Valencia

by Michelle Tea

  I grabbed the cordless phone and dialed up my job again. My boss wasn’t in so I talked to the dispatcher, this scraggly, overworked bearded guy with a martyr complex that was fitting considering he did in fact look like Jesus Christ. Listen, I said, Tell Clarisse I Tried To Come To Work, I Was On My Way, And . . . I Just Started Puking, Right On Muni. I Had To Get Off The Bus, And I Was There On Mission, Just Puking On The Sidewalk, So I Had To Come Home . . . Tell Her, Ok? Big sigh from Jesus. I hung up. Michelle, said Willa, her tone mildly disapproving, are you going to get fired? I Guess So, I sighed bravely, and lay back onto the futon. I had an awful time quitting jobs. It was so irresponsible, and being inherently irresponsible, I knew I had to be vigilant. So instead I would make them fire me. I have had girlfriends who employ this strategy in relationships, which is bad, but in regards to employment it is ok. What are you going to do? she asked. Oh, I Don’t Want To Work, I whined. I Want To Hang Out With You. Maybe I Should Start A Nightclub. There was still a decent wad of bills stashed in my hiking boot, the result of a successful traveler’s check scam. You get a bunch of traveler’s checks, big bills, and cash them one by one at little shops, pocket the change, then tell the check company you got robbed. I Was Pickpocketed On BART, The Checks Are Gone. Oh, you don’t know how many people that happens to, said the teller as she flicked the crisp bills at me. It’s really terrible. So I could live off my illegal profits for a little while, but eventually I would need true employment. Something mindless and occasional, leaving me lots of time to write and further the seduction of Willa. I could whore. I had done it, vowed I would never do it again because it was so gross and weird, and I had actually indulged in a little New-Agey prayer to the cosmos, promising to never again participate in such a negative profession if it would please send me a job, and the universe did in fact get me a job, the one at the courier company that I was trying to get fired from.

  So I was by my phone in the living room, poring through the seamy back pages of the local papers, circling opportunities under the Adult Employment heading. Only one house was hiring, International Variety, ladies from all over the world, right, a pseudo-erotic spice rack. I figured I could be the Polish girl. Was it ok for me to do this? When I thought back to what it’d been like, my memories were soaked in a hazy liquor of confusion and panic. I realized how much better I was now, my shit was really together, and if I had done a pretty good job of handling it back when I was such a mess, now I’d be a champ. I rang the lady up. I said I wanted a job. Oh, Yeah, I’ve Worked Before, I told her, all cosmo-like. In Boston And In Tucson. Oh, that’s great, she said, relieved. What do you look like? Do you have any tattoos? No, I lied. We arranged an interview at a cafe around the corner from my house and I went to work wrangling up an outfit that looked feminine and wasn’t ripped. I had a wig, the black Cleopatra-style one, pretty basic but it would hide my hair, which was now choppy and green. My turtleneck was certainly a little stuffy for a whore but it would hide the heart tattoo on my chest, whose aorta stretched above the neckline of every other shirt I owned. A nice skirt. Obviously if I were hired, I would have to go shopping. I had thrown out all my old whore clothes, thinking I would not be doing this again, but life is full of surprises.

  And I did get hired, despite my doubts about the authenticity of my wig. And I did go shopping. High-heeled shoes, ten bucks at Payless. A couple of cheap ten-dollar teddies, lace and mesh, from this store on Haight Street that caters to rock stars, strippers and drag queens. The place was packed with feathers and lamé and sequined spandex. The register guy asked, Are you a performer? and I said, Yeah, Actually, and got the ten percent performers’ discount. Dresses that were sexy but didn’t reveal the forbidden tattoo were rare, but I did find this skintight green velvet number with a neckline that raised into a cute little hood, and a hot pink retro dress that fit oddly but hid the ink. I walked through town with my special purchases. The best part of whoring was the secret preparations, when you were alone with your occupation, feeling like an outlaw. At Walgreens I grabbed a bunch of condoms and a thing of lube. Since arriving in San Francisco I had discovered real lube like Probe or Wet, stuff you dripped onto gloves and used with girls, but for this purpose I chose a tin tube of K-Y, like old times. Back in my little room it all sat, a pile on the carpet topped by my wig’s heavy tangle as I leaned out my window, smoking. My roommate Laurel came in and poked at the pile with her toe. I felt funny telling people about my new old profession. Before, I was so angry and hated everyone and relished disclosing such information, daring whoever it was to judge me or ask a dumb question. I ached for a fight, but usually the information just scared people, made them act small somehow. Maybe I should do it, Laurel said thoughtfully. How much will you make? One Hundred And Ten Dollars A Call. Technically an hour though it rarely took so long. I figured I’d make about $350 a day, more while I was still new. The house was in Marin and I would work only one day a week, less than Willa even. The woman who ran the house would pick me up and drop me off. I was set. Laurel sat and smoked with me, fingering the weaves of my new lingerie. You Don’t Want To Do It, I said. It Fucks You Up. Well, why are you doing it? It Doesn’t Fuck Me Up. But It Fucks Lots Of Girls Up. It’s Fucked-Up Work. I blew my smoke out the window. I Don’t Know, Maybe You’d Be Fine. Or Maybe You’d Spend All Your Earnings On Therapy. I tried on my new look. The mesh teddy was cool but it slid up the crack of my butt and drove me crazy. The dress fit cozily over it, I wobbled in my heels, and the wig looked like a wig.

  Willa called, from a party around the corner—why didn’t I come? Well, I said, laughing into the mirror, I’ve Got All My New Work Clothes On. Wear them over, she said lightly. Come show us. I Am Not Leaving The House Like This. Oh, come on, please, she pleaded. I did, I walked around the corner like the whore of Babylon and rang the bell. Lots of girls were there. You look beautiful, they said, and I hated them for thinking it was pretty. It was wretched. I was a fool. Instantly I wished I had not done this, brought this weird decision out into my life like it was nothing more than a funny costume, watching everyone treat it so lightly and me right there with them, laughing in my lipstick. Everything’s cool, don’t get ’70s feminism on me, ok? At least I’m not paying taxes, yeah fuck you uncle sam. Everyone seemed subtly uncomfortable as I sat on the floor like a sick centerpiece, drinking mimosas. Willa didn’t say anything. Later it was night and millions of questions hung in her eyelashes as I turned off the light and climbed on top of her pajamas. My tiny room was lit with bunches of candles that I fervently hoped would warm the freezing space. It’s like whoever built the houses in San Francisco figured it was California and always warm and installed no heating systems. Every winter you woke up with frozen clouds of breath above your face. I thought of my candles as little fireplaces that would keep me and my lover warm. As life and sex with Willa progressed from a few weeks to a few months, my PJs had made it down to my knees, then ankles, but hers remained snug to her hips. After much begging she joined me in the shower only to burst into tears beneath the wet spray, moving her arms desperately around her body, wishing they were large enough to hide it. Oh Willa, Willa, I Didn’t Know, I Had No Idea. You’re Beautiful, I said stupidly, and grabbed gritty handfuls of some smelly exfoliation product and lathered her up, like I could scrub her feelings away. I didn’t understand. Willa was smart, she was the smartest person I knew. In bed by the candles she read to me from old diaries, taking me slowly through the pages of her life, solidifying what I always knew, that she was a genius, a vessel for some kind of wonderful wisdom that I was born to serve. How could she not know she was beautiful? In bed I slid my leg above her flannel crotch and tried to find a rhythm, and she would grab my hips and shift me, shift me again, pull me so that my pubic bone came down on the layers of clothes that I could only assume cushioned her clitoris. Like this, she’d hiss, and I would lose the rhythm or the location, I couldn’t tell where anything was with all the fabric, and she would get frustrated and snap, Forget it. Willa, I said
helplessly. I didn’t know what to do when it all turned so sharp, the sex, her, the candles that now seemed like fire hazards, burning all night in a city prone to earthquakes.

  I can only explain the whorehouse in Marin by reference to what I knew before, the house in Boston filled with jaded, money-hungry women, sarcastic and cynical, moving the tricks through the door with artistic efficiency. They bonded over cigarettes, about how stupid the men were, how weird were the things they liked or wanted. I couldn’t wait to meet the other hookers, make some special new friends. Linda, the Marin boss, picked me up on the corner in her little car and drove into the Haight to grab another girl, who climbed into the car with an enormous suitcase, this blonde woman in a cute, country-bumpkin outfit. I recognized her immediately. My very first job in San Francisco had been reading tarot cards at a little shop on weekends. The owner was a British girl into the rave scene. She sold rave music and incense and oils and people would come and hang out and talk about raves and DJs, and this woman was one of them. I Know You, I said, excited. When I first started whoring, I suspected that maybe all women whored, all of us doing it and keeping it a secret, thinking we were the only ones occupying this silent landscape. I Was The Tarot Girl, I said, and recognition hit her face and quickly bled into horror. You can’t tell anyone, she snapped, mad at me for knowing her. Who Would I Tell? I asked. She stared at me, suspicious. I was trying to bond and now she hated me. I Never See Those People, I assured her. I’m A Dyke, I Only See Dykes. Yeah, you’re gay, she said, remembering. How do you like working? Well. . . . It’s A Job, I said. The boss stared ahead, driving. I am wired for this work, said the woman, stretching out in the back seat like a big cat. Really? Yeah . . . I was made for it. Oh, I said. I never knew what to think about whores who liked it. I rarely met them, and when I did, I could only think that they had low expectations of life or sex, but that seemed so judgmental I didn’t trust it.

  We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, my first time. It’s actually orange. The house was this quaint little cabin practically in the woods, with a wooden deck that overlooked thick tangles of blackberry bushes. The boss told me there were raccoons and even deer out there. I stayed outside on the porch as much as I could that day, smoking in the cold with a book of poetry, trying to make it romantic somehow, but I felt like a train had come and taken me out of my life, leaving me in a secret country where no one could find me. I immediately understood that I had gotten myself in over my head. This was no cynical slacker cathouse, these girls were professionals. On the coffee table was the house handbook, the rules all the new girls were expected to read. Inside were policies on appearance and conduct, a section that elaborated on how we were there to serve the client and make him happy and absolutely spend the entire hour with him, it would be noted if a girl’s calls ended early. My stomach splashed down to some watery part of my guts. Angie, the blonde girl, and a beautiful, sullen, dark-haired girl kneeled on the floor by suitcases packed with incredible collections of exquisite lingerie and elaborate sequined dresses designed to showcase bodies that a lot of work went into. They entered the bathroom, shimmering smocks in hand, and exited something bigger than female, shining like Las Vegas in the homey little cottage. My shabby thrift store outfit was no match, my wiggy wig that I soon learned was intolerable to have on my head eight hours straight, itching and slipping crooked. Linda, I confessed, My Hair Isn’t Real. It’s A Wig. It looks real, she shrugged. Well, Can I Not Wear It Between Calls Because It Really Makes My Head Itch. Linda didn’t care. She was pretty amused by my butchered, unnaturally colored hair, as were the two girls sunk into the couch with a copy of Hustler, talking about their future tit jobs. You need it in this work, Angie said earnestly. This was her career. The sulky girl didn’t talk to me. We got off to a bad start when I told her my real name and asked for hers. Here I’m Veronica, she snapped, and looked at me like I was crazy. Because I was the new girl I got a lot of calls that day and made over six hundred dollars, three weeks’ wages at the courier job that, can I tell you, would not stop calling my house leaving messages like, If you don’t call us soon and tell us what’s going on, your job is really going to be in jeopardy. Oh God, I wailed, Why Won’t They Just Fire Me? Why don’t you just quit? asked Laurel. I Can’t, I moaned. This upscale Marin whorehouse allowed the men to come and pick from the lineup of women like we were donuts in a pastry case. It was so humiliating and insulting. The other house I worked at would never allow that. This Isn’t A Candy Store, we’d bark at the men who tried. In the cottage foyer I stood, hands at my side, staring at the man as he stared at Angie and Sulky-Face, deciding which one he would have. So competitive. The lucky girl would grab his hand and pull him into a bedroom like they were going to have some big party.

  That night I took my roommates out for margaritas. I Made All This Money, I said guiltily. They gasped when I said how much. Are you ok? Yeah, I’m Fine, I shrugged. Was I shallow? How come I was ok? Willa came to my bed like she did every single night, still insisting she was not in love with me, and I believe that she was not. Why was she there? What was going on inside her, inside everyone, the invisible motors that kept us chugging toward all the things we didn’t want? When she started to touch me, she curled up into an autistic ball of flannel, face smashed into the pillow. What? I don’t want to touch you like they do. Oh Willa, You Couldn’t, I said, pulling her back to me. You’re Nothing Like That, It’s Not At All The Same. Everything was slightly off, like a tab of acid melting slowly into my bloodstream. The same but different. I went somewhere she would never go and brought a loneliness back and I had to climb over it to reach her. The fact that we had never had safe sex worried Willa now and she made sure to wear gloves, which I thought was smart but I suddenly felt contaminated, and upset that I brought her all this worry. So I wrote a poem about it and read it at an open mic and she got mad at me because now everyone would know she’d had unsafe sex and would think she was dumb or diseased. And the woman who ran the open mic realized from the poem that I was whoring and she freaked out and told me all the horrible things that would happen to me, and if I came and worked for her at her small press I could get experience and be able to find a real job, though of course she couldn’t pay me. And my period was late. Every day my panties were clean, spotless, and Willa would ask again and again, Did you get your period yet god it’s really late did your period come yet? She didn’t say anything else and she didn’t need to. I went to the local lesbian Walgreens and bought a pregnancy test, completely paranoid that one of the eight hundred dykes who lived on the block would bump into me as I handed over my cash. I went home and pissed on the little strip. I had absolutely had safe sex with these men, although not as safe as Angie, who, in addition to condoms, stuffed one of those horrible, frothing contraceptive sponges up there, but I was safe. And I wasn’t pregnant. This is fucking crazy, I thought as I triple-bagged the evidence and threw it in the trash. My period came and Willa was calmed.