When her profile was complete and submitted, Nat prepared to trek back to Brooklyn. As she stepped into her winter boots, Ava offered last-minute advice.

“You’ll start getting messages as soon as your profile goes live. The men on this site have had background checks, but you have to be careful. You have to be smart.”

Nat felt a chill run through her.

“Get the money up front. Always meet in a public place. Never go to their apartment.”

“Of course.”

“And never tell a man where you live.”

“Right.”

“I always ask for a daddy’s real name and where he works. Then, I can google him and make sure he’s not a Splenda daddy.”

Nat chuckled nervously. “What’s that?”

“Guys who want to be sugar daddies but don’t have enough money. You’re not going to give up your whole fucking evening for a fifty-dollar Sephora gift card.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Still . . . They’re better than the salt daddies. Guys who pretend to have money, who offer you gifts and trips and allowances, just to get into your pants. Salt and sugar look the same. You have to be careful.”

Oh God . . .

Nat was in the hallway when Ava had one last morsel of advice. “Read their profiles carefully. Some of these men are into kinky sex, but they’re usually up front about it.”

Nat’s voice was weak. “What kind of kinky sex?”

“Bondage is pretty popular. Master-slave relationships. Role-playing. That kind of thing . . .”

“Jesus.”

“It’s not that big a deal, really.” Ava’s response was breezy. “You just have to be up front about what you’re willing to do, sexually.”

“Nothing,” Nat said quickly. “I’m only going to go on a couple of pay-per-meets.”

Ava smirked. “Everyone says that, at first. But this lifestyle is addictive.”

* * *

On the train, Nat sat in a sort of trance, a true New Yorker in her ignorance of her carriage-mates. It was impossible to focus on anything but the knowledge that, at any moment, Nat could receive a message that would save her life. Change her life, if she wanted it to. But she didn’t. She had done the math: fifteen hundred dollars would pay off her debts and provide a financial cushion. She had a partial scholarship, could get another part-time job. In the summer, she would work full-time at a bar and get a morning job at a shop, or a restaurant. Nat could sustain herself; she was not going to be a sugar baby.

She didn’t judge Ava for her choice. Nat was open-minded, a freethinker. She had not been raised in a religious home where morals and values were articulated. And she had loathed the judgment and gossip so prevalent in her small town, often directed at her parents for their failed marriage, for her dad’s abandonment, her mom’s subsequent dating life. But she knew the sugar bowl was not for her. Nat was not attracted to older men. In fact, the thought of sex with anyone over thirty made her skin crawl. (Maybe she could stomach Brad Pitt, but even he did not arouse her.) She was not overly romantic—she understood sex without love or commitment. But sex without attraction, without chemistry, was impossible for her. Unlike Ava, Nat could never blow a septuagenarian for a trip to Rome and a Versace dress. Her gag reflex would not allow it.