My Prom Date with a Dirty Rotten Whore
"So the prom is Saturday night?" Mommy nags from across the dinner table.
"Guess so..." I take a hearty bite of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and wash it down with the hearty glass of gin and orange juice my mother presently believes to be merely the latter ingredient. Ha! Ha! I need help!
"Don't you have a date?" Mommy asks.
"Nope," I say. "Not going."
"I think you'd have a fun time if you went, Marty. You need to get out of the house more often. Now, which girl can you take?"
"Not going, Mom."
"How about your friend Jessica? She'd go with you, wouldn't she?"
"Not going."
"Or that girl whose mother I work with? Lizzie, is that her name?"
"Mom, not go—"
"Or how about Melissa? Isn't she nice? She's nice, isn't she?"
"Mom!" I scream. "I don't want to go to the stupid pr—uh… hmm… Well, now that you mention it I guess I do have one idea."
"Oh, good," Mommy says with visible relief. "Who?"
"A dirty, filthy prostitute, Mommy."
"You were such a cute child," Mommy sighs. "You know that, don't you? Such a nice child…"
"I won't have sex with the prostitute, Mom. I'll just take her to dinner, dance with her a little… You know, show her a good time."
"Why don't you take one of your friends to prom, Marty? That would be nice, wouldn't it? One of your friends?"
"Well, see, I would, Mom—I really would—but none of my friends are dirty, filthy prostitutes, and I'm getting pretty darn set on taking a dirty, filthy prostitute to prom. So I guess I'll just have to go ahead and hunt me down a dirty, filthy prostitute before—"
"Fine!" Mommy bangs her fists against the dinner table. "You just go ahead and do what you want. Will that make you happy, getting your way? Will it? Will that make you happy?"
"Hello!" Dad suddenly walks through the front door with his leather briefcase in hand after a long day at the office.
"Your son has a question for you," Mommy says.
"Yes?" Dad asks.
"Well, Dad, I… Dad, I want to take a hooker to prom. I already told Mom that I wouldn't have sex with her or anything—I mean the hooker, not Mom, uh, obviously—but I'll take her to dinner and show her off to all my buddies and we'll all have a good laugh over it and… uh, well, stuff. You know?"
(Long, awkward silence.)
"Go for it," Dad chuckles.
"It's not safe to deal with shady characters," Mommy wails. "Marty, you don't know these people—they could be dangerous. How do you know they won't shoot you? Are you listening to me? You don't know what you're getting yourself into, Martin Seth Beckerman. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."
"Um, Mom?" I say. "You're not going to cry now, are you?"
"escort \ n : one (as a person or warship) accompanying another esp. as a protection or courtesy"
—Definition from The New Merriam-Webster Dictionary
"Exquisite Taste Dating Escort Service
* 24 hour Service
* In and Out Calls
* Private Parties
* Bachelor Parties
* Female and Male Escorts
* Couples
* Tourists and Conventioneers Discount
Most Elegant and Tantalizing Ladies/Men in Alaska: 569-YUMM"
—Advertisement from The ACS Anchorage/Mat-Su Valley Yellow Pages, Alaska Communications Systems, 1999
"Exquisite taste," the candy-voiced girl answers the telephone. "This is Julie."
"Hi there, Julie," I say, already feeling like an uncanny pervert. "This is 569-YUMM?"
"Yes. What can we do for you?"
"Well, see, I'm looking for a prom date for Saturday night, and all I'm interested in is dinner and dancing, nothing else. I mean, not that I could actually pay for anything else because, well, see, that would be illegal and I'm sure an upstanding establishment such as yours would never—"
"That's fine, Hon; but we do charge a fee of two hundred and fifty dollars for the hour. Is that all right?"
"Two hundred and fifty for one hour?"
"Yes, but it's absolutely worth it because the girls who work for me are gorgeous. Trust me, it's not a waste of your money. My girls are ten times better than anyone else you could possibly have for a prom date."
"Yeah, sure, but… Good Lord, two hundred and fifty?"
"That's what it costs, Hon. Take it or leave it."
"Hey, Dad?" I yell upstairs. "Can I have two hundred and fifty bucks?"
"Try finding a cheap whore first, son," Dad hollers back.
"All right," I acquiesce. "Hey, Julie? Um, sorry, I don't think it's going to… Uh, Julie? Hello? Hey, Julie? Hello? Um, Julie?"
Now, it must be noted before we go any further that there technically is a difference between escort services and whorehouses, and this distinction permits the former to be legal and even licensed nationwide while the latter are banned everywhere except the area directly outside Las Vegas, Nevada.
You see, it's all due to a widely enacted legal loophole that allows escorts to be paid solely for their Time and Company, therefore rendering it the escort's choice whether or not to partake in sexual acts with her (always willing) customers. Subsequently, of course, this reporter isn't at all suggesting that the job of any escort from any escort service anywhere is to actually escort men into her Dirty Little Escort Pussy, as that would be inaccurate and most likely libelous. Okay, disclaimer over. Fuck!
So after four days of laborious searching and price haggling, I finally manage to find a willing and affordable prom date from one of Anchorage's total fifty-two licensed escort services. (Insert your own, "Well, something has to keep those crazy Eskimos warm all winter" joke here.) And while the actual names of the escort and her place of employment obviously can't be revealed in this volume, each will instead be given an adequate and incredibly juvenile pseudonym: Henceforth the escort service in question shall be referred to as "Super Snatch Mart U.S.A" and my date for the evening, "Octopussy."
"Ohhhhhhhh," Mommy chirps as soon as I emerge from my bedroom in a loose-fitting brown suit and matching tie. "You know, Marty, it's not too late to change your mind about the prostitute. You can just go by yourself, can't you? There's nothing wrong with going by yourself."
"Oh God, Mom," I sigh and open the front door. "I'll see you later tonight, I promise. And if I'm not home by curfew, just check the river—I'll be the cold dead body floating facedown towards the ocean."
"My baby," Mommy rushes down the stairs for one last embrace. "Oh, my baby."
"Don't touch me!" I break away from my frail mother's grasp and race outside to my 1984 Dodge Minivan, speeding off moments later into the frigid Alaskan night.
Anchorage's West 27th Avenue isn't exactly what you might call a pleasant place after dark, unless of course you happen to find pleasure in drunken/drugged vagrants, barbwire fencing, broken automobiles and seedy escort services with names such as the Fantasy Club, the Moon House and the Alaska Trap Line.
However, putting aside my own cowardly fear of this bleak and rotten place, I presently approach the entrance of Super Snatch Mart U.S.A. and walk inside, soon finding myself in a narrow inner hallway bordered by rusty chains and leading up to an ominous black steel door.
Give me strength, Lord, I plead, breathing heavily. Christ, Jesus… Oh God, I want my Mommy. I'm so sorry, Mommy. I'm so, so sorry and I love you and I'll never be able to tell you that now and I don't want to die, God, and I'm only seventeen years old and I don't know anything and I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to—
"Hello," says the shriveled, eighty-year-old immigrant woman presently standing in the doorway. "You open eyes now?"
"Oh, shit," I wipe a gallon of cold sweat off my forehead. "Hi, I called about taking a girl to my high school prom…"
"Ah, yes," the old lady leads me through the doorway into a room considerably more homely than the wretched antechamber: Fluffy pink couches abound, large patterned mirrors cover the walls and dozens of thick red candles are lit everywhere. And on top of all that, Octopussy stands in the middle of the room, licking what appears to be dark chocolate off her fingertips.
"Wow," I say, taking in the homely bordello atmosphere.
"Do you like?" the old lady points to her employee, a woman in her twenties wearing heavy red lipstick and a slinky miniskirt with its own cut-out cleavage window.
"Hi there," I say to Octopussy.
"Hi," she smiles.
"Where you take girl tonight?" the old lady humorously attempts to speak English.
"Well," I say, "dinner, first of all."
"Ah, yes, where you take girl dinner?"
"I was actually thinking McDonald's, if that works for you."
"What?" Octopussy yaps.
"Well, you seem like a classy girl and I figure what the hell, a classy girl deserves a classy meal, right?"
"You're paying a hundred and fifty dollars to take me to McDonald's?"
"Um, yeah. Shall we be on our way?"
"I call cab!" the old lady proclaims and briskly toddles back to her office.
"You've never been to a place like this before, have you?" Octopussy sits on one of the pink couches and lights a Camel cigarette.
"Not really," I sit and take a cigarette from Octopussy's pack of thirty. "I don't even know the difference between in calls and out calls, if you want to know the truth."
"Oh, it's easy," she smiles and lights my (her) cigarette. "With out calls we go someplace with someone and with in calls we just stay here and go into the back."
"Okay… So, like, how'd you get into the business?"
"I was eighteen when I got started. I don't know, I had a friend who was into it and she was making like a thousand a night, so I just—"
"Whoa!" I shout.
"Yeah," Octopussy laughs. "The money was good and my friend got me connected with some people in Seattle. I don't know… Most girls do this because they were abused as kids or got into drugs in high school or whatever, but I just really, really like the money."
"That's cool… I mean, whatever makes you happy, right?"
"Something like that," Octopussy takes a long drag off the cigarette.
"Cab here," the old lady returns from her office. "You pay now."
"Fair enough," I draw one hundred and fifty dollars from my wallet and give it to the withered female immigrant. Octopussy leads me to an orange, checkered taxi outside, and five minutes later we arrive at the Arctic Boulevard McDonald's. As always, the aroma of fried, morbidly unhealthful fast food permeates the air like a fine perfume, only cheaper.
"Welcome to McDonald's," says the sullen minority employee behind the cash register. "How may I take your order?"
"What would you like, darling?" I ask Octopussy.
"I'll just have a four piece Chicken McNugget meal," she says. "I'm not too hungry right now."
"One four piece Chicken McNugget meal for the McLady," I repeat to the McSubordinate. "And I'll have the McSame, thank you."
"Why are you paying to take me to McDonald's?" Octopussy asks after we receive our McNuggets and French fries.
"That's not important right now. What's important is that I have a secret to tell you."
"Okay, what?"
"My parents are here and I'd like you to meet them."
(Long, awkward silence)
"You're joking," Octopussy says.
"Nope," I point to the table at which my mother and father presently sit. "They're right over there."
"You… You set this up…"
"Pretty much," I lead Octopussy across the restaurant. "Mom and Dad, this is my date, [Octopussy]. Darling, these are my parents."
"Ah, yes, it's good to see our son out with a nice girl like you," Dad says. "We were concerned for some time that Marty was a homosexual, but now we know for sure he's straight as an arrow. Praise Allah."
"Oh," Octopussy gulps.
"Hi," Mommy says, visibly relieved that I'm not dead.
"Have some food," I gesture toward the tray of greasy (yet so delicious) McSwill. Octopussy sits at the table and timidly bites into a couple fries.
"I've seen enough, Mike," Mommy says to my father after a few strange moments. "We're making the poor girl nervous."
"Well," Dad stands and puts on his jacket. "It was good meeting you, [Octopussy]. Have fun at our son's prom."
"Okay," Octopussy says, still dazed.
"So, uh," I say after my parents have effectively left the premises. "Like, how long do you think you'll be an escort and everything?"
"Oh, I was in a car wreck in Seattle—I had to get stitches in my hand and metal rods in my back—so I had some medical bills to pay off. But that's pretty much taken care of now… I want to start my own business someday."
"Your own escort service?"
"Yeah, I'll have girls working for me."
"You know, it's good to have a dream."
Octopussy nods her head in agreement.
"So I bet you get a bunch of rich middle-aged doctors and lawyers coming in to cheat on their wives and stuff, huh?" I ask.
"Oh, God," Octopussy groans. "All the time."
Our McNugget dinners fully devoured at this point, Octopussy withdraws a cell phone from her red purse and calls the taxi dispatcher for a ride to the prom.
"Don't you think the price is kind of steep?" I ask after she hangs up. "I mean, I don't want to sound like a Cheap Shylock or anything, but do you really think what you do is worth a hundred and fifty bucks an hour?"
"What is that question supposed to mean?" Octopussy barks.
"I just mean, do you really think one-fifty is a reasonable price?"
"Back in Seattle the standard was two-fifty an hour. I have a friend in San Francisco who makes four hundred an hour. What I get here is nothing."
"I guess I got a good deal then," I take a bite of my last remaining French fry. The next twenty-five minutes pass in silence and the taxi still hasn't arrived.
"Wait," Octopussy says. "This isn't the McDonald's on Arctic, is it?"
"Yeah," I say. "So?"
"I told the cab to pick us up at the one downtown."
"Oh, good job," I sneer, immediately understanding the implications of this royal fuck-up: My hour with Octopussy is nearly over, and if she's to still be my prom date I'll have to pay her another hundred and fifty dollars for the privilege.
"It was an accident," she says before telephoning the dispatcher again. Ten minutes later a taxi arrives and returns us to the street side entrance of Super Snatch Mart U.S.A., where we say our curt goodbyes. She disappears into the escort service and I walk back to my 1984 Dodge Minivan, disappointed in the night's events to say the least.
Until, that is, I find the white corsage lying on the MiniVan's passenger seat, giving me an unbearably emotional reminder of what tonight could have been had things gone differently. Overcome with shame and regret, moments later I find myself knocking again on Super Snatch Mart U.S.A.'s black steel door.
"Yes?" the old lady says, clearly surprised to see me.
"I have a present for my date," I present the flower wristband.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," the old lady squeals. "You come in! You come in!" I follow her into the pink and red lounge, where Octopussy presently flirts with her next customer: A dirty bearded man at least three times my age.
"Hey, I forgot to give this to you," I present the corsage again.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Octopussy moans and holds out her hand.
"You come back again?" the old lady asks.
"Um," I say. "No."
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," she moans. "Why you not come back?"
"Sorry," I turn away. "It was just a one-time thing."
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," the old lady moans.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Octopussy moans.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," the old lady moans.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Octopussy moans.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," the old lady moans.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Octopussy moans.
Fucking whores.
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