Chapter 7

Days after the traumatic discovery by the blond friend of me bringing his mother to orgasm, Mother and I sailed for England on an ocean liner. The producer brought us. Though the timing might suggest it, we had no reason for fleeing. The war in Europe had just ended and the producer headed to the West End of London to gather talent and create a show destined for Broadway. The opportunity to safely spend uninterrupted time with my mother proved irresistible to the producer.

Mother met him at a bar. Not her first choice for meeting future sponsors, other opportunities had failed or dried up. Meeting at a bar tended to create one night stands. One night would be useless. A phone number promised little or nothing. The possible sponsor forgot the source or got cold feet or hoped for immediate relief. Unfortunately it seemed like the last chance. Mother had fixed on the older man with the tailored suit and short but unruly hair immediately and spent the evening talking and flirting. He became charmed and then disappointed ending up only with a phone number. When he called and came over, Mother made it clear what he'd be in her life. She told him her life and expected truth from him. Her process of screening sponsors rarely failed. If he lied, it ended. If he seemed the perfect gentleman, he lied. Mother expected deception. She expected womanizers or whore mongers. She expected frustration at home. Her place in his life depended on it.

The producer couldn't help deceiving. She resisted her desperation. She told him if he continued his lies he couldn't have her. She told him she could find out about him. She asked what difference it made if he told her the truth except she would become his mistress. He told his story.

Loving his wife and two sons, both adults and rebellious but essentially good, wasn't enough. He needed an outlet. At first he seduced actresses on the proverbial casting couch, hiring them more for their talent for felatio than their acting. When drilled by my mother, he confessed he still did it, but far less and only talented actresses who competed against other actresses for the same role. The sexy crap he hired because of their mouths proved too obvious and provoked his wife's suspicion. Later he tried actresses as mistresses. Again the wife became suspicious and followed him, hiring a private investigator. Threatening to divorce him, along with the fact he didn't like actresses as mistresses quashed that. A year of resisting temptation and being particularly affectionate with his wife had made him feel safe from her spying. When he got horny, he'd visit a high end brothel, but avoided frequenting it because of the expense. His wife kept track of the family finances. This created a challenge. Mother liked challenges. She brought out her expenses, her expected pay. Her frugality kept it low but still significant.

"I have a friend," she told him, "who can help us." Several successful men had been former sponsors. She rarely burned bridges. "He's a tax expert who sheltered his business and others so successfully that their tax load is indecently small. We construct a shelter; a development scheme where up and coming talent can try out material or improve acting skills. We inflate the expense by this amount," pointing at her expenses. "My friend can tell you how: discretionary funds or something. But first I have to convince you I should be in your life."

The producer had never cum so much in his life. She even let him bugger her, a fantasy he hadn't experienced. Everything she did thrilled beyond imagination, bringing him the most stimulation, the biggest climaxes, and rapid recovery. She hooked him and brought him in and devoured him. Though he paid a large percentage of our livelihood, she owned him.

The tax expert kept the deception simple. The biggest expense for the rehearsal space became rent. He minimized the actual rent; a favor for three years of sponsoring my mother in the middle of the depression. The tax expert was ugly, unable to attract companionship without paying for it. She liked him despite his gaunt and pock marked face. I did too. Except for keeping money from the government that they could probably have used, he was a good man. Careful with his money, he negotiated keenly with mom and kept his sponsorship to a minimum. We lived comfortably, but he felt guilty about his spendthrift nature. Mother used the guilt along with his fondness for her to gain favors. His sponsorship ended happily. He found a woman who loved him. She carried substantial fat on her body but had a beautiful face and a kind soul. Their children turned out attractive. One had a filled out version of his features, the boy. The girl grew up as pretty as her mom but without the fat. The whole family brimmed with intelligence. So being a happy man and a wealthy man, the tax expert happily rented for cheap a space in a warehouse south of Houston Street that he owned.

Princess and I had access to the space, and we would use it to sound out our lines, but more and more shared the space with secondary rehearsals, play development, musical tightening and such. The producer witnessed us working our project, but being a commercial soul didn't get it.

The producer flirted. He couldn't help himself. Seldom did anything come of it since Mom entered his life. He enjoyed flirting and if he got to make out with some woman, even better. My mother didn't care. She never worried. She had him. She had her own fun.

During the ocean voyage, he enjoyed an affair with an elegant heiress lasting a day and a night. Mother and I played games with the faces, imagining lives. We engaged an older queer couple in lively, cynical conversation, my mother surprising with her wit, and I added an impressive quip or two. The long excursion with endless ocean and constant grumbling motor rarely bored. When on the last night of the journey my mother left me to my own devices, joining the producer in his cabin, I flirted with a spoiled little rich girl a year older than me until she succumbed to my wiles and we made out. I gave her a couple orgasms with my fingers and tongue and she repaid me with passionate kisses and fisting my penis before returning to her own cabin, her virginity safe.

The suite in London luxuriated in size and service. Mother and I toured the damages of war and lunched in pubs and high class joints. We saw the variety of life like we saw in the City. Amused by the rough gents, the gentlemen and ladies with their stiff upper lips left us dry. New Yorkers have their disguises, but they're far more porous then the masks of gentility we witnessed. The most repressed of respectable Americans wore their attitude on their sleeves compared to these people. We bounced against the stone faces, overemphasizing a lack of civility to get reactions. If we were comedians, and in a way we were, we would have died. Eventually we became bored of London. Even the evening dinners and the after dinner parties or the plays and the after play parties with the producer got old. By the second week, my mother getting irritable and purposefully embarrassing around the theater professionals the producer wished to woo, when we decided to head to Paris, he probably wished it.

Paris was everything London wasn't. It remained intact for one. And its presence took our breath. And the people were as rude as the Londoners were polite. Having been given a sizable amount of cash by the producer, Mother pocketed most of it. We rented an apartment for cheap on the West Bank for a month. I translated for my mom, though even with three years of French, I struggled. Conversational and literary French are like apples and oranges. In school I thrived on French. It enabled me to read Artaud and the Symbolists and the Surrealists and the Dadaists directly. My attempts at conversation helped soften the innate rudeness. The Parisians appreciated my struggle.

Days we spent being tourists. Nights I searched for the Avant Garde. Mother accompanied me occasionally, but the long walks and the abundance of things to see, art and fashion and architecture during the day more often tired her out. For me, Paris flowing through my senses and into my blood constantly stimulated. Though finding nothing similar to the work the princess and I attempted, what I stumbled into I enjoyed.

Of all the readings and theatrical events and music I discovered, the Cinématique proved the most enjoyable and frequented and intellectually and creatively stimulating. Though mostly French, films came from all over Europe, America and the world, some new, many old. New York had its art houses, but the relevance and the reverence of the projected films outdistanced anything I had seen in the City, profoundly effecting my appreciation for movies as art. Film became my favorite medium. Intellectual conversations, arguments as only the French can create, surrounded me once the film ended and carried onto the street. I rarely participated, but leaned in raptly spying, a thrilled voyeur of these passionate discussions.

Two cafes became my places to end the day. One was in Montmartre. The other I found a couple blocks away from our apartment on the West Bank. The Montmartre café served older artists and intellectuals who got drunk and loose tongued. When their conversations interested me, they ignored my attempts to join in. The West Bank café contained younger versions of the clientele at Montmartre and my attempts eventually succeeded. It took my mom for me to get to know the older crowd. When I brought her to them, their drunk and horny nature embraced her. Her beauty and voluptuousness and experience as an artist's model got her jobs and her first European fucks. It also brought me into the group because I translated.

Spending days and nights without my mother began to bother me. I became lonely. I decided to pursue a French girl, someone a little older than I but not too old. I approached shop girls and museum goers and park visitors and pedestrians, but found no connection. Either my self-conscious French or something inherent in me French girls disliked I don't know, but my frustration drove me to a park where I heard prostitutes paraded. A block away I caught a girl's eye and kept it. We met in the middle of the block. She had big brown eyes set wide, a moderately long nose, a slight tan, and blood red rouge on her lips. Her face was a cute oval surrounded by short cropped dark brunette wavy hair held down by a dark blue beret. Her hips exaggerated their sway in her blue and flower printed summer dress. She wore thick high heels which she placed one in front of the other like a runway model. Her dress showed what cleavage she had created by breasts filling a hand.

"Hello," I said when we stopped, continuing our stare, my code word to find out if she spoke English.

"Bonjour," she said, answering that question. I spoke French. I lied about looking for a decent place to eat. She laughed, a sexy medium high rough twitter and told me the place catered to an all together different type of appetite. Caught in the lie, I stuttered a moment before admitting my purpose. As young as I looked, she thought she'd teased me and my confession surprised her, briefly worried her and then she smiled cutely. I invited her to lunch for real and she chuckled and agreed. She led me to a creperie. Pulling my money out to pay, I used the opportunity to pay her. Her wide eyes revealed the amount overwhelmed the expected especially from such a young man.

"Would you accompany me to my apartment?" I asked her in French.

"Oui," she said.

We took a taxi. There were plenty of taxis.

Sharing a bath, we splashed about like children and then fondled and teased like teenagers. While toweling off, her hand working my penis and mine her nipples, I had my first French kiss with a French girl. She resisted, but I insisted and she relented. Her breathing and her nipples revealed her pleasure. After the first kiss, she claimed the rest. Instead of fucking right away as might be expected I gave her an orgasm with my mouth and fingers. She tried grabbing my penis during the cunnilingus but I slapped her hand away. Urging her towards a second climax I covered my penis in lamb intestine and fucked her. She climaxed immediately. I didn't last long. She knew all the tricks to urge my cum. Along with her talented inner muscles milking me, I fit into her vagina more perfectly than anyone I had fucked. Everything about her delighted me: a cute and sexy face, a petite if a bit starved body and the way her face revealed every moment of pleasure and the way her body writhed. Removing the condom, she tossed it aside and attacked my penis with professional abandon. Continuing gentle caresses in her vagina and on her clit and around her nipples, I kept her ready for more while she resurrected my erection. Stiff and covered, I reentered her perfect pussy and slowly explored what she liked. Finding it, I got her near orgasm. She climbed on top and I watched her breasts bobble as she rode me to mutual climaxes, my hands on her round little butt and my hips lifting to meet her. Relaxed on my body she whispered she should pay me. I admitted my profession.

"Lucky girls," she said.

"Not girls," I said and described my clients. She enjoyed the stories, but at the end got mad.

"My mother just tossed me out there. She doesn't care if I get busted up as long as I can keep working. She doesn't give a shit about me. All she cares about is her and her lazy pimp boyfriend. The way he looks at me makes me sick. At least he'll be gone soon. She's getting fat and ugly, can't even find a decent john except the sadists and masochists. It's all in the family, just like you, but your mother cares!"

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Why?" she said.

I shrugged and we lay back silently. The somber mood broke when her belly grumbled making us giggle. We dressed and went to the local café. She gobbled up her modest food and began picking at mine. I ordered another meal for her.

The young artists trickled in. A couple sat with us. My little whore made conversation. Her accent must have been rough and street because they seemed put off at the beginning. Like me, she persisted and they warmed to her. Being uneducated and amongst students, the crowd consisted mostly of art students, she struggled to find topics that meshed. She found ways inside. Though her comments sometimes embarrassed, other times her unique view brought unimagined insights. She knew about artists, just not the terminology. When one of the students got out her sketch pad and began drawing her, she asked if she could borrow it. Another student handed her his and a pencil. "Do you have charcoal?" she asked. A piece appeared. Turning to me, she began drawing. Her concentration was obvious and cute, yet when she had something to say within a conversation she said it. Rubbing her nose made her giggle. "My mom would thrash me if she saw the smudge," she said within the giggle.

"I think it's most attractive," I said. She giggled again and continued drawing. She showed me the awesome result. More than a detailed likeness, emotion resonated. Sadness and caring and loving mixed.

"Usually they're angry, but I don't feel angry," she said.

I passed the sketch around the table impressing everyone. When asked what school she attended she said, "I can't. I'm stupid. Couldn't you tell?" She got up and walked towards the street.

"Wait!" I yelled. I grabbed her and walked her to an empty table. "Maybe there's a way. Maybe if we talk about this with the students we can figure something out. You're talented. You're beyond talented. You can't walk the streets your whole life."

"I'm a streetwalker. That's all I'm good for." Then she yelled so the entire café could hear, "I'm a fucking whore!"

"You're a fucking artist!" I yelled back. "Don't fucking waste it!"

We stared stubbornly at each other. She smiled. "Okay. What the hell. Today's been a fantasy already. Why should it end? When I wake up it'll be a dream and I'll be back in my shit life." I pinched her. "Merde," she said. Then she giggled and pinched me back. "I guess I'm no dream either."

We joined the student artists. Other artists filled the table. Obstacles wrenched the conversation. A sixth grade education, a mother who would rather kill her than let her be educated, a society that expects and necessitates completing educational steps to reach the next step conspired against any solution. The girl who had started everything by pulling out her sketchbook stood and silenced everyone. "She needs a way out of here. I know it's sacrilegious, but she can't study in Paris. Someone needs to take her away, sponsor her, tutor her, give her a chance." Everyone stared at me except for the little whore. She had been furiously sketching the artists and the café. Silence caused her to look up and scan the students and look at me.

"Just because I'm an American doesn't make me rich," I said causing disappointed looks. "Okay. I'll think about it." The little whore's mouth gaped. "I'll talk to my mother. We'll figure it out. How about I buy a couple carafes?"

The little whore and I stayed long enough to drink a glass of the rosé I bought. I bought the sketchpad from its owner. The charcoal was free. We headed home. Except for a blow job so she could sketch my erection we didn't make love. I modeled nude. She sketched. We talked. I told her about the City and my artist friends and the high school for artists in Harlem. We cuddled and slept. My mother arrived around sunrise waking me. She looked exhausted. She went to bed. I stayed up thinking.

When light broke through the window the little whore awoke. "You're still here. I'm still here," she said quietly.

"Let's go have breakfast," I said.

We went to the neighborhood boulangerie for baguette and café au lait. A pretty girl my age served us. She had dirty blonde frizzy hair, blue eyes, a long face and a body used to work. She had always been nice to me and we had chatted a few times amiably, but not that morning. When we got up to leave I asked what bothered her. She looked down and spat out, barely audible, "Putain." She looked up revealing teary eyes.

"Wait a second," I said, but the little whore pulled me away and out of the shop.

"She wants you. You should have seen the way she looked at me," said the little whore. "I'm not so sure now."

Slapping a hand against my forehead, I chuckled. "I searched all of Paris for a girl, and she was right around the corner."

"She wouldn't have been easy," said the little whore.

"I don't care about that. I guess I wanted a girlfriend, a companion, someone to play with. If she wore a chastity belt, we could work around it."

"I bet you'd have gotten it off."

"I like a challenge."

"I wasn't one," said the little whore flatly.

"That's the thing. If I had noticed I wouldn't have found you. I like you. I like you a lot."

"Me too," she said and took my hand. I loved strolling around the West Bank early. Watching the shops open and the sidewalks swept by old round brooms in old hands charmed me. We stayed mostly silent.

"Is it impossible?" asked the little whore.

"Is what impossible?"

"You're sponsoring me?"

"I don't know."

"Should I go home?"

"I don't want you to."

"Really?"

"You can stay with us."

"You don't mind?" I shook my head. "If I stay I can't go home."

"I know. We'll figure it out."

She put her hand around my waist. I put mine around her shoulder. She did the model walk and bumped hips and giggled. "Let's buy you some new shoes," I said.