She returned to the cubicle and closed the door. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I… uh… I want you to blow me, and then I want to fuck you.”
She made a thin hard smile. “If you give me a ten dollar tip it’ll be better.”
“The piece of paper the guy on the street gave me said I didn’t have to give a tip.”
“Like I said, it’ll be better if you give me ten dollars.”
“How about five dollars?”
“What are you—cheap or something?”
“No, but the paper said I didn’t have to tip.”
She shook her ass and forced a smile. “C’mon, it’s only ten dollars.”
“But that makes the whole thing twenty dollars.”
“I’ll make it good for you, baby.”
There was no point in arguing. All the cards were stacked against him up there. He got off the table, picked his pants off the back of the chair, and took ten dollars out of the pocket. “Here.”
Her smile vanished as her hand covered the bill. “I’ll be right back.” She left the cubicle again.
He sat on the table, hugging himself for warmth, feeling gypped. He should have known better than to come here. The cops ought to close these places down and throw all the whores in jail. Or better yet, shoot them.
She returned with a towel and a basin half full of soapy water. “Get up.”
“What’s the water for?”
“I’ve got to wash you. Stand over here.”
He got up. She put the basin on the massage table, reached over, grabbed his penis, looked into its eye, and squeezed. “You got anything wrong with you?”
“You mean like a venereal disease?”
“What else would I mean?”
“No.”
She let his cock go, soaped up her hands, grabbed it again, and washed it. That should have made him horny, but it didn’t. He wanted to get everything over with fast and leave. She dried him with a towel, picked up the basin, and left the room again.
The fat man sat on the table. He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to get an erection. That would be humiliating. The girl was treating him like shit. She probably had a black pimp for a boyfriend. White girls liked to go out with black men because they had big dicks, so he’d been told.
The girl returned to the room and looked at him insolently. She wasn’t trying to be sexy; she didn’t give a damn about him at all. “You got a rubber?”
“No.”
“Why the hell didn’t you bring a rubber with you?”
The fat man felt a flash of anger. “What the fuck are you telling me what I should bring here!”
She backed off a little. “I think I might have one here.”
She rustled around among her cosmetics, opened a jewelry box, and took out a rubber in a foil wrapper. She had a big unshapely ass and her tits were flabby. She wasn’t worth twenty cents, never mind twenty dollars.
She tore off the foil and looked at his cock. “You ain’t hard yet.”
“I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“It ain’t even hard enough for me to put the rubber on.”
“Maybe if you do something, it might get hard.”
“Okay. Lie back.”
He stretched out on the massage table, and she unbuttoned something in her crotch. Her tights opened up and he could see the brown fuzz of her pubic hairs. Standing beside him, she gave his flaccid penis a few jerks, then bent over and put it into her mouth.
He tried to concentrate and make himself feel horny, but there was a despairing, nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach. Reaching to her, he inserted his fingers into the crack of her ass, and wondered how many guys had stuck their cocks in there today. She sucked him vigorously and made it hurt a little.
She straightened up. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You been drinking?”
“Not that much.”
“You ever have this trouble before?”
“I haven’t been to a whorehouse since I was in the army, and that was like twenty years ago.”
She wrinkled her nose, shrugged, bent over, and sucked him off some more. He touched her cunt, and it was cold and damp, probably filled with the cum of twenty guys. His prick hurt and he felt loathsome. This was turning out to be a horrible experience, and he’d had many horrible experiences with women already, a fat ugly man like him. Somehow he had to bring it to an end.
She stood up and smoothed back her hair. “Listen, you don’t get all night here, understand?”
He took a deep breath and sat up, swinging his legs around to the floor. “Okay, why don’t we just stop it right now.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll just put on my clothes and leave.” She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t get your money back, you know.”
“Did I ask for my money back?” “Well, I’m just telling you anyway. You ain’t getting your money back.” “I don’t want it back.” “Well you’re not getting it back anyway.” He reached for his shorts and stepped into them. She buttoned up her tights and left the cubicle. His hands trembled; his face smarted with anger and shame. He’d been cheated by that nasty little bitch who wasn’t even a good whore. Somebody ought to push her off the end of a pier. Dressing quickly, chewing his lips, he dreaded passing the girls in the front room on his way to the door. He was afraid the bitch would tell the others that he couldn’t fuck. He didn’t think he could deal with that. He put on his red and black jacket and lit a cigarette. Everything always went easier when he had a cigarette to puff on. Opening the door, he left the cubicle and walked nervously toward the front room, where the redheaded guy was sitting looking directly at him in the corridor. The redhead smiled superciliously, and the fat man looked down to the floor, puffing his cigarette. In the front room the girls giggled as he passed by them. One of the Latin girls said something in Spanish and all the others laughed. He glanced up and saw their mocking eyes as they held their tits and stomachs and bounced around in glee.
“Hey buddy,” said the blonde girl, “next time you come here we’ll put it in a splint, okay?”
The girls laughed louder. The fat man charged out of the room and ran down the stairs. He gritted his teeth and balled up his fists.
“How’d it go, stud?” asked the black man on the sidewalk.
The fat man glowered at him and walked toward the bright lights of Broadway.
Chapter Two
The fat man went to the Nathan’s on Forty-third Street and ate three hot dogs standing up at a counter because he was too angry to sit down. Once again, he’d been humiliated, and he hated to be humiliated. Once again a woman had taken advantage of him. When he was a little boy the girls used to make fun of him, and they were still doing it. Goddamn bitches.
He drank his orange soda and shifted his weight from one foot to another. The garish lights of the restaurant fell on the faces of Times Square denizens eating cheap food. The men looked like filthy derelicts and the women like witches. The world was a horrible place. Life was disgusting.
The fat man thought of the blonde in the massage parlor and rage boiled up in his chest. If she were standing in front of him right then he’d rip her face apart with his bare hands.
What a cruel bitch she’d been. She almost was as bad as Evelyn, who had taken his money and his gifts but never gave him any pussy, and finally he found out she was sleeping with a sanitation worker.
All women ever do is hurt men and try to steal from them, the fat man thought. They’re terrible hateful creatures and they lead men astray. Look at the example of Eve in the Garden of Eden. They know we need them so that gives them power over us. They like to torture us and turn us into slaves, which is what Evelyn did to me. Deep down they hate us because we’re stronger and better than they are. They’ll do anything and something should be done about them.