, I asked if she felt like taking off my shirt.

I’d already taken a moment to set up the Bluetooth speaker I learnt to bring with me to all my bookings to help with a background soundtrack, and her reply was a little louder this time as the music I’d chosen pulsed around us.

‘Yeah, that’d be awesome.’

From there, everything happened pretty quickly. We moved over to the bed, covered by the thin, overly starched and rigid sheets one would expect from such an establishment and shifted from one position to another in a fairly standard but still mutually exciting exploration of each other’s bodies. 

Mitch Larsson. Image: Supplied.

Her story was one I’ve now come to know verbatim.

She’d been dating a guy since her early twenties and was looking to find herself again after he broke her heart by sleeping with another girl. That had been quite a few months prior, but the pain persisted and made her reluctant to jump straight back into the dating scene. Her self-esteem had taken a huge hit, so now she was looking to take control over what she wanted sexually and who she wanted to share herself with. 

She longed for intimacy, but without the initial stress of hooking up with a random stranger online. Well not yet, anyway – and it was clear that I was there to help with her transition, even if it was with her friends’ help.

Since then, I’ve come to realise that this is what I seemed to offer, whether I was helping my clients get over the loss of a connection with someone else or possibly the loss of their sense of self. It was often heavy stuff that took time and wasn’t conducive to clock-watching, so as a result, I would often go well and truly over my allotted time.

There was no running out the door with my money on the sixtieth minute. 

A couple of months after I began, in fact, I stopped advertising a one-hour rate and chose to make my minimum booking time two hours. I quickly realised that such short bookings are not only dubious in terms of time and effort versus return (travel time mattered), but it was also far too little time for me to make a connection deep enough for meaningful lovemaking. 

In many situations, giving the clients even just a few minutes off the clock had a big impact. Sometimes, that involved a little extra cuddling in bed, or perhaps even just a last drink together somewhere to soften the transactional truth of what we had just done.

After that it was just a matter of a hug, a friendly, ‘I better get out of here now’ and a heartfelt, ‘thank you so much’.

And Mitch was gone. As he was paid to be.

Back in the car, I was on my way to being Dan again – a dad, a son, a brother, a husband. I was also beginning to think more practically and made a mental note not to drive my heavily-branded photography van to a booking again, and that perhaps my wife’s little Hyundai would be far less obtrusive. 

On the way home, she texted me to check how things had gone, but I wasn’t ready to leave the Mitch zone right away so I messaged back to tell her my ETA and that I’d tell her all about it. 

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel when I walked back through our front door with the scent of another woman all over me, and I felt like I needed a little ‘me’ time to process what I’d just done. I’d just been paid to please a woman – and it felt amazing.

When I did finally arrive home, my wife, who had obviously stayed up for me and was still in her flannel pyjamas, greeted me at the door. I waved the cash at her with a cheeky grin and reached for her. It felt like we’d both accomplished something that night and my love for her seemed to intensify. 

We were both happy. We’d made a great team and neither of us felt any remorse whatsoever. In fact, I thought I might even have noticed a hint of pride as my wife skipped around, wanting to know everything. 

I didn’t want to be the kiss-and-tell type, though, so I told her a little bit about how things played out but left enough gaps to give my client the respect she deserved as well. And so, another tightrope began to emerge …

The next day, the friend who initially contacted me kindly texted me to let me know her friend had a ‘magnificent’ time. She also mentioned that she had organised an upcoming hen’s night and was hoping I might be interested in taking part in the festivities – as a stripper. I was definitely flattered but suggested that forcing her guests to watch a 41-year-old man awkwardly dancing around naked would probably do more harm than good.

Things felt so natural and right that I wondered why I hadn’t considered escorting years before. Life seemed sweeter than it had felt in a long time. And I felt like I could do anything. 

It was a change in me that my wife could not have failed to notice and while it added fresh energy and strength of our union in many ways, we were also proving ourselves to be only human in many other ways. 

When someone in a partnership suddenly seems happier, or more motivated about their appearance and the way they are seen through the eyes of others, it’s natural for the other person in that partnership to second guess themselves and wonder why they were not enough.

I never wished for my wife to feel any self-doubt, so I looked for any sign that she wasn’t as happy with my decision as she claimed to be. We talked about it all the time and I honestly believed she was okay with it. Maybe it was too good to be true, but in my own eyes, the world around me had suddenly become so beautifully rose-coloured that I was positive she could see the fresh new hue as clearly as I could. 

I was genuinely happy and I wanted the only other person in the world who knew what I was doing to be happy with me.

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The problem with all that, though, is that I was an idiot.

I was blinded by my abilities and my fairy tale wishes for how our world could be. I didn’t realise it then, but the day I decided to become a male escort was also the day I began the end of my marriage.

Phenomenal lack of insight, I agree.

There was a blissful ignorance to us, as a couple, as we waded through what felt like an unchartered ocean. Or perhaps I was the only ignorant one. We weren’t the first couple who’d let extra-marital sex encroach upon their union, and I guarantee we won’t be the last, but that doesn’t change the fact that we were both naïve about the impact it would have and how we’d navigate it.

During that time, our marriage could best be described as three-parts-reality mixed with seven-parts-adventure. When I wasn’t working out or shopping for fancy new clothes, I’d be at home, often with my head down and completely absent while I messaged and emailed new and existing clients.

After six months of transactional sex becoming the extra setting at our relationship table, things began to shift.

My wife’s curiosity lessened and, for me, coming back home after work was less about counting the cash and more about pouring myself a few drinks to wash away Mitch in order to become Dan again. 

The truth is, sex workers aren’t made of Teflon, and it didn’t take long for the job to leave something stuck to me with each new booking.

This is an extract from Time for Her by Mitch Larsson, published by Shawline Publishing. You can preorder your copy of the memoir now. You can follow on him Instagram here, and his website Be You Again here. 

Feature Image: Supplied.