Sin City (56 page)

Client. God! It sounds so formal. I keep picturing him, wondering what he's like. Perhaps he's picturing me, and just as scared. First time for both of us. And yet it's really very simple. All I've got to do is what they call a straight lay, which means sex in the missionary position. Normally, we're meant to discuss the menu with our customers when they first arrive, go over all the items, push the most expensive ones, play tough and steely salesgirl before we switch to tart. But for some reason, I'm not doing that this morning. It's all arranged already, though I've been told as a general principle to try and entice clients into buying extra time. There's a pinger in each room, a sort of sexual egg-timer which goes off when your time's up. The best girls keep resetting it. There's good profit in the drinks as well, especially champagne. We're meant to really flog it, yet not get pissed ourselves. The girls often drink carbonated apple juice, but served in a champagne glass and charged to their clients at vintage champagne prices.

I check the drinks again, polish up the ice-bucket, put a piece of ice into my mouth, hold it in one cheek. The guy may change his mind and want Frappe French. (That's ice-cold oral, brandy-flavoured sometimes, if the client wants a double jolt.) I'd better practice now, and not be thrown. My gums are tweaking with the cold, but I keep the ice in place for two whole minutes. Another seventeen to go until I'm needed.

Ten a.m. seems a most unerotic hour to go to bed. Cartoon time on the telly, coffee time with Peg, the sound of hoovering. I can even hear a baby crying. That must be Peg's new grandchild. She was showing round the photos only yesterday, had half the girls drooling as if they were broody hens instead of hardened whores. I suppose they are frustrated, some of them, all maternal urges just stamped down. A few have kids, but they don't get to see them often. A lot have had abortions, so Angelique confided, but still long for babies and a normal happy home – well, those who aren't completely disillusioned. Naima would murder any husband or male child, serve up all the corpses in a pie, and Joanne's pretty bitter about families and marriage. She'd hardly said a word to me until I happened to remark about how many customers I'd seen walk into the parlour wearing wedding rings. That really got her going – on and on about how married sex was often just an empty ritual, with wives lying there like boards carrying out their “duty” because they're paid, if not directly, then some other way.

“And then they have the nerve to bitch at us, slam paid sex because there's not real feeling in it. And husbands are as bad, Carole. Loads of them stick in rotten marriages because they're fed or mothered or get their laundry done, or don't want the stigma of divorce or the risk of losing half they own. We get them here in droves. They tell their wives they're working late; book a hot oil massage and a sixty-nine, then back to home-cooked dinner and another nice clean shirt.”

I didn't answer. Joanne's never married and she's pushing forty, so perhaps it's just sour grapes. I'd rather be a Peg, simple and soft-hearted, with a cuddly caring husband, four daughters and two grandsons. I can hear her now, singing to the kid to stop it crying. “Rock a bye baby”. I didn't know they had that in America. It seems so English, makes me want to blub. “When the wind blows, the cradle will rock …”

The baby in my own arms is still that damned Korean. Sixteen endless minutes still to go, but I can't put him down, even for a second. Whatever else I think of, he keeps popping up again and taking over. I've got two more clients, actually, booked this afternoon, but they're simply hazy names. All my nerves, all my hopes and fears, are concentrated on this all-important first one. He's like a sort of test case. If I can cope with him, send him out eager to return, then I'll take it as a sign I'm meant to work here. If not, then … Fifteen and a quarter. Unless he's late. Or early. God! Not early. I'm not ready. Oh, I'm tarted up all right – wearing what Desirée calls her playsuit, with a red lace g-string underneath, but I'm still unprepared inside. If you peered in through my navel, you'd see not just organs and intestines, but a whole bubbling ferment of fears and worries, resentments and confusions. I don't feel like a hooker – not cool enough or tough enough, not even glamorous. I'm still Carole, not Adorée. The name never quite took on. The girls all call me Carole, lump me with Desirée as a kid. Desirée hangs around a lot. I like her, I admire her, but we can't be really friends. That's my fault. I've told too many lies, wanted her to see me as more special than I am. Now the lies get in the way, stop her knowing me.

With Angelique, it's still more complicated. She doesn't know me either, and I'm not sure I know her. She's full of contradictions: seems to like her work, defends it, except suddenly she'll blow, show a different side – loudmouth all her clients and the entire male sex; Carl of course excluded. God knows what's between them, but I feel a bit uneasy that she's so much hand in glove with him. Sometimes I even see her as a spy. Yet she's also a good friend – I can't doubt that. I mean, the way she took in Norah, hasn't charged a cent for three meals a day and maid service.

I'm missing Norah terribly. I never thought I would, and it may sound plain perverse when I've complained she was a drag. But she accepted me as me. She knew about the shoplifting, she'd met me in the hospital, so I didn't have to hide things. She's seen me howl, seen me looking grotty without a scrap of make-up, heard me shout and swear. And didn't run away. I know she cares – really cares. These girls don't. Why should they?

I've phoned her once or twice, but the conversation was so hesitant, so stilted, I felt even more removed from her than if I hadn't tried to get in touch at all. Norah loathes the phone, regards it as a trap, is never sure whether the voice she hears is real or simply planted. I kept asking how she was. There were long nervous silences, and even when I'd convinced her it was me, she still wouldn't talk about herself, but asked me how I liked my job. Since I'm meant to be a dancer (and a touring one, to explain my two weeks absence), I was forced to change tack and move on to the weather. Warm for January.

“Is it?” she replied. “I haven't been outside.” Which made me worry. I hope she isn't ill. She wouldn't tell me, even if she was. No doubt Beechgrove are worrying as well. I only wrote yesterday to tell them we're okay. It was the hardest letter I've ever had to write. What in God's name did I say? I didn't want to scare them, or they might start checking up on us, set up some enquiry. They could easily phone the Gold Rush, and be told we've disappeared, leaving all our stuff there. They'd really start to panic then, imagine we'd been kidnapped, even murdered.

In the end, I cobbled up some story about being invited to stay with a large and friendly family who live just out of Vegas, and how I was earning my keep looking after little boys. No lies there. I told them we'd be staying just a few more weeks; then scratched out “weeks”, put “months”. I can hardly solve the problem of passports in just weeks. Unless it's solved for me – some midnight swoop, police raid. No. The cops won't find me here, when they're looking for two swanky Gold Rush guests. Which is one of the reasons I agreed to take the job. Odd to think I'm safer in what's called a house of vice. It
is
a sort of refuge, with its barbed wire fence, its high security, its total segregation from any other house or human being. Uncle Carl protects us – at a price.

Beechgrove would go spare, especially Sister Harding who equates all sex with sin and would call Carl a second Satan. I told them not to worry, made sure to say that Norah was just fine; didn't want their “told you so” s. I only wish I felt more sure of it, had seen Toomey for myself. The weekend after next I've got some time off. I'll take her out then, just the two of us. No Angelique, no George, no men at all.

No men! I must be joking. I'll be crawling with their fingerprints, dripping with their sperm; will have probably worked through scores of them by the time I get to see her – with a few wives thrown in as well. (Some book threesomes.) That first wife wasn't bad, the one I had to chat to. We talked about corgis and the Queen. She brought her knitting with her, purled and plained while her husband had his birthday treat with Suzie, who joined us for the cake. It was what they called a Fun Cake, in the shape of two huge breasts with glacé-cherry nipples. Suzie got both nipples – popped into her mouth by her flushed and grateful client. I don't like Suzie much. She's bitchy and sarcastic. I wondered why he chose her actually. Or perhaps the wife did, to put a little sting into all the saccharine.

Thirteen minutes. Damn this watch. It's slow. I'll go through to the lounge now, the “get-acquainted lounge”. We're meant to greet our clients there, put them at their ease, make them feel they're visiting a normal friendly home. “Class” again and “standards”. In some low dumps all you get, apparently, is a mattress on the floor and no preliminaries – straight down to it the minute any man walks in, straight out again while he's zipping up his flies.

I adjust my outfit in the mirrors. (Yes, mirrors walls and ceiling, even more than in the Gold Rush. The sales of glass in this state must be pretty staggering. We never saw a mirror back at Beechgrove. I suppose glass is dangerous – not just because of smashing it, but because it gives you an identity, a face.) I take one last prowl around the room, checking all my props. I pray they won't be needed. Keep it simple, please, I beg him in advance – for both our sakes. I shut the door, prepare my smile. Halfway to the lounge, my whole face aches as if the smile belongs to someone else, doesn't fit my mouth. I let it slip when I see he isn't there, start to panic. He's changed his mind, doesn't like the sound of me. I'll be booked with someone else – some pervert, paraplegic, one of Naima's brutes.

I walk on to the parlour, stop outside where that one-way mirror reveals the clients to the girls, but not vice versa. There's a line-up just beginning. I've watched loads of those already, so I'll know the score when I join in myself tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. I'll be thrown in at the deep end then, have to parade half-naked in a leotard or body-stocking, or, after six, in cocktail gear. I hate the very thought. The hostess leads us out, and we have to say our names in turn, simpering and smiling. “Hi, I'm Kathy.” “Hi, I'm Carole.” Then walk up and down like animals, turn around, show off all we've got.

I watch the girls perform, hips wiggling, sexy pouts in place. There are four men sitting watching – three youngish, one quite ancient – sizing up the talent: judging the wobble on a pair of boobs, or picking out the biggest bum. They all look rather scruffy, but at least they're quiet, respectful. Some guys crack rude jokes, or make personal remarks, right out loud so everyone can hear. “My Uncle Herb's got bigger boobs than Blondie there”, or “That one needs a diet, not a dick”. You have to keep on smiling, however rude or crude they are, wait until you're chosen. I don't know which is worse, being chosen, or rejected. And imagine being passed up three or four times running. It happens. I mean, these line-ups go on all day long; the whole charade repeated for every customer, unless he's booked a regular, or made some prior arrangement like my Korean.

Christ! I'm late for him, and after all that twitchy clock-watching. I sprint back to the lounge, find Laura there, the strictest of the hostesses, frowning at her own watch. She doesn't tell me off. She can't – she's not alone – though her fleshy figure almost hides the pocket Oriental cowering in her wake. He's tiny, looks as if he's eaten nothing more substantial than bean sprouts and bamboo shoots since he was weaned off his four-foot-nothing mother's watery milk. Laura introduces us. His name is Kyung Tae Chung. I can't pronounce it. My fear spreads like a rash.

“We were just wondering where you were,” says Laura coldly.

I mumble an apology, but she's already at the door, on her way to Carl, no doubt, to report my negligence. The door clicks shut behind her. Kyung Tae and me are on our own. My blue eyes meet his brown ones for one naked panicked second, before we both switch on smiles again.

“S … Sit down,” I urge.

He sits, seems to shrink still further, be swallowed up in the sudden deathbed silence.

“Er … have you driven far?” I ask. Crazy when I know he's come from Vegas and a taxi driver brought him.

“Please?”

Christ! He hasn't understood, can't speak English. No, he must do. “Please” is probably just a courtesy. I wish I knew more about his country. Isn't it Korea where yes means no and no means yes? God! I hope not. It could cause complications later on.

I try again. “It's … quite a place, Vegas, isn't it? I come from London – well, Portishead, but no one's heard of that. Have you been to London?”

He keeps on smiling. He's obviously polite. “London,” I repeat, slowly, very clearly. Those with meagre English can often pick up place names.

He doesn't. I try his own name. “Do I call you Kyung?” I ask. “Or Mr Chang?” (
Was
it Chang, or Ching?) “Or Chung, or … ?”

There's no start of recognition, no nod or gesture to confirm either variation. Maybe I pronounced it wrong. Or perhaps it's not his real name, but a false one like Adorée which he gave to Carl to protect his true identity and has now forgotten. Or a name on an ID card which belongs to someone else. I can feel both our selves blurring into nothing, tipping into void.

I start talking very fast to pull me back again, anchor me to solid things like birthday cakes or corgis; try tackling the same subjects which succeeded with the Wife.

He looks bewildered. “Sorry?” At least he knows two words. Please and sorry. We won't get far with those.

“It doesn't matter. Really.” It does, though. He's sitting very straight, one hand trembling on his knee. I've failed, failed already. He's more nervous than when I first came in.