Iced, The New Noir Anthology of Cold, Hard Fiction,
an anthology of 16 authors from Insomniac Press (2001).
"No flowers. Why, do you think?"
Flowers? she wondered.
"She's a hooker." A second voice, also male, talking like she wasn't there. Which she wasn't. Not fully. "Who sends flowers to a twenty dollar lay?"
Hooker? Twenty dollar lay? Shit.
"The words 'hooker' and 'cheap' don't automatically link, Vender, just because that's your experience. She wore silk to the scene."
"The fur coat, that was fake. Or dog." A snort. "Both come to think. White with black dots. Fake dog."
That smell. Antiseptic?
"Spoken like a man who's never had to get cum out of the real thing. It's tough, you know. Mats like a son-of-a-bitch."
"Like you can afford the high-priced spread."
"Everybody's done it at least once."
A loud sigh. "Go on. Tell me."
"Give a woman a fur coat, she has to fuck you on it."
"According to who?"
"It's a given. Dozens of little animals sacrificed, spread out on the bed for your pleasure. Get naked, lay back, feel that long fur all over while you're banging away. Women live for that shit. The whole point to having a fur coat. Wearing it is just one long, pre-bang tease."
She heard movement, weight shifting from one foot to the other.
"Bullshit."
"Bullshit nothing."
"Not my Joanie."
"You ever give her the chance? But it's different when the woman is your wife, I give you that. You do it once, twice tops. Spill, and you're going to spill because this is the best appreciation fuck you'll ever get, definitely, you'll think you grew three inches, so you spill and you can't get the juice out of the fur. Costs like a hundred bucks to have the fucking thing cleaned. That's when she says save the coat for special occasions, like she's doing you a favour, economizing. Only you've got kids to raise and a mortgage to pay before you've got special occasions. And that's it. Coat goes into storage. You see it again maybe when somebody dies."
Weight shifting back to the other foot.
"That's your life, Jack."
"Fuck, it's everybody's life. Ask around. In-ves-ti-gate. What you'll find, it's why hookers don't wear real fur. Costs too much to get cleaned all the time, besides which cleaning's hard on the pelts. Breaks them down after too many times. Her heels though, they were expensive. Show those shoes to Joanie. She'll tell you."
Prada, she thought. The shoes were Prada, bought in Montreal. At last, a man who recognized quality.
What made that strange? She was in bed, two men in the room. Familiar situation. A hooker, okay, but not in Montreal, or Toronto, anymore. She'd come to The Falls shortly after the casino opened. Add some class to the scene, if the tight-asses on the Tourist Bureau could get their heads out, let her put brochures in their dispensers around town. No twenty-buck lays. A quality service: model beauty, fashionable clothes and clinically safe. Worked for Vegas, didn't it?
She cracked her lids, peered between lashes. Small room, lots of white. Two men, polyester ties and three/quarter coats. She didn't know them or the room. What had the one guy said? Scene?
"Don't think you'd find this one on the Queen Street track. Not that bad looking though. Before."
Hurt like a son-of-a-bitch as she said it, "Befow wha?" words leaking from her mouth.
The man sitting on the edge of her bed looked surprised. He was thick and dark. Hairy hands holding a hat on his lap. The other, leaning against the wall, was tall and sandy blond, athlete's body going to fat.
"That how you're gonna play it, Gloria? You don't remember?" he asked.
They were cops. She didn't need to see badges. Just her luck: the man who knew Prada was a cop.