Chapter 5

He boarded the bus back into town, paid his fare with the last of the change he had in his pockets, and took a seat at the very back of it. The bus was empty save for a silent driver up front who hummed a melody that he had heard somewhere before. He recognized the tune, but he couldn’t place it. The hope he had of ever capturing Artie’s life as his own slowly waned as the light of the afternoon died with it. A weakening ball of flame in a bright blue sky had metastasized into a mellow orange orb that snuffed out his range of possibilities. The green forests beyond the bus windows soon reverted to quaint suburban mother-daughter homes with warped aluminum siding and billboards high above ground that tackily blared advertisements that now replaced vacant hillsides. Strip malls with fast food restaurants and bright neon signs that offered fried value meals and lucky sweepstakes contests filled in the spaces where parks ought to have been. The roadway narrowed to a two-lane avenue that ran between mid-rise buildings of dark-brown brick-face and small mom-and- pop stores that barely kept the neighborhood children fed. The slow descent from high luxury to scarcity seemed instantaneous, even though it took only a half-hour to leave Artie’s Camelot-styled world completely behind.

A listlessness carried him up a flight of stairs and back into his apartment all over again. He couldn’t hide the feeling anymore that somewhere similar gatherings were taking place in the town—yes, similar gatherings with shapely women and muscled studs who secretly blossomed behind the sliding peek-holes of clandestine speakeasies, these same orgiastic gatherings that excluded him due to his terminal ache of wanting all of it but getting absolutely none of it. Suddenly everyone beyond the mildewy walls of his living room was involved in an orgy that he wasn’t invited to, as though everyone in the town had been given a free ticket to a Bacchanal that shut him out. He was a befuddled orphan who was thrown out with the bathwater. His frustrations with his lonely fate turned especially acute when he sensed that even the most criminal of men took sheer delight in breaking the hearts of random beauty queens who found it all-too-easy and effortless to release their pent-up sexual energies onto them as though it were all part of their sick game—victorious men overcoming vanquished women, and the women liked it. This abuse was not unlike that of a prison inmate who forces his guard to internalize his own tyrannical inclinations. Charlie’s rigor of discipline and his claim to some chivalry were no matches for the jackals of the town who became instruments of these women’s girlish pleasures.

And as far as the women were concerned, loving these men came as easy and natural to them as breathing in air, and the thought of cretins doing it over and over again became so outrageously maddening to him that his only recourse, he began to think, was to try and replicate these same sexual fantasies for himself—only this time he would offer these women his genuine love along with good payment for their services. It seemed like the only thing he could do to have that which others took for granted, and the love he would give them would dampen the immorality of such actions, because he did truly love them.

The idea of spending all of his salary on such efforts flashed through him as an epiphany, and for a time he couldn’t let go of this new idea that had spawned from his bout with prematurely leaving Artie’s place. It was almost as though he were ravenously envious of their own fantasy-fueled lifestyles that never seemed to include him in anything or allow him to participate in any way, and if per chance on some lonely day they happened to shine their love and affection upon him, their acts would still seem terribly forced, rehearsed, and phony. They wouldn’t be doing freely at all but doing it only because a most- sympathetic entity from high above had ordered them to do it out of charity and pity for his diseased and needy self who continually wept for a woman’s company. The only way to enter her heart, thought Charlie, was to force his way in as time’s winged chariot hurried near enough for him to take such a plunge and never look back.

He waited a week or two for his paychecks to add up in his bank account. He didn’t call Artie or speak to him again, as he knew that he could never be a part of them even though he had desperately tried. He likened it to having altitude sickness. The rawness of the street returned to him after flying so high, although he was tempted many times over to see Renee’s body moving fluidly behind the bar again at the pub down the street. The pain of resisting the beer and the late night women dropped him into desperation for a couple of weeks, but generally he stayed away from women and saved his money carefully so that he could finally permeate the blockade that kept him locked out of the feminine heart. In order to penetrate such a barrier, he believed he would have to buy his way in.

After a couple of weeks of straight work and watching a bit of television here and there to remind him of Artie’s glamorous world, he made a withdrawal on all of his money and invested it instead in late night encounters with women of his choosing.

And at first it wasn’t so easy. He didn’t feel too comfortable diving into illegalities. What he learned in high school taught him to steer clear of breaking the law and living a life of crime and sin. Always at the back of his mind loomed the more puritan goal of meeting women legitimately—or the old-fashioned way of asking a woman out on a date, but this never worked. He had always wanted to hook up normally, or at least hook up how most people had been programmed to mate, like on a third date, for instance, as that’s when you finally get to sleep with the girl. That seemed to be the more cosmopolitan thing to do, or if he preferred the old-fashioned approach, then he should ask one of his wayward war-veteran uncles to find him a match, or even ask his boss up at the real estate office for help. But he was near certain that the people he knew, especially those on the fringes of life, wouldn’t help him very much. They had problems and ordeals of their own. Even the one-night stand at a bar would have worked ell or even the deluded daydream of some twenty-minute quickie in a hotel room would have worked quite well also. But the quest to be legitimate had to fail. Sex was indeed a revolutionary act, and he didn’t know if paying for it was necessarily revolutionary, but it was the only way out of the madness that gripped him. But when you pay, it’s fake, but he would be satisfied with that.

He had heard many times over that the women who prostituted themselves were not much more than slave-girls in global human trafficking rings that routinely exploited their ignorance, and most importantly, their innocence. And yet he needed their services very badly. A man just can’t go without sex for too long. It just wasn’t in Charlie’s nature to sit on the sidelines and watch others partaking freely in what he deemed as his right to have also. A man without a sex life becomes that rapacious killer who blows up buildings or hijacks planes, beats up the elderly in building lobbies, and maims young fathers bearing a dozen red roses for their Steppford wives at home. These were indeed the very stark choices he faced if he went on any longer without it. He knew he had crossed the line by opening up the phone book and dialing the first escort service he found.

The escort service was advertised in a large rectangular and graphically busy space that took up a half page of the phone book. It offered “international beauties” at reasonable rates and were available twenty-four hours and seven days a week. He figured that women really could be purchased in stores and that a woman’s love could be rented at a fair price if he chose to trade his labors away for an hour of pleasure. The service accepted all credit cards and offered convenient toll-free numbers. He grew nervous before finally gathering up the courage to call. When he did, the soft-spoken voice of a female answered on the other end. She said hello twice, and he quickly slammed down the receiver in a fit of anxiety.

He then waited a few more minutes by staring at and contemplating the phone itself. He even thought it possible that the woman would somehow find his number and call him back, which thankfully did not happen. But soon he warmed to the idea of being with a woman and releasing all of his pent-up energies. He again picked up the phone and dialed nervously. The voice of the same woman with a heavy breath and a sensual tone of voice answered his call.

“Hi, I’m Charlie,” he said after she answered.

“Hi there, Charlie. What can I do for you this evening?”

“I don’t usually make calls like this.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s okay. What can I help you with?”

“I was thinking about ... well, you know.”

“No, sweetie, you’re going to have to tell me what you want. That way I can get it for you.”

“I don’t know exactly how to put it.”

“That’s okay, sweetie. Just come out and tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Your voice sounds nice.”

“You just go ahead and tell me why you called, honey. Take your time.”

“Well, I guess I’d like for a girl to come visit me and spend the night with me.”

“Good, sweetheart. You did just fine. We offer our girls on an hourly rate. You should think about how many hours you’d like to have her.”

“I’d say three hours would do it,” he said after some minor calculations.

“It’s two-hundred dollars an hour, sweetie.”

“My God! That much?”

“Yes, sweetie. We offer the prettiest girls in the area, and if you check around, our rates are quite reasonable. In fact, if you order three hours with her, we’ll give you a fourth hour at half our regular rate.”

“Just an hour will do then.”

“Okay. So what girl would you like?”

“What do you mean?”

“What type of girl would you like to spend the evening with?”

“You mean you’re not the girl?”

“No,” she chuckled, “I’m just the answering service.”

“Oh. Okay, then. What type of girl do you have?”

“We have white, black, Hispanic, and Asian models available.”

He thought she’d hold it against him if he said he wanted a white woman, and he felt a little funny about wanting only a white woman, because he didn’t want to insult the beauty of black, Hispanic, and Asian women in the world for not choosing one of them. But he blurted out the word ‘white’ without doting any longer on how his choice would affect worldwide racial harmony among people.

“Okay,” she said. “Would you like a blonde, brunette, or red-head?”

“Blonde, if you could,” said Charlie, feeling a bit low for wanting someone completely out of his league and for having such trite tastes in women.

“Sure. I currently have Roxanne available. She’s five-three with blue eyes, a 38-24-36. She’s a very pretty girl. Do you want me to send her over?”

“Yes, please. Right away.”

He surrendered his credit card information to her, and she promised to call back after the information had been verified. He hung up the phone and noticed that his palms were sweating. She called back after he waited by the phone for a couple of minutes. He gave her the directions to his apartment and then was told the driver would call him when he was near.

“It’ll be about a half hour, sweetie,” she said.

When he hung up the phone, he could scarcely believe that the process of ordering a woman was as simple and hassle-free as ordering his favorite dish at the take-out Chinese place down the block. He also couldn’t believe he didn’t make the call sooner. He found that waiting for this Roxanne was incredibly difficult. He paced in his room, struggling to form a mental picture of what she looked like. He imagined someone in lingerie underneath a trench coat, as it was still pouring buckets outside, and he imagined taking her in his bed and fulfilling every erotic desire imaginable, as it had been ages since he’d been with a woman. In fact, he was comforted by the fact that he lusted for her. His lust proved, above all else, that he was indeed a heterosexual man, a wild beast who couldn’t be restrained. Roxanne would give his manhood back to him, and although there were moral implications involved with paying a young woman for sex, comforting the raging throb inside of him that would otherwise lead him to kill an innocent man on the street outweighed the moral concern of paying for it. In fact, he was taking the high road on this one, and if a man couldn’t have a women due in part to his natural ugliness or lack of a higher paying job, then paying her for the service was the next best thing. And so his thinking went.

As the minutes slowly passed, he tried to find something to occupy the time. He watched television a little, but only found the programs he had been used to watching bland and vapid all of a sudden. Nothing compared to the real thing, he figured, and yes, he deserved at least one hour of happiness in his life. He would never be successful at anything other than making sure his boss didn’t fire him, although he had at one time tried to get promoted, or at least as a younger man he had dreams and ambitions so wild as to merit their blundering pursuit. But success in the conventional sense, much like the success of those he constantly watched on television and the ones he read about in the glossy magazines, he would never achieve. A man needed to slide once in while, or come to terms with his own ugliness every now and then just to feel that he’s really alive. If he flirted with a little danger now, he wouldn’t have to be consumed by it later. There were so many reasons why this was the right thing to do, and from all angles of his conscience, this was the best thing he could do for humanity at the present.

His pacing became furious, and every few moments or so he glanced at the digital clock on his microwave. He thought about having a drink or something to eat, but his heart was racing now, his impatience driving him to lie on his sofa bed and sink his head deep within his pillows and grind his teeth at his maddening impatience. He thought of calling the service again, just to remind them that they had a desperate client waiting for a girl, but he didn’t want to ruffle any feathers his first time out there. Better to keep it casual and discreet, as they may not deliver her due to his agony.

The phone rang after he had given up all hope. His heart leapt from his chest, and the call just may have been the greatest gift the Gods had bestowed upon him during his time spent alone in his cruddy apartment. He picked the phone up slowly, so as not to disconnect the call accidentally.

“Hello, we’re on the highway now,” said a rugged man’s voice. “Can you tell me how to get to you, because we’re lost right now.”

By his broken English, he assumed the driver was from Eastern Europe or somewhere close to there, but he carefully gave him directions on how to get to his apartment from the highway they were on. To his disappointment, they were by no means close, and the driver promised to call him back once they hit city limits. And once again Charlie was forced into waiting. It was something that would drive him to drink, but he refrained and decided instead to sweat it out and build up whatever reserve of desire lurked within him. It took nearly an hour before the driver called him again, and he had almost fallen asleep, only to wake up to the surprise of the phone call.

“I’m in the city,” said the driver.

“Where?”

“On Main Street and Mercer,” he replied.

“Good. I’m just a block from there,” and he gave him further directions.

It was not long before the downstairs buzzer rang. It was close to three in the morning, and the rain had slowed to a steady drizzle. He buzzed them in, and after a couple of minutes he heard loud talking in the hallway, something that might disturb his neighbors, but at that point he didn’t care very much. He opened the door to a tall, meaty figure smoking a cigarette and behind him a brown-skinned woman of average height wrapped in a faux fur coat. It wasn’t the blonde- haired, blue-eyed Roxanne they had said they were sending, but he still found the woman somewhat attractive. She had long brown hair and hazel eyes like the operator said, but she was by no means white. She looked Hispanic or Latina, and she was a little under the weather. She smiled coyly, and he smiled back.

The driver took a seat on his sofa bed and asked for an ashtray. He gave him a plastic cup filled with water in lieu of one. The driver carried a metal clipboard, and he began the painstaking process of filling out the paperwork required for a credit card transaction. He assumed the driver worked with the mob or was some hit man when he wasn’t busy driving these young girls all over the area, but he nervously handed over his credit card anyway and hoped he wouldn’t charge anything on it fraudulently. He remembered watching a news segment on identity theft and cringed at the idea of surrendering the number, but he did so, because he was tired of waiting and wanted the young girl in his bed as soon as possible. The driver also asked him for his drivers license, and he readily surrendered that as well. He then signed a couple of innocuous forms. All in all, it took about ten or fifteen minutes for the driver to etch his credit card number onto a blank transaction slip, and at one point Charlie was about to lose his cool due to his uncontrollable impatience, but he persevered, and soon the burly driver was gone, leaving dank cigarette smoke in his place.

Roxanne, who had by this time seated herself on the other side of the sofa bed, got up and locked the door. They were all alone now, and he couldn’t have felt more relieved. She doffed her faux fur coat. She wore a white, skimpy spandex top that clung to her waif-like curves. A short leather mini-skirt barely concealed what hid directly beneath it. He was overwhelmed by the trashiness of her clothing, as this was a woman he could easily see himself fucking in some back alley or on any given urban street. She turned him on her clothes were so tight, and she casually took a tour of his small studio apartment, studying some of the pictures on the wall and the old paperbacks on his bookshelf.

“So where are you from,” he asked, relieved that the driver was gone.

“I live nearby,” she said. “So, what do you do?”

“I’m in real estate,” he said humbly.

“So am I.”

She took charge at this point, and when she sat him down on the edge of the sofa bed, she took off her clothes.

“You know, you’re kind of handsome.”

“Really? You think so?”

“I bet you’ve had plenty of women.”

“Actually quite the opposite is true, unfortunately.”

“Well, why don’t you take off your clothes.”

He undressed in the soft light of the kitchen just a few feet away. He also drew the blinds so that the neighbors across the alleyway wouldn’t intrude. It was the last hurdle that separated him from the girl, and when she took hold of his hands and ran them over her chest, he could scarcely believe that he had never before purchased a gift such as this for himself. Her skin was as soft as butter and her scent as sweet as wildflowers in a springtime garden. They fell into the bed together, and after a few short minutes it was all over.

“I do have you for the full hour,” he said, after he caught her reaching for her clothes.

“I know, but I only allow you to come once,” she explained.

He didn’t want her to leave just yet. He wanted to keep her for a while, and suddenly money seemed like the last thing on his mind. It was no object as far as he was concerned. Having her lie in bed with him had to be the most comfortable thing he’d experienced in a very long time, and it was too soon to let her dash off like that.

“What if I wanted you to stay?”

She smiled, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “I’m negotiable,” in his ear.

“I want you to stay with me until later tonight,” he said to his own astonishment.

“That’s a lot of money.”

“I have it. I can take an advance on my next paycheck.”

“Don’t you want to think about it a little more?”

“No. I’m as certain as I’ll ever be. I want you to sleep here and then go out with me this evening.”

“I’m not going to stop you, but wouldn’t it be better if I left after an hour or so and then returned at, let’s say, at eight this evening?”

“God, you’re smart.”

“That’s because you’re thinking with your dick.”

“Yes, I see. Okay then, let’s do it your way, but you should stay for an hour more and then leave.”

She fished her cell phone out of her purse and called the driver downstairs.

“He’ll have to come up if you want me for another hour.”

He nodded in full agreement, and it wasn’t long before the muscled driver knocked on the door again. He did another etching of his credit card, and it didn’t really matter at this point how much he spent on the girl. The driver grinned at him lasciviously after he finished another cigarette and then left the two of them there. They undressed again and lay on the sofa, awkwardly holding each other. He didn’t know if he should kiss her or not, as he had learned from an old movie that it was too personal a gesture, so instead he kissed her cheeks and the length of her neck. His body rubbed against her softness, and he couldn’t imagine anywhere else in the world he’d rather be. He wanted to run away with her.

“I’m Puerto Rican,” she admitted after he had asked, and he couldn’t think of a place more perfect for a getaway. “I want to move back there once I’ve made enough money.”

“It’s hard in America, no?”

“Very hard,” she sighed, “but one day I will make it out of here.”

“On my salary I’m pretty much stuck here.”

“Oh, my poor baby,” she said, kissing him on the neck. “I’d really love to go there one day,” he said.

“Puerto Rico? It’s a beautiful place, and my family is there.”

“What brought you here, by the way?”

He didn’t mean to talk of things so personal, but perhaps she would reveal something that would make him believe that she truly liked him, although it must have all been an act on her part. He sensed she was pretending, but he ignored it. He suspended his disbelief, as though the two were suddenly star-crossed lovers going their separate ways once the daylight intruded upon their small bed.

“My husband, he’s in jail,” she said.

“Jail? What for?”

“Murder. He killed a bunch of people in New York.”

“I see. Why did he do it?”

“He’s a bully, that’s why. He used to go to the clubs, and that’s where I met him. He killed people over money, and then he kept doing it until they caught him.”

“How long is he in jail for?”

“At least twenty or thirty years. I’m leaving him. I’m going to where he can’t find us.”

“Who’s us?’”

“Me and my two children. We’re trying to make enough for plane tickets to Puerto Rico.”

“I guess the American dream didn’t work out so well, eh?.”

“No, but I’m not bitter about it. Sometimes it doesn’t work out.”

“You’re an incredibly brave woman. Are you running from him, or is it just this place?”

“A little of both. I can’t seem to survive here.”

“Me neither,” he said.

“Are you married?”

“No. I’ve been single for a long time now. I never had any children.”

“Which is why you called me.”

“Yes. I can no longer stand being alone. I thought I could at one point, but now I realize I was mistaken. If I could, I’d go to Puerto Rico with you.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, I’m not. I’ve never been so frustrated before, and I’ve never worked so hard for so little. And now I’m frustrated with this place.”

“My poor baby,” she said again, kissing him.

Her soft skin seemed to envelope the whole of his rough body, and his comfort in her was the closest he had come to divinity while living in his cramped apartment. But he was a little afraid of the girl’s boyfriend whom he imagined would murder him some day if he ever found out about their affair. He knew he should avoid any emotional attachment to the girl, but as he sensed his extra hour coming to a close, he couldn’t help but want her to stay even longer, no matter what the dire financial consequences were. His sense of time was so acute, however, that he pulled away from her instead of taking advantage of the fifteen minutes or so they had left.

She called the driver on her cell phone and said she was coming out. She left him in bed, his sheets scented with wildflowers as an indelible reminder of their love-making.

He saw the Puerto Rican Roxanne once more thereafter before making a switch to another woman. And because it was so expensive for him, he planned it out so that he would see a woman in this fashion about once every month, like routine maintenance. If he planned it out right, he could make it something he continued indefinitely. He still had his paychecks saved up, and what a difference this new wrinkle in his routine made. It sure beat spending all of his money trying to find a legitimate relationship at the local bar. He had gone way past all of the counter-arguments for hiring women to sleep with him.

His covert activity certainly wasn’t a revenge upon the other women who neglected or ignored him time and again, but he definitely saw it as fair compensation for the injuries he had suffered after unsuccessfully trying to land a legitimate girlfriend. His intention was not to sleep with a prostitute simply to counteract the ignorance of the women who denied him either, as that would only inflict harm and cause conflict between him and the prescience and wisdom of all womanhood, as they would easily win such a lunatic battle. The intention, again, was never to harm or cause conflict with the female world but only to express his love openly for all women by having all of their types making love to him as a form of communication. He was much like a supplicant addressing a female goddess who hovered just slightly above the cosmos and had monitored his every painful frustration and sacrifice from his own high school years up until the moment that Roxanne left him with a kiss.

Finally he had found at least some way to communicate his love for females besides killing people or destroying things or breaking some other poor sucker’s heart by taking his only girlfriend away. A man didn’t have to be a criminal anymore to communicate his longing and his affections for women. No longer did he have to win duels or conquer territories or steal her away from men who were more powerful. He simply had to call up the service and make love to them when they arrived. He simply had to make room for it in his budget and continue to exchange his labors for their love, as money, economically speaking, was merely a currency that represented his long days of hard work at the real estate office, and he’d rather give the fruits of his labor to these women who were willing to make house calls at all hours of the night than to squander his time getting drunk.

The relationship between a call-girl and her client was really no different than the relationship between a trophy wife and a powerful real estate executive, he figured. It was no different than two wealthy families agreeing to join together through the trade that the matrimony of their young children signified. The words ‘finding a right match’ could also be taken to mean ‘making the right trade’ for the hand of a woman. Trades like these were made a thousand times a day, especially by those who were considered to be by many as the most successful people in the world. And Charlie would do his best to show that he really loved them by catering to their every whim. He’d do what he could to be a gentleman and treat them as though they were married partners. He’d pay them in cash, as that is what they all wanted more than credit card payments, and he would do his best to add romance to what others may have mistakenly viewed as the bestial lusts of profit-making pimps.

Charlie believed from that point on that prostitution really wasn’t what many said it was. He didn’t see it as immoral at all but just the opposite. It reduced what would have been an otherwise long-term relationship down to a simple hour-long period where no one got hurt and no one suffered—just simply exchanged their love making as an end in itself. Prostitution seemed to be the higher goal—not a male and female union through a marriage that threatened resources and caused parents to protect their children by behaving so irrationally themselves that a nuclear missile aimed at their neighbor’s houses would have better served their protective inclinations than the creation of a simple American family.

Charlie believed that his new life would keep him happy and satisfied for the rest of his years, and he even recorded the memories he had with each woman he slept with by writing them down in a leather-bound journal book after each encounter had taken its proper course. He did, however, exceed the limit of the one-woman-per- month rule every so often, especially as a full year of seeing these women came to an abrupt end. He kept his journal confined to the women he saw on third Saturday nights of every month. He began writing these accounts in his journal book soon after his second date with the Puerto Rican woman.