And what are the ladies who run the place doing over there behind the bar ?
Well, what else would they be doing in such an endroit but smoking.
A lot. I love Europe.
So I’m packing up my chuff and the girl behind the bar, Pricilla, and I start chatting. Or more accurately, she starts talking and I start listening. Please keep in mind, dear reader, as this progresses, that I’ve only seen her twice before and only in the hello/goodbye capacity. She tells me about the only time she’s been to America. It was a quest to find a job and an apartment LA and her Moroccan gal pal had booked them an open ticket and a hotel somewhere in Compton. Some Somolian friend of theirs picks them up at the airport and decides they cannot go to the hotel because it’s too dangerous. But they are only allowed to stay at his house for two nights because his mother is flying in later that week. After two days, they have certainly found neither a job nor an apartment and end up in the hotel in Compton which she says had one bed and smelled like stale urine and dead rats. Charming. Her friend is pushy and driving her crazy. After an unsuccessful week of job hunting in South Central, they end up on opposite ends of a doughnut shop both homesick and sobbing. A Korean and a Philippino are in the same shop and ask what’s wrong. After explaining, they offer the girls one of their apartments while the gents share the other one. The girls, defeated, gratefully accept. For a week, the guys bring them food, cigarettes, toiletries, whatever. The first weekend the guys decide to throw a party at the girls’ (really the Korean’s) apartment. Only Asian men show up. Drunk. With scantily clad barely legal Asian girls. The Asian girls start to strip and Pricilla and her friend are encouraged to join in the fun. They do not find this fun but still don’t want to be rude to their hosts. One Asian girl is encouraged to make out with Pricilla’s Moroccan friend. By the time she decides to go out for more cigarettes there are hoots, hollers, and double-sided dildos. She doesn’t go back for three hours and comes back to a fuckfest. She, being Dutch and brought up with the live-and-let-live attitude, calmly goes to sleep next to a large passed-out Asian man. The next day, the two guys from the doughnut shop, apparently impressed with the Moroccan girl’s performance, ask her what one thing she would like to do in America. And the winner is: Las Vegas. It becomes clear that the Korean’s large apartment and easy access to young women come from a very profitable gambling habit. Vegas was the correct answer. Ding. So they pack up and drive across the desert to Vegas. On the way, the Philippino and the Moroccan girl relive last night’s party in the backseat. She is also a kleptomaniac and while the Korean owns the blackjack table, she amuses herself by stealing Prada purses from the casino shops. It’s not long before the security cameras discover her fun game and she’s running out of the Bellagio with a purse full of purses. She hails a cab and so distraught is she at the prospect of being caught, she leaves the one purse with $2000 cash and her passport in the cab and doesn’t realize this until the cab is somewhere further down the strip where she is dropped off. She returns a few hours later in new clothes and demands the Korean repay her with the money he has won gambling. The Korean says he has also lost all his money, though somewhat less dramatically. The Korean is lying. He has in fact run the table and made out with something upwards of $40,000 but has come to loath Ms. Morocco over the course of the past 10 days and refuses to repay her stupidity. The Korean feels sorry for Pricilla for constantly putting up with her friend and asks her what she wants, anything, he will buy it. She wants a plane ticket back to Holland the next day. He buys it and fills her hand with triple digit bills at the airport terminal. He does not do the same for Ms. Morocco; her special gift after another fuck in the backseat is collecting her strewn clothing from the fire escapes and sidewalk below the apartment and finding her way back to Holland without a passport.
Pricilla asks me if I would like one of her cigarettes. Yes. Yes, I would.
Her boyfriend calls. He is a Spaniard named José Gonzales. José Gonzales, before dating our Pricilla, had a girlfriend in Spain for 5 years. But let it please be known that José Gonzales was not faithful to the Señorita. While she stayed home waiting for him, he would be with his Turkish colleague in the office after hours. In five years, she tells me, they never had sex. The Turkish girl would get off by dry humping him and he never achieved orgasm. For five years. I don’t really buy it but nod incredulously anyway. Pricilla says after dating José Gonzales the Turkish girl returned to Turkey, got knocked up, had the baby, and has been trying unsuccessfully in Istanbul to find a good Muslim man who will marry her. Let’s all say a little prayer for the dry fucking Turkish girl.
Meanwhile, Pricilla knew something wasn’t sitting right with José Gonzales, for what man would aggressively pursue an orgasmless 5 year relationship ? Well turns out she was right. Turns out José Gonzales’s cousin, a 19 year old seductress with a penchant for younger men had dragged him into her room to deflower him at the ripe old age of 11. So José Gonzales has issues but she loves him anyway which is sweet in a very disturbing way.
I thank her for the cigarette and say I’ll see her tomorrow.
