Reflexively, naturally, I say I'm doing just fine, and frankly I was, the sting of the pre-autumn air doing wonders for my mood, but that was not the reason. Let's face it: she was a whore. Really, a bonafide woman-of-the-discretionary-last-minute-hotel-rooms whore. But that wasn't even the reason. More on that later.
We're going to now rewind to another episode, this time to a planned post-BW retirement celebration about three, maybe four weeks prior. I have the chance to mingle with some of the people in full on decent mood, what now that I'm at this point finally getting my feet on the ground out here. For avid followers, this was the same weekend I moved into the new digs.
And so I'm outside smoking, listening to a shoot-the-shit conversation from a bunch of this-establishment regulars, when I see an african american girl, all decked in white like it's a clubbing outfit (and like it is the 85 degrees at night it was), who waves. I nod, turn my head, ignore her for the ministrations of my tobacco inhalations. She doesn't leave, and instead stops and crosses the street.
"What's a guy like you doing out here all alone tonight?"
"Smoking."
"Well you know, you need someone to keep you company?"
"I'm doing well, but thanks."
"Oh, you don't have a girl in there, do you? Nobody to come in and break all this up?"
"She's waiting on me, actually."
That's essentially how the conversation ended, a few idle lines passed, then she goes clomping along -- clomping not being the proper term but what is the term for somebody wearing knee-high thick-heeled patent-leather boots who still walks with grace? -- and I go back to my smoke.
The bouncer: Holy shit, I haven't seen one of those in years. (descriptor: the guy is a seriously tatted up biker-looker who regaled me later on about going for his gun if t his one guy on the pool table would not...just...quit...egging him on...while he was working.)
Regular: One of what?
The bouncer: She was a whore. Haven't seen one of those around here in a while.
And so, this is my frame of reference. Were I a journalist, I'd probably pull out some prostitution stats showing the increase in such-and-such numbers over the last x number of years. But I'm lazy and a pontificator and a fictionalizer, so I digress. The sound of my voice is what I'm really looking for in all these.
Which cuts back to the story tonight: I'm walking, it's a whore, I'm reflexively prone to not trusting and say no. After the incident happened I dissected it for what it was: It wasn't that she was so obviously a woman of the trades, an ex-mortgage broker or derivatives trader (because really, both these scenarios tell me Pretty Woman might not be a figment, at least in that prostitutes exist that aren't completely cracked out and gumming for the next available stupid cash-laden john. See Spitzer, Eliot.)
No, the real reason why I said thanks, I'll pass, has just been a thing of breeding, an axiom I have: Never trust a woman whose wardrobe consists almost entirely of pink.
