The first time I ever utilized the services of a prostitute I was in Amsterdam for a UNIX conference, back in the mid 90s. The megacorp I was contracted with had budget dollars to burn, and I couldn't resist the lure of legal weed and really good beer. I'd started smoking a little in college and was briefly a fan, but gave it up periodically when I changed firms. I eagerly anticipated the legendary "coffeeshops" in Amsterdam – not really realizing that prostitution was legal there.
After skipping the first afternoon and smoking way too much hash with a Brit named Rob, he grabbed my shoulder and steered me over to the Red Light district. While he was three years younger than me, and kind of annoying, he was an old hand at this. We stumbled along until I realized that we were walking past large open windows filled with beautiful young women.
"Are they underwear models?" I asked stupidly. I was really high.
"No, you stupid Yank, they're whores."
"They can't be!" I said, scandalized. I'd seen a prostitute getting busted once during my senior class trip to New York City. Before that I thought they were mythical. "They're, they're . . . young!"
"If you want to bag an old hag, that's two streets over," Rob said knowledgably. "Me, I like them young. And blonde," he added as we passed a golden-haired goddess that was preening in her window, looking more bored than alluring.
"So, let me get this straight," I said, looking around to see if anyone could overhear. "I can have sex with, say, that Valkyrie over there. And she will, no questions asked."
"If you have the brass," he said, nodding. I assumed he meant money.
"And she won't call the police?"
"No bloody way!"
I was speechless.
I had had six relationships of a sexual nature during my college year – four one-night stands and two reasonably long relationships. Being a geek wasn't the handicap it had been in high school. But I was still shy, unskilled, and no doubt a pretty lousy lay. I looked at that blonde girl in the window, noticed her name was Helga (She sure as hell didn't look like a Helga!) and that her price was . . . well, not as much as I'd just dropped on a ball of hash in a coffeehouse. I could fuck this super-model quality woman without cheesy lines, without getting her drunk, without worrying about what she might say in the morning, just a simple business transaction and back to the hotel . . .
It was like I was six years old and had awakened in Disneyland.
My recent trysts with Carla "Cuntmouth" Dawes, former high-school cheerleader and present junkie whore, had not only fired up my erotic imagination, but they had taken enough of the edge off of my personal id that I felt more relaxed and confident in other realms. Specifically, my social life improved a bit. The same evening Carla gave her rooftop performance I went to a rarity, these days: a website launch party.
Back in the 90s there was one of these every few days, caviar and champagne affairs that were designed to show off How Big We Are Going To Get to the press, the industry, and, most importantly, to potential investors. It was a glamorous, extravagant waste of venture capital, but you'd be shocked how often it paid off come IPO time. That was then.
Now these things are done with far less money, but with a bit more style. This one was in a rented hotel suite in the Downtown area, and while there was, technically, champagne, it was cheap and used mostly for Mimosas. I'd been invited not only because I still had money I might want to invest, but because several of the team members were fellow geeks I'd met on previous jobs. My presence lent a bit of gravitas, I knew, as I still enjoyed a very minor rep in the industry-watchers' circles for being one of the smart ones who got out of the bubble before it burst. I had also worked on the West Coast, Back In The Day, for some legendary firms, and that made me a minor celebrity among the hometown's homegrown techies.
I sipped my drink and mingled, looking at displays and charts with an absent eye while I scoped the crowd. The usual suspects – only a little older, a little pudgier, and a lot poorer than a few years ago. But not unhopeful. These were smart people, most of them, and while delivering pizzas at night while you hack code for free in hopes a real job someday seems a little desperate to an outsider, these guys were smart enough to know that the tech sector is continuously evolving, and the next boom would happen . . . eventually.
My eye lit upon one figure almost immediately, and I began to work my way through the crowd towards her. The coincidence, the irony, was just too great to pass up. Beverly Li was a youngish looking Asian woman who had started her professional life hacking Unix code, and was smart enough to know that while tech was hot, the real money makers were the suits, not the programmers. She worked the educational fund angle, taking free classes from whatever corporation she was working for at the time. She ended up with a degree in business, and would have been fabulously wealthy had she not gotten involved in some tricky litigation with several of her partners and a large multinational firm.
Bev always landed on top, though. I think it was from sheer force of will. Asian women are stereotypically demure and submissive, but apparently Bev never read the manual. She was an imposing woman, one of those who get called "bitch" behind her back at every job she'd ever been at. She worked out hard, turning her once-chubby body into a block of concrete. She was almost completely tactless in social situations, due, she claimed, to coming from a mixed Korean/Taiwanese background, which, she insisted, made her a natural social pariah in Asian society, so why the fuck bother with tact with stupid white people? At 25 she had already been married and divorced twice, and been in at least three lesbian relationships that I was aware of. While her manner kind of scared me she was really funny in a biting, acidic sort of way, and she seemed to like me.
She also had gone to my High School. We didn't get to be friends until years after, but she was one of the flat-chested little nerd girls who hung out in the library and got harassed by the Bitch Squad, as Carla's group had been unaffectionately known. If there was one woman on Earth who would appreciate hearing about Carla the Crack Whore, it was Bev.
I hadn't seen her in almost a year, and after the requisite drunken hug and slobbery cheek-kiss, we grabbed a couch and caught up on old times.
"Cooper! Coop! God, it's been ages! You still retired?"
"Yep. What are you doing these days?"
"I'm a consultant," she said with a wry grin. That usually means your unemployment has run out.
"What kind of consultant?"
"What kind do you need?"
We laughed harder than we should have. "Actually, I'm doing pretty decent right now – two new clients this week. Including these guys. So I might just get paid someday." She filled me in on her legal and sexual escapades, both of which were entertaining. I, in turn, talked about my real estate purchases and passed along a stock tip I was putting a little something on myself. Then I casually steered the conversation back to High School, setting up before dropping the bomb.
"Oh," I started casually, "I ran into someone from the Good Ole Days a few weeks ago. Perhaps you remember her: Carla Dawes?"
The shift in Bev's face was subtle, but delicious. The amount of built up anger, pain and resentment in her eyes told me that she still held feelings for Carla – none of them good.
"Oh, really?" she said, equally as casual. She sipped her drink for a moment and I swear I could hear her brain burning with resentment. "What is she up to these days? Wifey-mommy, real-estate bimbo or bridal boutique owner?"
"Crack whore, actually," I said, sipping my own drink.
"Guffaw. No, really, what's the bitch up to?"
"I'm serious, she's a crack whore. I saw here in the ghetto a few weeks back."
