“We’re not sex workers, are we?” Grady asks one night while we’re watching Bake-Off on the sofa. That question must really be gnawing at him ’cause it’s the holiday episode and that’s his favorite.

“No, kitten. It don’t count if you love the one you’re doing the stuff with.” And I feel him relax and focus back on the show.

It don’t count. Folk like to make up all kinds of don’t-counts. Don’t count if it’s out of state, don’t count if you don’t kiss, don’t take your pants off, don’t let them cum in you.

Some might say I was a sex worker back when I met my sweet Grady. But I never fucked any of those Mill boys who’d stop by my trailer after cashing their checks at the Supercenter. I never kissed them or got naked. I never even let them as much as cup one of my titties. But I would let them jerk it while I wormed a couple gloved fingers up their assholes. So if milkin’ prostates to help pay the lot fee at Five-Points Trailer Park makes me a sex worker, well, you got me.

Grady showed up at my trailer like all the other Mill boys. Skinny and smelling of machine oil and Fast Orange. Sawdust powdering his hair. He was standing in the hot cicada buzz on my front step, arms of his coveralls tied around his flat stomach. Shoulders stretching his undershirt, proof of twelve-hour shifts loading stock.

“I only do the one thing, and I reckon you know what that is or you wouldn’t be here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You keep your hands on the table or on yourself. I touch you, not the other way round. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Most of the Mill boys stared at their feet when they came to pay me a visit. The few that did look up, looked sad. Sad and hungry, like a dog waiting for someone to kibble their bowl. But not my Grady. Even at that first visit his face was open and smiling. Lord, you would’ve thought we were about to share a slice of birthday cake.

“Well alright, kitten. Go on get naked and stand in front of the kitchen table.” Closing the door behind him I went to the cabinet where I kept the wipes and lube and a box of gloves I took from the break room of the Supercenter.

When he pulled his work pants off, he just let it flop down his thigh. He didn’t tug at it or try to fluff it like all the other boys did. That’s my Grady, accepting things the way they are, even his own cock. Circumcised. Two-toned.

“Sweetie, did you get your taint and ass waxed for this visit?” I asked, bending him over the table.

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Seemed like the right thing to do for the occasion.”

Well now, that was about the sweetest thing anyone had done for me in years. So when he was getting close, when I had two fingers buried and his calves tensed and he went up on his toes, I reached around with my free hand and started stroking his swollen cock. My breath sped up, working him from both sides like I was, and his breath sped up from getting worked. We carried on like that, panting and moaning and laughing and smiling, right up ’til he blew thick ropes of pearled cum onto the linoleum.

Now, you’d be surprised how many of those Mill boys cried after. Others felt the call to apologize or beg forgiveness, from me or their wives, sometimes even from Baby Jesus. A few promised to never come back. But not Grady.

“That was great,” he beamed at me.

And I knew he meant I was great.

Weeks passed, and I’d see him at the Supercenter when I was wrangling carts or greetin’. He never mentioned his visit. He’d just shine that smile on me and say dumb things like, “Hey, Leanne, I like all the flare on your smock.”

It felt like standing in the sun.

One day he stopped me while I was changing the sidewalk display from grills to deer blinds. “Hey, Leanne, I won a gas card at work ’cause I guessed right how many nails a roof truss has in it. Thought maybe you might like to use it.”

I kept that card even after it was empty.

I wore a sundress for his next visit. And when he took the lube and put it on my fingers for me, giving me that sweet puppy-dog smile, I felt myself tingle down there.

My fingers were drawing slow circles inside him, my other arm braced against his back, feeling the muscles tighten, feeling him build. And that’s when I decided to break my own rule.

“Reach back here and touch me, kitten,” I said, opening my stance, tilting my hips up to the hand that immediately swam back, up the skin of my thighs, up to my soft, wet ache.

“I like a big bush,” he groaned, face plastered into the tabletop. And my heart broke at the compliment. He moved two fingers up between my lips, drawing that wetness to my clit, where he started making slow circles. He echoed the rhythm and pressure I was using inside him, until we were both panting and the room was swimming. I lay across his naked back and smelled red clay and pine in his hair. We fingered and ground and bucked into each other until he shot another load onto my floor. And when he’d caught his breath, I climbed onto his face and rode his stubbled chin to my own dripping finish.

Ding.

The Kinkly app chimes and interrupts the judging of Judith’s gingerbread.

I pull up the customer on my phone. “We’ve got a video.”

Sighing, he moves our little Christmas tree into the corner and starts setting up the tripod and ring light while I peel off my socks.

“Sorry, kitten. We’ll watch the rest after we upload it.” But I know he’s not sighing about Bake-Off.

It’s been a struggle since the Mill went down to one shift. We both got EBT cards, but you can’t pay lot fees with food stamps. And the Supercenter won’t give me more than part-time. Grady does Uber and Grubhub, but there ain’t nobody in LaGrange with enough money to use those. So we signed up for Kinkly. Porn for the gig economy. Problem is, we only get requests for videos of Grady jerking off on my feet.

At first we tried to keep having our own sex on the side. But that just dried him out. Nobody’s payin’ for a video of him cuming a few clear squirts on my toes. So for the past two months we’ve been saving his jizz for Kinkly subscribers. He’s still happy to let me climb on his face whenever I have the urge. But I make sure not to have that urge too often. Feels greedy.

What Grady don’t know is that I just sold two pairs of my period panties to some fella in Arkansas. So I’m gonna mute the app alerts a few days before Christmas. And on Christmas Eve, after we’ve had supper at his momma’s, and after we drive over to Tower of Faith Baptist to look at the live nativity, I’m gonna bring him back to the trailer, bend him over the kitchen table, and give him his present.