Page 2 of Lady and the Hitman

I was the voice of something bigger than myself—an institution of dissent.

It was in my blood.

My mother had marched on Washington in ‘93, pregnant with me and holding a cardboard sign that readMy Body, My Baby, My Choice. She raised me on stories of Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis the way some girls were raised on fairy tales. My grandmother had run underground abortion networks in the Deep South during the seventies—helping women cross state lines, sleep in safehouses, wake up whole.

I’d grown up in kitchens that doubled as war rooms. Surrounded by women who wore protest pins like pearls and knew how to swing a frying pan and a ballot box in the same breath. Sunday dinners were strategy sessions. Our family heirlooms were court transcripts, laminatedprotest photos, and a scar on my aunt’s cheek from a cop’s baton at the WTO riots in 1999.

So yes—I was proud.

I came from fire. From women who didn’t ask for permission. Who built their identities on resistance, and passed that legacy down to me not just in words, but in the bones of who I was.

And three nights ago, I wrote that letter.

Not to my editor. Not to the network.

To Alpha Mail.

I hadn’t been drunk.

I hadn’t been depressed.

I’d just … had enough.

Enough of the scrawny men with soft hands and softer egos. The podcast bros who wore tote bags with feminist slogans and flinched at the idea of dominance. The dates who were too respectful, too gentle, like they were afraid of breaking me.

I didn’t want to be coddled. I didn’t want to be agreed with.

I wanted to be handled.

Just once.

It wasn’t even supposed to be real.

The service was a rumor passed between women like a guilty secret. No website. No app. No profiles to scroll through, no glossy photos of muscles or bios that said “sapiosexual.” Just a whispered email address, shared after two martinis and a glance over the shoulder.

“Type out your darkest fantasy,” my friend Mina Lee had said, cheeks flushed, voice low. “Be specific. One night only. They send someone to your door.”

I’d laughed. Thought it was a joke. Then I’d looked at her—really looked—and seen the shift in her eyes.

She hadn’t been joking.

She’d been remembering.

I’d narrowed my eyes and lowered my voice. “Wait. You actually?—?”

Mina had taken a slow sip of her drink and given me that infuriating half-smile she always wore when she had the upper hand. “I’m not giving you details,” she’d said. “That’s kind of the point. But yeah. I did it.”

“And it’s … what? Safe?” I’d asked. “Sanctioned fantasy fulfillment?”

“Anonymity is sacred,” she’d said without hesitation. “There are rules. You write your request. They pick your guy. No names are shared, no numbers, no follow-up. The only name they ever call you is Lady.”

I’d blinked. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” she’d said.

“And the guy doesn’t get your real name?”

“Never,” she’d said, firm. “That’s the whole appeal. It’s not about who you are—it’s about what you crave.”