The Schwarzschild Radius (15 page)

She slipped off her shoes, making herself shorter and instantly more vulnerable. As she pulled off her top, Rachel stole a look at the man through the weave of the clothing as it passed before her eyes. It was the only way she could face him. The bra stayed on.

“Miss―” He looked at the ID. “Lisa, I just want to see your body. How you get there isn’t important right now. In other words…” He tapped his watch.

She removed her pants and folded them neatly, but there was no place to hang them. She made a small pile on the floor.

“That bra come off?”

“It comes off.”

“You’re not going to cry on me are you?”

She shook her head, no longer trusting her voice. The bra came off.

He smoked.

Rachel fixed her hair.

“If you can’t do it here, you won’t do it in the booth. You’ve got a nice body, is that what you want to hear?”

Rachel took off her panties and held them in her fist.

“Turn around a couple of times, up on your toes. That’s good. You’re hired. I see you need the four to nine shift, Monday to Wednesday. Okay. You get forty-five minutes for dinner and a fifteen minute break. I got a booth sitting idle right now. You ready to start?”

Rachel wished he would avert his eyes for just a moment, so she could put her underwear back on. She found herself having to talk while dressing.

“Do you have a ladies’ room?”

“Sure thing.”

Rachel sat on the toilet with her face in her hands, sobbing
.
When that was over, she washed her face and, inevitably, had to look in the mirror. She didn’t look much different than when she had cried about bad test scores.

“Somebody suppose to be workin’ number twelve,” said a black girl, sticking her head in the door. “You―you workin’ number twelve?”

“Number twelve?” asked Rachel.

“That your booth, is what I’m askin’. Boss wants you in it ASAP.”

As she brushed her hair, the strokes grew harder as did her stare into the mirror. She had put herself here for a reason, a good one. She wasn’t going to let herself down.

he girls stood outside the booths, which consisted of a small compartment for the paying customer and a larger one for the girl with enough room for her to lie down in. It was furnished with a plastic chair. Separating them was a three-eighths-inch Plexiglas window. The customer bought tokens for five dollars each, good for one minute. During this time, the two talked via telephone. He gave her instructions, she obliged.

An opaque partition descended when the time was up and the viewing and the conversation, if any, was over. There was a tip slot at the top of the booth. For ten dollars a girl took off all her clothes. Other requests were negotiated for additional tips and tokens.

The house rules were posted in front of the booths.
NO CONTACT BETWEEN THE CUSTOMER AND THE MODEL. NO CAMERAS ALLOWED INSIDE THE BOOTHS
.

It was late afternoon, and the first stragglers from work were stopping in for a little voyeurism. The men spanned all classes. There were businessmen in three piece suits, bikers, old men who dug into their social security checks to come here.

Rachel had to have a hundred dollars for Perlman by the end of the shift. Plus another forty to pay for the red body suit she had to buy. As she stood outside booth twelve, her life was unrecognizable from what it had been a half hour ago. Worse, there was no sign of Sonia. None of the girls fit her description. And did she go by Sonia or an alias like Candy or Kat or Sugar or whatever?

A black girl in a gold bikini who had been dancing nearby finally spoke to her.

“Sweetheart, you can loosen up. You ain’t guardin’ Buckingham Palace.”

Rachel forced a smile. As she turned away, a middle-aged CEO type thought the smile was for him and approached.

He entered his side of the booth.

“Well, go on, baby, he’s a good tipper,” said the black girl.

The door of the booth opened. “You coming?” said the customer.

Rachel closed the door behind her.

When he put in the token, the opaque screen came up, leaving Plexiglas between them. He looked like a warden peering into a gas chamber.

The customer put a bill into the tip slot. “Aren’t you going to take it?”

“I was going to take it after.” Her hand went up and fumbled for the money. It was a twenty.

The customer told her what he wanted her to do.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. You better have this back.”

She thought she could stall long enough for the session to end, but time itself was distorted in this place.

“What
can
you do?”

She took off the body suit as slowly as she could.

The customer asked her to sit in the chair and do some things with her legs. She complied.

“You didn’t earn that,” were his last words as the partition came down.

Another one like that and she’d get fired.

Another suit walked in.

“And, what’s your name?”

“Lisa.”

“This is for you, Lisa. Haven’t seen you here before.” He slipped a twenty-dollar bill through the slot.

“I just started today.”

“What are you going to do for me, Lisa?” She was hoping they could continue the conversation.

“I didn’t catch your name.”

“Okay. I’ll give you a name. Phil. Phil Ashio.”

“That’s pretty clever.”

“Tell you what, why don’t you undress while we talk?”

She forced a smile and began the ritual. First the straps of the body suit, then turning her back as she pulled it down over her shoulders.

“You’re not stalling me, are you? That’s the second time you’ve looked at your watch. Here goes another token. Why don’t you try facing me, so I can see something?”

Think of it as a medical exam.

She began to slowly work the body suit over her hips while she faced him.

“I don’t mean to rush, but I have a meeting across town in thirty minutes.”

“You know what I do for a living, what do you do?” she asked.

“Risk Management. That’s very nice. Let’s lose the bottom.”

She removed the bottom.

“Open your legs. Open yourself up.”

The customer quickly undressed. Rachel couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Beneath his Barney’s suit, he wore black fishnet stockings, a garter belt, and a matching bra. When he was done doing what he was doing, he left without a word to go to his meeting.

She rushed to the ladies’ room. She had gone this far. It couldn’t get any worse. She might as well try to get what she had come for. Stay. Stay a little longer.

Over the next three hours, seven men gave her their business cards along with forty-dollar tips. They wanted dates and some came right out and offered money for sex. Time had never passed so slowly, and nine o’clock seemed like it would never come.

After every customer, Rachel had to call in Bob, the mop-up man. He walked around with his bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels. Did he grow up wanting to do this? Was there no bottom to human depravity?

During her fifteen-minute break, Rachel was called in to Perlman’s office. She immediately began to perspire.

He stared at her.

“I just want to tell you that if you lose your looks, you’re out. I give my girls drug tests every so often. On another subject, I can introduce you to a friend of mine who makes adult videos. He’s looking for girls.”

“I’m not interested.”

“That’s very decisive. The offer stands. A young girl like you can make a lot of money in the business. Much more than by taking your clothes off.”

For the first time in her life, she wished she was a man. She wished she could grab Perlman, throw him up against a wall and get information out of him. Squeeze the truth from his thorax, make
him
pay. Never had she entertained such thoughts of hate.

She spent the rest of her break in the bathroom. Rachel knew she had to get to know other women in this place if she was to succeed in getting anywhere. At the same time, she would have to set a time limit for herself: if she didn’t find Sonia and a substantial lead in the next four days, she was quitting. She could feel herself falling, sinking, and at some point, she would be lost.

hen the partition came up, Rachel picked up the phone as she had thirty-two times before. A smooth baritone voice came over the line, and Rachel now waited for the demands he had just paid for.