“No, I don’t,” Ruth admitted.
“The watching is just the beginning,” the prostitute told her. “With couples, especially—the watching just leads to something else.”
“What do you mean?” Ruth asked her.
“The next time they come back, they don’t want to watch—they want to do something,” Rooie said.
“I don’t think my character would come back a second time,” Ruth replied, but she considered the possibility.
“Sometimes, after the watching, the couple wants to do things immediately—like right then,” Rooie said.
“What kind of things?” Ruth asked.
“All kinds,” Rooie said. “Sometimes the guy wants to watch me with the woman—he wants to see me get the woman hot. Usually I start with the guy, and the woman watches.”
“You start with the guy. . . .” Ruth said.
“Then the woman,” Rooie said.
“That’s actually happened?” Ruth asked.
“ Everything’s happened,” the prostitute said.
Ruth sat in the scarlet-tinged light, which now cast an intensifying, reddish glow throughout the small room; the pink towel on the bed, where Rooie sat, was doubtless a deeper shade of pink because of the scarlet color of the stained-glass lamp shade. The only other light in the room was the muted light that found its way through the window curtains and a dim overhead light that was trained on the door to the street.
The prostitute leaned forward in the flattering light; in so doing, her breasts appeared ready to slip out of her demi-bra. While Ruth held tightly to the armrests of th
e blow-job chair, Rooie softly covered Ruth’s hands with her own. “You want to think about what happens and come see me again?” the redhead asked.
“Yes,” Ruth said. She hadn’t meant to whisper, nor could she take her hands out of the prostitute’s hands without falling backward in the awful chair.
“Just remember— anything can happen,” Rooie told her. “Anything you want.”
“Yes,” Ruth whispered again. She stared at the prostitute’s exposed breasts; it seemed safer than staring into her clever eyes.
“Maybe if you watched me with someone—I mean you, alone— you’d get some ideas,” Rooie said in a whisper of her own.
Ruth shook her head, aware that the gesture conveyed far less conviction than if she’d said sharply, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Most of the women alone who watch me are young girls,” Rooie announced in a louder, dismissive voice.
Ruth was so surprised at this that she looked into Rooie’s face without meaning to. “Why young girls?” Ruth asked. “Do you mean they want to know what having sex is like? Are they virgins ?”
Rooie let go of Ruth’s hands; she pushed herself back on her bed and laughed. “They’re hardly virgins !” the redhead said. “They’re young girls who are thinking about being prostitutes—they want to see what being a prostitute is like!”
Ruth had never been so shocked; not even the knowledge that Hannah had fucked her father had been this astonishing.
Rooie pointed to her wristwatch and stood up from her bed exactly at the same time Ruth stood up from the difficult chair. Ruth had to contort herself in order not to make contact with the prostitute.
Rooie opened the door to a midday sunlight of such sudden brightness that Ruth realized she’d underestimated the dimness of the lighting in the prostitute’s red room. Turning away from the light, Rooie dramatically blocked Ruth’s exit while she bestowed on Ruth’s cheeks three kisses—first on Ruth’s right cheek, then on her left, and then on her right again. “The Dutch way—three times,” the prostitute said cheerfully, with an affection more suitable for old friends.
Of course Ruth had been kissed this way before—by Maarten and by Maarten’s wife, Sylvia, whenever they’d said their hellos and goodbyes—but Rooie’s kisses had lingered a little longer. And Rooie had also pressed her warm palm against Ruth’s belly, causing Ruth to instinctively tighten her stomach muscles. “What a flat tummy you have,” the prostitute told her. “Have you had any babies?”
“No, not yet,” Ruth replied. The doorway was still blocked.
“I’ve had one,” Rooie said. She hooked her thumbs inside the waistband of her bikini panties and lowered them in a flash. “The hard way,” the prostitute added, in reference to the highly visible scar from a cesarean section; the scar was not nearly as surprising to Ruth, who’d already noted Rooie’s stretch marks, as the fact that the prostitute had shaved off her pubic hair.
Rooie let go of the waistband of her panties, which made a snap. Ruth thought: If I’d rather be writing than what I’m doing, imagine how she feels. After all, she’s a prostitute; she would probably rather be being a prostitute than flirting with me. But she also enjoys making me uncomfortable. Irritated with Rooie now, Ruth just wanted to go. She tried to edge around Rooie in the doorway.