“Look,” he says, “I’m not a cop.” He even shows me his United Grocer’s I.D.
I finally decide to take the risk, even though I’m still not sure he’s okay. This job has got me so programmed that I feel I really should try to get him off. So I stroke up and down on his prick, around and over his balls, for what seems an interminable long time. His massage time is just about over when he finally comes.
He wipes himself off with the rag I give him. Then he sits up on the table and looks directly at me. “You know what?” he says.
“What?”
“I’m a cop,” he says.
I just stare at him for moment. I can feel my stomach jerk in, my breathing stop. I picture myself in jail, my family’s reaction if they ever found out.
He looks away from me. “I’m just kidding,” he mutters.
It’s hard to take it all in. “Jesus Christ!” I stammer. “That’s no joke!”
“Sorry,” he says. But I don’t think he’s really sorry at all.
* * *
The woman I work with most nights, who goes by the name of Pat, says the same crummy joke was played on her a few times. Both of us know, of course, that the joke could turn into a real trip to jail at any time. That’s one of the risks of working here. I try not to think about it too much. I try not to imagine how I’d feel about being busted for prostitution.
Pat might not worry about this as much, because she used to be a hooker. Now she sticks to the massage parlors, and she has a lot of regular customers, so she must make almost as much money as before. I imagine it’s a lot easier for her working here.
Pat’s got straight reddish hair, is tall and thin, and is pretty nice. She always puts on a good show for the guys. A few nights ago she came in wearing a silver wig, false eyelashes, and lots of makeup. She looked so different I hardly recognized her.
Whenever her regular customers come in, Pat acts real glad to see them. She always greets them at the door, gets them a cup of our lousy instant coffee (which I usually don’t bother with unless they ask), and acts real sexy with them. I don’t know what she does in the rooms with the guys, but they always leave her good tips.
Sometimes I wonder whether Pat’s hostess personality is all part of her act, or if she really likes the guys. Once I asked her if she liked her job, and she said she did. But I still wonder whether Pat thinks the show is real, that “sexy Pat” is really her. I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t either.
* * *
I’m cleaning out the showers, during a break in our flow of customers, when Pat comes and tells me that Abe Fisher is waiting for me in room two. “Great,” I say. Abe is an old Jewish guy who always leaves a good tip.
I get my bottles of oil and bring them into the room. As usual, Abe is sitting on the table with a towel wrapped around him, smoking a cigar. Already the air inside the room is thick with smoke.
“Hi sweetheart,” Abe says in his faintly accented voice. “Are you ready for me now?”
“Sure am,” I say, smiling at him.
Abe never wants a real massage. He wants me to “just tickle” him, as he puts it. So I spread some talcum powder on his skinny back and legs. Then I start stroking him with my fingertips, very lightly, all over his back and buttocks and upper legs. My hands move in rhythm to the soft muzak he likes to listen to.
He moans with pleasure sometimes, especially when I glide my fingertips across his buttocks. I watch his balls quiver and his prick get harder whenever my fingers brush against them.
At last he sighs and turns over. “Ah, sweetheart,” he says, panting a little, “you make me feel so good.” His prick is very hard by now, much harder than you’d think an old man’s would be. I put a little oil on his prick and balls and stroke them gently.
Abe puts his arm around me, then starts feeling up my butt. “Why don’t you take your pants, off, sweetheart?” he asks. “I’ll give you a nice tip.”
“Sure Abe,” I say. I pull my pants and underpants down. Abe pats my butt, at first softly, then a little harder, while I keep on stroking his prick and balls. Then he makes his usual request. “Sweetheart,” he says, “let me go between your legs.”
I say “yes” as usual, so he gets off the table and stands facing me, his prick very full. My pants and underpants are down around my knees. I put a towel inside them, so his come doesn’t soil them or god forbid grow another Abe Fisher inside me. Then he puts his arms around me and holds me against him. He holds me tighter and tighter as he thrusts with his prick, back and forth, back and forth between my thighs.
This doesn’t really matter, I tell myself. It’s worth it to get a good tip. But while Abe still presses and thrusts against me, I look over his shoulder. In the mirror facing us, I can see the grotesque sculpture that we make.
* * *
In every room in the massage parlor there’s an oversized Barbie doll head which holds kleenex. You pull a kleenex out of the top of the doll’s head.
The doll heads were the owner’s idea, but Pat and I hate them. Pat says that pulling out a kleenex is like pulling a little bit of brains out of the doll’s head. At the rate we use kleenex, I figure none of the dolls can have much gray matter left by now.
I think much the same about myself sometimes. I feel this job eating at me until I wonder if I’m all hollow inside.
* * *
It’s later at night. The customer is an aging hippie from Los Angeles, with grayish-brown shoulder-length hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. He’s wearing new-looking purple corduroy pants, tooled leather boots, and the classic suede leather jacket with fringe.
He takes a sauna first and then he’s ready for his massage. “I like a good, hard massage,” he tells me. So I work up a sweat kneading and pounding the large muscles on his back. “Hey,” he says, “you’re really good. I’m going to be a regular customer from now on.” That sounds good to me, unless he’s too much hassle. I could use a few more regular customers to keep the money coming in.
After he turns over, I give him a scalp massage. His hair is clean and silky, nice to touch. Meanwhile, he starts checking me out.
“Do you turn on?” he asks. “I’ve got some dynamite speed with me tonight. I could let you have some real cheap.”
“No thanks,” I say. “I’m not into speed.”
“Too bad,” he says. “This is really good stuff.” He’s silent for a moment, then he raises his head up and looks at me. “You know, with some people you never know where they’re at. I’m glad you gave me an honest answer. I think honesty is real important.”
“Yeah, so do I,” I say. I start working on his chest, spreading oil over his chest muscles. He’s quiet for a while again, and then as I move on to working on his stomach, he starts checking out the sexual merchandise.
“I really like head jobs,” he says. “You do them, don’t you?”
“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t.”
He has a disappointed expression on his face. “Are you sure you won’t do a head job? I was really hoping to get one.”
“I’ll give you fifteen bucks for doing one.” He puts his arm around me and squeezes a little. He looks at me encouragingly.
What the hell, I think all of a sudden. Maybe I should try it. I could really use the fifteen bucks, and if I got into doing blow jobs here, I could make a lot more money.
“Okay,” I say, “I’ll do it.”
“Great,” he says.
I bend over him, ready to start his blow job right away and get it over with. “Hey,” he says, looking offended, “I’m not ready yet. Make me hard with your hands first.”
So I put some oil on his prick and start stroking up and down, holding it between my cupped hands like another customer showed me. “That feels good,” he says. He unbuttons my blouse, pulls up my bra, and runs his hand over my breasts. Then he starts sucking on the nipples. I don’t stop him. I figure this is part of the fifteen dollar deal.
Finally he says that he’s ready for his blow job, so
I bend over him and put his prick into my mouth. It tastes oily and too salty, but I try not to notice that.
As I’m sucking on his prick, he starts correcting my technique. First he moves my head so I’m right over his prick and turned toward his face. Then he shows me the correct motion. “Move your head up and down like a rabbit,” he says. He demonstrates, moving his head up and down.
He looks so funny, nodding his head like that, that I have to keep myself from laughing. Jesus, I’m thinking, this guy is a great teacher.
I start moving my head as he showed me. “Hey,” he says, sounding critical, “I can’t feel you. Are you sucking?”
I start sucking on him harder. “That’s pretty good,” he says. “You don’t mind doing this, do you?”
I take his prick out of my mouth for a moment to answer him. “It’s okay,” I say.
Then I go back to moving my head up and down and sucking. I’m starting to feel that I’ve really got the hang of this. Maybe I can stand to do blow jobs after all.
“That feels great,” he says. “Just put a little bit more of it in your mouth.”
So I bend over further and try to cram more of his prick into my mouth. It feels as if my whole mouth is full of his prick. I can almost feel it touching my throat.
He starts to moan and thrust his hips against me. All of a sudden I start to gag. It’s too much! I want his prick out of my mouth right now!
I jerk up, letting go of his prick, backing away from his encircling arm. He opens his eyes. “What’s happening?” he says, sounding irritated.
“I just don’t want to do it anymore,” I say.
We stare at each other for a minute. He’s breathing heavily, looking really pissed. “Hey chick,” he says, “are you going to charge me fifteen bucks for that?”
“I’m not gonna charge you anything,” I say. My own voice is angry too. “I’ll give you a hand finish instead,” I say after a moment.
He lies back down, looking a little mollified. I put some more oil on his prick and start stroking up and down again. He grabs for my breasts and squeezes them hard. Then he slips his hands under the waist of my pants. His hand moves downward until he’s pressing it between my legs. He starts to stick a finger inside of me.
I don’t want him to touch me like that, so I move away a little. But his arm around me pulls me back and he keeps on rubbing his hand against my crotch. Mostly I figure it’s not worth it to stop him. I just want to get him off and get him out of here.
Finally he comes, in a storm of heavy breathing. A moment later, he’s polite again. “Thanks a lot. I really needed that.”
“I’m glad it felt good,” I say, handing him a prick rag. I try to sound sincere.
He lays a rap on me as gets dressed. “You know,” he says, “I’m not a chauvinist. Some of my best buddies are chicks. I work on cars with them.”
“Oh yeah,” I say.
He buttons his silky, floral-print shirt. “And I know a lot of gay people too. It doesn’t make any difference to me.”
That’s right, I think. I’m gay and it didn’t matter to you at all.
He pulls on his pants. “Just so long as you do what feels good to you, that’s the main thing.” He slowly puts on his boots. “It’s always a mistake to do anything you don’t want to do,” he says, “because you’re prostituting yourself if you do that.”
There’s a taste in my mouth like vomit. Then I must be a whore, I think to myself. Because I didn’t want to be with this guy at all. And I sure as hell didn’t want him to touch me.
He hands me a five dollar tip. “I’ll see you another time,” he says. “The massage felt great.”
“Thanks,” I say. I try for a sexy smile, but I don’t make it.
Speaking in Tongues
Jean Johnston
Bones crush
beneath hot breath
beer burps up out
onto my face
For weeks I think of nothing
but spit and pus and urine
shit clogs my colon
For weeks I feel
nothing but
salt waves soar
through my head
freezing behind my eyes
ice cracks
my skin
and hot blood blankets
my cold body
I am an alien.
to the men a pussy/ a cunt/ a bitch
a cocksucker
to the women a whore with lumps of semen
still sticking to my tongue
speaking another language
I am
learning to communicate
Girls, Girls, Girls
M. M. Chateauvert
Maluda stepped by nearly every night. Always in something different, usually around 10:30 or so — early, considering the street she was on. Sometimes she would look in the window as she passed; more often, she was too concerned with her own business and watched what the sidewalk had to offer instead. When she did look inside, her gaze first took in the neon signs and gaudy front with the old run-down hotel above it, and then her eyes rested on what the parlor’s window displayed. Sometimes Maluda smiled when the doorman was rapping particularly well, and then she walked on down the sidewalk.
“Looking us over,” someone inside would say.
She was alone most of the time; always walking single. If there was someone along, she was always a little ahead of him — for that meant things had already been arranged — or they were quietly rapping and strolling.
“Haven’t seen her with an old man, have you?” one of the inside girls asked, and then they all started discussing Maluda.
“Never seen her riding with anyone, either, I bet,” Jeri said.
“She good. She don’t have to mix with the trash around here,” Dawn put in.
“Maybe she don’t have a sugar daddy,” Chrissy said.
“Listen: none of you work downtown all night ‘cept me and I’ve seen her with a man or two,” Collette said.
“Probably just telling him to go back to L.A.,” Sunny said.
“She don’t come ‘round here all the time, maybe needle’s her old man,” Jeri put in.
“Her old man’s needle, Sugar,” Collette said.
Maluda dressed differently too. Suit, pumps; umbrella and a rain-coat; or fine pants that tapered to her ankle. Unlike most of the rest, she looked like someone who was supposed to be going into a hotel. Not little-girl nice; most respectable, like a lady. Hotel security knew who and what she was, but because she looked like she couldn’t be bothered, security let her pass by.
“Just who does she think she is anyway?” Anna asked no one in particular.
“She’s just like anyone else out there: stupid,” Candy said, putting on more lipstick.
In some ways she was, but Collette looked at the girls lounging around the lobby and knew different. Dawn: tall, half black, half white, who wore costumes often, fancy silk scarves wrapped around her waist and a camisole, with high heeled mules on her feet. Then there was Candy, who wore hot pants and white lipstick, her eyes heavy with false lashes. They all had their own style, creating the illusion that they were young and innocent or sophisticated and experienced. Each playing a part in a masquerade of desire.
Maluda watched all the signs of the street; eyes on the sidewalk’s offerings, the doorways where street people hung out, the cars and their riders. She’d watch shoes — polished leather, cracked toes, shoes with rubber soles. Cars — finely waxed, low-riding, and plain, four doors. And pockets that were big with folded money, hands, or guns and badges.
Every night, Collette watched for her, checking to see if she was around. If she was out, it meant that business would be good, even though she was competition. The massage parlor always did its best when there were plenty of girls on the street, luring the men.
“Hey, hey sir, We-got-seven-girls-tonight. Come-on-in and pick out the one that’s right-for-you! Or try a couple. . Come on! Take one-back-to-your ho-te
l tonight,” the doorman barked out his call and grinned suggestively at passers-by. He saw Maluda and said, “Hey, hey pretty mama howsit for you this evening? Steppin’ mighty fine as always. Street’s hot, so’re we, send em over your way in a bit.” He tipped his non-existent hat as she went by.
Maluda kept walking. Hands holding a small bag by her side, her eyes ahead, Maluda went by the sign that said The Sugar Shop.
The juke box was loud inside; the beat of the disco music picked up the rhythm of the night street. The curtains swung with girls running in and out of the rooms, doors closed discreetly, money dropped in the safe. When the girls heard the outer door, they stopped to listen, waiting. If they didn’t have to slip on their robes for Collette’s call, they sighed and asked their customers for another quarter for the juke box. The mirrors blinked when the street lights shone through.
Collette was setting up the books for the night, arguing in her mind with the old man who owned the parlor. The day shift had been slow until around seven and then business had picked up. The old man would be angry if the house didn’t clear at least a thousand tonight. But then, she had six good girls on, and a new one who had to be trained. There was a cop scare too, dammit. One idiot customer was all they needed to get busted these days. Still, there were a couple of conventions in town; the Hilton was full of doctors and Japanese businessmen, and around the corner at the Saint Francis were engineers from the midwest, she’d heard. Collette got up from the desk and looked in the mirror. She had on a new long skirt, her hair was freshly washed and hung like a shawl around her shoulders; she felt great. “We’ll see,” she said aloud and went out to the lobby.
“Hey, girl, where’d ya get those shoes? Can I try ’em on?” Jeri was asking Dawn.
“Chrissy’s got glitter all around her eyes, look at her,” came from Candy.
“. . . and then I told that good-for-nothing nigger to get the fuck outa there. That asshole, you know what he did to me?” Sunny was talking about her man again with Anna.
“Everyone here meet Kathy?” Collette asked. Nods came from most of the girls. Collette turned to Kathy, “Old man get you a license yet?”
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