A hot night, a chance encounter and a woman with a winning smile that a grandmother might bestow on a doting grandchild.
It was a sticky-hot night in Manhattan, and I had just had a long dinner with a prospective client. I left him at his midtown hotel and was walking the few blocks to my subway. I hadn’t had more than two drinks, but I could feel them.
The booze coupled with the heat made me a bit unsteady, so I walked carefully. By then I’d opened my jacket and loosened my tie. I was no longer dressed for business—not my kind of business, anyway.
Midway on my trek to West 50st Street, I became aware that someone was suddenly at my side, in step with me. “I recognize you,” she said with a kind of purr in her voice. “You’re obviously from out of town.”
I looked over at her, a woman with dyed hair and a stout figure. She looked to be about 60. “I live here, ma’am,” I told her. “I’m not an out-of-towner.”
“I’ve got a place over on 57th,” she said sweetly, continuing to match my strides. “You’re welcome to drop by, if you like.” She smiled again, a winning smile that a grandmother might bestow on a doting grandchild.
“Thank you, no,” I said, quickening my pace. She seemed undaunted, though she quickly turned away. I moved on and never looked back.
While waiting for my train in the station’s steamy air, I recalled the hookers I’d seen in London, Paris, Toyko, Berlin, even on 10th Avenue, here in New York. All young and dressed provocatively. None of them looked at all like the woman who’d just approached me.
Listen, I didn’t feel bad for her; everyone’s entitled to do what has to be done to make a living. But I kind of wished I’d had the courage to see how the evening might play out.
♦◊♦
I mean, what would have happened if I’d said, “Yes, I’d like to drop by your place” and extended my arm. What would she have said as we walked north? Would we have discussed price? And when we got there—presumably to where she lived—would she have poured drinks and made small talk?
Then would she take me by the hand and lead me to her bed, undress me, and give me the greatest sexual release since that first time when I was a sophomore and couldn’t imagine it.
Abruptly, my thoughts turned darker: Would she deftly dump something in my drink to knock me out? Did she have an accomplice hiding in the bedroom or behind the drapes prepared to empty my pockets and appropriate my iPhone? Was this woman a front for some mysterious criminal sect bent on kidnapping and holding me for ransom? Would I be tied up and left to rot in some damp basement—or in the trunk of a car?
By the time I boarded my train, I had worked myself into an even bigger sweat than the heat and humidity would have produced. Why had I been singled out? Other than looking tired and hot, did I seem lonely? Desperate? Clearly this woman was targeting older men, and I certainly fit that category.
For some reason, I felt emotionally bruised by this experience—so much so that, a day later, on Fifth Avenue near the Metropolitan Museum, I recoiled when an Asian woman stopped me in my tracks. “Sir, I’m lost. Can you help me?” she asked.
Oh, boy, here we go again, I thought. But, no, this lady really was lost, and when I realized it, I began to chuckle, which kind of unnerved her. I sputtered as I gave her directions—she wanted to walk back to where she was staying—and was happy to see her turn and head exactly where I’d pointed her.
She didn’t invite me to drop by. I was definitely relieved.
I worked in a restaurant in Manhattan which had a communal room to change into our work clothes. As one of the men I worked with for years (and was close to) took off his shirt to change, I couldn’t help but notice a nasty-looking, huge scar in the middle of his back and asked him how it happened, as it looked like an unusual spot for surgery. “Got rolled in a whorehouse”, he told me. As I reeled from the thought of this man in such a place (I knew he was long-married) I stammered and asked him how… Read more »