William Bayer - Blind Side

Had she met someone there for lunch? The windows were blocked, I couldn't see inside, but it didn't look like a place that served food. I still had a problem about going in; if I ran into her face-to-face, a later approach could be difficult. I decided to wait inside the porno shop.

It was, I imagine, like most other sex shops around, not that I've visited all that many. Racks on the walls layed books and magazines, organized by proclivity. re was a small display of intimate items: dildoes, black silk panties, stuff like that. The cashier sat behind a register on a raised platform beside the door. Fat and bored, the butt of a dead cigar clenched between his teeth, he glanced at me, then turned his attention to a fish-eye security mirror mounted at the far end of the room.

There were half a dozen men in business suits breathing heavily, studying the merchandise. A black man wearing a coin apron stood before a darkened room in back. Behind him I could see a row of video booths. Moans, issuing from the various sound tracks, merged into one miserable low-pitched sexual growl.

I walked back to the front of the store. I wanted to keep my eyes on the door to the lounge. I flipped through a couple of magazines. As always when I look at porn, I was struck by the poor quality of the photography.

The pictures said nothing, the models looked embarrassed, and their poses were awkward, as if the photographer had commanded them to freeze. Occasionally I saw a pretty face, or an attempt to frame a scene, but there was always something wrong: the lighting was too harsh, the content too blatant, or there was no passion or feelhe shot. Porn is about skin, and yet, curiously, the ing in t skin in porn invariably looks bad.

I spent fifteen minutes in the store. Customers came and went, and several browsers moved to the video booths in back. Finally I went to the counter and looked up at the cashier. He slowly lowered his eyes.

"I'm from out of town," I said.

"Do you have a local guide?"

"What kind of guide?"

"Guide to the action," I said.

He rubbed his sleeve across his nose.

"Nothing like that here." He looked at my camera.

"Like to take pictures? That what you like to do?"

"Yeah," I said.

"I like to take pictures. Know where I can take a few?"

"Intimate poses?" I nodded.

"they got girls in the joint around the corner. They'll split their beavers for you, but they stay behind the glass."

"What about that place across the street?" I asked.

He turned to look.

"Topless joint? So it's tittie you're after. Yeah, they probably let you shoot in there you tip lem well enough."

At first, when I entered the lounge, I could barely see; the room was dark except for a small well-lit stage in the center of the U-shaped bar. Two girls were at work, a white girl and a light-skinned black, naked except for scanty G-strings, halfheartedly bumping and grinding in time to an electronic throb. There was the faint aroma of girls' sweat in the air. Drawn in by this and by the light, I took a seat. Fifteen or so men were seated around the U, some watching the dancers with bored blank faces, others gazing at them with fascinated eyes.

"Drink?"

I looked down. The bartender was standing just in front of me. It was Ms. G. Amos, and she was stripped to the waist, bare breasts jutting out from her torso, a pair of firm hard cups like the kind you used to see on the fronts of Cadillacs.

"Beer, please."

"What kind?"

"Light."

"Draft or bottle?"

"I'm from out of town. Don't know the local brands."

"Erin Brew is pretty good," she said. I smiled at her.

"Make it Erin, then." She didn't smile back. When she turned, I noticed the muscular definition of her back.

Though I wasn't prepared for it, it seemed an ideal situation-I'd yet to meet a bartender who wouldn't talk. But when I gave her a lavish tip for my beer, she pocketed it with a brisk nod and walked away.

There was a certain surliness about her that belied her topless state. If being topless meant one was reduced to being a sex object, she was doing everything possible to neutralize the erotic effect. The girls on the stage might flaunt their boobies, wiggle them in a customer's face, but as far as she was concerned, if you ogled hers, you'd get nothing but an icy stare.

I slowly drank down two beers. After a while the place thinned out. At 2:30, when the dancers took a break,

she appeared again and asked if I wanted something else.

"Sure," I said.

"I'd like to talk." She looked at me with disgust.

"Another beer, then, please."

She brought me another beer, but this time, when I tipped her, she nodded in a more appreciative way, and, instead of retreating to her sink, stood facing me, waiting for me to speak.

"As I said-I'm from out of town."

"Yeah, you did say that."

"Name's Jim Lynch." She looked at my offered hand, took it and gave it a shake.

"Grace Amos," she said. "Hi, Grace."

"Hi, Jim."

"Buy you a drink?" "Don't mind if you do." She reached under the bar, pulled out a bottle of Erin, opened it and poured it into a mug.

"Well, here's to Cleveland," I said, clicking her mug with mine.

"Isn't that a joke?"

"Don't know," I said. "The town doesn't seem so bad. Not half so bad as you hear."

"Where you from, Jim?"

"Boston."

"Never been there myself. Salesman?" Inodded. "What's your line?" I didn't even have to think about it.

"I sell cameras," I said.

She glanced down at my Leica.

"Noticed that when you came in. Nice little piece of hardware. Said to myself: 'Grace, that's no Kodak. Not that." Have a look?"

I took it from around my neck, and placed it on the bar. I could tell by the way she picked it up that she wasn't used to having a camera in her hands. But I was impressed by the confidence with which she held it; she wasn't intimidated by it at all. She brought it up to her eye, then pointed it at me.

"Hey! Smile!" She made a clicking sound with her teeth, then handed it back.

A couple of seconds passed before it hit me: the way she said "Hey!" was just the way Kim said it, exactly the same. I must have been staring at her because she looked unnerved.

"Something the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing. Just wondering-"

"What?"

"Whether you'd let me take you out to dinner."

She looked at me hard, as if she was trying to -read my mind. I met her eyes straight on.

"Just 'cause I work this joint, that shouldn't give you any ideas."

"No ideas, Grace. Just a lonely guy in a strange city looking to make a friend. I can buy a bottle tonight, go back to my motel, drink and watch TV. Or I can take a nice lady out to a restaurant, have a couple drinks and talk. I'm not thinking of anything more than that."

She studied me awhile longer.

"Lot of guys come inthey're not all that nice. I look them in the eye, they're staring at my boobs. But you-you strike me different. I thought that since you walked in. Had this feeling you were looking at my face. Nothing wrong with my tits, mind you. But they're not for grabs-not in here they're not. And not later neither . . . unless I put them in your hand." She grinned.

"Now, if all that's all okay with you, you can take me out. I could use a decent restaurant meal. Where you staying?"

"Devora Motel," I said.

"I know the dump. Not far from mine. I'll be leaving here around 5:45. I do some errands, go home, change, walk my dog, that kind of crap. So suppose I pick you up around seven? We'll go to a lounge I know. If it goes good, we'll go on to eat."

Walking back to the parking lot, I couldn't believe my luck. Not only had I met her, I'd actually gotten myself a date. I congratulated myself on my approach: lonely salesman, low key, persistent and polite.