Red Light District
Fiction by Scott Taylor
down under, i took a stroll thru the red light district of king's cross. feeling mellow and lost, i wandered thru in the afternoon checking out the early whores and the strip club fellers who beckon you to come on in. for lack of a better idea, i sat down on a bench in the little park at the end of the road, and watched the strange birds with their curved black beaks diving headfirst into the trash cans. (they look sort of like egrets.)
"i will get me a whore tonight," i said to myself spontaneously, with satisfaction.
in order to do this, however, i would have to prepare properly.
so i found the nearest 'bottle shop' (that's what they call liquor stores over there), and got a coupla six packs. budweiser is twice the cost of steinlager down under (which is a fine new zealand brew) and so i got the steinlager.
back to my little room on george st., with the incredibly loud bathroom fan that runs constantly that you cannot shut off (makes you feel like you are sleeping near a runway). the TV has two channels available, and about six radio stations (yes, in the TV itself, six black screens with 'RADIO 1' or 'RADIO 2' plastered across them), all of them playing strange eighties derivative muzak or britney spears or some such garbage. open the fridge, begin preparation.
after finishing most of the six packs, i am feeling sufficiently sociable (or at the very least capable of going back out on the street again). i go back out and find one of the few bars with a pool table. coin operated and miniature sized, $3 AUD per rack. there are a few fashionable-type people scattered here and there, and i am downing the beers and racks at about a one-to-one pace.
ok, after a bit i think i have my nerve up, so i stroll back down into the heart of king's cross, looking for some action. about three different girls ask me if i'm interested within the first half a block, they all look stoned stupid and bored, i pass on the first round. then across the street i spy her. beautiful lass, long blonde hair, knee-high black leather boots, red miniskirt and long coat over the top. yessir, she shall receive a donation, without a doubt, pronto and forthwith. across the street and make a bee-line for her, i lean in close and try to say 'can we go inside?' but at once realize i am sufficiently drunk to be having trouble with the english already. after a moment's hesitation she realizes what i have tried to say, smiles and whisks me inside. i pay the man, we saunter through the strip show area and go upstairs. the room is small with a little space heater in one corner, and filled with a blue cloud of cigarette smoke. "i really just wanna lick your feet, actually," i say. that is fine with her, she lays down on the bed, i kneel at the foot of it and get to work. she is really enjoying it, smiling and sighing and closing her eyes, and after a few minutes i hear snoring. that doesn't bother me, i keep at it for a bit more, and just when i am really getting into it and enjoying myself to the fullest the phone on the wall next to the bed rings with a deafening screech. she awakens with a start and goes to get it. my fifteen mins are up, must keep to the schedule, there are so many suckers and so little time.
back downstairs, i sit down in the big red comfy chair and watch the strippers. every time i get up to get another beer, the waitress ushers me back to the chair and gets one for me. for some reason it is a faux pas to go up to the bar here, odd but i don't really give a shit one way or the other. suppose she wants the tips. first a tall gorgeous brunette gets up and starts swinging around on the pole. she really has a magnificent body; she sees me across the room after a while and our eyes lock. she is staring at me now, gyrating and kicking her high heels around and writhing all the while. there is a little middle-aged latino fellow in front of me who is having a mild argument with one of the girls.
next a tall gorgeous blonde gets up and does her thing with the pole. she doesn't look at me, in fact doesn't look at anyone, keeps her eyes closed as she goes through the motions. she is dancing energetically but i can somehow sense a deep overwhelming exhaustion within her.
the show has stopped for a while, i am sipping at my beer watching the latino fellow getting more and more excited when suddenly the blonde dancer is leaning over me, her long hair all in my face. she is mumbling something that is completely incoherent, with or without the music. a long string of drunken-sounding vowels. i understand full well what she wants though, and i try to haggle a bit - i've already been upstairs once, i don't have the full hundred, my dog ate my homework. "eeeaaaaoooooouuuuuaaaaiiiieeeeeeeeeeeehunnerd..." somehow this is a compelling argument, and i go back upstairs with her headed for the smoke filled room. we lay down on the bed. she is completely stoned, eyes closing involuntarily, and i can't understand a blessed thing she is saying. but from what i can decipher, i finally piece together that i can have her for the entire night for the basement-bargain price of only $300 AUD. sure ok, i give it to her, she promises to give me the moon for this sum. she collapses into my arms, i stroke her face and tell her she is beautiful. she falls asleep. i am feeling kind of sorry for her; even if she is high she also looks absolutely comatose exhausted. the smoke fills my lungs after a while and i start hacking like a fucking terminal patient. this wakes her up. she goes and gets a cigarette and a coffee. she sits down on the edge of the bed, and is trying to say something but as she says it she is falling asleep again from a sitting position, slouching lower and lower agonizingly slowly, mumbling and burning the sheets with the cigarette at the same time as she is spilling the coffee on the sheets. i tell her she should take a nap but she insists this is not necessary.
after about a half an hour of further narcolepsy, she informs me that she will need 200 further AUDs for her 'bonus' or some such thing, and since i am basically too drunk to get off the bed i give it to her. she gets another cigarette and some more coffee, spills both on the bed as she does the slow-leaning-fall-asleep-while-talking thing once more. this becomes an endless routine. every so often, she tries to say something, but now we are down to one vowel, roughly 'aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh' with varying shades of i and e thrown in for flavour every now and then.
at about 5:30, i get saucy and finally ask if i can lick her feet. she stalls, puts me off, goes for another coffee and cigarette, in fact she won't even take her boots off, evidently one of those chicks who is totally averse to the whole thing. dang, should have stuck with the first one.
by 7:30, the sun is well up and shining in through the dingy shade on the window. tina (that is her name) drags a condom out from somewhere, slaps it on me and starts in with a blowjob. every time her head goes down, she falls asleep and stays there for about 30 seconds before waking herself up again. "no, tina, that's ok, i wasn't really interested in that anyway." she protests vaguely, moaning her vowel, and goes back down for another quick nap. finally after much more of this, i manage to dislodge her. she goes for another cigarette-coffee fix, mumbling once again. this time i make out that she wants me to give her some more cash, not as part of the business agreement but "just between us." good buddies that we are. this time i grow a backbone and decline and she looks genuinely surprised.
by 8:00 i am out thru the secret back entrance and into the street. there are a few early-risers standing on the corner, and they are staring at me curiously. i say nothing, smooth my hair and head back down the street past the pool place and down the hill. then i remember i have a plane to catch in two hours. shit.
BIO: Scott Taylor hails from Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a writer and a musician, and an avid world traveler. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including Vast Chasm, Blaze Vox, Adelaide Literary and East Of the Web. His novels 'Chasing Your Tail' and 'Screwed' have been released with Silver Bow Publishing, and a pair of novellas have been included in anthologies with Running Wild Press. He graduated from Cornell University and was a computer programmer in a past life." https://hound33.wixsite.com/scotttaylor