Chapter 13

After living with Gwen for a couple of months, I was getting into the swing of things, handling tricks right and left. We still let our social life come first, though, unlike many hookers who have to work for a pimp to support a heroin habit or something. We got to keep all we made, unless there was some new setup involving a tipster. Consequently, we got more time to do other things we wanted.

One night, Gwen went out for an all-nighter down at the Marina, and I didn't have anything booked. I got really bored sitting around the apartment, even after smoking a joint. In fact, it made it worse. There was nothing I wanted to see on TV, nothing I wanted to listen to. I felt like getting up and going somewhere.

Fuck, and just my luck, I thought to myself -I'd left the fucking car at the mechanic's. Well, I'd go for a walk. As I came down the hill towards the strip, a mad impulse hit me, and it felt so good, so wicked that I thought I'd go with it just to see what happened. I remembered when Gwen had told me about the times when she'd just go out and pick up a customer off the streets, hustle a complete stranger.

It was just a flash, but I was just in the right mood for it. Street hustlers don't usually get as much money, Gwen had often told me, but if you're good-looking you could get more than a twenty-dollar chippy could. That was part of the game, to see if you could make a willing score, and to see how much you could get. But money wasn't that important, I recalled as I thought of her night with the merchant seaman. Yet, no matter how much you might want to ball the guy, you had to score some bread for it. That was part of the game, and no self-respecting pro would give it away.

There would be dangers, I knew, thinking back about the rape as I neared the strip itself. But I wouldn't really have to worry about that, I was advertising. That usually scares the rape-boys off. Yet there were those creeps that preyed on hookers alone, just as groups of hookers would sometimes prey on unsuspecting Johns ... but that was mainly New York action.

She'd have to look, to feel, very confident to go out on the streets, Gwen had told her. I did my very best, my mind flashing on the other thing to look out for-Vice.

When it came to that, I'd just have to hope for the best. Gwen, having hustled the streets more in her earlier days, claimed to be able to spot them, and the proof was she never got busted. But she didn't work a street to death like some hookers, the really obvious ones in the wigs and false-eyelashes, the platforms and the mini's. Unless my luck was terribly bad, I shouldn't have too much trouble, I realized, passing The Whiskey and getting a blast of music.

It wouldn't be all that easy picking up a guy on the strip, I knew. Most of the streetwalking pros work the convention centers, the airport. Ever since the hippies, the strip is a different thing. And as much as you'd like to, I reminded myself, don't go out with some longhair no matter how good-looking he is. It's a good possibility that he's looking to rip you off to score dope or something.

I figured I'd have to head for one of the few remaining cocktail bars, where the music was piano and the customers wore ties. Not many left on the strip, I remembered, but this only made the challenge greater, and the rewards that much more gratifying. It was a pretty exciting trip to head out like this in search of something.

As I walked along, I spotted a couple of guys who looked likely, and gave them a big come-on look as I passed. But they didn't notice. I wasn't exactly dressed to advertise my wares, having not planned the tryst until after I'd left the apartment. I passed another rock point, and fought off the temptation to go in and listen to my kind of music, determined to get to the one cocktail lounge I knew of, ignoring the comments of some spaced-out-freaks, who took me for free pickings.

Shit, I wonder if they'll let me in, I began to worry. I was under-dressed for a hooker, for a straight for that matter, who'd want to get into a middle-class joint, but overdressed for the rock joints.

Then all of a sudden, after I crossed the street corner by the rent-a-car place, I practically bumped into this guy. I hadn't really seen him coming.

"Excuse me," he said, stopping to offer his humblest excuses.

"That's all right," I smiled, "I didn't see you coming either."

"Oh, I saw you coming," he smiled. "That was the problem. I got so hung up on looking at you, I just walked right into you. My true desire I guess."

"Would you like to see more?" I asked cockily.

"Would I?" he rushed out, then caught himself, realizing that I'd made a professional come-on. From his reaction, I could tell he wasn't the heat. The guy was just too obvious. So this is how you learned.

He tried to beat me out of it, but I told him to find it someplace else. He wasn't a bad-looking guy, but he probably didn't have a lot of bread. He had on a shirt and jeans ... but they were the expensive ones that are custom made. He was willing to go, moving down from car to metered car to bargain with me. We finally settled on forty, and I could see his relief. He didn't have a lot more to spend I figured.

"I'll get a cab," he said eagerly. "Know where there's a che-reasonable motel around here?"

I was right. He was so taken with me that he'd put up most everything he'd had on him, figuring on cabs and motels.

"Tell you what," I told him. "You drove such a hard bargain, I'll throw in the motel."

I led him arm-in-arm to my place and we got acquainted during the ten-minute walk. I don't remember much about him, what he did or anything, but I think his name was Jason ... that's what we'll call him anyway.

He turned out to be an average lay as I recall ... nothing outstanding. I don't remember if he made me come or not. After you see as many as I do, only the unusual ones stand out. The big thing about Jason was that it was my first time slumming, the first guy I'd pulled off the streets.

Gwen got a kick out of it, but felt that she should warn me about doing it. Now that we were doing it as a full-time thing, she thought we shouldn't do it too much, but that it was good experience for me. And you were lucky it wasn't vice, she went on in a motherly fashion, kissing me to sleep on the waterbed, and I told her that he was so easy to make that I would've bet my ass and a tit on it. Unfortunately, that wouldn't always be the case.