The Real Girlfriend Experience

"I think we're supposed to finish down there, right?" I point to the landing where her purple ball is resting a few feet from the hole marked "18."

"No, I think this is it," she says. Before I can ask if she'd like anything to drink, she's out the door, heading for her car, "donation" in hand.

I stand outside Maggie Moo's in Fort Lauderdale for almost an hour waiting to eat ice cream with Mira. (If there is one thing to be learned from dating prostitutes, it's that they are not very punctual.) Finally, she is dropped off by a man driving a scratched-up black SUV.

She's older than the other women, in her early 50s. I'm surprised. She looks more like a school teacher than a prostitute. She's black, has a stern jaw, and never removes her red-framed sunglasses. She wears a dress that goes down to her ankles and has her hair in thin dreadlocks that cover her shoulders. I wonder what her clients think when they first see her.

Her hand is damp when we shake. I grimace a little.

"Well, what kind of ice cream do you feel like?" I ask, trying to cut through the silence.

Inside, she orders a single scoop of butterscotch with cherries on top. I have Maggie's Fudge with Oreo crumbs mixed in. One of the boys behind the counter pauses as he stares at us, clearly confused. He decides it's better not to ask. We sit in the shade outside.

"Tell me about yourself, Mira."

She's slow to speak, thoughtful. "I'm going through a time of change," she says in a patient tone. She's been in the business only for a year, she says, since she lost her job at an insurance company.

I ask vague questions, hoping she'll tell me about her life as a prostitute. But we never really broach the subject. Instead, she tells me about her mother, who died a few weeks ago from Alzheimer's. She was 80. "She was such a strong woman her entire life," Mira says, sliding a sliver of ice cream onto her tongue. "Seeing her like that, it wasn't her. She didn't recognize anyone. She was ready to pass."

Mira moved here from New York a few years ago to take care of her mother when she first got sick. Medical bills have been so overwhelming for so long, she says. "I sing and pray when times are hard. That's all you can do, really."

Twenty minutes into the date, I can't help but notice I'm sitting across from a woman nearly twice my age, listening to her talk about her dead mother. I'm trying to be attentive, but it's hard. And my ice cream is almost gone.

She's applying for office jobs every week, she says, but she's stuck. For the kind of jobs she wants — and feels qualified for — applicants need a good credit rating. "I've been out of a job for a year, so my credit has gone down," she explains, pushing a cherry with her plastic spoon. "I can't get good credit without a job, and I can't get a job without good credit."

Conversation wanes after we finish the ice cream. She gives me some tips to better my FICO score. This time, when it comes time to pay her, I am sort of relieved. Kidnapping and covered blowjobs in a jejune setting I can handle, but death and credit scores?

I thank her for the date and wish her well in her job search.

Back at the bowling alley that first Friday night, Sophia unzips her Bob Marley sweatshirt, revealing a large tattoo of two linked wedding bands on the left side of her chest. Beneath one of the rings is a man's name.

"What's that?"

"This is a mistake I made a long time ago," she said. "That's my ex. It's a long story."

So you were married?

When she takes off her sweatshirt, I notice two large, oblong scars on her right arm. I'm afraid to ask.

It's time for the second game, and we take our first few turns. "So, tell me about your life," I say.

"Oh, my real life is crazy. If I told you, you wouldn't even believe me."

"Like what?"

"Well, I was kidnapped."

"When? By who, er, uh, whom?"

This game is much slower; we take long pauses between turns as she elaborates on the kidnapping saga. It was a spanking fetish call to Miami, she says. She noticed something odd immediately. "Honestly, he kind of seemed like he was a gay guy," she says. "He was very feminine, and he had this cute little dog. But I meet a lot of strange people, ya know? Who am I to judge?"

The session started out all right, she says. Just some straightforward spanking. But then he started whacking her more aggressively. Harder. Too hard. Then he stopped. He started apologizing. He told her that he didn't want her to be too bruised for their trip to Las Vegas. Then he abruptly shifted tone. He pulled out a handgun.