William Vollmann - The Royal Family

No, not then, said Tyler. I’ve got to go to L.A. then for some business.

He sat with his feet on the bed looking at Dan Smooth’s photo and working up his details description sheet.

SEX Female

RACE African-American

AGE Approx. 45

HEIGHT Approx. 5’ 5’’

WEIGHT Approx. 120 lbs

COMPLEXION Dark

Well, that doesn’t help much, he muttered.

HAIR Color black; long, kinky.

EYES Brown, slightly bloodshot

FOREHEAD Vertical

EYEBROWS Bushy, same color as hair

NOSE Medium; nostrils small

CHEEKS Full, cheekbones not prominent

MOUTH Upturned at corners

LIPS Red, upper thin, lower puffy

TEETH Unknown

CHIN Curved

JAW Wide

EARS Oval, pierced (?)

NECK Medium, straight, no Adam’s apple

SHOULDERS Narrow

HANDS Long, rough

FINGERS Slim, tapered

FINGERNAILS Long, painted red, dirt under nails

CLOTHING Seen in red miniskirt or black low-cut dress; high heels, one heel broken

JEWELRY Large hoop earrings, bangles on left wrist

PECULIARITIES Round scar on right calf (bullet wound?), abscess marks on arms, tattoo of skull on left wrist, mole on left cheek, strong smell of perfume

ALIASES Queen, Maj, Africa Johnston

CONFEDERATES Domino [AKA Sylvia Fine], Strawberry [AKA???], Kitty, unnamed mentally unstable prostitute, Sapphire, Chocolate [AKA Brenda Wiley], others to be determined

He was late with his rent. Jumpy, maybe from coffee — a not unpleasant jumpiness, his fingers not quite twitching, like baby birds almost ready to fly across Valencia Street — he drove over to his landlord’s place in Menlo Park to deliver the check in person. When he rang the buzzer, nobody answered, which relieved him. He slipped the check under the door. For a moment he wanted to call Judy from RoboGraphix, but that passed, leaving him guilty and stained. He drove back home to the Outer Sunset where it was foggy again, and someone’s purple light was flashing in the apartment next door. There were no messages on his machine. But then the phone rang. First he thought that it might be business; then he decided that it was his landlord. When he put the receiver to his ear, a cheery male voice said: Hello! I’m a telecommunications computer specially selected to… — He hung up. An hour later, the computer called back. He hung up again.

That night he couldn’t sleep knowing that he’d be crying in his dreams, and listlessly opened the yellow pages, hoping that advertisements for fencing tools and chiropractors would swizzle him down into some murky sea of drowse, but those strange spiders of his called hands had their own ideas: ENTERTAINMENT… ESCORT… MASSAGE was what they sought out. It sounded blessed. But he didn’t feel up to driving anywhere, and he didn’t care to pay an escort girl to drop by. The next afternoon business was dead, as usual, so he got in the car, drove to the gas station, drove to the supermarket, and then drove to the Tenderloin, where he parked across the street from the Oriental Spa, vaguely supposing that one of the girls might look like Irene. Then he decided to try Jasmine’s Exotic Massage instead. The Mama-san, almost as wide as she was short, stood on tiptoe to view him through the chest-high window before she let him in.

Hi, she said.

Afternoon, said Tyler. How much for a massage?

Forty dollars for forty minutes.

All right, he said. He was pretty sure that she was Korean.

She took him down the hall to a small dark room with a single bed and a radio playing country songs. Then she left him.

The woman who came in next was definitely Korean. Her trick name was Patricia, and she told him to undress. For a moment he thought of the Vietnamese woman who liked wars. He had to give up the forty dollars first, of course, and the woman took that and went out while he stripped to his underpants. She was surprised that he kept those on. She said that she was divorced and that her son was nine years old. — That’s my child with Irene, he thought to himself.

The Korean woman knelt down on the bed and began to squeeze his back.

Your back is so big there must be a million dollars inside! she laughed.

Help yourself, said Tyler. If you can dig out any small change, though, I’ll keep that to buy myself a sandwich.

Pretty soon she was cracking his fingers and toes. She told him that he had nice skin, which wasn’t true, and that he looked young. He put his hand on her generous ass through her tights and she smiled at him. She asked whether he were married. Suddenly his arms were around her and his face was against the strange slick fabric of her dress just below her breasts and he began to feel happy and eased. He stayed like that with her for a long time. He needed comfort so much. What was he but a greyhaired old child? He slid his hand between her thighs and she made a mock-startled expression and shook her head, but she didn’t seem to be angry, so he did it again.

You want to stay with me? she whispered.

Now, how much would that cost? said Tyler.

Maybe too much for you. I’m sorry. One-twenty. I’m sorry so much.

Will you be able to get well paid out of that? I won’t be able to give you a tip then.

Thank you. It’ll be okay.

If you’d rather, I can just give you a fifty dollar tip and go now. The Mama-san doesn’t have to know.

If you can stay, I’m happy, she said. You’re so warm.

Where are you from?

Seoul.

Ann-yeong ha sim nee ka, he said, which means hello. Irene had taught him that.

She clapped her hands and kissed him.

He gave her the money and she went out and came back with no tights on. He took her underwear off and she took his off. — Oh, you not shy there! she laughed. She dimmed the light and lay beside him.

He put his hand gently but firmly on her cunt and began to suck her nipples. — Oh, I like that! the Korean woman sighed. After a while she was screaming with pleasure. Her hips slammed again and again against the bed, so hard that it almost broke, and love-juice drooled out upon his hand. That was no act, he thought, immeasurably grateful that he could please somebody. When her eyeballs rolled up and she ground her head against the wall, he began to need her urgently, and cunt-sucked, then mounted her, coming quickly and pleasantly, though not as ecstatically as she had.

Thank you, they said to one another at the same time.

You want to come see me sometime? he said.

I work very long hours, the Korean woman said glibly. I can’t get out much.

Never mind, he said. But I’m going to give you my P.O. box. If you ever need help or want to see me, write me.

Thank you, she said.

He was out of business cards, so he tore a scrap off one of the surveillance report forms in his briefcase and wrote the information down.

Well, he said, I guess I’ll never see you again then.

In another month I’ll be gone, she agreed flatly. I’ll probably be in Saint Louis.

How long have you been here? he said.

Oh, about one month.

Do you live with your kid?

No. He’s with my husband.

On the way out, she said: If I write to you and you ever see me again, don’t tell anyone we did this.

Okay, he said. Her words gave him hope that maybe she’d get in touch with him.

Don’t forget me, she whispered.

He could have deepened the case against himself, had he been of a self-torturing mind, by reminding himself that moments after he’d climaxed in her arms she was holding out his underwear and then (embarrassingly) putting his unclean socks onto his feet for him, and then before he knew it she was handing him his coat; his money, in short, had been spent; and yet, although he was far from young enough for his sadness to have been entirely alleviated by the sexual act, the generosity with which she’d given herself to him, the happiness and gladness of her body both in and out of sex (she said that she was always happy), the genuine tenderness and care he felt she’d given him as one human being to another suffused him with an even more fundamental kind of hope than that of seeing her again, which he now understood didn’t matter. If he could but trust and believe, not so much, or so carelessly, that the world could hurt him, but enough to open his soul to people like her, then maybe someday he too could be happy. There had been some sort of flavored gel inside her pussy; maybe he’d imagined that orgasm of hers; but whether that was true or not, the important thing was that she had tried to bring him joy.