Blue Inked
"Quote me some poetry."
What? I twitch my head like I'm trying to shake water out of my ears. The coke is wearing off and I swear she just asked about poetry. I jiggle my leg.
"It says here on your app you a English Major." She backhands the sheet, which also says that I can rock my rump at 85 rpm, that I have no problem with backroom manual stimulation and that clients can call me, anytime, anywhere.
"Well?"
I stare past her, through the two-way mirror, and watch my competition, a muscular black man dancing on stage. I can tell from his tats he's spent time inside. Hard-time. I remain silent. He's got the moves. The twenties are flowing. I need this job.
I slide my eyes back to Ms. Janice. She's watching me watching him. Her lips are pursed. She's been in the business-bizniz, Miz Janiz-a long time. Eyebrows penciled in. Powder and blush fight for supremacy on her cheeks. Lipstick bleeding. One black line arches upwards. I sense her request is some sort of test. I expected the usual slap and tickle, thump and hump bullshit, but poetry?
"Com'on, Sonny. Cut the crap. If a man say he clean, I look at his arms and his eyelids and between his toes. If a man say he sober, I make him kiss me. To taste. If a man say he can bounce, I make him swing for me." She points to a baseball bat in the corner near her desk. "And if a man say he a goddamn English Major, I ask 'bout poetry."
I clear my throat. My eyes skip back through the mirror. I look down at my hands in my lap, at the tattoos on my knuckles. "S-O-R-R-Y." Both hands. Sorry. I got them my first day in. Hurt like a motherfucker, the needle ground deep into the bone.
"I don't mind much," Miz Janiz says. She swivels her chair to look at the stage. "The whores, the work, whatever." She flaps a hand. "That come with the territory." Her back is to me. "But I do mind if folk lie to me." She turns to face me. "It say something about a man's character. And if you can't trust what a man say in this here business, how you supposed to trust the man?" Her eyebrow is now impossibly high.
"Tell me the truth."
I clear my throat again. I look her straight in the eyes and start to speak softly.
"Weeping your I love yous
On the blues
Of my shoulder," I whisper.
"Louder," she says.
"Blue I make you
With push and pull and pound
Blue ink spilled
Cry
Sorry
Imprinted forever
On your cheek."
She looks at me long and hard. "A client?" I shake my head. "Okay, then." She licks her lips. "Start Saturday." I stand and turn to leave.
"Sonny?"
I pause at the door.
"Got a title yet?"
I shake my head again.
"How 'bout Blue Inked?"