1980 : all major credit cards

So, you say you want to be alone with your party doll? You say you want to get away from it all? Away from the booths, the poles, the barmaids, the mirrors, the bouncers and managers, away from the unwashed masses who come here to try and staunch the flow of lonely, away from the religious zealots willing to pay for keys to non-existent hotel rooms?  You say you want to get away from the freakshow and be alone with the girl of your wet-dreams?

Well, my friend, you’ve come to the right place. We accept all major credit cards.

“Ronnie?” I’ve got him by the tie, to keep him from flopping off the barstool.  “Look at me, Ronnie.” I smack him lightly on the cheek a few times.

Everyone else has come and gone, but this suit’s been here for hours. His mouth is hanging open and his eyes are at half mast as he tries to focus on me.  I’ve sent him upstairs with three different girls already, each time with the same unopened jeroboam of crap champagne and one of my killer speed-rack Georgi vodka martinis in a highball glass.  Each time I run his card for a thousand dollars.  Eight hundred dollars for the bottle, two hundred dollar tip for me. Whatever cash deal he cuts with the girls is their business.  The credit card charges show up as a steak restaurant, the irony of which is not lost on us. A piece of meat by any other name…would never taste as sweet.

“Ronnie!” I’m loud and all up in his face, trying to make myself heard through the vodka haze and over the music.

“You’re losing him, JJ.  Better give’m a blast.” Piper’s cleaning up the bar, my section as well as hers, getting ready to close up for the night. She smiles as she watches me struggle.  She’s right about the blast too, of course she is.  I take the vial of coke from her, come around the bar and slide onto the seat next to him.

“Ronnie,” softer now, my mouth right up against his ear, he reaches out and cups my breast in his hand and begins kneading it.  “Here sweetie, inhale for me.”

I do not like sharing cocaine. I do not even like sharing your cocaine, but this is a necessary investment.

I pinch one nostril closed while I hold the tiny coke spoon up to the other, cradling his head with my other hand.  He inhales, gently. I slide the spoon almost inside his nostril.  “Quick now, baby, inhale again,” he does, “That’s it, there you go. C’mon baby, let the good times roll.”

The suit leans back in the chair and you can see the cocaine start to work, sobering him up just enough so he’s intelligible, but not so much that he’s no longer pliable. Not so much that he realizes how little he’s gotten for how much he’s spent. There’s a delicate balance that has to be respected, like mixing nitro-glycerin. Or making a chocolate souffle.

“Ronnie.” He looks at me, smiling slowly.  “I’m gonna need my tit back now, baby.” He looks down, apparently confused as to how my boob wound up in his hand.  He squooshes it like a wad of play-doh, and leans in for a sloppy kiss—he stinks of vermouth and cigarettes and sweat–and misses my mouth, resting his head on my shoulder.

“Gimme a blow-job. None-a these bishes will gimme a blow-job.” His head lolls to the side. “Willyousuckmydick?”

Piper laughs, grinding her cigarette out as she turns to make herself a fresh vodka.  Myron shakes his head in disbelief, but never takes his eyes of the suit.  I’ve run up over three grand for the house from this fish alone.  I’ve wrenched eight hundred dollars in tips, plus my ten percent bottle commission, that’s another three hundred plus—means I’ve cracked a grand in tips and commission for the night. I’m finally making Winks money goddammit. I’m so fucking tired of hearing about how great it was and what an jerk I was for walking out.

It’s twenty minutes to closing; I need a new girl—the fish is drunk enough that I can recycle the bottle of champagne, but not girls.  Three girls, three thousand dollars, and this poor john hasn’t even gotten far enough to get his own hand into his pants to pull on his limp dick.

Truth is, if he really wanted his dick sucked, if any of them really wanted what they say they want, they’d go two doors down to the Luxor Baths for a $10 “happy ending”, or pick up one of the street girls. But, after you’ve spent a couple of hundred dollars and no one’s even looked at your pud, no less pulled it, and you stay? You may as well admit that what you’re really looking for is the company and the fantasy.

I’ve got twenty minutes left to try and whack that gold card one last time. Over his shoulder I spot Carrie, smoking a cigarette, picking at her cuticles and leaning against the stage.  I catch her eye with a nod and she snake-walks over, slides an arm around his neck, looks him right in the eyes and smiles.  Hell, if he wants his dick sucked, she’s the one to do it. She’s the gypsy, the blow-job queen.

The suit looks from her to me, and back again, confused. We’re both tall, with short red hair, long faces and a certain rock and roll edge. “You sisters?”

Bingo.

“Yes,” I say, slipping his gold American Express card out of his wallet– I like to think of myself as a modern day gold miner. Myron rings it up, Piper packs the same unopened bottle of champagne and another vodka martini into the ice bucket. “Yes we are, Ronnie. We’re sisters….”

Myron coughs, loudly, reminding me that last call is only ten minutes away…

Posted December 10, 2009 at 11:04 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1980, Butterfly, drinking, drugs, johns, partners in crime, strippers, Times Square. Bookmark this post. Follow any comments @ RSS feed for this post.