The police have arrested a Penacook woman who advertises herself online as an "Amazing Goddess" and charged her with prostitution. According to the police, Suzan Belanger, 38, was running a prostitution business called Amazing Alternatives from 324 Village St. in downtown Penacook.

Belanger said yesterday she intends to fight the charge. While she admits she received money after sex with clients, she said that the money was a donation and that the sex was not for physical gratification.

Belanger said she was called to sexual healing, which she said involves oral sex and intercourse, by God and fairies.

"I did this as a healer, not a prostitute," Belanger said. She hopes to take her fight beyond Concord District Court, where she is to be arraigned June 27. Belanger has a call into Oprah. "I plan to take this sky high," she said, "and show them how godly God can be."

Belanger has been a healer, she said, since January, and she initially advertised herself on the website Craigslist.com under erotic services. She opened her shop in Penacook in mid-March. She said God reassured her that her business was legal.

"He said, 'Suzan, you can be a rainbow in the dark. You can elevate this dark and dirty hole and make it sacred and healing.'"

In her Penacook shop, which is near her home, Belanger said she offers services as a certified Reiki healer, cosmologist, herbalist and sexual therapist. She said she has one ministry degree and is studying for her doctorate in divinity. The money she collected from clients was for her education, she said.

According to a website promoting her business, Belanger is one of many "goddesses" and "gods"available across the country who work as hypnotherapists, yoga teachers and "sexual surrogates."

On Belanger's page, which includes photographs of her in lingerie and, in one case, holding a likeness of a fairy, there is no explicit offer of sex. Belanger, instead, promotes the "many alternative healing modalities under (her) gold Venus belt." Those include her skills as a sorceress and "all around loving caring soul."

She writes on her website that her most amazing feature is not her style, grace or beauty, but her mind. She believes she was raised by fairies and says her magical energy can be a "channel of heaven right here on earth."

She also advertises her skillful touch. "My fingers will glide upon your flesh," she writes. "Like playing heavens (sic) golden harp."

The police issued a press release saying Belanger had been arrested, but they have not been available for further comment. Belanger said she was arrested Friday afternoon after a man named Mike arrived for his 2 p.m. appointment. (She said she does not take her clients' last names, because they don't want their wives to know they are seeing her.) Belanger said Mike "threw"$200 at her before they had begun their session and then said he needed to get his cell phone from his car.

As he was leaving, the police came in, Belanger said, and told her she was being charged with prostitution. Belanger said she never touched Mike. In New Hampshire, someone can be charged with prostitution simply for agreeing to engage in sexual contact for money. Sexual contact, as defined by state law, is sex for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification.

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By ANNMARIE TIMMINS

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