Marie works the streets. She’s an independent prostitute, with some regulars who come to her Strasbourg apartment. Adrien, her 17-year-old son, has been expelled from his chef’s course at college for spicing up a mousse with hash. He loves cooking but can’t get into another college because of his disciplinary record. Dragged by Marie to a career interview, he’s offered only security work. Then a regular Wednesday client tells Marie about the École Perandier, a top-notch fee-paying chef school. A trans lawyer she knows – she’s politically active, campaigning for law changes for sex workers – coaches sullen and pessimistic Adrien, and he passes the interview. Marie then has two months to find 5000 euro.
She makes a deal with Adrien – he has to get a job. Delivering pizzas, anything. But she’s 40-something, undercut by ‘slaves’ – desperate pimped women working out of vans – and she won’t be bargained down from 35 euro for a blowjob, 60 for a position. It’s soon clear that she can’t get the money. She tries to get a bank loan, and is upfront about her work, but she just doesn’t earn enough to pay it back within their timescales. She takes work at a brothel a short drive across the German border, and still can’t earn the school fees. And then fate throws temptation her way.
