you could touch for a couple of bucks. the window of the booth went up and you stuck out the bills. they might tell you not to pinch, but I was a stroke type anyway. some guys, I guess they want to leave a mark. me, I just like the feel.
I went over there on the way to see my sister. there was a lit-up eye with an eyebrow over the door, a guy in front with a change belt, an apron that said peep city. peeptown was up the block. they didn’t have an eyebrow over the eye over there.
why do they make these places so dark? I like to cop tit in the light. guess I have no shame. maybe I got through shame a long time ago. somebody said I had an old soul, which I took to mean I’m older than I am, or that I’ve been places I haven’t been.
you could hardly see in there, in peep city, and all that disco, that ammonia, it made me sick. I looked around for a girl with a good set, one who would maybe tell me I was sweet. sometimes they asked about handjobs, blowjobs, all the jobs, but I never wanted to go that far. I felt sorry for them. somebody told me they were exploited. me, I always paid in full.
this time, just to break habit, I went for what one of them had down below, just a few bucks more. she was a giant with plenty on the chest, but I put a fivespot out. she swiveled on the ledge, pushed an ass dusted with glitter out over the sill. I palmed her there, thumbed a pimple near the crack. what am I paying for his for? I thought, thumbing it.
the giant was talking to another girl pressed against her on the ledge. the other girl was a sway of hair that moved like a metronome. the sway took on the color of the strobes.
“what’s he doing down there?” said the other girl.
“jeez, nothing,” said the giant.
I dug a knuckle in.
“what the fuck,” the giant said. the blind was buzzing shut.
“prick,” she said.
there was a bucket near the door with soapy water in it. I got down like you do for a shoelace, dipped my knuckle in the bucket. the man in the apron came up.
“I got ass germs on it,” I said.
I figured it was peeptown from now on.
from “old soul” by sam lipsyte
