High-end does not mean champagne.

It does not mean Christian Louboutins.

I learned that lesson from one of my favorite San Francisco clients.

He had brought two companies to the public markets and, the first time we met, looked like an absolute dreamboat in Lululemon joggers and a beanie.

I, meanwhile, arrived in what I had apparently decided was the official high-end escort uniform: very expensive stilettos.

Eventually he looked at me and told me to calm down with my attire.

“What the hell is wrong with my attire?”

“Why are you wearing Christian Louboutins? I know you hate them.”

I explained the obvious.

They're practically a staple in the escort wardrobe. Everyone wears them.

Then I looked at him.

Two IPOs.

Joggers.

Beanie.

Absolutely no need to prove anything to anybody.

He was already the coolest person in the room.

And suddenly I realized I looked stupid trying to impress a man who was already impressed with me.

I never wore them again.

High-end isn't conspicuous. High-end is fluent.

One of the first things I would tell a woman who is new to escorting is this:

Do not be embarrassed because you aren't charging an extraordinary rate in your first year.

That's normal.

We paid our dues.

Stay in one place long enough to become good.

Then stay longer.

Do the same boring thing over and over again.

Take notes.

Listen.

Actually listen.

Rarely is the most financially successful woman in this business simply the prettiest woman in the room.

People remember how you made them feel.

You also won't adore every client instantly when you're new.

That part is a learned skill.

Go deeper.

Find something about the person in front of you that you genuinely like.

Maybe he's funny. Maybe he's brilliant at his work. Maybe he's an exceptional father. Maybe his enthusiasm for some impossibly boring subject is so sincere that you end up loving the way he explains it.

Find the true thing.

Because people can tell when you're being fake.

Four hours is a very long time to perform interest badly.

The easiest new clients can complete a booking in fewer than two emails.

Give me what I need upfront.

• Your name.
• Requested date and general plans.
• The identification required for screening.
• Your LinkedIn or professional information when applicable.
• One or two established provider references who know to expect my email.

LinkedIn isn't there merely for my benefit.

It's arguably there for yours.

If you work in private equity, I'd rather know that beforehand so I can brush up on the language of your world instead of staring at you blankly during dinner.

Screening answers one question:

Can we responsibly meet?

Compatibility answers another:

Do I think we're going to enjoy each other?

Those are not the same question.

At this stage of my career, I care about both.

If this is your first time meeting an escort, please do not construct a supernatural woman in your imagination before she arrives.

I'm a woman.

I'm very much human.

I'm probably nervous too.

Only one of us is allowed to be nervous at the same time, so unfortunately you'll need to calm down.

Drop the expectations.

Or at least reduce them.

I cannot change your life.

That's not my job.

I cannot take you away from your wife.

I know that's occasionally a fun fantasy.

Reality is considerably less cinematic.

What I can offer is a place in your life where you can relax, talk, disappear for a while, and trust that vulnerability won't be met with judgment.

Believe me.

You are unlikely to surprise me.

And here's the part people sometimes forget:

I'm having fun too.

Sacramento is nothing like the Bay.

Prepare to relax.

Things move more slowly here.

San Francisco trained me to believe I needed to be training a language model, signing my name “Founder,” and knowing the latest AI startup news before breakfast.

My clients built much of the technology I use.

There is something uniquely humiliating about producing mediocre work in front of the people who built the tools you're using to produce it.

I've had San Francisco clients find six mistakes on a landing page I'd convinced myself was finished.

I've been called mediocre there and somehow understood it as useful feedback.

Then I came back to Sacramento.

Suddenly my perfectly respectable investment strategy—good old-fashioned real estate—was interesting again.

Nobody asked about my Series A.

I could leave the house without brushing my hair and somehow feel like a superstar.

It was peaceful.

Sacramento has excellent food.

It even has Michelin-starred restaurants.

Thankfully, it has not fully adopted San Francisco's enthusiasm for holding you hostage through what feels like sixteen courses.

Cough. Atelier Crenn.

At some point I would like to talk to my date.

Sacramento is very good at leaving room for the person you came with.

Every Fourth of July reminds me why I'm happy to be here.

Clear skies.

Actual fireworks.

Hot summer nights.

And—this is important—not needing Patagonia in July.

Good luck to the fog.

San Francisco has many advantages.

Reliably seeing the fireworks you're supposedly celebrating is not always among them.

Capacity can look like danger when somebody isn't accustomed to it.

Even when I omitted escorting from the equation, my social fluency could scare the hell out of the men I dated.

In my professional life, clients assume I understand rooms.

After a few drinks, some actively enjoy it.

I've heard:

“Go talk to those two guys at the bar. Turn them on. Come back and pretend you're meeting me for the first time.”

Or:

“Katherine, my wife is coming. I can't wait for you to meet her.”

Or the wonderfully specific:

“Half the board is at this hotel. Don't leave the room while I'm in meetings. Play Jenga or something.”

They know I have a handle on myself.

After ten years, that's assumed.

Traditional dating was different.

I could be at a social event, notice somebody clearly wanted to talk, walk over to say hello, and suddenly the man I was dating was grabbing my arm asking me to sit down because he thought I might embarrass him.

I'm thinking:

We're at a social event. Let's socialize. Come with me. We may leave knowing two wonderful people we didn't know fifteen minutes ago.

He's thinking:

Why is my girlfriend talking to strangers?

To me, that's not flirting.

That's social expansion.

And eventually I realized I cannot prove loyalty by becoming less socially capable.

I can choose somebody.

I can be faithful.

I can reassure him.

What I cannot sustainably do is make my world smaller so that my ability to navigate it feels less threatening.

It's difficult to feel deeply desired by somebody who also seems frightened of the person they're desiring.

Eventually I began missing the allegedly unconventional world I'd left.

The one where nobody ever asked me to become less interesting so he could feel safer.

There's another misconception hidden inside searches like “escorts near me.”

That the goal is simply to locate the closest available woman.

Some women in this industry are extraordinary.

The best escort I've personally known is Gisele Lenor.

She's Houston-based, stunning, kind, disciplined, hilarious and seemingly incapable of having an off day.

Rain or shine, she's on her game.

The first time I met her, she gave me a Dolce & Gabbana coat because it was too small on her extremely toned arms.

Of course she did.

She's also one of the few women from the industry who continued checking on me during my hiatus.

“Katherine, I know you're okay. But come back, okay? We miss you.”

God, I missed her too.

I happily send favorite clients her way because giving somebody a 10/10 recommendation only makes me look smarter in the end.

That's another thing people outside escorting sometimes misunderstand.

The best relationships in this industry aren't necessarily competitive.

There are women I admire enormously.

There are clients I adore.

There are people worth crossing the country to see.

Once you've been here long enough, the world becomes surprisingly small.

I understand why people search “Sac escort.”

I understand why they search “Sacramento escort.”

And I certainly understand why so many people type “escorts near me” into Google.

Location matters.

It simply isn't what creates the experience people return for.

Compatibility does.

Memory does.

Presence does.

Discretion does.

Social fluency does.

Genuine interest does.

Enough financial breathing room that neither person spends the evening staring at the clock does.

And eventually the strange accumulation of tiny details does.

That's what turns:

Hi, it's Jim. We met once several years ago...

into:

Jim. I know. How are the grandkids?

I left escorting because I believed I wanted a normal life.

Sacramento gave me the chance to try one.

I dated.

I stayed home.

I built passive income.

I imagined marriage.

I relaxed.

And relaxation was wonderful.

For a while.

Then I remembered something about myself.

I'd spent more than a decade becoming extremely good at a very unusual job.

I didn't leave before building a legacy.

But I also didn't leave the right way.

I disappeared.

Now I'd like to get reacquainted with the men and women who sharpened me into the person I became.

The people who remembered that capacity wasn't danger.

The people who looked at everything I knew how to do and said:

Good. Do more.

So here I am.

If you arrived by searching “escorts near me,” Google did its part.

Whether we're actually right for each other is the more interesting question.

—Katherine Taylor