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Our student poverty has reached a new level: we bake our own bread.

“Shane, shouldn’t you get the bread out of the oven?” Louise asked.

“Good point,” I said, checking my watch. “It’s basically due.”

“Ha!” Louise yelled. “It’s in the oven and it’s Jew!”

“Well, they are full of dough,” Tim said.

Didn’t I just mention our lack of dough? Touchy subject, Tim, touchy subject. Anyway, Louise has been watching a lot of Secret Diary of a Call Girl lately. The over-anal(ytical) Tim inevitably asked us all, “What’s your price?”, postulating that everyone has one. And the more I think of it, the truer this point seems, particularly for students.

Louise was first up. For a good Saudi Prince, she decided $10k was reasonable – “And their jizz would arguably be worth that again on the black market.” What’s with the racism tonight?

How about Tim? For someone he knew, felt comfortable with and liked, he reckons he’d go down to $1,000, as long as there was no emotional attachment. “At the end of the day I’d rather someone else’s dick got covered in my shit than mine was covered in someone else’s. And if you used enough lube you wouldn’t feel shit.”

I guess that makes it my turn.

Relationships definitely come into it. Let me be honest: if I weren’t in such a good relationship, my price would be pretty low. In fact, if there were a market for my services, I’d almost certainly give being a rent boy a shot. But as it is, my price is damn near infinite, and besides, I don’t imagine the Dunedin market is too huge. As clichéd as it is, I could become homeless and still not revert to prostitution: the perfect partner makes money meaningless. But that’s just me. For others it can be a very different story, and that’s cool too. I just wonder how difficult it is to date or love someone who sells themselves. Naturally, I can understand that it’s a legitimate income and a very reasonable way to get through life if people are willing to pay and play safe: there’s no problem in using it to support yourself and/or your family. But it MUST be hard on a lot of the partners.

Anyway, word-count’s up. Hopefully I’m off for a shag.