Brothel Read Free Page A

to explain that I needed to examine the condoms for breaks, her eyes glazed over and she cut me off. “Just so long as I get my forty bucks at the end.”
    I interviewed five more women that first day. Though very different in appearance, all were surprisingly attractive, I found myself thinking, from a buxom Native American with silky-smooth black hair to her waist and bloodred fingernails, to a bleached blonde with serpent tattoos spiraling up her calves. I guess I had expected to find only tough, hard-looking women. Many of Mustang’s women could have been mistaken for beauticians or department-store cosmetic saleswomen. There were even a few women whose endowments and overt sexuality suggested a centerfold, the American sexual gold standard: Ashley, for instance, a statuesque working girl in her early twenties who wore a sheer black peignoir trimmed with lush marabou over a rhinestone-studded black bikini and matching black marabou slippers.
    At the end of my first day, I felt relieved not to have offended anyone with my questions. Irene invited me to join her and Roxanne, the laundry maid, for dinner. I followed them into the brothel kitchen, a large open room with industrial refrigerators and a large stainless-steel restaurant stove. Cliff, the brothel cook, had prepared a buffet of warm dishes. I took some homemade fried chicken and a baked potato, and Irene chose barbecued ribs and collard greens. We carried our plates over to one of the six tables covered in plastic red-and-white-checked tablecloths scarred with cigarette burns. I was struck by how good the food was. Working girls continuously interrupted our meal to gripe to Irene about a customer who’d failed to tip them or a colleague who borrowed and mistreated an outfit. In between complaints, Irene and Roxanne groused about specific girls who copped princess attitudes and refused to clean up after themselves.
    That night I fell into bed exhausted, almost too tired to hear the sounds of sex coming through my bedroom walls. I wondered how much of my fatigue came from the shock of the new, and how much was due to the brothel’s poor ventilation and ubiquitous cigarette smoke.
    The next two days, I woke early and continued interviewing women. By now, everyone in the house—from working girls to cashiers and bartenders—knew I was George Flint’s guest, a researcher from a university who wanted the women to save their used condoms. Occasionally, staff members would come up to me to ask what I planned to do with the condoms. I got the sense that some of them thought I had a fetish.
    As the women became more accustomed to me, they grewfriendlier. At first, they approached only to recount stories about collecting the condoms. One woman described how her client had wanted his used condom to be recognizable, so they had tied it up with a red ribbon. Another apologized because she hadn’t yet collected all ten condoms for which I’d asked; she had only had six “dates.”
    When I wasn’t interviewing, I tried to keep a low profile, and hid out in the kitchen or television room, listening to the doorbell ringing in the parlor. I wasn’t sure whether brothel management would permit me to sit in the parlor among the women and clients. Would my presence seem disruptive? Would I distract the women from their business? What if a client approached me? Staying out seemed the best way to assure not wearing out my welcome. Still, I couldn’t help being curious.
    Irene must have picked up on this, for on my third night she invited me to join her at the bar and offered me a seat with good visibility of the parlor so I could watch as men came through the front door. The drill was remarkably systematized. To gain admittance, clients rang a bell on the electrically controlled outside gate. Before being buzzed inside, they were surveyed by the cashier or floor maid in the daytime, by a security guard at night. Men who appeared drunk, rowdy, or underage were denied entry.
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