top. She had shoulder-length hair, and the guy beneath her was a geek in glasses who looked like your average, weed-whacking next-door neighbor in Illinois. They had zero visible rapport. It was a business arrangement, plain and simple. The weed-whacking geek had paid the beautiful girl to sit on his lap for a while.
Later, he would pork her.
A song ended. The band members talked among themselves and tuned their instruments. The girl took the man by the hand and led him onto the dance floor, smiling. He tried to decline, but she insisted. She shook her hips, snapped her fingers, and smiled. The man shrugged, snapped his fingers, and tried to laugh it off. He was clearly self-conscious and, I noticed for the first time, perspiring heavily. Sweat was visible on his forehead, illuminated by the glowing stage lights.
I was convinced he was the kind of guy who had twice been arrested for masturbating in his automobile near a suburban elementary school.
The music began. The man was awkward. He looked like he was in a conga line on a cruise ship. He had no business dancing. It should have been illegal for him to dance. The girl, on the other hand, was a wonderful dancer. She moved with natural grace and was wonderful to watch. She was young and beautiful and had sex with men twice her age in order to make a living. She was impoverished and desperate, subjecting herself to physical violence and potentially fatal venereal diseases on a nightly basis, for cash.
She was killing herself, essentially.
I finished my mojito. I lit another cigarette. I ordered another drink.
I told myself that I must save the young, beautiful prostitute from the arrhythmic weed-whacking geek, because I was there and he was the death of her, and I could see it.
Just then two prostitutes walked over and sat down next to me in a solicitous manner. They were young and ugly and asked to bum cigarettes. I pretended I was deaf. They continued talking to me, using hand motions. I pretended to use sign language. Then I handed them four Camels. Then they asked me for a light. I gave them an entire book of matches and a twenty-dollar bill. They looked at each other, spoke rapidly in Spanish, and laughed. I pretended not to notice.
Admittedly, I was feeling pretty strange.
The prostitutes tried once more to strike up a conversation. I didn’t respond. A minute or two later, they gave up entirely. They rolled their eyes, shrugged their shoulders, and rose. They said something in Spanish and walked away with their twenty bucks and their four smokes.
God bless you, I said to myself, though I didn’t really know why.
The song ended. The crowd cheered. The beautiful prostitute and the weed-whacking geek walked back over to their table. The geek sat down, and the girl said something to him, pointing toward the back of the club. The geek nodded and smiled, and the girl walked toward the back of the club, toward the bar. I rose and followed her, making efforts to appear casual. It occurred to me that I was drunk. The girl hung a left into the bathroom. I found a place at the bar and stood there, waiting.
A few minutes later, the girl exited the bathroom. Without a moment’s hesitation, I walked up to her and told her that I would like her to come with me. I told her that I would pay her. The girl said something in Spanish that I didn’t understand. She pointed toward the weed-whacking geek. I turned around and looked in his direction. He was on the other side of the dance floor, obstructed by salsa dancers. He could not see me. I turned back to the girl, pulled a wad of cash out of my waist belt, and handed her a fifty-dollar bill. She took it and said, “One more.” I handed her one more.
She smiled, grabbed me by the arm, and led me past a bouncer out the back door of the club.
Her name was Pamela. That’s what she told me, anyway. She had light brown hair and dark brown eyes. If she had been a foot taller, she could have been a model. She spoke better English than I had originally thought. Coupled with my rudimentary understanding of Spanish, we were able to communicate with relative effectiveness. Pamela told me she had been living in Havana for six years. She liked Madonna and Baywatch and dreamt of being a pop star. She seemed relaxed and happy, completely at ease with our arrangement.
I, on the other hand, was feeling pretty edgy. I’d been feeling pretty edgy ever since we got to my room. We walked in the door, and all of a sudden I didn’t know what to do. My buzz faded and my humanitarian confidence went with it, and I had no alcohol on my person with which to bolster it. Flustered, I said a few salutatory words and offered Pamela a seat on my bed. She sat. I walked over to the nightstand and picked up a bottle of water. It was the only thing I had to drink. I poured us each a glass. No ice. She thanked me. We drank. There was silence. It was awkward. I could hear myself swallowing. I didn’t know what to say. I kept drinking. I finished my glass of water and stood there. I kept drinking, even though my glass was empty. Pamela smiled. I smiled back and asked her how she was doing. She told me she was doing fine and asked me how I was doing. I told her I was doing fine and asked her once again how she was doing. She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. I looked at her, and she looked at me.
The poor girl is dying, I told myself.
I will not have sex with her, I told myself.
Pamela got up and set her glass down on the nightstand. Without a word, she walked over to me, moved in, and gave me a light kiss on the lips. I closed my eyes and offered no resistance. She pulled away slowly, biting my bottom lip.
“You want to fuck?” she said.
conflict n.
1 A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war.
2 A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.
3 Psychology: A psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies.
4 Opposition between characters or forces in a work of drama or fiction, especially opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot.
conflicted, conflicting, conflict v. intr.
To be in or come into opposition; differ.
Archaic: To engage in warfare.
“Shower,” I said to her, stepping back. “How about a shower?”
“ØCómo?” she said.
“You should use my shower,” I said.
I pointed to the bathroom and said the word baño. I pantomimed the act of showering and made water noises with my mouth. Pamela nodded and began stripping immediately. She took off her halter top and walked into the bathroom. The girl was all business. I turned away, walked over to the nightstand, and poured myself another glass of water. I sat on the edge of the bed and listened as the shower turned on. I took a deep breath and looked at my water glass. I massaged the inside corners of my eyes with thumb and forefinger.
Pamela called out to me.
“Wayne,” she said. It sounded like “when.”
“Yeah?”
