The pretty young one has the idea first, but the ugly and the old and the plain all go along with it. “Let’s have a dinner party,” she says. “Just a few friends at a restaurant some place downtown; away from the little bar and all the beds.” She’s so cute as she says it and so full of naive vitality that it convinces the whole bitter group and they set about making lists and reservations and raiding closets to find the right outfit; something classy, something that doesn’t scream “Whore!”

I get talked into going. I don’t know why. I never could afford the brothel, but I know the pretty young one from when she was an “art student” and I had wanted her then and I suppose I still want her now, or I’m at least fascinated that she has capitalized on what I felt was MY desire. I had wanted her. Now everyone wants her. She’s the star of the whole whore house and it makes me feel strange. Do I have common taste, or was I simply ahead of my time? It’s like a song you love until it becomes a hit and then everyone likes it and you pretend you never liked that song but still you tap your toes when you hear it.

She had on a purple short shorts number when I saw her and she made the night sound like an erotic dream. I told the wife I had some dumb thing to do at the gallery and she barely listened because she had some dumb thing to do with her idiot friends and I wasn’t even invited and it pissed me off to the point where I nearly announced: “I’m off to dinner with the whores. Don’t wait up!”

I smiled to myself and beat it down to the back room of the restaurant where some of the girls were setting up decorations; streamers like it was a child’s birthday and I take a seat next to the large brunette with the curly hair and she jabbers away asking me all sorts of questions about what I do and how are the paintings coming along and frankly I feel at a loss. It puts all the onus on me and I can’t turn the conversation around because I know what she does and I can’t very well ask her how’s the fellatio going and how are the johns coming…..along. At least I can’t sober. I order a whiskey and slip out of excitement into irritation.

Not only my mind, but my bowels. I Never should’ve had Indian food for lunch. Gurggle gurggle. Then the “boyfriends” arrive. They wear little leather jackets like toughs do in the movies and they sport elaborate, ugly tattoos and speak in dees dem and doze. I can’t imagine what the hell any of us will have to talk about all night. Why had I agreed to come? SHE isn’t even here yet. I drink down the whiskey and resolve to get drunk when my stomach constricts and I quickly run off to the toilet.

A whole gaggle of men and women fall out of restroom door, laughing. “Now this is interesting,” I think. “Some sort of cocaine orgy right here in the bathroom.” Pity I missed all the fun. Pity I’m about to shit myself and I rush through the door only to find that It’s one of those gender neutral restrooms they have now, with one common sink area and separate stalls for both men and women. No orgy, no cocaine, just too cheap to put in separate bathrooms. They’ve spent the money instead on an elaborate decor where you have to climb a sort of pyramid of box shapes to get to the toilet. It’s way up there near the ceiling. It looks wonderful, but not when you actually need to crap. It’s a god damned obstacle. I get to the top and drop trow and let out a symphony of shit just as I hear HER laugh down by the sinks. Suddenly I realize that this will not be a night of erotic heights, but rather an evening of humiliation and embarrassment… but still I love her laughter. It makes me nostalgic for the days when I thought that I alone wanted her that she was my own mystery; back when I thought I loved her, back before I was a hack and she was a whore. Then the whole room starts moving, like a train leaving the station and I’m clinging to the toilet; terrified that I’ll be the thrown from the throne and topple down the pyramid of useless decor, shitting myself at her boot clad feet. Then I wake up.