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Francis burned with embarrassment. He wanted to scream, to cry, to defend himself.
Not even six inches?
You wouldn't know it if I stuck it in your mouth.

And then someone brought some food. They rolled a little cart in front of the bed and left his meal under its clear plastic cover. Because he had six stitches in his lip, the doctor had put him on a liquid diet. Francis took the lid off the food and looked at it. He knew why comedians made fun of hospital food. It was easy. And it was unappetizing: a bowl of clear broth and a plastic cup of lukewarm pudding the color of camel's teeth. Francis lay back and closed his eyes....

...

He woke up feeling like fried roadkill. His mouth hurt where his stitches were, his ribs ached, his head throbbed, and his cock was still hard.

“Well, well, well. Sleeping Beauty stirs.”

Francis blinked a few times. He recognized the voice. He thought he might still be dreaming.

“I flew all this way. The least you could do is say aloha.”

“Aloha, Chad.”

Chad stood there in all his glory. Fit and well dressed, his hair layered and perfectly highlighted, his teeth bleached to a gleam, his tanning-booth tan making his skin glow with a healthy radiance. He took off his nine-hundred-dollar designer glasses and bent close to Francis.

“Can I see it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know.”

“I'm hurt. I'm laying here with stitches in my mouth and bruised ribs, and all you want to do is look at my cock?”

“The doctor told me about your condition.”

“I have an erection. It's not the first time.”

“C'mon. Please. Maybe I'll do something nice for you.”

“Fine. Just close the door.”

Chad put his glasses back on, closed the door, and lifted up the sheet like an excited child unwrapping toys at Christmas. Then he froze.

“Oh, my God.” Chad gasped, his left hand shooting up and covering his mouth. “Honey, what did you do to yourself?”

“It's the stupid doctors; they've been poking it every half hour.”

“How long have you been like this?”

“Two days. I think. I haven't been keeping score, you know.” Not like you, he thought. “Why? What's wrong?”

“Your dick is blue.”

Francis lifted up the sheet and looked for himself. Sure enough, there it was, just under six inches long and the color of a Smurf.

...

Joseph sat under a tree and watched the waves wash in. The water was clear and green, like an old Coca-Cola bottle, and he could see bits of kelp and a few small jellyfish rolling around in the surge. On the far end of the beach, a couple of giant sea turtles lay sunning in the sand. Joseph thought he ought to be brooding, but he didn't really know what to brood about. He didn't even really know what to think of the last twenty-four hours. The best he could figure is that everyone he knew had gone insane.

“I thought I'd find you here.”

He looked up to see Hannah standing there. She'd already changed out of her teacher clothes and was wearing a tank top and board shorts. She looked good. Strong and clean and sexy. Joseph couldn't help himself, he smiled at her even though he was perplexed by her decision to take Sid's side.

“Somebody's got to watch the turtles.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Just don't try and convince me to do anything I don't want to do.”

Hannah smiled sheepishly and sat down, plopping her butt in the sand. Out of habit, she began to glide her hand across the sand, grading it, smoothing it out around her.

“What did he say?”

“He fired me.”

Hannah was surprised. “What?”

Joseph looked at her and nodded.

“But it's half your company.”

“Then he disowned me.”

Hannah shook her head. “He's just mad. You know how he gets sometimes. Tomorrow he'll come back and ask why you weren't at the office cleaning the trucks or something.”

“Tomorrow I might not be here.”

Hannah looked at the sand. She began to draw wavy lines in it with her fingertips.

Joseph watched her. “I thought we were monogamous.”

Hannah bit her lip. “We are.”

“So why'd you want me to do it?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. I guess I thought it might shake things up.”

Joseph squinted off down the beach and watched as one of the sea turtles slowly dragged itself back toward the water. It was a heavy, tortuous process as it scraped and pulled and dug into the sand with its flippers, fighting gravity with all its strength, until the first blast of ocean smacked into it and the turtle lifted off the beach, momentarily weightless, spinning like a top on the water, and was pulled out to sea, riding the wave like a reverse surfer.

...

“I don't want to do any more anal.” She said it like she meant it.

Lono didn't have to ask why. He could imagine. He took a sip of hot green tea and smiled across the table at the two women. They were looking good. They had to. In the old days it was enough just to be willing to do the job. But this was the modern world, the market for pussy was glutted, and if you wanted to stand out from the crowd you had to offer something better than the skanky whore or strung-out runaway. Any old junkie can suck your dick, but the discriminating customer, the man with a significant bankroll who has come to the islands to relax and play a little golf—unless he's like that movie star who craved the jolt of frisson from sexual encounters with the gamier purveyors of cheap pussy and fast blow jobs in cars; unless he's like that—the discriminating customer is going to want a higher quality product. He's going to want this year's model, not some old jalopy. And even if you provide them with someone young and beautiful and exotic, the discriminating customer is going to want more than just a spin between the
sheets; he's going to want something memorable. He's going to want a fantasy fulfilled. And he'll pay top dollar for it.

Some pimps think it's enough to keep the girls out on the street and working. They could be fifty-year-old glue sniffers with crabs and a wicked dose of the clap, it didn't matter, so long as they were out bringing home the Benjamins. But the smart pimp elevated his game. He stayed off the streets and under the radar.

Lono was a smart pimp. No skanky-ass dope fiends for him. His girls had to be fit and well groomed. Lono provided health club memberships, personal trainers, whatever they needed to get in shape and stay that way. He got girls who were young but not illegally so, and he trained them to be outgoing, personable, and in control. They may have dressed provocatively, letting nipples protrude or cleavage be revealed, but they were wholesome, classy, and clean.

Lono was a stylist. His girls were archetypes. They came dressed as hula girls, geishas, nurses, newscasters, Laker girls, teenage rock stars, cheerleaders, or the girl-next-door. They were memorable. They fulfilled fantasies. They were very expensive. Lono was often surprised how many men requested someone dressed in a smart suit with a briefcase. Like fucking your female boss could empower you.

The girls Lono employed were like actresses. They played their parts and said their lines, professional to the core. They preyed on the simple psychology of men. They were good girls who'd let their hair down and go wild because you were so sexy you drove them crazy. Or they were bad girls who just wanted to be good because you had saved them. And always because you, the paying customer, had the biggest cock they'd ever seen.

“I keep getting hemorrhoids.”

“You try those medicated pads?”

“I need some time off the anal. That's all.”

“The pads work.”

“I don't want to do any more anal.”

Lono nodded. Jessica, the beautiful Korean girl who didn't want to do any more anal, adjusted her silicone-enlarged breasts in her tight leather bikini top and licked her lips.

“I want to book more three-ways.”

Lono nodded. Now she was thinking. He could charge more than twice for a threesome and it took almost the same amount of time. Besides, most times the clients just wanted to fuck each other but needed the prostitute there for reassurance.

“I'll see what I can do. Will you do anal in a three-way?”

Jessica nodded. “If I have to.”

Lono looked over at Terika, a lithe young woman with hair dyed a honey blond.

“What about you?”

Terika squirmed in her seat. She was nervous. “I'll do anal. Three-way, fifty-fifty, whatever you want me to do.”

“Thanks.”

“But I was wondering if I could have Christmas off this year.”

Lono stared at her. He didn't say anything. Normally he would've scolded her. Christmas was one of the busiest times of the year. He could have Terika bringing in three or four thousand dollars a night during the holiday crush.

“Why?”

“I want to go see my grandma in Detroit. She's ninety-two.”

Jessica flashed her eyes at Terika. She gave her a look that said, You're wasting your time, girlfriend. But Lono surprised them.

“Go see your grandma. It'll be all right.”

The women exchanged surprised expressions. Not that Lono was a hard ass or unreasonable, but he did maintain a level of professionalism that was unusual in the flesh-peddling biz.

“Thanks, Lono. Really. That's awesome.”

Lono smiled. “Merry Christmas.”

Jessica, sensing magnanimity in the air, leaned forward. “I don't like it when they pee on me.”

Lono's expression changed. He didn't like opportunists.

“It washes off.”

Terika elbowed Jessica. “We better go. Heavy schedule tonight.”

Lono nodded and watched them as they got up and left. Although they were looking exceptionally good, especially Terika, with her round firm ass moving in her leather skirt like some kind of jungle cat, Lono couldn't get Yuki off his mind. His voice mail was full, normally something that would've made him smile, only now it seemed like an anchor strapped to his leg, keeping him from spending time with her. All he wanted to do was rip off his clothes and crawl into bed and make love.

It hadn't always been that way. You work in the sex trade too long and it can warp your mind. You become like any other merchant. Rugs, used cars, surfboards, jewelry, drugs, pussy: It's all merchandise. You stop thinking of women as people, as human beings. They become commodities, objects of supply and demand. And there is always a demand for sex.

Sometimes he thought of himself as a simple farmer selling pineapples along the roadside. You find the ripest, juiciest fruit and display it for the customers. If people like your product they pass the word along. You get repeat customers, regulars. Soon you carve out a share of the market and you're in business.

It wasn't that simple, of course, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be a successful pimp. The downside, if you don't get busted, was personal. Lono had begun to see sexual desire as a weakness. A character flaw. Something that must be resisted at all costs. How many good Christians had he seen commit adultery, hundreds? How many marriages had been destroyed by the siren call of his girls, dozens? How many bankruptcies had been declared because someone was spending all his money enslaved to a fantasy?

If whoring was the world's oldest profession, it was created by desire, the world's first impulse buy. You couldn't have one without the other.

Lono wasn't weak. He couldn't be. If he appeared fragile or indecisive or looked for a second like he didn't have his shit together big-time, someone would move in on him: take him out, put a bullet in his brain or a knife in his back, and start running his girls. It was, after all, a cutthroat business.

To cope with the pressures of pimping, Lono thought of himself as one of the Jedi knights in the
Star Wars
movies. He liked their loner rebel attitude. It inspired him. It wasn't like the nerdy do-gooders on
Star Trek.
The Jedi were unflappably cool. They could be surrounded by beautiful women or storm troopers from the Death Star; either way, they didn't break a sweat. They used their mental strength to defeat their enemies and stay on the path of righteousness. Lono believed
his preservation lay on that path, so he became like a Jedi. A Jedi pimp.

And then Yuki entered his life.

...

Jack bumped his walker along the hallway until he reached a couple of steps.

“You couldn't find an office with a fucking ramp?”

“We'll put one in later.”

Stanley held out his hand and Jack reluctantly took it. What else was he going to do, sit there?

“I don't ask for much.”

Jack wanted to yell some more, but he had to concentrate on the stairs. He raised one leg and then leaned his body to drag the other one up. It took a long time to climb two little steps.

“There's a great view. You can see the ocean.”

“We're on a fuckin' island. Any way you turn there's gonna be ocean. It's like tellin' me our office in Vegas is good 'cause we can see the desert.”

“I like the ocean.”

Stanley was defensive. Normally Jack would've gone on the attack, yelling at his son, trying to toughen him up for the day he'd be taking over the business and taking on the world, but today Jack wasn't feeling up to it. He was preoccupied with thoughts of a pissed-off renegade hitman coming for his money.

“Hand me my walker.”

Even Stanley sensed a change. “Long flight, huh?”

“Yeah, it was long. I'm flyin' to the middle of fuckin' nowhere and they only had old bags for stewardesses.”

By
old bags,
Jack meant women over the age of thirty-five.

“Did you talk to the union?”

Jack nodded. “Those cocksuckers are worthless.”

“What'd they say?”

“The new guy, Paul Rossi, is a fucking fag.”