What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  “Herb?”

  “What?”

  “Herb!”

  She meant business. He squatted down, for all he had to do was give her one more excuse and she’d jump down his throat even worse. People walk past? What did it matter? Yell, she could do better than anyone in the world. And the people? Already they started looking like he thought before. But he had no reason to complain. This wasn’t his avenue. It was stupid even thinking it was for a second.

  He looked around to prove his point. A woman walked by with her very proper-looking blond daughter. Both of them had nice clear rich voices and were smartly dressed, their faces and noses handsome and small—but not in the air like some people. Still, some things he could tell: they didn’t want to mingle with you and for your own personal good you shouldn’t try to have anything to do with them. Another woman walked towards him, a small dog trailing at the leash she held. Now she he immediately knew he didn’t like—a real anti-Semite. He could tell just by her cold sour look like she had a stomachache and then traipsing past him like she owned the street. Because why did she look at him like that? Something she didn’t like? His wife? Her beaten-up old shoes? This man on his knee? She didn’t like that? Maybe she didn’t like anything. Whatever the reason, this street was city property, kept up with taxes paid by all of them, so if she thought she had any more rights on it than they, she was crazy. He, he’d tie, untie, retie, untie and tie again if he liked, and she could go and make faces at them all her life and see how much it bothered him.

  He switched his weight to his other foot and began tying the shoelaces just as he’d been taught as a boy to tie them. The black laces wrapped easily around one finger, under the loop, under the loop again, and after pulling tight he had a bow—a good one. But as a boy he was always glad to have people watch him tie, especially when he first learned how and his relatives praised him without his mother’s coaxing. But here? Well, for one thing his wife appreciated it, and he guessed that was something. And then it was a good bow as he had said, like one he could hardly make anymore with his rotten fingers, and it was also much neater than when he’d done it as a boy, with the loops of the bow equal on both sides. He undid the laces on the other shoe, even though they seemed loose enough, and retied them also.

  “How do they feel?” he said, patting the square fronts of both shoes and looking up.

  “Eh?”

  “I said how do they feel?”

  “Fine.”

  “Not too tight?”

  “No, fine, just fine. Both are perfect, Herb.”

  FIRED.

  “You sonofabitch.”

  “Just get the fuck out of here.”

  “You’re firing me? Good. Because I can’t stand you and this place.”

  “I’m not firing anyone. You’re quitting, and never come back.”

  “I’ll come back for my paycheck.”

  “Don’t bother. It’ll be in the mail.”

  I go downstairs, change into my street clothes, throw my bowtie against the dressing room wall and step on it so the metal clasp breaks, leave the restaurant and head home.

  On the next street a man says “Dig it, man, dig it. Right up here, ten bucks, satisfaction guaranteed.” He holds out a flyer.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on, man, dig it, no harm to look. Put it away for later.”

  I take the flyer and read it as I walk. $10, it says. Girls, muchaches, girls. Complete private sessions. No extra charges. On it is a photo of a nude woman sitting on a bed. Very young and beautiful, bandanna around her forehead, lots of pubic hair.

  I put the flyer into my pocket. I’ve thought about going to one of these places and felt it would either cost much more than the flyer said or I was afraid of getting a disease or mugged or that the women were being exploited and I wanted no part in that. But now I don’t care what happens to me or who’s being exploited; I just want to forget the manager and job and looking for another one and have a good time. I only have about fifteen dollars on me, so what can they take? And for a disease I can always get a free clinic shot.

  I go back. Man’s still handing out flyers, smiles and says to me “Go dig it, man,” and I open the door and walk upstairs. Second-floor door’s open and the room I step into is like a small lobby of a cheap hotel.

  Woman behind a desk says “Yes?”

  “Uh…”

  “Want to join the fun? Ten dollars.”

  I give it to her.

  “And eighty cents tax.”

  “Didn’t say anything about tax, not that I won’t pay it.”

  “You mean the handouts downstairs? Look again.”

  She gives me one. Where it says taxes included, it’s been crossed out. I don’t take out the one in my pocket to see if it’s been crossed out too. I give her a dollar and she gives me twenty cents change. “What do I do now?”

  “Give your bag to the attendant there and come back.”

  A man’s standing in front of an opened closet. He takes the athletic bag my waiter’s uniform and other things are in and puts it on a shelf.

  “No tag?”

  “Yours is the only bag like that,” he says. “It’ll be here.”

  I go back to the desk and say “Now what?”

  “You can’t do anything without a ticket. Here, give it to your girl.” It’s like a movie ticket. “Like to sign our guest register first?”

  She turns it around and gives me a pen. Register’s also like a hotel’s. None of the names seem real. Bob Smith. Jack Brown. Joe. Dick D. Pegleg Pete. I sign James George, which is my real name reversed.

  “I’ll let you in.” She goes through a curtain behind her and opens a door from the inside about ten feet away. I go in. She returns to her desk. Six women sit around a table in the middle of the room. They’re pretty and fairly young and either in leotards or brief swimsuits. There are benches against all four walls, and I sit on one. An older man is sitting on a bench across the room. He’s wearing a coat on this humid summer day and sunglasses with mirrors for lenses, and seems to be enjoying himself just by looking at the women.

  Sit for a while, I tell myself. Don’t be in any rush. There’s just this guy and you, so you got a complete choice. Listen to how they speak and what they say. Make the right decision from it. Pick the one you think has the best combination of looks and personality and even intelligence and doesn’t seem abrasive and will be the most fun. Right after I finish thinking this I choose the youngest-looking woman mostly because she is so young and it seems as if this could almost be her first day here. She’s around eighteen or nineteen, less than half my age. She’s actually beautiful. More beautiful than any woman I’ve ever been with. Perfect features and skin. Long black hair, slim body in black leotards. Long muscular legs, tiny waist and small breasts. She looks like a dancer. She seems bored and isn’t talking with the other women. Radio music’s playing and she seems to be listening to it. I go over to her, tap her shoulder. She looks up. I give her my ticket. She stands, flashes a smile and says “Follow me.”

  I follow her through the door to the lobby, past the checkroom and desk to a small room off a hallway. She shuts the door. “What do you want, half and half?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You haven’t been here before?”

  “No.”

  She seems disappointed and looks around. A bucket of dirty water’s on the floor. Looks like someone spit several times in it. She feels the water with her finger. “It’s cold. I better get some warmer water to wash you with.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m clean.”

  “No, I have to. I’ll be back. Sit down. Take off your clothes.”

  She goes. I take off my shirt and hang it on a hook. My pants and shorts on a different hook and then my shoes and socks. I look in the mirror. I flatten my hair back, fold my arms, sit on the bed. The room is mostly this single bed against the wall. No window. Bucket of water and a stool with a folded towel on it. She comes back with a basin of wa
ter.

  “Got some warmer water for you. And soap. They seem to have none here.”

  “I don’t see any. By the way, you mentioned half and half. What is it?”

  “Half blow job, half screw. You want that?”

  “Sure. Is there anything else I can get?”

  “Nothing I give. Come here.” I walk over to her “Hold the pan.” I hold the pan. She drops the soap in the water, takes my penis in one hand and starts washing it, “Wait a minute, we got a problem. This thing won’t fit in me. I should’ve asked you to undress before I got the water, but this thing isn’t even semi-erect yet.” She drops my penis.

  “What do I do?”

  “Whatever you do, you’re not going in me. I’m sorry, but I got some more working to do today and I’m not the biggest girl in the world, know what I mean? You want me to just blow you, that’s something different, but not if it’s going to take too long.”

  “I want the other thing too.”

  Then pick one of the other girls who looks bigger.” She puts the soap on the stool, takes the basin from me and dumps the water into the bucket. She pulls my ticket out from inside her shoe, where I never saw her put it, and gives me it.

  “Listen, how can I tell who’s bigger than who, because I don’t want to run into the same problem?”

  “Anyone older than me and with a bigger behind’s usually good. Just any of them then, because you see I’m too slight. Use that towel. Sorry. Bye.” She leaves with the basin.

  I dry myself, get dressed and go back to the lobby. “I still have my ticket,” I say to the woman behind the desk, showing it.

  “I know. Let me come around.” She lets me in. Most of the women look at me when I walk in and then resume talking.

  The man with the sunglasses and coat is still there smiling.

  There’s a new woman, in purple shorts and red T-shirt, but I can only see a little of her face. I change benches so I can get a good look at her. She’s cute: small nose, little eyes and pouty lips. She looks at me, smiles nicely, and then looks back at her shoes. Another woman has a gorgeous figure I see when she stands up and looks at me and winks. But her hair’s bleached platinum and looks like it’d feel like straw. And she’s chewing gum very hard and snapping it, and I don’t like hair like that or the sound or smell of chewing gum. Some other time, because of her great body, I might choose her if I ever come back here, which I think I will. It seems fair, reasonably clean, no hustle, and the women are attractive and mostly young. But now I want someone who seems as if she almost doesn’t want to be chosen and who at least has the appearance of being modest, like the one in purple shorts. I go over to her and hold out my ticket.

  She looks up. “Oh yeah, I forgot,” she says, and laughs. “My mind was lost somewhere.” She takes my ticket and says “Over here,” and I follow her to a room right off this one. It’s three times as large as the first one and has a dresser, chair, sink, window with drapes over it, bathroom mirror screwed to the wall and the same single bed. “Take off your clothes. Water in the sink takes too long to get warm and I want to wash you, so I’ll be right back.”

  “You’re not going to believe this…”

  “What?”

  “Forget it; it’s ridiculous.”

  “No, what? I want to know,”

  “I’m already very clean.”

  “Everyone’s very clean, honey, but everyone’s got to be washed. Only way I know if you are is when I do it myself, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  She leaves. I take off my clothes and sit on the bed. There’s stirring behind the wall with the mirror. I stand and look in the mirror and see myself and also some kind of movement behind it. The movement stops but there’s still an outline of a head with lots of hair around it, like the woman has. I sit in the chair and cross my legs and keep my eyes on a different wall than the mirror’s. I don’t want her thinking I’m suspicious in any way she’d think wasn’t normal, as I don’t want to be asked to leave if that’s what they do when they’re suspicious of you.

  She comes in with a basin of water with a bar of soap in it. “Sorry I took so long. Could you stand so I can get you washed?”

  “Want me to hold the pan?”

  “Sure, honey, that’ll be as good as my resting it on the chair.”

  I hold the pan and she washes and dries my penis. I put the pan on the chair. She takes off her shoes and shorts and I lie on the bed.

  “Make some room for me, honey.”

  “Excuse me.” I slide close to the wall. She sits on the edge of the bed.

  “What do you want?” she says.

  “Is there anything besides half and half?”

  “Sure, plenty. Want me to fly you around the world?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I suck you all the way around, ass and cock. You never had it, it’s great.”

  “Do I get to come in you?”

  “For ten dollars more. Without coming in me it’s only five dollars more.”

  “What else is there besides that?”

  “Sixty-nine. That’ll cost you five more. But there you also get to come inside me. If you want to stick it in my ass that’s another ten dollars no matter what else we do or where you come in me, because that one takes a little longer and isn’t the easiest to do.”

  “Nah, I don’t think so.”

  “I can give you a quarter fly around the world for five dollars more where you also come in me.”

  Thanks, but I think I’d just like half and half.”

  She takes off her shirt, lies across my chest and holds my penis and stares at it. “What’s this?”

  “What’s what?”

  This stuff leaking out of you. I don’t like the looks of it. Sure you don’t have something?”

  “Positive. It’s probably just come.”

  “I hope so.” She wipes the tip with her fingers and puts my penis in her mouth. I play with her nipple. Her eyes are closed while she’s doing it. About two minutes later she sits up, wipes her mouth with her wrist, gets on her back and opens her legs. I get on top of her and only go a little ways in.

  “Push in all the way, honey. You’re not doing us any good hanging outside.”

  “I thought we’d play with each other a little till we’re both ready.”

  “Why do we got to play? You’re ready, I’m ready, come on.” I go all the way in, grab her head, shoulders, back of her neck.

  “It’d help if you moved a little too,” I say.

  “I will. I just wanted to make sure you were settled.” She moves. I come.

  I get out before she gives me any sign I should and roll over on my side.

  That was quick,” she says.

  “I guess it’s been a long time.”

  “Yeah? If you want, for another five, you can do it again if you think you can be quick.”

  “I don’t know if I can do it that fast again.”

  “How long you think you need?”

  “If I take an eight-minute rest or so and then you play with me a little, maybe a total of fifteen minutes.”

  That’s too long for another five. For another ten I’ll wait the eight minutes with you here before we start again.”

  “I don’t even think I can guarantee anything that fast. I better just forget it.”

  “Next time don’t wait so long to come here, okay? Then you won’t have to do it so fast and can get more out of it.” She gets off the bed. I do too. Cleans herself with a washrag and sink water and says “Don’t you want to wash yourself too?”

  “I guess so.” I go to the basin and start soaping my penis.

  “I’ll help.” She washes it for me over the basin on the chair, gives me a paper towel to dry it with.

  Thanks.”

  She puts on her shorts and shoes. I put on my undershorts and pants and sit down and take my socks out of my pants pocket.

  “My socks were in my pocket—”

  “What, honey?” She was putting her shir
t over her head and didn’t hear me.

  “My socks. I just wanted to explain. They were in my pocket because I already got undressed and dressed here once when another girl right before you—you weren’t in the main room at the time—she said I was too big for her when she was washing me.”

  “Which one was she?”

  “Girl in black leotards. Very young.”

  “Very, very young with her long black hair brushed straight down in back? Very pretty?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know her name. No, you’re big all right, though not where you’re that unusual. Sure that was her real reason for refusing you?”

  That’s what she said.”

  “She must have never had a baby or be younger than I even thought, though I still don’t see why she should be so smug.”

  “You won’t say anything to hurt her job. That she refused someone for what might be a flimsy reason?”

  “She’s got no worries. Young and pretty like she is, she can turn away twice as many as anyone and still do better than most. Don’t feel sorry for her.”

  I’m all dressed. “By the way, this is for you.” There’s a sign on the wall that says Tips aren’t obligatory but are welcome, and I give her three dollars.

  Thank you, that’s very nice.” She puts it in her purse.

  I go to the door. “Well, goodbye.”

  “Let me leave first, honey.” She runs her hands through her hair, opens the door, says goodbye and goes. I wait a few seconds before opening the door and walking through the main room. The older man’s there smiling at the women. The woman I was just with isn’t around. The young woman in black leotards is sitting and talking with another woman. I smile at her as I pass. She flashes a smile back.