It was a steamy, smoke-filled night at Hernando's, and I and the other two guys had been dancing to the music on the small stage for twenty minutes. I was already down to the ten-gallon hat, the pinto pony vest, the cowboy boots, and the low-slung belt and six-gun holsters with the even lower slung eight-inch gun swinging in between and nothing else on when I felt the hand on the ankle of one of my boots.
The dude clinging to my boot looked cooler than a cucumber despite the heat and the indoor smog and even though he was wearing a suit—a finely tailored Brooks Brothers navy blue pinstripe silk suit that was cut close to his well-cut body. He looked like money all over. His pale blue dress shirt was as finely and closely cut to the perfect curves and bulges of his body as his suit was, and the gold studs in his shirt cuffs and his Rolex watch sparkled in beams from the strobing lights overhead. He was flashing a set of ultrawhite, perfectly capped teeth at me in a full-lipped, sensuous mouth. He also was flashing a fifty-dollar bill.
Having gotten my attention by grabbing my boot as I was undulating on the stage above him, stroking myself off, not far from giving the crowd the thrill it had come to see, he yelled up to me through the loud music and the din of cat calls and stale suggestions. "You fuck me? More of this if it's good for me."
Fifty dollars? His tie alone was worth four times that. An insult. I was having offers twice that high thrown at me by the plumbers and electricians sitting all around him. I crouched down and shot my load across the nice lapels of his $800 Brooks Brothers suit, and then I went home that night and fucked my bass-voiced boyfriend until he warbled soprano. And I did it for free.
Three nights later I was at my other evening job, the more humbling one, as a car hop at the Honeywell Hotel. They made me wear a monkey suit there; I much prefer my cowboy outfit at Hernando's. It had been air conditioned and I was watched when I wore that one. I liked being watched; I was built to be watched. Here at Honeywells I was invisible; just part of the service in getting into and out of the hotel in a jiff. But at least here I got to jockey Porsche Boxsters—at least as far as the parking lot over in the shadows beside and behind the hotel.
I was contemplating being invisible when a honey of a silver Maserati Quattoporte drove up to the entrance and out stepped . . . the suit from Hernando's. At least he was still noticing me. He picked up on who I was right off, and I was afraid he might take a swing at me for messing up his Brooks Brothers—but he didn't. He was all flashy smiles and knowing looks. And he had been slumming the other night. Tonight he was wearing a lustrous brown Armani suit, easily worth three times what the blue pinstripe the other night had been worth, and he had on an ochre silk shirt under that, a flashy silk tie, and diamond cufflinks. All just as expensively and closely cut as the suit of the other night was. The man was dripping money. It was almost like I could walk along behind him and pick up gold coins as he shot them out of his ass like a bunny with diarrhea.
Two hours later he reappeared through the hotel entrance. Another one of the car hops reached for his ticket, but he held off from giving it to the guy and looked around until he spotted me. He walked over, flashing that big, "see what I've got and you don't" smile at me and handed me the ticket. But he also had $200 in folded fifties in the hand holding the ticket, and he wouldn't let loose of either of those or my hand as he said in a husky whisper, "Shall we up the ante?"
I was going off duty then anyway. And two hundred bucks meant a lot to me—obviously far more than it meant to him. When I drove the Maserati around, I didn't get out of the driver's seat; I just leaned over and flipped open the passenger seat door. This was a signal to him, a gauntlet, so to speak. If we were going to do this thing, I was going to do the driving. I liked the idea of the $200, but if he thought he was going to get off as cheaply as that, he was mistaken. Tonight was going to cost him a whole hell lot more than $200.
He got in the passenger side without hesitation, and I fisted the stick shift and he fisted my stick as I drove him into the parking lot and back to the corner where I had my Chevy van parked. I clicked open the sliding side door to the van, and the suit got in without hesitation and whistled in appreciation. I had it outfitted for love. Smoked windows; floor, sides, and ceiling covered in padded sapphire blue velour; straps anchored strategically here and there, and an easily accessible sound system with speakers embedded all around. And that stool. He'd be introduced to the stool later.
I told him to take off his shoes in my home—just like they do in the Orient. And while he docilely did that, I climbed into the van, stripped off the hated car jockey's uniform, clicked the side door shut, and turned on the sound system. I selected Lebanese music with a good strong beat and a tortured-voice singer singing in a manner that would disguise most any yowling coming from inside the van. I planned on there being some yowling.
