Dealing Flesh (10 page)

With the strangeness of the night so far, an outlet is more than imperative. Thankfully Santiago, a Portuguese jewelry designer, walks in. I instantly cheer up when I spot him. It is the warmth of his personality, his good looks with expressive soft brown eyes that speak to me. Not to mention the flattery of his intense dedication, visiting me for the fourth time this week.

Tonight, we sit inside my room for twenty minutes and merely converse. He does not press for intercourse, but eventually, I let him go down on me, and even try to enjoy it a little in my inebriation. Returning downstairs together, we take a seat inside the red velvet covered booth for a good two hours, slurping on the best champagne the place has to offer. I am not worried about losing out on earnings while sticking with just one customer because “Goldilocks” here covers a large percentage of whatever I do not take in while hanging exclusively with him.

Blushetta (sighing):
I’d give the world to be held by someone I like who can make me feel human again, even for just a night.

Consequently, I take Santiago home at shift’s end. We screw a couple of times but the event itself remains hard to recreate in my mind. Before he goes about his day, he invites me to visit him in Portugal, saying he wants me to model one of his lines for a new catalogue.

Hot Shot:
My modeling career is in desperate need of a boost. It would look fabulous in my portfolio. Looks like it’s exactly what I need.

Scaredy Cat:
And it’s your chance to leave this pathetic life behind?

Not long after, I find a postcard inside my mailbox from nearly every exciting place Santiago visited while on business. Thinking about this long and hard, weighing the pros and cons of taking him up on his offer, I end up voting against it. I cut my ties to the whorehouse this instant and register with a new escort agency instead.

~~~

The unceasing noise of car horns awakens me. I must have slept sixteen hours straight. This is not the first time an enfeebling fatigue clings on to me, making me wish that I could stay in bed indefinitely. I stick a toe out from under the cover but immediately pull it back in. One squinty-eyed look at the wall clock confirms my suspicion; that it is mid-afternoon. Listen up, “committee.” I’m not coming out today; closed for business. Got it? As I lay here, wrapped in black satin sheets, the agency calls to request that I make a hotel appearance this evening.

“I’ll be there,” I reluctantly exclaim.

I spend a good hour clinging to the mattress before hauling myself into the shower tub. As the warm water drizzles down onto my depleted body, I spill buckets of tears from my eyes. I crouch down and bury my face inside my hands and between my knees, weeping while I dream about the relief death would bring.

~~~

5:00 p.m. – I walk into the lobby of the
Bismarck Hotel
. A man greets me by the elevators and escorts me to a room that has four other guys gathered in front of it. He wants to know if I can do all of them, him included. Thrown off-base by the sudden change in arrangement after having been told it would only be one man to cater to, I hesitate.

Whip Cracker:
Do it
.
What have you got to lose? It puts more money in your pocket in less amount of time.

Instantly, I negotiate a new price with the fellow who booked this visit, agreeing to get paid after the deed is done. Within a minute, I am flat on my back on the bed inside a room I don’t really remember getting into, having one man after another mount me. Some of the guys act rough. The smell of sweaty butts, garlic breath, and cum shoots into my nose, making me queasy.

I feel like a plastic doll, a lust machine. But according to Whip Cracker, drugs don’t have rights, so I chuck it. Ragelina serves me a mental picture of strangling each of the fellows, anything to stop their obnoxious moaning and groaning as their aspirations get louder with the approaching of their climax.

Finally, the ordeal terminates. When I ask for my money, the group leader refuses to pay me the amount we agreed upon. Unable to close a satisfactory deal, I accept what he gives me and flee the scene. Tears gush out of me while I hasten through the long hollow hallways of the hotel. My body aches. I feel like death warmed over. It has never been clearer than this moment that I must get out of this business if I want to live.

Hazy headed, I stumble into the taxi zone out front, heedlessly jumping into the first ride in line. Once inside, I come unglued.

“What happened, miss?” the cab driver asks compassionately.

“Sorry, but I’d rather not say. Please, just bring me home,” I answer sniveling.

Back in familiar surroundings, I stop by the nearest convenient store, filling my bag with large amounts of sugary snacks. After the binge fest at my house, I pop a diuretic and promise myself that tomorrow I’m going to exercise for five hours. I cry for fifty minutes.

Romy:
Totally fine with me if tomorrow never arrives.

Luckily, I drift off to sleep this instant.

CHAPTER 8

The Reformer

The
Schickeria
club is packed with a mélange of Stuttgart’s
Schickimickies
. My hair is tied back, held in place by a shiny silvery headband. With my feet covered in snazzy black patchwork leather boots that blend with the same colored satin tights, I, at once, mix into the group of front row dancers on the upper stage.

While I energetically put forward my best jazzy dance moves, I detect an exotic-looking creature with lustrous ebony hair and a cute grin amongst the masses. He devours me with fiery eyes from a less illuminated part of the room. I weasel my way toward the lower floor as inconspicuously as possible, inching up a tad at a time to where he is positioned. About a meter away, he suddenly joins me. We rock together for the next five minutes, during which I try to guess his ethnicity.

“My name is Tobias, but call me Toby,” he urges.

“Are you Latin?” I shout, attempting to rise above the music.

He chuckles. “My mother’s Cuban, and my father’s Austrian.”

“Interesting combo.”

Romy:
Cute…real cute.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” he asks.

Thrilled by his candid approach, I take him up on it.

“Let’s blow this joint.”

We spend the next four hours inside a ritzy hangout a couple miles from the club.

Romy:
I can’t remember when I last had that much fun talking to someone. I wished this night wouldn’t have to end.

The time approaches the four
Uhr
mark. Toby suggests we continue the conversation at my house. Trusting his promise to behave, I take him to my apartment. He sits down on the sofa. I hand him my photo albums to look through, while I get freshened up and get us something to drink. After a few minutes of my return, we move over to my bed, start kissing and caressing each other.

Romy:
I so want him to become my boyfriend.

Scaredy Cat:
He’s never going to stick around, if he finds out what you do for a living.

I turn on the television while Toby proceeds to rub my head. As we caress each other, I dose off on top of his chest within minutes. We wake up around noon. Toby leaves, but returns this evening, enthused to stay another night.

When he asks where I work, I can’t say anything at all for a few moments.

Romy:
Nooo, you can’t tell him the truth. Please, don’t.

“I’m a secretary at an environmental company,” shoots from my lips.

“Do you have to work tomorrow?” Toby inquires.

“Yap. So if you stay over, you gotta leave with me around 7:30.”

“No problem. I just wanna be with you as much as I can,” he says.

Monday morning unfolds. I put on my clothes and follow the same routine that I used to when I previously got ready for the office. Tobias kindly offers to give me a lift.

Pretender Babe:
Here we go.
Ready?

I hop into his ride. We arrive eight minutes later. Toby pulls up next to the building I used to work in.

“Can I call you later at your desk?” he asks.

Doubt Cloud:
Oh, shit
.

My brain freezes. It unfreezes, as Pretender Babe steps in.

“I’d love to talk to you, but my boss is a real stickler when it comes to letting me receive personal calls at my desk. She frowns upon it unless it is truly an emergency. Sorry, but I promise I’ll give you a holler as soon as I get home, okay, sweetie?”

Picking up frustration on Toby’s face, I quickly press a kiss on his lips and exit the car. I start marching toward the large glass front door of the red brick building, simultaneously waving goodbye, until he can no longer see me. For the next two minutes, I hide behind the pillar by the elevator. My ruthlessness shocks me, but the discomfort immediately turns to elation.

Hot Shot:
I’m such a sly fox.

Blushetta:
Be careful. You may encounter former co-workers, if you hang out here for too long.

I veer toward the front door, carefully sticking my head out. As much as I can see, Toby’s car is gone. I dart outside, aiming straight for the subway, which returns me to my neighborhood within minutes. Reaching my house, I go back to bed right away.

The agency calls around noon. I tell them that I’m taking this week off. Twenty
Uhr
hits.

Romy:
I can’t wait to see Toby again.

I call. Within thirty minutes, he is at my door. We make out for some time but matters remain strictly above the waistline. He spends another night snuggled up to me.

Romy (sighing):
I wished I had a normal occupation, one with integrity.

First, I gotta find out if he is worth quitting for.

Morning comes. Toby once again nags me about the reasons why I won’t let him call me at my desk.

Romy:
Here we go again. Lies, lies, lies…nothing but lies. I can’t handle it anymore. What can be built on that? And how do you possibly remember all the bogus stories you’ve told him this far?

Doubt Cloud:
If you don’t put a stop to it, you are for sure going to lose him.

18:00
Uhr
comes. Receiver in hand, I flop down on the living room sofa. I feel my stomach churn as I dial Toby’s number.

“Hello,” I hear him say on the other end.

“Hey. I was hoping to catch you.”

“I’m glad you did. Do you want me to come over?”

“Well, that sounds great. But I’ve got something to tell you, something that can’t wait.”

“You sound so serious. What’s up?”

I begin to fill him in on the most important facts that involve my underground life.

“I’ve been wanting to leave the industry for a long time. I really want us to be together, and I’m willing to clean up my side of the street. But I fully understand if you don’t want to continue seeing me now. It will make me sad though, because I really care about you,” I conclude.

Total silence for a few seconds.

Romy:
He’s history.

“You are in a lot of trouble, girl,” he says with a smiling undertone in his voice. “I am coming over right now to fuck your brains out.”

Lost for words, I chuckle, nearly peeing into my pants over the electricity that moves through me.

Lustania:
It’s gonna get hot in here. Oh my God, he’s gonna be here any moment. And I’m not even remotely ready for an adventure of such proportion. Gotta go, friends. I think I’ll slip into something with zing, sting, and finesse. Something that screams orgasm. Yeeehhaa.

When Toby arrives, we head instantaneously for the playground in the big room. The mood-boosting activities keep us busy into the wee hours, at which point we both drop depleted onto the purple satin sheet. As fun as it is to do the humpty-dumpty with him, he shall never know that I fake my orgasms, that I am, and always have been, a fraud in bed. I peacefully nod off, my head rested on top of Toby’s shoulder. From now on, he stays over almost every night.

~~~

Hunting for “legitimate” jobs proves to be a grueling process. Freaked out by the stacks of bills that are piling up on my kitchen counter, I agree to make a few more house calls that the agency sends my way. Seeing Toby’s saddened face as I leave in the middle of the night to serve a john, cuts deep. Luckily, I secure employment as a secretary with a professional firm a few days later.

Two months later, a deep sense of gratitude pervades me each time I think about having extricated myself from the clutches of the underworld. Toby and I are much closer now; so much that I let him move in.

I instantaneously regret having done so when seeing him super irate over not getting his way with something this afternoon. He throws my expensive television set into the likewise expensive mirrored wardrobe.
Wha-bam.
Glass splinters everywhere. I am hugely appalled, but it does not mean a thing, because from previous experience, I know that make-up sex always feels so much better when it follows a fight. I’m right.

~~~

Over time, I see that Veronika, Toby’s ex-girlfriend, maintains frequent contact with him. They appear to have no secrets from each other whenever they connect. I make her acquaintance tonight while Toby and I are out clubbing. By seeing a lot more of her in the weeks to come, a friendship forms between us. We are talking on the phone this afternoon.

“I wasn’t going to tell you at first,” she says, “but since you are my friend now, and I don’t want you to be lied to, I feel that you deserve to know the truth about your boyfriend.”

“Well, what? What’s he done?”

“He told me about this woman at his job that he is seeing. But there is more…. He’s been picking up several
Straßennutten
over the last week, he told me. I know for a fact that he’s been cheating on you ever since you both moved in together,” Veronika concludes.

Things are beginning to make sense: his refusal to be affectionate in public, the re-occurring Chlamydia infections over the past few months, even after we both got treated with antibiotics. I hear a key slide into the lock of the door. Toby walks in.

Ragelina:
Just the man I need to see.

“Admit that you’ve been fucking around with prostitutes while you’ve been living here,” I shout.

He denies the charges, just stands there with that damned grin on his face.

Ragelina:
That son of a bitch motherfucker. I’ll break his neck
.

Taken over by belligerence and an utterly hysterical screaming fit, it dawns on me that a bluff is in order to get to the truth. “I love you, sweetie, and don’t want to lose you. But if you don’t admit to this, we are absolutely over. If you do, then I forgive you and we start afresh. So what’s it gonna be?”

“Sure you won’t be mad at me if I tell you?”

“Positive.”

Hearing him confess to all accounts of the accusations makes the hair on my arms stand up.

Romy:
Where did I go wrong
?
I really did not see this coming, did I?

Ragelina:
Well, that motherfucker just shoveled his own grave.

“Get the fuck out of my face now. We are done…over. Get out…out…ooouuuttt,” I bellow. “Tricked you good, didn’t I, you fuckin’ bastard?!”

He refuses to clear the premises and instead, shoots off an assortment of petty explanations as to why I should not feel the way I do. Ragelina encourages me to grab a pair of scissors from the kitchen counter.

“Get the fuck out immediately. I’m not kidding!” I scream, angling the scissors toward him.

“Put those down.”

“Fuck you!”

I feel a powerful blow to my right eye. “Ouuuch,” I yelp, while Toby and I wrestle. Stars jump around in front of my lid, as I cover it with one hand, holding the scissors in the other. As the shock wears off, it now sinks in that he’s hit me.

“I fucking hate youuuu,” I hiss like a mean cobra. “There is never gonna be an
us
again. And if you aren’t gone in ten seconds, I’m calling the cops.”

Sensing my seriousness, he finally leaves.

After tossing and turning and soaking the sheets with tears, the sun comes up. Shortly after, Toby calls.

I pick up the phone.

Romy:
I miss him
.

He starts boohooing like a baby, telling me how sorry he is, declaring his undying love.

Romy:
He says he’ll change
.

His vulnerable sobs entice me to give it another go.

Romy:
I’m sure he’ll be forever faithful now and go out of his way to prove his love to me?

Tough Gal:
He got a lot of proving to do
.

The sex is good tonight, but as soon as I see my black-greenish bruised eye reflect back at me from the mirror, I long to knock Toby unconscious.

Ragelina:
I can’t let him get away with humiliating me like that. He’s got to go…I mean it.

My heart is heavy as I cut Toby loose this evening. Crying like a wounded animal, I pledge to never be faithful to a man ever again.

Avengelia:
Don’t worry, darling. He’s got it coming
.