I awoke the next morning in the kind of glorious haze you only get after fucking an Asian lesbian in the ass. You really must try it sometime. I didn't even bother to get out of bed until my over-full bladder insisted, and even then I didn't get dressed. In fact, apart from a few phone calls to my partners about Bev's proposal, I didn't do jack that day.
Retirement before you're 30: also highly recommended.
It wasn't until the late afternoon, when my stomach started complaining about the lack of attention, that I remembered Carla and our date. She had looked like she could use a good meal, so I dialed her. It took about nine rings before she answered.
"Hey, Mr. Cooper!" she said with poorly-feigned enthusiasm. "Is this about this evening?"
"Why yes, it is," I agreed. "I was wondering if you were free for dinner. Nothing fancy, but I thought I'd check out that new Italian joint over on Broad."
"Don't waste your money," she said. "Gino's sucks. Mafia run. And any Jersey guy who has to move to this town to make it, well, you gotta wonder. How about Michelina's, instead?" she proposed.
I considered. A little dive-y, perhaps, but I'd eaten there before. Good, basic Italian food, and probably cheaper than Gino's anyway. "Sure. Meet you there? Or shall I pick you up?"
"Um . . . that might be difficult, now," she said, nervously. "I'll see you there. Seven. Get a table in the back."
A few more hours of puttering around later, I found myself at Michelina's getting led to a back table by an enormous middle-aged woman who managed to mix the high points of both Italian and Southern accents, to humorous effect.. I ordered a bottle of the house red and munched on bread sticks and waited.
And waited. And waited.
It was quarter to eight before the prodigal whore appeared. She looked better than yesterday, but still very tired. You could park a car in the circles under her eyes. She was wearing a slightly flirty casual dress and way-too-high heels, and from the neck down looked supremely humpable. But her eyes gave her away. Her manager had apparently had her doing customer service calls all day, and it showed.
"Heya, Coop," she said as she plopped down. "Hope you weren't waiting long."
"Well, a while," I admitted. "I'm starved. And I'm ready to order." I poured her a glass of the red and waited while she scanned the menu. She ended up ordering the special before draining her glass in one long pull.
"That's the stuff," she said, approvingly, refilling the glass. "Cheap, red, and sweet."
"Busy day?"
"All day," she agreed. "I had a lot of catching up to do. Remind me never to pull that kinda shit again. I'm getting too old for this."
"Would you listen if I did?"
"Nope," she admitted. "I'm kinda stubborn. Taurus."
"So how many dicks have you sucked today?" I asked, conversationally. She looked at me through narrowed eyes.
"You kinda get off on hearing shit like that, don't you?" she accused.
"Well, yeah," I admitted. "That a problem?"
"I've had guys want me to stick baseball bats up their asses," she sighed, chuckling. "A little casual voyeurism isn't going to shock me. For your information, I've sucked five dicks, fucked three, and took it up the ass. And all for free, my little punishment for going AWOL. I knock you out, I'm back in with Bill."
"Is that terribly important to you?"
"At the moment, yes," she agreed, biting her lip. "Believe me, there are worse pimps in the neighborhood. Bill's a hard worker, doesn't abuse his girls, and he splits pretty fairly. I could do a lot worse. And he pulls some great clients, too. Gets them from that business school."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, Bill's getting his MBA." A pimp with a Master's degree. In business. Wow.
"That's . . . impressive."
"His Daddy runs most of the business around Central University, but he's mostly retired now. Bill's the oldest of his kids and is expected to inherit most of the business. But all of his siblings, legitimate and illegitimate, have gone on to college." She sipped her wine. "All seventeen of them."
"Now that's really impressive," I admitted. "You seem pretty knowledgeable about it." Carla shrugged, and rolled her eyes. "Look, just because I was a stupid cunt in High School and ended up a whore doesn't mean I'm an idiot," she said. "It's not a terribly complicated business, and I keep my eyes open and my mouth shut."
"When you aren't sucking someone off," I added.
"Actually, that's when I listen the most. It doesn't matter how smart or rich a man is, he's the most vulnerable when he's getting his oil changed. So yeah, I know about the business end of things. I didn't want to end up like . . . most entry-level girls. You cross the wrong person out of ignorance and you don't end up well. It's a survival skill."
"So now you're a seasoned professional. I can respect that. And I have to admit, you have the skills for it. And the looks." Even whores are subject to flattery. She favored me with a genuine smile.
"Are you sure that's not some left-over teenaged fantasy talking?" she chuckled.
"I won't deny it's coloring my perceptions," I agreed. "But I've spoken more to you in the last few days than I ever did in school."
"Which tells me that your either a cast-iron pervert or you're having delusions about 'saving' me," she said, suspiciously. "That actually happens a lot. 'What's a nice girl like you doing working the streets'? Usually they throw some God shit in there, and the really bad ones want to pray with me or read the Bible. Tell me to call my parents or some bullshit like that. But when the time comes for me to be swigging Scope, the most they do is leave a healthy tip. Every now and then someone gets obsessed and I have to have Bill have a talk with them. But they never really want to 'save' me, they just want to feel better about fucking a whore by pretending it's part of some goddamn sacred mission. Hypocritical bastards."
"Then chalk me down as a cast-iron pervert," I told her. "I get my jollies fucking the hell out of the nasty bitch cheerleader I knew from High School, and am working out my teenage revenge of the nerd fantasies. Not to mention feeling smugly superior for my achievements while you've taken an obvious left-turn on your journey through life."
Carla considered. "I can respect that," she decided. "I mean, I wouldn't mind being 'saved', as long as it's a multi-millionaire playboy and not a balding Jesus freak, but the small number of millionaires in town just aren't beating down my door. To save me," she added. "They don't mind if I fuck them."
"Well, in all fairness, you aren't the best candidate for matrimony," I pointed out. "Oh, you've got the bedroom skills, but the drug addiction thing is kind of a buzz-kill in a long term relationship. Not to mention your pimp."
"Hey, I pay him off, I'm a free agent," she said, defiantly. "It could happen," she added, when I gave her a look. "In five years I could so be a suburban house-mommy, if I applied myself."
Our food came about then, and we actually had a good, cheap date. When she wasn't on guard Carla was actually pretty friendly, funny, and gave me a good non-sexual time. Not quite as good as my date with Bev, I noted, but then Bev was a special case. Carla got decently tipsy and encouraged me to get a second bottle to go with dessert and coffee (and for the record, the espresso was atrocious -- whoever said Italians knew their way around coffee was on crack). She disappeared into the bathroom while I paid the check, and after a lengthy wait she returned, her eyes aglow. Nothing like an after-dinner line of coke to put you in the mood, I suppose.
"So," she asked, lighting a cigarette as we left, "what did you have in mind for the evening? It's your call: whips, chains, anything but animals and small children. Or," she added, slyly, "I could give you the GFE, good and hard."
" 'GFE'?" I asked, curious. I thought I was up on all the latest kinky lingo. I knew I shouldn't have let my Maxim subscription lapse.
"The 'Girlfriend Experience'," she explained. "A lot of guys who I date actually want someone to act like their love-struck girlfriend. PDAs, publicly laughing at your stupid jokes, the works. Or you could just fuck me in the ass. Or all of it together. You've hit Free Parking."
"The Girlfriend Experience . . ." I chuckled. "Yeah, I can see how that would be popular. Like with my sci-fi group. Most of those boneheads need love and affection more than they need a good hummer. Sure, let's start with that. I always wanted a sycophantic sexpot on my arm, staring up at me adoringly."
She stopped and looked at me. "Sycophantic? That's not . . . that doesn't have anything to do with diapers, does it? Because Iā"
"No, Peaches," I laughed. "Should have stayed awake in Senior English."
"Sorry, I was trying to fuck your brother instead," she said, sticking her tongue out at me childishly. "As long as there's no . . . icky stuff. For that I need a lot more coke."
"Nah, I just want you to cling to me like a barnacle. Hell, I wish there was someplace we could go. Just so I could get the full effect."