""I was really surprised at how normal most of the people who called me are," says..."

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"I was really surprised at how normal most of the people who called me are," says Lorenzana, who maintains relationships with two dozen regular customers. "My clients are usually in their mid-40s. Sometimes married. It's almost like they just want a girlfriend for a while."

But like her mother — with whom she often shot up with — Lorenzana is now seriously attached to meth, spending at least $400 a week to maintain an addiction that has destroyed most of the veins in her arms. ("My arms are gone. I used them up a long time ago.")

She eventually married David, her mother's former boyfriend, 23 years her senior and still living with his parents.

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Steve Duin: Ashly Lorenzana is surviving, suffering, on her own terms | OregonLive.com

Ashly is reading from her self-published memoir, "Sex, Drugs, and Being an Escort" at the April 7 Red Umbrella Diaries.