It's a long winding road for a single mom in-home care giver to single mom/escort model/bodybuilder. But for Terah, it's been worth it to take the road rarely traveled. It all started about four years ago, as she recalls.

"Every two weeks my daughter and I would go to Shari's, and that was our big outing . . . And I was tapping my fingers on the table, thinking, 'there has got to be more to life,' when this bodybuilder walked by. And I went, 'that's it!' So I joined a gym . . . dropped the weight real quick." Terah remembers that she was feeling fat at the time, didn't have any real focus or direction and her daily lament was, "I've got to do something to change my life."

At first the change was physical only. "I went from 168 pounds to 110 pounds in about three and half months," she recalls. "Most people lose weight because they just stop eating. Very wrong. Now I eat four to six meals a day because I have a body that's growing." Terah now weighs close to 160, about the same weight she was at back in the old Shari's days. But the difference is a body that's packed with lean muscle at about 15% body fat. The change over the last four years has been so profound that she has begun entering bodybuilding competitions at the novice level.

Her new job as a sex worker began shortly after that fateful day in Shari's. "I was doing in-home health care with older people . . . I just love older people, they're so non-judgmental, plus, you never have to worry about leaving your purse around. But there's just no money in it," she said. Then, one night, shortly after she bought her membership to the gym, "I was watching HBO's Real Sex, and there was this

lady being interviewed who said she made $400 a night doing masturbation shows, working behind the glass. And I said, 'That's it!.' So I drove by this place (adult store) and there was this lady who showed me the price list, and then [explained] how much you have to give to the house. And I thought, 'You're kidding me! There's no way I'm going to do that for that amount of money.' So, as I'm walking out the door, I pick up a copy of Exotic, and I'm thumbing through it, and I went, 'Wow! I'm going to be an escort.'"

Terah explained that when she first started out with the agency, she was put at the bottom of the list, and if they absolutely need you, then

Meanwhile, back to bodybuilding--her new found passion. Terah hooked up with Noel Fuller--a trainer at Jungle Gym. "He was married to Nikki Fuller," Terah qualified her choice, "and he took her to being one of the best [female bodybuilders]. So, I thought, 'if he can do it for her, then . . .'"

Terah works out four days on and one day off, gearing up for her next competition in April. She benches 155 and squats 275. But bodybuilding is not about stacking weights on the bar and going for it, like power lifting. She uses a lot of machines, working different parts of her body each day. Legs are the shortest and most grueling workout. "It takes

they call. But it didn't take long to prove herself to be reliable and trustworthy. Then things got kinky. The police started harassing the agency owner. So, the owner decided to go down there in person and find out exactly who was working illegally--engaging in prostitution--according to the vice cops. A detective told the agency owner that Terah was working illegally. The owner told Terah.

"I was really mad," Terah said. "Because I've never done any kind of prostitution . . . I'm thinking, 'so if I'm working illegally, why didn't they just come and bust me.' So I left [that agency] and went to work for her rival." And not too long after that, Terah decided she could work just fine on her own without the umbrella of an agency.

a half hour after a leg workout for me to be able to just use the pedals in my car." Intense. Gratifying. Results. These are words she uses to describe her bodybuilding regime.

About three months before her competition, she will start doing two-a-day cardio workouts. The goal is to bring her body fat down to 3%, or, about that of a track and field athlete or some pro basketball players. But definitely unheard of for the average man or woman. "I have about three times the muscle mass of the average woman," Terah chimes,"so guess what? That means I get to eat about three times as much." She will drop down from her current 160 lbs/15% body fat to about 145 lbs and anything under 5% body fat to compete in the women's heavyweight pision--over 135 lbs.