Chapter 2: My First Hooker

A few weeks later, the lease on the apartment was up, and it was time to find a new place to live. Walt and I decided to find a place of our own. We really wanted to get away from our strange roommates, so we snuck off and found a place without telling them. Kind of mean, but I was learning you can't always be a nice guy.

It didn't take Walt long to check out all the bars and clubs close to our new apartment. We were only half an hour from the French Quarter, but there are times when you just want someplace close where you can go for a beer, and maybe to pick up a local honey. That was Walt's philosophy anyway. Mine was to follow Walt's lead as much as possible, in hopes that some of his abilities with the ladies would somehow rub off on me.

We were driving back from work one day when Walt said, "Hey, before we go home, let's make a detour. I want to show you an interesting little bar I found. It might just be your kind of place."

I wasn't sure what that remark meant, but I soon found out. It turned out to be a small, quiet bar only about half a mile from where we lived. I had probably driven by the place twenty times and never noticed it. It was off the main road, kind of hidden behind a tire store. There were no garish signs out front, just one small neon squiggle over the doorway. 'Pat's Place' it proclaimed in a subtle purple glow. It was almost like a private club, one of those hideaways that you need a password to get into.

The interior matched the low-key approach of the exterior. It was dark and subdued, even by cocktail lounge standards, but with some very nice, comfortable furniture. The bar ran down one side of the narrow, rectangular room. A row of plush leather-upholstered booths lined the opposite wall, with half dozen or so tables in the middle. There was what looked like a small dance floor at the far end of the room. The whole place probably would only hold about 50-60 people at the most.

Adding to the understated ambience was the soft jazz playing in the background. A lot of places around New Orleans in those days tended more toward rock and roll, country, or the old standby Dixieland for their background music. All in all, it would have made a nice upscale restaurant, which it may have been in a previous reincarnation. But it sure didn't seem like a Walt kind of place. He was more of a honky-tonk, sawdust on the floor, pool tables in the back kind of guy.

We sat down at the bar and ordered two beers. Walt was on a first name basis with the bartender, which didn't surprise me. Walt was one of those people who makes friends in about thirty seconds. Walt introduced me to him, and he turned out to be the famous Pat that the place was named after. He wasn't all that friendly, as bartenders go, but I guess when it's your place, you make the rules.

We sat quietly nursing our beers. As my eyes adapted to the dim lighting, I took a look around. There were only two other customers in the place, but it was early in the evening. Most of my attention was drawn to the bar maids. There were three of them, all very attractive young ladies dressed in what appeared to be the standard 'Pat's Place' uniform, short black skirts and low-cut white blouses. It seemed like there was way too many servers for that sized establishment, but I supposed it got busy later on. The girls did provide some nice eye candy. It was obvious that Pat had a good taste in women.

By the time we finished our first round, I still hadn't figured out what it was about Pat's that Walt had been so anxious for me to see, and he wasn't giving me any hints. We ordered two more beers, this time from one of the bar maids. 'Wendy' was the name on the button she wore pinned to the lowest point of the plunging neckline of her peasant-style blouse. I'm not normally that much of a big tit guy, but it was hard not to stare at the top half of Wendy's swelling breasts as they strained the thin material of her top. She had some nice nipples poking against the smooth fabric.

We were talking about some problems at work when suddenly Walt poked me in the ribs with his elbow. He leaned toward me and whispered, "Watch the guy sitting next to you." A few minutes earlier, an older man in a nice looking suit had entered and sat down two stools away from me. Wendy had taken his order after she had brought us our beers. I did as Walt had suggested, trying to see what it was about the guy that I was supposed to find so interesting without actually staring at him.

Wendy set his drink down in front of him. He reached in his wallet and pulled a crisp bill out. He creased it and laid it on the bar. I had to squint, but finally saw that it was a $50 bill. Wendy picked it up, but instead of heading for the cash register, she walked over and whispered something to Pat. He nodded at her, and she disappeared into a back room. A moment later she came back out, carrying her purse, headed straight for the front door. The guy next to me slugged down the rest of his drink and followed her.

"Well," Walt said with a self-satisfied grin on his face. "Did you catch it?"

I was still a little dense, and very unworldly. "Catch what? She didn't give him his change, and he went after her. Is that what you wanted me to see, that the girls here are crooks? If so, I'm a little disap..."

"Geez," he moaned, "for such a smart guy, you can be so thick sometimes." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. I felt like he was about to share some national security secret with me. "Look, dummy, the girls here are hookers. That's what this is all about."

"Oh," I said, feeling very stupid.

"The deal is," Walt continued, "when a guy sees one of the girls he likes, he orders a drink from her. If he pays her with a twenty, it means he wants a blowjob. If he gives her a fifty, he wants to fuck her. If she brings back change, it means she's not interested, or doesn't trust him. But if she heads for the door, it's on, and they go to the motel next door."

"But if I had just wandered in here by myself, out of the blue," I clarified, "I wouldn't know what was going on."

"Exactly, boy genius. The idea is to keep a low profile. It keeps local law enforcement happy. If the girls were standing out front, waving at guys on the highway, they might get busted. But this way, no harm no foul."

I never asked Walt how he had learned about 'Pat's Place'. He wasn't a guy that I would have thought would ever have to pay for sex. It was way too easy for him to talk cute little Dixie chicks out of their panties. But I was intrigued by the idea. My love life was still stuck in neutral, and memories of my bizarre experience with Bobbi Jo were all I had to fall back on. Walt knew that, and kidded me about my "lack of nookie" frequently, which explained why he thought I would find 'Pat's Place' interesting.

If the girls in Pat's had been average looking, or even a little slutty, like hookers were supposed to be, I probably wouldn't have followed up on Walt's hint. But all three of them working that evening appeared to be young, clean-cut, and very desirable. My sex-starved libido soon became obsessed with the idea of walking into Pat's Place and walking out with Wendy or one of her friends. I had seen a lot of ladies of the evening hanging around bars in the Quarter, but they had all seemed too hard-edged, or old, or unattractive, for me to even think about renting their bodies. But Pat's girls were different, not exactly the kind you want to take home to Mom, but definitely the kind that Dad would have liked.

I began to hang out at Pat's. I was trying to become a familiar face to the girls, with the idea in mind that when I made my move I would hopefully not be rejected. After a few weeks of building up my courage, I went to Pat's one day right after work, with a fresh crisp $50 in my wallet.

I had seen six different girls in Pat's over the last few weeks. There were three regulars, and three who only seemed to show up occasionally. My favorite was a girl named Denise. She had short, black hair, a cute smile with dimples, and great legs. She wasn't as buxom as Wendy or some of the others, but I've never been much of a tit man, so that was OK. She was taller than most of the girls, with long, tight legs that looked great in her short black skirt.

Of course, life being the unfair bitch it often is, Denise wasn't on duty the day that I made my move. I waited for awhile, nursing a beer, thinking that she might be busy with a 'client'. I was about to give up and wait for another day when she came bustling in. It looked like she was just showing up for work, because she didn't have her uniform on. I was grateful for that, I really wanted to be her first guy of the night. She went into the back to change as Pat came over to see if I was ready for a refill. I asked him if Denise could take my order, and even tried a conspiratorial wink, which failed miserably. Pat looked at me like I had suddenly developed some terrible disease, but he did send her over.

"Hi," she smiled and greeted me like the regular customer I had become. "What can I get you?"

"Uh, a... a... refill on this... please," I stammered, holding up my empty beer bottle.

"Sure thing, sweetie." She gave me one of her big smiles that I found so attractive. While she was fetching my drink, I slid the big bill out of my wallet. I had it lying on the counter when she got back. She put the bottle down and picked up the bill. She looked at it, saw the portrait of Ulysses Grant, and paused. She looked up at me, but now she wasn't smiling. For the next few seconds she held my money, and my life, in her hands. If she had brought back change, it's likely I would have walked right out of the bar and into the traffic on the nearby expressway. If I couldn't even buy sex, my life would be worthless.

Denise walked over to the cash register, paused for a painful few seconds, then moved over to whisper in Pat's ear. He looked over at me and grinned, like the idea of me wanting to have sex with one of his girls was a joke. I was so used to watching the routine that I was headed for the door before Denise even came out from the back room. It was still daylight, and when she emerged I had my first good look at her in normal light. My first thought was that she was older than I had thought. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, instead of my age.

Age quickly became an issue for her also. She took a good look at me and said, "How old are you, kid?"

"I'm twenty-one."