Moondogs - Alexander Yates [133]
Benicio pivoted to twist free and shoved his hands deep into his pockets to keep from being grabbed at. He quickened his pace toward the middle doorway and was followed all the way by the men from the other clubs who urged him to reconsider. They didn’t leave him alone until he was through the door, and even then they called after, each making offers that the other was quick to top.
Benicio had never been to a brothel before, but he imagined that this was what it should look like. A big room was filled with flimsy card tables and mismatched chairs where men, both foreigners and Filipinos, sat and sipped from brown short-neck bottles. They watched a two-foot-high stage set against the front wall where a girl with a face five years older than her body swayed in a way that wasn’t quite dancing. She wore no tassels of any kind, no thong or even high heel shoes—she was nude save the film of alternating red and green light that made her look young, then sick, then young again. Along the back wall was a row of eight doorframes, each draped over with thick black cloth, and as Benicio stood there trying to decide what to do with himself he saw a white man with whiter hair disappear behind one of the curtains towing behind him a Filipina wearing boy-shorts, high glossy boots and a plastic cowboy hat.
A pudgy woman with short hair approached Benicio and flashed him a big smile that alternated yellow and gold. “Welcome,” she said, leading him to an open table that was just about an arm’s length from the naked dancer. “Something to drink for you?”
“No, thank you.” Benicio had to shout to be heard over the music—Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” remixed over a synthetic house beat. “I’m looking for someone. Is Solita here?”
The woman didn’t answer. She waddled back to a bar by the entrance, picked up a tin bucket filled with ice and three bottles of San Miguel and returned to Benicio’s table. She set the bucket down, and placed one of the bottles in front of him. All of them were pre-opened.
“Nothing to drink for me, thank you.”
“Compliment,” the woman said, sliding back a chair so she could sit beside him. She grinned and gestured to the dancer on stage with her chin and lips. The girl must have noticed the attention because her legs sprang out as though they’d been electrified. She squatted, pouted, and did things that would have looked better were she clothed.
“Just Solita,” Benicio said. “I’m just looking for Solita.”
The pudgy woman stared at him. She cocked her head, as though tipping water from her ear.
“I met her here a month ago,” he said. “She has a tattoo, of the sun, down here …” he pointed down at the inside of his own hip. “Does she still work here? She’s the only one I’m interested in.”
“I have,” she said, her face lighting up. “Very special, and with a tattoo. I have for you.” She got up and trotted over to the other side of the room, drawing a set of black curtains back and disappearing through them. The girl on the stage didn’t look disappointed or relieved that she hadn’t been chosen. She went back to flailing limply, her eyes on the chipped and shellacked wood beneath her bare feet.
The lady proprietor returned with her arm around the waist of a Filipina with dyed cherry-syrup hair and puffy nipples. She brought her right to Benicio’s table, spun her around and lifted up the hem of her Catholic schoolgirl plaid to show him Bugs Bunny munching a carrot on her left ass cheek. “Very special,” the woman repeated, peering around from behind the girl’s torso.
“No, you don’t understand, it’s supposed to be a sun.”
“No son.” The woman wrinkled her nose at him and spun the girl back around so that he could see the front of her. She patted a flat hand on the girl’s flat belly. “No children. Just new this month. Very special.”
“She’s not who I want,” Benicio said, his revulsion—in himself and in everything—rising. “I’m sorry.”
The woman shrugged and released the cherry redhead. She sat back down again and placed her hands flat on the table with a determined look that said: We’re going to