I had noticed when I drove up to the hotel. What better place to get into the spirit of a country than a bar named after it? Later on, I told myself, I would seek out the more exotic spots, like Café Erotique. For all I knew, there might be a Café Whore, perhaps even a Café Nympho.
I had heard that although Rio was a paradise teeming with available women, you did have to look out for pickpockets and petty criminals. There were even some rumors about kidnappings by gangs of sexy women who titillated you even as they held you for ransom. But I hadn’t reckoned with the simpler notion of being overcharged. In the great European capitals, American tourists are routinely handed menus with higher prices than what the locals pay. It was only after I had left Café Brazil, having made several clumsy and abortive attempts to wrangle a female escort, that I realized I had paid over $5 for my Diet Coke.
Returning to the hotel empty handed, I decided that it might be easier to simply go to the concierge desk and ask for sex. Come to think of it, it was probably included in my package deal.
“Sim, Senhor Cantor, I can arrange your girl,” the concierge said after I very un-surreptitiously placed a pile of reals in his hand. “And what kind of girl are you looking for?”
“I want a sexy girl. Can you make sure she’s sexy? I want someone with all the best features.” It reminded me of the way my mother ordered fish over the phone: “I want a nice big piece of salmon, not too fatty.”
I congratulated myself on my resourcefulness and headed back to my room to prepare for my first encounter with a Rio whore. I was so overwrought with anticipation that I practically jumped out of my shoes when I heard her knock on my door. She was darkly beautiful, with hair that hung almost to her waist, wearing a tight red cocktail dress. But she was like a New York City cab driver, chattering on her cell phone even as she lifted her skirt to show me her goods, whispering that she wanted the equivalent of $l00. It felt so much like being in a New York cab that I accidentally blurted out “Forty-third and Fifth!” instead of telling her to dance a sexy merengue in the nude. As it turned out, this activity was not on the menu that she had handed me, with its numbered items printed in English and Portuguese. It was a rumpled sheet of paper that was divided into two columns, “Subversive” and “Dominican.” The items under the “Subversive” heading were “shrimping,” “rimming,” “bandage,” and “spanky.” The “Dominican” list was more traditional, and included “fuck,” “blowjob,” “sixty-nine,” “around the world,” “half and half,” and “caning”—this last item seeming rather anomalous and harsh.
I had a beautiful room that overlooked two ten-ton air conditioning units, whose vibration I could feel when I tried to pry open one of the sealed windows to let in some fresh air. I didn’t want to lose the Carnival-like mood that was beginning to infect me, even if I had my doubts about the prospect of making love to somebody who was on the telephone. She was talking loudly and animatedly, all while trying to demonstrate her lovely private parts, and seemed like the kind of person who was perfectly capable of doing two things at once. I gave her a handful of reals.
“Look, Tiffany,” I said, using my pet name for prostitutes, which I’d always thought should be mandated by the UN as an identifier in travel documents for international sex workers. “You’re a gorgeous, wonderful, and special woman. I wanted to pay you a little extra for taking the trouble to perform your services while multi-tasking. But instead, I’m just going to pay you a kill fee so you can get on with your conversation and I can form a more focused relationship with another puta.” I surprised even myself with this about-face, but Tiffany didn’t seem to miss a beat. She continued with her conversation in rapid-fire Portuguese, picked up her things, and walked out as if she had rejected me and not the other way around.
Night was falling and there was an ambitious selection of adult films on pay-per-view. But I was in the sex capital of the world and I didn’t want to resort to experiencing Brazilian life vicariously—at least not yet. I realized that Rio had a rich cultural history and that there were other things to do besides look for prostitutes, but I knew in my heart that I was only interested in sex.
There were probably as many Tiffanys on the beach outside the Copacabana as there were rats in the New York subway system. I just had to locate one who didn’t insist on being plugged into a headset while she was administering fellatio. As I came to the bank of elevators on my floor, I noticed two middle-aged women who I assumed were retired prostitutes. I had imagined that aging whores retired to other cities like São Paulo, which is noted for its efficient mass transit system, so I was sure they were back in Rio for some recreational sex. Their skin was lined and leathery and they looked like they had been ravaged by age, but now they could use what was left of their looks to enjoy sex without having to worry about where the next real was coming from.
Since they were plainly over the hill, I thought they might be able to offer an objective view about where the best hookers could be found in Rio. I was sure they could give me a few tips on how to enjoy the rest of my stay. “Excuse me, ladies, my name is Kenny Cantor and I’m a tourist from Manhattan.”
“Ah, Manhattan,” they both sighed with deep Brazilian accents.
“I take it you are natives of Rio, real Brazilians. Carnival, the Copacabana…”
“Carnival is funny,” the shorter one said. “Samba!” She started to dance with me, pushing me toward the elevator door just as it was opening, so that I lost my balance and almost careened into several hookers who were already in the elevator. The old whores were still laughing as the door shut without our even having had a chance to say goodbye.
I could have propositioned the girls coming down from their assignations, but I employ the same attitude toward prostitutes that I do toward baked goods—get ’em while they’re hot. I had wanted to get to know the two old pros because I was sure they could tell me where all the fresh, young women congregated, where the supply was greater than the demand. I wanted to start my visit with a woman who hadn’t become jaded and stale from overuse. I sincerely hoped that my first experience had been an anomaly and that the prostitutes of Rio were not like New York cabbies, constantly speaking to people in other countries.
With the advent of the Blackberry and the iPhone, it was going to become very difficult to find prostitutes who were free of the multi-tasking that had become a fixture of modern life. The old-fashioned streetwalker was obsolete. Paying for sex was becoming more like a promotional transaction, with the constant incentive to purchase a host of related services. Who knows what would have happened had I asked Tiffany if I could use her phone?
Just as I was beginning to put these thoughts to rest, the concierge of the hotel waved me over to his desk. He was dressed in a tuxedo, high-collared shirt, and bowtie, although his five o’clock shadow made him look like he had recently been making wanton love.
“Sir, it’s the girl you were with. She says she likes you and asks if she can come back up to your room. She is sorry that she had to be on the phone so much, but she promises that if she comes back she won’t take any long-distance calls.”
I couldn’t help myself.
“Oh, of course. Tiffany.” He was nonplussed. He plainly wasn’t familiar with my pet name for prostitutes. I wanted to explain to him that it was a little like the euro, that having a universal name for all sex workers was a form of globalism that facilitated commerce.
“Is she for real?” I asked.
“Yes, for reals,” he misinterpreted. “She’s a working girl, but I can tell she really likes you. I know that girl and she wouldn’t give up her long-distance calls for just anyone.”
I knew there
