Thirty-Nine

CORA

When I was a freshman at Harvard, I took a graduate level politics course called the Mathematics of Politics. Honestly, when I enrolled, neither math nor politics were important to me, and I definitely had no interest in taking courses with policy wonks (which is a delicious irony because I let a policy wonk lick my asshole in an alley seven years later). Still, my course advisor recommended it, and college-age Cora was very much in her validation-only-comes-from-my-elders’-approval phase. But by the end of the semester, it was life changing.

It works like this.

In the United States, an enormous part of politics is math. Fifty states. Four-hundred thirty-five congressional districts. One hundred seventy million eligible voters. Sixty-six percent voter turnout. All these numbers play a role in predicting political outcomes.

But politics has always been more intricate than a pure numbers game. Behind every number is a person. Every vote is the result of a complex web of decisions and influences like weather forecasts on election day and absentee ballots living under piles of utility bills in tens of millions of households across the country. It’s finicky. It’s terrifying. To top it off, all of us—the people behind those votes—are irrational actors. We’re human.

We’re subject to our whims, at the mercy of a tangled intersection of life, fatality, money, sex, companionship, and a futile but necessary search for meaning. We’re agents of chaos. Throughout every trial, I’ve always believed this chaos is beautiful.

It makes the math complicated, however, and the mathematics of politics would have never predicted that a congressional candidate could confess to being in a relationship with a sex worker—and incite unprecedented admiration.

Over the next few days, one thing becomes abundantly clear: DC doesn’t need Everett to apologize for loving me.

DC’s congressional primary has never been interesting to anyone outside the District. For decades, most of our eligible voting pool didn’t even bother voting. Now, the primary is a trending news topic across the country. Everett’s social media accounts balloon. News outlets contact him for interviews. Reporters wait outside his house—again.

Pundits pontificate and think pieces about sex work litter the internet. Felix appears on various 24N shows and drones about the psychology of sex work. He chastises the ways “we” as a society “don’t understand what these women endure.” He plugs his book. He pimps his research.

He makes me sick.

He stayed silent on the allegations of my so-called blackmail beyond a statement that read, I am not interested in getting caught in the crossfires of political muckraking, and I wish Cora Flores the best. I know it’s a lie. He and I—and most people with a mind for marketing—know that getting caught in the crossfires of political muckraking is the best thing Felix could have done for his burgeoning media career.

All I can do is ignore him and focus on the positive. Since Everett’s livestream, I’ve received more support for camming (and offers for threesomes) than I had in three years in the business. Women reach out to me and share their stories. They praise me for maintaining a healthy relationship while doing sex work. They ask me how to stay safe. They share their fears. Their dreams. I think about Valeria, Essie, and me, young and new to the business, sitting at a table in Tryst and feeling like the weight of the world was dissipating into glitter because we had finally found sisterhood in each other. I answer every message— every single one.

Everett recommends we keep a low profile while the dust settles, so we hunker down in the Halcyon with our friends. Essie does analytics on social media topics, Lander responds to news outlets, Valeria replies to comments on Everett’s social media, and Dalton goes on beer and takeout runs.

Warren calls. Everett ignores him. Beverly calls. Everett ignores her too. Beverly calls me , and I refuse to ignore a woman doing her job, so I convince Everett to take her call. She reminds us that Everett is hosting a dinner with his most important donors the week before the election.

And we remember: He still has an election to win.

The night before the dinner, I ride Everett on my living room floor. It’s messy—the kind of sex where we’re both damp with sweat by the end. He lays underneath me, clutching me, gritting into my ear, You’ll always fuck me like the whore you are, won’t you, princess? I tell him I will. My fingers find his asshole, plunge inside, and make him groan while he leaves his load deep in my pussy.

He presses his forehead against mine and whispers, I don’t understand how it’s possible for anyone to be so fucking pretty. He tells me he loves me. I say it back, kissing him in between, over and over again. I lose count, but the words don’t lose their meaning.

I love you, I love you, I love you, Ev.