Hooked

We are in the elevator at the President Palace Hotel, headed down for dinner.The lift stops on the 8th floor. The doors open, and a a young woman — clearly a prostitute — joins us.

She checks her look in the elevator’s mirrored walls. She is wearing a skin-tight cotton tube top and low-slung, skin-tight black leather pants, both of which emphasize her rail-thin, boyish figure.

She turns from side to side. “I getting fat!” she says to no one in particular. She turns to me and switches on the charm as easily as a driver switches on high-beam headlights. “Don’t you think I’m getting fat?”

I shake my head. “You’re not getting fat.”

She laughs, then tries — without success — to “pinch an inch” on her flat, muscular belly. “I so fat! Really — just tell me. I’m fat, don’t you think?”

“I am fat,” I say. “You just aren’t. You couldn’t be fat if you wanted to be.”

She punches me on the arm and giggles again. “You just being nice. I so fat! Watch!” She wiggles her hips from side to side. “See? Too fat!”

The lift stops on the third floor. The doors open. Clyde and I are inside the elevator, laughing with the prostitute. Outside, waiting for the elevator, is a young couple with children. The children’s mother looks at the prostitute, looks at Clyde, looks at me, and frowns her disapproval. One of the kids darts forward to get on the lift; the mother grabs him by the shoulder and holds him until the elevator doors slide shut.

“So,” our new friend says. “Where we going? Since I not fat, maybe we all go for dinner.”

I shrug. “I think we are just going for a walk,” I say.

She beams at me. “You sure? I know good place.”

I shake my head. “No, thank you. Just … walking.”

The bell rings. The silver doors slide open. Our new friend grins at us one last time before gliding across the smooth marble floors of the lobby and disappearing into the night.