The other girls laugh and nod.
Dr Baine pauses. She wasn’t expecting these questions from girls who worked in a brothel. She didn’t think we’d been following the controversy, but we’d all been watching the TV interviews and her appearance on Oprah.
Finally she continues: “I’m surprised and delighted that some of you are familiar with the issues surrounding my study. I hope that this study will benefit you and prostitutes all over the world. People may show more tolerance when they discover that prostitution is not necessarily something we can change about ourselves. It is a genetic predisposition, occurring naturally throughout the animal kingdom. Even female penguins trade sex in exchange for stones to build their nests.”
“So if you think those penguins are prostitutes, why don’t women who marry for money and security count as prostitutes?” asks Victoria.
“I chose to be a sex worker!” yells Clara. “And I can change my mind if I want. I wasn’t forced into it by anyone or anything!”
Lauren raises her hand and asks, “What if they start testing everyone for the ‘whore gene’ and aborting foetuses that have it? The ‘whore gene’ could be used as evidence to convict people of solicitation and lock them in prison or in psychiatric wards and deny them insurance coverage, or give them pharmaceutical drugs.”
“Yeah,” shouts a chorus of whores.
“I understand your concerns,” Dr Baine says confidently. “And I’m going to patent the results, so I’ll have some control over how they’re used.”
Does she think we’re stupid?
For the next few days, Dr Baine hangs around the parlour of the Coochie Ranch, wearing business suits and jotting things down in her notebook. She interviews the girls who want to talk to her first. I notice her looking at me. I think it’s my imagination, but after a few more days I see she’s staring at me every time I come into the parlour. I wish I could just stay out of that room. I avoid her gaze. She tries to stop me in the hall, but I pretend I don’t hear. Why is she singling me out?
The next day I’m sitting in the parlour waiting for customers to ring the bell. Clara stomps out of her interview and flops down next to me on the couch, pouting.
“So, what did that crazy bitch want from you?” I ask her.
“She wanted to meet my family!” says Clara. “She wants to test them for the whore gene too! She said she’d pay me $1,000 for each parent or sibling and two-fifty apiece for cousins. I told her no way! None of those people know I work in a brothel!”
Later on I’m walking down the hall, and I see Dr Baine coming the other way. I quickly duck into my room. She knocks on my door.
“Who is it?” I ask, gritting my teeth.
“It’s Dr Baine. Please open the door.”
I swing the door open. She jumps back, startled by the look on my face.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I’d like to interview you, Wanda.”
“No chance. I want my privacy.” I slam the door.
A few minutes later, there’s another knock.
“Wanda. It’s Suzanne.”
“Hi, Suzanne. Come on in.”
She sits down on my bed.
“Dr Baine said you won’t let her interview you.”
“Why should I?”
Suzanne sighs and shakes her head.
“Bill wants that woman here, and he owns the ranch. You’re one of our best girls, but if you don’t talk to her, you might lose your job.”
Grudgingly, I knock on Dr Baine’s door.
“Come in.”
She’s sitting stiffly behind her desk with her pince-nez and her hair up in a bun. I feel like I’ve been sent to the school principal’s office for misbehaviour.
“Have a seat,” she says, eyeing me up and down.
Silently I sit down in front of her desk.
“Wanda,” she says. “I realize you’ve been avoiding me, so let me get right to the point: you’re exactly the kind of person I need in my study.”
“What do you mean?”
She looks me directly in the eye. “Excuse me for being blunt, but one of the other girls told me your mother was also a prostitute.”
So that was it. I figured as much.
“So,” she says, still staring at me. “Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“Well, is your mother still alive?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to introduce me to her.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” I have a gut feeling that if I tell this woman my mother is a fugitive, she might try to track her down.
“Before you give me a definite no, I think you should hear the whole offer.” Dr Baine stands up and sets a black briefcase on her desk. She turns the key in the lock and lifts the top. My jaw drops. Stacks of money – freshly minted $100 bills. This briefcase contains tens of thousands of dollars – more money than I’ve ever seen. I can’t take my eyes off it. I’m going to come just from looking at it. My pants are getting wet.
Dr Baine walks slowly around her desk, sits down beside me, and puts her hand on my thigh.
“Wanda,” she says, “all this is yours on two conditions – if you introduce me to your mother, and if you have sex with me.”
I swallow hard. She leans forward, trying to look me in the eye, but I can’t. I’m losing it.
“Wanda,” she continues, stroking my thigh, “I want you and your mother to be on Oprah with me, and I’m going to pay you $30,000 under the table.”
That’s it. My cunt contracts, and I come hard and long. As little as I trust this woman, it’s all I can do not to fall into her arms.
After I come, all I want is to get out of there. I steady myself on my feet.
“You’ve got a deal,” I say, shutting the door behind me.
I stumble down the hall to my room and lie down in my bed. I can hardly believe what just happened and all I have to do.
First I have to find someone to play the part of my mother. This isn’t so hard. I take the next morning off and visit Madame LeAnn at the brothel down the road. I’ve known her for ten years, and she’s glad to help. I tell her everything and promise that she’ll get some money out of it too.
“I know someone who can make me a fake ID in 48 hours,” she says.
“That should work, unless Dr Baine checks with the police and finds out my real mom’s a fugitive.”
“I doubt she’ll do that,” says LeAnn.
“But when she checks the DNA samples, she’ll be able to tell you’re not my mom.”
“My advice to you,” says LeAnn, “is to get the money up front, fuck this woman, and run.”
When I get back to the Coochie Ranch, Dr Baine’s standing in the parlour with her notebook and her gray business suit, eyeing me up and down. I stop and glance at her awkwardly.
“My mother can see you in two days,” I say.
She smiles approvingly. “Thank you, Wanda.”
Two days later, LeAnn and I knock on Dr Baine’s door. I’m carrying my toy bag – full of stuff I can use on Dr Baine when we have sex. LeAnn has a fake driver’s licence. Dr Baine sets the briefcase on the top of her desk and opens it. We don’t have time to count all the bills, but she invites us to leaf through them and check the watermarks. I take out my counterfeit bill detector and check some random greenbacks. My pants are moist, my cunt lips trembling. It feels so incestuous, since I’m supposedly here with my mom.
When I’m satisfied, Dr Baine asks for our IDs. She copies them on a Xerox machine and gets us to sign contracts agreeing to participate in the study and exempting her from all liability. We start the interview. She asks LeAnn about her experiences as a whore. LeAnn speaks from personal experience. Then Dr Baine asks how she feels about her daughter being a whore. LeAnn smiles at me with pride and squeezes my hand. I squirm, trying not to stare at the money. Finally the doctor takes our DNA samples. I admire her professionalism throughout this process. Nothing in her manner would lead me to believe
that, in less than an hour, she and I will be rolling naked in $30,000 cash.
After taking the samples, she excuses my “mother”, who kisses me on the cheek and leaves me and Dr Baine sitting across the desk from each other, the briefcase in between us.
“So, Wanda,” she begins, “you’ve finished the first half. Now tell me what really turns you on.”
“All I want to do,” I say, “is roll in that money.”
“In that case, follow me into the bedroom.” She picks up the briefcase. I follow her into the other room, where she lies down on the king-sized bed. She opens the briefcase and dumps the money on her chest. The loose bills spill onto the bed around her.
“Now come and get me,” she says.
Shaking, I touch the money – freshly minted bills. They slip between my fingers and stick to each other like thick paper. I spread them over her grey business suit and watch them curve over her breasts. She moans, moving slowly under me, like a well-tuned instrument. For the first time, I notice what a babe she is. She takes off her glasses and spreads her long, light-brown hair over the pillow. I reach through the bills, unbutton her jacket, and open it like a shell. The bills slide off onto the bed. I gather them up and smooth them across her grey silk shirt. They slide more easily, and her eyes go wild.
Now we’re sitting up on the bed, taking off our clothes, picking up wads of bills and smoothing them over each other’s skin.
“Show me what you can do,” she says. “Show me how good you are.”
I empty my toy bag at the foot of the bed. I fasten cuffs around her wrists and ankles, chain her to the bed, and blindfold her. I need to make her be still, because everything’s moving too fast. Trembling, I can hardly believe what’s happening to me. It’s like finding a lost dream – one that I lost so long ago that I’d forgotten I missed it.
“Fuck me! Please fuck me!” she pleads. I strap on my harness with a thick black dildo. Spreading greenbacks between us, like lettuce in a sandwich, I lie down on top of her and start fucking her slowly, feeling the bills crumple between us.
“Harder!” she begs, and I pump hard into her, pounding her. We’re sweating, and the money is sticking to our stomachs and chests. She squirts all over my thighs. I pull out. The air is thick with cunt juice, and the money underneath her is sopping wet. I pick up the dripping bills and stick them to her breasts like papier-mâché.
“I’m making a plaster cast – of your whole body.”
She laughs. But I’m not lying. I cover the entire front of her torso in wet bills – then her neck and face. I replace the blindfold with wet money, so that she still can’t see. But the money on her face keeps moving and falling off as she smiles and laughs.
“Be still,” I say.
“I can’t help it.” She breaks out laughing. “It smells like pee!”
“Don’t move. I’m serious!” I wrap a $100 bill around her shoulder. This woman made of money is so perfect. I worship her, kiss her all over – my money goddess, who drinks up our juices with her skin. Slowly I move my hands over her whole body – wishing this could last forever.
Five hours later we kiss goodbye.
“See you tomorrow,” she says. I walk out with a briefcase full of money soaked in cunt juice. It’s heavy, but almost all the bills are still in one piece. I smile, thinking about how I’m going to travel across the country, cashing $100 bills that smell like come and piss. I stop by my room just to pick up the cash I have stowed in my closet and a few things I’ll need on the road. Leaving the rest of my belongings, I sneak out of the brothel and spend the night in LeAnn’s trailer. We stay up late, laughing about the wet money, counting and talking. I fall asleep that night thinking of Maude Baine wrapped in wet money.
I wake up thinking about her and run my hand along the soft, wet groove of my pussy. Over breakfast, I tell LeAnn I’m going to call Dr Baine’s office. She looks at me funny over the scrambled eggs. I dial the number. Her secretary answers.
“Dr Baine left this morning for a conference in Mexico. She’ll be back in a week.”
I hang up and turn to Dolores. “She’s gone for a week. Maybe we don’t have to leave town right away.”
“You crazy girl,” she says. “I say we go, before she finds out I’m not your mom.” After breakfast, we take off across the desert in her RV. We drive all that day and the next. We’re making great time, but I’m still thinking about Maude Baine. I want to see her again, and I can’t shake it. She’s the woman of my dreams and of all that crap I haven’t believed since I was a teenager. I picture myself going back to the brothel and telling her that LeAnn isn’t my real mother -apologizing, begging her to forgive me. Just let me be near you. We can share the money.
It’s all only fantasy, but LeAnn looks at me and shakes her head. “I swear, Wanda. In the ten years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you like this.”
That second day we pull into a gas station at dusk. LeAnn gets out to fill the tank. She comes back with a newspaper.
“Hey, Wanda. Take a look at this!”
I read the headline: “Renowned Geneticist Embezzles $50,000 in Federal Funds.”
Investigators were searching for Maude Baine, who allegedly fled the country on a plane to Mexico the day before.
I look at LeAnn in shock.
“Looks like we better keep moving,” she says.
Show Time
Julia Peters
I’m in the middle of being a dutiful girlfriend when I finally tell Paul we’ve just got to break up. He nearly drops the figurine he’s holding, a ceramic superhero. I’m helping him pick out presents for his twin cousins in Maine at a movie theme store we’d never go to otherwise.
“I can’t do this any more,” I say. I mean us and the store, but I mostly mean us. All this boyfriend-girlfriend crap we do isn’t any fun. A Midwestern family of eight pushes past us to stand right in front of the escalators and begins a loud, confused debate about whether to go up or down.
“Ann,” he says. “This is a really bad time to start this discussion.” He looks exhausted, his auburn hair and dark eyes both rumpled after a long day. He looks down sadly at the floor and notices a pair of yellow cartoon canary slippers with stupid plush eyes. He squats down next to them and looks up at me. “Are these appropriate for a twelve-year-old?”
“Very. So’s this whole damn store.” I glance around and just see a blur. They’ve rigged up fake vines and cardboard cut-outs swinging on mechanized ropes to push merchandise for a kids’ movie about the jungle. It’s six o’clock and I have to head to my waitressing job in two hours. Twenty-four hour French food. What a mess.
“Hey, I told you it was OK if you didn’t come. I knew you’d get all New Yorker-than-thou. I just, I trust your opinion.”
“I’m sorry. I hate those slippers.”
The mother of the Midwesterners, who has a winged haircut and several plastic shopping bags, directs the rest of them upstairs. I hear her say, “How often do you get to see original animation art?” Her husband and the kids, some of them, I realize, friends of the daughter, happily step on the escalator and glide up to the top floor.
“Fuck the slippers,” Paul says. “You’re saying you want to break up.”
“You’re right,” I say. “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”
“Well, it’s too late for that. I want to talk about it now.”
“I have to head to work soon.”
“OK. We’ll go for a walk. Could we get this out of the way first, though? If you do dump me, I’m not coming back here by myself.”
We leave with bags full of backpacks and stickers and emerge into Times Square. The sun sets like a long goodbye and the billboard glow is just starting to take effect. Everyone is in a line or in the push. Either way, it’s wall-to-wall bodies, looking ahead, looking up. We circle the same few blocks again and again. I steal glances at Paul as we talk. His carefully shined boots, something he does so they’ll let him wear them at work. The side of his strong jaw
. The faintest touch of his stomach beneath a green sweater. I watch his parts as he listens to me drone on. He drones on in response, stuff we’ve been over before, long lists that boil down to shared unhappiness.
Times Square is dying out of its decay, being reborn into safe, fake glory. Used to be you couldn’t walk across Forty-second without getting your pocket picked or worse. Not that I miss that. But it’s like the whole city got a boob job. It used to be less than perfect, but definitely suckable. Now it’s this bigger-than-life, aerodynamic knockout, but without any feeling in its nipples. Paul’s less than perfect, but suckable. I’m nuts about Paul. I’m bored as Paul’s girlfriend.
We end up standing in front of the wonderful, ugly Port Authority, lingering there since my train stop is deep inside it. All kinds of young men prowl along the edges of the terminal.
“OK, we’re back where we started,” I say. “I like you but I don’t like us as a couple.”
“I can’t keep having this conversation, Ann,” he says.
“Do you want a break?”
“I don’t want to have this conversation any more. I want more time in the day. I want to do all the stuff we keep saying we’ll do.”
“Like?” A car hesitates in the taxi lane and everyone attacks it with honks and curses. The licence plate is New York. Go figure.
“I don’t know,” he continues over the cacophony. “Teach you chess. Go to the beach. Our jobs are just so fucked up . . .”
“Well, Show World’s right over there. That takes ten minutes.” I’m mostly kidding when I say this, watching the marquee wink at me from around the corner in red plastic letters. But I’ve always been curious and Paul knows it. Paul knows something else too. He’s staring at me like his grandmother just walked in on him having sex. Oh. “When’s the last time you went there?”
He looks around at the sidewalk, at the buses creaking out of Port Authority. “Three weeks ago.”
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3 Page 40
