章 47: Chapter 47: Pit of Thorns, Part 1

Quitting stripping was like falling into a pit of thorns. Well, maybe stripping itself was like falling into a pit of thorns, but quitting was like waking up in the pit and realizing, "Oh shit, I'm covered in fucking thorns." Over the course of the next year, I slowly but surely started to pull the thorns out one by one, and each one felt like a little blade slicing through my skin.

The thing about thorns, too, is that infection spreads faster than you think. I had changed in ways that I didn't realize I had: I was more callous, more selfish, more money-obsessed. The aim of stripping was to manipulate people for money, and I didn't stop with strangers. People I loved became like money faucets in my mind: my parents, my grandparents, my friends: anyone who would give me money turned into a fixed dollar amount per month in my mind, and if they didn't give me money, it either meant that they didn't love me or I didn't care enough to bother with them.