Part 5

You Will Hear From Me


Valentine's Day is the worst day of the year for anyone who is single. It's cruel torture, and it's difficult to avoid the commercials on TV, the ads on every window, the jewelry, the flowers, the chocolates, etc. The time was coming close and it was getting harder to protect myself from the onslaught.
But I was feeling better about it. Jenny was single again, and she had basically thrown herself at me. I was proud of myself for not taking advantage of her while she was drunk, and I was certain she would appreciate me for that.
We had a mutual friend who was hosting a party and I knew she would be there. I had assumed I would skip the party until a few nights before when Jenny and I spoke. Now I couldn't wait for it. Why I hadn't called her since then is somewhat beyond me. Maybe it was out of fear, or perhaps I hoped she would call me. But whatever the reason I waited until the party and looked forward to seeing her again. I pictured her jumping into my arms the way Nina had. She would scream so loud with joy the room would stop, the way it had in Mexico, only this time it would be real emotions, real love, not paid for.
It didn't work out quite the way I had pictured it. We found each other through the crowd of people who were all talking to one person and looking at another. But our eyes were fixed solely on each other. A wide smile crossed her lips as soon as she saw me. There was a wickedness to that smile, a slant to it I always enjoyed, like there was a private joke between us. I took in a deep breath.
“Hi,” we both said almost simultaneously.
I thought quickly about what to say. We both shuffled a bit, thinking.
BT provided the break, but not in the way I had hoped. “There's my ho!” he proclaimed as he broke out of the crowd, grabbed Jenny, and kissed her deeply. I was ready to pounce until I saw she wasn't pushing him away. She embraced him and kissed him passionately. I watched, stunned.
At last she pulled away laughing. “BT, I think you know Jake.”
He threw his hand out to me proudly. “Yeah! What up, bro?”
I took a moment. I looked over at Jenny. She was smiling obliviously. I offered my hand and he shook it firmly. “So you're, uh...” I began.
“He came over after you left the other night,” Jenny said.
“She was out like a light,” he said, smiling slyly. “But I woke her up.” He nudged her, she nudged back, trying to suppress a smile. “Woke her up and made up! Whoo! And there ain't nothin' like makin' up that way!” He grasped her and rocked her. She pushed at him, but he held on, and she relented laughing.
“Yeah, well...” I said.
“I'm glad we can be friends,” Jenny said to me. I tried to read her face. There wasn't so much as a hint of irony in it. I wondered if she was hiding something, or was truly that emotionally blind.
“Yeah,” her reunited boyfriend said, “you two should be friends. Too much history. Right, bro. I'm out.” He held up his hand to give me five.
“Aight!” Jenny called to him.
I looked at Jenny. 'Aight?' That wasn't something she would be caught saying if her life depended on it. BT's hand was still up, waiting for mine. Still staring at Jenny, I held out my hand and he slapped it, grasped it, shook it like we were the best of friends, then stumbled away.
My eyes remained on Jenny. I knew her better than anyone in the room. “Aight?” I asked.
She knew what I was getting at. She squirmed a moment before straightening herself out of her hip hop sideways lean. “It's just something we say. It doesn't mean anything.”
I stared at her knowingly. I hoped my eyes were getting through to her. It was hard to tell. She cleared her throat, patted me on the shoulder and told me I should have a drink. “Just don't get too drunk to drive,” she said as she started to walk away.
“Yeah. Guess there's no room in you and BT's car,” I said. I think she heard me, but she didn't respond.
Later that night I was sitting on the roof of the house surrounded by empty beers. I spotted Jenny jumping into BT's Jaguar. They didn't notice the beer can hit the cement and bounce behind them.
I lay back and looked up at the stars. You can see them moving ever so slightly when you stare long enough. It's the whole universe in its ever moving ballet. Nothing is the way it was the day before, why should our lives?
But I couldn't accept that. I wanted a firm foundation, a place I could say, 'here is my home.' I closed my eyes and tried to make up such a place in my mind.
Instead I saw the face of Nina. I saw her eyes dancing. She was staring at me, trying to find the words. There was something written on her face. Something sad.
I opened my eyes and was back on the roof again, my curiosity peaked. “She's a whore that used you,” I told myself, but I couldn't shake the look on her face from my mind. What happens inside of any person is a mystery whose clues are written in our body language, and the words are merely translators doing the best to express our realities.
I tried to shake her from my mind for the next couple days, but I could only wonder what those eyes were trying to say.
At last Valentine’s day came; the worst day of the year. I was surrounded by advertisements of kisses, the marketing of sex and joy, the “celebrations of love.” I had to escape, and a Tijuana brothel was as good as any place.
I was nervous crossing the border. I felt like every eye was on me, judging me. As if they all knew of my pathetic pilgrimage. At the town square someone played music that matched my mood; the kind of song that plays at the climax of a western, just before the big showdown.
As I crossed over the bridge the sun set over the dying river in the west. A single tire sat half buried, as though the rest of the car had been stolen and it alone was left behind.
The vendors were putting away their wears, watching me as I passed to see if they had one last sale. It still felt more to me like judgment.
I planted myself at one of the bars and watched Nina from across the room as she sat in a booth with one of the men. I tried to ignore that familiar pang of jealousy.
A truck driver kept engaging me in conversation. He had been coming for the past twenty years, and he told me the history of how this place went through generation after generation of girls. I told him I was there to find one person, and when I pointed her out at a table with a bunch of guys, he tried to remember if he had “done” her or not. That was the history for him. Who had he done, and was it with a condom or not.
When Nina was finished she walked toward the women's room. I stood up in front of her near the main door; the exact place we had met. There was no joy in her expression upon recognizing me, nor was there anger or sadness. Her face hung low, red lines coursed through her swollen eyes. She swayed, barely able to stand. Nodding, she said hello.
I said with a shrug. “Hi… Happy Valentine’s day.”
A look crossed her face as if to say, ‘where are my manners?’ and she hugged me. The muscles in her arms were drained of effort.
“It’s good to see you,” I said. Then we released and I continued, “But I’m not coming back.”
She looked at me curiously, a little hurt, and asked why.
I opened my mouth to explain, but I found that now I was the one without words. I removed a Valentine's Day card from my pocket and handed it to her. It had sparkles all over it, like the ones that winked through her make-up. I had written everything I wanted to say in there, about how I had wanted a friend, not a prostitute. How I was curious about her, and wanted to get to know her, but I didn't want to make the long drive simply to be blown off.
There were no words from her. She just sat at the bar, placed the card down, staring at it, and shook her head slowly.
“You’re welcome to call any time,” I said, “or write, or anything.” She didn’t respond, so I continued, “It’s not that I mind visiting you here. I just have to know it’s real. And if you won’t see me, won’t even call me on your day off…”
She continued to look downward toward the card as she said something so low I couldn’t understand, but it was something about Sunday.
“What about Sunday?” I asked. It came out a bit more impatient than I had intended.
She visibly switched gears. She straightened up and looked at me. “You have your life, I have mine, you know? Maybe you shouldn’t come down.”
I realized as she spoke that she had said something about working on Sunday, and something about her father. I asked her, “You worked on Sunday?”
She said, “Yes. I have to work. I worked every day. I’m still gonna work all this week and, fuck, probably all next weekend. You have your life and your world up in California. I have mine, and we all have our own troubles, and, fuck. I no call ‘cause that’s your life, and you no need to have mine come to you, you know?”
“What happened with your father?”
“Diasis, dia, um…” She started pointing at her liver.
“Dialysis?” I asked.
“Yes. He went to hospital. He no recognize me when I come. But machine cost 500 dollar every day. I make 500 dollar on Saturday, and have to come back Sunday to work, to make the bill. But, you no need to be part of all this…”
A waiter came by. She waved him off, and after a moment continued, “What I feel for you, all this,” she pointed at the card, “I thank you so much. No one treat me so nice. You’re so special to me. I have your picture up next to my bed. I see it first thing every morning I wake up. It give me hope. I have you up there with my whole family, and I look at you every day. I think of you every day, but I no call because you have your life. No need my troubles. I no want you to buy me drink, I no want you to know me from here, but I have to work. I have to be here. I have to take as much drinking, as much upstairs as I can. You no have to see me, but you always know I think about you.”
I ordered us two more Red Bulls. She shook her head and her hands aggressively. “No! You get me this!” She pointed at the card. “This more than anyone else ever give me!”
I said, “Now I trust you. I can buy the drinks. I just wanted to know it’s real.”
She looked tentatively relieved and sat down.
It was the most humbling moment of my life. I had seen my troubles as so overwhelming that I couldn’t conquer them. But my life had never reached anything close to the troubles she had on a regular basis.
I tried to shake the overwhelming emotions and to change the subject. “I’ve got another question for you,” I said.
“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head, smiling.
“Oh yeah. What’s one of your most pleasant memories?”
She looked up at the ceiling and thought hard. Then, certain of her answer, she told me about a time she sat in a room surrounded by musicians, friends of her father, and he was playing the guitar. She remembered swaying with the music, enjoying every note. “There was food, too,” she said excitedly. “It was all about music and food.” Her eyes glazed into a memorial stare as she thought back. “When music that good, you feel it. You no just hear it; you feel it vibrate through you. They were all around me, and I felt it.”
She sat transfixed a few moments longer, then she snapped out of it and looked at me. “Thank you for helping me remember that.” I nodded. Then she asked, “What’s yours?”
I told her about a time when there was an eclipse over New York City when I lived there. Greenwich Village fell silent, people walked at half speed, and the shadows of leaves turned into crescents.
“New York?”
“Yes, I used to live there,” I said proudly. There’s something about having lived in New York, you feel like you earned something, and people look at you differently.
“What is New York? You mention this thing to me before but I no understand. What is it? A city? You live there?”
“You don’t know what New York City is?”
She shook her head as though it was no big deal; as though she had asked about a certain exotic food from the middle of the rainforest, and it was no wonder she hadn’t heard of it. It was another humbling moment. These things we take for granted, that we assume are important to the world because they’re important to us, are sometimes not even known to others who have their own lives, their own troubles, and suddenly what we have been so self-aggrandizing about is nothing more than just another city.
“It's not important,” I said. “Have you read the book?”
“Oh yes,” she said excitedly. “I start it. He right about men. I’ve studied men. He right.”
“Well, tell me what you think about his views of women when you get to that, okay?”
“Yeah, I will!” She thought for a moment, then said, “I work here while I have to. But… I think I want to do something else. I know someone might hire me somewhere. I not sure. But I may be gone in a month.”
“That’s great!”
“Yeah,” she said.
The conversation fell silent again. We finished our drinks. She looked down at the card, then up at me regretfully.
She didn’t have to say anything. I could tell what she was thinking. “You have to work, don’t you?”
She looked down at the card again, then back at me. “Fuck, man. I can’t believe this.”
We hopped off the bar stools.
“I won’t say I’m gonna call,” she said. “But you are going to hear from me. Maybe call. Maybe something. But I always think of you.”
It had been a long time since I really trusted anyone. But when I looked into her eyes, I saw truth. “I believe you,” I said.
We hugged. When we released, she took in a breath, looked at me one last moment, then walked away.
The last time I saw her, she was walking to the stairs with a man who looked like a rat. The music she typically danced to, 'Crazy in Love', was playing. “Uh, oh, uh, oh, uh, oh, uh, oh,” it went.
She walked out of sight. Just at that moment the bartender took her empty Red Bull can away. She was truly gone.
I listened to the song a moment. “Got me looking so crazy, I'm not myself lately, I'm foolish, I don't do this. I've been playing myself, baby I don't care, 'cause your love's got the best of me... Your touch got me looking so crazy right now, got me hoping you'll page me right now, your kiss got me hoping you'll save me right now. Looking so crazy in love.”
I finished my drink, then walked into the bright light of day, and into my own future.

The Table of Truth - Chapter One, Part 4

Part 4

Lions & Anacondas


“Love is not about having someone, or the fear of losing them,” Jenny once said. “It’s about what we gain the moment we share ourselves openly with another person. That is the only payoff to be had in any and all relationships. Everything else is just window dressing to mollify the ego.”
She was wise, well educated, had her master’s degree in literature, and loved languages. So why she had left me for a brainless rock and roller I’ll never understand. And it wasn’t just my bitterness speaking. He would send her emails saying “Cum over, baby. Lets fuck. Im so hornie I might hump my couch.” He got high almost every morning and drunk almost every night, but he played a mean guitar and made quite a bit of money from real estate he had inherited, so Jenny fooled herself into believing he was some kind of poet.
I learned all of this when I went to her apartment. She had apparently gained her boyfriend’s love of alcohol, as she wavered at the door, and almost fell into my arms giving me a hug. She then kissed me, and I must confess that I kissed her back. I was willing to fool myself about her every bit as much as she had fooled herself about “BT.”
But now BT had dropped her, and in the haze of drunkenness she was finally seeing through the veil at what an ass he was, and how foolish she had been for falling for his “charms.” I learned a lot about the man I didn’t want to know that night, but she was laying her head on my lap, so I didn’t complain.
At last, during a silence, I was able to ask her the question I wanted answered. “Why did you leave me?” It hadn’t initially been for BT, he came a couple weeks later. I had been devastated more by the not knowing than I had by the loss itself.
“Why did I leave?” she mused, looking up at the ceiling. “Of course you’re going to ask that.”
“I deserve an answer,” I said.
“You and I were always struggling. Whether it was for money, or for power in the relationship.”
“I wasn’t struggling for power,” I told her. “I loved you.”
“You don’t think you were,” she told me. “You always think you have to change the world. You don’t ever let the world change you.”
I looked away from her. That was absurd. How could she say such a thing? I felt her move off my lap. It was just as well. I didn’t have to take such an insult. I…
I heard a familiar sound and looked toward her. She had removed her blouse. With a cool smile, she grasped my hand and placed it over her breast, maneuvering it beneath her bra. I didn’t resist as she kissed me deeply, and we fell gently onto the couch together.
I kissed down her neck and across her nipples, throwing the bra away. I sucked in that beautiful smell of her skin as I caressed her belly with my lips. My hands ran up her legs grasping happily, desperately…
Then everything seemed to stop. I crawled up her body to look in her face. Her eyes were shut. Her mouth opened and closed slightly as her chest heaved up and down. She had fallen asleep. “Jenny?” I whispered. “Jenny.” She began to snore slightly. I tapped her face gently. She turned away, waving me off with her hand.
I sat back for a moment and placed her legs on mine. A silence pervaded the room as I stared at her half naked body. I wanted inside it so badly. “She’ll wake up while you’re humping,” came that voice inside me. “Just take off her pants. She wanted it anyway.”
“I can’t do that. It would be like a rape.”
“Stop being such a pussy! A real man would have his way with her.”
I had known a lot of men who had taken advantage of women while they were drunk. They were the most popular guys in college. Even the women they took advantage of chased after them while rejecting any man who had been respectful. One of my roommates had told me that I can’t be so concerned about a woman’s feelings. “Never ask a woman what she wants; tell her what she wants,” he had said. He was one of the most desired guys on campus.
Now that voice inside me was telling me that I was single because I had refused to step up like a real man and do the aggressive, manly thing. “Girls are to be conquered,” the same roommate had told me, and he proceeded to prove his point by having a new woman in bed with him each week.
“What are you, a lion or a mouse?” the voice inside my head asked.
But as I looked at Jenny’s sleeping form, I didn’t see an object to be conquered. I couldn’t see it, no matter how hard I tried. I saw the girl in her, innocent and fragile. I felt love above all other desires.
I grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and I placed it over her body, covering over her toes all the way up over her breasts, and to her neck. She felt the warmth, turned slightly, and a beautiful smile crossed her face. I pressed my fingers to my lips, touched the same fingers gently to hers, then got up and left the apartment.
Although I hadn’t heard from Nina in a week, I was curious about going to a movie with her, so I returned to Tijuana the next day.
At the border I saw three Amish teenagers returning from their journey into TJ, apparently part of their Rumspringa, a time when an Amish teenager is allowed to get a taste of the outside world before settling down into their community for life. It was an odd sight to see boys and girls in traditional black and white garb, all hanging on to one another as they swayed side to side down the sidewalk. I wondered what kind of adventures they must have had, and whether they would ever truly return to their old lives.
As I passed through the gates this time, I noticed the names on the backs of the security guards’ jackets. ‘Croc’. Someone had told me that the Croc company now owns McDonald’s. With a McDonald’s restaurant on each side of the fence and Croc security guards, it seemed to me that they must own the border. What a strange world we live in.
It was getting close to six, and I wanted to arrive on time, so I began jogging. In the town square, someone shouted, thinking I had stolen something, and one of the vendors, a big guy, ran in front of me, then hopped around in a circle, laughing like an idiot. His friends shouted to him in Spanish, and I began to think that I was about to get mugged. I froze and showed my hands to everyone. He stopped. The shouting ceased, and I continued past the grinning moron and went up across the bridge into downtown.
I reached Chicas at exactly 6 pm. I found her almost immediately, near the back of the bar, one leg up against a post, staring into the glow of the smoky bar. Her silhouette swam in the haze. She was studying the people from her perch. I approached and stood above her.
Nina sensed the shadow on her and slowly craned her neck around to look up at me. Her eyes were bloodshot and worn.
She rose sluggishly and gave me a hug, then sat me down next to her. “Okay, one round of drinks, but then we go to the movie, right?” I said, and ordered from the waiter.
She just looked out at the club, raising her foot against the pillar, as though that was the answer to my question. “I have my own cheering section,” she mused. “Someone who comes all the way down from Long Beach. Fuck, no one ever come back three times for me.”
We got our drinks.
“You never called,” I said.
“I lost it again,” she answered. “You have another card?”
I nodded, wanting to believe her, but pretty sure I didn’t.
“Can I have? I'll definitely keep it this time. Fuck, no one's ever come and seen me four times before. Baby, you're the best."
She was lethargic, in a daze; likely high on something. I wondered if she remembered my name, or if she had ever known it. Had she been playing me for drug money all along?
I didn’t give her a card. "I came down to see a movie with you," I said. She looked at me strangely. I continued, “You told me if I came at 6:00 you’d go see a movie with me.”
A look of panicked recognition crossed her face. She glanced around the crowded room. I asked her if she remembered, and she said, "Yeah. Let me think about it." After considering a moment, she said, "I have to decide if I can trust."
After a long silence I said, "You didn't lose my card, did you."
Without looking at me, she shook her head.
"It's because you're afraid to call," I said.
Still looking at the table, she nodded. The waiter came by and asked if we wanted more drinks. I knew that was the sign of, 'either buy, or clear the table for paying customers.' I looked at Nina. She didn't look back. She had guzzled down her beer absently.
I ordered two more drinks, then said to her, "After this I have enough for either one more round of drinks or a movie. You decide which."
She said okay. Then we sat back silently, listening to the music. Her hand found mine under the table. Her thumb began slowly stroking my thumb, as though it was searching for something, or telling me something.
Then she said suddenly, “Men here, they’re like lions in Africa.”
“Africa?”
She stammered a little, searching for the words, then she raised her other hand above the table and made a hopping gesture across it as two beers were placed in front of us. “It’s like they go for water; bump, bump, bump. And the anaconda’s waiting just under the water, ready to snap them up. Lots of lions come up, and the anaconda always wins. Men are such lions.”
“And you’re the anaconda?” I asked.
Her nose scrunched up, but the rest of her face remained inert. She looked away and shook her head noncommittally, then said something about her father. She threw her head back at me and said, “Yeah, I am kind of like an anaconda. I’m sit back here watching the guys. See the way they prowl around?” Again she made the cartoon gesture of hopping across the table, her hand visually following that of men on the prowl.
“What was that about your father?” I asked.
“My father is an alcoholic,” she said. “I love him. Maybe I not supposed to, but I do. I one time see him in here. He got so mad… seeing me. What I do in here. I said, ‘Hey, what are you doing here? You supposed to fuck Mom, not these chicas!’ I show him that I discover him like he discover me. He say, ‘You’re right. I won’t tell Mom if you won’t.’ So I see him in here sometimes. He say nothing, and I say nothing.”
“Is he a lion?” I asked.
“Fuck, man,” she said, and that closed the topic.
We talked very little after that. She was searching for her thoughts. She absently told me she hadn’t had a day off in several weeks.
“Then it’s time you take a little time off,” I said.
She took another swig and finished her drink. The waiter noticed and hovered above us. I told him to give us a minute, then turned to her.
“The moment of truth has arrived,” I said. “Either I buy another drink and we talk for a few more minutes, or we go see the movie right now.” What I was really laying before her was the choice between our friendship, and me being used as a client; as just another lion.
She looked up and said, “It’s busier than I thought. Hold on a minute, okay? Can you hold my place here? I see a couple guys I need check. They get me drinks, I make a little money, then come back here and we have drinks before you leave. If they no buy me drinks, I come back and we go see movie. Huh?”
That gave me neither answer yet. “You’re definitely coming back here?”
“Yeah.”
Hesitantly, I responded, “Okay. Go get ‘em, Anaconda.”
I watched her as she walked over to the thin man she had hugged the last time I was there. He sat her down and bought her drinks. I thought I should leave, but I sat there and nursed a single beer for a long time while she flirted, talked, then went upstairs with him. A half hour later they returned, then she went back up with him and a second man. I realized what a strange fate my life had come to when I was sitting at a table waiting for a prostitute to get done with a couple guys to go see a movie with her.
She came back down with them and sat between the two men while they bought her drinks to keep her there.
After having waited several hours, I got up and began to leave. She headed for the bathroom, and I waited for her to say goodbye. I looked at the man she had been with and told him I’d only be a minute. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “Whatever, I don’t care.” He clearly didn’t.
When Nina returned I told her I was leaving. “I didn't drive for four hours to be blown off by a whore!” I said cruelly.
She looked back at me shocked and hurt. Her eyes were confused, almost pleading. “You leaving?” she asked pathetically.
“Of course I am! I’ve been waiting for hours! I came here to see a movie with you, and instead you just got me for drinks! I’m not just another lion, and if that’s what you want, you need to find yourself another schmuck!”
Her eyes continued to bobble, as though she was searching for something more to say. “You want to say something?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Fine. Then let’s go back over to the table of truth.” I started to walk that way.
She took two steps, then stopped, the way a dog pulls back on its leash. Her head moved ever so slightly toward the skinny man.
“Fine,” I said, and started to walk away.
“Sunday my day off.” she called, stopping me with her words.
“Look, I’m not coming down here just to be blown off!” I said. “I get blown off enough where I live. You want to see me, you call me! I know you have my number.”
And I walked out the door.

The Table of Truth - Chapter One, Part 3

Part 3

Better Than Sex


I returned to the border this time with a surprise hidden away in my bag. At home, I had decided to take on transcribing jobs again, but before I dove back into my work, I wanted to make one last trip to give something to this woman I had met. I was fascinated by her; she lived a whole kind of life I could never imagine. I wondered what had driven her to this place, who she really was inside. I didn’t even know her real name; nor did I want to. This was an exciting time, and her spirit had pulled me out of the depths I was living in and helped me go back to a normal life. But now I needed to return to that life, and I knew that if I continued to visit, I would be fooling myself into believing this relationship was more than it really was; just a passing fancy for both of us.
Nevertheless, her raw pleasure and infectious smile had pulled me out of the dumps and replaced the lecherous man who wanted nothing but a pussy to fuck with a man who I could be proud of once again. I owed this present to her. I couldn’t wait to give it to her, and to say goodbye.
After crossing the border I noticed again how the walkway split into a second direction. The taxi drivers were already calling me to them, but many of the locals were turning to the right and walking through another gate. Above it I could see the large arch which stood near Nina’s place of work. I headed toward it.
The scent of tacos mixed with the pungent odor of exhaust fumes defined the basis of the smell in Tijuana. I got lost in the senses as I rounded the corner at the McDonald’s and found myself in a town square. Here, numerous vendors claimed territory for their wares and devices. In the center was a machine with bright, multi-colored hoops that the tourist is strapped into, then spun around so as to mix up all the alcohol and food they had consumed from the neighboring restaurants. It reminded me of Da Vinci’s painting of a man with his arms and legs spread out. They offered me a ride and I declined with a wave.
Looking up, I saw my north star, the arch, which was past a bridge filled with more vendors who sold various trinkets for next to nothing. Beyond that was a walkway filled with restaurants and stores that led upwards to the arch.
The wires holding it made a twanging sound, which echoed down the streets as they blew in the wind. A mariachi band stood beneath playing for whoever would listen.
From here I could remember walking down a hill into the bowels of downtown with Eddy and the others, and around the corner was Chicas.
Inside I leaned against the nearest wall while I scanned the room for Nina. It was crowded again, and she could be inside of any of the clumps of men, or even upstairs.
The woman with the jet black hair saw me, saw the seat next to me, and sat down. She wore a bright dress this time and seemed more comfortable. I asked her how she’d been, and she smiled and said things were great. I asked her if business was good and her smile faded. Though she nodded, she looked away, and it felt as though I had lost her. I sat down next to her and told her the dress looked nice on her. That brought back the smile.
Immediately, the waiter was on top of us asking what I wanted to buy the lady. I figured that she couldn’t have someone sitting with her unless they were giving the bar money so I ordered us drinks, then turned back to her.
“So tell me about your family,” I said.
She shifted a little, but didn’t hide from the question. “They live in Chihuahua.”
“Oh, what’s it like there?” I asked.
“Hot. Hotter than here.”
“Is that why you work here?
“No. I work here because I can make more money. I take it to them every weekend.”
The drinks came and I paid. “You drive it to them?”
“Si.”
“How long of a drive is that?”
“Twenty four hours.”
I almost spilled my drink. “Each way?”
“Si.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Each way,” I said again, diagramming with my hand.
“Yes. Each way.” She imitated my hand motion.
“You do that just to take money to them.”
“Si.” She drank coolly from her beer.
“They know what you do for the money?”
“Oh, no! They think I work as waitress.”
“That would be some good tips.”
She shrugged, looking into the crowd, clearly thinking about her parents, maybe seeing them in her mind’s eye because she covered up a little.
I looked into the crowd, too, but what I saw was a few dozen half naked women all there out of some sense of desperation, some need to feed someone, to take care of someone. I no longer saw the object of my carnal desires; I saw people who had reached the cliff’s edge of their lives, and who were giving their all to not fall over, to protect their families.
My whole life I had been taught to admire great thinkers, people with college degrees, wealthy philanthropists who generously gave to the less fortunate. But these women gave their bodies, their spirits, their all. Most didn’t like where they were or what they were doing, they didn’t tell anyone. They simply did it because something needed to stave off starvation and homelessness for their loved ones. I didn’t know about all of them, but women like the one I was sitting next to were at least as strong, if not stronger than the most fierce feminists back home.
But something still confused me. I once again saw the clear cut black holes in the stomachs of some of them where their belly buttons should be. Even the woman beside me had one, so I asked her about it.
“That for the fat to be sucked out.”
“Liposuction?”
“What?”
“They have their fat removed from their tummies?”
“Si. They tummies.” She made a hand gesture, like a tube coming out of her stomach. “The doctor plug in here. We get fat removed.”
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
She shrugged. “It my job.” She looked into the crowd again, chugging her drink.
Across the room a roar of cheering arose, and I looked across to see Nina being passed around another table. She was working a group of men like a keyboard, waving her butt against their faces. She placed one foot on the table and swayed her body to the music. Her other foot worked its way on the bench, bringing the men’s wildest fantasies to life. Other guys hovered around the table, sucked in by her charm. Dollar bills were fed into her pants and shirt. It was like a slot machine that danced when they put in money. I felt suddenly jealous, and wanted to kick myself for feeling that way.
“You’re here for her, aren’t you?” the woman with the jet black hair said.
I looked at her with apologetic eyes. She motioned forward with her head and said, “Go ahead.”
I ordered her another drink, paid for it, and made my way toward Nina’s table. I lost sight of her in the crowd that I pushed through. It was difficult navigating when every body was caught in single instances of the strobe light, but I managed to squeeze through until I got within ten feet of the table.
But I could go no further. A mass of women trying to get the attention of the men who hovered around the table stood in my way. A few of them looked at me, seemed to recognize me, and suddenly a strange thing happened. They parted like the Red Sea, and there, before me, was the booth upon which Nina was flirting. I looked quizzically at one of the ladies who had moved. She had known why I was there, and she also knew that if Nina saw me and left, they would have a chance at this wealthy table.
I looked back at Nina, and she looked over at the strange sight, this path suddenly before her. Once her eye caught me at the end of it, she jumped out of the lap of the man and ran into my arms, kissing both cheeks several times. The table of men looked at me angrily, but the sea of flesh reformed, and they were soon happily enveloped by legs and breasts.
Nina and I went to our small table near the back of the bar and got ourselves Red Bulls. She was bubbling over with excitement. “I don't know if you should be drinking that,” I said. “I think you'll explode.” She leaned forward laughing, revealing her mouth full of gapped teeth. All of the features on her face wrinkled when she laughed that hard, and I couldn’t help but find it the most endearing joy I’d ever seen.
“I no want you to have to buy me drinks,” she said. “You come earlier next time. Maybe six? I can take break then. I want to take you to a movie.”
“I’d like that,” I said. And we were both silent for a time, studying one another’s eyes, searching for honesty, believing it was there. She smiled languidly, then an energy bubbled up inside her again, and it looked like she was going to jump to her feet. I interrupted her by pulling out the present from my pack.
It was a book I had found, an introduction to Freudian psychology. I thought that of all the psychologists, she would understand Freud the most.
“Oh. Is this what you reading?” she asked.
I handed it to her. “No. It’s yours.”
“You want me to read some part of it?” She began paging through it, searching for a bookmark.
“No. It’s yours. I bought it for you.”
“You give it to me to borrow?”
“No, no. It’s yours. It’s a gift. You keep it.”
It was as if all the sound sucked out of the room, as though everything disappeared except for the members of that table. It was as though all emotion vanished from the world but the shock of her face. Her jaw dropped and she looked at me, dampness welling up in her eyes.
It might be a cliché to say that making someone happy is better than sex; but in that moment, in that time, I found that the old saying stands true. Nothing made me feel better than the happiness I saw written all over her face. But there was more than happiness in those eyes.
There was hope.
She tried to speak, but no sound came from her quivering lips.
“You’re welcome,” I said. I couldn’t fathom the kind of life she must have led when such a small gesture should mean so much. She still couldn’t speak, so I changed the subject. “There’s a picture in there you can use as a bookmark.”
She turned to it and saw the photograph we had taken together. Then she jumped out of her chair and into my arms. She held on tight to the book, and lifted her feet in the air so I had to hold her from falling. Again, people were staring at us. “I love you, I love…” she said, then stopped herself. “I mean, I like you, I like you! Oh, fuck! I like you so much!”
At last when we sat down she said, “Where should I keep this? I need make sure I no lose it.”
“How about down your shirt,” I suggested. “It’ll increase your bust size, albeit make it a little square.”
She smiled with laughter. Her nose scrunched as it often did when she was excited. She raised her finger and nodded it like a puppet, then lowered it and said, “Give me you phone number. I keep it in the book so not to lose it.”
I gave her my business card again and she put it in with the picture.
“This my favorite possession. So I no lose any of it.”
She kept looking down at the book even while we talked.
“What movie do you want to see?” I asked her.
“I don’t know what’s show,” she said. “I not been out much lately.”
I remembered ‘The Aviator’, which portrays some of Howard Hughs’ last days as he wasted away inside of a dark room. It reminded me of my days before I met Nina, so I suggested that. She said okay.
A thin man stepped up to the table and gave a cock-eyed smile to Nina. She excitedly jumped out of the seat and into his arms, hugging him hello. He spoke to her a moment in Spanish, and I felt a pang of jealousy. But it was more than that. I worried that her fondness of me might all be part of the charade, if perhaps she was playing both me and this other man.
When she sat back down she asked if I could return the next day so we could go see a movie. I couldn’t imagine that she would go anywhere outside the building with me if she was only playing mind games. So I told her that I would come back soon. The next day I had a job coming in that I had to complete very quickly. I told her this and her face slumped as she nodded acceptingly. I suddenly realized that she was as suspicious of my sincerity as I was of hers. “No one ever comes back,” she had told me. How many times had men let her down? How many times had someone told her they would return, then never did? How many excuses had she heard in her time?
I told her that I would have some time next week, and we could go see a movie then. “You have my phone number now,” I told her. “You call me, and I’ll let you know when I’ll be available to come down, then we’ll go see the movie and we’ll talk about what you read in the book. How about that?”
She smiled and nodded. “I promise!”
“I look forward to it,” I said. “You know, I’d really like to show you around California.”
She shot me a ‘get real,’ look. It was the same sort of look you’d get if you told someone you’d like to show them around Mars.
Not long afterward, she walked me to the door where she was getting a cab for home, and I was on my way to the border. “I want to start on the book right away,” she said.
I walked back to the border thinking, still wondering if I was fooling myself into believing in some demented fantasy.
I was propositioned a few times on the way back. I knew they all needed help. This is a town of desperation. It’s a party town, yet everywhere you look, if you look, are daily, desperate struggles.
I got to the border, one of the lucky ones who could cross. Mothers and children sat near the doors to the border selling anything they could get their hands on; huddled in blankets like prisoners near the gates to the outside world.
I continued to wonder if I was just fooling myself all the way home, and the thought process lingered as I got inside and turned on my email to relate what I had witnessed Tim.
And there, on the screen, was an email from Jenny.

The Table of Truth - Chapter One, Part 2

Part 2

No One Ever Returns


“You went without me?” Eddy blurted.
I had reached out a little more when I returned home. I was calling people now, letting them know that I was okay. I had made the mistake of telling Eddy that I had gone to Tijuana; now he wouldn’t let it drop unless I returned with him. “I got a couple friends that know the town really well. We gotta go with them! They’ll show us a real hot time.”
I wasn’t sure. I needed to get back to working, but of course once that started, I wouldn’t be able to take a break again. Eddy grasped on to this point and continued to push me into going.
‘You never did fuck anyone,’ that voice reminded me. ‘You’re not a real man until you do.’
I believed the voice, and I needed a new chance. This time I wouldn’t fail. Eddy’s friends knew all the hot spots. I could go to one of them, take a girl upstairs, and this time I wouldn’t be some lame-ass pussy who just talks. I would throw the girl on the bed and fuck her until I was a man.
“Okay, I’ll go,” I told him.
The other guys showed up at Eddy’s place three hours late, and took another hour to eat and put gas in their car. But they assured us the whole time that they knew TJ like the backs of their hairy hands, and they would hook us up.
Half way to the border, Eddy pointed out the nuclear power plant, two domes set next to one another with small, red lighted tips on the top. “That’s what’s ahead for us!” he said, smiling and laughing. “To TJ for a BJ!”
I forced a grin in return. ‘You’re going to fuck something this time,’ the voice reminded me firmly. I wouldn’t let it down.
Once we were across the border we all piled into a cab. “So where to?” Eddy asked our “hosts.”
“Hell, man, I don’t know,” Vince said. “I haven’t been here in fifteen years.”
Eddy and I looked at them shocked. “But that’s why we came,” Eddy said. “You told us you knew the place like the back of your hand.”
Vince leaned forward to the cab driver. “Hey, man, aba English?”
“Yeah, I speak English, buddy,” the cab driver responded.
“Where should we go?”
“Oh, I know the place for you!” the cab driver told him, and we were off to the seediest part of the city. I knew we were in for a scam.
When we arrived at a dark building at the end of the strip, Vince jumped out of the cab and was inside before the rest of us had a chance to pay the fare.
Inside we followed his trail through the gaudy neon glow to a table where he already had a lady on his lap. The place was empty except for a single stripper on stage, and Vince in his corner. We were ushered to his table by a man whose desperation cried through his cheap, mismatched suit.
Ladies were immediately placed in our laps like meals and we were expected to purchase their eleven dollar drinks. They spoke little to no English, and I neither spoke their language, nor wanted to communicate with them in the first place. They seemed quite happy talking to each other anyway.
“I think mine likes me!” Vince exclaimed, grinning ear to ear.
“I think mine’s a guy,” Eddy said.
My constant hints to leave were ignored until more than thirty dollars was robbed from each of us. At last I politely picked up the lady in my arms and placed her in someone else’s lap, then went outside to wait for everyone. Eddy came out first, followed by Joe, and finally Vince, after he had had a lap dance from the stripper he was convinced was in love with him.
We strolled down the main strip, Revolution Boulevard, stopping at every few doors where a man would call out for us to come in and see “the best girls TJ has to offer!” Vince bought into it every time.
“Where are you going?” we’d ask him.
“Didn’t you hear him, man? The BEST girls TJ has to offer. This place MUST be off the hook!”
It was when we were chased by a stripper that had an Adam’s apple the size of my wrist and a voice like a toad that Vince was finally convinced not to go into every door he was beckoned into.
I gave up on him and went to the one place I knew, Chicas. There were plenty of women and no nonsense. I could avoid Nina, and she probably wouldn’t even remember me anyway. This time I wouldn’t talk to them. This time I’d just get a girl, get a room, have my fun, and leave.
“Okay, we’ll try your place for a few minutes,” Vince said, “but then I’m going back to Divine’s. I’m telling you, that girl wanted me! Did you see how she was looking at me?”
We pushed through the curtains into the smoke and loud music and their jaws dropped. Even I was a little surprised. Now that it was a night on the weekend, the place was packed wall to wall. Before a thought could enter their minds, they fanned out into the crowd, leaving three clear paths in their wake.
I stepped up to the stage to observe the dancing girls. I studied their movements, admired the curves of their bodies. I was deciding which one to approach when they were finished. I wouldn’t think, I would just act before I could talk myself out of it.
Then I saw her through the mist, past the stage. Nina was dancing slowly in the arms of an American man. He stood behind her, feeding dollar bills into her pocket. She reacted every time, like a machine being turned on. She touched his cheek and rubbed her butt against his crotch. I watched her, mesmerized, suddenly forgetting the rest of the place.
She happened to glance over at me for a moment, then back at the man. I didn’t mind staring; there was no risk of her recognizing me.
Then, very suddenly, she shot her head in my direction again. Her eyes bulged and she put her hands in front of her mouth, holding back from screaming. Her body shook with excitement. I smiled politely.
Then she ran out of the man’s arms, jumped onto the stage, and with everyone staring at her, screamed at the top of her lungs and jumped into my arms and kissed me right next to my lips. I didn’t know if she had missed my cheek or intended my mouth. She held me tightly, and I looked past her at the man she had been with, an apology written on my face. He had already moved on to another prostitute.
I loosened my grip on Nina, but she held tight, rocking me back and forth slowly. “I never thought I see you again,” she said. “I glad I was wrong.”
At last she loosened her grip and looked into my face, her charming wide smile creating deep, creased dimples all across her face. “Do you want to sit down?” I asked her.
She nodded, and we found a booth near the back meant for just two people.
“So what have you been doing since I last saw you?” I asked.
“Oh, working. Of course,” she said. Then stopped and looked at me. “And thinking of you.”
“Right, okay. Whatever.” It was her job to say that.
“No, I really have!” she said. “Ever since I saw you, I’ve been thinking of you.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about you, too. Not because of, um, well,” she smiled at my blushing. I continued, “I’ve thought about you because of the talk we had. I’ve been wondering about you.”
The waiter came and we both ordered Red Bull.
“Caffeine is just what you need,” I said. “You aren't hyper enough.” She laughed hysterically, revealing her large mouth full of teeth. They had wide gaps between them; it was both frightening and charming. The laughter was infections and made me laugh, too. It was the first time I had laughed in months. At last we calmed and I said, “And now I want to know more about you. So this table here is the table of truth. As long as we sit here, we must answer honestly. I’ll ask you a question, then you ask me, and we both have to tell each other the truth.”
She nodded excitedly, lifted one finger, which also nodded, and said, “Okay.”
“All right. My first question I’ll pose to you is the same one I asked last night. If you could spend thirty minutes with anyone; anyone in the world, who would it be?”
She looked at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. “I didn’t answer last night because I can’t think of anyone I would want to spend that much time with.”
Then her eyes dropped down from the ceiling and landed on me. She stopped smiling and looked very serious. “You.”
I shook my head. “I know it’s your job to say me, so let’s take me out of the equation. Who would you really want to meet?”
She shook her head and insisted. “It’s not because of my job. You’re a mystery to me. I want to understand you.”
“Okay,” I said. I wouldn’t get a real answer, so I told her it was her turn.
She thought for only a moment before speaking. “You’re gay, aren’t you!”
I laughed. “Well, no. I’m not, but-“
“You must be gay! No man ever resist me! Men always want to just fuck. You... Fuck. I no understand you.”
I laughed, and we threw a few more questions back and forth. One of her answers threw me for a loop. I had asked her if she could have any one power, what would it be?
She answered confidently and with joy, “I’d be Jenny!”
I was taken aback. How did she know about Jenny? What was she trying to say with this?
She recognized my look of distress and thought she had said the wrong thing. “Um, what is that thing in the lamp called? The one where you rub it and it come out?”
“Oh! Yeah, a genie! Why a genie?”
“Because I want to give people three wishes. I no need things come true for me. I want to make other people happy.”
I sat back amazed at that. I was somewhat awestruck. Here’s someone who could really use a wish; who could use several wishes, but she’d rather give them away to other people.
She usually threw the same questions back at me. She didn’t know what else to ask about. I made my answers as short and to the point as I could because I wanted to go back to asking her questions. About the power that I would choose I answered that I’d like the power to read minds.
“That sounds boring,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because then you can never learn about a person. No one a mystery. You always know right away what people are thinking and you no get to learn about them.”
She sat back and stretched. I noticed a burn mark under her arm and asked about it. “This is what you get in my home when you been bad,” she told me.
I changed the subject. “Okay, since we’re being honest, tell me really what you’ve been up to the last couple days. You haven’t really thought of me. That was your job to say that, so I want to know what you really do in your life.”
She said, “I really have thought about you… A lot.”
“How could that be? You see, like, ten guys a night.”
“But they just come in, they leave, and I no see them again. Or if I do I not really care about them. They not about me. You different. You… strange. I no understand, but I think of you a lot.”
I couldn’t respond to that. I had felt invisible for so long, it didn’t seem right. There was still a part of me that wondered if I was being played.
Then she cocked her head and said, “What you think about me?”
I looked into her crystal green eyes for a long time. Then I said, “You’re a person who few people know and understand, and you like that. You keep up walls to make certain others don’t get in, but they’re glass walls because you want to see out and understand them. You make friends easily, but you get close to very few of them. It’s hard for people to get to know you, and you like it that way.”
She sat back and smiled, never taking her eyes off me. “Yeah,” she said, and she bit her lower lip.
Then she jumped in place abruptly. “I have to go home now.”
“Really? It’s just 10:45.”
“Yeah. That when I leave.”
She stood, I followed suit. She hugged me, then stopped suddenly. “Why did you ask? You want something else?”
“No, no,” I said quickly. She looked hurt. I continued, “It’s not about you at all. I came here because I wanted to get to know you better. Not something else.” Then I remembered something. I had brought a disposable camera to take pictures of Eddy, me, and the other guys, but there was nothing else I’d like a picture of more than Nina. “Hey, can I get a picture of us?”
“Sure!” she said, and we sat with our arms around each other.
I snapped the picture.
All the way back Eddy was bragging about his “conquest,” about how he had haggled the lady down to a smaller amount and gotten a lot out of her.
I barely heard him. I was thinking about Nina. I wondered if I was fooling myself, if everything she did was a way to get me to buy her drinks so she could get a kick-back on the money. Her job is to fulfill fantasies, even if they’re mental ones rather than physical. Perhaps she was working me to take her upstairs again. Was I a schmuck? Or was I making a difference in someone’s life? Had she wanted me to take her on a walk, or take her for a ride? Perhaps she knew of no other way to express her affection than to be paid for, to be rented like a piece of property.

The Table of Truth - Chapter One, Part 1

CHAPTER ONE


Part 1

Worthless


There is no such thing as wasted time when you feel worthless. When you feel like your life is the waste of time. Every day and every night is just like the last. Hope is no longer a thing of the future, but a product of the past.
January was just that kind of wasted time for me.
I woke up as late as noon every day. Without turning on the light, I stumbled naked into the bathroom where I lay in the tub, sometimes for ten minutes or more before I turned on the water. Then I sat there dumb-faced for usually around three hours. At last I would pull the drain from the tub that was almost empty from evaporation, and my withered body stumbled out, only to go tumbling back to bed where I would lie for the rest of the day.
Sometimes I didn’t make it to the bed. Sometimes I simply lay down numbly on the floor and cried. I lived in darkness. I rarely ate.
“I don’t feel like it anymore.” That’s all Jenny had said. No more of an explanation. Nothing for the years of comfort, of caring, of nights coming home to that warm light; nothing for the years of sacrifice and commitment; nothing for the mutual struggles and support; nothing for the affection, the love, the promises. How does one live with one’s self after promising never to leave, then breaking their word on a whim? How do they ever look into another’s eyes and say those words again knowing they broke them so casually before? I didn’t even take her seriously until I came home a few days later and found the apartment half empty. It was like a thief had sneaked in and taken everything that was hers; everything that was important to me. I tried to call; I tried to write… she apparently blocked my email before she had even left. That was how four years of my life ended.
At work my hand cramped and I was no longer able to type. It was just as well. I hardly heard what anyone said on the tapes I was supposed to be transcribing. I was too busy obsessing over why. I thought of every misstep I had taken, of every wrong thing I had ever said. I beat myself mercilessly in my head for it.
I had money saved for a honeymoon which would instead be used for a leave of absence and a much needed vacation. I switched on the computer and brought up the internet to look at where to go.
I received an email from my friend Tim. He told me about a wedding invitation he had received. She had only left me four months before and she was marrying a musician she had known. I didn’t read any more details. Something was bubbling up through my stomach and I ran into the bathroom. After that, no one heard from me for weeks.
The phone would ring. I just let it go and curled up into my little pool of self-pity. Only the glow of light against the curtain told me whether it was day or night. Soft light it was day, harsh light it was night. I didn’t keep track of how many times this repeated.
One day a knock came at the door, the first one in weeks perhaps. I wrapped the blanket around myself and held it together like a toga.
“Hey, Jake! What’s been going on!” Eddy said, his smile broad and welcoming, as though I was at his home. Then he noticed the blanket over the bare body. “Oh! Did I interrupt something?” His faced spoke an apology while his eyes tried to peak past and get a look at who I had in my bed.
“No,” I told him, but he kept trying to spy past me. “What’s up?”
“I’m here to ask you that,” he said. “You haven’t been answering your phone for fucking ever. Some of us are worried.”
“I’m fine. Thanks for checking in on me.”
I was about to close the door when he offered to take me out for drinks. What the hell. I needed to see sunlight for a change.
But the sun had gone down by the time I got clothes on and we were driving. At the bar I slumped over the table like a bar fly from a cliché painting. A pitcher of some German lager sat between us, and though it was meant for me, Eddy downed it while he regaled me with tales of his adventures in Tijuana. “I was partying at this great club where there were all these hot Mexican chicks,” he said. “Then I suddenly realized, I’m in a brothel! And I went, hey, this is sweet!”
The excitement of the exploits were in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol Eddy consumed. I saw Jenny sitting on the other side of him. Not the real Jenny, but the one from my mind’s eye. She rolled her eyes, the way she always used to. But now she was marrying a man who thought the word “sexploit” was clever. I had met her husband-to-be on a few occasions. He was the kind of man who made Eddy look like a deep thinker, the kind of man who never quite matured out of junior high. This was the kind of man Jenny used to hate with a passion. How could she be marrying him?
“You want some more?” Eddy was offering the pitcher of beer to me. I snapped out of my angry daze and shook my head. He had the rest, and finished his stories.
My adventure outside had yielded one major result, I had become interested in looking at what was happening beyond my four walls. I turned on the world’s encyclopedia, the internet, and did what I did best, obsessed on every small detail.
I turned to Tijuana and found Eddy’s adventure spots. I paged through photographs and detailed information, soaking in more erudition than a local. It was a whole other country, a scary place I imagined myself disappearing in, being kidnapped, or simply murdered and thrown into one of the alleys pictured next to the bars and brothels I was staring at. Or maybe the police would take me in for not paying them a bribe, and all kinds of unspeakable things would happen in prison before they at last decided to drive me out to the desert and abandon me. What would the police code be for that?
When I finished I could see by the glow on the curtain that the sun had risen. I lay back on my bed and stared at the familiar ceiling. I now knew every detail, every bump, every stain above me. The phone rang. It was Tim. I still wasn’t ready to talk; not willingly, at least.
Instead, I hopped out of bed, walked out the door, and headed to the border.
From Long Beach it’s about a two hour drive. “I want to fuck something,” I told myself over and over. Not someone. Something. To hell with respect. No more moralizing. I wanted to find Eddy’s bar and fuck like an animal. I had lost all sense of prudence, all levels of nobility, all thoughts of veneration.
I had tried so hard to be a good person, and it had only brought me loneliness. Women had always overlooked me for the bad boys, always passed me and all the thoughtful guys I knew in favor of the arrogant pigs who had no respect for them. They wanted to change these men, and never gave a thought to being with the ones that don’t need changing. They lived in a self-fulfilling prophecy of recompense which they complained about endlessly like victims who had no part in the decisions they made. And now Jenny had joined those ranks, getting married to a man who regularly referred to his many girlfriends as “my bitches and hos.” They laughed about it, sometimes complained, but they always wound up in bed with him. Then they wondered why so many men treat women so badly.
My only hope of ever being desired by women was to become one of these chauvinists that they complained about but always chose to give their hearts to. I had to become someone they wanted to change.
And it would start with this. It was time for carnal pleasures. It was time to fuck something.
The trip became a reality to me when the freeway sign read “San Ysidro Exit, 1 mile,” and below it was only a wide, blank space; nothingness, like I was reaching the end of the world. The grade lowered and ducked beneath two freeways. As they receded overhead, the grand spectacle opened up before me. Small dots of yellow and silver dotted the coffee brown, hilly landscape where makeshift houses hugged the dirt organized by the grid lines of gravel and cement roads. A giant Mexican flag drifted languidly in the wind over the city, and below it hunched a silver archway marking a downtown filled with brick and mortar buildings.
This was Mexico; a completely different language, a completely different culture. Out there, millions of people were living their lives in ways I couldn’t imagine, speaking words I didn’t understand.
The road curved downward toward the border’s gates like a slide heading to a gaping mouth. The sign that read “Last American Exit” begged the question, was I sure I wanted to continue?
I got off the freeway and onto the side streets. Dozens of cars filed slowly down the row of shops intended for visitors to either country. Mexican Insurance, immigrant legal counsel, job searches, tourist guides, shuttle service to just about every major city in Southern California. I found an all day parking location for four dollars in the parking lot of a hotel that looked like it charged by the hour. I left my car at the mercy of a man leaning back in his chair watching a forty year old television.
I dodged the San Diego trolley as it rolled to a stop in front of the last American restaurant, McDonald’s. The border now stood before me.
It was built like a prison. A large, three story building of iron and cement and windows where guards watched arched over the street where orderly gates met the cars coming and going. The building was flanked by intimidating walls protected at their tops with barbed wire. Border patrol trucks waited at half mile intervals.
People steadily trickled out the sliding doorway of the trolley and poured up a ramp going to the opposite side. I entered this stream and was swept along. A distant clanging denoted where we were headed. It sounded like a cattle yard, and it got louder and louder the closer I came.
When at last I saw this gate I hesitated. The clanging sound came from the aluminum bars of the revolving door hitting the metal of the barred wall. It was like the gates at an amusement park, once you are in, you can’t come back. You have to go all the way through the ride and exit when it's done. No turning back. No chicken exit. I took in a deep breath, then stepped through.
A long walkway channeled the crowds down a thin corridor to a split where they could venture forth on foot to the right, or take on the crowd of taxi drivers all calling out for attention straight ahead. I took on the latter.
Out of the crowd I focused on one. I began with the usual cliché, something I thought I’d never do; I spoke in a loud, exaggerated way, as if he was deaf and stupid instead of someone who spoke a different language.
For a moment he looked at me like I was a mental patient. “You want to go where, my friend?” he asked, opening the door, eager to please.
I only knew one place. “Chicas,” I told him, the place Eddy had talked about. “You know it?”
A slick smile grew on his lips. “Oh, my friend! Hop in, I take you there!”
I slid in, and as we started moving, I noticed the first restaurant on this side of the border was also a McDonald’s. You just can’t escape.
I focused on my goal. ‘I want to fuck something.’
The cab left me off in front of a curtained door with a large awning overhead that read ‘Chicas’. Four large men sat on stools that looked like they should break beneath their weight. They watched the men enter and checked ID occasionally. I walked tensely by, one of the men staring at me the whole way.
A smoky haze hung over the large club, something I had not been used to for a long time since California had banned smoking in buildings. Through the mist I could see two women dancing on a stage that stretched into the crowd of men who stared up at them like acolytes. Other half naked women mingled among the booths, flirting, sitting with the men, sometimes on their laps. Others held the hands of men whom they led out the curtain to go to the hotel next door. A couple women in street clothes entered behind me, passed by and walked into the ladies room to my right. They emerged soon after dressed in their slinky work clothes.
On either side of the club were bars where a handful of men sat hunched over a drink with their rotten memories written all over their faces. I wasn’t the only one here to escape.
Tables sat in between these bars, making room for the stage in the center, and a row of booths marched its way across the opposite wall toward the men’s room where a hoard of women massed around the entrance like bees by the hive, hoping to catch the customers as they exited. Some wandered in and out, talking with the towel server and commenting about the men at the urinals. They wore every manner of nightgown; the white ones glowed, reflecting the bluish tint of the black light. They smiled, and a few made noises with their tongues as the guys passed.
At one of the booths sat a group of large, hairy men passing a young blond woman around and tasting of her like meat on a stick. She occasionally planted her feet, waving her butt in their faces so they could stick money into her pants. They tossed her around, but she clearly had them in the palm of her hand.
I planted myself on a bench in a corner where there was a slight rise overlooking the rest of the club so I could soak in everything. I counted a couple dozen men and an equal number of women. A slow day? I had no idea.
I noticed that many of the women had clean cut, dark holes where their belly buttons should be; as though someone had come with a hole puncher and sliced into their stomachs. They were neither swollen nor pressed; just a perfectly round hole that disappeared into the darkness of their stomachs.
Then, as though straight out of a detective novel, a skinny woman wearing a tight leather bikini strutted out of the smoke which slid around her form as though excusing itself to let her by. Her long, jet black hair draped over her bare shoulders as she claimed a pillar and leaned against it, crossing her arms and studying the place with her deep, dark eyes.
I couldn’t help but stare, not just at her beauty, but the wonder that no one had gone to her yet, that she wasn’t occupied in some room at work every minute. In an L.A. club, she’d be arm in arm with a celebrity. Here she was struggling to make a buck. All I had to do was go up to her and she would leave with me. I wouldn’t be blown off, or treated like a worm. I could have what I came for, it would just cost a little money, but no more than it would take to impress an American girl.
And yet I was afraid. When she glanced my way, I diverted my eyes. I had to build up my courage just to look at her. She kept eyeing at me expectantly. I turned away again.
“You’re here to fuck something,” I reminded myself low and under my breath. “Now get over there and do what you came all the way here to do.”
I looked at her again; at that perfect, tight body and red lips. She would say no. They always say no. And even if she didn’t, this was wrong. ‘You’re here to fuck something. Now do it!’ My mind was wrestling with my spirit.
At last I forced my legs to stand. Stiffly, I made my way over to her. Her cat-like eyes shot over to me. I panicked and walked right past.
On the other side of the pillar I froze. This is what I was here for. But I couldn’t bring myself to just take her upstairs. I needed at least the pretense of romance. Even if it was just a fuck, I needed to convince myself it was something more.
I saw a man having drinks with a lady at a nearby table and nodded. That’s what I would do.
I spun round to the thin woman with the black bikini and put on my coolest mask. She looked at me, and I motioned my head toward what I thought was a table. She glanced over, then back at me confused. I turned my head and saw that I had just motioned toward the men’s bathroom. Reverting to my usual clumsy self, I motioned to one of the two person booths and she sat down with me.
Immediately a waiter was at the table asking me what we would drink. I ordered the only one I knew in Spanish, Corona. She ordered the same, and he produced them out of his pocket. I wasn’t sure whether I should drink it, but I saw the woman pop the top and start downing hers immediately.
“That’s nine dollars,” the waiter told me.
“Nine?” I asked. I thought the drinks here were supposed to be cheap.
“Two dollars for yours, seven for the lady's.”
I figured I was being scammed, but what choice did I have. I gave him a ten, then he handed her a tag of some sort, which I figured out later was her kick back, the amount they paid her for keeping a loser like me company.
I had never been able to sit and talk with a therapist because I couldn’t get past the knowledge that they were listening to me only because I was paying them. I often referred to them as mental prostitutes. It was hard to get past that now, so I stumbled for conversation.
“So, how long have you… been here?” I asked.
“Not long.” Her left arm pressed tightly against her waist like a school girl while her right hand reached out for the drink. She took a sip and looked out at the crowd. I kept staring at her. What could I say that would mean anything? Could I say something that she hadn’t heard from every other guy?
“You have family near here?”
Now she looked straight at me, her eyebrows wrinkled, confused. She shook her head, placing the drink on the table. “You?”
“Not really. I came quite a ways.”
“How far?”
“From Long Beach,” I said, relaxing. “About two hours.” She didn’t look impressed. “Well, with traffic it can be quite a bit more.”
She nodded, took another swig and looked out at the bar. I looked down at her leather bikini, at her smooth, young skin pressed tight against it. I tried to work up my courage. She noticed me staring, took in a breath, and pushed her chest forward, advertising while she continued to look out at the bar.
I felt ashamed. The voice that told me to get laid was gone. I simply couldn’t do it. I reached for my wallet.
The girl shifted. She took in another breath and grasped her small bag, ready to go upstairs.
“Here,” I said, handing her a little money. “I’m not going to take you upstairs. If you have to work, I understand, but if you’d like to stay here and talk, you’re more than welcome.”
She stared at me for a time, she looked down at the money, then grasped it and looked back at me, considering.
For a moment I thought she might stay, that she was intrigued by the clumsy guy sitting across from her, that the music would rise and…
Nope. Away she went.
I sat there long enough to finish my Corona. I didn’t want it to look like I got rejected and left. ‘Aren’t you going to fuck something?’ came the voice in my head.
‘Nope,’ I answered simply, and the beast shut its mouth. I had wasted my trip. But I still didn’t get up to leave. It was as though I was stuck there, watching.
The blond woman from the booth of hairy men got up and headed toward the bathroom. A young man, probably eighteen, stopped her for a moment and asked her a question. She answered politely, then continued into the bathroom.
The largest of the hairy men got up and walked over to the eighteen-year-old. He leaned down into his face and said something I couldn’t hear, but the slow shaking of his fist said it all. He was in plain view, and none of the waiters did anything.
The large man sat down at his own booth and a few minutes later the blond woman returned from the restroom. She walked up to the young man, and he turned away from her. She tried to lean into his field of vision and he turned further away. Stunned, and perhaps even a little hurt, the blond woman walked away and returned to the table of bullies to be passed around again.
I procrastinated perhaps another hour. I tried to convince myself that I would give it another try. But if I wasn’t going to do it with the fantasy in black leather, who was I kidding? I wasn’t going to do it at all.
At last I got up to leave. I made it to the door, but I stopped and looked back in at the club one last time. A moment later, the blond woman from the booth of the big men came out of the ladies room again and strutted by me with the confidence of a biker-chick. Watching her pass, I noticed an intricate tattoo of a butterfly struggling for freedom that ran down the small of her back, and into her tight jean mini-skirt.
If this trip was to have any redeeming value I needed to gain something from the experience, something I could chalk up to learning. If I wasn’t going to hire someone, I wanted to at least learn how the hiring process works. So I reached out to tap the woman on the back, but my finger froze. Frightened again by nothing, I was panicked out of action.
Then fate stepped in and created one of those moments frozen in time forever, like a cross-roads in life. A waiter crossed in front of the woman and she stopped to let him pass. My finger tapped on her shoulder.
The woman turned around. She had emerald eyes, a bright face, sparkled make-up, a crooked smile with gaps between her teeth, and soft dimples.
“I’m curious how it all works,” I said. She looked at me strangely, not understanding.
One of the men from the booth, the largest one, stood up, gazing at me.
I sped up, “How does it work? Did they rent you all night? How much does that cost…”
“You want me all night?” she asked, her face shocked.
“No, no,” I said, watching as the big man started toward us. “I noticed they haven’t taken you upstairs, but they have you at their table just to themselves…”
“You want to take me upstairs?” she asked.
The man was getting closer.
“Not really. I’m just curious…” There was no more time for the language barrier. He was almost to us. “Sure. Yes. Let’s go upstairs. Right now. You and me.” And up we went, as quickly as I could encourage her along.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She took a moment before answering. “Nina.” It seemed awkward not to find out more about her, but I didn’t know what to ask, so I followed her all the way to the top where a booth was set into a wall.
Three attendants took information from ladies like Nina, gave them their purse, a key, and a towel with various items wrapped up in it. They took the money from the men, then told the ladies what room to go to. Women leaving the rooms were dropping off these items at the desk and the men they had been with were continuing on down the stairs without so much as a goodbye.
Nina spoke Spanish with the man at the desk, then turned to me. “It’s eleven dollars,” she said. I paid the man, then we continued down the hall to a room. I kept looking behind us, still worried we might be followed, until we were safely in the locked room.
A flat, square, hard bed sat in the middle, a shelf jutted from the wall to the right, and a bathroom opened up beyond that. Directly to my left sat a window to the hallway which Nina immediately closed the shades to. The air was close, stuffy, and stale.
“Well, um…” I started. “This is sort of my first time. What do I do?”
“It’s sixty dollars,” she said. I put it on the shelf, took my glasses off and placed them next to the money, then waited. She removed her shirt, then looked at me quizzically.
“Shouldn’t we get on the bed?” I asked.
“You have to take off your clothes first, baby,” she said, and she began doing just that.
I tried to take off her skirt at the same time, but fumbled as I felt around for a latch, or zipper, or strap, or something. She laughed and did the services.
At last she got me down on the bed. I kissed her on the lips, and she puckered them tight enough to escape any feeling, but smiled as if she’d enjoyed it. It was time to reach for the condom, so I did. I unwrapped the casing while looking into her eyes. They had a brightness to them, but they squinted with a queer look as she laughed.
“That’s the soap,” she said, nodding at what I had just unwrapped. Then she said, “Try that one, baby,” and pointed at the other wrapper in the towel.
I took it. My hand was shaking, so she took it from me and unwrapped it, then enfolded the contents in the proper place. I tried to ask her what she enjoyed, and she writhed on the bed. “Let’s just fuck,” she said.
I tried to make myself comfortable on the bed, tried to find a position that felt right, tried in vain to get myself excited enough to make love. Nothing quite worked.
At last, sweaty and unfulfilled, I sat back on the bed discouraged, and wondering if there was something wrong with me.
She sat beside me and looked forward for a moment, perhaps wondering if she had done something wrong. Then she looked me straight in the eye and said, “You’re not very usual, are you?”
“No,” I said. “No, I… I’d say I’m probably not. That’s actually probably an understatement.” We were both silent for a time. Then I said something to fill the silence. “So, tell me about your family.”
She squinted her eyes in annoyance, then said, “Tell me about your wife.”
“No. No wife.”
“Girlfriend then.”
“None.”
“The fia… Um, fiace...”
“Fiancée?”
“Yeah.”
“None.”
“Pshaw. You got girlfriend.”
I thought of Jenny’s smile. “No. No, I don’t.”
“I never see guy that looks like you that don’t have girlfriend.”
“Well, that’s very nice of you.”
“It’s fine. You no have to tell about girlfriend. Lots of guys don’t want to talk about wife or girlfriend.” She climbed out of the bed and walked to the mirror on the wall next to the window.
“What about you?” I asked. “Boyfriend?”
As she looked at herself in the mirror, she bunched her hair up in the back. Her breasts looked like halos caught in the overhead light as she stretched her arms back, her silhouetted body shaped by the glow through the Venetian blinds. She presumptuously took a stick of my gum and began chewing it, then put my glasses on her face.
While she admired herself in the mirror, she said, “Okay, you can ask me one question and I’ll answer it.”
I thought for a moment, staring at her. Then I asked, “If you could spend a half hour with anyone, anyone in the world from the past or present, who would it be?”
“In here?” she asked.
“Um, well, sure. Make that part of the question. Who would you spend it with, and where would you go?”
She thought for a little while, then turned to me. “How do I look in your glasses?”
“You’re changing the subject,” I told her.
She sat down into my arms, put my glasses on my face and squinted into my eyes, studying them. “Why are you being like this?” she asked. “You’re never going to see me again.”
“Being like what?” I asked.
“So nice. No one ever ask me what I like.”
“That’s the saddest thing I ever heard,” I said.
There was a short silence accompanied by the soft sound of the air conditioner before she asked, “How old are you?”
“I’m turning 34 next month.”
“Wow.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. Then, “Okay, if you’re not going to answer my last question, answer this one. What do you want to do with your life? What else would you like to do other than this?”
A silence while she thought about how to say it. “Si, si, psychology? Is that how you say it?”
“Psychology is a word, yes. Is that what you’re interested in?”
“Study of people, right?”
“Yes. It was my minor in college.”
“You went to college?”
“In New York.”
“Ooooo.”
“It was something. You’re interested in people, huh?”
“People come in here, I study them. I like to understand people. But you I no understand.” She stood up by the mirror again and studied me. “You look good with glasses,” she said. “On or off, you look good. I no believe you don’t have girlfriend.”
“Now you’re just doing your job,” I said.
“No,” she responded. “We stopped doing my job ten minutes ago.”
Then a knock came at the door. She disregarded it and asked about my life back in Long Beach.
“Not much to tell,” I told her. Then I looked into her curious face. “You should come up and visit.”
She responded with a sarcastic look. Like that could ever happen. The border was less than a mile away, and she knew there was no hope of ever crossing even for a short visit.
Then I suggested she follow up on the psychology interest, and she looked at me with the same sarcastic expression.
After several more disregarded knocks on the door, we at last emerged from the room twenty minutes late. We walked down the stairs and I stopped at the front door.
“Aren’t you coming in?” she asked.
I thought about the hairy men. “I better get going.”
She looked shocked, even hurt, but snapped out of that expression quickly. “Okay then,” she said. “Well, goodbye.”
I offered her my hand, but she stepped forward and gave me a long hug. I didn’t want to fool myself, but it felt real. When at last she let go I took out a business card I had for my personal transcribing business and I handed it to her.
“Si!” she said excitedly. “I will call you. Will you come visit again?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?” We were both lying. I don’t know how much we were lying to ourselves, but we were certainly lying to each other. I knew in my heart that I would never see her again. But it was fun to pretend, if for just that moment.

The Table of Truth - Chapter Two, Part 1g

I relaxed and looked at my clothes. “Yeah, I thought so,” I replied. “The bar doesn't give us anything?”
She shook her head. “The boys'll probably ask you to have a drink first. You speak English?”
I nodded.
“Good. Charm them as much as you can. That way they'll buy more drinks. And after they're all liquored up, they'll take you upstairs. It shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes per drink. The more you have, the more money you'll make. The waiter will give you a ticket. Whatever you do, don't lose them. You hand them in at the end of the night for money. Sometimes you make more from the tickets than you do upstairs.”
“Don't you get really drunk?”
“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. Usually when my friends said that they laughed like it was some great joke. She was stoic. “It helps when you go upstairs. Drink as much as you can before that. And when you do go, don't laugh at them! Don't laugh about any part of them.”
I was quiet for a moment. So was she. “You did?” I asked.
She broke out with a chuckle. “Once. I won't make that mistake again.” We shared a laugh together. “You've got a good laugh,” she said. “Use that as much as you can.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“And don't ever get close to any of them. They're your customers. That's all. No matter what you feel for them, don't.”
I thought I would be passed up all night. Waiting was still the worst part of the job. Half of me wanted to be picked, and half did not. Until several hours passed and I didn't get picked. Then the part of me that needed money took over completely. I would have fucked a monkey if one had approached me with thirty bucks.
Then the moment of truth arrived. He was a fat man with a beard. But those weren't the first things I noticed about him. The first thing I noticed was his wedding ring. I wondered where this wife must be. What she must think. If she was sleeping alone tonight.
We had drinks together. Every drink gave me a ticket that was worth three dollars and fifty cents to me as long as I didn't lose it. Three American dollars. This was a whole day's pay in other places around my home in Rosarito. But this was Tijuana where men would empty their wallets for a look at what I see in the shower every day. He stammered as he spoke English to me. He made constant excuses for himself. Blaming the reason he did this on a bet he had with some co-workers. I just listened. It was fascinating. Like the man with the hook penis, he was more afraid than me. That helped me relax. So did the beers. I did as my friend told me, one every 15 minutes. But the real money would come when we went upstairs, and I didn't know for certain if it was leading there, or if he was wasting the time that I could be spending with a paying customer.
I zoned out of his excuses and wondered what my kids were doing. I hoped Little Daddy was living up to his name.
At last the fat man brought me back by suggesting we go upstairs. I stood up immediately and we left.
We were both new to this, though I didn’t tell him I was. When we arrived at the counter to get a room I didn't know what to say. And he didn't know what to ask. I think we both turned red.
“Name?” the person at the counter asked. I looked at the man who was renting my body for a half hour. I kept reminding myself of that. He's renting the body. Not me.
“I think he means your name,” he said.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. Maybe this wasn't the man's first time here. “My name?” I thought quickly. Claudia used to call me her Little Niña, which meant little girl in Spanish. I was like a little daughter to her. “Nina,” I told him.
The man at the counter looked around at a group of shelves whispering, “Nina. Nina...”
“I don't...” I stopped myself, afraid that revealing I was new might lose me a customer. But I had no choice. I needed whatever he was going to hand me. “I don't have anything here yet.”
“First time, huh?” the man said, breaking the mask.
“Hot dog!” the customer said. “I get to break your cherry!” He didn't run.
The man at the counter gave me a towel. A sheet. A bar of soap. A condom. He told me a room number. He nodded with a look on his face that said, 'Good luck.' I nodded and carried everything to the room.
It was small and dark with a lamp to one side and a square, hard bed in the middle. Before I had time to take it all in the man was naked, standing before the door. His penis was already growing. “Well?” he said impatiently. “Aren't ya gonna get naked?” It was as if all his fear and kindness was gone. Replaced by a demanding drunk.
As I knelt down to give him head, I left my body. For a moment I was looking down on myself. On my knees in front of a stranger. I was embarrassed. Ashamed. I saw myself for the first time as a true whore.
When I was a child I had seen myself as a teacher. Or an oceanographer. Or both. I saw myself swimming with whales and saving dolphins. I had stared down a shark at the aquarium where there was glass below the surface of the water and you could watch them. They seem dead in the eye to most people. But I saw a soul there. More recently I had seen myself as a psychologist. Saving lives through insights and advice. But no...
There I was kneeling before a man like he was my king with my mouth wrapped around his unit. When he was ready for more he propped me onto the bed. Onto my hands and knees. And stabbed into my vagina from the back. I couldn't avoid looking at myself again because there was a mirror at the head of the bed. So I stuffed my face into the pillow and thought of my reason for being there. My little children.
I began a habit that would continue for all the time I worked there. I counted down. Thirty minutes. This session is only thirty minutes. I can take that. Twenty minutes. Only twenty minutes left. What's taking him so long? Fifteen. God, I can’t take any more!
Later I would wash up. I would look at myself in another mirror. I would spit on myself. And I would break down crying. I would cry for hours, unable to control myself. I would fall on the floor and hate every molecule in my body. I would curse the day I was born. And I would curse my sisters. I swore they were my sisters no more. I would sob and moan. And when I had no more tears left, I would rise up and look at myself in the mirror. And I would swear that I will never cry again.
Ten minutes left.

The Table of Truth - Chapter Two, Part 1f

But the top of the stairs opened up to the look of a fancy hotel. Dim lighting revealed ivory tables, marble floors, and gold-plated frames. Someone with taste decorated this place.
A man in an expensive suit was helping a customer choose among a line of girls dressed like they belonged on a Catholic school yard. The light hit their bodies but avoided their faces. They each stood at attention, their arms behind their backs. The man in the suit was courteous, speaking softly as though they were in a sacred hall. The customer, dressed in blue jeans and a brown jacket, swayed a little as he studied each one. The manager expressed the qualities of several of the girls as he led the man down the line.
When they reached the end, the man in the brown jacket looked back at them. Focused on their breasts. He reached out for one of them and she pulled back.
“Ah, ah,” the gentleman in the suit said. “No touching the merchandise until you've bought it.”
The man in the jacket nodded. Then studied a moment longer. At last he pointed at one of them.
“Great choice,” the manager said. He snapped and the other girls left. “Right this way,” he said, pointing to one of the rooms. And they approached it. But before they could enter, the manager stepped up next to him. Clearing his throat, he held out his hand.
The man in the brown jacket pulled out his thick wallet. From it he removed a large wad of bills. The kind of rolled up wad Diego used to carry. He handed a portion of it to the manager.
“Enjoy,” the manager said, patting him on the back, and they disappeared together, closing the door behind them.
I met the manager at the desk as he put the money away. His attitude changed dramatically as soon as he saw I wasn't a customer. “What do you want? A job?”
“Yes,” I said. “Can you tell me what you do here?”
“Do? You satisfy customers. Whatever they want. You have to work it out with them, of course. The more you do for them, the more they'll give to you. Turn around.”
“What?”
He leaned over the desk impatiently. “Turn around.”
I stared at him a moment longer, then, timidly, turned in place.
“Hmm. That's a nice ass. We could probably make something off that. Come here.”
He motioned to one of the rooms that was open. I watched him nervously. I think I took a step forward before I heard a yelp from one of the rooms. It sounded like a yelp of pain. I couldn't be sure.
“That's Maria. She makes a lot for what she does. Come in here.”
I felt cold, as though the chill air outside had followed me. I continued to hear the woman screaming. It didn't sound like pleasure. But it was rhythmic. I walked into the dark room. He closed the door. Turned on the overhead. It was blinding after getting used to the dimness of the entry.
“Take off your pants,” he ordered. I didn't move for a moment. “You want to work in here or you want to go back out to the street. I said take off your pants!” I quickly unbuckled my pants and let them drop to the ground. I held my chest as if it was exposed and I closed my eyes. “And your underwear,” I heard him say. This was not the warm manager that had talked to the man in the blue jeans. I looked at him questioningly. “I've got to make sure you're not a guy.”
I grasped my underwear and pulled it forward to show my vagina to him. I could hear the screams in the other room getting louder as he yanked my panties further and looked down into them. “That's a nice pussy,” he said. He looked into my eyes. The charm began to appear in his face. “Real nice.” His hand reached down into my crotch and the charm disappeared, replaced by a scowl of greed. I didn't know what to do as I felt him fingering me. I grasped my breasts again and held in my tears. He didn't notice. He didn't care. He just felt around a moment. “Any diseases?” I shook my head. “We'll have to have you checked. Listen.” His finger pressed inside me several times while he gave me instructions. “When you get in the room, you start off giving him a massage and you listen to what the guy wants. If you can do it, you do it. If you can't, you don't. It's as simple as that. But if the customer gets angry, decides to leave, you don't get paid shit. Understand? So the advice I give you, suck his dick, let him ride you every which way, let him spray all over your face, let him touch you, let him lick you... You let that mother fucker fuck you six ways from Sunday and you enjoy every moment. You do that, sweetheart, and you'll fit in nice.”
He pulled out his finger and spanked my bottom. “Now put your pants back on. We'll give you an outfit and you can pay us back.”
As I put my pants back on I stammered with my words, but I had to say them. “Can... Can I start right now?”
He looked me over, thinking. “What size are you?
“Two.”
He thought a moment. “I've got a size one. You can squeeze into that until we get something else.”
It was funny to dress up as a Catholic school girl as I was neither Catholic, nor had I finished school.
I was in the next lineup. I was hoping to get picked, if, for no other reason, than just so I could take the tight clothes off. I wasn't. I quickly learned the worst part of this job. It's not the sex. It's waiting to be picked for the sex.
When at last someone picked me, a cold chill ran through my body. I felt both relieved and scared to death. I went to the room with him. Luckily, he was as inexperienced as me, and he was waiting for me to start everything. So I began with a massage before I even brought up the subject of doing something more. I didn't ask him what he wanted. I thought that if I led with a suggestion, I might be able to control the situation better. “You want...” I made a stroking gesture with my hand. “From my hand?” I had said it in English. It was hardly what Father had intended when he taught me the language, but it was coming in handy.
He nodded excitedly. He seemed relieved that I was leading. It was my first lesson in learning that they are as nervous about me as I am about them. More so, even. I never feared another customer after that. Except the ones that got violent.
He turned over and I pulled down his pants. He was so nervous and excited that he climaxed before he thought to ask me to do anything more. The next several visits were the same. I had only seen three penises before in my life. And now I was seeing dozens of them. I was fascinated with the way they looked. I began categorizing them in my head. There's straight as a board, crescent shaped, flat or wide, long and thin, I call these the ticklers. Some of them have strange little ridges. Others ripple down like wax dripping off a candle. They're hard to grasp.
I was giving a job to a “hook” penis, as I called it, the kind that almost rolls back on itself, when the man gasped, “Climb on.” I hesitated. “I'll pay you,” he said. “Twenty bucks.”
I knew the ladies here got paid at least fifty, probably more. “Eighty,” I said.
“Eighty?” he asked outraged. I stroked just under the soft pink portion, the area I knew that turned Diego on. This seemed to be a universal spot for men. And it was with this one. “Okay! Eighty. I'll get it from my wallet in a minute. Just climb on.”
I looked at his wallet. It was thick enough. He had the money. I looked back down at the hook. It wouldn't be a problem. But I knew that what I was about to do I could never take back. Perhaps it would be wrong for me to ever enter a church again. But the church was not feeding my children.
I pulled out the condom and wrapped his penis in it. I placed his thing between my legs. I had to search for a moment to make it fit. Then I lowered on it slowly. He didn't wait. He grabbed my arm and thrust into me. It hurt... like sandpaper was being rubbed inside me. I called out like I had heard the other women calling out and knew it wasn't all from pleasure.
But then it did begin to feel better. I loosened up and started to enjoy it. I had never known any man like this except Diego, and nothing could be harsher than his cave man thrusts. This man called me beautiful. He called me a goddess. Then he said a word in English I did not understand. “Gorgeous.” I thought he had said the Spanish word “Gorga,” which means “fat.” I looked at him, shocked. Perhaps it was the alcohol I had drunk, or maybe I had had enough, but I did something I couldn't believe I did. I slapped him. A moment after I had, I calmed enough to realize what terrible trouble I was in.
But he didn't get angry. He looked at me. Shocked. Then, oddly, a smile crossed his lips. “Do that again!” he told me.
“What, this?” I tapped my hand against his cheek.
“No! Slap me! Really mean it!”
I slapped him again.
“Oh yes!” he cried out. “Harder!”
I began slapping him harder with both hands. He thrust into me and I screamed as I hit him. We were both screaming and fucking and slapping and enjoying it. Then he turned his face and was met by one of my hands. It cracked him directly in the nose, and blood poured out. He screamed in agony and grasped his face. Blood was oozing through it.
I yanked away from him. He stumbled off the bed. Unable to see, he crashed around the room. Blood was getting all over him. All over the room. He screamed. I screamed. I wrapped the bed sheet around me and ran out of the room, still screaming.
That was the last time I worked there. I didn't even get paid for the job. I needed something else to bring in the money. On the street I looked at the line of brothels. Across from the massage parlor was Chicas, the place my sisters had “recommended.” I stood before the curtain considering. The music pulsated outside. The men on the stools stared at me. I could feel their eyes looking up and down my body. I could feel them undressing me with their minds. I had done it once... twice if you counted the tattoo man. “How much do I get per trick?” I asked one of the men. He pointed at a man with a mustache, the manager. “You charge sixty bucks. They pay eleven for the room. You keep thirty.”
“Forty,” I said, giving my best poker face.
He shook his head. “This is non-negotiable.”
I hesitated a moment, hoping he'd fold before I did. He didn't. Men were coming and he was about to switch his attention. “Okay,” I said.
“You've got to get completely naked and give them a blow job,” he told me seriously.
I took in a breath and blew it out. “Okay.”
“Fine. Come back when you're ready to start work.”
“I'm ready now.”
“No one's going to hire you dressed like that.”
The men stepped past me. The manager checked their IDs. I looked at the sleeves of my shirt. Then tore them off. The manager looked at me and saw what I was doing. He stared a moment. Then pointed at the top of his shirt. I got the hint. I ripped the top of my shirt down to my breasts. It wasn't pretty, but it was revealing. He looked me over one more time, then motioned his head to the curtain.
My eyes had to adjust to the darkness inside. There was a stage in the middle. Would I have to dance, too? When I was a little girl, my mother had sent me to ballet. I don't think she intended it to be used like this.
Among a crowd of women I saw a familiar face. Barbara. The most popular girl in school. She had had a child while in high school, and I heard that she had two more afterward. I had also heard that her boyfriend skipped town. She was probably there for the same reason I was. I rushed to her hoping she could help me.
She looked at me. I smiled. The moment she recognized me, she walked away. I tried to follow, but she stopped. “Don't come near me,” she said sternly, then continued away. I was alone.
I went to a corner and stood awkwardly. Held myself for comfort. I saw many of the women trying to entice the men. Walking to them. Smiling. Rubbing their fingers over their shoulders. Clicking their tongues. I would rather the men come to me.
One woman kept looking at me. Her hair was short, her skin dark. She looked like an Egyptian. She didn't say anything, just stared at me with a look that said she realized I was new. I felt relieved when a man came and took her upstairs, but when she returned she walked up closer and kept staring at me. I knew she was waiting to make fun of me. I held my head up with pride and tried to look away from her.
“You'll want to wear something more revealing,” she said.