Alan Catlin

The European Tour

“She was the type of woman who would
have brought tears to the eyes of John Ruskin”

Maurice Dekobra

Her idea for a gap year was
to save all the tips she made
working as a cocktail waitress in 
an upscale pub and from some soft
core hooking on the side. Soft core
hooking, to her, meant causal tricking 
without a pimp, casual hints dropped,
beverage napkin dates, cell phone
numbers exchanged. “I like the older
guys.  They have more money, 
are more than likely married, 
and don’t ask questions and, man,
they expect the same. I don’t do 
perverted. Not for money anyway.”
Was planning on doing the European
tour, on her back, first hand, in depth
research for a Baedeker’s Guide
to Getting Laid, she was going to 
call, Do it on the Rails: Getting 
the Most from Your Euro Pass
and Have Fun Doing It. Something
like that, anyway. If that didn’t work
out, her back up plan was a Sociological
study on the sexual habits of the horny
European Male: You Don’t Need
a Translator to Have Good Sex.
Sociology wasn’t her major, and she
couldn’t write worth shit, but that
was something she’d worry about after
the research was finished, and recorded
in a diary she’d lose somewhere between
Buda and Pest. Thought protection during 
intercourse was “for wimps, was like playing 
Russian Roulette with an empty gun,” 
when it was more like playing with one 
chamber empty, high stakes stud poker 
with someone else’s money, drawing a card 
for an inside straight.