Blue Money

by Janet Capron

  Shortly after I moved into the Coventry, my old friend Whitney, a dance major from our alma mater, looked me up. I had not heard from any of my classmates since I had been kicked out of Pendleton, a college for budding libertines and aspiring dilettantes.

  Traditionally, students had a hard time getting ousted from Pendleton. My friends thought I was a rebel to be admired; actually, I was usually too sick in the morning to get out of bed. Indeed, I was mortified that I suffered from acute anxiety attacks whenever I tried to enter the library, or that my crippling hangovers forced me to shun the classes of the very teachers who had offered the most encouragement. This is what drove the dean, finally, to ask me to leave. Immediately, I took off in the middle of the night with the reckless debutante Cynthia Austen White Andover Poole in her souped-up Thunderbird, the driver handicapped by a scared kitten crying and crawling all over her while she gunned the accelerator on the southbound thruway. As far as I know, neither one of us ever went back. Whenever I thought of that sanguine campus designed to replicate an old New England town, its open commons set high on a real New England plateau, I was filled with remorse and eager to put the whole experience behind me. I thought I had long since severed all ties with my Pendleton college chums.

  As luck would have it, my college friend was in a hurry to sell her mother’s tasteful furniture, enough to fill my little apartment. I gladly paid out three hundred dollars, the sum she had decided she needed to get across the country and establish herself at the ashram she was about to join in Colorado.

  I had gone from knocking around like a stray on the backstreets to living in a fabulous big studio with a view of the East River, full of nothing but silky, varnished mahogany, fancy upholstery, and a walk-in closet very nearly jammed with clothes. Marvelous. And the best part was that I was sane, unassailably sane. Just as I suspected, money made the difference. Nothing like the grounding influence of things to keep me on track. I was shining with health and cosseted by all my possessions; for the first time in my adult life, I felt that I was a success.

  The Comanche

  I dropped into Felix’s to show off the new me to Charlie Mooney.

  “Look at you. Glossy blond hair and nail polish—and stockings and high heels. Well done. You’re a knockout, Janet, too good for us. You’re moving up in the world.

  “Felix, come over here. I want you to see something.”

  Felix limped over. With his twisted body and his lopsided grin, he looked a bit like a toned and sun-kissed Quasimodo. “Yeah, yeah, Charlie. Can’t you see I’m in pain?” he said.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “A rough rugby match—an exceedingly rough rugby match,” Felix said.

  “I’m turning tricks now, Charlie,” I said.

  With his usual pomp, Charlie folded his arms across his chest and nodded, pulling in his chin in a parody of a fatuous authority figure. “Well, whatever it is, it’s obviously good for you, Janet. I’ve never seen you when you had it so together.”

  Just then, a stretch limo pulled up in front of the saloon. The chauffeur scrambled around to open the door and everybody inside stopped whatever they were doing or saying to look. Who should step out, sheathed in a floor-length silver mink but the redoubtable Comanche (née Angelica), just the person I hoped never to see again. In she sauntered (for to call it a walk would in no way describe her Barbie-doll-gone-amok, hip-swinging glide across the barroom floor), until she was standing directly in front of the hunched-over Felix. She flashed him. She was naked inside her coat, of course. Then she grabbed Felix’s nipple through his T-shirt and tweaked it hard.

  “Want to fool around, Felix?”

  “Ow, that hurt. No, I don’t want to fool around. I’m in terrible pain.”

  “Whatsa matter, is it your back again, booby?”

  “Yeah, it went out on me this morning, playing against those damned Irishmen in the Park. They’re fiends. I should know better.”

  “But I can make it all well, I promise. My partner, Cissy, she loves to give back rubs (she also loves to suck cock). No, really, she’s a genius at it. And we got plenty of pills. We got Dalmane, Percodan, Codeine #3, you name it, a full medicine cabinet. So come over, come in the limo.”

  “Go on, let the Comanche heal you. Go on,” Charlie said.

  Then she turned to me. “You look great, Janet. Why don’t you come, too?”

  I hadn’t thought she noticed or recognized me, even though I was standing right next to Felix.

  “We got speed—Desoxyn—OK, Janet? I know how you love that. And you’ll dig Cissy. She’s a gas,” the Comanche said.

  I have to say one thing for that old crowd of mine: crazy acting out, like banging wildly on a front door until the police come, was not a memorable offense.

  “All right, I’ll go if Janet goes. In my condition, I need a duenna,” Felix said in his husky, raspy voice, made even huskier by the pain.

  Soon we all piled into the limo, and I hadn’t even had the chance to settle in when I realized where we were going.

  “Why are we pulling up to my door?” I asked.

  “You live here?” Angelica was surprised.

  I nodded.

  She squealed. “Janet, we’re neighbors. What floor do you live on? Oh, we’ll have great times. I get so bored waiting for the phone to ring. Are you working?”

  “Yeah, I’m starting a book.”

  “Terrific. Cissy and I can turn you onto loads of tricks. We got more than we can handle. Hey, this is going to be fun!”

  “All right, girls, it’s very cozy and all that, but I got to lie down now,” Felix said.

  Angelica and I each took one arm and hoisted Felix into the elevator. She occupied a studio on the penthouse floor above me, and her partner, Cissy, lived in a one-bedroom a few floors below. We carried Felix down the hall to the one-bedroom, where a broad-shouldered, big-breasted, flaxen-haired farmer’s daughter sat waiting inside, wearing a transparent negligee. She was glassy-eyed—the eyes of a body-snatched husk. Her legs were spread, and she absentmindedly dangled a limp hand between them.

  “Cissy, you got to help this poor slob out with one of your super back rubs. This is Felix, and this is his chaperone, Janet. She’s an old friend of mine and Michael’s. We go way back, and guess what? She lives right here in this building, on the seventeenth floor. And she’s in the Life now. Isn’t that too much?”

  Without responding, Cissy hauled a groaning Felix into the bedroom. Angelica threw her silver mink over a chair, even though now in the icy air-conditioning, the coat would have been more appropriate, and slipped on a silk kimono, which was left hanging open. She disappeared into the bathroom, and the next thing I knew, she was distributing pills and snifters full of cognac to her guests.

  Felix groaned while the mighty Cissy kneaded his back. Eventually the medicine, whatever combination he had swallowed, began to work, and he became glassy-eyed.

  “Oh, how can I thank you girls? I’m feeling no pain,” he said.

  “Actually, there is a favor you could do for us,” Angelica said.

  “Anything, anything.”

  “Well, I’m working on expanding my repertoire, and I need to practice something.” Angelica hesitated a second, then she blurted it out: “We want to give you an enema.”

  Cissy’s blank eyes lit up.

  “Yeah, we would really get off on that. I got this trick referred to me, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I was going to turn him over to Cissy, but Mr. Fudge—” Angelica turned to me. “That’s our man. Cissy’s and mine. He looks after us, even while he’s away. I can always hear his advice in my head. Anyway, Mr. Fudge explained it to us: ‘Bein’ a ho ain’t no different than bein’ a nurse. When you get one of ’em freaky tricks, you jes put on yo’ nurse’s cap. If you want to be a great ho, then you got to detach. No body part, no bodily function, should disgust a good ho. Think about them poor nurses. They gotta change bedpans, and they make a whole lot less an hou
r.’”

  Angelica had dropped her voice when she said this to sound like her pimp.

  “Two bills and all the old guy’s asking for is an enema, then he doesn’t even take a crap here—he goes right home! Two bills for ten minutes, tops! But, you know, who the hell wants to do it? Cissy, when she could talk, had the right idea. She says I got to get over myself. She’s right. I figure maybe if I practice on you, Felix...”

  “Fine, fine, if it’ll make you happy. But just make sure it’s warm water, OK? That’s all I ask,” Felix said.

  He was now lying on the bed, too wasted to want to stand up on his own, so Angelica enlisted me to help get him over to the open massage table Cissy had just moved to the middle of the living room.

  Cissy hightailed it into the bathroom and returned bearing a huge enema bag that looked a lot like an old-fashioned hot-water bottle, which she hooked over the chrome standing lamp next to where Felix was lying on his stomach, his head resting on his folded arms. Then she handed the long tube to Angelica, who, grimacing, inserted it into Felix’s behind.

  All of a sudden, he screeched and threw himself off the table, at the same time tearing out the tube, which began to spout water, forming a pool in the thick dark red carpet.

  “I said warm water, you idiots!”

  “Oh, wasn’t it warm enough? I’m sorry,” Cissy said, looking disappointed but also thoroughly stoned, her pupils the size of specks.

  “C’mon, Janet, we’re getting outta here,” Felix said while pulling on his clothes. Then he grabbed me by the hand and yanked me out the door.

  Angelica followed behind. “Well, bye, then. Sorry, Felix, hope you feel better. And I’ll see you tomorrow, girl.”

  “Bye-bye. See you tomorrow,” I said over my shoulder as Felix dragged me away.

  The next day, Sunday, I found myself trying to fix a hangover along with my two neighbors Angelica and Cissy. I knew my phone wasn’t going to ring; my book was not big enough yet to keep me busy during the week, let alone today. Still, my first whorehouse trick, Frank, had managed to find me through Evelyn. He actually asked her permission to see me, which she reluctantly gave. My original client’s return was good luck, I thought. He started coming around faithfully once a week, again bearing gifts, either a new toaster oven, an electric frying pan, or a blender, always some shiny appliance in addition to the fifty dollars. Corinne sent me her spillover, and Angelica and Cissy were sure to be more than generous. My business was beginning to pick up a little. But Sunday was a particularly slow day anyway in New York for the kind of whores we were, with a local, married clientele. To pass the time, we had taken a bottle of rum from their well-stocked bar into the kitchen with us, made up a batch of frozen daiquiris, and sat around in long T-shirts and short shorts talking shop.

  I suspected Angelica was introduced to the concept of hooking by Michael, although she characteristically denied it, claiming it was she who turned him onto the idea. At any rate, she had long since left the amateurish Michael in the dust, having found her pimp, Mr. Fudge, and having joined up with his other New York girl, Cissy. They had decorated their apartments at the Coventry identically with lots of chrome and glass and canopied beds with black satin sheets. The Comanche, Angelica, a dainty brunette, contrasted fetchingly with the square-shaped Cissy and her blue eyes and yellow hair. They adored their absentee pimp, Mr. Fudge, who was always on the road expanding his business, a girl or two in each town, from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles. They were proud of their man’s financial acumen, pointing to their furs, a Jaguar in the garage, and matching diamond rings, as if he were their canny investment counselor instead of a guy skimming profits off the top.

  Cissy, the restless one, itched to hit the street.

  “Guess it’s ’cause I grew up on a farm, but I can’t stand staying indoors all day. I’ve been busted so many times, the judge finally threw the book at me. Made me do three months—the maximum. ‘Cissy,’ he said, ‘you got a record so big, it would take a wheelbarrow to haul it all in the courtroom. I’m sick and tired of seeing your face.’ Judge Feinstein, what a cute old fart,” she said, chuckling fondly over the memory.

  “Can’t keep her off the street no how, no way. You’re a bad girl, Cissy,” Angelica said.

  “Where do you go?” I couldn’t help blurting out. “I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. You’re supposed to be a high-class hooker—after all you live on Sutton Place—so why in hell would you want to turn streetwalker?”

  Cissy stared at me.

  “I thought there was more of a distinction between those two branches of the profession,” I said a little apologetically.

  “Nah, that’s hype, that’s what the civilians like to think. I throw on my mink and hit Fiftieth off Park, in front of the Waldorf Towers. The cops give me a hard time, obviously, but it’s such a good strip to work, and it’s open territory.”

  “Cissy means it doesn’t belong to anybody else’s pimp,” Angelica said.

  “I know, I know,” I said.

  “Well, well, get a load of the pro here. I remember you when you were giving it away, and pretty generously, too,” she said.

  “Now, Angie, nobody likes to be reminded of that,” Cissy said. “Anyway, who hasn’t given it up for nothing sometime in their lives?”

  “Who out there isn’t nowadays?” Angelica said.

  “Yeah, with all the free pussy in the world, it’s a wonder we’re still in business. But you want to know why we are?” Cissy asked.

  “Oh, tell us, great bwana, tell us your theory,” Angelica said.

  “Well, I know you’ve heard it before,” Cissy said.

  “A coupla times,” her partner said, getting up to pour us all another drink from the blender that we were keeping in the refrigerator.

  “OK, but Janet hasn’t. Are you interested in hearing my theory about why we’re still in business, Janet?” Cissy asked.

  “And it’s better than ever, too,” Angelica said.

  “Yeah, and it’s better than ever, too. Want to hear?”

  “Of course, of course,” I said.

  “The reason men go to hos is ’cause they like to pay for it, that’s why. The money up front, that’s what gets ’em. It’s nothing we do, it’s not even the sex; it’s just that they like to pay for it, plain and simple,” Cissy said, sounding triumphant.

  “You know, that’s really a brilliant theory. Brilliant. Once they pay, they’re free. They don’t have to say ‘I love you,’ don’t have to raise the kid. But wait,” I said, thinking a little more. “According to you it’s even simpler than that. I get it. I remember now I read once in a men’s magazine about an experiment where scientists put a vending machine in a cage of chimpanzees. When the animals pressed a button, they got a piece of fruit. The next thing you know, the males were exchanging bananas and apples with the females for sex. That proves what you’re saying is true. Fuck it, I knew it! Oh man, that’s wild, really, when you think about it. The customers like to pay. Well then, let’s drink to whoremongers and caged monkeys.”

  “Knew you’d see the wisdom ’cause you’re a smart girl. Isn’t she a smart one, Angel?”

  “Smart enough to be rich like us if she wants to. But you gotta find a good pimp, Janet, like Mr. Fudge, someone to manage things for you,” Angelica said.

  “Nah, there’re too many gorillas floating around, pricks so dumb they mess up their own hos’ faces. Not many gentleman players left like Mr. Fudge. I say you’re better off on your own now,” Cissy said.

  “What about protection, backup? The street don’t take too kindly to a girl out here by herself,” Angelica said.

  “Not if you discriminate. You gotta discriminate, Janet,” Cissy said.

  “Frankly, I can’t see any advantage to having a pimp,” I said.

  “You don’t know Mr. Fudge,” Cissy said.

  The two of them stared across the kitchen table at each other, their eyes locked in complicity, and smiled.

  Bordello


  “Wear jeans. That’s all we ever wear here,” one of the two madams, Felicity, told me on the phone.

  Finally, I was going to see how the hip side of my generation ran things. I had been trying to build my own business. The problem was that I became extremely bored sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, so Corinne referred me.

  “This whorehouse should be part of every girl’s unsentimental education,” she said.

  The cab dropped me at a town house in Murray Hill that had a wrought-iron staircase leading up to the parlor floor. It was one of those sultry October days when the air is heavy with dawdling summer. A wisteria vine had twisted itself around the iron fence and hung off the landing. The blossoms had blown away months ago, but the brown stems were still covered with wispy green leaves. I felt as if I were marching up the steps of a real bordello.

  A sullen-looking young thing in short shorts, thongs, and a halter top answered the bell. “Upstairs,” she said, pointing to the back of the house.

  We were in a big front room with high windows, empty except for a couple of couches. I started climbing the stairs.

  “All the way to the top,” the sentry yelled after me.

  I passed a landing with doors on either side of it, then another one. I could hear Barry White on the turntable and, above his bass voice, women laughing. I followed the noise into a small room under the eaves, where three women sat on a built-in banquette around a large table. A stockpile of gleaming white cocaine had been heaped into a dish and set down smack in the middle like a centerpiece. I watched one of the women scoop what was at least a tablespoon of it onto a mirror. She started making lines with the precision of a jewel cutter.

  “Time to wake up,” the woman said, handing the whole thing to me.

  I was so struck by her instant generosity, I beamed with pleasure.

  “Is this for everyone?” I asked, horrified that I might otherwise expose my greedy nature right off the bat.