Juan's drunk and coming off of speed. But he's claiming to be sober now and working, though he still fights with the wife. His teeth are a banana shade of yellow and so thin that they're almost transparent. Most of the front ones are missing. The rest are crooked. He stinks of wet cigarettes and beer. He's inside the porn shop asking the clerk for cigarettes and money.
"I'm hungry; my wife, she take all my money."
"Ask her for a sandwich, man."
"You hab a cigarette?"
"No, I don't smoke. Sorry," the clerk says, lying, avoiding eye contact.
"Ah. How much to watch a mobie?"
"Three dollars. The same as last time."
"Ah. I have money but I need it for something else. Can I borrow some money? I'm hungry; my wife, she take all my money. We fight. I work now, no more drinking or nothing."
"No money, sorry," the clerk says, still avoiding eye contact, breathing through his mouth.
Juan backs off sensing that the clerk is detecting the week-old stench of beer and piss. He uses the hand sanitizer regularly that they leave out for the customers to use after coming out from the movie booths in the back of the shop, but it just accentuates the stench of Vodka.
He goes into the video room. He goes up to random people and begs for spare change. Everyone is avoiding eye contact with him. He usually gets kicked out of the store after about twenty minutes bothering the customers for change. Usually the clerk will get a complaint from a regular customer that there's some bum in the video room asking for change and he stinks like FUCKING SHIT and it's getting annoying or that there's some nasty Mexican FAG in the video room tryin' ta jerk people off for 10 bucks a pop, that shit's gross man, I come here to buy some condoms 'n' shit and maybe rent a DVD but THIS gay shit? — fuck that, man; that's against God, ya know? And the clerk knows, so he goes into the video room and tells the guy to get the fuck out, that you should know this by now that you can't be trying ta jerk people off for money in the store — wait till they go outside, you dumbfuck. Get out!
He leaves the store with his hands in his pockets, seeing his breath leave his mouth, feeling the chill in his fingers and toes. It's about 9 AM in November. There's a thick fog. It's getting colder and colder each year. The wind is stinging his face. He walks down the street. He sees a cigarette butt and kneels down to pick it up. He grabs his lighter, sparks it and brings it to his lips. He closes his eyes and feels the warm smoke entering his throat and going into his expanding lungs and then a small remainder of the smoke coming out of his mouth and nostrils with each exhale.
He walks up a few blocks, passing a major street light and makes a left. The house has half a picket fence dangling in front of it. The grass on the lawn is dying, going through the entire spectrum of green and working its way into the brown. The house is a whorehouse. Its entire business is generated through word of mouth from the Latino customers and business cards with a taco in each corner that advertise the place as a taco restaurant with its minimal and final title of "The Taco House." Open Monday through Friday, 9 AM — 9 PM.
Juan shows the business card, pays $40 to the doorman and enters. The TV is on the Spanish news channel. It always is. Directly in front of the TV are a chair and a couch. Several men are seated, each waiting his turn patiently: Construction workers, house painters, an old man with a cane who neither speaks English or Spanish. Juan squeezes in between the old man and a painter. There are only two girls tonight, Lupe and Maria. Maria is new, just having crossed the border six days ago. Her dad had been raping her for seven years back in her small home town of Jeréz located in the state of Zacatecas, Mexico, starting when she was fourteen years old. She tried telling her mom about it but the mother wouldn't or couldn't believe it and so she would beat her, thrash her violently, not stopping until the daughter admitted to being nasty, dirty, ungodly and lying about the whole thing. Your father wouldn't do that! ¡Súsia mentirosa! LIAR! Sex is a dirty thing in Mexico. No one likes to talk about it. She saved up enough money and left one night before dawn, hitched a ride up to as far as the money could take her. She got at Sonora, a northern Mexican state neighboring Arizona. She wanted to go farther, to cross over into the U.S. A place her dad or mom would never reach her. She met a coyote who said that he'd take her as far as California. She had no money though. That's ok, he said. We can figure something out. And Maria saw that look in his eye, the same one her father always had right before he would turn off the lights in her room. She wasn't scared. She was used to this. Ok, she said. He kept true to his promise. They crossed over fine in Texas and she only had to suck his cock a few times and it was quick each time. He dropped her off in southern California where she managed to meet the right people who offered her a job working at a Taco Restaurant called "The Taco House." She always wanted to work in a Taco Restaurant.
Maria's complaining and getting kind of worried. The guys are working her pretty hard and she's sore and swollen up pretty bad. Ramón, the man in charge, goes over to her, grabs her by the arm and takes her to one of the rooms. He makes her lift up her skirt and drop her panties. Her vaginal lips are as bright red and swollen as a freshly cut deli beef steak. He rubs it. She flinches with pain. He studies her face, watching her wince with discomfort as he pulls her lips apart, fingering her, tapping the clit sadistically. He rubs his chin and thinks it over. He goes into the night stand by the bed and pulls out a little black bottle with a gold top. He shakes it up a few times, aims it at her cunt and sprays. She yelps a little saying, it stings, it stings, but then squeezes her mouth shut to muffle out the screams. It stings like salt on an open wound. Her closed mouth trembles. Growing up has taught her how to deal with pain.
"There," Ramón says, tapping her cunt with a gentle open palm. "Es Lidocaine — numbs it."
"Gracias," Maria says.
"If that don't work, you're gonna hab to take it up the ass and give your poosy a break."
She considers it.
They come back out. Ramón nods reassuringly to the men sitting down. The men are relieved.
Lupe comes out with one of her construction worker clients from one of the rooms, both of them smiling. She always smiles. The construction worker is avoiding eye contact with everyone, says, ok, bye, ok, next time and goes straight out the front door. Lupe's in her mid 40's with a soft beer belly that protrudes from under her black blouse and her tight matching mini skirt. Her full first name is Guadalupe, like the sacred catholic virgin of Mexico, but everyone calls her Lupe for short. She's been working at the house for about ten months. She doesn't hate it or like it. It's an easy job, pays the bills. She sees some of the men outside of the house sometimes. They pay her directly. No pimp taking some off the top. She doesn't do this all the time though. There have been some bad instances. A small percentage of the Taco House's clientele are mentally ill. These are out-patients from the local semi-independent living homes. They get monthly social security checks from the state to pay for their rooming, food, etc. Most of these guys are heavily into crack and speed. And the ones on speed last a little too long and it starts getting painful and they start getting violent. Sometimes a guy would grab her neck and she'd push his hands away playfully but he would get upset and say, I'M PAYING YOU FOR WHATEVER so don't FUCKING move, pretend you're asleep, and Lupe would become scared, pretend to be asleep and he'd first gently start smelling her hair, rubbing his nose against the back of her head, neck, spine, stopping a while on her asshole and continuing down to her feet, taking off her high heels, smelling her feet through the nylons, inhaling deeply, exhaling loudly, and then suddenly BITING down HARD on her toes and she'd YELL and kick but the guy would hit her in the back of the head, pulling her arms behind her back, holding them down and he'd start fucking her ass and Lupe would SCREAM but the guy would bury her face in the bed, muffling her screams and eventually after not letting her get enough air she'd pass out. Lupe would wake up from this, find the wad of $20 bills on the floor next to crumpled up shit-stained paper towels and vow never again, not fucking EVER, would she see guys outside of the Taco House.
After a while, each customer gets his turn. Lupe handles them quicker and better. She's a crowd favorite. Maria's lagging behind and Ramón is getting upset with her. There are two people left on the couch, the old man with the cane who doesn't speak English or Spanish and Juan.
"Your turn," Ramón says pointing at Juan. The old man next to him senses something is off and looks at Ramón, then at Maria standing next to him, then at Juan, then back at Ramón and says something in an unknown language faintly resembling Russian.
"He's quick, es ok!" Ramón reassures the old man.
The old man isn't having it. He might not speak or understand English or Spanish but he understands Ramón and everybody else's body language: someone is cutting in front of him; it's his turn, goddamn it! The old man gets up. Ramón tries telling the man in Spanish and English to calm down, cálmate, and sit the FUCK down NOW, siéntate chingado! We don't tolerate no trouble. The man is persistent, yelling at Ramón in his mysterious language. Juan gets up and goes over to Ramón and tells him he can wait, es ok, really. No, says Ramón, you go with Maria — NOW. He grabs Maria's hand and makes her grab a hold of Juan's hesitant arm. It makes Juan feel like a little kid. He blushes. Maria leads him away into one of the rooms.
Ramón gives the old man one last chance, not really wanting to settle things peacefully, secretly wishing and anxious for confrontation because it's a slow night and he needs some sort of fucking excitement — Jesus Christ, it's just whores and Spanish news! — he points at the door and says "LEAVE NOW." The old man understands what Ramón is conveying by the hand gesture but he has a point to make: you do NOT cut in line, EVER. This is NOT how a proper business ought to be run! He demands his money back. Ramón swings once, a hard right to the face. The old man makes a whimper and goes down instantly, completely shocked. Ramón stomps on his chest, kicks him in the ribs. The old man starts crying, the blood slowly coming out the corners of his mouth, and this pisses off Ramón because now all his customers will hear this and get soft, some might not get it up again. Ramón kicks harder saying, YA, THERE, talking through his teeth, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! The old man is trying to yell by opening his bleeding mouth wide but the wind has been kicked out of him. He thinks he's dying. Ramón picks him up, makes a signal to the doorman who opens up the door and throws him out on the browning lawn. The doorman closes the door on the whimpering, softly crying man.
Maria sits Juan down on the bed, goes over to close the door and begins the ritual. She sits down next to Juan and smiles. This is Juan's first time with Maria. Maria looks at his teeth, the bags under his eyes, his trembling hands (the speed is still not completely out of his system) and reassures herself with what Ramón said: He's quick. She's been with guys on speed before. That's too much. No rest. They take way too long to finish. And they get violent sometimes, really violent. Lupe knows. Bad for business.
She grabs on to his shaking hands.
"Don't be nervous. I like you."
"Thank you," he says, not knowing what else to say.
"You're welcome," she says, unzipping his pants, hoping that he's small and already hard.
And he is.
Juan is excited over the idea of a new whore this time, a skinnier one at that. She takes out a mint flavored condom and puts it on him. She takes his hard cock into her mouth, bobbing her head up and down, letting the drool flow from her mouth, occasionally slurping the spit back in. Mint's her favorite. Juan's head rolls back. He closes his eyes. He reopens them and stares at the wall. There's a framed picture of Virgin De Guadalupe over the bed starring back at them. Maria comes up for air, sees that Juan's looking at the picture and says, "You ok?" Juan turns to her and nods. She takes off her skirt. He unbuckles his pants. There are no expressions on their faces. It's routine. Like a married couple.
He gets on top of her and tries to avoid looking at the picture on wall but he can see it out of the corner of his eye. He looks down to Maria. Her cheap, thick mascara is running down the sides of her face. Her bright red lipstick is smeared and pathetic looking. He looks back at the picture, then back at Maria to make sure she isn't looking at him, to make sure she doesn't know that he's looking at the picture. He moves his hand over her tit then slowly, cautiously, moves it up, letting it stop on her shoulder. Maria's eyes are closed. Her hands are stretched out above her head and lying lifelessly on the bed. He stares at the picture. The picture stares back. He closes a grip around her neck, gently at first — testing the waters. She moans a little louder. She doesn't seem to mind. He grips her neck tighter and focuses on her greasy forehead and the huge pores and pimple scars under her eyes. She continues not to mind. He begins choking her. Maria gets a little scared but there is a peace inside her that she has never felt before, acceptance. As the oxygen is struggling desperately to reach her brain, euphoria overwhelms her entire body. If it ends, it ends and God has meant it for me to die this way, a whore in California. I accept it, Maria thinks, amen. He fucks her hard, watching her face, her closed eyes with tears streaming down the sides of her face, choking her harder and harder and finally cumming, exploding inside her while the voyeuristic virgin in the picture watches over them.
He leaves an extra $40 next to Maria's wet, passed-out body and quickly goes into the empty living room, says bye to Ramón and the doorman and goes out the front door. It's still morning. He debates about whether or not to go over to the corner with the other Esquineros, the corner Latino day laborers, to try to find work. It's too early to go home. They won't think he went to work. The wife will say he spent the whole day drinking at that dirty sex store with those maricones, those faggots. She'll be pissed. But she always is so, fuck et, es okay. The morning has warmed up with the pale yellow sun rising up behind the Taco House, making everything glow gently brighter with the morning's soft light. The beads of water on the grass blades are refracting the sunlight into tiny little rainbows over the dying lawn. Juan suddenly notices. It looks beautiful. It came out of nowhere.
Luis Rivas lives in the San Fernando Valley, California. He was a telemarketer, construction worker, assistant drug dealer, flower delivery driver, fast food cashier, sales clerk, package handler/zip code sorter. His work has appeared in the following publications, some of which he contributes to regularly: Zygote in My Coffee, The Hold, My Favorite Bullet, Cherry Bleeds, and Sex and Guts Magazine (R.I.P.).
He dropped out of Los Angeles Valley College where he was studying journalism to work full-time at a porn shop, where he still is.
He is currently working on growing a beard.
Comments (closed)
Tye
2009-05-16 19:37:53
Its four a.m. at Taboo video on 82nd and Division in S.E. Portland. Another fucking graveyard shift. This is meth central. This is crack whore hell. This is where the freaks gather. The sick creatures of the night. This is transsexual prostitutes. This is closet gays secretly cruising for cock. This is glory hole Gus with the running sores all around his mouth and eyes. This is grandpa has a dirty little secret. This is thirty small booths, each with one hundred and twenty channels of various pornography. Three minutes for a dollar. This is where the dirtiest dirt goes down. Anonymous exchanges of body fluids and blood born pathogens. Money for sex for drugs. Tricks for tracks if you will. This is where I work.
I’m the clerk. It’s my job to sell these people condoms and lube. It’s my job to distribute dollar bills for the “arcade”. It’s my job to police the arcade. It is a long dark horseshoe shaped hallway with thirty small closet sized rooms along the inner wall.
Each booth contains a chair, a video screen, and a slot to put your money in. The booths smell like stale man sweat and fermented fossilized cum. The booths smell like crack smoke, fermented cum, and unwashed ass. The booths occasionally smell like piss and shit.
Some of the booths have a waist level hole in the wall between two booths. Known as a gloryhole, some men will sit in these booths for hours at a time. Their mission is to suck cock. They will suck any cock that comes through the hole. Often these men are clearly diseased. Open sores cover their faces and hands. They are spun out on meth and crack. They emerge from the booth only to smoke the occasional cigarette and then quickly return lest they miss some “action”. Some have told me they feel they are providing a service.
The men that utilize this dubious service come from all walks of life. Most often these are not “gay” men but simply desperate. There is a nonstop parade of these sexual opportunists. They come into the store, peruse the straight porn and then casually slink back to the arcade. These men are your mail man, your bank teller, your district supervisor, your college professor. These men wear wedding rings. “Honey, Im working a little late tonight” These men are husbands, fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and uncles. These men are also the odd balls who have no chance with women. The semi retarded and the elderly. The morbidly obese and the guy with boils all over his face and neck. The potential serial killers and the confirmed sex offenders. The geeks and the losers. Maybe they are not getting sex at home, maybe their wife doesn’t give head, or maybe it’s the elicit thrill of the forbidden act. Maybe it’s the filth it’s self that is attractive. But mostly it’s just easy, anonymous, and anybody can do it. If these men could see the mouth on the other side of the hole, if they could see the face attached to the mouth and look into those yellowed and bloodshot eyes would they return? I often wonder what diseases these men bring home to their families. Try explaining to your wife why she has syphilis.
Some of the booths have a glass patrician between them with sliding blinds. There is a button you can push if you want to see what is going on in the next booth. If they want to see you too they can push their button and the blind goes down, leaving a clear window between the booths. These are called voyeur booths. When the bars close, drunken couples come in to put on a show. Often it is the woman pulling the man back to the arcade. They take a voyeur booth and put on their exebishonist performance. Often, they invite random men into the booth with them. Sometimes many men form a line outside the booth. Maybe the husband just wants to watch his wife get fucked silly by strangers. Maybe the wife wants to watch her husband suck a dick. Usually it’s a little of both. Rarely are they attractive couples. They are middle aged and older. They are too thin or overweight. They have missing teeth and missing hair. Their faces show the ravages of meth, coke, and booze. They are any and all races. They are an accurate representation of the swinger lifestyle. A true cross section of the polyamorous.
“Would you like to have a crack at the little lady”? “She doesn’t look like much but she can suck a mean dick”. This is what they say to me when purchasing their lube and getting ones for the booths. I tell them I am completely impotent. I tell them this with a straight face and no hint of humor. This is my standard answer to the constant invitations and bizarre come ons for casual sex. To the little old man that asks me if I “wanna get my dick sucked” and to the six foot black man dressed in drag that asks if I want to “try a tranny”. My answer of impotency shuts them down. Its slams the door shut with finality and they are often left speechless. It’s fucking hilarious, and I take pride in not laughing.
I am the graveyard porn clerk and I am not to be fucked with. My cold stare stops tweaker shoplifters in their tracks. In the middle of the night when I walk over and ask “can I help you find any thing” you know what I’m really saying is “I’m onto you scumbag”. I’m watching you watching me. I show no signs of weakness, and I will fuck you up if you test me. I carry an aluminum baseball bat and brass knuckles. I am fueled by black metal, black coffee and the blackest contempt.
Part of my job is to make sure that the people using the booths are paying. There is a red light above the door of each of the booths. When the red light is on, money is being spent. I check the doors of each booth with an unlit red light. If the door is locked I knock and yell through the door. My standard greeting is “If you wanna use the booth you gotta pay”. Then I move on. Often street people and crack heads lurk in the booths as a way to get off the street or a safe place to smoke drugs. I really don’t give a fuck as long as they pay, what they do in the booth is their business. When they are not paying it becomes my business. I continue down the hall checking each unlit booth. I open the door of each unlocked room.
You never know what you will find when you open one of these door, and what is seen cannot be unseen. I have see two men buttfucking with a rain coat draped over them. I have seen people smoking crack and smoking meth. I have seen bums sleeping and surprised a hooker shooting up heroin in her foot. I have seen a man dressed as a woman sucking another mans dick while shoving a huge black dildo deep into his own ass. I have had men flash their penises and I have had men flash their assholes at me. I have seen a well groomed man in a business suit on his hands and knees licking up the old cum on the floor. I have found rooms covered in blood and rooms covered in piss. It’s not my problem, I am not a janitor, I am the clerk. Besides, that’s what Mexicans are for….
Porn clerk humor is not politically correct. Porn clerks are not politically correct, we are the misanthropist elite. We make minimum wage and we hate your fucking guts. We make fun of your stupid questions about sex toys and porn. We smile in your face, take your money, and rip you to shreds as soon as you have left the store. Sometimes before.
Being a porn clerk is retail sales and customer service, but the customer in not always right. We will call you a scumbag to your face and tell you to “get the fuck out NOW”. Try asking a clerk if the store carries bestiality. Try hitting on a female porn clerk or just hang around too long near the counter acting like a douche. You will find out how we “celebrate diversity”.
Porn clerks have the dirt on you. We know your tastes in porn and we can bring up your account to see all the titles you have rented in the last year. We know what lube you jack off with and what flavor of flavored condoms you prefer. We mentally file it away when you buy that tube of anal eze. We tally the number of visits back to the arcade each week, and by the way, we can see what is going on back there. There are cameras. Not in the booths but in the halls. We see you going from booth to booth rattling doorknobs. We see you going first into one booth with a guy then another booth with another guy. WE KNOW YOU ARE SECRETLY GAY. Don’t worry though, your secret is safe with us. We just don’t give a fuck.
Tye
2009-05-16 19:38:53
I too have done the porn clerk thing...
Tye
2009-05-16 19:40:02
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