style="font-size:15px;"> “I just got home. We had lunch at La Côte Basque.” She giggled and added, “He gave me an envelope. You’ll be proud of me. I stood my ground! I told him we couldn’t have sex. He said I should keep the envelope anyway. There’s enough in here for…oh, wow. I think I made the right decision.”
“Well, he just called me.”
“He called you?” Allie sounded incredulous. “When?”
“Just now!”
There was silence. So Allie met with him, took his money, and left him with an unrequited hard-on.
“And what did he want?” she asked. “Did he talk about me?”
“What do you think he wanted? Look, if you insist on playing head games with Jack, he’s going to look for satisfaction elsewhere. And no, he didn’t say anything about you. The man is not a eunuch. Even if he agrees to act like one when he’s having lunch with you.”
“Well, I’m not possessive! I don’t care who he sees.” There was a pause in which I said nothing. Doesn’t care who he sees? Nobody asked her! But I didn’t want to be the one to point this out. “And don’t forget the NYCOT meeting,” she reminded me. “You promised to come! See you tomorrow?”
That meeting. Ever since Allison got involved with “the sex workers’ community,” I’ve noticed a definite loosening of standards. I think I preferred it when she was a Recovering Hooker, trying to kick the habit.
“Allie, you’re playing a dangerous game,” I started to warn her. “You’re not being professional about this—” But she had already hung up.
LATER
Amazing news from Karen about Franklin Street. The owners are staying put. Apparently, the wife suddenly panicked at the prospect of moving to the Upper East Side. She broke out in hives! Canceled the deal on their new condo. Had to forfeit a mortgage broker’s fee. Turns out this is the second time hubby has tried to pry his wife away from her cultural roots. And lost a mortgage broker’s fee.
“They’ve got all this money,” Karen sighed. “And the husband’s a partner at___________.” She named some white-shoe-sounding law firm. “But she gets a hysterical illness whenever she has to go above Fourteenth Street! And now that she has this child, well, she’s never going to let him tell her where to live.”
“Oh, dear,” I sighed back, trying not to sound too relieved.
Saved by a bourgeois bohemian’s worst hang-ups! I ♥ Manhattan and its many varied neuroses. The neighborhood caste system is alive, and all’s right with the world. Or at least with the borough.
THURSDAY. 2/17/00. Pumpkin time—home at last
Tonight, as I was leaving for the NYCOT meeting, I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was going. With my keys dangling in the door, I dashed back inside and had to boot up my laptop just to retrieve the address; I’ve been careful not to print out any of Allison’s recent e-mail. I cringed as I reread her message:
The New York Council of Trollops (NYCOT) wants YOU. As sex workers, we have been penalized for daring to transcend patriarchal concepts of sexual virtue that have kept all human beings in a state of sex-negative paralysis for millennia. Be we prostitutes, be we strippers, pro-dommes, or phone-sex workers, we are all sexual and social healers. As we enter a new millennium, we honor the history of all whores, take responsibility for healing the sex-negativity in our lives and in the penal code, celebrate the contributions of sex workers everywhere…
When I saw the location, I groaned; my outfit was all wrong. Wear a casual fur on Avenue C and you’ll be totally misinterpreted, maybe even assaulted—what was I thinking? Suddenly, my lunaraine mink sweater looked less jaunty, less casual, and more controversial.
As the cab pulled up in front of a run-down redbrick walk-up, I was glad I had changed into my quilted black jacket, the perfect transitional outfit for traveling below Fourteenth and back. A coat for all zip codes. You can’t tell what it costs unless you look carefully—at the inside.
On the second floor, I was overwhelmed by an aroma of burning sage, and by Allison’s latest role model. Roxana Blair is New York’s most politically correct ex-hooker. When she isn’t organizing NYCOT meetings, she facilitates Vaginal Empowerment Workshops, coyly referred to as Group VIEWs. Roxana also believes that intimate relationships interfere with our sexual empowerment by discouraging women from perfecting their masturbation skills. Whatever!
So far, I’ve resisted her efforts to recruit my, er, body for a weekend VIEWing. Roxana and I have reached what I would call a vaginal detente: you don’t show me yours, and I won’t show you mine. But I did agree to attend the NYCOT meeting for Allison’s sake, on the strict understanding that this was not, repeat not, one of Roxy’s vaginal encounter groups.
“Nancy’s here!” Roxana mooed to the room. “Welcome!” She was dressed in an oversize tie-dyed T-shirt, which rode up when she hugged me. At the sight of Roxana’s unkempt pubic hair, I froze. Have I been tricked into joining one of her G-spot search parties? And why doesn’t she wax?
“I haven’t seen you in months,” Roxana continued, completely ignoring my alarmed expression. “Not since our lunch at Zen Palate.” (That’s when Roxana tried to befriend me by ordering twenty different kinds of wheat gluten followed by tofu for dessert. She was under the mistaken impression that because I look Chinese, I must be a vegan Buddhist. I haven’t had the heart to tell her that, where I come from, Chinese people are Catholic or Anglican—and carnivorous.)
I glanced around the room and saw a skinny girl in her twenties with short spiky hair and a U-shaped nose ring. Her black bra was peeking out of a half-open leather vest, but she, unlike Roxana, was wearing pants. Her jeans had holes in the knees, but, mercifully, not at the crotch. An overweight woman with chin-length gray hair, wearing a long flowered dress and black sneakers, handed me a sign-in sheet.
“For the NYCOT mailing list,” she explained cheerfully.
“I don’t want to be on any mailing list!” I said, unable to control my shrillness. “Where’s Allison?” And where were all the other members?
Nobody else seemed to care—much less notice—that Roxana was chairing this meeting without her panties. Allison appeared, carrying some paper cups and a large pitcher of red liquid.
“Oh, Nancy’s here—good. Everybody help yourselves to cranberry juice!”
“This needs sugar,” the skinny girl with the nose ring complained.
“It’s made with Hain’s unsweetened concentrate, and it’s very good for the bladder,” Roxana told her. “This is a sugar-free dwelling, Gretchen.”
“Well, we’re going to discuss inclusiveness,” the girl replied. “If we want to do outreach to the entire sex industry, we have to acknowledge different kinds of cultural norms.”
Allison scribbled dutifully in her Kate Spade organizer and looked up. “What else is on the agenda?” she asked brightly.
“We have two new members,” Roxana
