Sometimes, I'm afraid people see behind the veneer. The pretty sugarcoating that I liberally paint across my surface, that makes me look so lovely from a distance, in the window, if you don't look too close. I'm a wax fruit, tempting but faked, constructed to make you desire me.

I don't know, always, where the line is between what's truly Kitty, who *I* actually am, and this persona that I maintain. I maintain it, in variations, for my family, my friends, and my lovers, as much as my clients if not more so. I have more to lose when those close to me see beneath the surface. Something a client does may strike a nerve, sure, might shatter the surface, but if they don't like what they see, they just won't book again and that will be that.

But the problem is, I'm terrible at maintaining that put-togetherness. Anyone who knows me knows I'm generally a person-shaped mass of stress, sadness, idealism and uncertainty. I love hard, and fast, and too much, and I cry with as much passion as I kiss, and about as often. My emotions tumble over each other, not altogether random but not controlled, either. I put myself under a lot of pressure to try to maintain adult behaviour, and scold myself soundly when that breaks down. But it always breaks. Part of me is glad, even, that it happens, because then the stress of pretending is over. Exposed as a broken human, I feel less worried about what will happen if I fall apart, which leads to me falling apart less often.

I don't live a normal life. In many ways, I never have. My parents are Pagan, so I wasn't brought up with the potential squeamishness of organized patriarchial religion. I've never had to really come out of a closet with them, because the closet never really felt closed. I didn't really go to high school, and I've only held a 9-5 job for about a month and a half. My friends have been geeks, Goths, genderfuckers and sexual deviants of every type. I didn't go to the standard prom/school dance, I went to the big queer prom at the town hall, and danced dirty with gay boys. My report card almost always said that I was gifted, if only I applied myself.

I'm still working out what my gift is, and how to apply myself to it. I'd like to think that sex work, and the various intimacies and people skills contained within, is just that venue, but sometimes I wonder if I'm meant for something more mundane, and I'm just being spoiled. Maybe I'm crazy in thinking I can make a difference. Maybe I need to buckle down and be just another in the crowd. Could I even do that? I don't know.

It may sound terribly pretentious to say, but I'm envious of those who are mostly content within the day to day. I can appreciate the simplicity, sometimes... a sunny park picnic here, a quiet walk at night after the rain's fallen there. But generally I want whimsy, sparkle, extravegance. I want to dress up and be whirled away to parties in black cabs with stunning escorts. I want to sit in cocktail bars reading forgotten novellas from forgotten times. I want to explore overgrown graveyards and abandoned buildings. I want the wild unknown and the terribly glamourous.