The Devil You Know

I was honestly amazed at my own stupidity.

The blonde on the upstairs bar shot me a look that conveyed a lot of dislike and mistrust with great economy. But my opening words were calculated to disarm her suspicions and make her love me like a long-lost brother.

“You know,” I said, smiling cheerfully, “I don’t think I’ve ever stood a round in here.”

The blonde’s lower jaw went through a cataclysmic plunge. She did her best to reel it back in.

“The drinks are on me,” I clarified helpfully. “Let’s have champagne all ’round, shall we?” I took out my wallet and slapped my credit card down on the bar. Well, okay, it was Arnold’s wallet and Arnold’s credit card, but I know he would have been happy at the thought of giving pleasure to so many people.

The barmaid recovered from her surprise and hurriedly went diving for bottles, in case I unexpectedly recovered my sanity. I took the first one from her, ripped off the foil, and popped the cork as she was setting up the glasses. The girls at the end of the bar had gotten wind of what was going on by now, and they all crowded around. I knew that the markup on the drinks was colossal and that they were probably on a percentage of bar takings as well as what they took in the bedrooms; persuading a punter to buy them a glass of champagne was an easy earner compared to the regular daily grind, if that’s the right expression.

I handed each glass out as soon as I’d poured it, pressing it into an outstretched hand happily and clumsily—and with the maximum of skin-to-skin contact. My psychic antenna was fully alert, but it only works by touch. I knew what I was looking for, but I also knew I’d have to take whatever I could get.

I struck gold around about number eight or nine. She was a pouty, slightly emaciated brunette dressed in a fire-engine red bra and panties (the panties bearing a sequined love heart at front and center), a gauzy see-through top, and a pair of black stockings adorned with fleur-de-lys.

“We’ve never met,” I said to her, taking her hand in both of mine and getting a stronger psychic fix on her. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Jasmine,” she said, giving me what she probably thought was a sultry look. “What’s yours?”

“I’m John,” I said, because it was the first thing that came to mind.

“And would you like to go upstairs with me, John?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’d be great.”

She smiled warmly. “What sort of thing do you like?”

“I’d like a full body-to-body massage,” I hazarded. And then, to forestall more detailed questioning, “Do you do Glaswegian?”

Jasmine bluffed like a trouper. “Of course I do, you naughty boy,” she purred. She took a key that the blonde woman handed to her, glanced perfunctorily at the number, and led me away with her arm crooked proprietorially in mine. After all, I was the only John in the place.

I couldn’t tell if I’d actually been into the room she took me to, but it was identical to all the ones I’d seen—a bleak, clean little box, and in its way as perfect a triumph of function over form as a battery cell on a chicken farm.

“So you tell me exactly how you’d like me to do it,” Jasmine coaxed, sitting me down on the bed, “and I’ll tell you how much it’s going to be.”

I put on a crestfallen face. “Actually, Jasmine,” I admitted, “I was hoping we could just talk—since it’s my first time with you, and all. So what’s the price for missionary with no trimmings?”

I was expecting ructions, but she took it in her stride; it must be more common than I’d imagined for punters to get this far and then lose their nerve.

“It’s sixty, John. Let’s get that sorted now, and then we’ve got all the time in the world just to get to know each other.”

Docilely, I counted three twenties into Jasmine’s hand. She slipped out of the room, presumably to hand it over to the duty madam, and then came back in again a few seconds later and closed the door behind her.

“Do you want me to take my clothes off?” she asked, standing over me and smiling down at me with her hands cupping her breasts.

It seemed a token gesture, given how skimpy her outfit was to start with—and it wouldn’t do anything to establish the necessary mood of calm consultation. “No, thanks,” I assured her. “What you’re wearing now is fine. Absolutely fine.”

She sat down next to me, put a hand on my knee, and snuggled in close. She had a floral smell that was sweet and delicate, but it reminded me—unfairly—of Juliet, a.k.a. Ajulutsikael. I fought the urge to pull away.

“So what would you like to talk about, John?” she cooed little-girlishly.

I went for broke. “You’ve got a colleague named Rosa,” I said. “And I guess you work some of the same nights, so I was hoping you might know her.”

It wasn’t what she expected or wanted to hear, but she rolled with it.

“Is Rosa your favorite?” she asked in the same Shirley Temple tone.