Lady of the House
“so, boys, you looking for a good time, eh? huh?” she asked,
prodding my ribs with her elbow. “my girl’s best in the block, I promise.”
“we’ll see,” my friend muttered, keeping his hands crossed together.
“we’re just looking,” he added.
“oh, you see, my girl’s best. you see. want a drink?”
“no, thank you,” he said, shaking his head.
“what you’ve got? and how much does it cost?” I asked.
“vodka? with some sprite? it’s free.”
“okay, sure. are you having one, too?”
“yes, yes,” she nodded and leaped to her feet.
she was in her mid-sixties yet walked with the elegance
of a young stripper. she brought two plastic cups to the table
and poured the vodka sprite in front of me. same bottle for both cups.
either she had high tolerance to tainted booze or it was real vodka.
well vodka but I didn’t care. she made it strong, just how I like my cocktails.
we drank, and lit cigarettes.
“ah, here’s Natasha,” she exclaimed when a door creaked.
a hunched olive-skinned man that couldn’t have been older than 18
clambered to the exit, avoiding our gazes, followed by a short, thin,
and super busty tanned girl of perhaps twenty years of age
wearing silver booty shorts and a silver sports bra.
her black platform heels looked more like a medieval torture device than shoes.
“so, what you think?” the old woman asked.
“okay, I’ll go in,” my friend said with a hungry glisten in his eyes.
“twenty for half an hour. thirty if you want anal. wear condom.”
“okay,” he said and paid twenty. the dumb cheapskate.
I leaned back on the wooden chair and had a good gulp
of the drink just to numb my ass enough so I’d be comfortable.
I exhaled a plume of blue smoke. “so, are you next?”
“no,” I shook my head. “I’m just accompanying him; he’s the horny one.”
“you no horny? you no want to fuck?”
“I do all right.” “okay, okay. what do you do?”
“I drink. occasionally, I write, too.”
“ah, what you write?”
“life in the gutter. booze, drugs, whores, dancers, bums.”
“uh-hum,” she nodded, and kept quiet.
I might have seen my fair share of the gutter, slept there a time or two,
but she had a lifetime of experiences. I wanted to prod her mind,
get some valuable answers to questions that hadn’t yet formed
in my mind but I was still too sober. I drank and moved around in the chair,
trying to get rid of the annoying pain in my tailbone.
“you write from experience?” she asked.
“yes, some,” I nodded. “you’ve done this a long time?”
“all my life, yes,” she said, and her lips twitched into a smirk
as her accent vanished. “came down to the city when I turned fifteen,
looking to escape the village I grew up in. thought I’d make something of myself,
you know? well, I was penniless and jobless, and had quit school when I was twelve.
ended up in a brothel, not unlike this one. the money was decent,
the woman running the place was kind, and most men were kind.
did this for almost thirty-five years. eventually, I decided I was too old to keep doing it.
running a brothel made more sense than trying to find another job;
what would I put on my resume, after all?” she chuckled,
then paused just long enough to refill our empty cups and light another cigarette.
“it’s not an easy life but it pays the bills and keeps me out of sleeping next to dumpsters.
gotta admit, never saw anyone like you, though.”
“what do you mean?” I asked with a groan.
“well, your friend looks rich, and desperate. you…I can’t read you.
you’re dressed all fine, you have manners, but you drink faster than most alcoholics
I’ve met and obviously have no intention of paying for sex.”
“well, I have outdrunk bums,” I said, raised the cup, and chugged it. “still free?”
“yes,” she rolled her eyes and filled my cup, half half.
“I was impressed with how you questioned the quality of the vodka.”
“not my first time in a whorehouse, I know what they usually serve to customers.”
“it’s what you would have gotten, too, if you hadn’t shown you had smarts.”
“figured. so, never thought of getting out of this?”
“thought of? many fucking times. never tried it.”
“you are offering a service to the world. making sure some weird guys get
to blow a nut here instead of going on a rampage out there.”
by the time my drink was drained, the door creaked. my friend ambled out of the room,
his face glowing and with a moronic grin twitching his mouth.
“you done?” I asked. “yes. shall we go?”
“how about a drink here?”
“um, no, I…let’s go to a bar, huh?”
“sure,” I succumbed, mostly because I was living at his place.
“nice to meet you,” I said to the old woman.
the prostitute had sat on a chair on the other side of the room, looking at her phone.
my friend had certainly not rocked her world;
I wondered if anyone had while she’d been working there.
“you, too,” the old woman said. “do come by again, if you want a drink.”
“sure thing,” I said.
I ordered a gin and tonic at the crowded bar;
my friend got a glass of Bailey’s on the rocks—basically, spiked milk.
as we sat at our table on the sidewalk, next to the flood of people
walking up and down the street next to the edge of the sea, I saw no one
as inspiring as that old woman that had been
in the prostitution business since she was fifteen.
all I could see were dull people hoping that a few drinks on an island
would spike up their meaningless existences.
I drank up, ordered another.
Horror Sleaze Trash 