(Hand)job hunting

This is Artur. He’s from the land of tacos and action sports (aka southern California), a friend of a friend who’s crashing on my floor while he looks for work. Good luck, guy. He’s been in town only a couple days and last night he had his first interview, for a masseuse position—that, unbeknownst to him, dealt mainly with happy endings.

Vice: How did you find out about this job?

Artur: It was on Craigslist.

Of course it was. And you have masseuse experience?

I took two years of part-time massage classes.

Where was the interview?

It was in a small apartment with little space to walk anywhere, but there were lots of towels lying around, big and small. He later explained that the big ones are for people to lie down on and the small ones are for cleaning up people’s gunk. There was a TV on that just played music--electronic music, mostly. In the middle of the room there was a massage table. He didn’t speak English; we spoke Spanish instead. He asked if I was gay or straight, I said bi, which I’m not, but I thought it would help my chances if I told him that. We chatted for a little about my experience and then he said, “All right, you’re going to give me a 20-minute massage.” He left, came back in a pair of tighty-whities, and laid face-down on the massage table. I went to it.
Was that weird, the whole tighty-whities thing?

It’s not weird, people usually get naked. Underwear, no big deal. I wasn’t uncomfortable then.
Go on.

When I’m done, he says, “That was really good.” So he gets dressed and asks if I went to the gym and made me show him my stomach. He said I’d be working in a pair of Speedos, which I’d have to buy myself. I have no qualms with wearing Speedos if the money’s good enough.

So when did he mention hand jobs as part of the job description?

It was almost like an afterthought. Near the end, he asked if I was comfortable with the happy ending. I laughed and thought about it and told him that if I was, it would be my first time. He said there’s one other straight guy and he gets along just fine.

You didn’t say no outright?

I thought to myself, Man, handjobs are gross. But then you start to consider something… I could represent hot time for someone. That’s just foreign to me, especially for a dude.

How much was he going to pay you?

He wanted to split everything 50/50. For a $120 “massage” it’d be $60 for me, $60 for him. For less than an hour's work that sounded pretty good so I didn’t fight him. The range is $120-$200 and people can get a more sensual massage. I’d touch up on their ass or dick, but I haven’t had training on that exactly.

If you didn't see a problem with the arrangement, what eventually made you decide to turn him down?

The morning after, I realized it would be a strange fucked-up experience. I don’t want to have sex with some girl and start thinking about dicks. I’ve also been to jail so I’m paranoid about sting operations. I also couldn’t tell my mother, and that’s what it came down to: lying to my mom.