Steve Toltz - Quicksand

— Are you going to make a complain?

I said that I wouldn’t make a complain.

— Come inside. We’ll carry you! Girls! Girls!

— Please no, don’t call —

It was too late. A half-dozen negligeed prostitutes surrounded me, the brothel bulb casting their faces in a smouldering red glow.

— Ferry gentleman into salon, the madam commanded.

— No, really, I protested.

The laughing women scooped me up.

— Wait! My wheelchair! It’ll get stolen!

— We put bike chain on it. Tiffany! Get bike chain from office.

Now I was being held aloft by eight prostitutes in the rain, their cleavages pressed tight against me. To keep myself upright I grasped onto one’s bony track-marked arms with egg-blue veins.

— Is Gretel here?

— Who?

— Gretel. Saffron.

— No, she doesn’t work here anymore.

My disappointment was intense.

— I’m here, though, the woman holding my head said. I grimaced. The inside of her mouth looked carcinogenic.

A prostitute with lopsided breasts chained the chair up to a telegraph pole against which, a moment later, an oblivious drunk man began to urinate. I gazed at the madam with genuine loathing and demanded to be let go as they carried me inside that old wet cheek of a room and gently set me down on a pink settee.

— What’s that?

My shirt had risen up and one of the prostitutes was pointing to my suprapubic catheter and its attached bag of urine.

— Oh my God, that’s gross!

They turned their gazes anywhere other than at my face. I was losing novelty value fast. They couldn’t understand how sex with me was supposed to work. Frankly, who could blame the poor girls, with their rotten job whoring and their children, at least two, at home to support and their understanding or abusive husbands waiting for them at the end of the day, four a.m. probably, in their vans or motorcycles. The eight prostitutes told me their noms de coitus (Helena, Selena, Tiffany, etc.) and now looked gently upon my face but avoided my eyes.

— Choose girl, the madam said.

They shrank into themselves. The disintegrating penis of an old mummy would rate higher. Nobody wanted to be the chosen one. I assumed a steely determination to seem impervious to humiliation yet I could not bear the thought of crawling down the corridor of the brothel to the exit. I pointed at each prostitute one by one and made my vengeful evaluation.

— Too old. Too masculine. Too upholstered in tattoos. Bad wig day. Bad heroin day. Bad face day. Stilts for legs. Hasn’t kept down solids this decade.

That was my only ploy to get myself thrown out, but they could see through my proud swagger — the hot tears in my eyes gave me away. The women refused to be offended, no matter what I said. The bouncer became alert though insultingly made no move to silence me, finding me harmless and unthreatening. When I had run through them all, I demanded they take me to my chair. After an agonising silence the women came upon me with their powerful smells and lifted me in their arms and carried me back outside.

— There are other places you can go, that cater specifically for people in your situation.

— Get me the fuck out of here.

— I can’t remember the code for the bicycle lock, said the madam.

Her plot was immediately apparent. She was going to charge me for the code. Meanwhile, the prostitutes’ arms were getting tired.

— Can we put him down?

— No! Not yet!

— Give me the code! I shouted.

They were piling up, these worst moments. The madam put her hand on her chin.

— Two hundred dollars.

— Go fuck yourself.

— Put him back inside.

— Fuck!

The prostitutes staggered back inside and down the hallway, this time dropping me ungently on the couch. As they consulted amongst themselves I used the opportunity to call Liam.

— I need some fucking help ASAP please.

— Chair broken down?

I explained that I was being held hostage in a brothel on Sussex Street, The Enigma Variations.

— That sounds like some pickle. Only thing is, I’m on a boat on the harbour. I’ll tell you what. I’ll send over some of the boys.

At that moment the prostitutes hurled themselves on my helpless body for the third time, lifting me up, and I thought of The Fussy Corpse as they carried me upstairs and down the hallway and left me alone on the bed in Gretel’s old room. There it was, the little desk with the wobbly leg. Out the broken window, the drainpipe. It was going to be OK. The madam stuck her hand in my face.

— Two hundred dollars. Up front.

Even though I had lost 99.9 percent of my sexual desire, I paid up and the odious madam took her leave. Two minutes later a negligeed willowy Thai woman entered as if shouldering an invisible coffin and approached the bed in a wide arc, and sat wordlessly on the edge of the mattress, stock-still and staring with large pitchdark eyes. She seemed to be timidly waiting for some gesture from me, but isn’t initiative what one ultimately pays for in a brothel, freedom from that dreadful first move, the anticipation of rejection? In truth, I felt like telling her not to bother, but thought she would feel rejected.

— What’s your name?

— Jin. What do you want to do?

— Nothing unusual.

Let the court know that I was never perverse — at least, not in behaviour; I was perverse by appearance, but that couldn’t be helped. Her jaw was clenched, her left eye twitching. The bedroom’s shadows were not doing either of us any favours. She reached out and touched my hair as one tests fabric you fear will itch. She removed her stockings, the kind women were frequently strangled with in the old days, and took off my shirt, revealing the bag. My embarrassment was now total, almost fatal. She tackled the belt, as if all the trouble resided in the belt. I was now inarticulate and self-conscious, hoping for some kind of conspiratorial wink, like we were in this together, or at least a gesture of consummate professionalism. I felt irritated that I couldn’t endear myself to her. It was an ordeal, her terrible silence and kind smile. I wanted my mental activity to cease. I wondered what her interior monologue was like. I thought: I’ll just fuck you and be on my way. (Though this wasn’t a fait accompli — that sustainable erections might occur indiscriminately and at the most unwanted of times, not when needed, was frankly my greatest fear. That and the failure of sex altogether.) I kissed her breasts hurriedly, fiendishly, with evident stress. Her nasally inhalations were distracting and did nothing to mollify my anxiety. She still hadn’t spoken by the time my pants were on the floor. Manually, what I managed was not exactly a periscope but respectable and lifelike, and she climbed onto the bed as if onto a scaffold and nimbly mounted me. Penetration. I was in — I think. Yes. Relief was the overwhelming emotion. This was just like sex! An unambiguous success! Yet why I fucked her with a heavy heart I could not say. This was my rechristening ceremony; it should have been a joyous occasion. It wasn’t. Maybe because Jin was making weird off-putting mouth motions as if trying to make her ears pop during an airplane’s descent.

— Are you all right?

At that moment, angry hollering came from the hallway. Doors fist-battered and kicked open. A commotion, just like the last time I was here. A voice: Police!

This time, I’d called them. I’d almost forgotten. Oh well, fine. Rescued at last! Jin remained frozen on top of me.

— Maybe you’d best get off, I said.

She heaved a sharp sigh and the door burst open. A bearded policeman’s head loitered in the greasy light. Jin’s stupefaction dissolved into fear. Another entered and yanked Jin off me then led her by the wrist out of the room. My jeans were within reach so I dressed myself, but otherwise couldn’t make a move to go.