CHAPTER ONE - How Did a Nice Girl Like You Get Into This Business?
On October 1, 1935, in the maternity ward of a small hospital in upstate New York, I was yanked from what psychologists call a position of warmth and security, slapped across the buttocks and set loose in the world. The theories of Dr. Otto Rank notwithstanding, I don't want to go back. I dig it out here.
I was in my teens when I learned one practical aspect of Dr. Rank's return fixation theory--that I, too, possessed a source of warmth and security; that this source was, in fact, my prime asset. Since my discovery, I've made a very comfortable living--excuse the expression--peddling my asset.
This statement, no doubt, makes me as welcome among the ranks of present-day womankind as George Lincoln Rockwell at the B'nai B'rith Founder's Day dinner. But, whether it's compatible with your moral code or not, the truth is that, for the past ten years, asset-peddling has been my sole occupation, and I don't think I'm any the worse for wear.
During those ten years, I picked up a few social diseases you generally don't talk about at Sunday afternoon canasta sessions, but, thanks to modem medicine and the 24-hour penicillin cure, the effect was strictly temporary. During the same decade, I've managed to pick up a small fortune. So you puts up your assets, and you takes your choice.
In addition to the loot, I picked up a lot of wacky and interesting characters which I plan to describe. In the process, I'll have to tell you a few things about myself. I want to make it quite clear at the beginning, though, that I don't plan to indulge in the maudlin soul-searching that often accompanies sensational memoirs and exposes.
Although I will let my hair down, I don't plan to take a public psychological shampoo. I may explain some of my actions, but I won't try to defend them. I'll neither moralize nor sermonize, preach nor appeal. I'm not trying to sell the evils (or nonevils) of prostitution. To paraphrase Lee Mortimer, the only thing I'm trying to sell is books.
In 1955, I was at Charleston, South Carolina, working what we girls in the business call the "assembly line." The only tarts who work the line are has-beens who can't make it in the first-class markets anymore or young chicks trying to pick up experience, technique and finesse. I was in the second category. I was able to quit the business before age, circumstance, or both, forced me into the first category. The assembly line is the very bottom of the hooker's social totem pole. You take on anywhere from ten to thirty guys in succession; some- times, even more than that. The price is $2 to $10 a trick.
Charlestown is a Navy town where kids just out of boot camp embark on their maiden cruises. I mean the nautical kind! Many of them embark on the other land, too, thanks to the Friendly Neighborhood Hookers.
The first thing the sailors learn is that you can't get it for free. The swaggering little juvies, who brag they've never paid for it in their lives and never will, wind up blowing their entire pay checks at one of the thirty or more clip joints lining The Strip while they strike out trying to talk one of the B-girls into making it with them gratis.
As I've said, education is always expensive; but it's worth it if the boys learn that, no matter what the circumstances, you don't get something for nothing. When the sailors finally do learn the lesson the B-girls teach them--sometimes it takes a lot more pay checks that you would expect--the boys are ready to patronize the assembly line. Naturally, the girls of the line are ready for them.
Around payday, the price is $10 a throw and up, depending upon what the traffic will bear; as the days after payday pass, money gets tighter so the price drops until one or two days before the next payday it's down to $2 a trick.
By the time a girl has worked two or three months on the line, she is able to classify all her customers in several neat convenient categories.
First, comes the Accomplished Lover. This guy comes on like a gang-buster. He's made all the scenes, has a girl in every port, and has left a string of broken hearts from San Diego to Bangor. He lets you know right off that he doesn't have to pay for it--all he'd have to do is drop his fly to half-mast and 80 percent of the female population of the Eastern seaboard would stampede toward him like an Amazon version of Genghis Khan's elephant-mounted cavalry. But he digs prostitutes.
"Give me a hooker any time, baby," the Accomplished Lover says, letting you know that he's been around, that he knows "hooker" is one of the in-business words for a prostitute --he knows it like five million other American men who read adventure magazines. "With ordinary dames you have all that grief, all that 'I love you' crap, and 'When're we gonna get married?' and stuff. But with a hooker, baby, it's cool. You just do it! That's why I dig hookers."
After a seemingly interminable lecture in which this finished lover sounds you on how tired he is of hearing talk about doing it, and how he goes for just doing it without the talk, he finally stops talking and gets ready to do it himself--then you find out he's so inexperienced he needs a road map.
The Sanitary Lover, another common type asks: "You think I d risk syph or the clap with some of the pigs on this street?
Not on your life! I know you girls know how to take care of yourselves. For me, it has to be clean, or I don't want it."
Apparently, this joker feels he's carrying the Holy Grail around in his shorts. But if he investigated the matter of sanitation and sex, he'd find out that vd hasn't been dangerous since Ibsen wrote Ghosts. Many varieties, in this day and age, are curable by a few shots of penicillin, which your local health department, as a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, will dispense free of charge.
Of course, hookers do keep clean--it s definitely good business. (Would you patronize a restaurant that served stale eggs?) But, actually, cleanliness doesn't mean anything to the Sanitary Lover. He's hooked on hookers for the same reason as his comrade-in-arms, the Accomplished Lover: they can't get it anywhere else.
* * *
There's also the Erotic Lover, who is tired of the mundane monotony of lovemaking with conventional chicks with their stulifying moral inhibitions. He's after a "real gone experience' with a skilled companion. (Bite this guy's ear and you'll send him into ecstatic, esoteric orbit.) Then there's the Patronizing (Unbigoted) Lover--usually a Southerner--who tells you that he doesn't hold it against you that you're a prosty. "Some of my best friends are whores," he brags.
The Economical Lover is easily identified. "I've calculated that, based on a random sample of roughly thirty-five girls, with the amounts of money spent on such items as theater tickets, liquor, transportation, motel rooms, telephone calls, et cetera, the pro rata cost per lay is approximately $27.62. So, at $10, you're really quite a bargain."
In most shipments of blank cartridges, there are one or two live rounds. (Militarily, this might be a lousy analogy, but, in prostitution, it's particularly applicable.) Among the usual phalanx of foul balls like the above-described types, a girl working the line periodically comes across a genuine home-run hitter. I'll classify him as the Lover. Period. No prefix. The circumstances that bring him to your place of business are never known because, from the minute he walks in until the minute he walks out, he's too busy doing what he came to do to bother talking. When it's over, you feel like refunding his money. (Business is business, so you don't.) His return visits are too infrequent as far as you're concerned. If he came back every night, it still wouldn't be often enough for you.
Remember, boys, whenever you have occasion to patronize a hooker: actions speak louder than words. And all of us can do very nicely without a conversation piece.
* * *
Prosty's have categorized undressers, too, so when you undress, be quick and neat. You'll get a warmer reception if you're not in one of the following categories: The Moralist: He gets a kick out of sex because it's forbidden by his moral code, not because it's an enjoyable experience. When he undresses, he turns his back to you and tries to sneak out of his clothes as quickly as possible. If there's a light on in the room, he'll ask you to turn it off.
The Gargantuan. These muscle-bound dunces with 48-inch chests always make a big production out of undressing. After they've chopped their duds, they parade around nude in front of you, purposely flexing their oversized muscles while making an attempt to seem casual about the whole thing. Nine times out of ten, they're complete bring-downs when it comes to the showdown.
The Energetic Slob. This guy is in such a hurry to jump into the sack he slips his clothes off, dropping them in a pile on the floor. Then, when it's time for action, you find out why he was hurrying: he didn't think he could hold out long enough to make it. He was right. He couldn't.
* * *
Invariably, when I mention casually that I'm a retired hooker, one of the questions I'm asked (after the initial shock wears off) is if I ever fell in love with any of my clients. It seems to be part of a current romantic notion that prostitutes are frustrated chicks searching in their own haphazard (though profitable) way for the truly meaningful relationship, the affair that sets the bells ringing, the lights flashing and the stars falling. Maybe modem novels (written by men, incidentally) are responsible for this prevalent myth. This premise couldn't be further from the truth.
The professional hooker is in the business for money, the loot, the gelt. Nothing else. Fringe benefits, like affection, are neither sought after nor encountered. A prosty, if she's a good one with pride in her work, is no more likely to fall in love with her john than an accountant is likely to fall in love with a computer.
This doesn't mean that in our nonprofessional lives we don't have meaningful affairs. It's just that, as the saying goes, you don't eat in the bathroom.
After I explain our attitude, I'm often asked, "Do you mean that not one of the men you entertained ever really got through to you?"
Never. Except once. And that happened during my assembly line days at Charleston when I was too naive to avoid entanglements. His name was Matty, and he was a Seaman Second (or whatever the hell the lowest rank is) and he was assigned to a destroyer in the Atlantic fleet.
I met him on a payday. Charleston was extraordinarily busy that particular payday. There were almost twice the usual number of ships in port. One of them, a submarine, had been underwater for more than nine consecutive months. Understandably, business was booming.
By eleven p.m., I had serviced twenty-six customers. Numbers 24, 25, and 26 were all weight-lifter types with mountains of sweaty muscles sticking out all over. From all indications, I'd have to handle twenty or thirty more .sex-starved brutes before I called it a night. Just thinking of the three obnoxious gorillas I'd just finished with made me wish I'd kept my job as a secretary in Poughkeepsie.
Matty was Number 27, and when he walked in I felt my heart start to beat faster. He had youthful charm with the sheepish grin, the bashful eyes, and the high-school physique that drives most girls stark raving hungry. Number 27 or not, I flipped over him. These boyish types, like Matty, have a paradoxical quality about them: they appear innocent with the almost virginal naivete of the very young, and, at the same time, they come on wise beyond their years. I've never met a girl yet who didn't buy this package.
Matty sauntered into the room with that supreme air of confidence that's got to be genuine, he looked as though he'd been in a hundred brothels with a hundred different whores in the last month and expected me to be no different that the rest of them. It was as if he were patronizing a prostitute not so much because he wanted to, or needed to, but simply because there was nothing else to do.
I made a quick inspection, starting at the bottom of his white, bell-bottomed trousers and working up. I liked what I saw. It was one of those taut bodies that I've learned means strictly business. No excess baggage. Lean hips, flat stomach, tapered waist, full chest, wide shoulders.
"Hi," I said. "I'm Lynn."
The smile that spread across my face was sincere. The warm, tickling sensation that was starting somewhere down deep inside me was real, too. I couldn't wait.
He looked at me and sort of half-grinned as though we were old friends that were about to do something both of us wanted to do, but under circumstances neither of us cared for.
"I'm Matty," he said, taking a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and handing it to me. "How's business?"
"So-so," I said.
He loosened his neckerchief and slipped it over his head. "Should be pretty good," he commented. "Port's full."
I watched him place the neckerchief on top of the bureau, then carefully slip out of his jumper.
"It's okay, I said.
He took off his tee shirt. As he folded it meticulously and placed it on top of the jumper, I watched how the long, rippling muscles of his arms, shoulders, and back did little dances of their own.
"You been around Charleston long, Lynn?" he asked.
"This is my second month," I said.
He sat on the edge of the vanity chair and carefully unlaced one shoe, then the other. After he had them stashed neatly beneath the chair, he deposited one black sock in each.
"That's too long. For this rotten burg."
The room was lighted by a bare 40-watt bulb dangling on a plain black wire from the ceiling. In the dim light, his muscles stood out like the fine lines of sculpture. He slipped off his trousers and folded them neatly. Then, placing them on the floor next to his shoes, he stood up.
I held my breath. A warm glow started like a little ball in the pit of my stomach and spread outward until its slow, numbing waves had pervaded every fiber of my body. Everything that had happened earlier that night was dead, forgotten --I was in a different world--young and alive---every nerve of my body tingled with desire.
As Matty stood there, his legs spread apart, his hands on his hips, his deeply tanned body sharply offset by the near fluorescence of his white shorts, I felt myself beginning to tremble. As if in a dream, I closed my eyes and waited for him to seize me in his powerful arms and lift me to unimaginable heights of ecstasy.
I heard the sound of his footsteps padding to the other side of the bed. I felt the springs yield under his weight.
I turned toward him and found him lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling, his face beatifically placid. I threw myself at him and shuddered with delight as he took me in a vise like grip and crushed my mouth with his.
Then, so gradually that I barely realized it was happening, he released his hold, gently moved me away from him, and sat up on the bed.
"Lynn," he said, "you're not a whore."
"What?" I grasped, dumbfounded.
"You're not a whore, honey. It's as simple as that. You're a nice girl who just happens to be banging a lot of different guys. But you're not a whore."
I felt my throat go dry. He got up from the bed and went over to his clothes.
_ 'You're trying hard enough to play the role," he said, "but it's not in you.' I tried to counter his superiority with a pretense of toughness, Summoning all my self-control, I forced myself to blurt out the words. "Look, sailor--did you come here to get your rocks off or to psychoanalyze me?"
My eyes filled with tears, and, as I blinked them away, I saw him standing across the room, the enchanting half-grin on his face.
"Honey, don't pull the tough girl bit with dad, huh? Please?"
Matty took a pack of cigarettes from his jumper, lit one of them and shook the match out. Then, as an afterthought, he came toward the bed and held the pack out to me.
"Have a cigarette," he commanded. "It'll do you good."
I took one and waited for him to light it. Through a cloud of smoke, I watched him walk around to the other side of the bed and sit down. Then, because the sight of his bronze muscles were starting a fire inside me. I forced myself to look away.
"I like you," I heard him say. "If I didn't like you, it'd be different. If I didn't like you, then it'd be like with all the Other ones."
I felt his hand under my chin, turning my head toward him.
"Look at me," he ordered.
I opened my eyes. His eyes were blue and pale and, as they met mine, I could feel myself begin almost to melt.
"I can't make it this way with you," he said. "I like you too much." He held my glance for a moment, then looked away.
"I'll pay you, anyway, if that's what you're worried about. I won't ask you for my money back." He anchored the pack of cigarettes and matches between his skin and the elastic top of his shorts. Every move of his sent me.
"I'm... not worried about it," I mumbled. "I wasn't even thinking about it."
"Then smile," he kidded me. "Come on, cheer up. What're you looking so sad about?"
I couldn't hold myself together any longer. The pent-up desires, the frustrations, the feelings of inadequacy were too much for me. I burst out crying. I bawled like a baby. Tears came in torrents; my whole body shook with the sobs.
"Lynn, baby," I heard Matty say, over and over again. "Come on, honey. Don't cry, huh?" His fingers gently stroked my shoulder. "What's the matter, Lynn? Tell me about it."
I heard my own voice between little sobs. "It's... just... that I wanted you so much... and... I couldn't... you wouldn't "
"Lynn, honey, I want you, too. Believe me. But I can't take you this way. You're too good for this."
I bit my lip and tried to stop the sobs.
"It isn't that I wouldn't try, baby. I really would. Only, you see, it's as though there were really two of me--an outside me and an inside me--if you know what I mean. Well, the outside me wants to take you right now. But the inside me " He took my hand and held it against him.
" the inside me sort of laid down and went to sleep."
As I touched him, a new excitement rose inside me. But I could see that he felt exactly as he said he did.
"It isn't that I don't want to, Lynn," he explained. "I just can't."
I removed my hand and forced myself to suppress the wild desire he had aroused.
"I understand," I said.
"Please try to understand," he told me. "Some other time " I don't remember clearly what happened after that. I drifted into a dazed half-world where nothing was physically present. It was as though my mind had left my body and was in some far-off place receiving only a fraction of the images that my senses picked up. Matty got off the bed again. This time, he dressed and left the room.
Soon, another man came in. I went through the mechanical motions of love-making, only half aware of what was happening. The rest of the night passed like a dream--a hideous nightmare--in which Matty would enter the room and we would go to bed together. Thai, suddenly, just before I was ready to achieve a climax--our fulfillment--he would vanish, and, in his place, would be a monstrous, sweaty ogre. The procession continued with endless numbers of Matties turning into endless numbers of ogres until, finally, not long after dawn, the last man had left. There were no more waiting to follow him.
I drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The next afternoon, when I woke up, someone was pounding on the door. Feeling drugged, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and stumbled toward it. I slipped off the night latch and pulled the door open. A shaft of sunlight spilled into the room and, with it, a debauched wisp of a man with beady little eyes. He was Johnny, my pimp.
"Congratulations, sweetie," he said. "You made the half- century club."
* * *
I saw Matty for the second time a week later. The payday crowds had dwindled to almost nothing, and the going rate for the night was $2. Matty was my fourth customer. He came in, handed me a five dollar bill, and sat down again on the vanity chair.
"I want to talk with you, Lynn."
I forced myself to stare at the light bulb, knowing that if I looked at him the insane desire--the desire that couldn't be quenched--would mount in me again. Hoping to drive him away, I tried the tough approach.
"Look," I snapped. "You want to talk, go see the chaplain."
"This is important, Lynn," he said. "I can't stay away from you. Ever since that night, I haven't been able to think of anything else. Even if I have to pay just to come here and talk with you, I will. I can't help it."
"Talk," I said. "You're entitled."
"I love you," he said. "That might sound crazy, seeing how we met and what happened "
"What didn't happen, you mean," I interrupted him.
"What didn't happen, then. But don't you see, you've made me a... a... cripple! I... can't do it with anyone anymore."
The sound of his voice was too much for me. Matty was tall and strong. The voice--pleading, imploring--was like a magnet, drawing me toward him. He was big, but, because he loved me, he had become humble. My eyes were drawn toward him, and when I saw him slumped over on the chair, his head in his hands. I wanted to put my arms around him and comfort him.
"I'm sorry, Matty,' I said sincerely. "It's... hurt me, too. "Lynn... for God's sake, Lynn... what's a girl like you doing in this business?"
His face was buried in his hands, but his shoulders shook and his throat emitted painful, sobbing sounds.
"Matty!" I rushed to him and threw my arms around his pulsating shoulders. "Matty... I love you too."
My hand found his and we held on to each other, both of us crying, neither of us saying a word. We stayed like that for what seemed an eternity.
Finally, he whispered: "Will you meet me sometime? Away from here?"
"I can't," I said. "The... people I work for... are very strict about things like that."
"It's very important to me, Lynn. Please say you'll try. No one will know."
"I can't," I whispered. "I can't."
"Tuesday," he said. "Tuesday, I have liberty all day. I can meet you in the afternoon."
"No, Matty. I can't."
"It'll be at the bar in the Francis Marion Hotel, downtown. Nobody will recognize you there. None of your people go there. I'll be there Tuesday."
"I can't, Matty."
He moved out from my arms and stood up.
"We can't... fight it, Lynn," he said. "I love you. If you love me, you'll be there. Tuesday afternoon. Two o clock. Francis Marion Hotel."
"I can't."
He walked out.
After Matty left, I began asking myself questions. What was I doing with my life? In my greed for money, was I throwing away all the really important things? Where would it all lead?
I stared at the light bulb which dangled from the ceiling like a noose--a grim accusation that I was being dulled into insensitivity by an abominable life of waste and debauchery.
Matty represented all that was good, clean, and pure. The bare light bulb represented all that was evil, dirty, and sordid. But didn't I deliberately ran away from a life that was "good" and "clean" and "pure" and take up the life of a prostitute? Hadn't I deliberately planned to enter this business and to excel in it? Wasn't I in Charleston so that I could develop the techniques that would enable me to bring pleasure to men, and profit from it?
The days crawled by at a snail's pace, until Tuesday morning arrived. When I woke up, I knew that I would meet Matty. He was at the bar of the Francis Marion Hotel, as he had promised. We had a drink together, then he suggested a ride. We soared along in his convertible, over the Charleston bridge, along the highway to Palm Island, where we parked overlooking the ocean. All afternoon we talked, watching the surf roar in and crash against the shore, looking at the horizon, gazing at the cloud-filled sky.
Matty was eighteen. He had been born in a small town in Ohio, and had joined the Navy as soon as he was graduated from high school. He had wanted to be a lawyer, but his grades weren't good enough, and when he hadn't made it to college, he lost all interest in life. To make matters worse, his brother was critically ill, and his family could not afford the required operation.
Now, in the service, he was no burden to his parents. He was biding his time until he could learn electronics and get discharged. Then he planned to find a job in industry.
After that Tuesday, Matty and I met regularly, twice a week. This idyll lasted a month. Never, during the whole time we went out together, did Matty attempt anything more than to kiss me.
"To me, Lynn," he would say, "you're still a virgin."
I'd laugh. 'I know a couple hundred sailors that could call you a liar," I'd tell him.
"No," he'd reply. "To me, a girl is a virgin until she gives it to the man she loves. So, to me, you're still a virgin."
As I think back on it now, my mouth curls up whimsically. At one time, the incongruity of the entire situation struck me as hilarious. During another period in my life, I remembered it only with bitterness. More recently, my recollections were sweetly sentimental. Now, as I say, I enjoy the fantasy.
I could rattle on for pages about the many nice things that happened during that month. But, for the sake of making the proverbial long story short, I'll get to the point.
At the end of the month, I offered Matty--and he accepted, insisting that it be considered a loan, not a gift--the $1,000 he claimed he needed for his brother's brain surgery. That's right, I was hustled. By sweet-talking, ever-loving, Matty Con-Artist and his overwhelming boyish charm. But, hold on. There's more to it than that.
One of the lessons I've learned along the multilessoned road I've traveled is that a con-artist, to be successful, must be inspired, must be driven by a cause. Matty wasn't just an ordinary con-artist, out to hustle a hustler for a thousand dollars. If he were, he'd never have succeeded. True, cunning conning requires a cause that's all-important to the con-man.
Let me tell how I found out about Matty's cause. It wasn't long after I'd given him the thousand dollars that my pimp, Johnny, called me aside one day.
"You been seeing a guy named Matty?" he asked.
"Yes," I admitted. I knew there was no point denying it "How much he take you for so far?"
It was as simple as that. Matty had been making the same scene for years. He wasn't eighteen and he wasn't in the Navy. Johnny gave me an address. When I went to it, I learned exactly why Matty was hustling.
This is the crucial point of the whole tale. Matty shared his well furnished apartment on fashionable King Street with the screamingest, mintiest, queeniest fag I have ever seen! Matty couldn't "make it" with me, or any other girl, because he was a blatant, raving homosexual. And he was so madly in love with the limp-wristed Little pansy he kept house with that he went to the enemy camp--females--to hustle his buck. As the "male" member of the relationship, he was expected to be the breadwinner. And bread he did win. My bread. He supported that dreary minty little queen in a style that would do a genuine queen honor.
"We usually warn all the girls about Matty," Johnny explained. "Some of them fall for his line even though they've been already warned. But we figured that you, Lynn, were too hip. We didn't even consider warning you. We thought you'd be just too smart to fall for an empty line."
Education, as I frequently repeat, is always expensive.
I mention my experience with Matty at this point for two reasons: 1) to justify the chapter title, and, 2) because I can't think of a better way to lead into the chronological exposition of my experiences than by restating the title.
As Matty asked me, and as I'm sure uncounted thousands of assorted promoters, johns, boy friends or just-plain-sympathizers have asked uncounted thousands of prostitutes, hookers, tramps, tarts or whatever you like to call us, since the very inception of ours, the oldest profession, "How did a nice girl like you get in a business like this?" As the Vassar graduate said, "Just luck, I guess."
In the ensuing chapters, I propose to tell you just how I started. No doubt the careful reader has, by this time, noted that the foregoing narration has been in the spirit of preface. I employed this literary device since I feel it's common practice for inastute readers to skip prefaces, forewords, and all addenda. It might not have been exactly fair to dupe you this way, but then, when have you known a hooker to be scrupulously fair?
En passant, let me assure you that the only tricks to appear on the ensuing pages will be, not literary tricks, but a different type trick frequently encountered in the prosties' vernacular-- or her bag of tricks.
How did I get in the business? Read on, dear reader, read on.
CHAPTER TWO - The Action and the Ecstasy
Sex is like a trip to your uncle's farm in the country. Supposedly, a good many routes will get you there. The seasoned traveler, hip to the problems involved in hinterland thoroughfares, usually declines them. Instead, he tours the turnpikes on which, after payment of a nominal toll, he is assured of the quickest, safest, most direct journey to his destination.
We whores are the turnpikes of sex. Neat, huh?
Onward! When I was four years old, my father left his job as a municipal engineer in upstate New York and moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he went to work for a mining company. Two years later, my mother, my brother Tommy, and I joined him.
Until I was eight, I didn't realize that there was an essential difference between girls and boys. Until I was ten, I didn't realize exactly what the difference was. I asked my mother about it. My curiosity was rewarded with a spanking and the admonition not to think about such things until I was older. I was impatient.
At Sunday school, my teachers began touching upon the topic of sex--most obliquely, to be sure. They made vague references to purity and impurity, chastity and the lack of chastity. Sex was, to them, dirty; their distaste extended to the words they used to describe it. The pure and the chaste would go to heaven, they told us; the impure and the unchaste would go to hell.
My fear of hell, however, was not strong enough to overcome an emotion stronger than any fear--love. Physically I yielded to the demands of religion. Recognizing boys as a potential "occasion of sin," I avoided them. But in my dreams--and thoughts--the night at the playground was relived again and again. Incomplete as the experience had been--I now believe that it was an orgasm as the result of manual stimulation--I still could not help continually recalling it.
As the months passed and I was continuously reminded of the hell-fires awaiting the "impure," I began to develop a "scrupulous conscience" as I later learned Catholic theologians call it. Overzealous in my aim to avoid sin, I began seeing sin in all my actions.
If I walked down the street and happened to notice a boy walking in the opposite direction, I would turn my head away, afraid that, by inadvertently letting my eyes focus in the area of his genitals, I would be guilty of entertaining "impure" thoughts. If, at school, I accidentally brushed against another person--even another girl--my conscience accused me of committing "impure" actions.
The very unreasonableness of my guilt feelings was what ultimately saved me from an adolescent psychosis. As I went along inventing sin upon sin, I realized that it would be impossible for me to live a sinless life. Therefore, I decided, as long as I was going to hell anyway, I'd have an enjoyable trip.
This doesn't mean that I turned immediately to prostitution. I still operated under the delusion that husbands expected their wives to be virgins--a delusion which, thank God, Dr. Kinsey has successfully shattered--and heeded the old saw, "The greatest gift a woman can give a man is her innocence; a gift she can give but once."
By the time I was fourteen, I had abandoned my fears of hell in favor of an active high school life of partial promiscuity; I soon found that I had plenty of company. Huddled together over cokes, cigarettes dangling with mock sophistication from our lips, we girls revealed to one another how far we had let various boys go--never "all the way," of course.
I had hard and fast rules on sex. Never a kiss on the first night with a boy; a lass on the second night, but not more than three kisses; unlimited kissing on the third night, but not of the open-mouth, erotic, variety; open-mouth kissing and unlimited caressing from the waist up after agreeing to go steady with a guy; anything goes except All The Way after going steady for a month. Apparently, my taboos were less rigid than those some of my girl friends enforced--I became one of the most popular chicks in the school.
In my junior year, I was going steady with a classmate, Ronnie Markham. Ronnie was the type boy a girl takes home to meet her parents. My parents were relieved that I was going out with boys as I had been a recluse during my guilt period; they couldn't have been happier about the situation.
Ronnie came from a good family, dressed conservatively, avoided long hair and other outward manifestations of juvenile delinquency, spoke politely, got acceptable grades in school, and drove an nonsouped-up Chevrolet. Further, he planned to go to college.
Ronnie, it seemed, had everything a girl could ask for-- except, unfortunately, sex appeal. Ronnie had no more sex appeal than the exhaust pipe on his nonsouped-up Chewy. But, he represented "social security" to me--a date for proms and other school functions, a guy to drive me home after the dances and basketball games. So, dutifully, on the occasions when he felt amorous urgings, I gave him some license with his hands. After a few perfunctory kisses, Ronnie would begin his cautious explorations; I would close my eyes and imagine I was being caressed by Nick Cagliero.
Nick was a senior--the direct opposite of Ronnie, from his Ford convertible with dual exhaust and four-barrel carburetor to his long slick black hair. Nick, I knew, would never make a good husband, but I had no doubt he'd be a good lover.
Before school opened, I'd observe Nick standing outside the boys' entrance. Invariably, he'd be leaning against the building, his shirt open at the neck, his hands jammed into his hip pockets, the shape of his manhood clearly outlined by his tight trousers.
I'd look at him and notice him looking back at me; a smirk would creep across his face as his eyes made an obvious head- to-toe inspection. He was interested, I knew. So was I. But what to do about it? Nick solved that problem for me in a quietly efficient manner.
Ronnie asked me, "You want to go to a party next Thursday at Jennie Peregin's?"
"Who's Jennie Peregin?" I countered.
"A senior," Ronnie explained. "She more or less goes with Nick Cagliero. I had a couple of beers the other night with him, and he invited me to the party."
I felt my heart start beating faster. Nick, in his oblique way, had invited Ronnie so he could get to me! The strategy of his move thrilled me no end. I felt like a glamorous movie star, widely sought after, whose suitors vied for her favors.
"I'd love to go," I told Ronnie.
There were about twelve couples at Jennie Peregrin's. It was obvious that this wouldn't be the sort of affair the Young Methodists' Fellowship would sponsor. A single lamp glowed dimly at one end of the room. In its light, I observed a couple sitting on a couch. More accurately, the boy was sitting on the couch and the girl was sitting on his lap. His mouth was securely clamped to the side of her neck, vampirelike, and his hands cupped her breasts. Her eyes were shut tightly and her face was contorted into a parody as she gasped frantically for air. Meanwhile, her hips, directly on top of the boy's, described a grinding, circular motion that could be serving one imaginable purpose only.
A record was playing, and, in the center of the room, another couple pretended to dance. The girl stood on tiptoes, her mouth pressed firmly against the boy's as they expressed their imitation of the sexual act. His arms were clasped tightly around her back and their bodies were fused together. Periodically, they would sway as if dancing, but their movements had no relationship to the music. Except for the infrequent swaying motions and the incessant writhing of their lips, they were frozen together, a tableau to boy-girl union.
Other couples were sprawled about the room in various abandoned postures, most of them apparently more interested in their peers than in their selected partners. Two boys, sitting next to each other, drinking beer and munching potato chips, talked baseball. The boy on the right had his arm draped around his girl's shoulders, with his hand tucked neatly into the front of her blouse. Both the other boy's hands were occupied with his beer and potato chips, but his girl worked diligently at tracing a pattern with one finger along the inside of his thigh.
When Ronnie and I walked in, Nick Cagliero hailed us heartily from his position, as boy-friend-of-the-hostess, behind the keg of beer.
"Glad you could come," he said to Ronnie, thrusting a mug of draught at him.
Ronnie took the glass, his pinkie outstretched, and thanked Nick. As an afterthought, he said, "I'd like you to meet Lynn Keefe, Nick."
"Hi," Nick addressed me, his blank expression hiding what I could read in his eyes from Ronnie. "Beer's the best we have. Unless you dig coke."
"I'd love a beer," I said.
Nick handed me one, then flashed a toothy smile as Ronnie ushered me away to a couch. When we sat down, he let his hand rest on my knee. I flicked it off.
"What's the matter with you, Lynn?" he whined.
"Not here, Ronnie," I said. "Not in front of everybody.
"What's with you?" he asked. "Look what everybody else is doing, for Christ's sake."
I held my beer up to his mouth.
"Drink," I commanded.
Ronnie drank.
As the hours passed, the couples withdrew further into self-styled cocoons-for-two. Finally, somebody snapped off the single light that had been burning. We were in total darkness. The only sounds in the room were the soothing lull of the phonograph and the rustle of clothing. Ronnie and I abandoned our cramped spot on the couch for the floor.
We heard someone walking toward us. Then a match flickered as a couple on hands and knees prowled the floor in search of a vacant space.
"Halt. Who goes there?" kidded Ronnie.
"Your goddamn host," came Nick's reply, "who can't even find a seat at his own goddamn party."
"Welcome, host," said Ronnie. His greeting was superfluous. Nick had already found a vacant spot next to me and helped himself to it.
"Having a good time?" Nick asked.
"Wonderful," I said, feeling his arm brush against mine.
"Glad to hear it," he replied. He lit another match and guided Jennie to his opposite side. There, with Jennie and me flanking him like parentheses, he sat grinning like a sultan contemplating his harem. "If you need anything, just holler," he told me.
The match flickered out; I heard the noises of shifting weight as Nick and Jennie lay down. I finished my beer and lay down also. Ronnie eagerly followed.
Ronnie was going through his usual routine, his hands forever searching and researching every inch of my body, his lips pressing hungrily against mine. Then, scarcely believing it at first, I became aware of a hand taking hold of mine. -With a sense of shock I realized that both Ronnie's hands were on my breasts.
The third hand had to be Nick's! I felt my pulse quicken as he gently pulled my hand toward him and I did not resist when he placed it on his thigh.
I was motionless. Then, ever so slowly, the thigh beneath my hand began to move. Another flick of his hips and my hand was directly were Nick wanted it. Suddenly, his hips flicked again and I found my hand back on the floor. I slid it back over until it was touching the outside of his thigh, but as soon as he realized I was approaching, he quickly moved away.
Embarrassed, I tried to forget my slight by concentrating on Ronnie, who was twisting around alongside me, completely oblivious of what had been going on.
Unexpectedly, I heard Nick's voice boom out: What a dead crowd!"
He sat up and fumbled audibly with a cigarette pack. Momentarily he lit a match and applied the flame to the cigarette in his mouth.
"You still with us, Ronnie?"
"Yeah, man," Ronnie said, nervously disengaging his hand from my breast and shrinking back from the light.
How about von. Louise?"
"Lynn," I corrected him. My mouth went dry with anger.
"What about another drink?" Nick asked. "I'm getting sober.
"I'm with you," Ronnie answered.
Nick lit another match and, holding it aloft like a lantern, led the way to the beer keg.
"All these goddamn lovers all over the place," Nick said. "Not that I knock it--but I'm a drinker. I mean, you can make out any time. You know?"
Ronnie said that he knew.
"I've got a little heavy stuff on the side here," Nick whispered. "I don't want to share it with the herd, but I guess the four of us could swing with it."
Jennie held a match while Nick filled four glasses with draught and passed them out.
"Everybody take a sip," he instructed. "Then we'll put the strong stuff in. A regular boilermaker, we'll have."
The match went out. I sipped my beer. Another match was lighted and Nick made the rounds with a half-pint bottle of blended rye.
"The old steelworkers used to drink these," he explained. "Said it put hair on your chest. Think it'll work for you, Laura?"
"Lynn," I said idly, becoming more angry.
"Don't mind him, honey," Jennie commented. "He never remembers names."
"I never forget a tit, though," Nick laughed loudly. "Well, down the hatch!"
Another match flicked on; Nick spotlighted by its glow, glared angrily at us. "What is this?" he shouted. "I thought we said down the hatch." He held up his empty glass in demonstration. "Which means chugalug, gang. Which means drink it all down."
Obediently, Ronnie and I drained our glasses in an uninterrupted series of swallows. The match flickered out.
"Okay, now you got the idea," Nick's voice urged us on. "This time, let's see if we can't get it right."
In the darkness, he reached forward for our glasses. I felt him take mine, then I heard him grope toward the beer keg. There was the clinking of glass hitting glass. Nick handed my glass back to me. It was empty.
"Okay, gang," Nick called out. "Boilermaker Number Two. Down the hatch!"
He lit another match and looked around with apparent satisfaction.
"Much better, chillun," he commended. "Much, much better."
Ronnie looked around dizzily.
"One more for the road," Nick grinned. "Then we'll get back to our little spot on the floor and make with the loving scene."
Boiler maker Number Three put Ronnie out of commission. He took his swiftly emptied glass from his lips, looked around uncertainly; then--like a tree severed at the base--toppled over.
"Goddamn it," Nick cursed. "I thought he could hold his liquor. Now how the hell're we gonna get him home? Can you drive his car, Lucille?"
"Lynn," I sputtered angrily. "And I can't drive."
"Looks like I'd better get him home then. Christ, am I sorry I invited him to this party!"
Ronnie's body hung, stiff and lifeless, as if rigor mortis had set in. Jennie had made her way to the other side of the room and turned on the lamp--not without considerable protests from the scattered couples who, vociferously, preferred the dark.
"Come on, Lynn," Nick said, picking Ronnie up in his arms. "I'll give you a ride home." Then, to Jennie: "I'll be back as soon as I can, honey."
Outside, Nick deposited Ronnie in the back seat of his car. He held the front door open for me.
"Lot of ways to skin a cat, huh?" he grinned, getting behind the wheel.
"What did you do to him?" I asked, frightened, suddenly realizing what had happened.
"Nothing much, really," he replied. "Just put his drinking capacity to a test is all."
Tires squealing, Nick pulled out of the parking place and sped down the street. When he stopped at the first red light, he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me over to him. Then he crushed my mouth with his. I clung to him tightly as his arms wrapped around my back and his tongue darted around wildly inside my mouth.
I was breathless when he released me. The car zoomed forward again when the light had turned green.
Nick said nothing. He bent over the wheel and glared at the road in front of him like a racing driver negotiating a difficult course. The street lights on both side of us became a blur. Just as abruptly as he had taken off, Nick pulled the car to a screeching halt, and I realized we were parked in a used car lot that was closed for the night.
I tried to resist as Nick forced me down on the front seat, but he was too much for me. As I felt his firm body force its way into position on top of me and his open lips hungrily pressing against mine, I asked myself if I really wanted to resist him--or if I were simply making a token attempt at resistance because I didn't want him to think I was "easy."
I knew I wasn't drunk. I had had a few glasses of beer, but they had been spread over the evening and I certainly wasn't feeling their effect. Then why was I giving in? Why wasn't I fighting to protect the one thing every American girl, from the earliest days of adolescence, has been told she must at all costs preserve?
My mind was a kaleidoscope of conflicting ideas, questions, answers, and fears. Ronnie, sleeping the sound sleep of the drunk in the back seat, loved me, wanted to marry me. He had everything a woman could deserve in a husband. Why was I giving in to Nick?
But--hadn't I wanted to surrender myself to Nick all along? What was I thinking of, back at the party, when he took my hand and brought it to him--and I gave him irrefutable evidence that I was his?
And why was I even thinking about these things now, when the moment of truth was so near? What was this prized thing --this virginity--that had been so important in my life? Was it God's plan that his creatures would be endowed with an overwhelming urge toward love? And, if so, why did present- day morality insist that we frustrate that urge?
I became aware of a dull pain beginning deep inside me, a pressing sensation, the feeling that I was being pushed upward, upward, with irresistible force. Then, unexpectedly, my resistance collapsed and there was the sharp, swordlike thrust with its fiery aftermath. My whole body was aflame! I screamed, but the sound was choked off and I sucked in my breath as, suddenly, I found myself spinning dizzily upward. It was as if I had been at the bottom of a steep spiral; the rockets had been ignited, and now came the blast-off. Faster and faster I spun toward the top of the spiral, somewhere out in the stratosphere, and, as the whirling frenzy accelerated, I abandoned myself to the insane, unimaginable ecstasy I had so long sought.
CHAPTER THREE - How Do Porcupines Do It?
A psychologist I once met in a professional capacity--my profession, not his--told me that 90 percent of America's women hop into the hay with a guy before law, religion, or social custom grants an okay via the marital barnyard. If what he said is true, girls, I have a lot of company out there in readerland. So, let me ask you a question: How did you feel the day after the first night?
I felt guilty. I couldn't bear the thought of going to school --I was afraid that my new, nonvirginal status would be evident to all, as evident as if I paraded it on a sandwich board. I was sure that my girl friends would know, instinctively, that I was no longer like them; and I was just as sure that they'd condemn me for it.
The guilt I felt merits some consideration here. It wasn't the moral order of guilt--you'll recall that I had decided, since I couldn't keep all the rules that my scrupulous conscience said that God required I keep, that I would enjoy my trip to hell. The road to hell is paved with bad intentions.
I was afraid to go to school--but I was afraid not to go to school, too. It was common knowledge that Nick had taken me home from the party, wasn't it? If I didn't go to school, I reasoned, there'd be no doubt whatsoever about what had happened.
So I went to school. For a few days, I walked around with my head down and avoided conversations, fearful that an untimely twitch or an inappropriate nod of the head would betray me; but time heals all wounds, to coin a phrase, and by the end of the week I'd become adjusted to my nonvirginal status.
This doesn't mean that I embarked immediately upon a life of wanton promiscuity. Ideas dunned into one's head over almost half a lifetime don't just vanish overnight. By "adjusting" to my new questionable status, I don't mean accepting it --I mean learning to be hypocritical about it.
As a non-virgin, I was adamant--perhaps to the point of compulsion--in defending a pretended, still-existent chastity. With Ronnie Markham, I became downright prudish, calling a halt to all amorous activity long before the open-mouth kissing stage. With Nick Cagliero, on the few occasions when I was unable to avoid crossing paths with him, I was disdainful. And, when the rumor mill let it be known that a girl in the senior class had become pregnant, I raised my voice in such stem condemnation of her that you might have thought I was the Mother Superior of a convent.
Sanctimonious pretense, however, has never been my cup of borscht, and, for every hour I spent faking the still-a-virgin bit, I spent another hour, privately, worrying about whether or not I was carrying it off. This sort of thing isn't exactly conducive to sound mental health so, before long, loss of appetite, compulsive nail-biting and mild insomnia set in. Fortunately, there was only one month of school before summer vacation, but who knows what an intricate conglomeration of assorted neuroses and psychoses I might have accumulated for some zealous latter-day Freudian to explore?
Sorry, doctor, but the fates deprived you of a guinea pig. When summer vacation came, I lied about my age and bluffed some experience to get a job as a waitress at a resort in the Catskill Mountains. Out there, sometime between the morning's trayload of lox and eggs and the evening's trayload of roast prime ribs of beef au jus, I contemplated my problems.
Problem Number One, of course, was how to get the sex action I wanted without the accompanying ulcers. It wouldn't be enough, I knew, just to tell myself that I didn't give a damn what people thought. I did give a damn what people thought --and a reputation as senior class slut-of-the-year wasn't exactly my idea of a favorable public image.
I decided, I would have to pick one boy, and swing with him, and him alone. If I played my cards right, he'd ask me to marry him as soon as I graduated, and, from then on, life would be the vine-covered cottage for two where we all lived happily ever after. The story couldn't have been more up-beat if Hans Christian Andersen wrote the screenplay.
But--Problem Number two--who? I didn't want to spend six months weeding out the potential applicants. I wanted action and I wanted it soon. The field, I found, was narrowed down considerably. The only two contenders were Ronnie Markham and Nick Cagliero.
Ronnie would be no problem whatsoever. He loved me and wanted to marry me--he told me that at least a dozen times a night. Why not, then, let myself get carried away the next time we were together? Let him go the full distance--after that, it would be party time every night until he slipped the golden band on my finger. Then it would be party time, legally, thereafter.
Would he mind that I wasn't a virgin? Maybe, but there were ways and means around that obstacle, too. Wasn't it common knowledge that some girls lost it riding bicycles or climbing trees? Or, if it got down to that, couldn't I carry a bottle of red ink with me the first night and scream like hell?
No.
It was pretense and hypocrisy that got me on the treadmill to insanity in the first place, and I'd be damned if I'd ever get myself in the situation where I'd have to resort to it again. I'd simply swing with Ronnie, When he found out I wasn't a virgin, Id tell him: "Neither are you, now." Besides, if he really loved me, it wouldn't matter.
After considering the matter thoroughly, I concluded that Ronnie would blend beautifully with my master plan. But I rejected him.
As long as I was being honest, why not be completely honest? Ronnie didn't appeal to me sexually. If he had, he would have plucked the golden fruit instead of Nick. Hadn't I made it with Nick in a car while Ronnie was passed out, drunk, in the back seat? By what line of reasoning could I expect things to be different later on? The rest of my life would be one endless procession of Nick Caglieros making it with me while Ronnie was incapacitated.
No, thanks. That was one scene I didn't care to make.
The second contender--Nick Cagliero.
Why not? I asked myself. I dug him, didn't I? And he seemed to dig me. Did he dig me enough to want to marry me? Or was I just another notch on his six-shooter?
Look at it realistically, I told himself. Maybe you're not another Elizabeth Taylor, Keefe, but you're not exactly the Bride of Frankenstein either. You look great, you have a decent figure, you're not a bad cook, and you can hold up your end of a decent conversation. Now, let's take a look at the competition. What do they have to offer? Not much more, not much less.
Then it hit me. I did have something more to offer. I had something much more to offer! If I played my cards right, come graduation day, I'd be ready to trade the cap and gown for a bridal veil.
What was it, this magic cure-all that would win husbands and influence people? It was attitude, my friends--pure and simple--attitude.
Thanks to some old harpy who must have started the notion, most girls--after they gave in to a guy--became genuine, fourteen-karat pains in the ass. They made like they had done him a big favor. They became possessive. They became demanding.
That's where Kid Keefe would pull out ahead of the field! By not being a pain in the ass, the kid would cross the finish line five lengths in front of the other fillies. All I'd have to do was come on like Miss Cooperative, and when Nick finally discovered how much less aggravation was-involved making it with me, he'd forget all the others and run-not-walk to the nearest preacher.
About this time, I imagine, some of you more cynical readers are laughing like crazy. Did the' silly bitch really think it would be that simple? you're wondering. Was she really that naive? Well, if at age eighteen you were a woman of the world and a fountainhead of wisdom, laugh on, chum. As a matter of fact, I wasn't all that naive. I simply reasoned that even if my little scheme didn't work, I'd get in some enjoyable flying hours, and Nick was a discreet enough guy that I could still avoid the Miss Roundcheek label.
When September rolled around and I returned to Scranton, Nick was working at a tire-recapping plant. I looked up the number and gave him a call.
"Lynn Keefe," I told him. "How've you been?"
"Fine," he said. "What's up?"
"Feel like swinging tonight?" I asked him.
I could imagine his bewildered expression. All that came through the phone was, "Huh?"
"I want to make it with you," I said. "Feel up to it?"
"I'll pick you up at eight," he answered.
We didn't waste any time with preliminaries. He drove directly to his favorite used car lot, and, there, on his old-faithful front seat, I learned that the second time feels better than the first.
However, there was one item of unfinished business on the agenda before I could go about the full-time pursuit of Nick. I settled it the next day. I gave Ronnie Markham back his ring.
"Why, Lynn?" he wanted to know.
"Because I don't want ulcers, and if I act like a hypocrite I'm going to get them. I don't love you, Ronnie. And I'm not going to pretend I do." He looked like the kid who just found out Santa Claus didn't exist. For a full minute, he just stood and stared at me, his face screwed up into one of those uncertain expressions that could just as easily become a laugh or a cry.
"I'm sorry, Ronnie,' I said. "I didn't ever tell you I loved you, but maybe I led you to believe I did. I've had a whole summer to think about it, and I've decided it has to be this way."
Slowly, his expression melted away and his face became almost placid. Then, suddenly his eyes grew moist. I watched two tears form and edge their way forward, they hung precariously on his cheeks a second, then dropped to his shirt front.
"I'm sorry," I said.
He said nothing.
I walked away, feeling very much the bitch Nick Cagliero never asked me to go steady with him. But I found that we were spending virtually every night together. For all intents and purposes, I was his girl and he was my boy. If anybody doubted it, all they'd have to do was notice the dirty looks Jennie Peregrin and the rest of the field I had outdistanced tossed my way.
Nick and I were the perfect couple. I asked nothing of him, he asked nothing of me. Meanwhile, we had a lot of fun together, both in toe saddle and out. I understand that Aretino depicted one hundred possible positions of intercourse. The work, I'm told, is one of the classics of the Renaissance. Not to come on like gang-busters or anything, but the old boy could have learned a new position or two from Nick and me. We swung. And I mean swung!
* * *
And now about how porcupines do it. Carefully. Which shows how much more hip porcupines are than some people I know. Namely me.
My rude awakening came in the spring, when everybody's fancy is supposed to turn to thoughts of love. I had loved often and well in the carefree days of winter--now, in spring, my fancies turned to fear. My first inkling that something was amiss came in April, when I missed--that certain monthly function was conspicuously absent.
Patience, I told myself. Maybe, you're just late. Psychologists have pointed out how emotional disturbances often interrupt the cycle of the menses. Perhaps overelation could have the same effect?
May came, but I still didn't come around. Immediately, I took to the libraries. There was, I learned, a psychophysical phenomenon known as "false pregnancy." Women afflicted with it endured all the signs of genuine pregnancy, sometimes even to the point of actual abdominal swelling, only to find they had never been pregnant at all. Could that be it, I wondered.
When June came busting out all over and I remained as dry as a camel's foot, I began to panic. Either it was pregnancy-- true or false--or I'd go down in history as the first woman to experience menopause at the tender age of eighteen! The day before my senior prom, I talked my mother out of ten dollars, telling her I needed it to get a permanent wave. Then, after giving myself a home permanent at one of my girl friends' houses, I took a bus to Wilkes-Barre, where nobody knew me, and went to the office of a doctor whose name I found in the telephone directory.
History was deprived its first case of teen-age change of life, and the headshrinkers were deprived of an example of false pregnancy. The little bundle I was carrying around with me was all-too-true and, if I didn't care to believe it, all I'd have to do was to wait for a few months. I'd get all the evidence I needed.
The next night, at the senior prom, I broke the news to Nick.
"Christ, that's tough, Lynn," he said, as casually as if we were talking about the irrigation problem in Rangoon. "I wish there was something I could do about it."
"You could marry me," I said.
His face assumed a thoughtful expression, as though my proposed solution was feasible, though hardly desirable. His eyebrows arched judiciously as he seemed to weight the problem.
"No," he said finally. "I'm just not ready for marriage yet."
I was stunned. "Well, just what do you propose to do about it?" I asked him.
"I can't think of anything I can do, Lynn," he said. "If I had any loot, I'd pay for an abortion. But I don't have a dime to my name. Looks like it's your problem, lad."
I looked up at Nick, who was grinning impassively, as though our conversation of a moment before had never taken place. I almost expected him to ask me, "What else is new?"
Furious at his lack of concern, I gritted my teeth and dug my fingernails into his arm.
"Don't you realize that I just told you I'm pregnant!" I hissed.
"If you're that interested in spreading the news," he said, "why didn't you take out an advertisement on the prom program?"
Mortified at the thought that someone might have heard me, I buried my face in Nick's jacket and finished the dance in silence. When the band stopped, I asked him to take me outside. It was the land of crisp, cool evening that only happens in Pennsylvania and only in the late spring. A shaft of moonlight filtered through a gap in the dense cloud formations above, and, in its eerie glare, Nick's face looked unearthly, almost ghoulish.
"Don't I mean anything to you?" I asked him. "Don't I mean anything at all to you?"
He took a Tong time to light a cigarette. When he finally spoke, it was quietly.
"Look, Lynn," he said. "You might think you have every right in the world to be mad at me. Maybe you do. But, as far as I'm concerned, I don't owe you a thing. A sick feeling began to gnaw at my stomach. "And what about the baby?" I demanded. "I suppose you don't owe it anything, either!"
He inhaled deeply, then, while the smoke seeped out of his nostrils, he studied the lighted cigarette. After a few seconds that seemed like hours, he dashed the cigarette to the floor.
"I thought you were different," he said disgustedly. "I thought that, at last, here was a girl that was out for a good time, period. With none of the other bullshit. You certainly led me to believe you were a free soul."
"Well!" I stammered, "If that isn't the most arrogant "
"You listen to me!" he shouted, grabbing me by the shoulders and turning me so that I was looking directly into his eyes. Then, in a much softer voice, but no less an angry one, he said: "I didn't ask you for one goddam thing. You knew what kind of guy I am. I didn't make any promises to you. Is it my fault that you didn't have sense enough to get a diaphragm or something?"
"The district attorney might think it's your fault!" I shot back at him.
Slowly he released his grip on my shoulders.
"Would you really be mat low?" he asked, shaking his head incredulously. "Would you really stoop to that?"
"I just might!" I threatened.
"Then go ahead," he said bitterly. "I'd be the last person in the world to try to stop you."
"You bastard," I shrieked. "You rotten bastard!"
I turned away from him. My head was reeling dizzily and the uneasy sensation in the pit of my stomach warned me I was going to vomit. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. Hold it down, I told myself. I bit my lip and held my breath. The long, slow, warm waves started at my feet and eventually swept over my whole body. I let my breath out slowly, but with great relief, as I felt the siege of nausea pass.
When I opened my eyes again, Nick had gone. A salty taste stung my lips, and I realized that I was crying. From inside the ballroom, the sounds of the brass section, zestily biting into an up-tempo riff, drifted toward me. Their gaiety and exuberance intensified the morose solemnity of my mood. I felt for a moment the insane urge to run out toward the highway and throw myself under the wheels of the first car that came by. I fumbled nervously with the clasp of my purse. When I finally opened it, my trembling hand tried futilely to extricate a pack of cigarettes.
"Lynn," a voice behind me said.
I turned with a start.
"Hello, Lynn," Ronnie Markham told me.
"Hello, Ronnie," I said, my senses quickly coming under control. My composure almost completely regained, I snapped the purse shut and smiled. "How are you?" I asked.
"I thought you might like a drink," he said. Grinning sheepishly, he took a half-pint bottle of vodka from the inside pocket of his dinner jacket. In his other hand were two paper cups.
"Thank you," I whispered. "Your timing is perfect."
He gave me the cups to hold while he opened the bottle. I watched him pour two even shots, recap the bottle, and put it back in his pocket.
He took one of the cups, lifted it into-the air in silent toast, and raised it to his lips. I followed suit, and felt a great sense of relief as the burning vodka trickled warmly down my throat.
"It's nice to see you again, Ronnie," I said, uncomfortably, as I took the cup from my mouth.
He stared at the cup in his hand, and his lips twitched nervously. He slowly lifted his eyes and looked directly into mine.
"Marry me, Lynn," he said softly.
I watched him as he shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, waiting for my answer. Inside me, conflicting emotions raged. Here was Ronnie Markham, All-American boy, asking me to marry him! Asking me! Pregnant, jilted, crazy, mixed-up me! Was he drunk? I wondered. Was it possible that all year long he nursed his high school crush on me and now, on the night of the senior prom, his courage bolstered by vodka, he decided to make a last-ditch effort--before we both left school and went our separate ways?
"Marry me, Lynn," he repeated. It wasn't a question--it was a command. With the accent on the "me." He had said; "Marry me, Lynn."
"I don't love you, Ronnie," I said softly.
"Lynn--" he pleaded, taking my hand in his. "Lynn, be sensible." Then, lowering his voice to a whisper, he said; "I want to give your child a name."
* * *
Nick Cagliero's words came back to me. "I never asked you for a thing. You knew what kind of guy I am."
Yes, I knew.
"I didn't make any promises to you. Is it my fault that you didn't have sense enough to get a diaphragm or something?"
No, it wasn't his fault. But the district attorney might think so. The first time we had relations I was under eighteen. That made Nick guilty of statutory rape--a felony.
"Would you really be that low?"
I had said that I might. But all along, I think, I knew that I wouldn't. Nick had done nothing to me that I hadn't invited myself. Seduction, like rape, is a misnomer. Isn't the old bromide essentially correct: 'A girl can run faster with her skirt up than a man can with his pants down?"
Then, what right did I have to insist that Nick be sent to jail under one of the most unreasonable laws ever enacted by any legislature--the law that states when a woman is under the "age of consent," any man who has carnal relations with her is guilty of rape. I had started out trying to lure Nick Cagliero into marriage--an unreasonable quest in the first place. Why should I seek revenge? What had he done, really? Nothing--except give me the only thing I ever demanded of him. Sex.
* * *
Now, standing outside the ballroom at my senior prom, I had just heard Ronnie Markham tell me to marry him... that he wanted to give my child a name.
"Ronnie," I gasped. "How did you know?"
"I was standing next to you on the dance floor, Lynn. I heard you tell Nick you were pregnant."
Blood rushed to my head, I felt my face flush.
"I'm sure nobody else heard it," he continued quickly, anticipating the cause of my concern. "The girl I was with and I were the only ones near you. And she was too busy singing in my ear to notice what was going on."
"Ronnie " I mumbled, not knowing what to say.
"I'm sorry for eavesdropping, Lynn, but I couldn't help it. When I realized that this might be the last time we'd ever see each other, I just had to stay as close to you as possible. I'm sure you know I still love you."
"Ronnie " Once again my lips formed the syllables.
"I don't care about the baby, Lynn," he argued. "It doesn't matter to me that it's Nick's baby. It's you I love. Marry me and we'll raise the baby as if it was our own. We'll have other babies. They'll all be the same to me. We'll elope right now and get married. Please, Lynn--say you will."
* * *
If this were one of the fairy tales Hollywood turn out by the dozen, the camera would zoom in on my face, I'd blink away a glycerin tear or two, flash a dazzling smile, and say: "Oh, Ronnie, I love you, I've always loved you." The violins would soar up to a high note, the camera would show us walking hand-in-hand into the moonlight, and the end titles would fade off the screen.
Sorry, chum. If that's what you were looking for, you picked up the wrong book. I might have only been eighteen years old, but I'd been around enough to know there's no such thing as the happily-ever-after ending. Because, after you walk off hand-in-hand in the moonlight, the end titles don't really fade off the screen. You've still got an awful lot of living to do.
Maybe I wasn't the prototype of a well-adjusted teen-ager, but I'd been living with this kid, Lynn Keefe, long enough to know that a little, gold ring and a minister's oratorical pronouncements aren't enough to change a girl's basic personality. Marrying Ronnie might enable me to avoid the social stigma of unwed motherhood, but, if I really were capable of loving him, it would have been he, not Nick, who plucked the prized fruit.
Would I, as Ronnie's wife, participate in the same secret trysts that characterized the period when I had been his girl friend? Would there be the steady parade of Nick Caglieros, making love to me while my husband was at the office, or away on business, or passed out drunk in the back seat of the car?
The only way I could guess what I might do in the future was to consider what I had done in the past. And if I, aware of this, consented to marry Ronnie, wouldn't I be rewarding his generosity and nobility with the booby prize of the infidel --the horns of the cuckold?
"No, Ronnie," I said dully, "I can't marry you."
CHAPTER FOUR - Laws Are Made To Be Broken
I was pregnant. An absorbing problem. Praying wouldn't solve it, visiting a psychiatrist wouldn't solve it, talking it over with mom and dad wouldn't solve it. The only solution was to become unpregnant--that meant either having an abortion or waiting for the child to be born.
I ruled out the abortion idea. I didn't want some incompetent sawbones hacking away at my insides. Let's face it: the abortion industry doesn't exactly attract the cream of the medical crop. So, I resigned myself to bearing a child and did what I thought was best at the time--I got the hell out of Scranton.
The old song promises that birds with feathers of blue are waiting for you back in your own back yard. Maybe so. But, if you're an unwed eighteen-year-old who's three months pregnant, you'll find a nest of nasty old biddies with wagging tongues waiting with the bluebirds. I had no prejudices one way or another about bluebirds, but I had come to fairly definite conclusion about the biddy brigade. Namely, that the more miles that separated us, the better I would like it.
Commencement came two days after the prom. Some stuffed-shirt judge ranted on about what a great thing it was to be a high school graduate and to take one's place in one's community. I was expecting to take two places. Later, he was indicted on several counts of accepting bribes, income tax evasion, and assorted charges, all of which doubtlessly proves something or other profound. I took my diploma, accepted my parent's congratulations, and informed them to their delight that I would attend business college in the fall. Then, kissing them good-by, I went to the employment agency that had secured a summer job for me the year before.
The interviewer didn't remember me, but I slipped him a ten-dollar bill and told him that I'd appreciate getting set in a well-paying hotel. Within hours, he had me all lined up with a job in a leading Catskill resort.
If you believe the stories they circulate on the cocktail circuit about the Catskill Mountains, you're probably under the impression that a Borsch Belt waitress does little else but fornicate. The whole setup, it would seem, is one gigantic front for New York businessmen to get their kicks away from wifey, or wifey to get her kicks away from hubby--and what better way than with the obliging waitress or waiter, always willing to offer any service that might conceivably result in a bigger tip.
There s only one thing wrong with such stories. They re not true. I'm not saying that the Catskills comprise an elaborate string of elegant chalets for celibates, and I know that there's as much intramural hanky-panky in those hills as there is in most other resort areas, but I am saying that--at these hotels, anyway--the boudoir battles don't include the dining room staff.
For one thing, the first-rate hotels have a hard and fast rule that their working staffs don't mix with the guests. Furthermore, there's too much free stuff wandering around loose to make it worth while for a busy businessman to spend his time pursuing a chick who spends most of the day slinging trays of gefullte fish, herring, and sour cream.
Some men, of course, prefer prostitutes to the free stuff for a number of excellent reasons that I'll expound later. The Catskills satisfy these types, too. I, personally, don't know any prostitutes who've hustled the Storm King, but, since little girls, like little pitchers, having big ears, I've heard stories that a few of my sisters of the peddle profession have done okay for themselves on the Catskill wheel. Actually I know a Boston girl who wanted the waiters at one resort to refer customers to her; to convince them that her product was worth recommending, she volunteered to take on the entire dining room staff; word has it that all but four took her up on the offer, and thanks to her impressive little ploy, this belle -lid a booming business for more than two years. Miss Boston beat Rip Van Winkle in the sleeping racket. Her hollow was anything but sleepy; she laid everyone but the ghost of the Headless Horseman.
Women on the make for men usually fare better at smaller hotels where it's possible to buy the amorous services of a young college stud for five to ten dollars; sometimes, the cost is only the price of a drink. Or, occasionally, not even that.
It used to be die policy at one hotel--and still might be-- for waiters to check in at the social hall to make themselves available to the schoolmarms and other manless women who took their vacations for the sole purpose of inserting some sex into their lives. One season, two waiters grossed more peddling amour after hours than they did lugging food around all day--and their dining room earnings usually topped $150 a week. One well-endowed waiter demanded--and received --twenty dollars a trick, and he often turned five tricks a night. All jokers wild.
By now, you're apt to be wondering why law enforcement agencies haven't cracked down on the mountain climbers. This is the stock answer: The hotels are widely scattered over approximately a hundred square miles of rural land in sparsely populated Sullivan County and its environs. The police forces of the small towns in this county are seldom more than ten men strong, and the gendarmes are too busy arresting tourists, and locking up occasional winos to devote any time to all-out campaigns on vice. Besides, the big hotels constitute the bulk of the local tax revenues and nobody wants to kill Santa Claus. The hotel-owners are interested in making money, not in enforcing moral codes. While it's conceivable that some of them may be too naive to know what's going on, the majority of them, no doubt, think it best to turn their heads. After all, their livelihood depends on keeping guests happy, not on antagonizing them.
The story is much the same throughout the country. Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland--you name it. If I haven't hustled there, give me five minutes and I'll find someone who has.
Yet, in virtually every state, there are laws designed to prohibit prostitution--and, often, laws prohibiting practically every other form of sexual congress between persons who do not happen to be legally married to each other.
Sex, apparently, is here to stay. As Samuel Johnson pointed out, the expense is damnable, the position ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting; nonetheless, love-making has been the most popular sport, indoor and outdoor, since Adam and Eve found that doing what comes naturally is a lot more fun than climbing apple trees.
Yet, as patent as this may seem, in most circumstances, any sexual contact whatsoever transgresses one law or another. It would seem that our lawmakers have decided that the only type of sexual gratification any of us should experience is the introduction of the penis into the vagina. Any other form of satisfaction is, in most states, a "crime against nature." Some poetical bluenose in Rhode Island, perhaps suffering from an unbearable urge for verbal orgasm, went so far as to decry another sex practice as an "Abominable and detestable crime against nature." If you don't believe me, check the Criminal Code of the State of Rhode Island, Chapter 10, Section 11- 10-1. It reads: "Every person who shall be convicted of the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or with any beast, shall be imprisoned not exceeding twenty (20) years nor less than seven (7) years." And before you chalk that off as typical New England prudishness, consider that Arizona--in the supposedly modem Southwest--has a similar law. There, however, the "abominable and detestable" crime becomes simply "infamous."
There seem to be no doubt where the laws originated. The blame lies with those hardy, apparently undersexed early colonists, the Puritans. As absurd as this may seem to any conscientious respecter of human liberty, American jurisprudence has accepted the puritanical code--(Hugh Hefner aptly calls it "purityrannical')--virtually in toto. And here's the real whopper: most of these laws are still in effect today! In many states, a married person may not have relations with anyone except his spouse--even if his spouse agrees to it!
A man and his wife are forbidden, under statutes referring vaguely to "lewd" or 'lascivious" acts, to gratify themselves orally, anally, manually, or in any other way except the standard, so-called "normal' one.
A person having intercourse with someone who is under the legal "age of consent"--in most cases, eighteen years--is guilty of statutory rape.
Homosexuality and Lesbianism are specifically taboo.
Now, I'm not saying that I'm for all, or any, of these variations. But I am saying that I realize it's none of my damn business.
And I'm not trying to say that sex criminals--psychotic criminals--should be given free rein. Certainly laws are necessary to prevent anyone forcing his sexuality on an unwilling mate. The rapist and the molester of children should be prevented from continuing to rape and molest.
But our laws make little distinction between the sex criminal and the man or woman who simply prefers unconventional means of sexual expression. Consequently, when a man and his wife, in the privacy of their own home, decide to gratify themselves orally where their harmless byplay in no way infringes upon the rights of others, legally, they become sex criminals, equal to the rapist or the molester of children.
Now, were the fact that these laws are both unfair and inhumane not enough to bring about their immediate revocation, here's the clincher: they simply don't work. They've been on the books of their various states for almost two centuries, but what have they accomplished? Have homosexuality, lesbianism, sodomy, adultery, fornication, and bastardry, fellatio or any of the other "forbidden" practices been wiped from the face of the earth? If you think so, you've been leading a mighty sheltered life. Everybody's doing it, one way or another, and I mean everybody--you, me, the bus driver and that nice-looking kid who delivers the groceries. But, thanks to the Puritans, if John Law decides to clamp down on us, we can go to the can for it And what good has it done their cause? None. Just look at you, me, the bus driver, and the grocery lad. We're still doing it.
Worse still, we've come to respect all laws, a little less because we object to these unquestionably unjust laws. Look at the prohibition of liquor--ill-advised, ignoble experiment that it was--and the unprecedented wave of crime and gangsterism that followed it. The chief weapon of modem mobocracv is not the machine gun, it's money--money to buy judges and civil officials, or money to buy votes to oust the judges and civil officials who can't be bought. Where did the hoods get money originally? Bootlegging, naturally. And where are they getting it today? From gambling, prostitution, and narcotics--three activities which, despite the laws supposedly governing them, continue to flourish.
The evidence is on the front pages of the daily newspapers. It's reflected in the sociologists reports of increased juvenile delinquency, and in the FBI's reports of accelerated crime rates. But have our lawmakers learned their lesson? I guess not. The laws are still on the books. And we still ignore and break them.
In fact, if some omnipotent source were suddenly to decree that all lawbreakers be tossed into jail, I wonder who'd be left to guard the prisons.
Now, what does all this have to do with the eighteen-year- old girl we left pregnant at the beginning of the chapter?
A lot.
You see, I'm convinced that the only reason the entire female population of the world doesn't embark on a voyage of continuous promiscuity from puberty to old age is that religious and legal fears, fear of pregnancy, or fear of ostracism prevent it. (I'm talking about the situation with women, of course. Most men, it seems, do live lives of promiscuity practically from womb to tomb--at least, they try to.) _ Well, I circumvented the religious taboo while I was still in high school. By keeping my eyes and ears open, I learned that legal objections to sex meant as little to most people as they did to me. Fear of pregnancy ceased to be a deterrent--I already was pregnant. And, out at the Catskill hotel, where I knew no one and no one knew me, the matter of social ostracism never entered my mind.
Maybe the proprietor's policy of staff-guest separation meant I couldn't mingle with the New York businessmen, but there were a lot of waiters and bus boys around, not to mention a handful of enterprising straight musicians. Opportunities for promotion certainly existed.
The final bridge between potency and action was the desire. That, I had! You don't spend an entire winter balling practically every night and then just stop cold. If there are men around, as there were, and if you have strong sensual appetites, as I do, you swing.
I swung!
There was a trumpet player I met at a bar, two bus boys, a waiter, barber, and a trombone man I met at an after hours jam session in Woodridge.
The trombonist introduced marijuana to me. I was pretty square in those days. When he spoke about having some tea, I thought he meant the kind Arthur Godfrey peddled on his talent scouts program.
"I'd love some," I said.
He handed me a stick; only then did I realize that he meant pot. By that time, of course, it was too late to back out without getting branded something or other uncool, so I lit up and watched him for a cue on how to smoke it. I followed his lead; my mind had left my head and was up in the corner of the ceiling looking down at me. The whole room became crystal- clear under my gaze, and every detail, every crack and crevice, stood out, boldly defined. Everything was the grooviest! The more I looked, the more I dug. It was heaven! Almost.
Only one thing was wrong. I reached for my glass to take a drink and I missed it. I had no physical or mental control of myself. I decided then and there that that would be the last time I'd mess with a narcotic. I haven't touched one since. And, believe me, it hasn't been from lack of opportunity.
My abdominal swelling didn't start until mid-August, and even then it was slight enough to be mistaken for the product of excessive appetite for food rather than for ardor. When September 2 rolled around (I'd say "Labor Day," but there might be some misunderstanding due to my propensity for hot cross puns), I gathered together the $850 I had made in tips and headed for Philadelphia.
Why Philadelphia? I don't know. Why not? I had to go somewhere.
I took a small furnished apartment that was inexpensive, but clean, and sat around waiting for the big day to come. I passed my time reading--what else? I was nearly seven months pregnant--and, finally, when the first of October arrived, I turned myself in at a hospital for unwed mothers.
Two months later, I walked out content in the knowledge that my child would be placed in the home of parents whose qualifications for adoption had been thoroughly checked and found acceptable. I also walked out with a king-size crush on one of the interns.
His name was Clint, and he had just completed medical school at one of the better-known Philadelphia institutions. We met the day I was admitted to the hospital. He was studying near the admissions desk, talking with one of the nurses about a chart. I was giving a bowdlerized version of my life story to the nurse at the desk.
Midway between "Name and Address" and "Place of Birth," I looked up at Clint. I found him looking back. Our eyes met, said the things eyes usually say to each other; then he looked away. I don't think anyone in the room would have needed a stethoscope to hear my heart beat.
Periodically, I kept glancing at him, much to the annoyance of Florence Nightingale, who apparently thought I should be beating my breast and muttering sounds of. penance.
"Next of kin?" Nightingale asked.
"None," I said.
Nightingale frowned.
"Miss Keefe," she explained, "we must have the name and address of the next of kin. Whom would we notify in the event of... an emergency?"
"The city morgue," I dead-panned.
"Miss Keefe!" she exclaimed, her tone letting me know that this was the sort of thing people weren't supposed to joke about.
My tone let her know I wasn't joking. "The city morgue," I repeated.
"Miss Keefe," she insisted, "it's hospital policy." Here's where Clint came to my rescue.
"Enter my name and address as the next of kin, Nurse," he instructed her.
Nurse gave Clint the kind of look I imagine old nurses keep in reserve to use as a weapon against impertinent young interns.
"Really, doctor?" she sputtered, her righteous indignation waving like a flag.
I know it's unconventional," he fired back. "I'm unconventional."
He gave her his name and address, as if she didn't know them already.
Nightingale wrote the information on the form.
The next time I saw Clint was two days later in the ward.
As the next of kin," he smiled, "I feel it's my obligation to check up on the progress of my... my, what? What is our relationship, anyway? Cousins? I guess so. Adam and Eve supposedly sired us all. Hello, cousin, how are you?"
"Lousy," I replied, returning his smile.
He nodded professionally.
"Perfectly understandable," he said. "Hospitals seldom attract the hale and hearty. It's refreshing to find someone candid enough to admit the truth, though."
"Fitting me out for a coffin?" I asked, adding quickly: "In case you get called upon as surviving next of kin?"
His face froze midway between a grimace and a grin.
"I warn you in advance," I continued, laughing to let him know I was joking, "I'll be more trouble as a corpse than I am alive. Besides, I have no insurance."
"I was just thinking that you must have had a superb shape before your recent expansion program," he said quickly. "A superb shape!" he repeated, nodding appreciatively. "And you will have again as soon as we take care of you here."
I watched his eyes travel the circumference of my body as outlined by the sheet.
"I thought pregnant women were supposed to be repulsive to men," I told him.
"A pure fiction, cousin," he replied. "A pure fiction with absolutely no foundation whatsoever in fact."
I looked directly into his eyes.
"Let call a spade a spade, doc," I said. "Do you want to make love with me?"
If my candor shocked him, he concealed it. "A moot point under the circumstances, cousin," he grinned. "A biological impossibility. Well... possible, perhaps, but certainly impractical. Besides, my Hippocratic oath forbids the seduction of patients."
"You're not seducing me," I argued. "I'm seducing you. I'm more hip than your oath."
"Yes, damn it, I'd like to go to bed with you," he admitted readily. "Let's get on another subject, before I get carried away and do something very un-Hippocratic."
"When?" I pressed. "When would you like to go to bed with me?"
"January 16," he shot back. "That suit you?"
It was my turn to register surprise. "Why January 16?" I asked him.
"Because I hate copulating on January 17," he snapped. "Now, to the point of my visit. How are you?"
"Still lousy, like I was when you asked me a minute ago. Maybe not as lousy. But still lousy."
"Hang on, cousin," he told me. "And don't forget January 16."
He walked out.
And I thought about January 16.
Clint visited me every day after that. Our conversations usually ran along the same lines. They were bright spots, punctuating otherwise dreary days. When I fell asleep at night, I was visualizing his face on the pillow next to me. When I woke in the morning, I was silently forming his name with my lips.
When the labor pains started, I discovered that I had never known what real suffering was. Pain was a cold, dark sea. All my life, I had floated calmly above its surface, touching the water only periodically for the briefest instants. Now, the child inside my bloated abdomen kicking with impatient urgency, I plunged into the depths of the sea of pain. A freezing sensation infested every cell of my body. I thought I could even feel the marrow of my bones hurting.
My eyes squeezed tightly shut, I clenched my fists and writhed in agony. "Clint!" I screamed. "Clint, please help me. Oh, God, please help me!" Gradually the pain subsided, and, bathed in perspiration, I opened my eyes. Clint was looking directly into them.
"Hi, cousin," he said. "What's new?"
I smiled weakly. "New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire "
"Very good," he nodded approvingly. "Very, very good."
He put a thermometer in my mouth.
"The way of the prime eps is hard," he declared oratorically.
"The prime what?" I tried to say. All that came out was an unintelligible smear of sound.
He understood, though. "The 'prime eps' my dear cousin, is the medical terminology for a woman undergoing her first pregnancy."
"Hmmm," he said with mock solemnity, taking the thermometer. "By God. I think she'll actually live!"
"That's a relief," I told him.
He put the thermometer in a glass tray on the night stand, and turned to me.
I looked into his eyes, and, as our glances met, I felt that we were being drawn closer together.
"I love you," I whispered.
He bent forward and kissed my nose.
"Get some sleep, cousin."
The pains were coming closer together now, each more violent, more tortured than the last.
Clint took a cool damp cloth and dabbed my face with it.
"It won't be long now, cousin."
Suddenly, unexplainably, I was seized with an hysterical fear.
"Clint!" I cried. "I don't want to die!"
"Okay, cousin. Don't die."
"I'm afraid, Clint. I'm afraid. I'm not going to die, am I, Clint?"
"Of course you're going to die," he said matter-of-factly.
I lay there stunned, motionless, unable to believe my ears. "We're all going to die," he smiled. "It's part of the game. But take good care of yourself, drive carefully, avoid strange toadstools, look both ways before you cross the street, eat an apple every day--you're liable to hang on for another forty or fifty years."
I smiled back at him. He had kidded me out of my hysteria.
The day after the baby was born, Clint sat by the side of my bed and lighted a cigarette.
"Well, cousin, you're a prime eps no longer. As Lucretia Borgia said to husband number three, 'Welcome to the club.' "
"I feel thirty pounds lighter," I told him.
"You look thirty pounds lighter."
"Would you call it a... superb shape?" I asked, trying to remember Ids exact words.
"Superb," he replied quickly, but I could tell his enthusiasm was forced. There was something in the tone of his voice, a sudden awkwardness that had dispelled his usual assurance, that made my mouth go dry.
I tried a smile that didn't quite come off. "I guess I was pretty much of a pain in the aye-double-ess," I said. "Hope I didn't cause you too much trouble."
"No trouble at all," he said. "All in a day's work."
There was an uncomfortable silence. I felt my eyes grow moist. Now, I told myself. Bring it to a head now.
"Was it all--all of it in a day's work?" I asked him.
I watched his brow furrow.
"Wonder what she meant by that?" he said, trying to sound casual.
"Like " I forced the words out. "Like January 16."
He scratched his head. "The manual on bedside technique says you're not supposed to talk about things like that at times like this."
"You don't have to talk about it," I replied coldly. "You've already given me your answer."
"Lynn " he began, then he stopped cold, like a singer who has suddenly forgotten the words of his song. He stood up. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his white trousers. He paced around the bed.
"You were just putting me on," I said.
Clint's face seemed to turn ashen white before my eyes. "I... I did what I thought was best," he said.
I nodded dumbly.
"I'm sorry," he told me. "I really am."
"I am, too," I said. "Now, please get the hell out."
He did. I cried. Then, when I had cried myself out, I went to sleep.
* * *
When I awakened, it was morning, and Clint was at my bedside again.
"I had to talk to you about this," he said. "I had to tell you... you see, I guess I have a lot to learn about my profession yet. But... well, two weeks ago, we had a little girl come in here " He stood up and turned his back to me. After a moment, he turned around again.
"A prime eps usually takes one of two forms," he said softly. "Either she's scared to death and she shows it. Or she's scared to death and she hides it completely--in which case she's usually more scared than the ones who actually show it. It's as if there were a direct proportion to it: the more casual she acts about her pregnancy, the more she is really deep- down-inside worried."
He took a long time to light a cigarette. Finally, after puffing out a cloud of blue smoke, he continued: "Two weeks ago, we had a little girl come in here who looked like the classic case of complete calm. She looked as bored as if she had babies at least twice a week for the past ten years."
He took a long drag and watched the smoke disintegrate. "One night, round 11 p.m., she wandered out of the ward and into the hall. None of the nurses happened to be in the vicinity. She walked to the stair well and threw herself over the banister. Multiple skull fracture. She died the next morning."
I watched the veins in the side of his neck stand out. He ran his fingers through his hair; then he wrung his hands together.
"When I saw you at the admissions desk, I thought: here's another one. The same bored, cool exterior; the same almost belligerent attitude toward the admissions nurse. I couldn't help thinking of the other girl who threw herself down the stair well. Like you, she had a tough outer shell."
He ground out his cigarette in the ash tray and quickly lighted another one.
"When I saw you, Lynn, I took it upon myself to do what I thought I had to. I was determined that you weren't going to wind up at the bottom of the stair well. I've since been severely reprimanded for doing what I did. I was wrong in leading you to believe... something existed, when it never actually did. I'm not trying to make excuses. But I wanted you to know how I feel "
"Thanks, anyway," I said.
He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"I just thought I'd apologize," he said turning away.
I watched him walk off.
"Doc!" I called.
He turned toward me.
"I mean the thanks," I said. "I really do."
He tried to smile. It didn't come off.
"Honest," I said. "That business about the tough outer shell and cracking--you don't know how right you were. Without you " I let the sentence trail off.
"If I really could believe you mean that " Clint started.
"I mean it," I said. Then, as an afterthought, "Honest, cousin."
This time his smile wasn't forced.
"God bless you, Lynn," he said.
I think he meant it.
CHAPTER FIVE - Of Flans, Vast and Half-vast
I walked into the police station at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and asked the cop behind the desk to arrest me.
His face took on a quizzical expression.
"What have you done wrong?" he asked.
"You name it, I've done it,' I told him. "I jay-walked, I loitered in public buildings, I spit on the steps of City Hall " He favored me with a benign smile.
"Where's home, little girl?" he wanted to know.
"The moon," I dead-panned. "There, I've been disrespectful to an officer, Now, arrest me. Please. I'll confess to any unsolved crime on your books."
The cop said something else, but I didn't hear him. The room was beginning to tip sideways, like it does when you're drunk. I tried hard to keep from falling off. Then I became aware of brown circles forming around the periphery of my vision. It was as though I were looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. The policeman behind the desk was spinning around now, too, and the faster he spun, the further away from me he seemed to be. The circles kept getting smaller. Now, they were mere pinpoints of light. Then there was no light at all. Nothing.
When I woke up I was lying on a large, comfortable, double bed, looking up at a ceiling covered with inexpensive white- on-white wallpaper that housewives buy because they think it looks expensive. It was nearly dusk. From the next room, I could hear muffled conversation and the sounds of people moving about. The aroma of boiling beef tantalized my nostrils.
I pulled myself up from the bed and made my way unsteadily to the door. I was looking into a kitchen where a hefty, round-faced woman in her mid-forties was stirring a large pot on the gas range. Seated at the table, was a man in a woolen, Scottish plaid shirt and baggy, blue trousers. I recognized him as the cop from the police station.
"Where am I?" I asked.
"My house," he smiled. "You looked like you needed a good meal. Say hello to Betty, the best cook in Duchess County. My wife."
"Hello," I greeted her.
Betty smiled and said, "Hi."
"Come on in," the cop beckoned. "Sit down."
I went slowly to the table and took the seat opposite him. Betty left the gas range long enough to go to the refrigerator and pour a large glass of orange juice.
"Vitamins," she explained, setting the glass in front of me. I guzzled it greedily.
"How long since you've eaten?" the cop asked.
I shrugged. "A day. Maybe two."
"Run away from home?"
"Not exactly," I said.
"Then exactly what?" he countered.
"I came here to go to Vassar," I explained. "I planned to work my way through. But they couldn't admit me until they got my high school records. While I was waiting for them, I ran out of money."
I picked up the juice glass, realized it was empty, and put it back down.
Betty smiled. "Poor child, you must be starved."
I watched her take a large bowl from the cupboard and ladle broth from the pot on the stove into it.
"Drink this," she said, putting the bowl in front of me. "You'll feel a lot better when you do."
I took a spoonful of broth, blew on it to cool it, then touched it experimentally with my tongue. Satisfied that the temperature was less than scalding, I began to eat it. It tasted wonderful.
"Have you called your parents?" the cop asked me.
"No," I answered.
"Don't you think you should?"
"My parents don't exist," I snapped.
His eyebrows arched. "Now, look " he began.
"Frank," Betty interrupted. "The poor child is famished. Can't you let the questioning go until she's eaten?"
He nodded. "I suppose so, he said reluctantly.
The meal was beef stew, rich with potatoes, greens, carrots, and large chunks of lean, boiled beef. I attacked it viciously, swabbing the plate clean with hunks of Italian bread. Betty topped it off with chocolate ice cream and coffee. When I had finished, I felt a great sense of satisfaction and relief.
"Do you want to talk now?" Betty asked, carting the dirty dishes to the sink. "Or would you rather go to bed and talk in the morning?"
"Bed," I said, feeling the waves of sleepiness wash over me.
The cop guided me back to the bedroom. "We'll see you in the morning," he said, closing the door.
When he had left, I stripped down to bra and panties and slipped between the sheets. Almost immediately, I drifted into a restless half sleep. But, minutes later, I found myself wide awake again. I could hear the cop and Betty talking in the kitchen. Their voices came through loud and clear.
"She matches the description on a Missing Persons report out of Pennsylvania," he said.
I felt my heart beating faster.
"She's a nice little girl," Betty countered. "She's not a juvenile delinquent. Didn't you hear her say she came here to go to college?"
"She's a fugitive," answered the cop. "Nice kid or not, she's a fugitive. And if I don't turn her in, it could mean my badge."
"Sleep on it," Betty replied. "She's not going anywhere. Not in the shape she's in. Tomorrow morning, talk to her a little more. Then, if you have to, turn her in."
There was a momentary silence, followed by the sound of footsteps. Then, from the distance, I could hear the biting brass sound that characterizes variety show television. For the moment, I was safe--they were held captive by Ed Sullivan, Arthur Godfrey, Milton Berle or one of their fellow video- mesmerizers.
As quickly as I could, I slipped into my clothes again, leaving off only my shoes. I crawled back under the covers. I lay there, awake, but completely silent, for three hours which seemed like three years. Before long, I heard footsteps approaching my door. Betty poked her head in.
"She's sleeping like a log," she told the cop.
The door closed again and the footsteps receded. I heard them preparing for bed. Finally, the house was silent. The only sound was the hum of tires on cars passing by outside.
I waited another full hour. Then, as quickly as I could, I slipped out of bed, picked up my shoes, and tiptoed into the kitchen. Fortunately, the moon was bright and its light revealed the outlines of the furniture and other obstacles in the room. Holding my breath, I worked my way around until I felt the knob of the kitchen door in my hand. I coaxed the door open cautiously, stepped out gingerly, then pulled it closed behind me. I turned and bolted down the street.
Evidently, the cop's house was in a suburb. In minutes, I was on the main highway and walking in the direction of town. Traffic was light. I stuck my thumb out at the three cars that passed during five minutes, but each of them ignored me. I walked for two or three minutes more; then, from behind me, I heard the roar of an approaching tractor-trailer.
For a second, I considered two possible courses of action: stick out my thumb again, or throw myself under the wheels and end it all. I decided to stick out my thumb.
The driver pressed his air brakes and the vehicle hissed to a stop. "Where you going, honey?" he asked, leaning across the cab.
"Philadelphia," I ad-libbed.
The driver laughed. "You're doing it the hard way," he said. "Philly's south. You're aiming north."
"Where are you going?" I shot back.
"Boston," he said.
"That's close enough," I told him.
He grinned lecherously. "Hop in," he said.
The truck lurched forward and for about ten miles the driver divided his attention equally between the road and me. I knew what he was after, and I decided that if I didn't give it to him pretty damn soon, he would wrap both of us around a pole.
I let my left knee drift sideways until it came to rest against the gearshift. When we came to an upgrade and he had to gear down, his hand touched my knee. It stayed there.
The driver apparently decided to think about it a while longer. His hand kept its grip on the shift, simultaneously nudging the outside of my thigh. Then, his decision made, he began, ever so slowly, to inch his hand up my leg.
Mohammed, I felt, was taking too long getting to the mountain. So I slid down in the seat and brought the mountain to Mohammed. When he realized he was at home plate, he jerked away with surprise.
What's the gimmick? I imagined him asking himself. This is too easy.
He tossed me a nervous glance, and I stilled his fears with a smile. You read me right, Jack, I let it tell him. He read me right.
The trailer pulled off to the side of the road and came to a halt alongside a cluster of trees. Without saying a word, he took me by the shoulders and laid me on my back across the front seat. Then, with deft, practiced fingers, he removed my panties.
It was over almost before I realized it had begun.
Neither of us said anything. He started up the truck and pulled out into the highway again. I looked out at the road winding in front of the truck. Boston, I told myself. Well... why not? You've got to be somewhere.
This is as good a time as any to tell you how I got to Poughkeepsie in the first place. At last count, you'll recall, I had just given birth to an illegitimate child at a hospital for unwed mothers in Philadelphia. And, when I left the hospital, I had a mad crush on Clint, the young intern who had eased me through my pregnancy with his fabrications.
Well, I've always been a realist--particularly in matters of L'amour--so when Clint gave me the word that he hadn't felt the same attraction for me that I had for him, I did my best to forget him. Love is either a two-way street, or it's no thoroughfare at all.
I succeeded in putting Clint, the individual, out of my mind. But Clint, the type, was something else. Before Clint, all the men I had known were witless, charmless, brainless, monosyllabic clods. I couldn't love them because, perhaps unconsciously, I was looking for G. B. Shaw's classic Superman.
I decided that the best place to search for my personal superman was at a university. What more natural place, I reasoned, for young-supermen-on-the-way-up would they inhabit? I certainly couldn't expect to find them snapping their fingers to the twang of rock-'n-roll guitars at a jook in Scranton.
I had about three hundred dollars when I left the maternity hospital in Philadelphia, and a million dollars' worth of ambition. The Horatio Alger ideal still buzzing about wildly in my nineteen-year-old brain, I felt that all I would have to do is select a good college, use my three bills as down-payment on the first-semester tuition, then work my way through.
Naive? You ain't heard nothing yet. Do you know how I selected a school? I went to the public library and asked the librarian to recommend a good school.
"There are a great many good schools, miss," she informed me.
"All right," I said, changing my tack, "Where did you go to school?"
"Vassar," she answered, a trifle haughtily.
That's all there was to it. I asked her where Vassar was located; she told me; and the next day I took off, by bus, for Poughkeepsie. It wasn't until I got there that I found out that Vassar was an all-girl school.
I still would have enrolled then, though, if I could have. Maybe there weren't any supermen in the student body at the time, but girls' schools are never too far from boys' schools, and there'd have to be some supermen in them.
Well, as you quite well know if you made the college scene yourself, enrolling in a college isn't exactly like going to a movie. You don't just plank down the price of admission and get your ticket. They need your high school records, letters of recommendation, and practically every conceivable item of personal information imaginable except, possibly, the length and frequency of your menstrual cycle.
I had committed myself to my plan, though, so I decided to stick it out. I took a small apartment in Poughkeepsie, rented a post office box, and wrote to my high school for my records. When it seemed I had done all I could do, I sat back to wait.
My job-hunting efforts weren't crowned with success, I'm afraid. Ten different places at which I applied for secretarial work gave me the don't-call-us-we'll-call-you routine. And, much as I disliked the prospect of slinging hash for a living, I made the rounds of a dozen or so restaurants. But nobody was hiring.
Meanwhile, my original cash was rapidly disappearing, and I knew that if I didn't do something damned quick, I'd find myself with an empty pocketbook and a belly to match.
When I was down to my last ten dollars, and I still had not received word from Vassar about my application, I made another tour of Poughkeepsie's hashhouses. At last, at a diner off the main highway, I got a glimmer of hope.
The head waitress was a giantess with the physique and disposition of a hippopotamus. After she looked me up and down searchingly, she announced that she might have an opening.
"I wish you'd decide as soon as possible whether or not you do have an opening," I told her. "I'm not exactly an heiress to the Harriman millions, you know."
That apparently got her. Her hippopotamus mouth opened wide and emitted a glass-shattering roar of laughter.
"I like you," she said. "You're hired."
That meant ten dollars a week salary, plus meals. Tips averaged fifteen dollars a week. Nothing sensational, but I'd be able to keep body and soul together until something better came along to help me develop my other assets.
Of course, I hadn't reckoned with my friend, the hippo. When she said, "I like you," I didn't realize she meant precisely that.
It started, at first, with playful slaps on the arm or shoulders which I interpreted as manifestations of general good will and sorority. Before long, though, it was the arm-around-the- waist and the-pat-on-the-buttocks. Anything sisterly about these goings on? If so, I had a pretty cloudy idea of sisterhood.
I'm going to be honest: it wasn't long before I knew exactly what was happening, but I didn't do a damn thing to discourage the hep hippo.
I'll tell you why. To begin with, I was curious. I had heard and read about the curious practices of Sappho of Lesbos and her maidens. Everyone, it seemed, condemned lesbianism strongly. Well, that's exactly how they had reacted to fornication, too, wasn't it? And look how much I dug that! I decided that, good or bad., one sisterly experience wouldn't kill me. I thought I owed it to myself to find out just what the hell the dykes and dames games was like.
That was one reason. The other was that, chintzy twenty- five dollars a week or not, the job at that backwoods beanery was the only means of subsistence I had. Until something better came along, I planned to hang on to it.
The hippo (whose name was Doris, by the way) made her first all-out pitch just before the end of my second work week. We were working the four-to-midnight shift together. It was a particularly quiet Thursday night. All the customers had cleared out. The only people in the joint beside Doris and me were the cook and a dishwasher, both of whom were in the kitchen. She was busying herself at the cigar counter, and I was cleaning out the inside of the ice cream freezer.
Incidentally, I've never worn a girdle because I've always dug the natural, airy feeling that comes from wearing just panties and a bar under a dress. Stockings, slips, and the rest of that stuff just drags me.
Well, while I was bending over the ice cream freezer, this paucity of undergarments evidently revealed certain natural assets which might best have been concealed.
I heard Doris's footsteps thunder up behind me; then I felt the intimate, insinuating weight of her hand on my back. I stiffened straight up. It didn't scare her off. Apparently, it was just what she wanted. Keeping her hand on me, Doris leaned near my ear and croaked: "Wanna come up to my room for coffee after work?"
"Take your meathook off my rear and I'll think about it," I told her.
This got a laugh from Doris that would make the roar of the MGM lion sound like the chirp of a parakeet. She removed her hand, backed off two steps, and riveted her eyes on my breasts. Then, slowly, the eyes worked their way up until they met mine.
She looked like a lantern-jawed parody of Moon Mullins.
"Well, how about it?" she persisted.
I shrugged. "What the hell. Might as well."
The rest of the night, Doris flitted around the diner with the exuberant gracelessness of a rhinoceros performing the first movement of Swan Lake. At midnight, she locked up and we went to her apartment. It was a mammoth auditorium of a room, decked out with masculine taste.
Doris put the coffeepot on the gas burner. But I did not want to prolong the affair any longer than necessary, so I went directly to the double-sized bed at one side or the room. I sat on the edge of it, removed my shoes, and slipped off my panties. Then, smoothing my skirt down over my knees, I lay back with my head on the pillow and awaited the inevitable.
It wasn't long coming after Doris put the lights out. Let me say, in all honesty, it wasn't bad. It could never replace the boy-girl bit in my books, but I got my kicks out of it. At least, I did for the moment. Then she turned the lights on and I looked at that hippo face with the beagle eyes and I wanted to vomit.
* * *
In Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis went into considerable detail to castigate the biased middle-sized-community and its stuffed- shirt American businessman. Though the book was written nearly forty years ago, Lewis' work remains, for the large part, true today.
The Babbitt who entered my life in Poughkeepsie was so much like Lewis' prototype he must have modeled himself after the character. The only difference between them I think, was that my Babbitt took fierce pride in his sexual attainments.
There exists a certain breed of men who find making a pass at the waitress one of the integral components of an enjoyable restaurant meal. That isn't to say that they always score. Actually, they might not be any more in the mood for sex than your maiden Aunt Ruth. But putting the make on the waitress is part of their dining ritual, and, whether they feel like it or not, they'll make sure they perpetuate the ceremony.
This feast of the pass was the modus operandi of my Babbitt. His name, by the way, was Ray Bradley, and he warmed up to his pitch between the salad and the main course which I had served him.
"Where have you been all my life, sweetheart?" he cooed.
I gave it back to him both barrels. "Just waiting for you to sweep me off my feet, lover boy."
Before dessert, he asked, "What time do you get off tonight?"
"Midnight," I told him.
When I brought him the check, he suggested: "Suppose I drop by around midnight and give you a ride home?"
"Suppose you do," I agreed.
"We got a date?"
"It sounds like that to me."
* * *
All I can say about what happened that night is that it must have been magic. True, it had been a long time between drinks for me and I felt like some action. Plus I was pretty damn tired of my bouts with the hippo. But Ray Bradley wasn't exactly Poughkeepsie's answer to Frank Sinatra, and, even though he had sort of a basic physical attraction for me, I'd been to bed with a good many other men who appealed to me in all departments a lot more than he did; yet, that night, in his motel room, I became a wild woman.
Maybe it was just that, after the siege of starvation and frustration in Poughkeepsie, I needed a good bout in bed more than Ray did. Whatever it was, I went absolutely insane. I was a writhing, slithering, biting, grasping, bouncing creature tugging away at him as if I hoped to rip him to shreds. I swung him around as though I had a case of St. Vitus's dance. When the fury was over, he lay on the bed panting like a guy who had just run the mile in three minutes. Each breath came out in a huge gust, and he sucked each one in as if he thought it would be his last. When Ray eventually got his senses and bearings back, he lit a cigarette, exhaled a lungful of smoke, and murmured, almost reverently: "Jesus Christ!"
"You were pretty good, too," I told him.
After half an hour, I gave him another treatment--this one not quite as wild as the first, but even more pleasurable. When it was over, Ray took a bottle of whisky from the bureau top and poured us each a stiff shot.
"I'll have to come by this way more often," he said, grinning the grin of the self-proclaimed conqueror.
"Don't. Not on my account," I said.
He sipped his drink, then looked curiously at me. "Something wrong?" he asked.
I decided to spell it out for him.
"Look, Ray," I said, "we happened to be in the right place at the right time, so we made it and there's no regrets. But let's not either of us construe it to mean we're madly in love with each other, huh? Tomorrow I might not care for you and you might not care for me."
Now, if I had been a little hipper to the ways of men back in those days, I might have predicted exactly what his reaction would be. You see, there are a hell of a lot of men --big, virile Don Juans, or as they fancy themselves--who delight in racking up as high a score of boudoir conquests as possible. Every chick they see is a potential conquest, another notch on their bedroom six-shooter.
For some strange reason completely incomprehensible to me, they somehow get the wacky idea that all their conquests fall in love with them. (This illusion, no doubt, comes from the great American myth that men make it for pleasure, but women make it for love. Pure nonsense.) Now, when one of these cow-town Casanovas finds a chick who really shows him a good time between the sheets, he's fully convinced that his irresistible charm is working full force. And, should the doll let him know that he represents to her exactly what she represents to him--just another lay--he practically goes out of his skull trying to prove to her that it wasn't just fleeting kicks. He's hooked on his own pride by then, and he'll move mountains and sundry other things trying to show her that their little tryst was Important, Meaningful, Significant, et cetera.
Ray started to move mountains. On figurative bended knee, he began to recite what I've learned to classify as the "Litany of the Would-Be Conqueror Whose Ego Has Just Been Punctured." It started with the "You do mean something to me" routine and went right on up to the spiritualism-fatalism stage: "Things like this just don't happen, for God's sake!" Before long, Ray was pretty juiced up, and when I walked out, he was slobbering something about how I was the first girl he was really able to communicate with already.
It seems these rural-route Romeos don't give us easily once they've put their shoulders to the task of love's conviction. The next day, shortly after noon, he made it to the diner. He came right to the point. How would I like a job as his secretary, sixty-five bucks a week?
I told him I'd love it, took off my apron, and walked out with him. All the while, my friend, the hippo, stood there with her mouth open. I sort of pitied her in a way. But what could I say?
I was a good secretary. I was efficient, courteous, loyal, and earned all the praise that seems equally applicable to secretaries and Boy Scouts. And, on the two or three nights a week that Ray Bradley was able to break away from his wife, I swung with him. These performances weren't comparable to that first, no-holds-barred night at the motel room; but, in fairness to myself, I had to admit that I was... well, efficient. Courteous. Yes.
But, no, I wasn't loyal in that area. As far as I was concerned, that wasn't part of the bargain. So, one afternoon, when a high school student came in the office soliciting ads for his senior class yearbook, and I noticed his bulging eyes fighting very hard with the buttons on my blouse, I didn't try to suppress the desire I felt for him.
"Sorry, Mr. Bradley isn't in this afternoon," I said. "But, my, isn't that an interesting belt you're wearing? May I see that buckle more closely?"
The kid didn't get the cue, but he apparently felt no harm could come from allowing me to examine his buckle, so he started to loosen the belt.
"Come on around here," I said, motioning him to the gate that led into the office proper.
He complied. When he got next to me, I took the buckle in my hands. "Very interesting," I said. "What material is it made of? Copper?' "I dunno," he mumbled self-consciously. "Steel, maybe, I guess."
I let my hands brush against his trousers.
"Say, that's an interesting fabric," I commented. "What is it? Cotton?"
Well, the kid was pretty inexperienced, that's for sure. But, sometimes, instinct is all that's needed. While I examined the fascinating cotton fabric, the kid sprang to a snappy present arms. He might not have been familiar with the method, but he dug the message.
"If someone passes by, they might get the wrong idea," I said. "Let's go in here."
I led the kid into Ray's vacant office, and, after closing the door, proceeded to examine the boy's fabric only too well. Fifteen minutes later, he limped out, his warehouse of experience enriched threefold. He never did sell us that ad for the yearbook, but he learned something they don't teach in school. And if he had felt any the worse for the experience, he didn't complain.
Now, here's the funny part--when Ray came in the next day, I told him about what had happened. You see, naive little Lynn was amused at the incident, and thought big, broad-minded Ray would find it worth a chuckle or two also. Not so, chum. Cow-town Casanovas apparently feel that fidelity is an integral component of the relationship. He turned crimson with rage. And he fired me.
That might not have been so bad, but I had spent every dime I made on clothes. You don't work as a secretary In waitress uniforms, and I had gone hog-wild with charge accounts in three stores. When Ray bounced me, I didn't have a cent to my name. My apartment was paid for another week, but I still had to figure out how to eat. And I had to try to get another job somewhere. I went back to the diner, but my friend Doris, the hippo, didn't want to be my friend anymore.
It was the loyalty thing again. Cripes, I thought, even the dykes demand it. Doesn't anybody believe in live and let live? Well, that was no time for outcries of righteous indignation against the narrow-mindedness of humanity. I had more practical problems to concern myself with. Like how to keep alive.
For the next two days, I scoured every conceivable place of employment. I even offered to go to work as a dishwasher. No takers. Finally, in desperation, I turned myself in at the Poughkeepsie police station and asked to be arrested. You know the rest.
* * *
Up until I heard the cop and his wife talking, I hadn't known there was a Missing Persons report out on me. Thanks to this complication, it would be only a matter of time until I was traced to Poughkeepsie. With amazing innocence, I had written my high school and for several potential personal references, letting several people know where I was. Sooner or later, I realized, my parents would find me. Then what? I didn't want to wait around to find out.
So, I was glad the truck driver was going to Boston. At least, I'd be temporarily out of the range of John Law with his proverbial long arm.
But Boston didn't solve any problems, either. It might have, had I been equipped with enough coins to subsist until I could find a decent job. But I didn't have dime one, and the only clothes I had, now that I was on the lam from Poughkeepsie, were the clothes I was wearing.
The truck driver bought me breakfast. After I had finished eating, I leveled with him about my circumstances. He drove me to a diner outside Boston and introduced me to the owner, a friend of his. While I sat at the counter, the driver and the owner withdrew to a comer for a private conversation. Periodically, the owner would peer over the driver's shoulder and favor me with an appreciative look. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what they were talking about. The results of their confab were soon obvious. I had the job, starting immediately, ten-dollars-a-week, plus room and board.
That night, the owner personally escorted me to my room, assisted in the ceremonial christening of the newly made bed, and left with a leer as broad as his fat face. After he left, I had a revealing chat with myself. Well, Keefe, I said, you've made the full trip. You have gone as low as you can. You are a ten-dollar-a-week whore.
Three days later, at the height of the dinner hour, I rang up a check for $1.98. As the customer walked off with his two cents change, I looked around the room to make sure no one was watching me. Satisfied that I was unobserved, I lifted a handful of tens and twenties from the register and stuffed them in my pocket. My watch told me 12:46. If I was going to carry out my plan, I'd have to move quickly.
The other two waitresses were scurrying about with their usual frenzy. No one seemed to notice me as I walked out the door. I crossed the street; then walked one block South. Exactly on schedule, at 12:50, the bus pulled up to the stop. I boarded it with the rest of the crowd.
Fifteen minutes later, I was in the main bus terminal. I hurried to the ticket counter, planked down a ten-dollar bill and snatched the ticket from the clerk's outstretched hand. I literally ran to Gate 3. As planned, I was just in time to board the 1:10 bus for New York.
No. They never caught me.
CHAPTER SIX - The Old Payola Roll Blues--First Chorus
When I stepped off the bus at the Port Authority Terminal in New York, I felt about as comfortable as a KKK leader at a meeting of the Black Muslims.
It wasn't that I was worried about being nabbed as the thief who had emptied the cash register at the diner in Boston--my well-planned movements had been too quick, and undoubtedly, by the time my absence was noted, there had been too many miles between me and the gendarmes for effective pursuit. But New York was the Big City; frankly, I was awed by its largeness. (I certainly never suspected that, two years later, I'd return to New York escorted by a well- known television personality, who was paying me two hundred dollars a day to serve as a living refutation of rumors regarding his homosexuality. But that's another story.) My little caper in Boston had grossed me a hundred and fifty dollars. After buying my bus ticket and supper, I had a hundred and forty left. This, I knew, was not enough. Even if I lived with miserlike frugality, I couldn't expect my cash to last longer than a month. As I walked out on Eighth Avenue from the Terminal and looked at the towering buildings around me, I became terribly frightened. I'd have a month at most, and, if I hadn't gotten a job by then, I'd be in the same position I had been in previously at Poughkeepsie and Boston.
I was tired of being broke and scrounging meals and worrying about John Law. I was tired of bedding down with dyke hippopotami and fat diner-owners because it meant a job. I was tired of being a bum.
But what to do? Where to go?
Philadelphia, I decided. Philadelphia, at least, would be slightly familiar. There were its landmarks and points of reference. Not that you could eat any of them, but, if nothing more, they'd be familiar. Familiarity is the last line of defense against complete, naked loneliness.
I walked across 41st Street to Broadway, down Broadway to 40th Street, then back across 40th Street to the bus terminal. With each step, the towering buildings seemed more treacherous, more foreboding. I ran the final hundred yards.
"Philadelphia," I instructed the ticket clerk.
The Philadelphia bus was nearly empty. Two housewife characters carrying paper shopping bags had seats together behind the driver. A young, slick-magazine mother with three blonde kids in tow sat opposite them. Midway down the aisle, a pair of alky-type old men sat reading newspapers. Behind them, a red-faced Marine Captain clenched a cigar between his teeth and gave my body an appraising glance as I passed him. Across from him, a scholar with horn-rimmed glasses sat engrossed in a hard-cover volume with library designations on the binding.
I took a seat in the back of the bus, as far away from all of them as possible. The driver closed the doors, the overhead lights went out, and the bus lurched forward. I leaned back and closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, we were in New Jersey. Outside, street lights whizzed by. Inside, it was dark except for the scholar's reading light and the glow of the Marine Captain's cigar.
I lit a cigarette. Before I had half-smoked it, the Captain was in the seat next to me.
"Howdy," he said, his Southern accent dripping all over him. "Is this heah seat taken?"
I made a big pretense of looking around the bus. "No," I answered, "and neither are fifty other seats. Why don't you try one of them?" Something about Southern accents brings out the bitch in me.
My sarcasm was wasted on him. "Jes' tryin' ta be friendly," he said, trying a boyish grin that he was twenty years too old to bring off.
The grin I fired back at him was anything but friendly. "Just trying to get laid, you mean," I said. "Well you got the wrong chick, so go win a war some place, huh?"
His eyebrows tried hard to meet his hairline.
"Now, is that any way for a nahce lil ole gal to talk?" he scolded.
"I'm not a nice girl," I shot back. "I'm a prostitute and this happens to be my day off. Only on Sundays, and never on buses. So beat it, huh?"
Mason-Dixon leaned across the seat and put his face close to mine. "Yoah a prostitute, are yo'?" he whispered. "What's yo' prahce?"
"Look, general," I said, "no means screw. Huh?"
"C'mawn," he coaxed. "What's yo' prahce?"
I looked out the window. "Twenty dollars," I said. That, I reasoned, should scare him off.
It didn't. Before you could blink he had a twenty out and was holding it under my nose.
* * *
How were you driven to prostitution, Lynn Keefe? Well, you see, honey, it wasn't a drive. It was a series of short putts. You let a dyke get her kicks with you so you can keep a job; then you become Babbitt's mistress because it means a better job; then you go broke and you ball a truck driver for breakfast; then you swing with a slob who owns a diner until you can get your fingers in the till--now, it's a Marine on a bus waving a double sawbuck in front of your face. When you told him you were a prostitute, you didn't mean it, for God's sake, you were just putting him on. But he called you. So, what can you do? Sure, you can still back off. But that twenty looks damn good. It could mean four extra days of subsistence if things get rough in Philly. And is it really that much different from balling a guy because you want to keep your job? Is there any difference at all? Sure, you can say no. You can spit in his face, gouge his eyes, holler "rape --but the twenty looks good. Why not take t?
I took the twenty and stuffed it into my bra. I looked around the bus. Only the student's reading light pierced the complete darkness. No danger there, he was engrossed. The woman up front was busy fussing with her kids. Everybody else was asleep. Except the driver, of course; but he was busy enough watching the road.
"You're on, Captain," I said, and reached under my skirt to slip off my panties.
The cigar almost fell out of his mouth. "Crahst!" he exclaimed. 'Ah meant in Philadelphia! Not heah!"
I smirked. Now I was anxious. That twenty felt good next to my breast, and I didn't want to give it back.
"Come on, Captain," I said. "Think of all the fun you'll have telling the boys at the officer's club that you banged a chick on the New York-to-Philly bus."
His eyes lit up on that one. I had struck his Achilles' heel. Making it on the bus would be his coup de one-upmanship. "Did you ever do it underwater?" they asked each other. "Did you ever do it in a canoe?" Enter the Captain, toothy grin bisecting his Southern face. "Well, suh, let me tell y'all somethin'. Ah did it once on a bus from Noo Yawk ta Philly. Raght theah on the seat. Little piece a tail Ah met in the bus terminal " Naturally, he'd omit mentioning that it cost him a double sawbuck. And, if he got drunk enough, he might even tell them that the little "piece a tail" paid him. Which they wouldn't believe. Just like they wouldn't believe his claim in the first place, despite its truthful origin.
No doubt about it, I had appealed to his sense of originality. "Y'all really think we can?" he asked. "Raght heah? Raght now?"
"Why not?" I cooed.
The Captain was certainly ready to make his contribution to one-upmanship.
"Hail, Ah'm game!" he said.
I reached over and put my hand on his lap. Before long, he was prepared for the assault. We moved slowly and noiselessly, aided by the rocking motions of the bus. His chest was pressed against my back, his arms wrapped tightly around me. Suddenly his grip became a vise, his legs stiffened, and his body twitched.
I had done my job. I had done it well. I slid back to my own seat and slipped my panties on. I took a cigarette from my purse and lit it.
"Hey, that was good," the Captain commented, adjusting his clothes. "Lahk the fella says, yuh git what yuh pay for."
"Something like that," I admitted.
The Captain took out a fresh cigar and lit it. When he looked at me, I couldn't help noticing that his attitude was more respectful.
"Say, tell me, honey, if Ah ain't gettin' too personal... just whut's a nice little gal lahk you doin' in a business lahk this?"
That wasn't the first time I was asked that question. It certainly wasn't going to be the last!
* * *
Well, there's no doubt about it, when I stepped off the bus in Philadelphia, I was the seasoned veteran of one well- turned trick. But, by my books, that didn't make me a prostitute--not any more than the fact that you can pick out "Chopsticks" on your grandmother's upright makes you a pianist. At that time, I had no plans whatsoever to become a full-fledged professional hooker. Don't get me wrong--after all I'd been through, I wasn't about to start entertaining a holier-than-thou attitude toward anyone. But I had planned to get a secretarial job somewhere and resume my quest for superman as soon as finances and location would allow. If I had to turn a quick trick now and then to get me through hard times, I wasn't averse to the idea, but I still was entertaining the American dream of husband, home, and motherhood.
I was lucky in Philadelphia. The day after I arrived, I registered at the Bureau of Employment, and, the following day, I was sent for an interview to the office of a theatrical agent. His name was Tony Tascumo; he had offices at the comer formed by Broad and Locust Streets in the heart of Philadelphia's downtown night club district I liked him immediately.
Tony was a short, fat man with a round face and shiny black eyes that huddled close to his huge beak of a nose as if seeking that massive organ's protection. His hair--what there was left to it--crept around the back of his head, from ear to ear, in a form which, if viewed from above, would look like a fur toilet seat.
"This is the craziest business in the world," Tony told me, his broad smile revealing a set of misshapen, but sparkling, teeth. "If you can stay in it any length of time and keep your sanity, consider yourself as having done better than most."
I smiled back, but tried to steer the conversation to the point of the interview. "Would you like to test my typing or shorthand?" I asked him.
Tony grinned broadly. "Would you come here looking for a job if you couldn't- type or take shorthand?" he asked.
"No," I admitted.
"Okay, so then what's there to test?"
As I said, I liked him immediately.
At his agency, I learned that something was happening In the music business that certain people were betting on to be a big thing. It wasn't exactly a new type of music. It was, rather, an old American musical form--the blues--dressed up in new clothing. They called it rock-and-roll.
Tony had never been a "big time" agent. In those days, the twin centers of show business were New York and Los Angeles, and an agent in Philadelphia might just as well have been located in Ekalaka, Montana, as far as the powers-that- be in music were concerned.
Well, that didn't stop Tony. If he couldn't book the "big" acts, he'd book the small ones and do his damnedest to make them seem "big." If all it took to put an act in the $l,000-a- week category was a platter--and in those days, friend, that's all it took--the only problem, as Tony saw it, was cutting the record.
Of course, you didn't just walk into the offices of Columbia, RCA-Victor, Capitol, or Decca and demand a contract. These giants of the industry were virtually unapproachable then. And the smaller record companies, which later captured the proverbial lion's share of the rock-and-roll market, were practically nonexistent.
Tony was undaunted. With an investment of seventy-five dollars--the cost of filing a corporate charter in Pennsylvania, including the fee for a friendly lawyer--Tony formed his own company. He called it Vital Records. Then, subcontracting through the same companies that handled the manufacturing for the major labels, he made his own disks.
The costs were nominal. Tony broke down the functions of the record manufacturer into several isolated categories, and, when his breakdown was complete, it revealed that the entire cost of five hundred records was less than a hundred and forty dollars.
It went like this. First step in the manufacturing process is the "master," a magnetic tape version of exactly what the record will sound like when it's finally completed. Masters are made in recording studios where the cost is twenty-five dollars an hour for studio time. Tony eliminated the cost of musicians' salaries by making the musicians partners in the enterprise, and he conducted sufficient rehearsals before entering the studio to insure that the time of the actual session would never exceed the one-hour limit. Thus, his full cost for a master was twenty-five dollars.
After the master has been made, it's necessary to transfer the sound to metal "stampers," from which the completed record will eventually be "stamped" out, assembly-line style. Stampers cost forty-three dollars. Records need labels, of course, and the cost of these is eight dollars per thousand. Add that to the list. Finally, the actual disks are manufactured. The cost was sixty dollars for five hundred.
Voila! you have five hundred finished records--technically undistinguishable from the product of the major labels--at a total cost of one hundred and thirty-six dollars.
If Tony had tried to sell the records, of course, it would be a losing proposition. The bulk of the record seller's initial expenses goes for promotion and distribution, and to go the full route properly would require more money than Tony had.
But Tony wasn't interested in selling records. Once he had the disks manufactured, he sent them, free, as samples, to night club owners where he was trying to book his combos. One quartet, for example, had been drawing four hundred a week; after Tony made them "recording artists" via the Vital label, their price skyrocketed to twelve hundred a week.
Neat profit?
Frank Blake didn't think so. Frank was a sometime-pianist, sometime-agent, sometime-promoter who worked out of Tony's office. He was also my sometime-inamorata.
"There's one major flaw in your gimmick," Frank told Tony. "It can't last. When these club owners notice that Vital's records and recording artists aren't getting any play on the radio, they're going to get suspicious. It'll just be a matter of months before you and your combos are out on your respective asses."
"All right, genius," Tony countered, "you got a solution?"
"Go legit," Frank fired back. "Start actually manufacturing bona fide records. Become a genuine record manufacturer."
"And where do I get the hundred thousand dollars I need for this kind of operation?" Tony wanted to know.
"You don't need, a hundred thou'," Frank said. "And don't expect me to do all your thinking for you. If I knew how to start a legit record company, I'd do it without you."
Frank did know how. And he did it without Tony. I was in on the deal from the start.
* * *
Let me fill you in on this guy, Frank. I met him the first week I went to work for Tony and I took to him immediately, like a kid takes to popsicles. Frank had one virtue that most men I've known conspicuously lack: confidence.
I was typing some correspondence for Tony when Frank walked into the office. He passed my desk as if completely oblivious to my presence, then, halfway across the reception room, he paused and did a quadruple take.
"Hey, there I" he said, riveting me to my chair with the compelling gaze of his fierce brown eyes.
"Hi," I answered weakly.
His features softened, and a smile played across his lips. "I'm Frank Blake," he said. "And you, young charmer, are the swingingest personage to grace this soggy old town since Betsy Ross was making flags over on Arch Street. If it means anything to you, you might be able to lure me into your lair with very little difficulty. And, I might add, I'm quite particular about whose bed I put my shoes under."
"Flattery will get you everywhere," I quipped.
"Not flattery, hon. Facts. There's a difference, you know."
"You won't mind, I hope, if I don't try too hard to seduce you, Mr. Blake?"
"I won't mind," he said. "Sex isn't that important to me. But, if you feel so inclined, feel free to try. Ill probably be very receptive to your advances." Having delivered his pronouncement, he vanished into his private office.
I couldn't get him off my mind. There was one word for Frank: intense. His body, with its quick, jerky movements, radiated electronic magnetic impulses. It was the kind of body that always got my appetites up--tall and lean, alive with the vibrant agility of a panther. A body which telegraphed that it meant business. And don't be fooled by the absence of weight. Those hundred and fifty pounds of Frank's were pure dynamite!
I was still thinking about Frank half an hour later when he came out of his office. "It's 'Frank,' by the way; not 'Mister Blake,' " he said, as if continuing an uninterrupted conversation. "And don't think going to bed with me is one of the conditions of your job. It isn't."
"Thanks," I said. "You're doing wonders for my ego."
"Your ego is your problem, not mine," he snapped. "I'm too busy to start worrying about people's egos. And, as I said before, I don't care whether I go to bed with you or not."
He jerked a long green cigar from his lapel pocket and tore off the cellophane. "But I would like you to have dinner with me tonight, he continued. "I promise a rib steak that'll melt in your mouth and several hours of good conversation with a guy who knows the score. I further promise that I won't make any attempt whatsoever to seduce you in any way, shape, or form."
"You've sold me. On the dinner."
"Fine," he said, as if congratulating me on my excellent judgment. "You're through here at five-thirty. I'll stop for you then."
That evening we huddled over inch-thick rib steaks. Frank apparently attacked all his personal interests--including eating--with full attention. He refused to talk until he had ceremoniously disposed of the last piece of pound cake on his plate. Then, after emptying his cup of black coffee in a single gulp and lighting up his green cigar, he spelled out his philosophy of fife for me.
"The two most important things in the world," he said, "are money and more money. Anything else is just so much crap."
"You said before that sex isn't important to you," I commented, playing the straight woman. "Is your attitude connected with the money thing, too?"
"Don't take my quote out of context," he warned. "I said at the time that sex wasn't so important to me that I would mind if you didn't try to seduce me."
"I take it, then, that you're accustomed to having girls try to seduce you?"
"You're deducing irrelevant conclusions. No, I'm not 'accustomed' to having girls attempt to seduce me. It's happened, of course. Not frequently, perhaps, but it's happened. Money obviously arouses the libido of certain females a lot more than a hank of curly hair or bulging biceps. There's something sexy about a man who has money... particularly, if he made it himself. Don't ask me why, but it draws chicks. Maybe it's because, in today's society, the hardest thing to do is to make a lot of money. Maybe chicks look at a guy who's made a lot, and see it as an accomplishment. And maybe they figure that, if he was able to accomplish what few oilier men accomplished, he will also be able, to accomplish something a lot less difficult--being good in bed."
"Is being good in bed really that simple?"
"Precisely that simple. It's the simplest, most natural thing in the world. It's only when a guy tries to make a difficult thing out of it that it becomes difficult."
"We seem to have drifted away from the question of whether or not sex is important to you," I said.
"It's like washing your hair," he told me. "If you happen to be in the mood to wash your hair, and there happens to be a sink nearby--well, go ahead. But don't figure that every time you walk by a sink you've got to have a shampoo. And, if you feel like it, but you don't happen to be near a sink, there's no point in letting it drive you out of your skull. You just wait for the next opportune moment."
"Isn't that a pretty cold way to look at it? And an oversimplification?"
"Analogies are, by their nature, oversimplifications. And, naturally, they're cold in comparison with die subject being discussed. I can give you pretty graphic proof that I'm anything but a cold fish if you like.' "Purely for the purpose of proving your argument, I suppose?"
"No. Not even impurely for the purposes of proving my argument. Just because it would be a lot of fun."
"In your analogy," I said, "I assume you're equating the function of a sink to the function of a woman. Do you consider her no more than that--a utilitarian device by means of which man can accomplish his hygienic function? Isn't there any romance to sex?"
"If you mean the Alfred Lord Tennyson crap, I can do without it very nicely, thank you," Frank said. "If you mean a couple digging one another, and saying you dig one another, and doing nice things for one another because you dig one another, then I'm with you 100 percent. But no woman-- or man--has ever been as important to me as I, myself, am. Maybe Robert Browning would've gone to hell for his beloved Elizabeth Barrett, but, in my books, it's me first and you second, no matter how much I dig you. And I think most people feel the same way although they might not like to admit it. But sex has two functions. It exists on two planes-- the emotional and the physical. The release thing is on the physical plane, so I can go to bed with a chick I don't really love and still enjoy it. But, at the same time, if I dig a chick solid, I can go to bed with her and enjoy it twice as much."
"We got onto this sex thing," I resumed, "by talking about money. You've said that sex is important to you. But, you imply, not as important as money. Or am I again making the wrong inference?"
"No. This time you're not making incorrect inferences. If I had to choose between shacking up with Cleopatra tonight or a thousand bucks, I'd go out and make the thousand. And this shouldn't be construed as a criticism of Cleo. The same would apply to any woman. I'd rather make money."
"One last question," I said. "Why?"
"You mean: why make money? At all?"
"I mean: why are you so interested in making so much of it?"
He nudged the long ash from the end of his cigar.
"My reason for making money, sweetheart, defies all logic and analogy. Like the venerable old Scrooge MacDuck, I simply dig it. I dig pursuing it, getting it, and spending it. And, now, because die proprietor of this establishment also digs getting it, and we happen to be occupying a booth that he might otherwise use for that purpose, let's vacate."
* * *
With Frank Blake as my escort, I got to know virtually every nook and cranny of Philly. The so-called vice centers and the sources of income for musical groups and their agents are quite often one and the same. A quartet or quintet gets anywhere from five hundred to fifteen hundred a week, and there aren't many club owners who can meet those kinds of nuts without the free flow of cash that usually coincides with the presence of hookers, B-girls, et al. Frank's business took him to most of the action spots, and he took me. We were a compatible couple.
That first night, after dinner, we went to the John Bartram Hotel for drinks, and the interview continued. Frank, I learned, was a bachelor, twenty-three, a connoisseur of fine wines and an ardent devotee of modem jazz. Jazz, though, didn't sell--so, although he dug it, he was hip enough not to try to sell it.
When it was time for the interviewer to become the interviewee, and vice versa, I told him all there was to tell about myself. I started with my devirgination and continued right on up to the trick I turned with the Marine Captain on the bus from New York. He listened with rapt attention.
When I was finished, he asked, "Why not become a professional? I mean, go all the way, become a hundred-dollar-a- night girl?"
"It isn't my dish of tea," I said.
"Why not?
"Because I do dig sex. Not as a commodity. As an expression of mutual digging."
"But you still didn't hesitate when it came to turning that trick on the bus. Or jumping in bed with the hippopotamus."
"I was acting out of necessity."
"That's a strong term--necessity. Where does nonnecessity end and necessity begin?"
"You're putting me down," I said.
"I don't dig amateurism," he told me. "That applies to amateur prostitution as well as amateur musicianship. Nothing personal, by the way."
"It sounds personal."
"Be that as it may. My point is that I like to see a person develop whatever talents he has to the limit. You claim to have , a talent for this sort of thing; you've certainly got the physical equipment--so you're missing out on a lot of money by not taking advantage of it."
"Money," I replied, "is a medium of exchange. Period."
Frank shrugged. "If that's the way you feel " he let the sentence trail off. Then, emptying his Old Fashioned glass, he asked, "How about another round."
One round led to another until we rounded out the night in bed. Frank was good. Very good. He might have been right about there being inherent sex appeal in a man who has made his own money. Whatever the case, his performance offered strong evidence in support of his theory.
Two weeks later, I moved into his apartment. He was careful to specify that he wasn't going to "keep" me--it was strictly a business deal. He'd pay the rent and buy the food. In return, I'd cook and clean house. If, at any time, either of us decided we'd like to have a go at it with someone else, the party so disposed would be free to do so. The housekeeping arrangement, he stipulated, was to be kept completely separate from the romantic one. The romantic bit could be severed at any time by either of the parties. The housekeeping arrangement could be abrogated only after the serving of two weeks' notice. This was my only experience with shacking up according to the terms of a carefully worded verbal contract, but I'll recommend it to anyone within range of my voice. It worked perfectly for Frank and me.
Since the day when Frank had tried to persuade Tony to try his hand at legitimate commercial record manufacturing, little else occupied his mind except this venture. "If I knew how to start a legit record company, I'd do it without you," he had told Tony. Making good his boast was his prime source of concern.
"There are three components of a successful record:" he explained to me, "manufacture, promotion, and distribution."
Manufacturing presented no problem. After selecting the artists he wanted to record, and obtaining their consent to work for a percentage of the profits, the rest was pure mechanics. Frank had it figured mat, dealing with a volume of ten thousand records, he could reduce the cost to 11.9 cents per record.
"Now," Frank said ironically, "if only I could promote and distribute the goddamn things."
The distribution end seemed to be a tremendous problem. All nationwide distributing chains were either owned and operated by, or contracted to, the major labels. To get one of these outfits to jeopardize their status with a major label for the sake of taking on an unknown company that, to all appearances, might be a fly-by-night operation, didn't seem possible. The only alternative would be to sell directly to the "one-stops" --area middlemen who sold directly to the retailers, and this would require a sales force capable of covering the entire United States.
The promotion required seemed even more unattainable. Promotion meant air-play--radio or television, preferably both --and the big word there was Money with a capital M. Not only did you have to hand over a wad of cash to the disc jockeys, but you had to spend a bundle just to see them in the first place. (You don't arrange a payola deal over a dime cup of coffee in the comer luncheonette. The deejays have been long accustomed to traveling first class.) As formidable as the obstacles to success seemed, Frank decided to plunge into the project anyway. He filed a corporate charter for a new record company, found a young, talented band, and manufactured five hundred records.
The results were commercial enough, and Frank was as excited over them as an adolescent boy at his first conquest. He had ruled out the possibility of forming a sales force to deal directly with the one-stops, and now focused his full attention on gaining the friendship of one of the local distribution office managers.
For two weeks, Frank wined and dined his mark. Finally, at our apartment, the issue came to a head.
"Why don't we form our own record company?" Frank asked the manager.
Ward Collins, a distribution office manager, reeled off a list of objections. The home office wouldn't take a chance with an unknown, nationwide promotion would have to precede any home office consideration, and so on. Frank had anticipated his objections long in advance, and had impressive counterarguments prepared.
"Suppose," Frank concluded his presentation, "a record were to make a big stir territorially. Here. In Philadelphia. Suppose the whole city was screaming for copies of it. Would your home office give you permission to sell it?"
"The whole city would really have to be screaming for it," Collins replied.
"All right. Now, suppose you got permission to sell it. And the disc went like hot cakes. Would your home office take a chance with it nationally? And, for a bigger than usual discount, would they be willing to help underwrite the national promotion costs?"
"Those are a lot of contingencies," Collins said. "They'd all depend on whether we understand the same thing by 'scream.' And I couldn't guarantee that the home office would or would not do anything. I could only recommend a certain course of action."
Frank leaned forward excitedly. "Suppose we sell ten thousand records in Philadelphia," he pressed. "Would you recommend then that the home office do business with me?"
Over what period of time, ten thousand records?" Collins wanted to know.
"Two weeks," Frank shot back.
"I'd crawl," Collins said. "I'd crawl to the home office on my hands and knees, if need be, and I'd beg them to do business with... our record company."
"Then, we've got a deal, partner?" Frank asked, extending his hand.
Collins hesitated before shaking hands. "Sell ten thousand records in Philadelphia in two weeks," he said, "then we've got a deal."
He took Frank s outstretched palm, gave it a perfunctory squeeze, then dropped it.
Frank grinned. "As far as I'm concerned," he told Collins, "the ten thousand are as good as sold."
CHAPTER SEVEN - The Old Payola Rolls Blues
After Frank Blake had secured a commitment from Ward Collins, contingent upon creating a sufficient demand for one of his records, he devoted himself to obtaining adequate promotion.
Well, take it from me, you don't simply walk in on a deejay, slip him a C-note, and tell him to ride your disc. At first, Frank tried to secure promotion of the record through conventional means. It may have been as much an economic consideration as a moral one--the fewer ways you have to split the profits, the more you keep for yourself. At any rate, his band's latest record seemed like a good (i.e., commercial) one, and Frank set out to sell it on its own merits.
First, he mailed promotion discs to all the jocks--the little guys as well as the big guys. Two weeks later, when it appeared that the first mailing had been futile, he sent out another shipment to the same mailing list and followed up with phone calls. None of the big guys were in. Even most of the little guys were conveniently indisposed. The few little guys who did answer their own phones pointed out politely that their radio stations had the policy of playing only the top forty tunes according to the national Billboard ratings.
Billboard, the bible of the music business, each week prints the "Hot 100," a list of records which have had the highest sales during the previous week. Since the listings are based on sales, and the sales are related to the amount of promotion disc jockeys give the records, the "top-forty policy" sounded like a cop-out.
"If that's the case," Frank commented, "it would seem that the top forty tunes of 1938 would still be the top forty tunes today. Do you expect me to believe that?"
"That's something you'll have to take up with the program director," the little guys said. "He makes the decisions, not us."
The program directors, of course, were invariably incommunicado.
Tony, while not a partner in Frank's enterprise, was nonetheless a sympathetic observer. The idea had been at Tony's disposal long before Frank embarked on the venture. Since Tony hadn't thought he had the wherewithal to accomplish the project himself, he concentrated on other matters, but he wished Frank the greatest success in his promotion.
"If Frank can pull this thing off," Tony told me, "it'll represent the first major breakthrough against the monopoly the major labels have in recordings. Then I--as well as a lot others --can profit from the groundwork he's laid."
After Frank's second assault with the mailing list and the follow-up phone calls proved to be of no help, Tony suggested that they submit copies of the record to the major labels.
"If one of them likes it well enough to want the master, you stand a chance of recouping your investment," he told Frank.
Frank consented, and Tony sent copies of the record to the major labels. Less than a week later, one of the companies telegraphed an offer of a thousand dollars for the outright purchase of the master.
Tony was ecstatic. Frank wouldn't sell.
"If it's worth that much to them," he reasoned, "it's got to be worth twenty times that much to me."
He replied to the telegram with a letter, offering to lease the master to the company for a period of six months at a rental rate of $1,000 per month.
"You're out of your mind," Tony told him. "Who ever heard of leasing a record?"
Of course, leasing is the accepted practice in the industry today, particularly among established stars. But, at that time, Frank was fully confident that the company wouldn't even consider leasing--he didn't want to lease it to them. The sole purpose of his offer to lease was to give him a graceful out so that he could return his attention to his original purpose of manufacturing, promoting, and distributing the record himself. With renewed vigor, he set out to get the disc jockeys working with him.
Frank decided that the only thing to do was go right to the top. "Ill shoot my way in if I have to," he said.
So Frank tried Bob Greene, whose radio show had a large teen-age audience. A mutual friend interceded and managed to arrange an appointment.
Frank came directly to the point. He offered Greene part ownership of the record company in return for listening to certain records they were planning to release, then advising the company on which had the strongest commercial potential. It was clearly implied, of course, that Greene would play the discs that he advised the company to record on the air.
Greene's face turned white when he heard the proposition. "I didn't invite you here to impugn my integrity, Blake," he declared. "If it weren't for my friend, I'd knock your block off." That night, after returning from the meeting, Frank paced the living room restlessly. He declined my offer to mix him a drink. Then, sitting on a straight-backed chair, he stared blankly into space for two hours without saying a word.
Suddenly, he banged his fist against his palm and shouted: "I've got it figured out!"
Now, his thinking over, it was time for a drink. He poured himself a. stiff Scotch and soda and drained half of it in a single swallow.
"Greene is on the take from someone else!" he declared firmly. "That's the only possible answer."
"Maybe," I suggested, "he's just a man with certain convictions about what's right and what's wrong."
"No, Lynn," he said, brushing the objection aside. "The deejay doth protest too much."
I asked him to explain.
"If you were a disc jockey and somebody tried to bribe you, but you were clearly opposed to that sort of thing on moral grounds, what would you say?"
"Thanks, but, no, thanks,' I told him.
"Exactly," he said triumphantly. "But you wouldn't rant and rave about how insulted you were that the guy dared to approach you, and you wouldn't threaten to knock his block off... unless, my dear, you actually were on the take. In which case, like Brother Greene, you'd be extremely cautious about discussing such matters."
Frank lit another cigar and sat back in his chair.
"Greene is getting something from somebody--I'd bet my life on it. Either he figured me for a plant, or else he thought my offer wasn't strong enough to compete with the deal he now has. Well, he's where we've got to tip the scales of injustice in our favor."
A peculiar grin spread across his face.
"And just how do we propose to do that?" I asked him.
He held his drink up to the light and appeared to examine it.
"Lynn, baby," he said, "How'd you like to be a partner in a record company?"
"What's the angle?" I was cautious.
He grinned. "You swung with a guy on a bus once for twenty dollars, didn't you?"
"Yeah "
"Would you make it with a recalcitrant rock-and-roll disc jockey for a chance at a few thousand? Not to mention what a favor you'd be doing for your old buddy, Frank?"
It didn't take me long to come to a decision.
"Why not?"
* * *
Bob Greene was one of those small-town types who somehow or other manages to land in the big city and con all the hippies. They're all cut from the same bolt of cloth--if you've seen one you've seen them all. The first item of equipment is the back-home drawl. Their consonants are oases in vast deserts of flat, nasal vowels. There aren't any spaces between their words so their conversation spills out in a slow, molasses like trickle. Throw in a few rural expressions like "Ah reckon,"
"Sho nuff," and the ever-popular "You-all," and you've got the genuine farmboy, innocent as a manure pile and, to me, twice as offensive.
They make it in the cities, though, these rubes do. Apparently, the city slickers figure that anybody who looks, talks, and acts that stupid must be harmless. Hemingway had the answer: don't trust a man with a Southern accent unless he's a Negro.
Take this country-boy accent and put it in a loose-limbed gangly body, with an unruly shock of sandy brown hair. Then cover with a suit two sizes too large, scuffed shoes with thick soles, and add a tasteless, brightly colored tie.
You now have the picture of this disc jockey, Bob Greene, righteous citizen and young-rube-about-Philadelphia.
The one area where these back-home boys are susceptible is in the province of sex. Every one of them fancies himself a make-out artist par excellence. Greene was no exception. Frank had researched him thoroughly. By the time I went out to hustle the hustler, I knew just what to expect. I had been thoroughly briefed.
The location was an auditorium near Fairmont Park. The occasion was one of the station's weekly record hops. The price of admission was fifty cents, and I--resplendent in skirt, sweater, ankle sox, and loafers--gladly paid it. I drifted casually into the room, indistinguishable from the bona fide teenagers.
Over an amplifier system several thousand decibels too loud, Georgia Gibbs urged a fictitious Henry to dance with her. When the song ended, Green took the microphone and announced a new record called "Ram-bunk-shus." A saxophone growled over the speaker system and I sidled up toward the stage.
A tall, skinny kid with greasy black hair swept back into a d.a. was leaning against the stage platform. I smiled at him and he asked me to dance. I did my damnedest to act like I thought a teen-ager would act when she's trying to look provocative. My act was apparently pretty good. Greene was staring intently at me.
Four songs later, I eased away from my dancing partner and made it back to the stage. I had Greene's undivided attention now, and I knew it. I could afford to play it cool.
Greene caught me looking at him, and smiled. I smiled back. But then I looked away, and while he was cuing up the next record, I wandered toward the refreshment stand at the opposite end of the hall. Two cokes and twenty minutes later, I made it back to the stage. Greene came over to me.
"Hi," he grinned. "I don't think I've met you-all before."
"I'm new in town," I said. "I listen to your show on the radio. I dig it the most."
The unadorned flattery hit home. A toothy grin bisected his face.
"Reckon you'll have time to have a coke with me after the dance?" he asked. "I'm an old country-boy myself, you know."
"Love to," I said, trying like hell to sound rural.
"Good. Hang around then, d'ya hear? We'll see you-all later."
He made it back to his turntable just in time to herald the end of the old record and to cue up a new one. I circled around the auditorium.
Cripes, Keefe, a voice inside me asked, do you realize that only a year ago you were part of this scene just like one of these kids?
It was hard to believe. I couldn't detect the vaguest resemblance between me and the twisting, wiggling, giggling, grinning masses of adolescents who packed the place. Yet, the fact was irrefutable. This was July, 1954, and, just thirteen months before, in Scranton, I had been one of the herd. Shows you what mileage will do to a chick.
Greene and I met when the dance ended, and I went with him to a drive-in frozen custard stand. I can summarize the night in three words: he was cautious.
Two hours later, he dropped me off at the ywca--the address I had given him--without even kissing me good night.
I phoned Frank and he came to pick me up.
"I think you got the wrong party for the job," I told him. "You should have sent a teen-age boy."
He chuckled.
"Don't doubt the master-researcher," he said. "He'll make his play. Give him time."
I gave him time. He made his play. It was two weeks later, and we had gone from the record hop to the frozen custard stand, as per custom.
"Gee, it's a lovely night," he said, slurping noisily on a milk shake. "I just feel like riding around and around. It sort of reminds me of when I was a kid back on the farm."
I finished my ice cream cone, wiped my fingers on the paper napkin, then deposited it on the serving tray. "It is a lovely night," I agreed. "Much too early to go to sleep."
"Would you-all like to ride around awhile?" he asked.
"I'd love to."
We drove for miles. For a time, I wondered just how he was going to go about it. Had he planned to use the old running- out-of-gas gimmick? Or what?
"It's getting kind of late," Greene said. "Do you-all think you'd like to stop by my apartment for a cup of hot chocolate?"
Carefully schooled by Frank, I offered token resistance. "My mother always said I shouldn't go to mens' apartments.
"Well, I don't say not to listen to your mother, he cooed. "Your mother knows what's best for you. But I think what she meant was that you shouldn't go to the apartments of strange men. You know how these city fellas are."
"Yes," I conceded. "I've met a few of them."
"But I think if your mother knew me, she wouldn't mind," he pressed. "I mean, what the heck--here we are, two country kids all alone in the big city "
"Well, all right," I said. "But I can't stay long." We two country kids went up to his apartment, drank hot chocolate, and watched television. He snuck his arm around the back of the sofa until it finally came to rest on my shoulder, then he applied a little pressure. A half hour later, he finally kissed me.
I followed Frank's advice to the letter. I kept my mouth tightly shut. Greene moved around nervously, his hands stroking my arms and shoulders, and, after I thought a safe period of time had elapsed, I began to feign heavy breathing.
That was the cue he needed. Before you could say Rumpelstiltskin, he had me lying down on the couch with his hand between my thighs. I kept offering token resistance. Half an hour later, Greene finally got around to making it.
I had to give an Academy Award performance. I tried imaging that it was Frank in his place, but the clumsy country bumpkin on top of me was too different to support the fantasy. I recalled the other men in my life, forcing myself to visualize each of them performing the chores--it didn't work. I tried imagining that I was a glamorous international prostitute, turning $l,000-a-night tricks with the reigning monarchs of various European nations. That did it for me.
When it was over, Greene buried his head in his hands. "I'm sorry I took advantage of you," he apologized. "I just couldn't help it."
The next two nights we made it were more relaxed than the first. He still played the guilt bit, but, by then, his act had begun to wear thin. He forgot about the hot chocolate scene after the first night, and, on one occasion, he actually used the word "hell."
The night that went down in my personal history as The Night was a Wednesday. I was waiting outside the ywca for Greene when he left the studio, and after we made the frozen custard scene, I suggested a drive-in movie. He was game.
It was a rerun of Cagney's "Public Enemy," and I had insisted that we see this flick and none other. I had a reason, and it had nothing to do with my admiration of Cagney. We selected a stall near the rear of the theater, and I excused myself to make a quick trip to the ladies room. In the area of the refreshment stand, I spotted Frank standing near the projection booth. I gave him a nod, he winked back.
When I returned to the car, I snuggled up next to Greene. It wasn't long before his blood pressure (among other things) began to go up. I suggested that we adjourn to the back seat. He dug the idea.
Frank's timing was superb. No sooner were the deejay and I past the point of no return than there was a knock on the car window. Nervously disconnecting himself, Greene tried futilely to hide what was perfectly obvious.
Frank opened the car door and poked his head in.
"How'd you like to be a partner in a record company?" he grinned. "Or would you rather go on trial for statutory rape?"
* * *
We had no grounds for a statutory rape charge, of course. I was well over the legal age of eighteen. Frank and I understood this before the project was begun. It was Frank's reasoning, though, that an accusation of statutory rape would be as damaging to a disc jockey's career as a conviction on the charge. All the newspapers would be sure to print it, and when it later developed that his accuser was nineteen-going- on-twenty, the damage would already have been done.
Greene knew when he was licked.
* * *
The first record of the new company, which featured a talented quartet, was a smash. As soon as Greene's program started riding it, Frank's telephone corps went to work. They were all teen-agers, and their job was to telephone radio and television stations requesting the tune. Soon, the other disc jockeys were playing it. Frank didn't have to go looking for Ward Collins. Collins came looking for him.
"Start the presses!" he shouted, charging into Frank's apartment. "Looks like we got a big one going for us."
The five thousand copies which constituted the first pressing were sold out in three days. Collins' distribution chain took quick action on his recommendation that they handle the disc on a nationwide basis. Promo copies went to deejays all over the country, follow-up phone calls were made to the big boys by bigger boys. The jukebox operators ordered heavily, and the record stores were selling the platters out faster than they could refill their inventories.
By the end of the second week, more than 200,000 records had been sold. Frank launched a personal appearances tour for the quartet and accompanied them to principal cities. Then, a month later, he brought them back to Philadelphia to record four more sides. Meanwhile, he signed up four new vocal groups.
On October 1, 1955, my twentieth birthday, I counted my profits as a partner in the record company. The figure was $3,500. Not bad, huh?
A meeting of the partnership was called on October 2. Frank was insistent that I attend. Four of us sat around and sipped drinks. Frank, as president of the company, called the meeting to order. Then he proceeded directly to the sole item of business on the agenda.
"Lynn," he said, "we've been discussing the status of each of the partners in respect to the contribution each makes to the company's earnings."
I noticed Ward Collins looking nervously at me. It was obvious that the subject of my contribution was about to come up.
"Ward, here," Frank said, indicating Collins, "is in charge of the distribution end. Bob " he nodded toward Greene " handles promotion. And I obtain the groups, conduct the sessions, and coordinate the activities of the manufacturers." Collins coughed nervously and hid behind his cup of coffee. Frank puffed on his cigar.
"What do you do, Lynn?" Bob Greene asked, the farmboy veneer conspicuously absent. It was apparent he thought of me as a minor partner.
"I sit on my ass," I snapped.
"Lynn handles the administrative chores-," Frank said. "And, I might add, she handles them quite competently. But, Lynn " he faced me again " the partners have pointed out, and I must agree with them, that you could be replaced effectively by an $85-a-week executive secretary."
"In other words," I said, "you want me out."
Collins put down his coffee cup. "Lynn," he explained, "this is business. There's nothing personal involved."
"No one's minimizing the important role you played in bringing about the organization of the firm," Frank said, glancing at Greene, who looked away. "Without your valuable contribution," he continued, "we wouldn't be here together today. But, to be quite blunt, what have you done for us lately?"
"Let's cut the bullshit," Greene said. "Tell Lynn the deal and let's get on with it."
"Your interest in the company is worth between three and four thousand dollars," Frank said. "That, of course, is paper not cash, value. Much of it is tied up in inventory, escrow deposits, and so on." He drew slowly on his cigar and watched the end glow evenly. "We're prepared to offer you six thousand dollars cash," he said.
"Suppose I tell you to shove it?" I asked.
Collins smiled. "We'd liquidate," he said.
"Come on," I laughed. "You mean to tell me that you'd give this whole thing up just because I wouldn't let you buy me out?"
"We wouldn't be giving anything up," Frank said. "It would be a very simple matter to liquidate the partnership, declare its assets, and make a cash disbursement of one fourth of the amount to each partner. The next day, the three of us--you excluded--could form another partnership and take up right where the old partnership had left off. It would be very simple to do " Collins nodded. "He's telling you the truth, Lynn."
"So," Frank concluded, "you may accept our six thousand dollars for the purchase of your interest--and, if you like, continue as executive secretary at a salary of eighty-five a week-- or you can force us to liquidate, in which case, your gain would be about half of what it would be in the first instance."
"You don't seem to leave me much of a choice," I said.
Greene scowled.
"It's more choice than I figure a two-bit whore is worth," he said. "Blackmailing bitch."
"Lousy lays shouldn't throw rocks," I told him.
"Let's keep this on an intellectual plane," Frank said. "In view of the circumstances, Lynn, I think we're offering you an equitable deal. I think we are justified in insisting that you give us a decision within the next twenty-four hours. Otherwise we'll liquidate."
"You can have my decision now," I said. "Give me the six big ones."
Frank was prepared. He already had the check made out. He handed it to me.
"Would you like to continue as executive secretary?" he asked.
"The less I see of you bastards, the better I'll like it," I told him.
Then I walked out.
* * *
Tony gave me back my job as his assistant. I found immediately that the whole picture of the music business had changed in die month that I had spent working with Frank. Maybe Frank's breakthrough into the big record market had been responsible for the change. Maybe a whole lot of other people had gotten similar ideas. At any rate, the South Broad Street music people were bustin' with ambition. New York and Hollywood may have been the entertainment capitals before, but now Philadelphia was going to get in there and pitch. The magic sound was rock-and-roll, and the magic word was sex. Cole Porter exhorted us all to "do it" back when a rock was a stony formation and a roll was breakfast food.
The six thousand Frank had given me to sell out my share was intact in the bank. However, remembering those lean days in Poughkeepsie, I decided to leave it there. (Those rainy days they talk about come too often, and, when it rains it pours.) So, I lived on the eighty-five dollars a week Tony paid me. After the breakup, I moved out of Frank's apartment without the two-weeks notice, and the place I got cost me $30 a week. Another thirty went for food and entertainment and I didn't have much left for clothes, a car, jewelry, or the other nice doodads that mean so much to us femmes.
How did the movie stars do it? I wondered. I mean--how did they always manage in those many movies they made to work as a secretary, yet drive Detroit's latest sacrificial offering on the altar of opulence, wear Dior or Balenciaga originals, and live in an apartment plush enough to make the Taj Mahal look like an unfurnished, four-room cold-water flat? Well, the heroines could do it because little inconsistencies like these don't bother the screen writers in dreamland.
But the inconsistencies bothered me! I wanted that car and those clothes and the pad, and a lot of other things that money buys. And, I knew I could never get them on my $85-a-week secretarial wages.
The only time I had really made any big money in my life was the six thousand I had picked up on the Blake deal. And wasn't that for going to bed with a guy? And, in my pre-Philadelphia days, what was the quickest double sawbuck I had ever picked up? The twenty from the Marine Captain in the bus--right?
Are you fornicating more hut enjoying it less? an imagined Madison Avenue type cooed in my mind's ear.
When I replied in the affirmative, the voice said: Young lady, be a prostitute.
Why not? Why not go all the way?
Don't be half-safe, whispered the voice. Go full-time, and be sure.
CHAPTER EIGHT - To Bed or Not to Bed?
I eventually decided to work my way into the ranks of fulltime hookers gradually. It was my plan to keep my job as Tony's secretary and, on several nights a week, to cruise the bars on Locust Street in quest of tricks. But on my third night out, I still hadn't scored. A tall brunette trying hard, but ineffectively, to conceal the bags under her eyes with very heavy make-up, slid onto the bar stool next to me.
"You'll never make it, honey," she said.
I looked at her carefully, certain that I had never seen her before. I wondered if she was speaking to someone else-- or if she had a special, intuitive sense which gave her the ability to read my mind.
"What are you talking about?" I asked her. "I don't believe I know you."
"You don't know me," she said mysteriously. "But I know you."
"Come on, baby," I shot back. "If you've got something to say, say it. Only save the Vampira bit for the next chick, huh?"
"Oh, you're tough," she replied, unimpressed. "You're all tough. Every last goddam one of you. You bang the guy next door, and maybe one or two others, and right away you figure you're ready to start charging for it. Well, let me tell you something " Vampira punctuated her sentence with a large gulp of water. "There's a lot more to this business than you suspect."
"What 'business' are you talking about?" I asked, puzzled as to the extrasensory means she possessed which exposed my hidden thoughts. Was she a hooker? And were all old hookers able to see through apprentices? Or was she, maybe, a lady cop, trying to trap me? I persisted in playing the innocent role.
"You know what business I'm talking about, honey. It's written all over you. And if you've got any brains, you'll take my advice: get the hell out of here, jump on the nearest train for home, wherever the hell that is, and marry the boy next door."
I was shattered. My nerves were crawling around underneath my skin. With a trembling hand, I picked up my drink and sipped it. Then, without looking to either direction, I got up off the stool, turned, and walked out of the bar.
"Hi, Lynn," I heard a voice say.
I turned and saw Ward Collins.
"Hello," I said coldly.
"Cup of coffee?" he asked.
"No, thanks," I said, walking away.
"Hey, wait a minute!" he called. I kept walking, and he started out after me. "Wait a minute," he said again, seizing me by the arm. Then, when I stopped, he pivoted to a position in front of me.
"You need a good talking to, young lady," he said sternly. "And if Frank isn't man enough to give it to you, I'll do it myself."
The mention of Frank, whom I hadn't seen in almost a month, was enough to arouse my curiosity. "Are you going to leave me alone? Or do I holler rape?" I asked Collins. But my heart wasn't in it. "Aw, what the hell," I continued quickly, "you bastards jazzed me out of a small fortune, the least I could do is take you for a coffee. Lead the way."
Collins sat opposite me in the booth and placed the order.
"Well," I said, "let's have the talking to you promised me. Or was that just another one of your little jokes?"
His face wrinkled into a frown. "I think you really believe you got screwed," he told me. "I really think you do."
"What would you call it?"
"I'd say that, under the circumstances, you were treated very fairly."
"It seems that our standards of fairness don't coincide," I said.
The waitress brought two coffees, and Collins sipped his cautiously before he replied. "Yes, you do need a talking to," he said, setting the cup in its saucer. "You need a talking to very badly."
"Shoot," I told him.
"All right, try this on for size. Our company now exists as a four-way partnership, let's say. Three of die partners--Frank, Bob Greene and I--decide to form another company. We call it Zenith, let's say, for the purpose of illustration. Now, you have two companies: Saturn Records, owned by four partners, and Zenith, owned by three. So Zenith decides it would like to buy out Saturn, lock, stock and barrel. It makes an offer. Ten dollars. The partners at Saturn take a vote on it. Frank votes yes, I vote yes, Greene votes yes. You vote no--you're voted down, three to one. The sale is consummated. Zenith-- that's us--pays Saturn--that's us and you--ten dollars, your share of which is two dollars and a half. How does that sound?"
"Pretty chintzy," I said.
"All right. But that's what we could have done. Actually, that's exactly what Bob wanted to do. Arid, to be perfectly honest with you, I was somewhat in agreement with him. I wouldn't have set the figure at ten dollars, naturally. A bald deal like that would never hold up in court. But we could have got off a lot cheaper than the six grand we paid you. And I was for it. Personalities aside, business is business. As I saw it, a thousand dollars would have been more than adequate compensation for the part you played in the organization of the company."
"Then how did I wind up with six thousand?" I asked, beginning to see the light.
"You can thank Frank for that," he answered. "You see, Lynn, he liked you. He thought the world of you."
I gave my attention to the cup of coffee. If he really liked me why hadn't he tried to get in touch with me during the past month? For that matter, if he really liked me, why didn't he ask me to marry him?
"I was all for getting you out as quickly as possible," Collins continued. "I talked Greene out of that ten-dollar idea, and I got him to accept a deal where we'd offer you a thousand cash payoff against a sale of the partnership for two thousand-- which I'm sure would have held up in court, in which case, you'd wind up with five hundred. But Frank wouldn't go for it. He wanted you to get ten thousand cash. We finally talked him into going along with six thousand."
I lit a cigarette.
"Looks like there are more horses' asses than horses, huh?" I was rueful.
Collins smiled warmly. "Why don't you give Frank a ring?" he asked. "I'm sure he'd be happy to hear from you."
Frank was at his apartment. Yes, he said, he'd be delighted to see me. I got there by cab. I found him lying on the couch in the living room, a cigar sticking up from his mouth like a periscope.
"Behold, the prodigal daughter," I said.
"Welcome to my lair, quoth the spider. Come in and have a cup of hemlock."
"I'm sorry," I told him.
"What else is new? By the way, do you still drink?"
"I still drink," I said. "And nothing much else is new." Frank got up from the couch and went to the bar.
"I'm still working at Tony's," I said. "And I tried to be a prostitute."
"Tried?" he called over his shoulder. "Why the past tense?"' I sat down on one of the chairs. "I stopped trying tonight," I answered.
He turned away from the bar with a drink in each hand and brought one of them to me. "Sounds like there might be an interesting story in there somewhere," he said. "Want to tell me about it?"
"I met an old hooker in Club 13," I explained. "She spotted me as an amateur. And she delivered a few choice words on the hazards of the profession. Besides, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I looked like she did when I was her age. "How old was she?" Frank asked.
I stopped with my drink halfway to my lips. "I don't know," I said incredulously. "I was so shook up at the time I didn't even bother to ask her. So what? She wouldn't have told me anyway. I don't have any idea how old she was. Cripes, I'm mixed up. Do I sound like a blithering idiot to you?"
"Not quite," he said. "Just a little worn at the nerve endings is all. Why don't you gulp that drink and I'll mix you another one? You look like you could stand it."
Obediently, I emptied the glass and handed it to him- I think I'm in pretty rocky shape, old buddy," I said. "By the way, I've missed you."
He took my empty back to the bar for a refill. "I've missed you too," he said, "Want to move back in? Same terms as before?"
"Yes. No. Cripes, I don't know. Talk me into it, or out of it, or something."
"Why did you decide to be a prosty?" Frank asked.
"Loot. Lovely loot. The clothes and car and fur and jewelry bit. I guess the six thousand whet my appetite."
"You sure it's what you want? I mean--prostitution?"
"What's this--a change of heart on your part? When we first met, you said you thought I should be a prosty."
"That was before I knew you."
"Knowing me makes a difference?"
"Of course, it makes a difference."
"What's the difference?"
"Knowing you makes it a personal thing." He handed me the drink and returned to the couch.
"I'm having trouble keeping up with your changes in attitude," I admitted.
"Look, Lynn," he argued, "who the hell knows what's really right or wrong? There may be a universal standard of morality, but we all interpret it differently. Can any of us say that what we consider right or wrong now is exactly what we considered right or wrong five years ago? Nevertheless, you can't sit around indifferently with your mind in neutral because you're not sure of what's right or wrong. You've got to act on the basis of what you consider, at the moment, to be right or wrong. So, that's what I do. I treat my current opinions as absolute truths and act on them. And I'm ready to take full responsibility for my actions. If it develops that I'm wrong, and I suffer because of it, that's my problem. But if you treat my current opinions as absolute truths, and you act on them, and it develops that I'm wrong, and you suffer because of it, then that's a different, and very personal matter. I take full responsibility for all my actions, but I don't want to be responsible for what happens to you."
"I don't think anyone would hold you responsible," I said.
"I'd hold myself responsible," Frank replied.
I sipped my drink. "Tell me more."
"There's nothing more to tell. That's the way I feel. I don't care if you become a prostitute or not. It won't change my opinion of you an iota. I do want you to have what's best for you, but I don't want to be responsible for your decision about what's best."
"Did you feel that way when you asked me to hustle Greene?' "Of course. But I didn't feel then that my judgments, my moral standards, influenced yours. As far as I was concerned, it was a simple business deal. You could have said yes or no. If I had thought that you hustled Greene because I wanted you to, instead of because you yourself wanted to, I'd feel very badly about it."
"Well, I did want to. But I'll have to admit that I felt hurt when you forced me out of the company. Whether or not you were generous about the six thousand, whether or not I could have done better or worse--you should have at least talked to me about it first. Instead of just springing it cold like that."
"But, don't you see, Lynn, it was a business deal! Nothing personal. Here, at the apartment, we were friends first, business partners second. In the company, it was the other way around."
"Just the same, thanks for the six thousand. Collins explained that I would have come out a lot worse if it weren't for you."
"No, goddamnit, don't thank me for that. There was nothing personal there, either. That's my point. The division between business and personal affairs is absolutely black and white. The way I saw it, your contribution to the company was an important one--under the circumstances, an essential one --but only with respect to the initial organization. After we expanded, it was essential to split up again and drop you as you had nothing to contribute! But I felt you should have had more. So don't thank me."
I finished my drink and went to the bar to mix the third one myself. "Collins seemed to think you were being charitable," I said, "and that your motives were purely personal. If I remember his words correctly, you held out for six thousand because you liked me. You thought the world of me."
"Yes," Frank said, "Collins believed that. Greene, too. Perhaps it was natural for them to believe it--after all, you and I were living together. But my feelings toward you had nothing to do with your cut. It was a matter of business ethics."
The three drinks I had taken were effective enough to make me ask the next question. "What are your feelings about me, Frank?"
He waited a long time before he answered: "I don't know... I don't know exactly what they are."
I talked quickly to cover my embarrassment. "You know, I've come a long way in the past few months," I said. "Not too long ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about asking a man how he felt about me. When I had my child, I fell in love with the doctor who delivered it and told him so. All my life, I've had flashes of emotion and verbalized them as soon as I identified them. I'd see a guy, dig him sexually, and I'd say, 'Let's ball.' And now, I'm here with you, and I've known you --I've slept with you--since the beginning of summer, and I'm embarrassed, I'm actually terribly embarrassed to ask you how you feel about me."
"I can't put it into words," Frank said slowly. "We've made such a big thing about love, this generation has, that all of the words have become meaningless. I can say 'I like you,' but it means nothing. I like popcorn and Bering Excellos and riding in a convertible. I can say 'I love you'--'love' is stronger than 'like,' I suppose--but what does it mean? That I enjoy your company? That I want to spend the rest of my life with you? How can I predict what I'll feel thirty years from now--or tomorrow? Does it even mean that right now, the way I feel right now, I couldn't five without you? I could. But would I rather live without you? I wouldn't."
"Do you really want me to move back again?" I asked.
"Yes--but, again, I don't want to influence your decision. I don't want you to move back in because you want to make me happy. If it'll make you happy, I want you to move back in." He sipped his drink and chuckled softly. "Isn't this funny? Here we are like--what was the classic example--a pair of medieval scholars debating as to how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. No practical application; no relation to reality. Like love. I do like you. I like you very much, Lynn."
I suddenly felt a great urge to touch him. Not a carnal urge; rather a tender compulsion. I wanted to touch his shirt, because he was wearing it; his face, on which a stubble of beard shadowed his olive complexion; any part of him. I went to the couch and sat next to him, my calf making contact with his trousered leg.
"I like you, too, Frank. I like you tremendously. I guess I didn't have to tell you that, did I?"
"I like to hear you say it."
"This is what it used to be like in my dreams," I told him. "When I was a kid in high school--only two years ago--I used to go with this guy, Ronnie, and we had the tranquility... I guess that's the only word for it... we had the tranquility I feel with you tonight; but we didn't have the other thing, the sensuality. Then there was Nick. With him there was the sensuality, but not the tranquility. Now, tonight, with you... it's perfect. I've never experienced anything like this. It's as though I were just discovering myself " Frank put his arm around my shoulders and I leaned back against him, completely relaxed. "Lynn " he said, softly.
Nothing more.
Perhaps a full five minutes later he broke the silence.
"I can't remember who said: 'The true test of friendship is when two people can spend a length of time together, and say nothing, yet not grow bored.' Those weren't the exact words, anyway. But, substitute 'affection'--or something else a little platonic--and you'll get what I mean. How about a cup of coffee?"
I followed him into the kitchen and put some coffee and water in the percolator.
"What would happen if you came back to live here?" Frank asked.
"In what way?"
"What would happen in your life? As opposed to our life together. As man and mistress. What would happen with you? Would you keep your job at Tony's? How long? A month? A year? Indefinitely?"
"What would you want me to do?"
"It doesn't matter what I want you to do," Frank said sharply. "What do you want to do? What do you want out of life?"
"I don't know. A home. A husb..." I stopped and covered my mouth with my hands. "I shouldn't have said that," I admitted.
"No, you should have said it. I'm glad you said it. Now's no time for us to start having secrets from each other. Do you... is marrying me one of your long-range goals in moving back here?" He grimaced and clenched his fists. "Now, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Honesty doesn't justify outright cruelty."
"It wasn't cruel."
"It was cruel and presumptuous."
"Marrying you isn't one of my goals, long or short-range," I said. "But, if you proposed," I added, smiling weakly, "I'd consider it very carefully."
"Maybe it's good we got it out in the open," he said. "Let me ask you, Lynn. How do you feel about marriage?"
"A fine institution," I said. "It comes highly recommended. Some of the best people have done it"
"Are you in a hurry?"
"Not particularly, I guess. Why?"
"Because I'm almost positive that I'm not going to get married for quite a while," he told me. "It's the money thing. I'm determined to make a million dollars by the time I'm thirty. That leaves only seven years. I'm good now for not quite fifty thousand. But, what I'm saying is that you don't make a million dollars if you're thinking cautiously. You've got to gamble and gamble big. Today you're apt to be walking around with two hundred thou' in your kick, and tomorrow you have to hock your furniture to get money for a sandwich. You don't take risks like that if you've got a wife and kids to worry about, or even if just you and your wife are involved. The only way you'll step off on something that risky is if you, yourself, are the only one who stands to lose by it."
"Suppose someone... anyone, not necessarily me... were aware of that? And she accepted your proposition and was willing to go along with it?"
"That isn't the case. Whether or not a woman accepted it, when you're responsible to someone other than yourself for your actions--morally responsible, I mean, not legally responsible... at any rate, bound by conscience--when you're responsible, you think and act differently. You say, if I blow this fifty thousand, tomorrow Lynn winds up out on the street with me. No more car, no more diamonds, no more maid--and, what I'd risk myself, I might not risk for you, or whomever I happened to marry."
Frank took the percolator from the stove and poured coffee. "Understand this, Lynn," he continued urgently. "That million means everything in the world to me right now. I'm not going to stop until I get it, and I don't care what the risks are. Even if it means risking prison, I'm going to get my million."
"Now you're beginning to sound like a parody. What happened to that moral code you mentioned a few minutes ago?"
"Don't confuse my moral code with the laws of the land. They don't happen to coincide."
"It seems unlikely that you'll become a millionaire if you keep on shelling out six thousand to business partners that you could force out for five hundred."
"Unlikely, huh? I take it you've studied the lives of the country's hundred richest men? You certainly speak with great authority."
"I didn't mean that. I guess I was being cruel then. My turn to apologize."
"Forget it. But it's a popular misconception. Why is it that the whole goddamn world seems to associate wealth with evil? Is it that terrible to want to make an honest buck? Or a million of them?"
I sipped my coffee. "We might as well be married," I laughed. "We're having our share of arguments."
Frank grinned. "Arguments are good for the soul. But digressions aren't. So let's get back to it. Do you see my attitude about marriage?"
"I think so."
"Then how would that fit in with your plans? Living here with me, at the same time looking for a husband--sort of lopsided, eh what?"
I took another sip of coffee. "Let's get back to the prostitution thing," I said abruptly.
"No, don't ask me that! Just when I was about to sit back in my chair and take pride in my clear conscience "
"Never mind your conscience." I smiled. "I haven't said I'm going to become a prostitute, and even if I do, you won't have influenced me. I want some information. For purely academic reasons. May I begin the general questioning?"
"You may begin the general questioning. Shoot."
"How would you go about it?"
"First, I'd get fitted for a diaphragm "
"I have a diaphragm, idiot. You think I'd sleep with you the way I did without one? Get serious, now, will you, Frank? How would you go about becoming a prostitute if you were a girl?"
He sipped his coffee and the grin on his face was replaced by dead earnestness. "I'd decide, first, what kind of prostitute I wanted to be. And there are several categories, by the way. Call girls, house girls, free lancers... I'd free-lance. Keep free to grab the best deals that came along.
"But you wanted to know how I'd begin? First, I'd try to make contact with a pimp who was operating in some obscure town, preferably a servicemen's town, where I'd be able to turn a lot of cheap tricks. The experience would be valuable-- sort of a shakedown cruise to get you used to the various idiosyncrasies of different types; also, after awhile, you'd get pretty damn tired of balling, and you'd have to learn how to make like you were digging it even though you weren't.
"After this basic training, I'd go to a bigger town and get known in the best of circles; take a plush pad at a good address, go to the posh bars, get the word on who's influential, and give out free samples. I'd also try to meet public relations men--they're in a position to refer lots of business. Who knows, even record company business. How about that? Couldn't you see yourself as the staff hooker at Saturn? I'm just joking, of course."
"I'm liable to take you up on it, joke or not."
"You are serious about this prostitute bit, aren't you?"
"I'm weighing it. But don't get your conscience in an uproar. You're not responsible."
He drained his cup.
"I enjoyed tonight immensely, Lynn," he said quietly.
I turned on a smile. "I take it I'm being given the old heave ho, then?"
"The bed's big enough for two, if you want to stay."
"Well, since you're so charmingly insistent about it... lead the way."
I followed him into the bedroom. Things hadn't changed. By the time I finished undressing, he was in bed waiting for me. We didn't waste any time with formalities. Or preliminaries. We went right to it.
Frank was good. As good as ever. And twice as welcome. But, as I lay back, closed my eyes and my muscles went slack on the threshold of sleep, I couldn't help wondering what would have developed if Frank hadn't stopped for coffee; if we hadn't broken the romantic spell of moments before; if we had melted directly into the juxtaposition of united lovers in that last, delicious moment in the living room when conversation terminated and our souls touched silently.
I didn't move back into the apartment. Frank meant more to me than any man I had ever known, but I, as his mistress, would mean little more to him than an item of furniture--a cherished item, perhaps, but nonetheless, an accouterment, a luxury, a desideratum. But not an essential. I would always be expendable.
The next day, I had a long talk with Tony. I told him about my resolve to become a professional prostitute and asked him to help me find a pimp. Tony didn't try to talk me out of it. He said he would see what he could do. By two days, he had fixed me up. He'd spoken to a friend who had a friend. I met the friend's friend on a Friday. On Saturday, I was on a bus to Charleston, South Carolina. It was roses all the way.
CHAPTER NINE - The Assembly Line
My pimp-to-be was a stooped, weather-beaten skeleton of a man, with a face like a bleached prune. When my bus pulled into Charleston, he was standing outside the terminal fighting a losing battle with the wind.
"Lynn Keefe?" he asked after I got off the bus.
"Right."
"I'm Greg."
I offered him my hand. His wiry fingers took hold of it, squeezed it, then released it.
"I'm pleased to meet you," I said, with some concealed doubt.
Greg's eyes started at my ankles and worked their way slowly upward until they were looking directly into mine. "You look good," he said, with the professional detachment of a butcher examining a side of beef he is about to put on a hook. "Very good," he added.
"Thanks. When do I start work?"
"Tonight." He led me to the side of the bus where a uniformed attendant was unloading the baggage. "We'll get your stuff, then I'll take you over to meet the rest of the girls."
The "rest of the girls" were three dames--one very young and two very old. All of us would live--and work--in a nondescript two-story house on the northern end of King Street. The house was located outside the city limits of Charleston so Greg only had to pay off county officials instead of both city and county. It was flanked by a laundry and a service station --thus, if customers got overly noisy, there were no neighbors to complain to the cops, as there would have been in a residential area.
Ruth, one of my coworkers, was a tall, hefty, bleached blond. I guessed her age as forty.
"You're new in the business," she commented, her eyes sizing up my body. "What's your problem?"
"No problem," I said.
She chuckled heartily. "Everybody has a problem. You might not want to talk about it now, but you will. I know."
"What's your problem?" I asked, trying to be friendly.
Her smile told me that it was exactly the question she wanted to hear. "Juice," she said. "I love it."
As if to prove her point, she drew a fifth of vodka from her bureau drawer, unscrewed the top, and took a quick slug straight from the bottle.
"I got started in Indianapolis," she said. "It was right after Repeal--that's probably before you were born. I used to hang around the different joints, listening to the bands. Guys used to buy me drinks. One night, a man approached me. He owned one of the clubs. Said if I wanted to, I could work for him. All I'd have to do was hustle drinks with different guys, and I'd get a commission on everything I drank. Sometimes I went forty or fifty shots a night. "I thought the bartenders watered the drinks down for the B-girls," I ventured.
"Most of the time they did. Even so, figure there was maybe a quarter ounce in each watered-down shot. You can still get pretty stinko on that much hooch."
Ruth lit a cigarette and let it dangle from her lips.
"Besides," she continued, "I liked being stinko. So the first four or five, I had the bartender give me straight. It made it easier to walk up to the slobs and turn on the charm." She took the cigarette away from her mouth long enough to have another slug of vodka. "I was happy with my work. Hell, going out drinking and listening to bands was my idea of a good time; besides, I was getting paid for it. After the war, it got tougher for me to hustle drinks. There were a lot of younger kids on the scene then, and they got all the action. Pretty soon I wasn't even picking up enough commissions to pay my rent.
I started turning tricks, mostly in sailor joints. Sailors got no taste--they'd screw a snake if it would hold still long enough." Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Ruth laughed eerily. "That's the Mighty Atlas," she said. "She's nutty as a fruitcake. I'll show you what I mean."
A short spherical woman wearing panties and bedroom slippers--nothing else--was walking past the doorway.
"Hey, Atlas!" Ruth called. "C'mere a minute. I want you to meet somebody."
Atlas turned on Ruth with an expression that was a combination of contempt and boredom. Her paunch protruded like the swollen globe of a pregnant woman, and her large, flat breasts hung limply over it.
"This is Lynn," Ruth said.
Atlas looked at me. Her mouth cracked open in a smile that revealed straight teeth that might have been beautiful if they were not covered with brown and yellow stains. "My name is Margaret," she told me. "And I'm happy to meet you, Lynn." I stood up and smiled back at her. "It's a pleasure meeting you, Margaret," I said.
n "Tell her about the time you banged a governor, Atlas, Ruth prompted.
"There are certain parties that get perverse delight ridiculing those who have led more exciting lives than they," Margaret told me benignly, as if she were long accustomed to receiving less respect than she warranted from the plebeian masses. "Not mentioning any names," she continued, "these certain parties ought to sleep with pigs."
Ruth laughed raucously. "Atlas is a queen," she said. "Ask her--she'll tell you. But now she's working two-dollar tricks like the rest of us commoners."
"Forgive me, Lynn," Margaret said grandly, "but there's a certain stench in this room that I find it quite hard to take. Perhaps we can continue our conversation when circumstances are more favorable."
"What's the matter, Atlas," Ruth taunted her, "afraid I'll soil your lily-white robes?"
"Go make love to a kangaroo," said Margaret, padding out the door.
Her footsteps thundered down the hall, and Ruth laughed again uproariously. "The Mighty Atlas!" she proclaimed. Then: "She looks like a wrestler, doesn't she?"
"Did she really have relations with a governor?" I asked, quite impressed.
Ruth took another slug of vodka. "She's laid them all--governors, presidents, dictators, kings--in her goddam dreams, she laid them. She'll tell you about it sometime if you let her get on your ear long enough. She'll tell you. Anybody who's anybody, she's been to bed with. Batty, she is. You'll see." Later that afternoon when I was unpacking, Margaret walked in on me. Her entire costume still consisted of panties and slippers, but she had combed her hair.
"I hope my exchange with that witch didn't cause you to think unkindly of me," she said. "There are certain individuals with whom we cannot be as ladylike as we wish."
"I understand," I said consolingly.
"There are some parties upon whom polite rebukes have no effect," she continued as if amplification were essential. "Those of us accustomed to associates with genteel manners are often revolted by these individuals, but, in business, one cannot always choose one's associates. As the Spanish say, we must dance to the muse that is played. If we wish to chastise those about us, we must meet diem at their own level of comprehension. I hope you'll understand."
"I understand," I repeated. "By the way," I added, hoping to divert the discussion from its present course, "I can't help noting how well you express yourself. I wish I had a vocabulary like yours."
Margaret smiled, her eyes sparkling excitedly. "Thank heavens Gregory has finally procured another woman with sensitivity and charm. I'd almost despaired; I thought it would be my lot in life to pass my days with boors like those other two." She withdrew an ivory cigarette holder from its cache in the elastic waistband of her panties and gazed at it reflectively. "Would you have a cigarette, my dear?" she asked. "I seem to have left mine in my chamber."
I took the pack from my purse and offered it to Lady Margaret. She drew out one cigarette delicately, inserted it into the holder, and waited for me to light it for her. When I did, she sucked on the holder elegantly and, without inhaling, blew a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
"My vocabulary," she explained, returning to my earlier comment, "is the result of having learned the English language in my late teens after I had first mastered several European tongues."
"Oh, you're from Europe?"
"Of course," she assented scornfully, as if to imply that only a complete dolt would have thought otherwise. "I was born in Switzerland. But I prefer to consider Paris home--I've spent so much time there. In Rome, also. And London and Lisbon. A lovely city, Lisbon. Surely, you've been there?" The inference was that anyone who hadn't, hadn't lived.
"No," I admitted. "I'm afraid not."
"What a shame." Margaret sighed. "A woman of your sensitivity would love it so. You'll simply have to visit there next time you're in Europe. I'll give you a letter of introduction to a prince who lives there. He's such a sweet fellow. And so vigorous for his age. It's remarkable."
"How long have you been in America?"
Margaret drew thoughtfully on her long holder and wrinkled her brow. "Many years," she said finally, as if it were impossible to fix the length of time more accurately than that. "Many, many years." Then, shaking her head sadly, she continued, "I do miss the continent so. I manage to return periodically, but, unfortunately, one cannot return frequently enough. Not that I don't like America," she added quickly. "I think you have an absolutely lovely country here."
"How long have you been... a prostitute?"
"My dear!" Margaret cried in horror. "You speak of our profession as though it were something positively ghastly! Have you no pride?"
n I smiled weakly. "I haven't been a prostitute very long, I confessed.
a "Oh, really?" she said, her eyebrows arching quizzically. I guess you do thing differently here in the Colonies. I was raised to be a courtesan. My mother was one of the most distinguished prostitutes of her time. Most of the crowned heads of Europe were numbered among her clients." She held her cigarette holder at arm's length and examined it critically. "You could probably learn quite a bit about the profession from my experiences," she offered.
"I'd appreciate any advice you'd care to give me," I replied. She sucked on the holder again, then squeezed out the butt and let it fall to the floor. "Would you have another cigarette handy, my dear?" she asked. "I do so love to smoke, but I seem to have left mine in my room."
I extended the pack.
"Lovely cigarettes, you Americans have," she said sweetly.
"Not as strong as the Turkish, perhaps----" She leaned toward the match I held for her. " but still quite satisfying," she continued. "Certainly superior to British brands."
I lit a cigarette for myself and waited for her to continue. "The art of prostitution," Margaret explained, "consists primarily of stimulating the client to attain orgasm as quickly as possible. The speed of the operation is of paramount performance. Any woman, given an infinite length of time, can stimulate a man to orgasm, just as any monkey, placed in front of a piano, could eventually, through the law of coincidence, bang out Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto." But it might require a billion years to do it."
"Don't some men prefer a less hurried approach?"
"My dear," she scolded, "the Shah of Iran may 'prefer one approach or another. A client who pays two dollars a trick is merely buying an instrument to produce ejaculation."
"I see."
"Your success here will depend upon how many clients you can handle in the course of a night," she continued. "This is strictly a volume business. It's simple mathematics."
"How about... perverts?"
"Please!" She spit it out. "Who among us can accuse another of perversion?" She puffed haughtily. "Sexual individualists," she continued, emphasizing the substitution in terms, "have even' right to expect that a prostitute will cooperate in their diversified modes of expression. Remember, your task is to produce orgasm as quickly as possible, not to pass judgment on the preferences of your clientele. Besides, some of the individualists can be persuaded to reward one quite generously. I make it a point to request a larger remuneration when an individualist makes his preference known."
"Do you draw the line anywhere?"
"I don't entertain sadists," Margaret replied. "Not that I hold them in contempt--rather, I realize that my business requires that I remain in excellent health, and I can't afford to jeopardize my health by entertaining a sadist."
There was a knock on the door and Greg the Greek poked his head in.
"Atlas," he told Margaret, "you got a john waiting for you. Cut the gab fest short.
"Go screw a clapped-up cow," Lady Meg told him. Then, turning to me, she sighed. "Crass little man, that one. Crass, crass little man!" She stood up and drew gracefully on the carved ivory holder. "I've so enjoyed our little chat," she said. "Well have to continue it very soon."
* * *
On my first night in Charleston, I handled five customers at two dollars each. Greg, of course, claimed half the amount as his share which wasn't unreasonable.
As pimps go, the Greek was a good one. I've only been associated with a few during my ten years in the trade since most of my work was free lance. But I've learned from other hookers that most pimps, particularly in the lower-money operations, are Simon Legrees who obtain their girls by guile or force, use any despicable means available to keep them working, and dole out only enough cash to enable the girls to survive. The term, "white slavery," is an accurate description of their operation.
Most of these ogres are mob rejects deemed unfit to perform even menial chores in mobocracy--acknowledged bastards, but not significant enough to warrant their being rubbed out. Panderers often start out as errand boys at the neighborhood poolroom, fetching coffee and sandwiches for the card-players and pool-shooters. In time, they may have been put to work as runners for a football pool or a numbers operation, but invariably they had found the work too strenuous and sought easy money in other fields. As a jumping-off point, they usually locate a chick who's giving it away for nothing to almost anybody available and they sweet-talk her into letting them act as her "agent."
The small-time procurers ordinarily confine themselves to the two-dollar to ten-dollar trick--a safe area because the big mobsters consider the profit involved unworthy of their time and effort. The object of the pimp's game is to get the girl out of town so she won't have any help when she goes broke. Usually, also, they pretend to be affiliated with the Outfit--then the chick they've lured into the racket won't try to run away because she will be afraid the big boys will issue a contract for her hit. Now, sufficiently intimidated, she's the pimp's chattel, to do with as he likes--and that means work hard for virtually nothing There are some hookers who fall in love with their fancy- men--and hustle to keep in their good graces. Some masochists turn tricks to get cash to pay off their sadist boy friends.
Luckily, I've rarely done business with any of these vermin. I can only feel pity for the unfortunate girls who got broken in by them. And that means most girls who've turned tricks at two dollars or less.
In the higher brackets, of course, the business arrangements are more on the up-and-up, and the more money involved, the more dependable the transactions. Also, in the bigger-money operations the male pimp is often replaced by the female madam, usually an ex-hooker, who keeps a stable of young chicks busy with a clientele she has built gradually since her own days under the gun. Most of Mickey Jelke's girls were in the chips before the New York vice squad tossed them into the jug, and both Polly Adler and Beverly Davis had reps as good payers.
In Charleston, Greg the Greek kept us busy with a steady flow of johns, gave us a fair cut, and didn't try to sample the merchandise. Ruth felt that this was because he was too old; I preferred to think it was because he regarded his operation as a business enterprise, the functioning of which would be impaired by his taking a personal interest in any of his employees.
One afternoon, Greg and I were having coffee together at May's, a restaurant on Reynolds Avenue near the Naval Yard's main gate. This bit was for advertising. It was Sunday, so the sailors on liberty were expected to be roaming around killing time at the pinball or slot machines. As expected, I got a lot of stares. Later that night Greg would be able to pitch the, men with: "See that chick I was with this afternoon? How'd you like to go to bed with her?"
I asked Greg if he had always been a pimp.
"No," he said. "I used to sell life insurance."
"What happened?" I wanted to know.
"I didn't believe in life insurance," he said.
* * *
Charleston exists as a semidry town. That is, while package stores are allowed to sell bottles of liquor, -it's against the law to serve anything stronger than wine or beer in a bar. As in most other states, gambling is strictly taboo. Well, as I said before, laws are made to be broken. In Charleston, hard liquor is sold across the bar in any one of a dozen or more places.
B-Girls abound in many of the bars on Reynolds Avenue as well as in private clubs, and hookers or their pimps can be found in most of them. I know a girl who actually turned a trick at a club in one of the dark comer booths not far from the bandstand.
Fags don't have such an easy time of it. I understand that the one gay bar that did exist when I worked Charleston has been shut down, and if another has sprung up in its place, I haven't heard about it. But fag hustlers can still do business in the lounges of large hotels. Sit at the bar and wait. If there's a queen on the prowl, and you're his type, he'll send you a drink. The way the code used to work was that a queen on the make would send a whisky sour to his target at the bar-- instead of ordering the bartender simply to give him "a drink." The bartender would then indicate the donor of the drink, and if the target wanted to carry the thing any further, it was up to him to do as he liked. If not, he'd only have to decline the whisky sour.
* * *
In early 1956, during one of our off weeks and shortly after Matty die screaming faggot had hustled me out of the thousand dollars, Greg said I looked worn and suggested I take a week's vacation. The idea sounded good--I had never taken a vacation in my life except for a week end in Atlantic City during my sophomore year in high school--and I could well use the rest. Even after deducting the thousand Matty had conned me out of, I still had three thousand in Charleston earnings as well as the six thousand I had left in a Philadelphia bank. I drew five hundred from my account and flew to Havana.
That was before Fidel and his oddball brother claimed Cuba, of course, and the tropical island was bursting with activity. Gambling casinos operated around the clock, huge hotels boasted fully occupancy, and Cuban mother and daughter were both working (on their backs) for the Yanqui dollar.
I had decided emphatically against the proverbial busman's holiday, and had resolved that if I made it with any guy it would be strictly a case of amour, no financial strings attached. It was just as well that I had decided against picking up a few pieces of loose change--the native competition was yea strong, and, with their miserable economy, they could resort to price-cutting.
Late one afternoon, I wandered into Sloppy Joe's and ordered a rum collins. After my eyes adjusted from the brightness outside to the pale luminescence provided by a few strategically placed lamps, I noticed that the place was nearly empty. Except for the bartender and me, the only occupants were a dark-skinned man and woman at one end of the bar, and a bulky man with a splotched gray-and-white beard sitting at a table.
I felt my gaze being drawn, almost magnetically, to the man with the beard--I was certain I had seen him somewhere before. I made a quick inspection of his rugged features, hoping that they would provide a clue by which I could identify him. When I found him returning my stare, I picked up my collins and headed for his table. Midway across the room, the spark of recognition burst into flame. When I reached his table, I could feel my hands shaking nervously.
"You're Ernest Hemingway, aren't you?" I asked excitedly. He looked me up and down carefully; then, his lips parting with a trace of a smile, he gestured for me to sit down with him. When I had realized who he was, I had half expected him to be annoyed at my presumptuousness in invading his privacy. Instead, his eyes, soft and opaque, fixed on mine with what seemed to be genuine interest.
"You're a prostitute, aren't you?" he asked me softly.
I nodded affirmatively.
Hemingway smiled again, this time more broadly. "How's business?"
"Fine."
"So is mine," he replied. "Let's drink to our continued mutual success."
I was--and still am--impressed. Although I was able to recognize Hemingway from his photographs, I had never seen him before. And I'm certain he had never seen me. Yet, in the few seconds it took me to walk from the bar to his table, he had recognized me as a hooker!
I've often thought about that brief scene since, and, even though I spent some time with Hemingway on two later occasions--once again in Havana and once in Key West--it's that first encounter which stands out most sharply in my memory. Why? Because I'm convinced that it's exactly that keen, intuitive perception through which he recognized me as a prostitute that made Hemingway the great writer he was, one of the greatest writers in twentieth century America. He was able to see more deeply than most, and to do so instantly. It was this ability that enabled him to paint his extraordinarily realistic literary portraits.
Hemingway and I spent almost three hours together that afternoon. During the entire time, we spoke, not about him, but about me. I don't fancy that I, a common hooker--or, at best, an uncommon hooker--am so interesting phenomenon as to merit his attention for so long a time. The fact that he spent so much time with me indicated his sincere interest in people, in human beings, as human beings per se.
Guided by Hemingway's incisive questioning, I unraveled the narrative of my past. He seemed most interested in the period I had spent "on the road," beginning with my departure from Philadelphia for Poughkeepsie after I had given birth to my child, and ending with my arrival in New York after having stolen the money in the diner in Boston. Perhaps, I reasoned, he saw a parallel of sorts between my meanderings and those of his semifictional Nick Adams.
"I've thought of doing a novel about a prostitute. From her viewpoint," Hemingway said. "She'd be a lot like you."
I was flattered.
On my return flight from Havana, though, I began to doubt my earlier estimate of his perceptivity. Perhaps, I thought, it's obvious to everyone that I'm a prostitute. Maybe hookers reveal themselves by their gait or their posture, and everyone can automatically peg them. I decided to put the theory to a test.
A middle-aged senior-executive type was sitting across the aisle from me one the plane, and I had noticed him glancing occasionally in my direction. The seat next to him was vacant. I waited for him to look at me again, and, when he did, I left my seat to join him.
"Hi," I said. "The flight has been rather monotonous and I feel like talking to someone."
He gave me a welcoming grin and folded the newspaper he had been holding. "The pleasure is mine," he assured me.
We swapped banalities for awhile, then I decided to pop the question.
"I'm curious," I said, "to find out if people's occupations are obvious to casual acquaintances. For example, on the basis of the short time we've been in each other's company, would you be willing to venture a guess as to what I do for a living?"
"All right," he said. Then he studied my face and hands thoughtfully. "You're a secretary," he guessed.
"No." I smiled.
This time his field of vision took in--at great length--my bosom and my legs.
"Of course, he laughed, "I should have known. You're an actress!"
"No."
"A model?"
"A dental technician," I lied.
No, I decided, my profession wasn't immediately obvious to everyone. Only to Hemingway. And, I remembered, he had said if he wrote a book about a prosty, she might be like me.
In my later two meetings with him, I got the impression that Hemingway indeed planned to write the book--perhaps, after he had finished his current projects. The thought exhilarated me.
But in 1961, he held a double-barreled shotgun to his head and blew his brains out.
Back in Charleston, I told Margaret about my meeting with Hemingway.
"Isn't he absolutely lovely!" she exclaimed. I enjoyed him so when I had him. Did you notice the scar on his left hip?"
"I didn't sleep with him," I confessed. "I just talked with him."
"My dear!" she scolded, lost in her delusions of grandeur. "You didn't sleep with him? Then what in heaven's name are men for?" She shook her head sadly. Extracting her ivory cigarette holder from its usual resting place, she asked, "By the way, may I have one of your cigarettes? I seem to have left mine in my chamber."
* * *
The third of my coworkers in Charleston was Isabel, a petite, fiat-chested brunette about eighteen. She had been working for Greg two months longer than I. Isabel came from Chicago via Calumet City where she had been conscripted into service by a louse who ran a strip joint. He had threatened her with mutilation if she dared leave him, but one night she beat him at his own game.
His deal was that he could make it with her whenever he liked. This turned out to be every night. While he might have been a formidable opponent at any other time, at the moment of truth, he was like all other men--too engrossed in what he was doing to think of anything else.
Isabel fashioned a garrote out of a length of wire, each end of which was wrapped around a small block of wood.
On her chosen night, she concealed her crude homemade weapon beneath her pillow. When the pimp began taking his pleasure of her, she slipped it out. In one deft stroke, she wrapped the wire around his neck, then pulled it taut. Leaving the corpse in her bed, she gathered a minimum of personal items, cleaned his wallet of close to five hundred dollars and took a plane to St. Louis. Then, fearful that her movements might be traced, she bought an airplane ticket to New Orleans, but took a bus to Memphis. There, while working five-dollar tricks, she met a friend of Greg's, who referred her to him in Charleston.
This young prostie had no desire to move up into the bigger- money brackets, and probably would be content to turn tricks with sailors until death or social security relieved her of the necessity of earning her daily bread. The fates, however, had other things in store for her.
A chief petty officer, stationed on a destroyer that was berthed in Charleston, patronized our house for the first time. He swiftly fell in love with Isabel. For the remainder of his liberty, he was her nightly customer. The night before his ship was scheduled to begin another cruise, he popped the marriage question. She said yes. The next morning, in the offices of a justice of the peace, Greg gave Isabel away in marriage. Ruth, crying like a baby, was the bridesmaid. One of the chiefs fellow sailors was best man.
After the ceremony, we adjourned to the Francis Marion Hotel for the wedding breakfast. Champagne flowed, and a good time was had by all--except Lady Margaret.
"How bourgeoisie!" she lamented. "To think she didn't even wear a veil! By the way, dear, I seem to have forgotten "
"Yeah, I know," I said, and handed her my pack of cigarettes.
She withdrew her ivory cigarette holder from her purse, to which, I assume, she had transferred it from its usual cache at her waist before leaving the house.
"But it is a lovely party," she commented regally, a patrician smile creeping across her face. "The guests all seem to be enjoying themselves. And I guess that's all that matters."
During April, the week before payday, I was visited by a customer who told me his name was Sam. He was in his mid-thirties, tall, blonde, and had the wind-whipped complexion of the outdoorsman.
"I have a problem," he told me, simultaneously handing me a pair of five-dollar bills.
"Tell me about it," I said. "I aim to please."
"I'm impotent."
I gave him a professional smile. "Well, no promises," I said. "But I've solved the problem for some other men a lot older than you. Suppose you just leave everything in the hands of Doctor Lynn and well see what happens."
"My psychiatrist told me it's guilt feelings," he said.
"Well, I have a special method of therapy," I replied. "I ignore the cause of the illness and concentrate on the prognosis." I feigned a serious, professorial look. "I must warn you, though, that the results of my treatment can be dangerous. A patient with the same malady as you got so excited that he had a heart attack and died."
"Oh, my," he said, kind of swishy. "I hope that won't happen to me."
"Have no fears, chum," I responded. "Advise the front office of your next of kin, and when we send the body, we'll never tell them you met your maker in a whorehouse."
He had taken off his jacket. I persuaded him to he on the bed and I took a long time to take off his clothes. When I had him completely stripped, I noticed that he was, if not cured, at least half-cured. I shucked my nightgown and started to work on him. I began at his Adam's apple and began to tongue-kiss my way downward. By the time I got to his chest, the operation was an immense success.
Two minutes later, he gave me tangible evidence that my cure had been well performed and effective.
"There, now," I declared triumphantly. "If you ever find the symptoms manifesting themselves again, hurry back. Hurry back anyway, symptoms or no. You're pretty damn good."
He picked up his clothes and walked out.
The next night, Sam was back.
"I'd like to try something I've heard about but never done," he said.
I accommodated him. For the remainder of the week, each night, Sam had a new wrinkle he wanted to put to the test. Some of his techniques struck me as rather unusual, but I did my best, and if he wasn't satisfied, he didn't complain.
Then he disappeared. Two weeks later, Greg asked me to take a ride out to Palm Island with him. We stopped at a restaurant along the road and there, sitting in a booth, was Sam. Greg walked directly to him and I followed.
"Sit down," Sam invited. "Have something to eat."
We ordered, and after the waitress scampered off, Sam asked, "Lynn, how would you like to spend some time in Miami?"
I looked to Greg for a cue. His expression was blank.
"What did you have in mind, Sam?"
He grinned. "Last week I was auditioning you. I run a call girl operation down in Florida, and I think you'd fit into my plans very nicely."
I looked at Greg again.
"He's legit, Lynn," Greg assured me. "We've known each other for years."
"I wouldn't want to leave you empty-handed," I told Greg. "Now that Isabel is married, you've only got Ruth and Margaret left."
"Don't let that worry you," Greg replied. "I have a couple others coming in next week. Besides, I get a fee if you go with Sam."
"It's like Jug league baseball teams have their scouts," Sam explained. "I have mine."
"What's the deal?" I asked. "How much can I make?"
"I'll guarantee you two hundred a week, work or not. The same split, fifty-fifty. And I pay the rent on your apartment."
"HI take it on your say-so, Greg," I said.
He smiled. "Take it, Lynn. I hope you go a long way."
I did. All the way around the world, as we say in the trade.
CHAPTER TEN - Sinning in the Sun
On Florida's aptly named Gold Coast, everything is on sale from bodies to bolita tickets. The tourist can get fixed up for anything without leaving his hotel room. During the "season"--January, February and March--the price tag is stiff. Up and down Miami Beach's glittering Collins Avenue, a C-note minimum is in force, and die right john at the right time can be persuaded to go for a lot more than that.
When I arrived in Miami with my pimp, Sam, it was late April, 1956, and the season had just ended. Hotels up and down the avenue advertised "Low Summer Rates" and the prosty sorority followed suit. A john could take his choice of the Miami Beach hookers for as little as twenty-five dollars.
Sam explained that he always brought his new girls to Miami in the spring. It enabled them to "break in" at bush league wages and develop at leisure the skills that would be required come the next season with its higher priced (and, thus, more demanding) clientele.
My Miami move represented a big step forward in the profession. Through it, I crossed the great divide--the twenty- dollar mark--that separates call girls from common hustlers.
The environment of the call girl is as different from that of the $2-a-trick girl as her operational methods are. Sam had set me up in a comfortable four-room apartment in the heart of a residential section in fashionable Miami Shores. While my habitat might not have been a replica of the presidential 100 suite at the Waldorf, it still was a far cry from the dingy room in Charleston that I called home during my days on the assembly line. My next-door neighbors were a civil engineer, his wife, and three children on one side, and an attorney, his wife, and daughter on the other.
"If anybody asks," Sam cautioned me, "tell them you're a model."
Unlike the occupant of the $10-a-trick-or-less house, the call girl does not entertain customers at her domicile. Instead, as the name implies, she is on call, ready to service clients at any location specified in the order. This usually turns out to be a hotel, or motel room. Sam kept suites in two of the more fashionable hotels on year-around lease in the event that one of our patrons didn't have an appropriate place.
Most of my contacts were arranged well in advance of the actual rendezvous, either by Sam or one of the three subpimps who worked for him, one of whom was a woman. I'd he advised of the rendezvous by telephone.
The calls, in code in case of wire taps, generally went like this: "Miss Keefe, this is the Swank Modeling Agency. We've arranged an audition for you with Jack Doe of Paramount. Your appointment is scheduled for Wednesday at 10 A.M. at the Blank Hotel, Room 410."
"What should I wear?"
"Dress casually, skirt and sweater. But bring a change of clothing with you. Mr. Doe might like you to have lunch with him."
Deciphered, this meant that Sam's pimp had lined up a customer, named Jack Doe, who would pay fifty dollars. The price code was built around the names of motion picture studios. Twentieth-Century-Fox meant $25; Paramount, $50; M-G-M, $75; Warner Brothers, $100; Universal, better than $100. Wednesday was the day of the assignment, but 10 A.M. actually meant 10 P.M. (We reversed the A.M. and P.M. designations so that the hours would seem more like those of a legitimate model.) Room 410 at the Blank Hotel meant exactly that.
The "dress casually" bit meant that Mr. Doe expected to he entertained in his room, rather .than having a night on the town with me as some johns ordered. "But bring a change of clothing" meant I was expected to stay overnight. The lunch bit meant that Doe was a fellatio job.
The first date with a customer was always called an "audition" in the telephone code. Subsequent trysts would be telegraphed by something like: "Mr. Doe, for whom you auditioned last week, would like you to report for work at such and such a time, such and such a place."
When Sam feared that the gendarmes were watching us too closely, he'd confuse them by calling me and asking that I return his call at a number that would turn out to be any one of numerous pay phones on the Beach where wire-tapping would be impossible. I wouldn't use my own phone to return the call, naturally; I'd go to any one of numerous other pay phones near my home.
There's a big difference between the clientele of a call girl and that of her sisters on the lower rungs of the hooker's socio-economic ladder, too. Patrons of the assembly line whore are usually dedicated to the sole purpose of getting their collective rocks off. Customers of the higher-priced hustlers generally have more diverse goals. They know that there's more than one way to do it, and die hooker that tops their hit parade better damn well know at least as many ways as they do.
Let me make it clear that I'm not talking about movie stars, deposed Latin American dictators, or the heirs to multi- million-dollar estates, although I've had my share of them, too. The guy I'm discussing is the one who shells out twenty- five to a hundred dollars a trick--in other' words, the average john. And it might surprise you to know that the average john is the average joe. He's usually between thirty-five and sixty years old and married; he makes between eight and fifteen thousand dollars a year, drives a late model car, and either lives in, or frequently visits, one of the ten biggest cities in the United States.
If this description bears any resemblance whatsoever to any man you know, you might be interested in the reasons why he shells out his hard-earned cash for a night in the boudoir of a professional lover. Let me spell them out for you.
To begin with, the average john is not a lame-brained post adolescent trying to build up an impressive bedroom box score. (He outgrew that stage years ago.) Furthermore, he's not just after biological relief. (If hominess were his only problem, his wife could solve it.) Rather, he's out looking for the components of the sexual relationship that he couldn't find at home. (A philosopher once commented that husbands don't take their cars to the whorehouse; they're driven there by their wives.) Where have the wives fallen down on the job? According to Dr. Keefe's Institute of Sexual Research, a representative majority of American women fit into one or more of the following categories.
* * *
THE ERIMA DONNA DELICATA. When she was a little girl, her mother told her she was beautiful. Since then, she'd devoted her life to the preservation of the myth. While hubby lies in bed, his forces marshaled for the assault, she's at the appropriately named vanity table, admiring herself in the mirror. When she finally condescends to crawl between the sheets with her spouse, he's ready to burst at the seams. But this doesn't matter to her. She's the queen, and the court lackey can wait till she's damn good and ready. If, when she finally gets around to making the scene, he gets a little enthusiastic and roughs her up in the process, she'll say: "For God's sake, Ralph, don't be such an animal!" It's not uncommon for her to interrupt the rhythms of the dance of love to tuck in a golden lock that has strayed from position on her oh-so-delicate head. When it's over, she wonders why she didn't enjoy it. She fails to realize that she never did make love to her man--she was too busy making love to herself.
THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. She doesn't expect to enjoy it. She was brought up to believe sex was designed solely for the gratification of the male. When hubby demands it, dutifully, if a bit reluctantly, she gets on her back, spreads her legs, and awaits the inevitable ordeal. That's what it turns out to be, too--an ordeal--for both of them.
THE CORPSE. Unlike her counterpart, the Faithful Servant, this chick digs sex. But she fails to realize that it takes two to tango, and while hubby works away at it with the vim of an energetic beaver, she makes like a statue. He probably won't complain--but, before long, he'll be out looking for another dancing partner.
THE MAX FACTOR FACTOTUM. She watches all the television commercials and falls for every pitch. Her dresser looks like the cosmetic industry's exhibit at a world's fair. While hubby is patiently cooling his heels, she's taking off her lipstick and false eyelashes. Then, it's the cold cream massage and the tweezer treatment. Finally, eons later, her hair up in curlers, and her face fully mud-packed, she hops into the hay. Thanks to her personal ministrations, tomorrow she'll look like a cover girl on Vogue; but, tonight, when it counts, she looks like the Beast from Twenty Thousand Fathoms. What can hubby do? Put on his own mask and make it for fantasy?
THE SAME OLD STORY. She's not bad, really, but she's of the opinion that sex is sacred. If hubby suggests something a little out of the ordinary, modesty compels her to refuse. She won't give him the variety he demands in his sex life, so he gets it elsewhere.
THE CAREER CASTRATER. She wears the pants in the family. She makes all the decisions. It's his fault, of course. If he were a virile, aggressive man, he would have slapped her down years ago. But he isn't capable of shouldering a family's responsibilities, so the leadership role goes to her by default. She's the boss of the checkbook, the boss of the kitchen, and the boss in the bedroom. When she's ready for some loving, she snaps her fingers and hubby-Fido does his tricks. If he doesn't like it, he can lump it. Well, she may be giving him when he bargained for--but she's not giving him what he wants. He'll get it elsewhere.
THE INAMORATA NON APPASIONATA. You can't find a specific fault with her, really. She's doing her best to make the guy happy, and for awhile she'll succeed. But, before long, he begins to sense that her heart isn't really in it. She's going through the motions all right, but it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.
I'm not saying that these women don't love their husbands. In most cases, nothing could be farther from the truth. But they're not making their men happy in bed. If they were, half of the whores in the country would go out of business tomorrow. There it is, ladies--a hooker's-eye-view of what's wrong with marriage. Take it for what it's worth.
* * *
When the official season opened in January 1957, I was well prepared for it. With six months of well-paid-for practice behind me, I plunged into my work with enthusiasm and vitality.
The season johns, while better-heeled financially than the off-season crowd, ware of approximately the same bedroom temperament. There was one significant difference, though. I found that the more money there was involved in a trick, the less important my role was as a sex partner, and the more important my role as a companion became.
This doesn't mean that any of my johns shelled out a hundred-dollar bill for a purely platonic relationship. But more often than not, when the money was in the hundred- to-five-hundred dollar range per night, my duties included accompanying my escort to parties, attending opening night festivities when stars appeared at the big hotels, theater dates at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, and coffee sessions at the all-night restaurants. With a certain element of the wintertime tourist crowd, a high-priced prosty on one's arm was a status symbol. Not only was she to be enjoyed in the bedroom, she was also to be displayed to one's peers who might not have been so successful in their shopping.
Needless to say, I enjoyed the proceedings immensely. As Frank Blake had taught me a year before in Philadelphia, there's intrinsic charm in a man with money--particularly if he made it himself.
I had come to Miami on a two-year verbal contract with Sam. When the period came to an end at the close of the 1958 season, I had forty thousand dollars. Not bad for a twenty-two-year-old chick without a college education? And, when you consider I picked up the bread doing what I dig most, you'll understand why I have no beef against life.
The highest-paying single caper in my life took place in Miami during the Miss Universe Pageant held some years later, and it all came about as the result of a chance meeting with Harry.
Harry was a New Yorker whom I had seen off and on in a number of different places throughout my career. He wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a big-time operator, but, like all the little guys on the hustle, he had dreams of the big score, the single ploy, that, overnight, would boost him out of the little guy category.
If you asked Harry what he did for a living, he'd reply, "I trust in providence;" if you asked him where he lived, he'd tell you, "Here," which meant wherever he happened to be at the time. Harry followed the action. You'd find him in Miami Beach during the winter, Hot Springs, Arkansas, during the racing season, Vegas or Lake Tahoe during the summer and New York when nothing important was happening elsewhere. He made his money picking up the deals that the big boys thought were too small to be worth the bother.
It was summer and I had just returned from Spain, where I spent two months shacking up with a movie producer who was shooting an epic over there. He paid reasonably well-- five hundred a week--but my work had been demanding and I needed a rest. So I went to Miami to vacation.
My original plan was to kill a few weeks lying on the beach and catching up on my reading. If I ran across any of my old clients and they wanted to engage my services, I had planned to go along with it, but general free-lance hustling wasn't on my schedule.
One night I stopped by the Sundown Club, at Hollywood Beach, for a nightcap and, there, sitting across the bar from me, was Harry. We recognized each other at the same moment, and he came running around the bar.
"Lynn, baby."
"Harry, baby."
And, both of us asked together, almost like a Greek chorus; "What the hell are you doing down here this time of year?"
"Vacationing," I said.
"I'm on the biggest caper of my life," he told me. Then, as if seized with inspiration, he added quickly, "Hey, how'd you like to get part of the action?"
I flashed a smile that said thanks, anyway. "I'm just vacationing, Harry."
"This is big, Lynn," he pressed. "This is real big."
I pretended to weigh the prospect.
"How big?"
"Could mean as much as five hundred a night for you," he said.
I gave it some thought. There's no doubt, that was big, Lynn, real big, but I knew Harry. A blowhard. I decided to play it safe.
"If I get the cash in advance," I said, "you can deal me in."
"Of course," he replied, bubbling over with enthusiasm. "The johns'll come up with the loot as soon as they meet you."
"Not good enough," I told him. The way Harry was known to bobble things, the johns wouldn't have the cash and you'd wind up walking back home. "I want to see it before I leave my apartment."
"When in hell have you ever had a deal like that?" he argued. "I never even heard of such a thing."
"You heard of it just now, Harry, and if I don't get it, I don't make the caper. Actually, the more I think about it, die less interested I become. What do you want me to do, anyway? Pose for movies?"
"No, nothing like that. Just straight screwing. Maybe you'll have to go down on a guy or something, but that's about it. Just like your regular work."
"When did you suddenly jump into the big money action?"
I asked suspiciously. "Last I heard you were a $25-a-trick man."
"That's the caper!" he said excitedly. "That's the whole bit!"
"Maybe you'd better tell me about it," I said.
He told me. I'll admit it--I was impressed. The caper had what it takes to be successful. It was built around the Miss Universe Pageant which was currently in town. Girls, representing most of the countries in the world, would be parading their charms for five days at Miami Beach Convention Hall They were some of the most beautiful women in existence at the moment, and there's no doubt that some of the world's top lupos would be around for--if nothing else--at least a look.
How much would it be worth to a millionaire playboy to take his pick of the Miss Universe beauties? Five hundred? A thousand? More? Well, if you're the type of guy who has millions, and you pride yourself as a collector of live boudoir artifacts, it might very well be worth all of that. Hell, some guys blew tens of thousands just to get to bed with minor movie actresses.
This was Harry's plan of operation. He'd check in at a leading hotel and start making the rounds. It's easy to meet and talk to strangers on Miami Beach--everybody's lonesome-- and it's even easier if they happen to be foreigners. Harry would work his way in with the big money boys and let it be known that he could fix them up with some of the chicks in the contest.
"It's as simple as pie," he'd tell them. "You just come to Convention Hall with me, look over the girls and tell me who you're interested in. I can't promise I'll deliver any girl in the contest, of course. There's some of them who just can't be bought, no matter what the price. But for every one I can't deliver, there's two that I can. So all you have to do is come down to Convention Hall with me, make your selection, and if it's one of the girls I represent, we'll make arrangements right then and there."
Well, it goes without saying that a guy would have to be the world's prize sucker to hand the cash over to Harry right there on the spot. Naturally, he didn't expect that. Instead, he would give the mark the key to a room at his hotel and instruct him to show up there at a given time. The girl would be waiting, and when he saw her, and was satisfied that she was the girl he had picked and was not a substitute, he'd hand the cash over to her.
At a less respectable hotel, perhaps, the mark would have been given reason to suspect a possible mugging. Would he show up at the hotel room with all that cash on him, only to find a pair of hooligans with blackjacks instead of the girl he had selected? Perhaps--at a questionable hotel. But the hotel Harry had selected was one of the most reputable hotels on Miami Beach, well-known throughout the world. It was improbable that he would be rolled there.
And hadn't Harry said that he could see the girl first? Before he paid her? Hadn't he even acknowledged the possibility that some unscrupulous operator might try to pull a switch?
For all intents and purposes, it looked like the perfect setup from the mark's point of view. Which, of course, a caper must appear to be if it's to succeed.
The gimmick? Well, as you've no doubt surmised by this time, Harry did plan to make substitutions. Nobody was going to get in any rack time with the Miss Universe beauties--at least, not through Harry. But all cats are gray in the dark, and that's what he was counting on.
The hotel room would be dimly lighted. The girls would be in flimsy negligees. As everyone knows, a guy with sex on his mind doesn't ask a babe to step outside under fluorescent lights.
Besides, the mark wouldn't really know what the chick he selected looked like at close range. In Convention Hall, when he made his selection, he would have been sitting out in the audience, a god fifty yards or more away from the line of girls. He'd have a general idea of what the girl looked like, but not much more. If the girl in the hotel room had any resemblance whatsoever to the Miss Universe contestant, the caper should come off smoothly.
That was the plan, and, from where I sat, it sounded pretty damn good. That still doesn't mean it was a cinch. Harry would have more than his share of complications to contend with. There was the language problem, for example.
Suppose the girl one of the marks selected was Miss Argentina, for instance. Well, if the guy was a Texas oilman who wouldn't know a genuine Argentinean from a Seminole Indian, there wouldn't be any hassle. But, if the mark spoke Spanish well enough to tell the difference between territorial dialects, he wouldn't accept the Cuban chick Harry had lined up to pose as Miss Argentina. So, Harry would have to determine exactly how well-traveled the mark was, and if there seemed to be any danger whatsoever involved, he'd have to tell the mark that he couldn't deliver that particular chick.
I listened to him explain his plan in detail, and when he had finished, I told him to count me in--providing he delivered the $500 a night he had promised me well in advance of the date. He didn't like the idea, but when he saw I wouldn't back down, he went along with my demands.
Three days later, Harry stopped by my apartment and handed me five one-hundred-dollar bills and the key to a room at his hotel.
"Get there about eight thirty," he told me. "I'll give you a call as soon as I find out what country you're supposed to be from."
The call came at nine-fifteen.
"Miss Sweden?" Harry asked, giving me the cue.
"Roger," I said. "Whom shall I expect?"
"A pair of gentlemen from Texas," came the reply.
"Wait a minute, Harry!" I protested. "Our deal didn't include gang-bangs."
"Only one wishes to utilize your services," Harry said. Judging from his attempt at formal language I assumed the marks were there with him.
"What does the other joker do?" I asked. "Watch?"
"You will only be required to entertain one," he said. "The other will leave after he meets you."
Well, an hour later I found out what the deal was. The "pair of gentlemen from Texas" let themselves into my room with the duplicate key Harry had given them, and had I been less stout of heart I might have fainted on the spot.
One of the gentlemen from Texas, you see, was an oil magnate whose pictures often made the papers and news magazines. He was a playboy from the word go; he had cut sensational capers in practically every city in the United States and a few foreign countries to boot.
And the second gentleman, who stood alongside him, blushing profusely, was his adolescent son.
"Olga," Papa said, addressing me by the name I assume Harry, in a burst of creative imagination, had assigned me, "Ah want yuh to say hello to Jimmy."
"Hello. Jimmy," I said.
The son, his face the color of a beet, croaked a weak "hello" back at me.
"Jimmy never done it before, Olga," good old dad explained. "Well, as yuh ma'ht of heard back home in Sweeden, us folks from Texas, U.S.A., lahk to do thangs up ra'ht. So Ah decided, let the kid get started on the ra'ht foot."
Jimmy nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, apparently in search of the correct one on which to get started.
"Ah brought him to this Miss Universe contest and tol' him, 'Jimmy, you pick the one yuh lahk best, and she's yours. He picked you, Olga."
I smiled at the blushing Jimmy. "Thank you very much, Jim," I told him. "I'm very flattered."
Papa laughed heartily. "Well, Ah can see you folks're gonna hit it off fahn." He took a Texas-size roll out of his trouser pocket, peeled off twenty one-hundred-dollar bills and spread them out on the bed. "So, havin' paid the fiddler, lahk they say, Ah guess Ah'll just mosey on back to mah room. If you need anythin', son, yuh know where to fahned me." Then he turned to me and winked. "Money's no object, Olga," he said. "Do a good job and there's just liable to be a tip in it for yuh." Texas Daddy chuckled, bowed at the waist, and backed out of the room. I gathered together the two thousand dollars he had spread out on the bed and put it in a neat pile on the dresser.
Jimmy sat nervously on the edge of the bed and looked at me with an expression of bewilderment. "Ah'm not quaht sure what to do," he said in a squeaky uneven voice. Then, as though suddenly reminded that the eyes of Texas were upon him, he stood up, cleared his throat, expanded his chest and announced: "But Ah damn sure plan to fahnd out!"
He leaped at me like a panther, almost knocking me off my feet with the force of his attack. Then, hurling me onto the bed, he fastened his mouth to mine and began moving around frantically on top of me. His breath came in quick, sharp gasps, and his fingers tore at my negligee as if he planned to rip it to shreds.
Five minutes later, he crawled off me, sat on the edge of the bed and spat out a disgusted: "Oh, crap."
"Easy does it, Tex," I told him. "Lesser men than you have survived this sort of thing."
"Ah can't get " he began, then stopped cold. Finally, he blurted it out. "Ah can't get it up!"
"Easy," I said softly. "Take it easy. Nothing to worry about." My voice droned on, repeating the phrases over and over again. There was two thousand dollars at stake and I'd hypnotize him into action if I had to.
Still whispering my incantations, I reached around his shoulders and loosened his tie. Then, very slowly, I slipped his jacket off. "Relax, honey," I said. "Nothing to worry about. Take it easy. Close your eyes and try not to think of anything. Everything's easy, Nice and easy " Continuing to chant a weird litany, I slipped off his tie, then helped him out of his shirt. He lay back on the bed, in complete obedience to my instructions, his eyes closed tightly, his breathing slow and even. I unlaced his shoes; then, very slowly, I began caressing his legs, starting at the calves and working upward. He twitched as my hands retraced the route up and down his thighs, and his breathing quickened. Happily, I noted the bulge that materialized just above the crotch of his trousers. The spirit had been willing all along; so too, now, was the flesh.
I slipped off his shoes and socks; then, very slowly, I unloosened his belt buckle and the button at the top of his trousers. He began to squirm anxiously as I dawdled with the clasp of his zipper.
"Oh, Olga," he groaned, his eyes shut tightly, his fists clenched at his sides.
"Easy," I said, continuing my hypnotic dirge. "Nice and easy."
I inched open the zipper, and slowly began to slide his trousers off.
"Now, Olga!" he moaned. "Now!"
I wasn't quick enough. No sooner had I slipped his trousers off than his hips began to grind furiously against a nonexistent partner and a small, circular area darkened his shorts.
"Oh, shit!" he cursed furiously. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" I slapped him playfully on the face.
"All right, fastest gun in the West," I said, "Don't let it get you down. There's lot more where that came from."
"What's the matter with me?" he demanded. "What's wrong!"
"Nothing that a little time won't cure," I said. "Now just lie back and relax. Next time, I'll be a little quicker."
"What am Ah?" he cried. "A queer? Or what?"
"There's nothing wrong with you at all," I said. "Now just do what I say and I'll have you where you want to be in no time flat. Or my name isn't... Olga," I added, thinking quickly- I took his shorts off, then brought them into the bathroom and dropped them into the sink. I brought a bowl of hot water and washcloth back into the bedroom with me.
By the time I had finished cleaning him up, Jim was in the mood again. I decided not to waste a precious second. I flipped off my negligee, pulled him over on top of me, and let nature take its course.
When it was over, Jim sat on the edge of the bed, a proud grin flashing triumphantly across his face.
"Omigosh!" he declared mightily. "Hot crap!"
"Your revels now have just begun, young hero," I laughed, mixing my metaphors. "You still have a long night ahead of you."
no I got more hot water, soaked the washcloth again, and gave him a sponge bath. Then, tucking him into bed, I went into the bathroom, cleaned myself up, and washed his shorts.
Jim's eyes were closed peacefully when I crawled into bed beside him and pulled off the light. But he wasn't asleep. Our naked bodies touched, and he wrapped himself around me. Before long, he was ready to go again. This time he didn't need any help. Taking full command of the situation, he pushed me into position and jumped on. It took a lot longer this time, and when he was through I felt like I had just gone through a Saturday morning at Klein's 14th Street store.
"Ah love you, Olga," he whispered softly, his mouth pressing against my ear. "Ah love you."
I hugged him to me, but didn't answer.
"Ah really do, Olga," he insisted. "Do yuh believe me?"
"I believe you," I whispered.
There was silence, then. The only sound in the room was the wind like gush of his deep breaths. I felt his body, still on top of mine, go dead-weight.
Minutes later, when I thought he was asleep, I felt him move slightly, and then his timid voice whispered: to me. "Olga?"
"Hmm?"
"Why'd you become a hooer?"
I felt myself smiling.
"Because my daddy didn't own any oil wells," I said.
Silence again.
Then, Jim's voice, softly: "Would it matter? If he did own oil wells?"
It took me a long time to answer.
"No," I said at last. "It probably wouldn't."
It was still dark when I woke up. I felt Jim's lips touching mine; not passionately, tenderly. One of his arms lay across my stomach, with the hand cupped over my breast.
I blinked my eyes and moved slightly. He backed off.
"Ah'm sorry Ah woke you," he said. "Ah just wanted to kiss you."
I hugged him.
"You're a nice kid," I said.
"Do you think you'll win the contest?" he asked me.
"I don't know,' I said. "I hope so."
"Are all the girls hooers?"
"No," I told him. "I don't think so."
"Then how come you are? Do you really need the money that bad?"
"No," I said softly. "I guess not."
"Then what? Is it just that you lahk it so much? Screwin', I mean."
"I guess that's it," I said.
He seemed to think it over for awhile.
"Ah think Ah'd be a hooer, too," he said finally, "Ah mean, if Ah was a girl."
"Thanks for the endorsement," I said, and hugged him again.
"Hmm?"
"I mean, thanks for being a nice guy."
"Am Ah really? A nahce guy, Ah mean?"
"You really are."
"You had a lot of different ones, didn't ya? Guys, Ah mean."
"Lots," I admitted.
"An' yuh still think Ah'm okay, huh?"
"You're a champ."
"You're okay too, Olga. Ah mean it. You're real okay." Silence.
"Olga?"
"Hmm."
"You want to... do it again?"
I grinned. "You in the mood?" I asked him.
"Mm-hmm." He pressed the evidence against my leg.
"Let's go, superboy."
* * *
It was seven a.m. when the telephone rang.
"How y'all doin' up there?" Papa asked.
"Couldn't be better," I told him.
"Put the boy on," he said.
I wondered what he thought I'd been doing. I woke up Jimmy and handed him the phone.
"Great, dad," he said. "Just wonderful." Then, "Okay, I'll be right down."
We said good-by. Jim left and I gathered up my things, then took a shower, and dressed. I was just about ready to leave when Papa knocked. When I opened the door, he poked his head into the room.
"Ah promised you a tip if it went okay, honey," he said, chuckling heartily. "You got it."
He pressed a bill into my hand and walked out.
I thought my eyes would pop out of my head when I looked at it. One thousand dollars!
Added to the five hundred Harry was paying me for doing the job, that meant $1,500 for me--not bad for a night's work. Hell, Harry only got $1,500 himself, and it was his caper. I put all the loot into my wallet, pulled the door closed and started down the hall for the elevator.
Unexplainably, an Irving Berlin tune drifted through my mind. I hummed the first few bars of it. "There's No Business Like Show Business."
I broke into a laugh.
"Like hell there isn't," I said aloud.
The Negro maid, who was sorting linens on a table in the hallway, looked at me curiously.
I think she knew exactly what I meant.
CHAPTER ELEVEN - S.O.B. Detroit
If you bought a new car last year--thanks. Because you helped the automotive industry make money--some of which will find its way to deserving hookers. Everyone knows (or should) that the implication of sex plays a big part in the merchandising of automobiles. Witness the bosomy Cadillacs and phallic Jags.
But, while it may be less commonly known, it's just as true that sex per se--both the promise and delivery of it--comes into play before the new cars find their way to the dealers' showroom windows.
The process starts each summer at Cobo Hall, which was opened in 1960, in Detroit, where the manufacturers display the new season's wares to dealers, writers for automotive publications, publicity people, and an assortment of other ballyhoo experts who, the manufacturers hope, will spread the news that this year's models are the answer to the motoring public's prayers.
Bosomy fashion models, in various stages of undress, pose next to the coming year's wonder of the highways, and, flashing seductive smiles, they pass out brochures describing the vehicles.
You don't need a Master of Arts degree in Applied Psychology to realize what's going on. Well-stacked models have nothing whatsoever to do with torque, compression, gear ratios, or any of the other terms automotive people bandy about. They do, however, have a great deal to do with sex-- they're a constant reminder of it--and that's why they're present at the auto show.
The automotive writers, the dealers, and the ballyhoo boys are men. And men like sex. But the hucksters don't limit the part sex plays in the auto shows to a few smiling models. The industry employs prostitutes. There, I've said it. Sue me.
The truth is, of course, that I've never been on the payroll of the actual auto manufacturers. To the best of my Knowledge, neither has any other hooker. But I've worked the auto shows, I've seduced dealers and newspaper men on behalf of the companies, and I was paid in cold, hard cash. The presidents of the manufacturing concerns can--perhaps with absolute honesty--deny that they've ever employed prostitutes. Some of their subordinates can't.
One who can't deny it is a guy named Rick Jayson, a staff publicist for one of the bigger companies. Rick was the boy who set the auto deal up with me. We met in Miami while I was working for Sam. Rick was registered at the Wisteria Hotel, and I got an assignment to visit him at his room. He was very undemanding for a hundred dollar trick. When it was over, I felt like I hadn't done even an hour's work.
I was surprised to learn from Sam that Rick wanted my services again two nights later. His attitude had been one of cool detachment the first time, and I had taken it to mean he was indifferent to me.
When I reported for duty, he was sitting on the edge of his bed with another man, whom he introduced to me as Jerome. He, himself, had other plans for the evening, he told me, so Jerome would take his place. I pocketed the C-note, said good-by to Rick, who left. I went to work on Jerome. His demands were considerably greater than Rick's, but I seemed to satisfy them. When Jerome was through, he asked me how I'd like to work the auto show the next summer.
"If the price is right," I said.
"Four hundred a week plus room," he replied.
"The price is right," I said.
Jerome took my phone number and told me Rick would contact me later on. Rick called two months later, and instructed me to report to a posh hotel in Detroit on a certain date. I'd work for two weeks, he said, and I'd be paid $800 plus round-trip air transportation from Miami.
I couldn't be sure that I wasn't dealing with a pair of practical jokers, so I demanded that they telegraph me three-hundred dollars as evidence of their good faith before I left Miami. The money arrived the same afternoon.
I checked in at the hotel as per schedule. That night, I received a call from Rick. He'd be by the following day, he said, and we'd have dinner together. Afterward, we'd tour a few night spots and meet a few people.
The thing that had been puzzling me about the entire operation was why these men were recruiting their talent from Miami and other cities instead of using Detroit girls. I got the answer soon enough. There are very few call girls in Detroit. Vice-wise, the town is as tight as a virgin's shoes.
Police diligence, I'd learned, had made the higher-priced hustlers a breed almost as extinct as the dodo in the auto center. Lower-priced hookers cropped up now and then, but their careers were generally short-lived. Detroit cops have plenty on the ball. The only thing that resembled public vice in Detroit, I was told, was the B-girl operation near the Canadian border.
I wasn't the only hooker imported for the occasion, I had found out quickly. In the hotel, I met three other prosties I've known--one from Miami, two from New York--who were brought in for the show. It was like old home week.
When Rick met me the following day, he was his usual sexy self--about as sexy as a spindled IBM card. We had dinner at the hotel, then we went to the Stirrup Bar on the East Side for drinks. We met two newspapermen there. After the first drink, Rick and one of the newspaper guys excused themselves. The other who said his name was Phil, didn't waste any time with formalities.
"Whadaya say we make it up to your room?" he asked.
I didn't waste any time with formalities either.
"Let's go," I agreed.
The same scene, or a reasonable facsimile of it, took place every night after that for the two weeks I was in Detroit. The newspapermen--perhaps, because they were schooled in sticking to the bare facts--always got straight to the point. We went to my room and made it, then we went to sleep. Sometimes, with some of the younger ones, we made it again when we woke up in the morning. The car dealers--by nature, a less direct lot--traveled a more circuitous path. One of them took me to Briggs Stadium to watch the Tigers play; another took me across the Canadian border to Windsor, Ontario, where we saw a night club review at Killamey Castle. The path was more circuitous, but it led to the same destination: the bedroom.
All in all, I'd have to classify my two weeks there as uneventful. Frankly, I thought my trip might interest those of you who bought new cars--you're the ones who paid for it.
* * *
I suppose every small-town girl, and maybe every big-town girl, too, dreams of living in the biggest town of them all-- New York City. I know I did.
And though my only visit there had been of very brief duration--the terrified hour I spent at the Port Authority Terminal after my Boston caper--I still had dreams of the Great White Way, the Big Apple, and all those other romantic notions that lure kids from all over the country.
I'd known New Yorkers most of my life, of course. The Cat- skill Mountains were merely a place for New Yorkers to escape the summer heat; Miami was a place for them to escape the cold. But knowing New Yorkers wasn't enough. I wanted to be part of the main stream. Washington might be the capital of the country, but New York is the heart and the brains. I wanted to hit the town where everything was happening.
When I left the auto show in Detroit, T felt the time was ripe. I had better than forty thousand dollars scattered around in different banks, and if that wasn't enough to keep me from worrying, no amount ever would be.
I decided to do it up right. What better place to buy a car than Detroit? I paid cash on the barrelhead for a new Cadillac, loaded my discreet matched luggage in the trunk, put the convertible top down, and pointed East.
The Big Town was everything I expected it to be. I took an apartment on the east side, hired a maid, and then declared a two-week vacation. I took in every play I could get tickets for, saw most of the major night club shows, and listened to the jazz outfits at Birdland. The fortnight wasn't all-play-and-no- work, though. I might not have turned any tricks, but I did some looking and listening. Intelligence and reconnaissance, the army guys call it.
Once a hooker has a few miles on her, she knows exactly how to reconnoiter a town. Turn her loose in practically any city on the globe and, given two weeks to browse around, she'll tell you where the action is, how much it's going for, and who's doing all the business.
The New York action, I found, was shared by two groups. The lion's share was handled by pimps, none of whom I knew well enough to work with, and many of whom were connected with recognized criminal elements. The remainder of the big action was handled by free-lance call girls, who worked out of apartments in midtown Manhattan. If there were any actual whorehouses, operated by bona fide madams, I didn't discover them.
This much I knew for certain: there was more than enough action to go around. But I didn't want to get tied up with the hoods, and establishing a practice as a free-lancer would take more time than I cared to expend.
I decided to try a different angle. During my Miami days, I'd entertained a number of guys from the garment industry, or, as they like to call it, the "rag game." More than one of these gents had suggested that I look them up if I ever got to New York, and I'd had enough sense to take the names of those who did.
I had the addresses and phone numbers of their offices-- not their homes, naturally--so I made a few calls and lined up a few appointments. I let it be known that I'd be in town for awhile and that I was ready to do business, all referrals deeply appreciated. The general response was, if not enthusiastic, at least cordial.
I hit the jackpot, though, with a john named Sid Glass. When he had last vacationed in Miami, Sid had been sales manager for one of the large dress manufacturers. Since his return, he had connected with one of the more popular designers, and they had started their own company.
The buyers, Sid explained to me, were accustomed to dating girls they had seen modeling clothes. Those who came across were tipped anywhere from fifty to a hundred and fifty dollars.
"I guess it makes them feel important," Sid reasoned. "Anybody can hire a call girl. But when they pitch a model and score, they feel like Casanovas."
"Then where does the 'tip' come in?" I wanted to know. "Casanovas take, not give."
lie "Well, they all tip, that I know for sure," he said. "How they justify that with the Casanova image is something I never went into. It really doesn't matter to you, though, does it? As long as the money's there?"
"No, of course not," I said. "But it still sounds wacky."
"The whole world's wacky," he told me. I had to agree with him.
So, I began my career as a model. I was on the payroll at Sid's firm too, of course--it was the first time since my secretary days in Philadelphia that I had any use for my social security card--and Sid worked out a deal where I was given an extra reward if one of the buyers I had entertained placed an especially big order.
To make the whole situation even better, some of the other guys I had known from Miami hired me for matinees. I got twenty dollars each for afternoon quickies performed on the couches in their offices, and, sometimes, I was able to turn as many as four tricks in a single afternoon. That gelt, added to my nightly tips and my salary and commissions at Sid's place, amounted to a swinging weekly haul.
There's only so much toothpaste, though, and then the tube runs dry. I had been making the scene as a full-time prostitute for almost three years now, with very little time off for leisure or fun. Within each year, I had turned anywhere from 500 to 750 tricks. During that time, I had not slept with a man that I cared for. Perhaps my financial cup was running over, but I had become an emotional bankrupt. Sex had ceased to have the beauty for me that it once had.
I was deeply concerned. I wondered if I had become calloused. Had I lost the ability to feel affection and desire? The many hundreds of men who had paraded through my life during the previous three years had left me unmoved. Could any man move me? And how could I meet one who could?
I decided to cut down on my work. Under the new setup, I kept Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays purely to myself-- no tricks, no modeling, no anything-connected-with-earning- money. On these days, I frequented places which I thought might serve as gathering spots for the type man in which I was interested. Libraries became my primary ports of call. And when I wasn't browsing between the bookshelves, I toured coffeehouses, restaurants near the universities, art galleries, and concert halls.
I made an exploratory visit to Greenwich Village, but it left me cold. The various degrees of beats and pseudobeats may have been well-spoken, but they were too far out of the world as I knew it to have any appeal for me. My superman--yes, I was still looking for him---had to be well-spoken, true; but he also had to be motivated and have a sense of direction. The beats and pseudobeats, it seemed, were shiftless.
I fared no better in any of my other wanderings. A hooker, perhaps better than anyone else, can determine the motives of the men who cross her path. Perhaps we develop highly sensitized antennae which probe the minds of men like radar probes the atmosphere. If getting laid is a man's fundamental interest in me, I can find out about it during the first fifteen seconds I talk with him. The guys in the libraries, the restaurants, the art galleries, and the concert halls were united in that respect--they were looking for a pickup, a quick piece, and if they could sandwich the sex in between Jean Paid Sartre and J. D. Salinger, all the better for them.
I was about to give up the entire project and resign myself to being a social misfit. Life had passed me by. There I was, twenty-two years old, fifty thousand dollars in my lack, and an immense desire to love and be loved--but nowhere to turn. Perhaps, I contemplated, everyone was equally discontent; perhaps we were all pawns on the chessboard of life, moved about at will by some fanatic Master-mover who had invented us for his own fiendish delight and, now, having grown tired of his little game, he had ceased to care what happened to us.
The world was going to hell in a hand basket. The Russians were stockpiling bombs and we were stockpiling bombs. One day soon, it would hit the fan and we'd all be annihilated. The game would end in a stalemate--or, maybe a checkmate for the Master-mover, who probably had wanted us all to go up in smoke from the very start.
Did anybody love? I wondered. Did anybody find a method of communicating with his fellow beings? Or were we all prostitutes of one degree or another, different only in respect to the locations of our bedrooms and the prices each of us charged--and paid?
Why not get out of the business entirely? a voice somewhere inside of me asked. You've got more than enough money. Leave New York and go somewhere where you can make a new start.
I considered it. But a new start as what? A $60-a-week secretary? And what would that accomplish? The men whose letters I'd be typing would be the same men (or duplicates of them) with whom I'd plied my prostitute's trade. If they didn't appeal to me then, they wouldn't appeal to me now.
College? Why not? I had enough money. If need be, I could even take a postgraduate high school course as preparation. Wasn't university life what I wanted originally--back when I made the ill-advised trek to Poughkeepsie? Now, the voice said, make the move now.
I can't say why I didn't make the move. The only thing I can say is that I didn't make it. It seemed rational. There were many more arguments in favor of it than against it.
Yet, I didn't act. Perhaps, I realized later, it was a fear of failure. Perhaps, I was afraid to put myself to a test I couldn't pass. If the primary purpose of going to college was finding a superman-husband, then I'd have four years to make my catch, and, if I didn't score, there would have been no reason at all for my existence.
It also might have been that I just liked hooking too much to give it up. I had really only one complaint--no man to love. The same complaint had been mine for as long as I could remember. There were times when I thought I was in love, but they were brief periods, and when they came quickly to an end, I realized that I hadn't really been in love at all.
I thought back to the conversation I had with Frank the last night I spent with him in Philadelphia.
What was "love" we had wondered. And we hadn't come up with a satisfactory definition. Maybe there was no such thing as love--it was just something Hollywood dreamed up to keep people going to the movies.
So--why give up prostitution? The money was good, I liked my work, and, even if I hadn't yet found the superman to end all supermen, I'd certainly five more comfortably than most while I continued looking.
I didn't go back to the seven-days-a-week schedule. I was making better than five hundred a week working four days, and I liked the idea of having three days to myself to use as I liked. I'd keep on looking for my superman, I told himself. And if I didn't find him, the hell with it.
* * *
Two months later, much to the surprise of Sid Glass and everyone else with whom I was associated in New York, I packed my bags and set out for Hollywood. Purpose: to become a movie star.
I didn't make it, of course. (This is a book of fact, not fiction, and if I'd made it, you'd know about it.) But my West Coast time was one of the wackiest, wildest periods of my life.
One experience I had in New York is worm recording. Classify it under the laws-are-made-to-be-broken department if you like.
Some men employ prostitutes solely as a means of achieving their personal sexual goals, conventional or unconventional. Others, cognizant of their fellow man's drive for sex, use hookers as a means to persuade others to do their bidding. The manufacturer who includes a call girl in the package of pleasantries he lines up to entertain his buyer is an excellent example of this, and the blackmailer is another. I've managed to steer clear of blackmail--unless you want to consider my episode in Philadelphia with Bob Greene, the disc jockey, as an example of blackmail.
Another common employment for prosties is acting as models for photographs used as evidence in divorce cases. This is particularly common in New York State, where adultery is the only legally acceptable ground for divorce. The entire deal is usually arranged with the cooperation of both parties.
Since I've had the honor of being introduced, photographically, as evidence in some of these arrangements, I can give you the run-down on how it works.
The typical situation is one where the old love triangle comes into play. Hubby doesn't dig wifey any more. He's got a sweetheart that he's keeping on the side, but it's costing him a bundle. Besides he's tired of all the cloak-and-dagger crap it takes to keep her from finding out. So, he decides to lay his cards on the proverbial table.
Wifey, of course, has suspected that something was amiss for quite awhile--these things are hard to hide--so when the truth comes out, she's ready for it. In fact, she has the terms all planned. She wants the house, custody of the kids, two hundred dollars a month alimony and a cash payoff of a thousand dollars before the alimony starts.
Hubby thinks the terms are stiff, but he's so enraptured with his inamorata that he's willing to concede all of them. The couple shake hands on it, and, as far as they're concerned, the divorce is all set. They go and ask a lawyer to draw up the necessary papers. Here's where they find out it's not as easy as they think.
The quick way out, of course, is the Nevada route. One or the other of the parties flies to Reno, establishes residence there--it only takes a few weeks--and files for divorce after he has fulfilled the residence requirement. The grounds can be virtually anything from "incompatibility" to not liking the color of your spouse's eyes. The other party doesn't contest the charges, Nevada grants the divorce, and the parties are freed of the marriage bonds.
Hubby and wifey decide not to make the Nevada scene. To begin with, it costs. The Nevada lawyers know that they're in the driver's seat and charge stiff fees. It's expensive to five there during the residence period, and it's expensive to get there and back.
How about the New York courts, they ask the lawyer. Surely there are provisions in this state for divorce.
Yes, he replies. But only if adultery is proved.
Well, fine. Adultery is involved. It's the crucial issue. "Wifey accuses me of adultery," says Hubby. "I admit it and we get the divorce."
Not so easy. The courts may want to know with whom the indiscretions were committed. And in some cases, it's advisable to present photographic evidence.
Whoa! That's going too far. Hubby doesn't want to get his lady love involved. And pictures? Out of the question. He won't stand by idly while some judge fingers pictures of his grand passion.
Well, this particular lawyer has been in and out of these deals many times. He knows all the ins and outs of the game. And he has a solution.
You've guessed it by now, I'm sure. I--or another hooker-- become the party with whom adultery was committed and the divorce is granted.
The tale I have to tell, though, involves different circumstances. Here, no one was adulterous. Hubby and wifey, a sweet old couple in their late fifties, just got tired of each other. Besides, she was a compulsive spender, and he was afraid she'd go through everything he had saved for the rainy days of senility unless he quickly severed the tie that binds.
He talked to his wife, they agreed upon a settlement, and brought the matter to an attorney who had used my services in marital matters from time to time.
Hubby, it was decided, would be adulterous with me, and wifey would sue. That agreed upon, we made it to a motel room rented specifically for the purpose. A photographer, who had been hired by the lawyer, set his camera up on a tripod, and hubby and I undressed and hopped into bed.
Well, maybe it was the setting that was unromantic. I mean trying to make it with a chick while a photographer, your lawyer, and your wife stand in the wings. Or, maybe hubby was just past his wild oats days. Whatever the case, he was no more interested in sex than a eunuch, and not much more capable.
I suggested that everyone leave the room, including the photographer, until I could get hubby stimulated. They agreed, but an hour later I had to call them back in and admit defeat. Hubby was a hopeless case. He couldn't be an adulterer if his life depended on it.
Thanks to the ingenuity of the photographer, though, we did solve the problem. He could, he said, superimpose the head of the husband on the body of any man who could be photographed balling me.
The lawyer volunteered--almost too quickly, I thought-- and it didn't take him any time whatsoever to prepare himself for the part he had to play. We locked ourselves into juxtaposition, the camera clicked, and my work was done.
They were taking head shots of the husband when I walked out. The whole thing came off beautifully.
My fee: five hundred for the night.
Well, you take what you can get, like the old philosopher said.
CHAPTER TWELVE - Zoo's Who
He opened the door and flicked a switch. Immediately the room was bathed in a soft pink light. He smiled, stepped back, and made a sweeping gesture with his arm.
"This is the master bedroom," he told me.
I walked in. It was an enormous auditorium of a room with a sparkling six-foot-round chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a bed that seemed as big as a football field.
He watched me look around the place, and smiled appreciatively when I told him I was impressed.
"I've never seen anything like it," I admitted. "It's magnificent."
He strode across the thick expanse of beige carpeting.
"Is it too bright?" he asked.
"I don't think so," I replied.
He seemed not to hear me. I watched him busy himself with a series of dials on a metal contraption next to the bed Slowly the pink light dimmed. Then a deep blue shade overpowered it. He turned away from his contraption and smiled proudly at me.
"Dimmers," he explained. "Like in the theater."
I nodded.
"You look uncomfortable," he said, coughing nervously. "Why don't you take off your clothes?"
Without answering, I crossed to the dresser and set my handbag down alongside a cologne bottle. Then I unbuttoned the jacket of my two-piece suit and slowly slipped out of it. Through the mirror I noticed that he was watching me intently. I unbuttoned my skirt and stepped out of it.
"Oh, my God!" he shouted. "That's too beautiful for words. Stop! Don't move!"
I froze in position. I was holding the skirt in one hand; the other hung naturally at my side. My feet were perhaps twelve inches apart on the floor. My blouse hung over the top of my panties, but I had nothing else on. He examined my poised body like an art critic examining a piece of sculpture. He bent to one side, then another, and viewed me from all angles.
"That's exquisite," he said. "It's perfect."
I didn't know whether to say anything or not. I decided to hold the pose and leave the next move to him.
Slowly, he approached me from the front, then got down on his knees. I held the pose, but lowered my eyes. I saw him grip my right ankle with both his hands. Experimentally, he ran his hands up and down my leg; then, clasping my ankle again, he started below my calf and very, very slowly began kissing his way upward. I felt an electric shock as his tongue made warm wet circles up the inside my leg. He didn't stop until it was impossible to go any farther. Then he bit me.
I leaped bade in pain.
He laughed.
"Sadism wasn't part of the deal," I told him, angrily sweeping my jacket from the top of the dresser.
"Relax, darling." he laughed. "I'm no sadist. I just had an impulse and followed it. Don't go."
I paused halfway across the room. He stopped laughing.
"I won't hurt you any more," he said. "Don't leave.' I looked at him levelly. His eyes pleaded with me.
"I'm really sorry, darling," he said. "I promise it won't happen again. Please don't go."
I let him wait for my answer. His eyes dropped to my bare legs again, and I could see new interest beginning to stir in him.
"Don't go," he said quietly, this time in almost a whisper. I stood where I was. Very slowly, almost stealthily, he crawled across the room. "Don't go," he said again, his voice barely ; audible. Then, very gently, his hands closed .around my ankle and he began kissing my leg and thigh again. When he got as far as he could, he kissed me tenderly. Then he backed away.
"Seer' he asked, his manner almost that of a child. "I told you I wouldn't hurt you."
I said nothing.
"You're not afraid of me now, are you?" he asked.
"No," I said quietly.
"That's good, he said. Then, very gently, he placed one arm around the small of my back, the other behind my knees, and lifted me off the floor. "Daddy won't hurt you," he said, carrying me to the bed.
Slowly he unbuttoned my blouse, then helped me out of it. "You're not afraid of me now, are you?" he asked again.
"No," I repeated.
He leaned over me and with practiced hands unhooked my brassiere. Gently he lifted it off me. He stood back to contemplate my bare bosom.
"You're beautiful," he whispered. "You're beautiful."
My eyes met his and he smiled. I smiled back.
He leaned over me again, this time kissing me delicately once on each nipple.
"I love you," he said softly.
Then, unexpectedly, his arm whipped around and his closed fist struck me on the chin. I felt my head snap back helplessly.
"You rotten bitch!" he shouted, his eyes glowing angrily. "I'll kill you, you no-good whore!"
Summoning all my energy, I scampered across the bed. There was a large, glass ash tray on the night table. I picked it up and held it menacingly over my head.
"I'll throw this if I have to," I said.
He stared at me dumbly, as if unaware of what I was saying.
"I mean it," I threatened. "I'll smash your face with it."
I stood there, brandishing the ash tray, and watched his expression melt into one of apology. My eyes held his, and neither of us spoke for a full minute.
Then I heard a voice behind me. A woman's voice.
"James," she said sternly, "are you giving one of these poor creatures a hard time again?"
"I'm sorry, Rose," he said benignly. "I got carried away." When I saw that the woman was in command of the situation, I relaxed and set the ash tray back on the table. I turned to the woman who was looking at me sympathetically. "Thank you," I told her, not knowing what else to say. James coughed nervously.
"Forgive me," he said. "I forgot to introduce you. Rose, this is Lynn. Lynn Keefe."
"Hello, Lynn," she said.
"Lynn," he continued, "this is my wife, Rose."
"I'm pleased to meet you," I told her.
James looked from one to the other of us nervously. Perhaps we'd all better have a drink," he suggested.
I watched him cross the room and come to a halt in front of a white stone fireplace. He pressed a button on the wall, the fireplace swiveled out of sight, and a bar appeared in its place.
"What would you like?" he asked me, indicating an array of thirty or more bottles.
"Scotch and tall water," I said.
"Any particular brand?"
"Any at all."
He took a bottle of Chivas Regal from the shelf and pulled off the top. Then he took three tall glasses from beneath the bar and filled them with ice cubes.
Rose had vanished into a large, walk-in closet. Now she reappeared with a bathrobe and helped me into it.
"You'd better put this on," she said. "You're apt to catch cold from this air conditioning."
I thanked her and went to the bar, where I took a glass from James's outstretched hand. He gave a second glass to Rose, then took the third one with him and sat on the edge of the bed.
"James," Rose scolded, ignoring my presence for the moment. 'You've promised me time and time again that you wouldn't do this."
"I know," he admitted. "I promise myself that I won't do it But then I get in the room with a girl and, as soon as I see she trusts me, I get carried away."
Rose turned to me. "He doesn't really mean any harm," she explained. "But he can't help himself."
I took a stiff swallow of my drink. "If you enjoy sadism," I asked him, "why don't you make it clear to the girl you're hiring that that's what you have in mind. There are girls who go that route, you know."
"He knows," Rose told me. "He doesn't enjoy it with them. He only enjoys it when the girl is unsuspecting."
There you have it: a sadist and his wife calmly discussing his patterns of sexual behavior; the prostitute he hired for the evening calmly offering advice pertinent to the problem.
Incredible?
Perhaps anywhere else in the world it might be--but not in Hollywood, chum. In Hollywood it wouldn't--it didn't--provoke a raised eyebrow.
Hollywood, as you have heard, is a community located in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, California. It's also acknowledged to be the capital of the motion picture industry. But, as Hollywoodians like to point out, it's more than mere geographic location, more than a mere assembly of people.
Hollywood is an institution. Take it from me: it's the only institution in the world that's run by the inmates.
I went to Hollywood with the thought of becoming a movie star. That doesn't mean I was a green kid. I had three years as a professional prostitute under my belt--and the clientele I had serviced during those three years included some of the most particular johns in the country. I knew the score.
I made no pretense of being--or hoping to be--an actress. I had neither the training nor the desire to compete with the stars whose stirring performances before the cameras stood as examples of consummate ability in thespian art.
But I did think that I was at least as well equipped as the starlet whose principal talent seemed to consist of the ability to expand her chest while the rest of her body, face included, remained as motionless as a department store mannequin.
I didn't make it, of course, so this might sound like a carefully brewed serving of sour grapes. Take it as such if you like. My purpose is to tell the truth, and if that involves displaying myself to you as something less than the stereotyped All- American girl, then all good and well. I don't give a damn what you think about me; but I think it's high time somebody exposed Hollywood manners and mores, and the following, my friends, is the truth.
Hollywood is the plushiest, brassiest, wealthiest, most publicized, most glamorized, most extravagant asylum for sick egos ever created. It is an affluent conglomeration of psychological invalids and mental cripples where the principal occupation is self-adoration and the favorite pastime is looking in the mirror.
A distinguished psychologist, John S. Yankowski, has pointed out that this may very well be the product of a national attitude which holds that the Frank Sinatras of the world are more to be venerated and emulated than the Albert Schweitzers, the call-house madames more than the Madame Curies. When more than one hundred million Americans regard the possessor of a well-developed set of pectoral muscles as a goddess, is it not conceivable that the mammary wonder may soon began to regard herself as a deity, too?
Hollywood is a temple of self-proclaimed deities, reinforced in their beliefs by the dutiful worship of millions of fans who mob the box offices, paying out their hard-earned quarters so that they may spend an hour or two prostrating themselves at the altar of sham and superficiality. But being a false god in a city of false gods and goddesses is a doubt-ridden existence. Today's deity may be tomorrow's has-been, and no state is as miserable as that of the fallen false idol. The kings and queens of Hollywood five constantly in dread of that moment when their worshippers will change allegiances, when the spotlight will focus on someone else. They drink to forget it. Or they talk to psychiatrists. Or they attempt to prove their youth in strange ways in strange bedrooms.
The gods and goddesses of Hollywood have injected sex (which they equate with youth) into the fiber of the city, Girls have been crowned cinema queens whose sole qualifications consisted of the knowledge of which leg was left, which was right, and for whom to uncross them. The casting couch has become part of local legend, and it's common knowledge that the most successful position for an actress' audition is the horizontal one. It was my knowledge of these facts coupled with my proven abilities as a well-paid seductress that led me to believe I was adequately equipped to take my place among the other courtesans who had succeeded in becoming movie queens.
Yes, sex is the expression of youth--and since Hollywood confuses youth with godliness--the race is continuously being run to determine who can do it the most often, or with the widest variety of partners, or in the most unconventional manner.
The Hollywoodians have looked into the mirror and asked, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the most venerated god of all?" When no answer was forthcoming, each egoist set out in his own way to prove that it was he and he alone who stood out as the most supreme of the supreme beings. The location selected for the test was the bedroom, and, into it, each brought his idea of irrefutable proof.
Barbara Payton blew all she had as a $10,000-a-week screen queen and went looking for lacks among skid-row winos; at last count, she was turning $5-a-night tricks.
With the overt promiscuity of both sexes a matter of record, it would seem that professional prostitutes would be virtually nonexistent in Hollywood. Such is not the case. Moviedom hookers are in great demand, and, sometimes, they make more money than all but the top-salaried stars. In my three years there, I grossed more than $150,000. I know some hookers who did better than that.
When I arrived in Hollywood, of course, I had no intention of plying my trade as a prosty. My goal was stardom, and it seemed to me that the process of achieving it would not be difficult. Make the rounds of the night spots, sleep with a few key people, and--voila! You're made! A star is born! So, for several months, I made the rounds, acquainted myself with producers, directors, and agents, and allowed them to avail themselves of my professional services at no cost. I began to grow impatient.
One of the men who crossed paths with me during that period was Fred Towner, an associate agent with one of the big outfits. Though he wasn't a V.I.P. by Hollywood standards, he was good in bed--which my other contacts had not been-- and, perhaps for that reason, I saw him more often than the others. After a while, Fred and I became confidants, and I told him that I was a prostitute before I made the Hollywood scene. One night, when my patience was exhausted, I asked him why he hadn't submitted me for a part.
"There's nothing open that I think is just right for you," Fred said.
I wouldn't buy that. "Let's cut the crap," I told him. "Do I have what it takes or don't I?"
He looked thoughtful. Then he gave me the only honest answer anyone ever gave me in the three years I spent on the coast.
"No," he said. "You don't."
Maybe I'm just naturally thick-skinned. Maybe that response would be enough to send any other aspirant scurrying back to Omaha, or wherever the hell aspirants go scurrying back to when they find out that they haven't got it. But I pressed for more information.
"What's wrong with me?" I questioned him. "What do the others have that I lack?"
Fred thought a while before answering. "I think, Lynn," he said, at last, "that you lack an air of innocence. All the other gals have it. They might be the most promiscuous sluts since Magdalene, but even though their exploits are page one, even though every man, woman, and child in the country knows they're banging like minks, they still seem to project that does- she-or-doesn't-she innocence."
It was my turn to make with the long silence. Finally, I told him: "Well, thanks, Fred. I guess my best bet is to go back to New York and start hustling again."
"Why go back?" he asked. "The market's just as good here. Maybe even better. If I were you, I'd stay."
I took his advice. The market, I found, was indeed better. The customers ordered more frequently, paid better, and threw in a lot more fringe benefits. It surprised me to find many film heroes--whose images adorn the dressers of worshipful teen-agers from Podunk to Panama City--among the top customers. These stars had glamorous wives, which they traded in every few years for newer models, and they were constantly surrounded by the well-publicized studio goddesses, most of whom they could nest with at will. Why, I wondered, did these supersexy men shell out their cold, hard, non-tax-deductible cash for prostitutes? I got the answer from a leading man, veteran of numerous matrimonial jousts and extracurricular trysts, most of which had made the gossip columns.
"The women out here," the star said, referring to the cinema queens, "are interested only in their own kicks. They don't even think about making the man happy."
We prostitutes, on the other hand, are well-trained in the art of bedmanship. We concentrate solely upon satisfying our partners. So, when it was headlines the male stars were after, they cavorted with the female stars. But, when their goal was a satisfying night in the hay, we hookers got the bid. And the cash.
What this leading man didn't realize, though--and far be it from me to tell him about it--was that the West Coast men were just as guilty as the women of unsatisfactory love-making. These bloated egos were so intent on gratifying their all-important selves that they made a night in the rack about as exciting as a rerun of newsreels of the fifties.
I state the following as an absolute: the vast majority of Hollywood stars are unquestionably the lousiest lovers of all time. I'm sure other call girls who have worked in Hollywood circuit will bear me out. And I'm not speaking only of the homosexuals, of which there are ample. The gay boys frequently engage prostitutes in the hope of resurrecting their possible latent desires for the opposite sex.
I'm speaking of the genuine, certified heterosexuals--men who are reputed to be the love-gods of the century. With rare, notable exceptions, these men are real drags in the sack. Consider this: nine out of ten of those great lovers, when they're finished, ask you if they were good! The secret of being a success as a Hollywood hooker (by success, I mean a girl who gets the most repeat calls and makes the most money) is the ability to convince these out- sized egos that you're sincere when you tell them that they are good. And the prosty with expertise is the one who convinces the drags that they are good, but could be better if they continue to patronize her; at the same time, she manages not to offend their delicate pride.
The bona fide heteros, however, constitute only a small portion of the prostitute's over-all clientele. There's almost an equal amount of film industry Lesbians who prefer prostitutes because hookers are usually very discreet. The young girls get most of this business. One of them is a top feature player today because she blackmailed a cinema goddess into getting her roles after a cleverly concealed photographer managed to snap some revealing photos of the sisterly duo in action.
There are a number of homosexuals who like to use us as references. They feel that being seen with us will allay suspicion of their homosexuality. With blatant homosexuals, we give the impression that they are bisexuals, which they reason, is preferable to their single-sex reputation.
By and large, however, the bulk of a Hollywood hooker's clientele is comprised of customers who deviate from sexual norms. By "norms," I don't mean the norms of conventional society, I mean Hollywood norms, which include fellatio, buggery, and similar individualistic approaches. I'm talking about the extremists and sensationalists: the fetishists, the masochists, the sadists, et al.
One matinee idol--the heartthrob of teen-agers--engaged me to shout profanities at him while he masturbated. A director--widely acclaimed for his fanciful flights into the bizarre screen-wise--showed a propensity for the bizarre in the bedroom, too; he would engage two prostitutes to work on him in extraordinary ways.
A character actor once approached me at Ciro's and asked if I were at liberty that night. When I replied affirmatively, he gave me his address and asked that I stop by about eight o'clock. I said I would.
"By the way," he added, "you wouldn't mind playing Fatty Arbuckle would you?"
"What s that?" I asked.
He favored me with a sly grin--a grin that is practically his trademark on screen. "I'll show you when you get there," he said, walking off. Fortunately, I called a friend to ask her what he meant by the Arbuckle scene. She was a veteran Hollywood hooker, whose experiences spanned an entire generation if film personalities, and I was sure that if anyone knew, she would.
"Oh, Jesus!" she exclaimed. "Get as far away from that john as you can."
Fatty Arbuckle, I learned, was a top comedian during the infant days of the film industry. A young actress, Virginia Rappe, incurred a ruptured bladder after his ministrations. Several days later, it proved fatal. In the ensuing trial, Arbuckle was accused of having ravaged her with a bottle, he was found not guilty.
Sadism ranks high on the list of popular Hollywood sexual diversions. Most of the practitioners eventually find masochistic partners whom they torture happily ever after. Those who don't are forced to pay phenomenal prices to the few prostitutes who'll accept a sadistic trick. The going rate is from a thousand to ten thousand dollars a night--the girls have to get that much; sometimes, it takes months to recuperate.
One sadist, a director, couldn't find a masochistic partner and was unwilling to pay the high prices the hookers demanded. Twice a month he would drive to Mexico where he would pick up a conventional prostitute, take her to a secluded place, and beat her mercilessly. He hadn't realized that word of his exploits was spreading among the Mexican hookers' grapevine. One night, he and his pickup were followed by four men who gave him a dose of his own medicine. He was hospitalized for months--and still has some scars from the episode.
Perhaps even more popular than sadism is voyeurism, a favorite among the senior citizens who are no longer capable of active participation and others who consider it essential or supplementary to their main kick. Voyeurism isn't peculiar to Hollywood, of course; the "stag" movie, a popular number at mens' smokers from Detroit to Dallas, appeals to the voyeur instinct in plebeians the world over. Affluent Hollywood, though, stages the "stag" show--or, more properly, an extravagant amplification of it--with the largess of biblical spectaculars.
The location is generally a hotel room or a private home, and, instead of film presentations, the audience witnesses the antics of live human performers, in glowing color. The price of the shows vary, depending on the number of acts featured, and the audience splits the tab. Often, the professional performance is followed by a session of audience participation.
All of the big-money action in the field is controlled by one man whose annual income undoubtedly tops that of even the biggest names. Minimum fee for a presentation is $1,000, but some shows have grossed as much as $30,000. The shows with the big take are attended by large groups of people; thus, the per capita admission would be from $200 to $1,000. The producer's only expenses are the members of the cast, most of whom are recruited from the ranks of starving young hopefuls, so their salaries run from $100 to $500 per night.
I never participated in one of these deals--this would have lowered my prestige (and, hence, my price) as a hooker. Besides, exhibitionism isn't my cup of tea. But I did attend two shows, as the guest of one of my johns.
The john was an old character actor who hadn't been in a Class A film in more than fifteen years; however, his astute handling of investments kept him in the millionaire bracket. In his younger days, he cut quite a swath, but he was losing out in his race with time. His sexual ability was all but gone, yet his appetite was as strong as ever, and he had found that watching erotic displays gave him just enough zing to knock off a quick piece occasionally.
Accordingly, whenever he thought he might be up to it, he'd engage a prostitute and take her to a sex show. If he managed to attain the necessary stage of rigidity, he'd make it with her right in the audience.
I'll limit my description to the second, or milder, of the two shows I saw, in deference to the faint of heart. It began with a fellatio act played by a man who was admirably endowed and a demure girl who later became a featured ingenue. The second act was a female snake charmer who was seduced by her snake. Shades of Leda and the Swan! Third, came a male animal lover (literally, as well as figuratively) who went through various contortions with a sheep and a great Dane. By this time, the male half of the fellatio act had recuperated and he did an encore with a heavily muscled pansy whom I recognized as a movie stunt man. The headliner was a chick who entertained four men at the same time; she selected volunteers from the audience, all of whom required little persuasion. The finale was a catch-as- catch-can proposition which featured all the members of the cast and some of the audience.
My john managed to get inspired during the snake-charmer's act, and spent the rest of the evening singing the praises of the show. I'm glad he enjoyed it; it cost him $500 to get in, plus $200 for my fee.
The diversions I've cited here constitute a representative cross section of the more popular indoor sports of Hollywood deviates. I don't claim to have done a comprehensive job-- to do that would undoubtedly require a treatise surpassed in length only by Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But I've managed to give you an accurate, somewhat abridged, version of what goes on behind the celluloid curtain the fan magazines have strung up before filmland to protect the habitues from the curiosity of the box office idolators whose ticket purchases make the whole circus possible.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - A Ghoul and His Money
Any hooker who ever made the Hollywood route has at least one tale of the institution known as the "party." I use the word advisedly, because Hollywoodians don't mean by "party" what you do in Seattle or Savannah. What Hollywood calls a "party," you would call an "orgy."
The party (I'll use the word in the Hollywood sense hereinafter) is the device by which the inmates of Glitterville mix business with business--the part-time business of moneymaking with the full-time business of proving one's sexual superiority. The number of guests may vary from two to two hundred. The occasion might be anything from a birthday to a divorce--or, in many cases, just a dull night when nothing's happening, which is all the provocation many Hollywoodians need to get the proverbial ball rolling.
The average party--that, description in itself, a contradiction--might be said to last from one to five days. There have been notable exceptions, one of which was a nine-day foray which involved some of the top names in TV and movies in a sexual melee that would make one of Nero's livelier Roman bashes seem like a sober conclave of Oxford dons.
This isn't to say that everytime you group a cross section of Hollywoodians in the same room it means open season on sex. During my days on the cinema circuit, I attended dozens of parties that abided by the rule, "Anything Goes", and made a bundle while I was at it. Some prostitutes attended the affairs as guests of the host or hostess and were flattered that luminaries deigned to invite them. I had a different outlook on the matter. I felt my stock in trade was something I shouldn't give away to potential customers, no matter what the circumstances. So, when I went to a party, it was either as the date of a john who was paying me my nightly rate of two hundred dollars to accompany him, or as an employee of the party-giver, in which event my fee was five hundred a night.
I found that my policy proved quite profitable. Some of my sister prosties were out hustling tricks after they had worn out their welcome as guests on the party circuit, while I, in demanding my price, remained perennially popular. It was enough to give a hard-working hooker's ego a much- needed boost.
If the fact of my popularity weren't enough to lift my spirits to the stratosphere, the telephone call I received one afternoon from Tommy Carson, the screenwriter, was. In a city where the abnormal passed as normal and the phenomenal was regarded as just-plain-ordinary, Tommy stood out as a genuine, fourteen-carat character. The reason: his ex life, or, more appropriately, the absence of same. Hollywoodians know the intricate details of each others' amorous activities just like you know the make and model car your neighbor drives. But no one knew anything about Tommy's proclivities.
Tommy could have had his pick of more than half a dozen of top names among the cinema queens--he was certainly attractive enough--but he treated all of them with cool disdain, much to the dismay of two of the group, each of whom had made an obvious play for him and felt miffed because he turned them down. This suggested that his interests might have been homosexual, but a couple of swishes made a play for him and got the same cold shoulder he had turned toward the leading ladies. As a matter of fact, an elderly fag--who was convinced Tommy was a latent homo, but afraid to take the big step--hired one of the most popular, and most expensive professional boy prostitutes to make a play for Tom. The elderly fag was convinced that if anyone could break Tommy's resistance down, the luscious kid could; and paid the kid a hundred dollars to try it, with the promise of nine hundred more if he succeeded. All in vain.
The grapevine cropped out with rumors that Tom was a fetishist, a sadist, a voyeur; that he subscribed to one other extravagant deviation. But the theories all died on the vine when anyone tried to lure him into a situation that would reveal his true sex lack.
One comic got a big laugh at the Coconut Grove when he suggested to his companions that he finally had the solution to Tommy's sexual preferences.
"He's a solosexual," the comic quipped. "He digs making it alone."
At any rate, Tommy's sex life remained the most talked- about mystery since the identity of the lady in black who strewed flowers annually on Rudolph Valentino's grave. So you can imagine my excitement when Tom phoned to ask if I would be at liberty the night of a big party scheduled for the following week at the home of a prominent producer. (In my business, it was like receiving the Academy Award!) I told Tommy that I definitely would be available, and he asked what my fee would be. I quoted my usual rate, two hundred for the night.
"Just what would that include?" he asked, his tone quite businesslike.
"You name it," I said. "Anything but sadism."
He hesitated before popping the next question. "Suppose," he asked, finally, "I wanted to share you with a friend?"
With any other john, a co-op deal would have automatically meant another hundred dollars added to the price. But I was so curious about Tommy that I decided to let my original bid stand--I would have taken the gig for nothing to satisfy my curiosity.
"That's up to you," I said. "Friend or no friend, I'm yours to do with as you like."
"Very good, then," Tom said. "I'll call for you at seven o'clock."
In the days that intervened, I did what research I could on Tommy. I learned that his professional life was almost as much a mystery as his sex life.
Originally, he came from New York where he had done some work on a women's magazine and had a few short stories to his credit that appeared in the literary quarterlies. He had made the bulk of his money, however, by ghost-writing the autobiographies of celebrities. When one of these books made the best-seller list, he was offered a studio contract. He'd been in Hollywood ever since.
Writers in Glitterville, like almost everyone, are infected with the mad craving for fame, popularity, recognition, and so on. While none of them ever gain the national popularity of the stars, they strive with equal vigor for "credits --Screenplay and So-and-So--which usually flash on the screen briefly while you're asking your boy friend if he'd like some popcorn.
Tommy was as exceptional in the "credits" department as he was in the sex life department. Although he had a hand in a good many top films which came out of his studio, he was always content to see one of the other writers get the credits. His concern evidently was the money, the satisfaction of doing good work, or whatever strange motivation a writer might have.
The "name" writers were as important (if not more so) than the stars. They lived up to it, too, with plush houses, expensive cars, and all the other accouterments. Tommy, uncharacteristically lived in unfashionable Santa Monica, drove a Volkswagen, and generally stayed out of the glaring limelight. Though he broke every rule by which those who made it big were supposed to abide, he managed to snag the spotlight from all of them. Was that his purpose, I wondered? To beat all the phonies at their own game?
As the date of the party approached, the town grew vibrant with excitement. This would be the biggest bash of the year--everybody who was anybody--and many who weren't--would be there. The guests who had been invited made sure to broadcast it, and those who hadn't been were pretending that they had been. If anyone commented on the absence of the Hadn't-Beens after the party was over, they'd find strong excuses as to why they hadn't attended. That was typical Hollywood modus operandi.
I said nothing about being invited by Tommy. It's been one of my cardinal principles as a hooker to keep my appointments strictly confidential. If a john wants anybody to Know what's happening, let him tell them. Apparently, Tommy hadn't told anyone he was taking me, so I kept it a secret, too.
When P-Day finally arrived, and Tommy called for me at my apartment, I felt like a teen-ager going to her first prom. My hand trembled as he took it and helped me into his Volkswagen and, when we alighted at the producer's house, I felt sure my lipstick was smeared, my seams were crooked, and my hair was shambles. Fortunately, habit has a lot to do with behavior. By the time I had mingled with the first wave of the early arrivals and poured a few martinis down the old hatch, my conditioned reflexes took over and my usual equanimity was restored.
From all indications, this party was going to be a genuine humdinger. Evidently, the guests who had arrived before we did had wasted no time. Several of them were already swacked.
A juvenile lead--a newcomer, who had made it big through television kiddie shows before making feature-length films-- was curled up on a large armchair with one of the old-line sex goddesses, and from the way things looked, it wouldn't be long before they'd slip off to a secluded comer. If they waited an hour or so longer, they probably wouldn't have to slip off anywhere; they could make their scenes right on the armchair, and everyone would be too juiced to pay any attention.
A leading man--known in the business for his strong appetites for young boys, although his homosexuality hadn't yet made the expose magazines--was holding court around a coffee table with a trio of youngsters I recognized as professional boy prostitutes. His attention wavered between them, however, and the juvenile lead on the armchair, whom I think he would have considered the most desirable partner of the four.
A former ingenue, who had outgrown juvenile roles but hadn't yet had her first starring vehicle--was trading catty remarks with an ex-star who had just made the painful transition from screen siren to mother of screen siren.
Everyone noticed Tommy and me as we entered, and, after giving us the hail-fellow-well-met greeting, huddled in little groups to discuss what his association with me might mean in terms of the sex kick they had figured him to dig. Tommy did not seem to notice the effects of our entrance. He just made the rounds, saying "hello" to those he recognized, nodding perfunctorily to those who recognized him.
A butler, resplendent in white tie and tails, passed out hors d'oeuvres, which few of the assemblage accepted--possibly reasoning that it wasn't safe to eat on an empty stomach. Then he beat a hasty retreat into the kitchen.
The crowd continued to pour in--a pair of writers from Warner's, an ingenue from Metro, a TV comic who was reportedly lined up for the big break via summer replacement, a director whose last two flicks were bombs, a former boxer who was trying to make the show business route, two character actors whose most recent appearances had been at the unemployment office on Santa Monica Boulevard--so the service staff was hard pressed to keep the supply of booze up to the demand.
Jean Marberry, leading lady of a recent smash, made her defiant entrance alone, surveyed the crowd with an air of affected boredom, stopped by the bar long enough to grab a martini in each hand, and drifted over to Tommy and me.
"Well," she pooh-poohed, favoring Tommy with her most seductive stare. "This really is the party to end all parties. Even the eunuch is in attendance."
"Hello, Jean," Tommy said. "I see your fangs are as sharp as ever."
"Really, darling," she said, her eyelashes aflutter. "You oughtn't be so nasty. If you were nice to people, you'd probably find that they'd be nice to you, too. You're not an unattractive man, you know."
"I know," Tommy said laconically.
Jean looked at him curiously. "My God, maybe that's your secret!" she exclaimed, as if she had discovered the solution to the most baffling problem of the age. "Yes, I'm sure of it," she said, confirming her own, as-yet-unstated, theory. "You're an arrogant little pup who's afraid you'll get turned down if you ask. Is that why you play the mystery man, Tommy? Afraid the big bad ladies will turn their backs on you?" Tommy chuckled. "Don't flatter yourself that your psychoses are so popular that everyone else in town suffers them, Jean."
She glared at him angrily. "I can have my pick of all the men in this town," she hissed Then, her nostrils flaring, she added: "Except eunuchs!"
Tommy slowly sipped his drink. "Can you really, now?" He grinned. "I'm glad you have such a high opinion of yourself. No one else seems to have."
Jean had a complete change of character. Her laughter tinkling like a bell, she said, "Why, I do think the little man is trying to put me on."
"No one's putting you on, Jean," Tommy countered evenly. "You're a has-been off stage. You're through. You couldn't seduce a starving adolescent if your career depended on it.
And " He held up his hand to silence her until he finished his sentence. "- I'd be willing to put money on it!"
I could see that, beneath her frivolous facade, Jean was smouldering. But she persisted in the dangerous little game. "Darling, you talk about money as though you actually had some," she said, forcing a laugh.
Tommy shot back quickly: I have. And I'm willing to risk it. How about you, Jeannie? Are you willing to gamble yours? Or are you bluffing?"
"Darling," she replied, "I tip more at lunch than you earn all week."
Tommy reached into his pocket and pulled out a clump of bills. Then he spread them out in front of him like a pinochle hand.
"Is that enough for you, Jean?" he asked.
My eyes bulged. He was holding ten thousand-dollar bills! "Peanuts," Jean scoffed, polishing off her second martini. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I need a refill. Nice sparring with you."
When she walked away, Tommy put the bills back in his pocket.
"I didn't know you were a gambler," I said.
He smiled. "I'm not. I only play sure things. And that isn't gambling"
"I take it that you and Jean have known each other for some time," I commented.
Tom sipped his drink. "To know her is to loathe her."
The butler came by with his tray of hors d'oeuvres. I helped myself to a pimento olive; Tommy selected a piece of Italian cheese.
"Jean Marberry is a despicable phony," he continued. "She's the lowest form of human being there is."
"Isn't everybody more or less a phony out here?" I asked.
"They are. But Jean is more a phony than any of them. Phoniness in most things, I'll tolerate. Her type phoniness, I won't."
He told me of an incident that had occurred a year before while he was on location in Europe working a film that Jean starred in. A group of the upper-echelon production staff was drinking one night after shooting was over when Jean happened by. The group had been discussing Roman literature, specifically, Petronius, whose Satyricon described in great detail the social and sexual mores of the Imperial Age under Nero.
"Now, get this," Tommy said. "There we were, all somewhat familiar with classical literature, and Jean doesn't know Remus from the narrator of B'rer Rabbit. But she has the audacity to horn in on our discussion, offer ridiculous views and completely unfounded opinions, and then, when I told her she didn't know what she was talking about, she called me a phony! A week later, she pulled some sex strings and I was off the picture."
"Nice girl," I said.
"Shell get hers," he threatened. "Maybe shell get it tonight."
The party was in full swing by then. A Negro musician, well-known for his soulful blues trumpet style, was sitting at the piano, toying with a rhythmic, low-key lament. A group had gathered around him and was watching, spellbound, as he built a structure of minor chords, over which a mournful melody cried sorrowfully. Gradually, the tempo of his composition increased, and the rhythm of his staccato left hand seemed to mesmerize the group watching him. They began to clap their hands in time with beat, and some danced improvised steps as their feet responded irresistibly to the music.
A mezzo-soprano, popular in musical comedies a decade before, made a painful attempt to sing a blues lyric to the melody. Quickly, a pair of guys pushed a drink at her; they made it clear that this was one time the stage didn't belong to her. She retreated to the bar and its bottled solace.
The pianist's rhythm grew more frantic, and one of the group around the piano--a principal in a popular television series, homosexual--stepped into the center of the room and began an undulating dance. The hand-clappers shouted words of encouragement, and very slowly, he began a sensuous strip. By the time he had everything off but his shorts, the mezzo- soprano came back on the scene strong with a bucket of water.
She drenched him with it. He spit at her. Other guests separated them before more violence could erupt. The pianist continued playing unconcernedly, oblivious to the distractions.
Tommy excused himself, telling me he'd be gone for half an hour or so, so I went to the powder room. Two other hookers I knew were there, both escorted by fags who wanted to create straight impressions. Each of them was amazed that I was with Tommy.
"What's his kick?" they asked.
"I haven't found out yet," I admitted.
Frankly, I was beginning to wonder just what it was with Tommy. We had been at the party for almost two hours, and he still hadn't given me any indication as to why he employed my services.
I wandered out of the house to the swimming pool where frantic activities were in full swing. Coats and ties had been shucked; some men were wandering around in their shorts. There was a debate whether they should swim immediately in the altogether, or wait until everyone got a little more juiced. The formal argument was resolved when a Warner's actress sneaked up behind a paunchy director, slipped his shorts to the half-mast, and pushed him into the pool. The precedent having been set, the rest of the company stripped and dived in. The now-naked Warner's actress was among the first.
Back inside the house, I noticed Tommy across the room; he was with Jean Marberry again, presumably continuing his earlier harangue. Then my attention, along with that of everyone else was diverted by the appearance of a leading man who, since Errol Flynn's death, had taken over the throne of Chief of the Ladies in Hollywood.
"There's Mark Benson,' the prosty standing next to me whispered, when she spotted him. "Whoever thought he'd be here!"
Her john, a director, commented enthusiastically, "This is the party of the decade!"
Benson wandered around, looking over the stock of eligible females, and superciliously bypassed them all in favor of the bar. He whispered to the bartender who handed him a full bottle of Jack Daniels Sour Mash Whisky. Benson carried the bottle away with him, uncorked it, and took a healthy swallow. He carried it around with him until he polished it off.
It was almost midnight when Tommy, looking very drunk, staggered over toward me, his arm around Mark Benson's shoulder. The party had thinned out. The real gone guests had been separated from the nonswingers, who had split. The party makers planned to turn the bash into a spectacular.
"Mark and I have been having a small dispute," Tommy explained to me. "He thinks he's better in bed than I am, and I think I'm better than he is. We've decided to call upon you to arbitrate."
I looked from Tom to Mark. "Tommy," I said, "you're my escort. Don't you think I'd naturally decide in favor of your Benson laughed. "An honest answer, sweets," he said. "But if Tommy tells you to disregard that you're with him, you'd give us a straight answer, wouldn't you?"
"Disregard the fact," said Tommy drunkenly. "I hereby order you, as my employee, to be eminently fair in your decision."
"I'm afraid I can't," I refused. "It's too vague."
"Look, sweets, we have a thousand dollars bet on this," Mark said. "We can't leave it unresolved."
"Tell you what," Tommy suggested. "Let's make it depend on the number of times. Strictly quantitative."
"All right," Benson agreed. "That ought to work. Surely you can count how many times each of us makes it, can't you, Lynn?"
"Okay," I told him. "I'm ready whenever you are."
"Well be back," Tommy said. "Just as soon as we find an empty room."
My curiosity was now at fever pitch. I was sure that the liquor had gone to Tommy's head. Mark Benson was the acknowledged king of Hollywood bedmanship. What was Tommy doing challenging him?
Five minutes later, they returned.
"In deference to Mr. Benson's age and brilliant record of previous attainments," said Tommy oratorically, "I hereby yield first crack."
Benson grabbed me by the hand and carted me off.
"Til be quite some time," he informed Tommy. "If you fall asleep, I'll wake you when I get finished."
We made it to the bedroom and Benson wasted no time whatsoever. The first episode was over almost before I had realized he had begun. Mark paused long enough to smoke a cigarette, then, grinding the butt out in the ash tray, he said, "Round Two."
He took my hand and held it to him. I caressed him gently and waited for results. They weren't long in coming. Nor were we.
"Thus ends round two," said Benson, getting off. "What say we take a shower? I've found they stimulate me."
There was an adjoining bathroom and Benson adjusted the water to a very hot temperature. Then he pulled me under the shower with him. The needle-points of water beat against ns, and Mark was soon ready again. We did the deed under the shower. When it was over, we lathered each other with soap and watched it wash off.
I need another drink," Mark said after we had rubbed ourselves dry with large turkish towels. "Excuse me."
He wrapped a towel around his waist and wandered out into the crowd. Through the door, I could see that our byplay --and the contest between Tommy and Mark--hadn't escaped the attention of the crowd. An audience, which had gathered outside the door, cheered wildly when Benson, clasping the towel around his midsection, walked through.
"Don't close the door next time, Mark," someone shouted "We want to watch."
Another asked what the score was.
"Three," Mark told them, making his way to the bar.
"Say, sweetie, I bet you could go more than that with me if you gave me a chance," camped a fag actor.
"You know me better than that," Benson laughed, clutching a full bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, and making his way back to the bedroom. "I'm strictly a ladies' man."
"I'm a lady," said the fag sweetly.
The crowd guffawed.
When the door was closed again, Benson uncorked his bottle and took a healthy swallow.
"How many is Tommy good for?" he asked, settling down on the bed again.
"I don't know," I admitted. "This is the first time I ever dated him."
He seemed to ponder my reply.
"He looks confident enough," Benson mused. "Christ, the trouble with that guy is nobody has a line on his sex. You don't know what he can do. I never should have agreed to go first."
"I wish I could say something that would help you," I told him. "But I'm as much in the dark on this bet as you are." I couldn't figure Tommy out. I had to admit it. First, he had offered to wager Jean Marberry ten thousand dollars; now, he had wagered Mark Benson one thousand. Was he a compulsive gambler?
"Well," said Benson, interrupting my reverie, "let's get back to work. Suppose you give me some help?"
I slid the towel from around his waist and put my head on his lap. Before long, he was ready, willing, and able. Round Four came to a protracted end.
Benson swilled some more Jack Daniels.
"Christ, I wish I knew what Tom could do," Mark said. "I'd call off the bet right now if I could. The bastard got me half bombed; then he made the offer to bet me and I couldn't back off. There were too many people around."
I lit a cigarette.
"Now he s got Les holding the money, and there's no way out. If he beats me, I'll never be able to hold my head--or anything else--up with these people."
"Why don't you call Tommy in here," I suggested. "Maybe you can talk him into calling it off."
He weighed the suggestion.
"Why not? That's just what I'll do."
The crowd at the door had increased and they greeted Benson with a roar of applause.
"What's the score, Mark?" somebody called.
"Hey, Lynn!" somebody else shouted. "Give us the word!"
"Quiet!" shouted Benson holding up both hands to still the multitudes. When they shut up, he spoke in a natural tone. "If any of you see Tommy, tell him Id like to confer with him."
"He's at the bar," a fag said.
"Hey, Tommy!" the audience shouted like a Greek chorus. After Tommy made it to the door, Benson brought him into the bedroom.
"What say we call this off?" Benson asked. "You go four with Lynn, then we'll declare it a draw. I'll even let you keep the money if you like."
"Did you go four times?" Tommy asked incredulously. 'Yeah," Benson replied.
"I think you have me beat," Tommy said. "The most I ever went is three."
Benson was suspicious. "You want me to give up at four so you can top me with five," he accused Tom. "That's your game, isn't it?"
"No," Tommy protested. "That isn't my game. Tell me, how many more do you think you can go?"
"Do we have a deal or don't we?" Benson asked, ignoring the question. "Call it a draw and you keep the money."
"Listen to me," Tommy said. 'I don't want your money. Just tell me: what's the most you ever went?"
"Six," Benson said. "But that was some years ago."
"I'll tell you what," Tommy offered. "Go once more-- make it five--and I'll concede. You keep the money, and you win the title."
Benson thought about it.
"Do I have your word?" he asked.
"I swear on Irving Thalberg's grave," Tommy told him. "It's a deal," Benson replied.
It wasn't easy for Mark to make it the fifth time--I did all I could to help him, but it still took almost forty-five minutes during which he had to stop twice and start all over again. When he finally made it, he lay back limply on the bed and said: "Bring that bastard in and tell him he just lost a thousand dollars."
I cleaned myself up, wrapped a large bath towel around me, and went out for Tommy. The crowd greeted me with a thunderous ovation.
"Way to go, Lynn!" they shouted. "Way to work! Brava!" Tommy came forward with Les who was holding the money. The crowd made way for them.
"Did he make it the fifth time, Lynn?" Tommy asked me when we were back in the room.
"He did," I stated firmly.
"Do you think he could go another one?" Tommy asked.
"I seriously doubt it," I said.
"What does that have to do with it?" Benson demanded. "You said you'd concede if I went five."
"He's right, Tommy," Les said.
"All right," Tommy told them. "I concede."
Les handed Benson the money and Tommy went out to face the crowd.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced over a chorus of hisses and boos. He held up his hand for silence. "Ladies and gentlemen--and I use the terms loosely--" The boos were louder.
"Quiet!" someone shouted over the din. "Let's hear what Tommy has to say."
"I hereby concede to Mark Benson."
They booed even more loudly than before; some stamped their feet.
"Tommy's a fink," someone cried.
The fag said, "Don't give up, Tommy. You can have me anytime."
"Quiet!" Tommy demanded. "I haven't finished yet."
Gradually, the roar subsided.
"I think the winner deserves a big round of applause," Tommy told them.
Benson staggered to his feet and limped to the doorway. They cheered loudly for him.
"And now," Tommy continued, "I think we ought to have a few words from that distinguished phony of stage and screen, the glamorous Miss Jean Marberry."
A hush fell over the crowd immediately. This was an unexpected dividend.
Jean Marberry was at the back edge of the group, standing next to Andy Jacobson, the producer. She tried to make a getaway, but Andy grabbed her by the arm and led her to the door of the bedroom where Tommy was holding court. Midway across the room, she stopped resisting him, and followed compliantly, looking as though she were being lead to the gallows.
The audience was absolutely silent now. This was the show of the year, and they didn't want to miss a trick.
Tommy spoke in natural tones, and they hung on his every word. "While we were in Spain," he began, "Andy Jacobson and I and other friends were discussing the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter," Jacobson nodded his verification. "Miss Marberry, uninvited, joined our conversation and tried to create the impression that she was thoroughly familiar with the Satyricon. This evening, while boasting of her sexual prowess, Miss Marberry bet me ten thousand that she could seduce Mark Benson before six A.M. Andy witnessed the bet and has the dough."
"Nobody's going to seduce me for the next week," Benson said, leaning limply against the door frame. "I've had it."
Jean Marberry tried to pull away from Andy. "Keep the goddamned, ten thousand," she told Tommy. Andy held on to her.
Tommy held up his hands to silence the crowd again.
"The point of this entire proceeding," he told them, "is that Miss Marberry was taken for ten thousand dollars by an obscene, despicable, scurrilous trick."
"You're damn right," Jean said. "I hope you're happy with your night's work."
"What Miss Marberry doesn't realize," Tommy continued, "is that the same trick I employed to dupe her was used in similar circumstances almost two thousand years ago in Rome. And if she wants to know the details, all she need do is obtain a copy of the Satyricon of Petronius. It describes the incident in complete detail. " After that, the party was a roaring success. Fewer activities bring greater pleasure to the Hollywoodians than observing a crucifixion of one of the film goddesses. Tommy was a hero, and the crowd lifted him to their shoulders and paraded around the house with him. Another group hoisted and paraded Mark Benson, whose accomplishment also was worthy of note, though it ranked second to Tommy's coup in the events of the evening. Witty bitchery is more rare than sexual prowess on the coast.
Those who had been awaiting the verdict from the bedroom hadn't suspended their drinking during the vigil, and the end of the contest signaled the beginning of general orgiastic revelry.
The fag seized the towel from Mark Benson's waist, and, waving it, he screamed falsetto praise as he followed in his wake. Some guests, eagerly taking this cue, stripped, and began chasing each other, either around the house or the swimming pool. The servants had retired, but a hardy pioneer located the liquor closet and broke out several more cases of booze.
At noon the next day, things were still going strong when Tommy ushered me out.
"Lynn, you've earned your fee well," he said.
"Touche," I said. "I mean, on your coup with Jean."
"I've waited a long time for it," he admitted.
We got into the Volkswagen and drove off.
"You're still entitled," I reminded him. "I mean, if you want to put my services to further use."
He smiled benignly.
"Thanks just the same."
I couldn't resist the impulse to question him. "Tommy," I asked "what is it with you? What is your kick?"
"I have no kick," he told me. "That's the complete truth." I lit a cigarette. "I mean, I'm curious," I said to him. "Why the mystery man bit?"
"I'm no mystery man, Lynn," he explained. "I live my life as I think it ought to be lived, and that's it. I don't want anything to do with this glamour bullshit, so I don't have anything to do with it. It's as simple as that."
"How do you think it ought to be lived?" I pressed.
He smiled again. "Out in Santa Monica," he said quietly. "With my wife and six kids."
That was the mystery man's kick. Tommy hadn't told anyone, I guess, because they wouldn't have believed him. A wife and six kids? In Hollywood?
Behold, the mystery man.
He was normal.
It was as simple as that.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - The Jet Set
"Ambassadors... and senior diplomats with roving eyes are taken care of by the Protocol Division of the State Department, which also handles the sex problems of visiting foreign brass," the late columnist, Lee Mortimer, once charged. "The State Department has compiled a list of amiable New York models, willing to come to Washington to spend a night with a foreign dignitary. They get two-hundred dollars and expenses from 'contingent funds' coming out of the pockets of the American tax-payers. They are provided on an ancient reciprocity custom in exchange for girls supplied to American junketeers who flit abroad."
I can't say for sure who hired me to entertain foreign dignitaries both in Washington and New York. I can say, however, that I've made born scenes, that I was paid in cash, and that the men I slept with weren't the men who hired me. If that adds up to a confirmation of Mortimer's charge, then so be it. (I must say, though, that Lee might have slipped up on the price. I was usually paid two fifty or three hundred --but that could have been the result of inflation.) My first gig on the striped-pants circuit occurred shortly after I called it quits in Hollywood. A producer out in Glitterville had put me on his payroll at five hundred a week to shack up with him while he was filming a movie in Spain. The amount was about half my weekly take in Hollywood, but I had never been to Europe before and I thought the experience would be worth the cut in income. So, I took off with him and spent several months abroad. When the picture ended, I decided that I'd had it--up to there--with Hollywood and its phonies. I'd spent heavily out there, but I made more than I spent, and when the Spain jaunt came to a close I had brought the Keefe fund up to $160,000, which was salted away in several depositories throughout the United States and in Switzerland.
When we flew back from Spain, I gave away my furniture in Hollywood and planed to Miami Beach. I vacationed there for a few months, working the Miss Universe contest caper with Harry again. Then, when autumn came, I made it back to New York.
I rented an apartment on the East Side, furnished it lavishly, bought a new Cadillac and settled down for a life of ease while I contemplated my next operation. One night, while taking in a Broadway show, I ran across a girl I had known as a hooker in Hollywood. She was with a john, but she left him long enough to come over and say hello. We brought each other up to date on what had been happening in our respective lives, and just before she left to rejoin her john, she insisted that I take her phone number.
"We still have a lot to talk about," she said. "Let's make it some afternoon over coffee."
The idea suited me fine. I had been spending most of my time in solitude since I returned to the city, and I looked forward to some amiable companionship. I called her the next afternoon and we met On 52nd Street for coffee.
"What do you have on tap, Lynn?" she asked.
"Nothing immediate," I admitted. "I've got a little bit salted away and I've been thinking of taking another trip to Europe maybe. Alone this time, not with a john. Or else, maybe I'll work up enough nerve to visit my old home town. Who knows? I may even find a guy there I like."
"You're not going to hustle any more?" die asked, incredulously.
"Well," I said, "I don't really have to. No more tricks for less than a hundred, that's for sure. Maybe I'll turn one or two tricks a week at a hundred or more."
"What're you going to do with your time?"
"Read. Go to plays. I'm not sure."
She stirred her coffee noisily. "You don't want any referrals, then?" she asked.
"Oh, sure, if they're any good. If the price is right."
It was a week later that she called me. She had an out- of-town deal that she couldn't take because she had already made an appointment with another john. It paid three hundred plus all expenses. Was I interested?
I sure was.
"Good," she said. "The guy wants to look at you before he hires you. I'll give him your number and you set up an appointment with him, okay?"
Okay by me.
The man was a tall, gangly character with pink-rimmed eyeglasses (the kind the Army issues) and a moustache that covered his entire upper lip. His suit was custom-made and I'm sure even the tie cost more than twenty dollars, but, the camouflage notwithstanding, he still had the country-boy look about him. His hair was the color and texture of straw and he had the blotched ruddy complexion that seems to be the patented product of the farm belt He introduced himself as Dave Gundy and said that he represented a number of influential men who didn't want their identities disclosed. I would be told neither where I was going to work nor for whom. I would, however, be paid in advance, as an assurance of his good faith. He made it clear that he was engaged by the johns as a procurer, and that he didn't expect to cut into my take--financially or physically.
I went along with his conditions, and the next night Dave and I were on Eastern Air Lines' shuttle from LaGuardia to Washington National Airport, in Arlington. A limousine met us there and took us to a large well-known hotel. Dave ushered me into a room where I found a bronze-skinned Latin American type with bushy eyebrows and a thin black moustache waiting for me.
Dave spoke to him in Spanish which I don't understand. After a brief conversation, Dave turned to me, and said, "I'll be back here for you at seven in the morning."
I didn't speak Spanish and the john didn't speak English, but the language of love is universal. We got along famously. When Dave got back the next morning, the Latin lover gave him a very excited "Es muy agradable," which I didn't need to have translated to know he meant he dug.
"Your work is quite satisfactory," Dave said to me on the plane back to New York. "I'm sure I'll have more work for you in the near future."
He did. A good whore (like a good man, I guess) is hard to find. And when a call girl has to turn down a client because she's already committed to another gig, she's always happy to know that she can refer the john to someone who'll do as good a job as she would.
Among prostitutes, I had an excellent reputation. Anyone who had ever known me as long as I was in the business knew that I worked hard at satisfying a john, gave everybody a straight count with money, and treated right the people who treated me right. Consequently, when word spread among the call girls in New York that I was back on the scene, I found my schedule filling up with referrals. Dave provided me with a lot of work in Washington, and a procurer named Henry Standish had me making the rounds of the U.N. crowd. This action, coupled with the referrals from the other hookers, meant three or four tricks a week, all in the hundred to five hundred price range, all with higher class johns none of whom I had to actively solicit.
The thing I liked best about my setup was the free time. I often had three or four consecutive days of leisure between tricks, and this gave me the opportunity to take in the places I had always wanted to see, but had never got around to seeing. I went up the Hudson and saw West Point, visited Palisades Park in New Jersey, drove to Williamsburg, Va., and saw the mementos or early Colonial times, went to Boston --this time as neither beggar nor fugitive--and walked Scollay Square and the Common, visited Annapolis, Md., and took in the action at Delaware Park, Garden State, Jamaica, Belmont, Monmouth, Laurel, Bowie, and Narragansett.
Finally, during a five-day holiday, I worked up enough nerve to visit Philadelphia and look up Frank Blake. His old telephone number had been disconnected, but I found Saturn Records listed in the phone book and, after talking to four million undersecretaries and secretaries, finally managed to get him on the line.
When I heard Frank's voice, my pulse quickened, and my throat went dry. He seemed pleased to hear me, asked me how I was, and would I have time to have dinner with him?
"I'd love to," I said.
"Fine," he replied. "Tell me where you are and I'll send my chauffeur for you."
It was a long, black Cadillac limousine and the uniformed chauffeur had a way of making you feel you were someone special. Perched grandly in the back seat, I looked out the window, and felt my nose go two inches into the air.
"Mr. Blake instructed me to bring you directly to his office," the chauffeur said. "I trust that coincides with your plans."
"Exactly," I told him.
He maneuvered the vehicle through Philadelphia's narrow streets with expertise, finally pulling it to a halt at the comer of Broad and Locust Streets. Old Frank, I thought; hasn't changed a bit. Affluent as J. Paul Getty, but keeps his offices in this dump--sentimental reasons, no doubt. I wonder if he's sentimental about other things, namely, me.
Frank was seated behind a veritable ocean of mahogany, smoking his omnipresent long green cigar.
"Lynn, baby," he said. "I couldn't be happier to see you."
"Nor could I. What's been happening?"
He filled me in. Saturn Records now had three subsidiary record companies, each of which was worth a small fortune. Pick up a copy of Billboard and you'd be sure to find that at least 10 percent of the top one hundred were releases of Saturn or the subsidiaries. Ward Collins was running the distribution setup out of New York--had I seen him?--the name of the outfit was Orbit Distributing Company, named to coincide with the country's space program, and now handling most of the volume in the rock-and-roll trade. Tony had suffered a heart attack and retired to Florida--had I seen him?--Bob Greene got mixed up in the payola scandals, lost his job at the radio station, and now was hanging around as a pimple on the ass of Saturn's progress. And, jeez, you're looking great, Lynn.
I filled him in on my action since the last rendezvous, Charleston, Miami, Hollywood, New York, Detroit, et til. And, jeez, you're looking up-eat, Frank.
We stopped by Tendlers for cocktails, quit after two. "Let's do things differently," I said. "Let me buy you dinner for once."
Frank laughed. "What's the point of being affluent if you can't show it? Come on out to the pad. I've already phoned in our reservations."
"A housekeeper he's got already," I quipped. "Kid's really getting up in the world."
He blushed.
"Didn't mean to offend you," I apologized. "Any similarity between the offense and the intent is purely coincidental."
"It's not that " he began, as if about to explain. Then, doing a quick about-face, he said, "Come on, let's get out of here before I start bawling like a baby."
My eyebrows arched curiously.
"Come on," he said. "What is it with you, Keefe? You gotta make all your ex-loves feel like hell? Or what?"
I returned his grin and followed him to the cashier's desk.
The chauffeur pulled into a driveway in front of a mansion in Bucks County. The place was enough to make Buckingham Palace look like a reject from Shantytown.
"Quite a spread," I said.
"See the inside," he told me.
He opened the door, stepped back for me to enter, then followed me in.
"Eileen!" he called! "Company to see you!"
The tone of his voice did it. A sick feeling started in the pit of my stomach. "She's your " I began, haltingly.
A tall, shapely brunette wearing a plain, black dress mat accentuated her curves to the best advantage materialized in the doorway of the foyer.
"Eileen, this is Lynn Keefe. You'll remember my speaking about her. Lynn, say hello to my wife, Eileen."
"Nice to meet you, Lynn," Eileen said.
"The pleasure is mine," I lied.
"Well, said Frank, enthusiastically. "I don't know about you people, but I'm famished. Shall we dig in?"
"Dinner's ready, darling," Eileen said.
She led the way to the dining room and Frank ushered me to a seat at the large, walnut table. I noticed place settings for five.
"Expecting company?" I asked him.
"My sons, he said proudly. "Eileen's going to bring them in any minute now. Aren't you, dear?"
Eileen took the cue and vanished through a swinging door.
"Sons, plural," I said. "How old are they?"
"Five and three."
"Five? You didn't waste any time, did you?"
"How long have you been away?" he countered. Close to seven years, isn't it?"
"It seems like seventy years," I said.
"So it does."
There was an awkward pause, after which Frank said: "I used to be a quick man with the repartee. You know. Rapier like tongue. All that stuff. Believe it or not, I can't mink of a damn thing to say."
"You don't have to."
"But I want to. I should have told you at the office. About my being married, I mean. I tried to a couple of times, but I just couldn't."
"Well, anyway--did you make your million?"
"I'm now working on my third million." He sipped from his water goblet. "That doesn't answer your question, though. I'm working on the third, but I didn't make the first." He looked around, as if to make sure no one would overhear us. "I married the first," he said quietly.
His eyes met mine.
"Happy?" I whispered.
He formed the syllable soundlessly on his lips. "No."
Eileen came back with two miniatures of Frank in tow.
"Lynn," he said, "this is Milt, the elder; this is Al, the younger. Boys, say hello to Miss Keefe."
"Hello, Miss Keefe," they said, together.
"Hello, gentlemen," I replied.
On Eileen's cue, the boys took their places at the table. A hefty maid, her timing perfect, brought in a tray of shrimp cocktail.
"Are you in the record business, Lynn?" Eileen asked, a bit too sweetly.
"I'm a prostitute," I replied.
After that, dinner went quickly. The conversation remained impersonal and polite, and when Milt and Al excused themselves, Frank offered to drive me back to the city. The lights on the Schuylkill Expressway whizzed by us as we sped along.
"Looks like I perennially miss the boat, huh?" I asked.
"I'm sorry, Lynn," he said. "I really am. I wish I had handled this more smoothly."
"You don't like her, do you?" I asked.
"God, you're blunt."
"Always was. Maybe that's been my problem."
"I like her. You don't live with someone for six years and not develop some sort of affinity."
"Would you do it over again?"
He didn't answer immediately. I listened to the hum of the tires as they rolled over the smooth concrete highway.
"That's a rough question to answer honestly," he said after a pause. "I mean, behavior is dictated by personality, and since at that time my personality required certain things, and she seemed to fulfill them, I married her. Well, all things being equal--assuming I were in the same situation again, and had the same personality--I guess it follows that I would do it over again."
He flicked the ashes off his cigar, then inhaled thoughtfully. "But now, in view of present circumstances," he continued, "I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn't married her. Am I matching bluntness with bluntness?"
"Not quite."
"All right, damn it, I wish I hadn't married her, then. Get me?"
"I do."
"She doesn't. Get me, I mean. Maybe that's what's wrong with the whole thing. God, I'm being cruel tonight. Don't get me wrong. Eileen is a good woman."
"Thought of divorce?" I asked.
"Completely out of the question. Milt and Al mean too much to me. One thing I owe them is not to drag them through a court custody fight. And I'm exaggerating the problem with Eileen, too. She's not really impossible. Maybe it's just that seeing you after so long made me remember days when things were happier... maybe I wasn't cut out for marriage after all. If anyone is at fault in our marriage, it's me--not Eileen."
"You're making it with other chicks?" I asked.
"No. The problem isn't in the bedroom. It's in the living room. We just don't communicate. I guess that's an old song you've heard time and time again."
"I was unfair to Eileen tonight," I admitted. "Snapping that Tm-a-prostitute' thing at ha- when she asked me if I was in the record business. Maybe I have a guilt complex."
"Then why don't you get out? You've got enough money. Properly invested, you could get a five-grand yearly income out of it and still keep the whole wad intact."
"Why don't you get out of the record business?"
"What for? What would I do?"
"My point. Exactly."
"That's an oversimplification. I'm happy with the record business. Are you happy as a prostitute?"
"I guess not."
"Then get out of the racket."
"What else could I do?"
"A million and one things. Go to college, work as a secretary, do some modeling--straight modeling--" Frank stopped abruptly. When he spoke again, his tone was light and casual. "Hey, what the hell am I doing trying to tell you how to run your life? I'm carrying this absolutist business too far."
"No you're not. Maybe I needed this kind of talking to. Like in the old days."
He seemed to think that one over. "Like in the old days," he repeated slowly.
"It's not entirely the same," I said. "I guess it never can be."
"No, it can't. The wine-and-roses bit happens only once."
"If you're lucky. For some, it doesn't happen at all."
"If it doesn't happen, it's no one's fault but your own." He turned off the expressway and pulled into the southbound traffic on Broad Street. "Life's what you make it. And if it doesn't work out the way you want it to, who's to blame?"
I didn't answer. He negotiated through a phalanx of double- parked vehicles and, finally, came to a halt at a red light.
"You're pretty quiet, all of a sudden," Frank said. When this didn't get a response, he looked at me. "Hey, Lynn!" he exclaimed. "For God's sake, you're crying! Did I say something wrong?"
It took me a long time to answer. "No," I said finally. "You said something so goddamn right it hurts."
* * *
I went back to New York firmly resolved to get out of the business. I spread the word around that I wasn't going to accept any more referrals, and I called the two diplomatic procurers and told them to take me off their fists. I had only one more appointment on my schedule--for a Saturday night deal with a lawyer from Miami Beach--and when I couldn't get another top-caliber hooker to take the gig, I took it myself. This trick, I said, would be the last one I would turn.
My john called for me at seven o'clock and took me to the Four Seasons for dinner. After that, we caught the show at the Blue Angel. Then we made it to a posh party on the west side attended by feature players from many of the current Broadway shows.
It happened while my john was in the kitchen fetching us a refill. The lad left the group of people he was talking with, sided up to me, and said: "I know you're with someone else tonight, but I want very much to talk with you. Can I phone you sometime?"
I looked him over. He was of medium height, slim build; fashionably, but inexpensively, dressed;' black hair, brown eyes; and the clincher was the helpless-little-boy expression that always has been my Achilles heel.
I gave him the phone number; he smiled thanked me and walked away. My john came back from the kitchen, none the wiser, and we took up where we had left off. After the party, we bedded down. The next morning, I walked out of his hotel room, a hundred and fifty dollars in my bag, determined that I had turned my last trick.
"Bonjour, bordello," I said to myself on the way down in the elevator. It was an over dramatization, I know, but over dramatizing helps when you make brave, new resolutions.
Back at my apartment, I found that my friend of the night before had already called. I took his name--Dom Carlo--and his phone number from the answering service, and dialed him. "What's on your mind?" I asked.
"Nothing, really," Dom said. "I just saw you, and dug you, and figured I'd like to talk with you. I wasn't trying to be rude or anything. It's just that I'm from out of town and you're the first girl I saw that I liked, so I figured I'd try to talk with you."
"Talk," I said.
"Telephones aren't my speed," he replied. "Let me buy you lunch tomorrow. I promise I won't try to seduce you." I liked his approach. I like his looks, too.
"It's a deal," I said. "Where do we meet, and when?"
"I'll stop by your apartment for you. One 'clock."
I gave him my address, hung up, then drifted into dreamland.
Wake up, Keefe, a voice inside me said. It's just a guy trying to get laid. You're old enough now to know that the romantic bit doesn't happen--except in the movies. Maybe not, I thought. But maybe so. If you enjoy dreaming, go ahead. Dream.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - How to Raid Corporations and Influence People
Dom Carlo was unique. He was the first guy since my junior year in high school that I didn't sleep with on our first date. The afternoon we had lunch together was one of the most enjoyable times I had had since those days with Frank, years before, in Philadelphia. We were interested in the same things--book, music, theater. Two hours passed before I realized we were so engrossed talking about our mutual interests that we hadn't even told each other anything more about ourselves than our names.
Dom took me back to my apartment later in the afternoon and promised to call again. I practically waited by the phone. At last, I told myself; the dream of dreams come true. I'm in love.
His next call came two days later. He asked me to see a play with him and I accepted. We had pie and coffee after the show in a large cafeteria, but I couldn't have enjoyed myself more if we had gone to The Stork.
When Dom pulled his car to the curb in front of my apartment, I invited him in. We watched the Late Show on television and drank Scotch and water. It wasn't until the third commercial that he kissed me, and then it was very, very tenderly. By the time the feature was over, we still hadn't gone past the tenderness stage.
"I've enjoyed tonight very much, Lynn," he said, getting up and putting on his jacket. "I hope I can call you again.
"Please do," I said. I had to resist the impulse to invite him to spend the night with me. "I can't remember enjoying myself more."
After that, we became a regular twosome. I had forgotten that you could enjoy yourself so much without spending a lot of money. We went to the Hayden Planetarium and the Museum of Modem Art; we made the Greenwich Village scene as tourists--the only way to make the scene, as far as I'm concerned; and once we rode around all day on the subways. Most of the time, though, we stayed at my apartment and either watched television or talked.
The night it first happened was the fourth or fifth night we had been out together. We were sitting around the apartment, listening to Miles Davis' albums, when his hand brushed against my breast. For an instant, we just sat there, neither of us moving.
Then Dom looked into my eyes, smiled bashfully and said: "You're great, Lynn. You know that?"
Very slowly, he brought his face toward mine, our lips met, and his tongue worked its way into my mouth. I felt a tingle run through my spine as his arms closed around my back and pressed me to him. Our bodies melted against each other, and as we writhed in the delicious agony of the moment, I felt torrents of emotion wash over me.
His hand slowly lowered the zipper at the back of my dress; then he reached inside it and caressed my naked back. I felt the pressure of my brassiere fall away as he unloosened the clasp, and, automatically, my hands went to his waist, caressing, tugging, pulling.
We lay on the floor. Every nerve of my body was alive. I felt his presence inside me, and savored it. Our bodies locked, and our lips. Slowly we began moving in the rhythm of love. I felt myself riding the crest of a huge wave of pleasure, and when my climax was reached, I felt that I had risen to a height of ecstasy not approached since that night, long ago, when I lost my virginity.
* * *
I had told Dom nothing about myself. When I first became aware of how much he meant to me, I seriously deliberated the matter. Should I try to hide my past from him? Should I confess to everything?
I wanted him to know, but at the same time I feared that my telling him would ruin our relationship, so I remained silent. I only said that I had worked in New York as a model, and I had done well enough that it was no longer necessary for me to keep working. Meanwhile, I tried to find a way in which I could let him know about the work I had done--and still not lose his affection.
He had told me virtually nothing about himself, either. He was a musician, he had said, and he had come to New York from Bridgeport, Connecticut, hoping to make his name in modem jazz circles. As yet, he hadn't had any success. But he would persist in trying.
It was almost a month after we began going together that he broke the news to me. He had gone broke without being able to get in with the right people, so he had no choice but to return to Bridgeport.
I offered to let him stay at my apartment, but he declined.
"It's too much to ask, Lynn," Dom told me. "Besides, I'm so completely broke that I don't even have money to eat. I'd only be a burden to you, and I couldn't live with myself if I did that."
I insisted. I offered him vehement arguments.
"You'll never make it in Bridgeport," I said. "The only way to make it is by staying in New York. If you go back, you can consider your career finished before it even gets started."
"I couldn't impose on you like that," he protested.
"Let me decide what's an imposition and what isn't," I rejoined. "You owe it to yourself to stay here."
Dom stayed. Three months later, he had relieved me of forty thousand dollars. I won't go into all the painful details--they'd be too painful for me, not you--but I'll outline his scheme briefly.
He had convinced me that the only way he could make it was by producing his own record, then sending copies of it to all the major labels. My experiences in Philadelphia years before verified that this was theoretically correct. What I had failed to realize, though, is that he never really hired musicians or ran a session, as he told me he had. He had simply had a demonstration record made from an obscure album. Since I was unfamiliar with the album, I assumed the sounds were those of Dom and the musicians he had hired. The demo cost him four dollars. I had given him twenty thousand to hire the best musicians, pay the best arrangers, and rent the best studio for a session that never took place!
When he played the bogus demo for me, I was so enthused by the sound, I gave him ten thousand more to promote it. Two weeks after that, I came up with an additional ten thousand. Dom disappeared. I haven't seen him since.
I didn't get the picture until Dom had been gone for a month. Then I called Frank in Philadelphia and asked him if he thought the expenses I popped for were legit.
"Put that phone down and don't leave your apartment," he said. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
I explained the entire chain of events, beginning to end, to Frank. When I had finished, he leaned back in his chair, studied his cigar thoughtfully.
"How much money do you have left?" he asked.
"About a hundred and twenty thousand," I told him. "Well, you've been taken. And if you don't want to get taken for the rest, you'd better put that hundred and twenty grand away somewhere where you can't get at it."
"What do you suggest?" I asked.
"Give it to me," he said.
"All right," I replied.
"God damn it, Lynn, do you have to be so trusting?"
"Well, Frank, I know you wouldn't take me."
"No, and you knew Dom wouldn't take you either. But he did."
"Well, if I can't trust you, whom can I trust."
"You can't trust anybody. Oh, goddamn it, give me the money. You can trust me. I should run off on you with it, (hat's what I should do. Anybody stupid enough to get taken deserves it. But I've known you too long and like you too much."
I kept ten thousand dollars to live on and gave Frank power of attorney to withdraw the remainder from the various banks and depositories where I had it stashed.
"Here," he said disgustedly, handing me a slip of paper. "It's a receipt for your goddamn hundred and ten thousand. Which you wouldn't have had the sense to ask for."
"Thanks, noble protector of the innocents," I told him. "Not so fast. I'm going to take 15 percent of all your earnings from this money--that means interest, dividends from investments, everything. I've just become your business manager."
"You're entitled."
"Oh, kiss my ass, Keefe, will you?"
"Don't get romantic. It doesn't become a business manager." He folded the papers and put them in his inside pocket. "So long, lad," he said. "You're dough is in good hands."
I went back to prostitution after the fiasco with Dom for two reasons: 1) I had nothing else to do, and 2) I was mad at men in general and wanted to take them for all I could.
Before long, I had a thousand-dollar-a-week business going again. After I had picked up about twenty thousand, I slackened my pace and decided to do a little traveling again. The space program was going big guns, so I pointed my Caddy south and headed for Cape Canaveral.
It was the time of Colonel John Glenn's orbital shot and the Cape was jumping. No one was permitted behind the security screen surrounding Canaveral itself; but Cocoa Beach, which adjoins the military installation, is one of the swingingest spots in the country at shot time. The place crawls with newspapermen and television people, along with general well-wishers, tourists, the curious, and, probably, a few spies from this aggressor nation or that. Everyone cuts loose on the six-mile strip of plush motels lining the main street.
I went there to Canaveral to rest and to observe, but I found myself going to work. It was two afternoons before the shot when I met Grace Forest, a hooker I had known in Miami at the Pooh Bar.
"This is Bonanzaville if you don't mind turning quick tricks," Grace said. "You can get fifty bucks on up a throw, and you can usually turn ten quickies a night."
"I'm vacationing," I objected.
"So, vacation," she shot back. "But if you decide to get in on the action, it's ready and waiting."
I thought it over. Why not? I rented a room, then started prowling. It was like a convention of Hookers Anonymous. I saw girls I hadn't seen in years--some from Hollywood, others from New York, others from Miami.
* * *
One of my johns in Cocoa was a big man in the manufacture of machinery. When I first saw him--sitting quietly at a dim bar--I didn't think I should approach him; he seemed too wrapped up in his thoughts. The place was almost empty, though, and it was too early in the evening to expect any strong action at any of the other places, so I decided to give it a try. I slid onto the bar stool next to him and ordered a tall scotch and water. He seemed not to notice me.
I sipped my drink pensively, pretending to concentrate on the bartender. At the same time, however, I reached out with my knee until I could feel that it was touching his trousers.
Through the comer of my eye, I observed him glancing down to see if what he thought to be happening actually was. After taking a look, he straightened up again; then, very gently, he applied pressure to my knee with his. When I returned the pressure, he flashed Churchill's V-for-victory sign at the bartender, who correctly interpreted' it as an order for two drinks.
I took mine, sipped it, and smiled my thanks.
"Lynn's my name," I told him. "What's yours?"
"Mr. Mort " he began slowly, in the manner of one long accustomed to prefixing his name with the title. Then, apparently realizing he wasn't talking to one of the lackeys around his plant, he stopped midword, turned on a smile that allowed his false teeth to flash at full advantage, and said, "John. John Morton."
"Hi, John," I cooed demurely, amused at the appropriate first name. "What brings you to Cocoa?"
"The shot," he said. ("Shot" is Cocoa-Canaveral parlance for an orbital flight.) "The missus with you?"
"Naw," he replied, grinning mischievously. "She's back in Atlanta." He forced a laugh. "When the cat's away, the mouse can play, or something like that."
I smiled contentedly. John was a would-be wit. Would-be wits are the easiest johns to make.
"Does the mouse like to pay for play?" I baby-talked.
"Might be," he answered.
"That's what I like," I told him. "Definitive replies."
"That's a mighty big word for a little girl to be throwing around," he said.
"You're evading the issue," I said. "One hundred dollars, yes or no."
He looked at me with a new respect. "By God, I like that," he said, his tone conveying a mixture of amusement and admiration. "A girl like you might just fit into my plans."
I came on with the sweet-little-girl grin again. "Well, slip a C-note under the bar and we'll go somewhere and do some planning."
"Hell, yes," he continued. "I like that a lot."
"The hundred, John," I pressed. "Or would you rather give it to me in the room?"
"Yeah, in the room," he repeated, his thoughts seemingly a thousand miles away.
I polished off my Scotch and water and waited for him to finish. "Are we going to sit here and contemplate it awhile, John?" I asked. Or do we make it now?"
He left his change on the bar, got up dazedly from the stool, and followed me out into the parking lot.
"The room, John," I prompted him. "Where is it?"
He came back from me clouds. "Oh, yes. Upstairs."
I followed him back into the motel, and then up a flight of stairs to his room. I practically had all my clothes off by the time he put up the "Do Not Disturb" sign and locked the door. I was standing there in bra and panties by the time he got his jacket off. He looked me over with obvious approval, crossed the room to me, and put his arms around my back. His lips found mine and pressed against them. I struggled to disengage myself from his grip.
"The money, honey," I whispered, sliding out of his reach. "That's a prerequisite."
He took out a billfold, extracted two fifty-dollar bills, and handed them to me. I brought them across the room to my purse. Once they were safely inside, I turned to him again. "And now, baby," I said, my manner a parody of a screen siren overacting the seductive bit, "let's swing!" We went into action quickly. We were finished even more quickly. John put his trousers back on and lit a cigarette.
"How'd you like to spend a little time in Atlanta?" he asked me.
"What's the proposition?" I asked back.
"I have a friend I'd like you to meet," he said.
"I meant, what's the financial proposition, John?" I explained.
He thought it over.
"How much would you want to come to Atlanta and seduce a man?"
"Five hundred dollars a day plus expenses."
"It would only take one day," he told me. "And I'll pay you a thousand dollars if you succeed."
I was suspicious. "This isn't a blackmail deal or anything like that, is it?" I asked.
He looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "No," he said. "Not blackmail. You might say that I want you to "fight a delaying action, as we call it in the army."
"I never was in the army, John. Suppose you be a little more explicit."
He spelled it out for me. There was a man in Atlanta named Roger Guernsey who was on the board of directors of John's firm. It was very important to John that Roger be absent from a board of directors' meeting scheduled for the first Tuesday of the following month. The meeting started at nine, and should end by ten--if I succeeded in keeping Roger from attending it.
My assignment: meet Roger the night of the first Monday of the month, lure him into my hotel room, and keep him there until 11 a.m. Tuesday.
"Easier said than done," I told John. "When a guy wants to go, he goes. There's nothing much a girl can do about it."
"I don't care what you do to keep him there," he said. "Knockout drops, tie him to the bed, anything short of murder. Just keep him there. It's worth a thousand dollars to you."
"If I fail?"
"You get nothing."
"No go."
"All right, if you fail I'll still underwrite your expenses. But don't fail."
* * *
I arrived in Atlanta via jet Monday afternoon and met John in the lounge at the airport. He showed me a picture of Roger Guernsey.
"Roger doesn't live here in Atlanta," he explained. "He flew in last week and he's due to fly out Wednesday. So you won't have to worry about him having to be home at any specific time. He doesn't have a wife here to account to."
"Where can I find him?" I asked.
"He'll be at the Queen's Inn, on Peachtree Drive, around seven o'clock. He goes there for dinner every night. And he'll jump at the chance to talk with you. He's a ladies' man from the word go, and he's been here without any ladies around just about Tong enough to be homy."
"The Queen's Inn," I repeated. "Onward."
* * *
I had no trouble recognizing Roger Guernsey. He was seated at a table for two, enthusiastically gobbling a blood-red steak. I ordered a drink and sipped it slowly, all the while looking in his direction. He noticed me and smiled. I smiled back. As far as I was concerned, Guernsey was now in the bag. But he waited until he had finished dessert before he made his move. A waiter came over to me and said that Mr. Guernsey wondered if I would care to have a drink with him.
When I joined him at his table and he ordered drinks, I regarded him with what I hoped he would take to be an expression of bewilderment. "I m terribly sorry for staring at you, sir," I said. "I had mistaken you for someone else."
"Aw, shucks," said Guernsey, doing the innocent country- boy bit to the hilt. "And Ah thought it was because you thought Ah was a pleasant-lookin' sort."
I feigned a nervous laugh. "Oh, you are, sir. You're a very pleasant-looking sort. But I had mistaken you for another very pleasant-looking sort, who looks sort of like you. Pleasant. Sort of."
That got the laugh I expected it would. It's the sort of stupid line that the screenwriters always put in movies. And nothing makes a potential john happier than the thought that he's associating with a movie-looking sort. Sort of.
"Hail," he said, meaning "hell," I imagine. "Looks lahk Ah got yuh all confused there, little girl. Ah'd say that calls for another drink, wouldn't you?"
I wanted to tell him mat his script sounded like something the hacks used to turn out over at Republic before they closed the place down. I decided in favor of a more politic response.
"I'd love another drink, sir," I said. "But don't you think we ought to wait until the waiter brings the first ones you ordered?"
"Hail," he replied. "Ah plum forgot about them. And the name, bah the way, is Rodge. Short for Roger. So let's not go calling me 'sir' anymore, okay?"
"Okay, Rodge," I said, giving him a smile cute enough to be on a Girl Scouts poster. "And my name is Lynn."
"It's indeed mah pleasure," he said, his southern grace and courtliness oozing out like resin from a pine tree.
"The pleasure is mine," said I, claiming this battle for the north, by employing a sweet-as-molasses smile.
Thereafter, good ol' courtly Rodge spent a good hour waging a good ol' courtly battle to get me to go to bed with him. I kept my long-range goals in sight. I had to stall him off until at least one or two A.M. if my ploy was going to work.
I persuaded him to take me on a guided tour of Atlanta, which got us as far as eleven o'clock when I coaxed him to buy a bottle. We hit my hotel room at eleven-thirty, and I kept him completely at bay until midnight. Then he made the fatal move. He tried to get me drunk.
When I noticed that my drink was on the heavy side, I made a big thing about letting him know it. We struggled around, swapping glasses, pouring extra shots into each other's, and indulged in similar childish crap, for almost half an hour. When one o'clock came, I was half crocked--but so was he. And the important thing was, we hadn't even got to the kissing stage yet.
I knew that my success would depend on holding off as long as possible before I finally gave in to him. Once he d made the scene with me, he would be an independent man, free to come and go as he chose; until he made the scene with me, he was my captive.
I toyed with the captive, carefully walking the very thin line that separated surrender from resistance. I couldn't resist too strongly, or he'd be liable to say to hell with it and walk out of the room; I couldn't surrender too easily, or he'd be liable to go to sleep soon after. My success depended upon keeping him up as late as possible, but--another thin line-- not late enough for him to decide to stay awake right on through until meeting time.
When I did give in to his advances, it was shortly after two o'clock. He was eager to make it, and that worked out nicely for me. Had he been rather indifferent, he would have had greater staying power; as it was, he climaxed quickly, and that gave me the perfect opening.
"Rodge," I cooed, are you tired of me already?"
"Whah d'yuh ask that?"
"You stopped so soon. Didn't you enjoy it?"
"Honey, I came. That's whah Ah stopped."
"Well, next time try to hold out a little longer," I said. "I don't get any enjoyment out of it when it's that quick."
"Okay," he said offhandedly, as if bored with me now that I had served my purpose. "Next time All'll try to last longer."
"Good," I purred. "You could be so good if you only tried." He wasn't listening. "Yeah," he said, getting out of bed and rummaging around on the floor.
"Rodge! I called, alarmed. "Aren't you going to spend the night here with me, honey?"
"Naw, Ah got an important meeting in the morning. Ah better be getting back to my hotel."
The situation called for quick action. I spied my glass of scotch and water on the night table.
"Well, let me see you to the door," I said, getting out of bed. At the same time, I adroitly managed to spill my drink over his trousers. "Oh, I'm sorry, Rodge," I cried, pretending alarm. "I didn't mean to do that."
"Dumb whore!" he cursed. "Ah can't go out with these pants like this. Ah'll have to wait until they dry."
Dumb whore, I thought, smiling to myself. We shall see, Rodge Guernsey we shall see.
I got him drinking again while he was waiting for the trousers to dry, and then I got him in the mood for love. I kept him at bay awhile longer, meanwhile smearing my lipstick over every imaginable part of him. It was an effective tactic. After we had made it the second time, he decided he'd better take a shower.
While he was showering, I hid his clothes in a comer of the closet. Then I set his watch back from five-thirty to three- thirty.
I wrapped a towel around him when he came out of the shower, rubbed him vigorously, and suggested he call the switchboard to put in a wake-up order for whatever time he wanted to get up. He told the switchboard seven A.M. Then, perfectly contented, he went to bed.
When I was sure he was asleep, I went downstairs and told the switchboard operator to make it eleven A.M. instead of seven. Back in my room, I reaffirmed that Rodge was sound asleep, gathered my stuff together, plus his clothes, and carted them all out with me. I took a cab to John Morton's house and turned Guernsey's clothes over to him. Then I collected my $1,000. It was eight A.M.
If Guernsey woke up before the call, he'd think it was two hours earlier than it was. Either way, he'd have nothing to wear out of the room. He couldn't make the meeting.
I never did find out precisely why John wanted him absent from the meeting. I assume it had something to do with not wanting Guernsey to vote on an important issue. I really didn't care. I only hoped it would cost Guernsey a lot of money, whatever it was. Then, maybe, he'd be more careful about who he called a dumb whore.
Whore, yes. Dumb, no.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - The Price Goes Up at Midnight
It was Memorial Day, 1962. I was sipping a coke in a drug store on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., when I spotted a tall, hefty bleached blonde eying me from across the counter who seemed familiar. I searched my memory for some due by which I might identify her but, no luck. My curiosity getting the best of me, I walked over to her and asked if I hadn't met her before. Her eyes lit up with the sparkle of recognition and her heavily pan-caked face cracked open in a toothy grin.
"Lynn Keefe!" she boomed, her husky alto strong enough to crack glass. "I thought it was you. How the hell are you?"
"Ruth!" I exclaimed, hugging her. "I didn't recognize you. What are you doing in Washington?"
"Laying on my back, just like I was in Charleston. Only the money's better here." She laughed. "Christ, you're looking good. What bring you to D.C.? Running for Congress?"
"I'm with a john," I explained. "A munitions manufacturer from New York. He came out to talk to his lobbyist."
"Well, you're really getting up in the world. I'd say that calls for a drink. Let me buy you one."
I smiled. "It's a little early in the day for me."
"Like hell it is," she thundered. "It's never too early." She pounded her fist on the counter. "Let's have a round over here, bartender!" she called to the counterman. "A coke for the lady and a 7-up for me. Go light on the ice."
"You quit the hard stuff?" I asked her, amazed.
Ruth smiled bashfully. "Just temporarily," she said. "Like for the next thirty or forty years."
"How long have you been off it?"
"Four years now.
"Very good. Very, very good." I raised my coke glass in mock toast. "I'm proud of you."
She coughed noisily. "Don't be. I'm liable to pass a beer joint tomorrow and feel the old urge and walk right in and get smashed."
"I doubt it," I said sincerely.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, changing the subject, "if you've got a lot of time on your hands, why don't you drop by the hotel and say hello to Greg. I'm sure he'd be glad to see you. He always thought a lot of you."
"Is Greg in Washington too?"
"Sure. It's his caper. We work the high school graduation classes. We've been doing it for five years now."
"The whole gang from Charleston is here?"
"Everybody."
"How's Margaret?"
Ruth shook her head back and forth sadly. "She's dead," she said.
"Dead?" I repeated incredulously.
"Suicide. It happened the first year we were up here."
"I can't believe it," I said.
Ruth made a line of wet circles on the counter top with the bottom of her glass. "She got stoned one night. Went over to the White House. Tried to get in to see the President. Told the guard at the gate that she used to be his mistress in Europe during the war. Re gave her the bum's rush."
I watched her take the straw from the glass and fold it in half. "When she came back to the hotel Margaret looked depressed, but nobody figured she had been hit so bad. Not bad enough for suicide. She stopped by my room and told me about what happened at the White House, then she had a drink with me, bummed one of my cigarettes, and went to her own room. An hour later, Greg went in to tell her that he had a trick lined up for her. He found her in the bathtub. Covered with blood. She used a razor on her wrists and throat."
"My God," I gasped.
"There was a suicide note on her dresser. It said: 'You have a lovely country here, but I would rather be put to rest in the soil of my native Switzerland. Please send my remains to the King of Switzerland, and when he recognizes my body, he will reimburse you.' It was signed, 'Margaret.' "
"The King of Switzerland?" I asked her curiously.
Ruth's lips parted in a whimsical half-smile. "I guess she got so used to all those stories she used to tell everybody that she finally started believing them herself. We found her birth certificate in her luggage. She was born in Hoboken, N.J. Probably never left the country."
I sipped my coke slowly. "Poor thing."
"You know, I kind of liked the old bitch," Ruth said, her gruff tone returning. "She was a whackpot all right, but she was a pretty good old broad. I hated leaving her in the hotel room like that."
"You mean you just left her there?"
"What else?" she shrugged. "Who wants to get involved with the cops? When we found out she was dead already, there was nothing we could do. So we just checked out of the hotel and registered at another one under different names."
"Ruth!" I protested. "That was cruel."
"Call it what you like, Lynn," she replied. "I didn't like doing it, but what would you have done? I'm going to risk a stretch in the can just to get a decent burial for her corpse? What the hell does it matter anyway, once you're dead?"
She nudged my shoulder. "Come on kid," Ruth said, forcing a smile, "you can't go around getting depressed just because life doesn't deal everybody a hand of aces. You've got to accept things as they are, even if that's not the way you want them to be."
I toyed with my straw. "I suppose you're right," I admitted. "But it's a still pretty rotten deal."
"Come on," she said, draining her glass. "If we keep up with the morbid chatter like this you will have me off the wagon before you know it. Let's go say hello to Greg. That's sure to cheer you up."
* * *
"This high school scene is the greatest gimmick in our business since the invention of the whorehouse," Greg told me excitedly. "Every June more than a hundred thousand kids come to D.C. on their graduation trip. It's all young trade, so it doesn't take more than five or ten minutes to service each one. They're all good for anywhere between ten or fifteen bucks each... it's like shooting sitting ducks."
I listened to him describe the details of his operation. The setup, I had to admit, was a good one.
Greg had four girls and four sailors who were on leave working for him. The sailors were young and could mix in with the high school crowds without attracting any attention. Through contacts who worked as bellhops or doormen in hotels, Greg learned when a new group of high school seniors arrived. Then he would send one of his sailors to the designated hotel. The sailors would pretend to be graduates of a high school in a different part of the country from the potential marks. They'd mix in with the boys, and when their acquaintanceship developed to the stage where they began exchanging sexual anecdotes, the sailors would boast of how they had just "discovered" a whorehouse. All aspiring lovers would then be channeled to the appropriate girls.
"Do you have room for one more girl in your stable?" I asked him.
Greg looked at me incredulously. "Who? You, Lynn? I'll always have room for you. But, Christ, I thought you were working high class johns, hundred-dollar-a-trick deals."
"I am. Hundred a trick and better," I told him. "But I always get a kick out of young guys, you know that. If I figure I can pick up fifty or so a night and make it with the young stuff, I don't mind the cut in pay."
"You'll do fifty a night in a walk," he said. "The minimum trick is ten, and five of that's yours. Hell, you'll turn twenty to thirty tricks a night with no trouble."
"So I can make five hundred a week, huh?"
"Easily, the way you work. And we always get more for the late tricks, you know."
"That's a new one on me," I admitted.
"Sure. The high school kids are the only ones it works with. Early in the evening, they're out trying to get served in the bars, of watching bands or stuff. Come eleven-thirty or twelve o'clock, they're ripe for action--all at the same time. So that's when we jack the tariff. Sometimes, we can get twenty or thirty dollars out of a kid."
The thought of a couple of weeks working the assembly line for high school kids set off a spark somewhere inside me. Kids, I had found, are the greatest in bed. They are eager and able; you didn't have to spend half an hour getting them into the mood; you made it the conventional way--not bothering with deviates or fetishists. It would be a welcome relief after my recent series of stints with aging businessmen.
"Deal me in," I told Greg.
He smiled happily. "When can you start?"
I leafed through my mental filing cabinet. "I go back to New York with my john Tuesday," I said. "I have another deal scheduled for Thursday, but after that I'm free. I'll get here Friday."
"Good deal," he told me. "I'll get another sailor up from Charleston to pimp for you."
I stood up. "See you Friday then," I said.
Greg grinned. "See you Friday."
I took a cab back to the hotel and waited for my john to finish up the meeting with his lobbyist. When he came back that night and we made it together, I found myself imagining, in his place, the supple young body of a lithe eighteen-year- old high school boy. My john found me better than ever.
* * *
Perhaps, there are some of you who might be inclined to raise a skeptical eyebrow at the thought of Greg's vast caper with the high school kids. Maybe that stuff about Charleston might be true, you say; maybe they carry on like that in New York or Miami; but not in Washington--not in the nation's capital. Well, chum, if you feel that way, it shows you just don't know D.C. (as in the nation's capital; also, as in direct current--high voltage).
In Washington, where there are, according to reliable estimates, more than 10,000 practicing professional prostitutes--and this figure does not include those who do it for kicks, or to solve temporary monetary problems--there are sex packages designed for virtually every pocketbook. The ultra-upper echelons, of course, are often serviced out of New York--their girls fly into Washington on the LaGuardia- National shuttle, or they fly to New York to meet the girls. Tricks in that class are in the two hundred and up price range. Local yokels of the upper-middle class have legions of $100- a-nighters, who hustle in cocktail lounges or operate out of call setups. The bourgeoisie get theirs from streetwalkers, who charge from fifteen to fifty dollars, or from babes who hustle out of call setups. While the bona fide whorehouse has vanished--part of a national trend--it's still possible to find chicks working out of hotel rooms if the john doesn't have a place.
There's an abundance of action for those who prefer non- Caucasian whores. Some pimps and madames run establishments staffed with Caucasian girls and frequented by Oriental or Negro girls. Much of the straight Negro action is in the Northeast sector.
Tourists are, by and large, the prime target of the chicks in Washington who play for pay. The governmental bigwigs either fly to New York for kicks, or import New York girls; the lesser lights, who still consider themselves too important to risk detection by their associates by messing with local stuff, motor across the Baltimore-Washington Expressway to the Maryland port, where the action is faster. (It's only thirty- five miles away.) The average joes find all the action they need--at no cost--among the government gals. In Washington, the females outnumber the males nine-to-one.
The tourists generally check in at hotels on New York Avenue or some other street close to the intersection of 14th and F Streets--the D.C. Times Square--and take their nighttime strolls on 14th, 15th, or 16th, between F and K.
There's action in Washington for all types, no matter what their preferences; the only passkey the desirous participant needs is the knowledge of where the action is. And now you know.
* * *
The high school graduation trip crowd started moving on the capital in earnest during the second week of June, and I found myself handling between twenty and forty tricks a night. The first trickle of activity would begin about eight P.M. when the kids the sailor-pimps had met at suppertime were steered our way. After supper, the sailors would prowl the lobbies of the hotels where the kids were registered and round up whatever strays they could. Then they would head for the joints on 14th Street, particularly the ones with twist and rock-and-roll music.
The overtness with which the sailors sometimes pitched the kids was almost incredible. One of the promoters, a seaman second named Al, who was twenty-four, but looked eighteen, had a technique like a barker on a carnival midway.
One night, about nine-thirty, my action had slacked off completely. Ruth wasn't busy either, so I asked her to handle whatever trade was sent to me, while I went out for a walk.
Al was standing in front of a rock-and-roll club, surrounded by an eager-eyed group of kids when I turned the comer at 14th Street. I drifted up to the fringe of his audience and listened, amazed, as he went through his pitch.
"You've never seen anything like it, buddy--boobs out to here " Al extended his arms, hands cupped inward, three feet in front of him, alluding to an imaginary mammary development. " and a pair of legs that won't quit. I practically shot my load just looking at her. You never seen nothing like it in your life. Well, she asks me for twenty bucks and I take a bill out of my wallet and fork it over to her, and she puts it away in her purse, and then she turns to me sort of funny like and says: 'Whatdaya say, fellow, you look like a gambling man, you wanna go for double or nothing?' And I ask, 'Whatdaya mean?" And she says, 'I'll tell you what, give me another twenty and block your eyes. I'll hide it some place on my person, and when I get it hid I'll give you the word. You start looking. You got three minutes to find it. If you find it in the three minutes, you get the both twenties bade, and you get laid for nothing. If you don't find it, it costs you forty bucks.' "I figure, what the hell, you're only young once, might as well five it up, so I give her another twenty and I turn my back and close my eyes. Minutes later, she says, 'Okay, open 'em up and look.' "Now, get this, buddy, she's sitting there on the bed with this thin nightgown on--you could see right through it. Them boobs are staring at me like I-dunno-what and right away I wanna grab ahold of them and bite the hell out of them, you know? But I think of the twenty, and I wonder where the hell she can have it hid. So, first of all, I make her open up her hands and it isn't there. Then I have her stand up and wiggle around, in case it's some place in the nightgown. Now, when she wiggles around, those boobs start bouncing like a couple balloons and I'm about to go out of my mind. But I think of the twenty and keep looking. She's holding one arm against her side real stiff, so I figure maybe it's under there, so I make her hold the arm out, but her armpit's empty. 'It has to be on your person, right?' I ask her, just to make sure.
"Right,' she says. Okay, I get an idea. Take off the nightgown,' I say. She does. Oh, Christ, I'm ready to go out of my mind. Her skin is creamy white, and I want to get those two boobs and bury my face between them. You never seen nothing like it. "Well,' I ask her, 'is it still on your person?' She says it is. Okay, I figure, I got it now--it's in her mouth. So I have her open her mouth and stick out her tongue and there's nothing there. 'Your three minutes are up,' she says. "You lose.' We finally got down to business and I nearly go out of my mind. You never seen a bitch move like she does. Like when it's over I figure I won't be able to walk for a week."
Throughout the narrative, the sailor had held the rapt attention of his listeners. Now, saying nothing, his head slowly swiveled from one end of the semicircle of eager faces to the other.
"Whatdaya think of that?" Al asked them.
After fifteen seconds of unbroken silence, one of the group ventured a question: "Where was the twenty dollar bill?"
Al smiled.
"You'll never believe it"
"Well, where?"
"She had it curled up under her toes," Al said slowly. The disclosure was followed by a chorus of "Awwwwww's."
"Well," Frank challenged, "would you think of looking under her goddamn toes if you were standing there with a naked broad with boobs out to here?"
A short thin kid with black curly hair and a built-in sneer turned on Al with a derisive half-grin. "I think you're putting us on, man," he said.
"What?" Al demanded, feigning rage. "What did you say!"
The kid held his ground. The grin widening, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, crossed his arms, and said: "You're putting us on. You're a big bullshitter."
It was exactly the reply Al was hoping for.
"You don't believe me?"
"No."
"You want proof?"
"Yeah."
"All right, I'll take you there right now. You got twenty dollars?"
The kid smirked. "I ain't got twenty."
"Well, you don't get to see her then."
"Suppose he gives you the twenty and you beat it, man?" another kid ventured.
"He don't give me the twenty," Al argued. "He gives it to the broad."
A third kid nudged his companion. "Whattaya say, Ted? Wanna go take a look, see if this guy's putting us on?"
"Wait a minute," Al said. "You can't go together. She only takes you one at a time."
"Let's go," Ted's buddy pressed. "One of us can wait outside while the other goes in."
"Where do you go, man?" Ted asked Al.
"Well, I'll tell you. There's this hotel on " Al went into an explanation of the location of the hotel, and the manner in which the kids were to register with Joe or whichever of his subordinates happened to be on duty. Each of the group gazed at him with wide-eyed attention, drinking in each of the instructions.
"And that's all there's to it," Al concluded. "Only you'd better get there as quick as you can, cause later it gets busy and you're liable not to get taken care of. Besides, the price goes up at midnight."
"What?" one of the kids asked skeptically.
"The price goes up," Al repeated. "You know, these whores gotta get paid time and a half for overtime. So you better get there as quick as you can."
* * *
It was a Wednesday afternoon and I was having brunch at a comer restaurant when I overheard the conversation of the two young girls in an adjacent booth. One of them had suggested that they visit the Washington Monument. The second argued that she would rather they go to the House of Representatives and visit Congressman Scranton.
I felt my pulse quicken. Congressman Scranton would be William W. Scranton, after whose forebears the city of Scranton had been named. At that time he was the representative of one of the state's legislative districts.
"Mr. Scranton won't have time to see us," the first protested. "He'd be too busy."
"Maybe if we had Mr. Markham call him he'd see us," replied the second. "After all, we're his future constituents." Markham. The name jolted my memory. Was it possible? I asked myself. Or was I stretching coincidence too far?
"Pardon me," I said turning to the girls. "Are you from Scranton, Pennsylvania?"
"Why, yes!" they chorused. "Are you?"
"I lived there some years ago," I said quickly, dismissing the subject. "I heard you mention a Mister Markham. Would you happen to know his first name?"
One of them stared into space thoughtfully. "Ronald, I think," she said at last.
Ronnie Markham! It had to be! Coincidence--or fate--he was here in Washington. I learned from the girls the name of the hotel at which the Scranton group was staying. I wolfed down the rest of my lunch, paid the check, and hurried to a telephone booth. The switchboard operator connected me with his room. The baritone voice that answered the phone seemed only vaguely familiar to me. The voice I had remembered was a nasal whine, its tinny sound carrying the message of supplication and entreaty. The voice I heard now was firm, authoritative.
"Lynn Keefe," I said. "Formerly of Scranton,, Pee Aye. Does the name ring a bell?"
"Ring a bell?" Ronnie replied enthusiastically. "It rings a whole steepleful of bells. Where are you?"
"The comer of 14th and G. What the hell are you doing in Washington with a covey of high school kids?"
"Playing den daddy. The chaperone job always falls on the teachers with the least time in grade."
"Well, do you think you can get away long enough to have a drink with an old schoolmate? Or would that conflict with the professorial image?"
"To hell with the professorial image," he said. "I'll be there in five minutes."
Ronnie was wearing a tweed sport jacket and smoking a pipe which blended well with his image during the high school days. Nothing else about him did, though. His shoulders were sloped slightly forward now in contrast to the military posture of the past; his eyes, that had once danced eagerly, now were dull, tired. The once vibrantly ruddy complexion that had boasted of milk-drinking and football calisthenics had now become a pale white.
Ronnie looked around the room, spotted me in the booth, and studied my face carefully before flashing a smile of recognition. "God, time does take it's toll of us, doesn't it," he grinned, sliding into the seat opposite me.
I smiled back. "A more sensitive woman might misunderstand your macabre sense of humor and take that as an insult," I said.
His grin broadened. "Don't confuse sensitivity with vanity," he told me. "And I'm telling you the truth. You look terrible."
"What happened to the polite little guy from Farr Street with all the good manners?" I wanted to know.
"He died," Ronnie said. "Meet the cynic who resurrected himself in the deceased's discarded form."
"Just to set the record straight," I returned, "you look pretty lousy yourself."
"Your opinions shall be duly noted, Miss Keefe. And, to restate my opening line, time doth take its toll. Now, then, how are you?"
"Fine," I said softly. "How are you?"
He nodded his head slowly. "Fine, fine," he told me, his voice barely audible. "What else can you say after eight years?"
I watched the comers of his mouth relax and droop into seriousness which, somehow, seemed appropriate.
"The world's not treating you well?" I asked quietly.
He lifted his head with a jerk and replaced the frown with a smile. "This is no time for morbid revelations," he said brightly. "You were talking about a drink not long ago, if I remember correctly. Shall we find a nice quiet spot and have one?"
I let my enthusiasm match his. "Lead the way."
The bar was quiet and cool. The bartender placed our drinks in front of us and discreetly vanished. The intimate atmosphere of the room seemed to have removed the necessity for facade that each of us had felt moments earlier in the restaurant.
"What have you been doing, Ron?" I asked him softly.
His grin, this time, was sheepish.
"Treading water. Urinating against the wind. Running the wrong way on a treadmill to nowhere." He smiled sardonically. "How's that for a progress report on the man voted as the Member of the Class of 1954 Most Likely To Succeed?"
"Fill me in," I said. "Cripes, it's been eight years. Tell me what you've done."
"I'll attack it chronologically," he told me. "Let me see--the last time we were together, I proposed marriage, and you declined. Then you went off to the Catskill Mountains or God- knows-where and I went to work as a counselor at a boys' camp near Honesdale. The next fall, I enrolled at the University of Scranton, where I spent four uneventful years, the last of which was 1958, in June of which year I was handed a sheepskin that asserted to the entire world that I was an educated man. The following autumn I enrolled as a graduate student at Penn State, where I got my master's degree in physics. That was 1960. The next fall, I began teaching physics in the venerable Scranton School District and here I am. How's that for a capsule version of one man's lifetime?"
"It sounds like enough education for any one man," I said.
"It's never enough."
"I was trying to be facetious. Poor attempt." I lit a cigarette. "Anyway, whom did you marry? Anybody I know, like they say?"
"Nobody you know," he replied. "Nobody you don't know, either. Nobody, period. Physics is a most jealous mistress. And I've just been too damned busy with my work to have any time for the social niceties."
"Teaching means that much to you, does it?"
"Teaching is an abomination. I abhor it. But it makes moderate demands on my time and fewer on my intellect-- it's a way to subsist while I'm working on the projects that really interest me."
"Such as?"
"A new refrigeration system. It's too complex to explain. But, if I succeed with it, it could revolutionize the air-conditioning industry."
"You're an inventor?"
"Of sorts."
"I'd think you could make a lot more money working for a large corporation that's involved in refrigeration. General Electric. Philco. Instead of teaching school. If you really hate it that much."
"I've thought of that. But I can't see myself as part of one of those deals. You know what I mean. The boss drives a Buick, so you have to drive a Chewy so you don't show him up. And I don't see giving my all for G.E. SO that ten years from now they can replace me with a computer."
I sipped my drink. "Then what are your plans? I asked. "Continue teaching school?"
"Only until I can get backing for my device. I've got it patented now, and I've already had offers from the major corporations for an outright purchase. But if I'm going to make any big money from it, I'll have to manufacture it myself. I'm working on the financing end of it now. I have a few interested prospects."
"Then everything's coming up roses?" I prompted him. "Not quite. But things don't look dismal, either. If I can get my project off the ground in five years I'll be happy. I think I can."
He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered me one. "So that's me. What's been happening with you?"
I started to give him the standard response--that I was a successful call girl--but, surprisingly, the words wouldn't come out. I felt embarrassed in his presence.
"Not much, really," I said at last. "I've been dabbling with this and that."
"Married?" he asked.
"No," I said quietly.
"That's a surprise."
"I'm full of surprises."
"Surprise me some more."
"Not just now. But let me call you early tonight. If I can get out of a few things I have scheduled, and you aren't busy, maybe we can go out and try to whip up some nostalgia."
"Sounds good," he said.
It did to me, too.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - If You Can't Take It With You, Don't Go
"Listen, my impulsive friend," Frank Blake cautioned me on the telephone. "You've got to remember that you're a chick with money that a lot of con-men would like to get their hands on. So, everytime some sweet, tender innocent approaches you with a get-rich-quick scheme, look into his motives, for God's sake."
"It's not a get-rich-quick scheme, Frank," I argued. "Ronnie's patented a device that the big corporations have already tried to buy outright."
"How do you know, Lynn?" Frank countered. "Did you see the correspondence from the corporations? Or are you just taking his word?"
"Look, Frank. I know the guy. I went to school with him. And he once did something for me that was nicer than anybody else in the world has ever done. I want to give him the money. As a present, if necessary. I know he isn't trying to con me because he doesn't know I have money. He doesn't know anything about me; not even that I'm a prostitute."
"Well, it's your money, Lynn. But, if you take my advice, you'll find out more about tie deal before you do anything. Tell me the truth. Do you feel something for him romantically?"
"I'm not sure," I admitted.
"But it's possible, right?"
"Possible.
"Then don't be a jerk. Don't let him know you have any money. If he sincerely cares for you, the money won't matter to him. If you get something going together, spring the money on him a few years later. It'll be a pleasant surprise."
"Thanks, counselor," I said. "But I still want Ronnie to have enough money to get his project off the ground."
"Then do it this way. Give me his address, and I'll write him expressing an interest in his invention. My lawyers will go over the thing, and, if it shows any promise, we'll form a corporation with your money to back him. He'll never know you were involved."
"I love you," I told him. "Paternally, that is."
"Okay. Let me handle it and you won't get burned."
"I'll do as you say, father."
"Then hang up before you blow all your loot on this call."
"Bye, dad."
"Good-by, Community Chest."
I told Greg, my pimp, that I wouldn't be able to work that night and gave him and the sailor a hundred each to compensate for their loss. Then I phoned Ronnie at his hotel and asked him to meet me at seven o'clock.
We had dinner at an intimate spot on Connecticut Avenue, took in the show at the Lotus, and topped off the evening singing out of tune with the college crowd at Bassin's. We kept the conversation light and I carefully avoided mentioning anything that would lead to a discussion of my past. When we left Bassin's and started walking up 14th Street, Ronnie took my hand in his.
"I never dreamed when I came down here riding herd on my students that I'd wind up with you, Lynn," he said. I squeezed his hand.
An early evening rain had left the pavement slick, and I watched our reflections as we half-swayed up the street. "It's almost like the old days," Ronnie said.
"Better."
"It's certainly different. Maybe it is better."
"That'll teach them to talk about the glories of youth." I said as a giddy feeling came over me. I laughed and nudged Ronnie with my shoulder. "Youth is a crock of shit," I said. "Were mellower now. I know that sounds corny, but it's the only word I can think of. Back then, we were sort of nervous, eager, always-in-a-hurry kids--you were in a big rush to do things, I was in a big rush to do things. Now we've more or less faced ourselves."
"You're right, Lynn."
"But there was something else back then that's missing now. There was a... sense of importance to it. A sense of urgency, maybe that's a better word for it. It was urgent, then. Maybe the urgency was a little better than the mellowness that we have now. Or am I being too abstract?"
"No. I read you. But I like the mellowness better."
"Perhaps that's because I was the only one who felt the urgency.' He said it softly. Then, quickly, before I could reply, Ronnie added, "Maybe I shouldn't have said that."
"No, I'm glad you did. I didn't feel anything before. I wish I had. Sincerely. You know... that night at the senior prom... when you asked me to marry you? I've thought about it often. I think it was the most generous gesture... no, I don't mean exactly that. It was more than a kind gesture. Cripes, words are useless in a situation like this. What I'm trying to say is: Thanks. Thanks a million!" Ronnie didn't answer. For awhile, the only sound was the hissing of tires on the wet pavement.
"You know," I reflected, "I wish I had gone to bed with you when we were in high school. I really do."
"Instead of Nick?"
"Not necessarily instead of. In addition to, maybe. I'm not sorry I laid Nick. I'm sorry I didn't go to bed with you, though. Somebody once said that we don't regret the things we've done, but the things we haven't done."
Ronnie grinned sheepishly. "Well, Lynn, you still can, you know. Go to bed with me, I mean. I haven't exactly taken a vow of celibacy."
"I know that and I'd like to go to bed with you. Tonight-- or soon. But I wish we'd had an affair then, too. Is that terribly confusing?"
"Slightly."
"I've never been to bed with a man who loved me, Ronnie," I explained. "And I know that you did."
"I don't exactly hate you now," he said.
"No, but you certainly don't love me. Not after eight years."
"Of course not. No, I can't say I'm still deeply in love with you."
And even if you were--or thought you were--it wouldn't be the same. If you feel anything now, it is probably a sort of a patient affection. Not an urgent love."
"Patient affection," he mused. "That's a fairly accurate description."
"So, you see why I wish I had gone to bed with you?"
"Does it really mean that much to you, Lynn. Going to bed with people?"
"No, not "
"You talk as though you were trying to sample every possible specimen in lovers! My God! Isn't there anything else in life that's more important?"
I said nothing. Slowly, dizzily, I felt a sick sense of horror begin to grip me. My throat went dry. My palms grew cold.
"I'm sorry," I heard Ronnie say quietly. "I had no right to talk to you like that."
A film of tears covered my eyes, and my legs went slack. "Hold me, Ronnie," I said softly. "Please hold me."
He took me in his arms and pulled me to him. I buried my face against his chest and felt my body surrender to the violent, uncontrollable sobbing that overtook me.
"I'm sorry, Lynn," he repeated. "I'm terribly sorry."
"No," I whispered. "Don't be, I'm sorry... someone hadn't... said it to me... sooner."
We stood there silently. The tires of the automobiles sizzled noisily as they sped past. A distant horn honked, and, nearby, a neon sign buzzed. A manhole cover rattled as a car drove over it, and a giggling teen-age couple made scuffling sounds with their feet as they scampered out of a doorway behind us.
For a long time we said nothing--we just clung to each other. A gentle wind ruffled my hair and I felt Ronnie's soothing hand stroke the back of my neck.
"Take me home please, Ronnie?" I asked him softly. "Come on," he answered quietly. Wrapping his arm around my waist, he steered me up the street.
He paused outside the door to my room.
"Would you rather I said good night here?" he asked.
I shook my head no.
Ronnie followed me into the room and sat alongside me on the edge of the bed.
"Feel like talking?" he whispered.
"No," I answered.
He cradled my shoulders in his arm.
"Lean back," I whispered.
We lay across the bed and I cuddled against him. Slowly, his fingers stroked my back.
"Ronnie," I said softly. "I'm... I've been a prostitute." He didn't answer.
"For seven years now," I continued. "It's been my occupation for seven years."
No answer.
"I want to quit, Ron. I want to give it all up. I want to. But I don't think I can do it alone."
In the hallway, I could hear a door open and close. Adolescent voices chattered noisily, and hurried footsteps thumped down a flight of stairs.
"That's die only way you can do it, Lynn," he said. "If you can't do it alone, you can't do it at all."
I found his hand and held it.
"Would it matter to you, Ronnie? If I gave it up?"
He didn't answer.
I hesitated before I asked the next question. "Would it... help... make things like they used to be... if I gave it up?"
"We can't think about things the way they used to be, Lynn," he said. "That was too long ago, and too many things have happened since. To both of us. Were different people now. Completely different."
I searched carefully for the proper words. Years ago even days ago his words would have not been a cause for concern. With anyone else, even at the moment, they would not have been a cause for concern. With Ronnie they became immensely important.
"Could... you ever?"
Footsteps sounded in the hallway again, and a noisy fist banged on the door of the next room. The door was opened and closed. Then there was silence. I couldn't stand the quiet. I talked again. Again silence. Ronnie wouldn't answer me. He didn't have to.
"I guess this is good-by, Ronnie."
He turned away from me.
I didn't think it would work out anyway. I walked slowly away from him. After I had taken about ten steps, I heard him whisper urgently, "Lynn, Lynn."
My heart began to pound. I stopped and turned to face him.
Ronnie started, "I realize it won't work out between us.
But, at least, we can go to bed--for old time's sake " His words beat like sledge hammers on my consciousness. I took a deep breath and said, "No, Ronnie. I seldom say no to any guy with the price of a piece, but you--you, lover-- haven't got enough money to pay me for any services."
I walked into the crisp, dean, damp night, breathing in the cold air deeply and thinking about tomorrow. I needed a vacation. I didn't want to think about Ronnie until I came back. My heels clicked on the sidewalk; the staccato sounded funny even to me. I stopped at a lamppost and began to laugh--until tears ran down my face.
