Written by Lottie, a Manchester escort who also travels across the Midlands and the North.
My life is generally rather full on. Managing a collection of oversized toddlers, client expectations, professionals and schedules, getting on and off multiple horses a day, planning competition and breeding schedules and all the other multitude of moving parts that goes along with the life I choose to lead.
It would be incredibly easy for me to never leave work, there is always something that needs doing, prepping, organising or my particular weakness – optimising.
And strangely enough, that’s partly where Lottie comes in.
She gives me a reason to stop. To be unequivocally in the moment.
A reason to swap riding boots for stilettos, pull beautiful lingerie from the drawer, put on a dress and go somewhere lovely. Those are things I adore, but left to entirely my own devices they would inevitably find themselves shuffled to the bottom of a very long priority list.
But it’s not merely about dressing up.
I genuinely enjoy meeting people. I love discovering what makes somebody tick, having real conversations and feeling that peculiar little spark that happens when two people who were strangers an hour ago suddenly aren’t.
During that time, I’m not thinking about competition schedules, haylage deliveries or training plans or the seventeen million things that need doing – I can completely switch off from the demands of everything else and lose myself in beautiful conversation, laughter, good company and those extraordinary pleasures of the flesh.
Most importantly it comes completely guilt-free. The ‘I must be working’ side of my brain is appeased because, technically, I am still ‘working’. I am not very good at awarding myself downtime – I am a workaholic – I have big dreams and ambitions which require big commitment and dedication, but that comes with a price. Over the years I have learnt that it is important for me to try and install an off switch somewhere. The problem being, just taking myself on a holiday, or having dinner with friends doesn’t make my brain switch off – it’s constantly running in the background, constantly working.
In its own unconventional way, being Lottie is a complete nervous system reset for me.
And that’s probably why I’ve become quite fiercely protective of my Lottie time. It would be easy to dismiss it as an indulgent luxury, something that should take a back seat when life gets busy – but I’ve learnt not to. Lottie is not separate from me, she is an extremely important part of me.
That time as Lottie gives space to parts of me that otherwise would not get much room to breathe. So I protect it. Not because I need to escape from my life, quite the opposite in fact, but because I’ve realised I’m better at everything else when I don’t allow that side of me to disappear underneath responsibilities.
My day-to-day life is extraordinarily physical, practical and responsibility-heavy. I’m constantly making decisions. Horses (and their owners) don’t care whether I’m tired, whether it’s raining or minus 12, they still need me. They still expect my best 24/7, 365.
Lottie gives me access to the opposite side of myself, softness, intimacy, curiosity. Beautiful surroundings. Anticipation, intriguing conversations, being looked after a little. Femininity and spontaneity – the freedom to get lost in a moment, and purely, to feel like a woman.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve never liked encounters to feel transactional. My everyday life already contains enough schedules, appointments and things to accomplish.
When I’m with someone, I want to be with them.
I like conversations that wander completely off course. I like discovering shared interests and learning about new things – about you. I like dinner taking longer than expected as neither of us noticed the time. I like laughing. I like the delicious moment when two people become comfortable enough to simply enjoy one another. And I adore what happens when that curiosity becomes more personal; exploring each other, pushing a few boundaries, expanding horizons and discovering where the evening takes us.
Of course there is the glamour and anticipation, I adore both. Part of the experience for me is deciding what I’m going to wear, what lingerie to select and wondering if my suitor will notice the little details I’ve chosen especially for the evening. Every little detail is carefully selected, but carefully selected to look like it wasn’t. It’s something of a recurring theme with me, subtle subtext, hidden meanings and little details waiting to be noticed.
But the dress is only the wrapping.
What I really treasure is connection.
As with all fairytales, Cinderella eventually has to return to the stables, to real life, to her commitments.
The heels will come off, the alarm will once again go off at an unsocial hour, somebody will have almost certainly redecorated their bedroom, pulled fencing down or lost a shoe, and one of the oversized toddlers will undoubtedly have created some form of new problem that will need firefighting.
But I return to all of it slightly different from the woman who left.
I’ve met someone interesting, I’ve embraced unspeakable pleasures, I’ve laughed, I’ve dressed beautifully. I’ve stepped outside the relentlessly practical little world I inhabit for most of my life and spent time in beautiful company just simply enjoying being a woman.
And this is the part people probably would never expect:
Lottie doesn’t take me away from my real life that I cherish. She sends me back to it refreshed, rejuvenated, with a little more wonder and magic.