ever meet, maybe you might take me in for a short while, help me get established in your town. I promise to be a gentleman and not try anything funny. I can keep myself entertainedâyou wonât even know Iâm there.
Whoring
O nce, on payday, a young man named Pate and a young man named Larsen sat on the edge of Pateâs unmade bed, eating dinner in Pateâs apartment. Neither of the men were handsome, though Larsen was the cleaner of the two.
âThis food is pitiful and nasty,â said Pate.
âI like spending time with you, Pate,â said Larsen. He stopped eating and put his food box down on the bed.
Pate lifted his food box and tilted the rest of its contents into his mouth. âSometimes you make me feel like a rose bouquet,â he said. âBut that being said, I will never fuck you.â
âI know,â said Larsen.
âThe very thought sends me wriggling.â
âYou donât have to explain.â
âIf you woke up tomorrow with the body of a woman, but somehow kept your winning personality during the transformation, we might be able to work something out. But as it stands now, no way no how.â
âWe donât need to sleep together to have a good time.â
âGood,â said Pate. âSo what the fuck are we going to do tonight?â
Larsen stood up from the bed and sat down on the floor, next
to Pateâs legs. âWell,â he said, âThereâs the bar. We could start there, have a few drinks, figure out where to go next.â
âBut we were there last night, and the night before. The whole place is one big shit smear, if you ask me. Itâs payday, for God sakes. I want to whoop it up.â
âWe could go see a movie. There are a couple playing right now that I would consider seeing.â
âMovies put a hole in your head. Jerk your emotions around.â
âWe could go have coffee at a coffee shop,â said Larsen.
âIf we go to the coffee shop,â said Pate, âwe might as well go to the god-damned bar. At least at the bar we can whoop it up and nobody will look askance.â
âOr, we could stay right here and talk,â said Larsen.
âTalk about what?â said Pate.
âWe could reminisce,â said Larsen.
âFuck that,â said Pate. âLetâs focus on the present.â
âWhat do you want to do, then?â
âI say we go a-whoring,â said Pate.
âCouldnât we just go to the bar? You could find a girl to hook up with there.â
âThereâs a god-damned difference,â said Pate, âbetween hooking up and a-whoring. You donât go to the bar with the intention of hooking up. You go with the intention to get yourself drunk and be among the community. The hooking-up occurs on account of lonesomeness. Now, when you go a-whoring, you go to the whorehouse with the express intention of sleeping with whores. If you get a little tipsy while youâre there, well, thatâs just a little sideline bonus. No way youâve forgotten the feeling of walking into a whorehouse, seeing them whores all in a row: like eating cake, for breakfast.â
âIt sure has been a long time since we went a-whoring.â
âHavenât been a-whoring since Sonny got himself a girlfriend,â said Pate. âThose were the good old days. Me, you, and Sonny, a-whoring till dawn.â
âI miss Sonny,â Larsen said. âThe old Sonny, I mean.â
Sonny had met Bessy at the bar and had fallen in love. He refused to see either Pate or Larsen now apart from her. At the bar, he and Bessy sat in a booth. They drank the same drink out of the same glass with two straws.
Pate rose from the bed and took off all of his work clothes, then walked naked into his closet. Several minutes later he walked out in casual clothes. âIâll bet we can rouse Sonny,â he said. âSonny has whores in his future.â
Pate
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