How I Became A Cam Girl – Ch.1

“I don’t know how they do it, honestly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Keep up the secrecy. These women are nothing but strippers and prostitutes, selling themselves for money. What I’m saying is, I really don’t know how they can keep it a secret.”

“You think people in their life don’t know?”

“I don’t know how they could, who would be associated with someone like that? It’s just.. I don’t know Mary, I can’t even believe we’re talking about this right now.”

My best friend in the whole world was sitting in front of me at my kitchen table, sipping her tea and going on and on about something she really knew nothing about. Truth is, it was something I didn’t know anything about either up until a few months ago. Which I guess is really where I should be starting this story, but there was something about this particular conversation that brought back some of the feelings I used to have myself on the subject. Not to mention she was the one who told me to check online for some extra work.

It really feels like a lifetime ago that I stumbled across the ad while I was looking for work online. Paul, my husband of almost 20 years passed away suddenly the summer before last from a heart attack and I really got myself behind on all the bills while mourning him. No one blamed me, and even had a lot of help offered to me from friends and family, on both mine and Paul’s side. In hind sight I suppose I could have taken the help, I could have even asked for it now. That just wasn’t me. I’ve always been an independent type of girl and I was sure I could get by on my own. A year later and I was finally starting to come out of the haze from losing the love of my life.

I’d returned to my job as the science teacher at the local high school, but it was becoming clear that one income wasn’t going to be enough to support not only myself, but my 18 year old son Peter as well. He had his sights set on going to college next fall and I really didn’t’ want to have to tell him he’d have to wait until I had enough money saved up. Luckily Paul and I had started a fund for it a couple years back, but it was still a far cry from tuition.

So anyways here I was, a 41 year old widow surfing the internet job postings on the PC in my husband’s old office, hoping to find a way to send my kid to college. Having practically walked into my teaching job out of college I’d never had to go on a job search before and didn’t really know where to start. My best friend, Joyce, told me to try some of the local job posting sites first and also gave me a list of some other ones to check out. I pecked away at the keys, yawning, rubbing my eyes and tightening up my robe, scrolling down a list of relevant jobs. There were a few for substitutes, some home schooling gigs, tutor work, and even some foreign jobs teaching english. Unfortunately, I realized I was a bit under prepared when I saw they all asked for a cover letter, resume and references.

I sipped my coffee and sat back, looking around the room. I’d cleaned out most of Paul’s stuff, leaving only the books and office supplies. Figuring I might as well make use of the day, I pulled out some paper, put it in the printer beside me and tried to come up with a good resume. By the time I finished my cup of coffee, I’d gotten basically nowhere. All I had down was my name, address, phone number and email address. I sighed out loud and got up, my robe swaying a bit letting some cool air rush over my warm body underneath. I bit my lip and confessed to myself that I really just wanted to crawl back into bed. Walking down the hall and back to the kitchen I passed by my son’s room, seeing it was pretty messy as usual and eerily vacant.

It wasn’t that it was unusual that he was gone, it was Saturday and he probably slept over at one of his friends last night. Peter was a bit of a geek, which might sound harsh coming from his own mother, but it was a good thing. I didn’t like worrying about him and knew that I didn’t have to. He was smart. He liked books and computers and only had a few good close friends.