I got offered money for sex.

I've been a right proper pissy cow lately. No, Internet, you don't have to be nice to be about it- I know I have. But do you know what I think it was? TOO MUCH FREE TIME ON MY HANDS.

There is, after all, only so many times a girl can wank herself off to pass the afternoon.



And it wasn't until I got dead busy these past few weeks (NOT BUSY ENOUGH TO STOP ME TWEETING ABOUT BEING BUSY, OBVI) that I realised how much I get from a full diary. What do they say? If you need something doing ask a busy woman? Well, hey there! Over here!



And look. I happen to know that there are people out there who actually work for a living over this student malarky. All I have to do is look at my dear old dad- he doesn't see daylight Monday through Friday for the six months of the year that the sun goes into hiding. And no, I don't have kids or a mortgage or a husband to support. I don't even own a basil plant because I killed the one I did once have. But indulge my new status as a do-er. I do. In fact, I don't even bother to make friends with people who don't indulge me as a rule. Be my adoring audience or FUCK OFF.



Anyway. I'm within spitting distance of graduating. I'm on the home run. So with 80% of my undergraduate degree riding on the next 12 weeks of study OF COURSE I took on a fancy copyediting job writing the promotional brochures for the university. A job that I thought would be great experience but has only served to teach me that the experience of writing copy for other people for the rest of my life 'aint one I'm interested in.



I KNOW. HOW NICE TO HAVE THE CHOICE. I get it. Anyone with actual responsibility can indeed tell me to go suck eggs. Or something.



My point is this: excited at finally finding status as something other than a student bum, plus many hours of writing words for other people, plus my regular job, equals a Laura Jane Williams who has felt more herself since getting January out of her system than since all that time ago when I got to sleep with college boys in America. URM. I mean indulge in a cultural exchange with one of the greatest nations on the planet.



Obviously.



Not that feeling myself was in lieu of feeling somebody else, though. I could have felt somebody this past Saturday night. AND been paid. Because uh-huh. I got propositioned as a prostitute.



I swear, if the next thing you say is "For how much?" I'll have to dump you for your best friend.



I went out gay clubbing, and was hanging out in the unisex loo (otherwise known as THE COTTAGE. I love it.) as you do when in a space with that many homosexuals and mirrors. I've always hated having to leave the fag to my hag outside the ladies loo, and it was dead novel to me that we could all take a pee together. And when I couldn't quite wrangle myself out of my playsuit, we did.



...



...



... And I'm back.



Internet, you know me. I'll talk to anyone. Especially when I've had a few cheeky drinks.



(SIDENOTE: And let me tell you, gay drinks are potent. I got home at 6 a.m. and lay in bed with the room spinning. "Bloody hell," I thought to myself. "I cannot be this drunk. I've got twelve hours before I have to get ready to go to that really fancy ball I spent a small fortune on a ticket for. My friend is driving down from Leeds and everything. I can't cancel. I need to be sober. This is really going to hurt in the morn- OH WAIT IT IS THE MORNING."



I tried watching some ER and drinking loads of water, talking to myself in the mirror. "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay." I was not okay. So I made a decision. I was to go to the bathroom and in the style of an Olsen twin chuck up what I could. And do you know what? It was pink. It was red. It was blue. It was purple. I swear to god the only thing missing was a bit of glitter and I could have thrown my own chuffing gay pride breakfast.)



(Binge drinking is bad, kids.)



(Especially when you've paid all that money just to see it in the toilet.)



(Sooooo: binge drinking is bad if you can't keep it down. Talk about a poor return on investment.)



So as I sway stand in front of the basin washing my hands, a man at the side of me leans in and says, "Is you a lesbian, like?"



Now I don't know about you but when somebody can't even use grammar properly in their speech, I know for sure they 'aint a candidate for the semi-colon test. And if you can't pass that test then we just can't be cool. So I smile politely and reply, "No, no, despite the poster of a naked woman on my wall that my dad thinks makes me a gay, I'm just here with friends." And I left it at that.



The same man sidled up to me when I was at the bar. "So you isn't a lesbian and that then?" I looked at him. "No, no," I said, and placed my order. "I can get it for you like, innit?" he said, "Cuz you is not a lesbian? Innit?" It took me a minute to understand him. "I've got it, thanks." I said, and he pulled out a wad of twenty pound notes from his pocket. "I mean, you is looking for a bloke and that, innit? You's take the pussy, you dunna lick the pussy?"



WAIT. ONE. MINUTE.



Take the pussy, not lick the pussy? Isn't that the same thing? And why are you showing me your rolls of purple cash when you say that? AND SAYING PUSSY TO A STRANGER?



I looked him right in the eye. He nodded at me. He nodded at his cash. He nodded at me again. I continued to look him right in the eye. In that ten seconds, I have absolutely no doubt in my drunken mind that I was absolutely, CATEGORICALLY, being offered money by this man to sleep with him and his poor use of the English language.



I. Have. Not. A. Single. Doubt.



"I'm a lesbian," I replied, and he shouted after me, "So you's like the pussy then!" and I turned magenta and laughed in his face.



"I think I just got offered sex for money," I reported back to my gays. "Really, that's terrib- OHMYGOD KYLIE IS ON!" they replied. And I didn't think much more of it until I went back into the Cottage and there he was.



THAT WAS THE GUY I mouthed at Calum, so he put on his straight voice and said to the chap, "Alright mate."



"Is you with her is it?" the guy replied, nodding toward me.



"Nah," said Cal. "Can't afford it."



"Ah, is she not a lesbian and that then? She take the pussy not lick the pussy?" My eyes shot to the floor.



I heard our friend join us and explain that I hadn't had a wax in ages, and that I was on my period, and that I wasn't worth the money as this guy, I SWEAR TO FREAKING GOD, just listened to them as if weighing up whether an investment might be worth it. And I was that paralysed by... well. I don't know by what. BY THE FACT THAT I WAS BEING OFFERED MONEY FOR SEX AND A STRANGER WAS ESSENTIALLY BARTERING FOR ME PROBABLY.



So I just stood there whispering, "I'm a lesbian, I'm a lesbian, I'm a lesbian," and nodding whenever Calum knocked me in the ribs as we tried to navigate past this guy and out of The Cottage so that we never had to see him ever again.



And that part of my Life List? That bit that says, "Have sex with a man for money"?





It will forever go unchecked.