This is a memoir, and if you’re reading it and your name isn’t Shane then it’s possible that this wasn’t written for you. If you are like Shane however and have found yourself in a room without doors, a situation without outs, then yes you have a place here. Perhaps you haven’t, perhaps you have taken the wiser paths and avoided some of life’s pitfalls, but you love someone and that means this is yours as well. Maybe you’ve never known love but you know curiosity. Maybe you’re reading this simply because you have an interest in Kurt Hummel. That’s fine, you’re welcome here. This is for you too.

There’s a young man named Shane. Nineteen years old and in that unfortunate stage of boyhood that is no longer recognized by the laws we live under and the choices we must make; a child in a man’s shoes. Shane has a twin brother who is unlike him in everything except looks. While one will stop, the other will go, and it is usually only after the consequence has him pinned down that Shane will bear the cost of an action in mind.

While one lives to please, the other lives to dare and Shane has always told everyone who will listen that one day people will remember his name; and they will. What he has missed in his passion is that there are people who remember it now. They wake with his name on their minds, on their hearts; laying sweet on their tongues like endearments and caged behind their teeth like curses.

Maybe you are like Shane.

You are someone’s brother, a son of someone’s son and so much more than just somebody.
When you were younger there was someone you held as an idol, someone you thought you knew better than yourself and you thought that if you could only grow to become half the person they were you could die satisfied. For Shane it was Kurt Hummel whose fame had spread from coast to coast, whose face he could find staring back at him from glossy magazine pages every time he stopped at a news stand. Shane is not the only admirer Kurt Hummel has ever had but he is special nonetheless because he can honestly say that his idol returns his love.

That’s the reason for this memoir. It’s time you know the whole me. To do that I have to take you back. To know me you have to know Kurt as he was, before the fame and long before Shane. He’s not so different but there are some key things you must know.

The first thing that you should know about Kurt is that he’s a whore.

The second thing you need to know is that I speak literally not metaphorically. There are a lot of the young and restless crowding the streets and universities of New York city who would use the term to describe their roles in the dull, monotonous regime of entry level jobs and graduate education, and Kurt has heard it all before and somehow manages to nod along and smile politely as they do so.

Kurt is young and a philosopher in the manner of all young people. He likes a good euphemism as much as the next guy- probably even more than the next guy because he imagines himself something of an artist and he likes the poetry of them. He likes the way they glitter like bright possibilities and unwrapped presents.

But when you get fucked for money he’s found that it’s best to just say it like it is. Yes, fucked for money. Because that’s what he does; he sells sex, and unsurprisingly he’s found that nothing flies off the shelves faster. Kurt can empathise with others his age; he’s done the college thing as well as some temping, so he knows how soul destroying it can be, but he’s also been truly fucked for pay and believe me they are in no way alike, the two concepts are on different planets even.

Kurt is a true hooker, an escort, prostitute, whore; different day different name. Kurt doesn’t care what people call him; that’s just semantics. On his more contemplative days he thinks about how many types of sex workers there are, and tries to put himself in one of those boxes but he always fails. He doesn’t like labels as much as he likes euphemisms; gay/straight, top/bottom, madonna/whore. They all sound so concrete, so definite, and if there is one thing Kurt Hummel proves by his mere existence it’s that nothing is.

There are a few more things you should know about Kurt. He hasn’t got any wife to support and no kids, so you can stop tearing up over the idea of some little woman with wide eyed babies waiting desperately in a hovel somewhere for the meager scraps that selling his body might bring because, ew. That’s what he would say to that notion. Kurt Hummel has never been desperate. He’s also never been abused by a relative and the only things he’s ever been addicted to are clothes and the view (not to mention truly fabulous mocha) at ninth street espresso on the lower east side.

It’s not desperation or some tragic twisted childhood that has led Kurt to being what he is. It’s much simpler (and far less dramatic) than that.

For Kurt, it’s as simple as always loving sex but never seeming to be able to hold down a steady boyfriend (because Kurt is gay despite his distaste for confining labels). When he was a little boy growing up in Lima Ohio, never having been kissed, all he’d wanted was a boyfriend. Back then he’d have sold his soul for the chance to be in a loving traditionally monogamous relationship, but unfortunately Lima wasn’t exactly teeming with little gay boys brave enough to face the censure of growing up in conservative town Ohio.

Kurt had ceased being that lonely idealistic little boy shortly after losing his virginity on a bathroom floor at a freshman mixer, drunk out of his mind but blissfully happy to be holding the hand of one Sean Johnson, who firmly believed that monogamy was simply an invention of the boring and simpleminded. He’d been an artsy sort which now Kurt has to roll his eyes at because he’s met a million more just like him and it’s all so stupidly contrived, but back then he’d thought Sean had all the answers to life. Dating Sean had been anything but boring, and Kurt had never felt more beautiful than when splayed out beneath the older boys hands as he whispered alternately about shadows,lighting and fucking.

Kurt really likes sex, and he’s really good at it and monogamy with all its rules and restraints bores him out of his mind. There, like I said simple.

It also doesn’t hurt that the job pays well. To put it plainly if Kurt did have a wife and a couple of wide eyed babies they would be put up in a condo somewhere on the upper east side calling on room service because believe me when I say that Kurt Hummel has always been and will always be nothing but high class. He’s educated, which means he’s expensive, and he’s lived abroad servicing the elite in the fashion industry and he’ll choke himself on a Gap scarf before he comports himself as anything but cultured and absolutely fabulous. This means he attracts a certain type of clientele. He charges by the hour, and he charges a lot.

If none of that surprised you, than this at least probably will. Kurt is a whore and he absolutely is not waiting to be rescued. Pretty woman doesn’t happen in real life and wealthy businessmen don’t marry prostitutes. He loves his job and as hard as you may find it to believe that, he enjoys the sex, he absolutely does down to the last shiver and gasp. The only thing he regrets about it is the secrecy.

Which brings us to another thing you should know about Kurt. Kurt has friends and a family that love him, and this job just sort of happened and is really hard to explain to people who love you and want to see you become president or a doctor or some other shit like that. Not paid arm candy. He absolutely can’t tell his folks and cant bring himself to even tell his best friend Blaine. That’s why N.Y. is the best city for escorts to work at the top of their game. Its rudeness, its unforgiving, cold anonymity is a sex worker’s dream, anywhere else you’d be at risk of your occupation getting back to someone you know, your Mom and Dad for example.

At Kurt’s level prostitutes are harder to spot, in fact if they’re not hanging round street corners in hot pants and fishnets with track marks up their arms then most people seem oblivious that they even exist, but they are in fact everywhere. They’re sitting next to you in the trendiest bars, standing behind you in the queues of designer boutiques on Fifth Avenue and they’re sitting in front of you in the first class carriage. Next time you’re in a five star hotel, look around you. In a world of four year olds in bikinis and grandmothers in fuck me boots the surest way to spot a prostitute is to look for the young man in the suit, designer but not flashy with a bag or briefcase at his side.

He walks quickly without attracting too much attention, his head held high and looking straight ahead- he knows where he’s going. He doesn’t go to reception and heads straight for the bar or the lift, acknowledging the staff only with the slightest of nods. He is fabulous and just this side of unforgettable, the sort of person a body's eyes latch onto and for the second that he remains in view men and women alike part their lips on a sigh of wanting, but then he’s gone out of sight and the sigh becomes a yawn as life trudges on and all that’s left is an aftertaste, the hazy memory of liquid blue grey eyes and a need. If he leaves any impression at all it’s that he’s a gentleman, a businessman, young and beautiful and going places. He makes you wish you were too.

I can hear you wondering how a university educated young man from a good occasionally church going, middle class family in Lima ended up working in the sex industry. Well, like I said before Kurt loves sex, and he doesn’t exactly love money so much as he loves the clothes money can buy him. He’s not too proud to admit he adores attention, that he likes the feeling of the spotlight, and the burn of good competition, and few jobs are more high profile or competition oriented than escorting.

He’s got ambition, talent and an exacting agent who makes sure he uses both with a go hard or go home attitude, all the top escorts do. Sue vets all his clients and provides security. When she was Kurt's age Sue was the most in demand escort in the city and that’s saying something because every zipcode has several agencies all vying to provide the cr�me de la cr�me of that districts whores; the incentive to be the best of the best couldn’t be higher. Sue lives and thrives on this sort of competition, and the thrill of it excites Kurt too.

He studied fashion design (with a minor in business) in college and came out with an 3.8 but strangely with no real desire or drive to do a post grad. Not unlike Blaine who came out first in their class with a degree in business but no idea what he (and not his father) wanted to do with it. So like most clueless graduates, they’d gotten meaningless jobs, a dingy apartment and tried to figure out just what life had in store for them.

They had done well to keep some of their student loan back as savings, but living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, the money didn’t last them long. A few groceries, rent and hitting the clubs on weekends naturally bled them dry. They ended up in a tiny two bedroom with six other new graduates, crammed in like sardines to such an extent that they ended up sharing a bed, in a box room that made their previous dorm room look like a banquet hall. I think you can see where this is going?

Blaine is gay, and has been Kurt’s best friend since the first day he got lost on the way to ethics class and Blaine was the one passing at the moment he finally gave into the inevitable and sought help (feeling all the while like the worst sort of freshman). Now they were sharing a bed, and as I will say again, Kurt really likes sex. They’d ended up in a six month relationship, short by Blaine’s standards but the longest of Kurt’s life.They’d broken up amicably despite the truly dramatic circumstances (sixth months is apparently the limit that Kurt Hummel can go without getting drunk and ending up in the bed of some stranger with horrible hair and extremely fuckable lips) but it acted as a wake up call for them both. They needed their space and they needed to make money. So they’d parted ways.

All his life Kurt had been dreaming of getting out of Lima, of everything that he could do and be out there in the big wide world and two years of temping and Kurt was ready to give up and move back to his parent’s house in Lima. He loved his father and step mother but God, sometimes even a long weekend with them was enough to make Kurt want to scratch his eyes out. But back then he’d thought he would gladly live with them rent free if it meant he never had to open some big shots mail ever again. To this day the ‘you’ve got mail’ sound on Outlook makes him break out in a cold sweat.

That was not what Kurt Hummel had planned for himself. He could be, was in fact supposed to be, so much more.

He’d headed into his favorite club, New Directions one fateful Friday night, fully intending on getting plastered whilst pondering how his life had veered so far off track, and quite typically ended up spending the night with some random guy. Older, handsome, paid for everything and didn’t ask for Kurt’s phone number, he was the perfect one night stand. Kurt can’t even remember his name, that is if he even told Kurt (not always a guarantee), and it was the best sex he’d had in months.

It wasn’t that Blaine was bad in bed, far from that, but the simple fact is he’d been going stir crazy and itching for something to burn or twist or just break- Kurt can never put this feeling into exact words it’s just there or it isn’t. He knows it when its got him by the heart and is dragging him through the fire. He loves the way it smolders in his belly, the dark faceless danger of it, and no matter how tightly he shuts his eyes Kurt can never forget that Blaine has a face complete with eyes that he loves and they see him and know that Kurt needs something more. It sort of kills the sex life, that. Unless of course you have a heart made of stone and don’t feel any sort of guilt which Kurt doesn't and most certainly does. Blaine deserved so much better.

The faceless stranger had been everything Kurt liked best and one hundred percent guilt free. He even paid for his cab fare home the following morning. He’d known the area; it was about $20 from his house to Kurt's apartment, $25-$30 in bad traffic. He should have suspected the wad of bills the guy had handed him was too much by the sheer volume of them, but it wasn’t until they’d pulled up outside his building that Kurt noticed the amount. There was almost $100 in tens and twenties, over three times what the cab should have cost; He’d just been paid for sex.

Kurt is nothing if not calculating. By the time he’d unlocked the door to his apartment his mind was already in the middle of several calculations; his monthly rent, the days in the month, the profit from that one night out. Would he have taken the money if the guy had offered it outright? Kurt honestly dosen’t know. That sort of bothers him.

Kurt tried to forget about it, he tried to be content with his low paying job and the gray walls of his cubicle but he just couldn’t. Maybe it’s because that little boy from Lima who sang show tunes in front of his bedroom mirror and meticulously planned out each outfit before he wore it while imagining the halls of his high-school were instead a brilliantly lit cat walk, is not as gone as Kurt likes to think. Every unchanging, colorless day at the office grew more and more painful and sitting at his desk with only the sounds of keys clacking and phones ringing to break up the screaming in his head started to drive him crazy. He can’t pin point the exact moment he settled for getting nothing and being nothing, but the realization was enough to drive him to sudden tears and an equally rash bout of desperation.

He’d walked out on his job without any explanations and no looking back. He’d gone home and researched only to discover he was the proverbial naive little virgin. He’d never been a prude, far from it. But he had been completely oblivious to the massive, thriving sex industry operating right on his doorstep. For every New York zip code you had escorts of every gender, sexuality, age and race performing a seemingly endless number of services, some of which he couldn’t even pronounce let alone perform.

After weeks of surfing, reading and discreetly asking around he’d finally found Cheerios run by one Sue Sylvester easily the queen of the business. After sending her a variety of photographs as requested, they’d arranged a meeting soon after, not only for her to give him the once over, but for him to get the feel for her. Kurt wasn’t an idiot, and wasn’t looking to end up plastered on the six o’clock news for being raped and killed and dumped in an alley way. He needed to be able to trust her. He’d gone into that restaurant an amateur and left a professional.

“So you really are a human doll. Fascinating.” Sue gushed with the same taunting smile. Though she’d done nothing but mock him in the same dry condescending tone Kurt was almost certain the meeting was going well. Although Kurt was new to this, he could already see the dollar signs going round in the woman's eyes. “Well spoken, elegant, immaculately turned out and most importantly absolutely stunning. Of course that’s only after I get over the fact that you resemble the Pillsbury dough boy. Except with hair.”

Kurt had started to blush at her earlier praise but the smile bled of his face as she smoothly turned back to insulting him. He stared at her in wide eyed confusion unable to decide what the appropriate response to all of that was.

“Alright lady face, let’s get to some of the basics….” Sue produced a clipboard from her expensive looking leather briefcase. Kurt thought her whole get up looked a but mannish and the briefcase wasn't helping but he wasn’t exactly in a position right now to judge. He was after all trying to become a prostitute. “Can you do the A's?”

What did that have to do with anything Kurt wondered, unless of course a client had a teacher/student fantasy?

“Yes. um…French, Ethics, Management pretty much anything I ever took.”Sue stared at him like she was watching something repulsive happen right in front of her.

“I’m not sure what you’re babbling about but you mentioned the french and it reminded me of my first client Onry Du’claw with the gimpy leg and floppy taupe`. I hated Onry but he insisted I keep the taupe` in memoriam of our time together. I now use it as a tea cosy to show the world my contempt.” Sue mumbled somewhat distantly. Then with a condescending smirk she clarified. “I meant do you do anal?”

“Oh…” Kurt’s blushes intensified as realisation dawned on him, and he laughed nervously. Did the waitress really have to choose that moment to arrive with their drinks? “Yes. Yes to anal.”

“Wonderful. It’s good to know that there’s a whole man underneath your disturbingly pretty face. I can’t see many women wanting to get screwed by someone prettier than them and only half of our clients will be satisfied with spankings and tucking you in at night. It’s Very difficult to find work these days if all you’ll do is oral.”

Sue continued to reel off a list of services the agency provided (as well as compliments and insults), all Kurt had to do was say yes or no and thankfully her only needed her to elaborate one or two times.

“You’ll probably want to know a little bit about me, everyone does” Sue smiled as she placed the clipboard back in the briefcase. “But I say all you need to know about Sue Sylvester is that I’m not your friend. I don’t have friends. Friends are weaknesses. I got rid of my last weakness when I laced my one time lovers martini with rat poison and refused to pump his stomach until he gave me the rights to this company. I’m a winner and you porcelain, belong to me after you sign the dotted line and you will perform to absolute perfection. Also, I always take 40% of your cut and I reserve the right to take more if I decide I dislike you.”

Despite his honest fear that Sue might be clinically insane, Kurt had signed a contract that day and had ceased to be simply Kurt Hummel lowly office drudge and become Porcelain Ward, the captivating and alluring escort and darling of Cheerios . Some escorts use their own names, but when you’re a John Smith or a Mike Jones you don’t really have much to worry about. Kurt Hummel is slightly more unusual and unsurprisingly complicates things. Sue called him Porcelain all the time anyway and in this line of business no one would raise a brow at such a name. As for the last name Ward, Kurt just liked the sophisticated feel of it, not that any of the clients care about his last name; some don’t care about his first.

Being Porcelain helps him to keep his professional and his personal life separate. After his first few weeks escorting he realised he could afford much more than the studio apartment in which he currently resided and moved into a two bedroom apartment, one strictly private, one strictly business. Now everything in his life comes in twos; bedrooms, telephones, wardrobes, personas. One for Kurt, one for Porcelain. And never the twain shall meet.

Of course it has its downsides, what job doesn’t? Not least the secrecy thing, and Kurt spends a small fortune on condoms, lube and the 101 other things he needs to work as a successful escort. But luckily Sue, for all her smugness and taking Kurt’s hard earned cash, taught him everything she knew, and Kurt has learned from the best. The hours are sometimes unsociable, and there’s always the chance of his alter ego being revealed. The biggest downside is how it has affected his friendship with Blaine. Things weren’t exactly the best after they went they’re separate ways but now Kurt can’t even relax when Blaine’s in his apartment. What if he somehow got into the bedroom he uses to service his clients? It made Kurt a nervous wreck thinking about it so much so that he now put Blaine off from coming over as much as he could.

Make no mistake, Kurt is not ashamed of who he is or the choices he’s made. This is an adventure and just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. But Blaine would never understand it and despite their messy romantic history Blaine has always been there for Kurt. In every way he is Kurt’s truest and best friend. It’s Blaine more than the memory of some dumb kid dreaming of Broadway and the fashion mile who makes Kurt feel like Kurt Hummel is a one of a kind, the only bright star in an endless sky. Kurt well remembers the way waiting for Blaine to come home- after Blaine had caught him with that guy from the club and run out, had felt like a slow drag to hell. Blaine has become such a fixture in Kurt’s adult life that losing Blaine’s faith and confidence would be like losing a piece of himself.

So it isn’t easy. But you know what they say, life never is.