White Slave Chapter 4
Chris pulled the belt to her fleecy robe tight around her still damp body
and wrapping a towel around her sopping, freshly shampooed hair, emerged from
the bathroom to find the landlord pacing back and forth in the living room a
letter in one hand, a cigarette in the other. On the sofa sat Sandy,
pale-faced and saucer-eyed, taking inhumanely long drags off her cigarette and
exhaling with exhausting force. The blue smoky aura around her dark hair
testified to the lengthy encounter between the renter and rentee. A tale of
woe for poverty-stricken victims of America's unemployed. Chris heard nothing
above the low roar of the top 40 rock station except for the words 'welfare
fraud' and 'eviction.' Fear froze her to the floor, her two feet two ice cubes
melted to the tray. She clenched her jaws tight. Damn!
Roger stood straight and tall, his body abuzz with the excitement of
facing a challenge most men would have cringed at. Roger could not remember
when he had come up with the idea; probably it wasn't the sort of plan that was
conceived all at once, but rather the result of several years as being a
landlord and listening to half-hearted excuses and rationalizations for late
rent and middle-of-the-night moves. He did remember the night he was woken up
at two o'clock in the morning and, suspecting one of his tenant's of beating up
his girl friend, broke in with his master key in time to see her flailing her
hair back and forth on a love-crumpled bed while an embarrassed middle- aged
man fucked in and out of her buttocks. In the kitchen the tenant sat smoking
marijuana and drinking beer, keeping a close eye on the kitchen clock. A
dollar a minute counts up‹fast! Damn! Roger had thought at the time, I'm going
through hell trying to collect the rent, and these bastards make twice that
much in one night. Why not cash in on a piece of the action? he'd asked
himself numerous times.
Hell, at that rate he could quit driving a cab and stay at home to make
money. Legitimate money took time, especially with taxes and insurance -- all
the crap that drains your pocket for no reason but to keep the money flowing.
The first step had been to con two Mexican girls -- lovely pieces of ass
they were -- into chaperoning a couple of businessmen Roger had taxied to
Broadway street where they wanted a quick floor show and blow job, something
their wives wouldn't put out for. One phone call to the girls and snap! Fifty
bucks in his hand. Nobody got hurt and everybody was happy: Fifty bucks in his
hand. Nobody got hurt and everybody was happy: the businessmen got laid, the
girls got twenty-five dollars each, and Roger the other half.
With Margaret Sorenson it had been a case of coincidence, too, he
rationalized to himself. Boy, she'd been crying her heart out for a man since
old Sandor was blown to bits by that accident. She'd come pounding on Roger's
door every day spilling out her woes, making promises for paying the rent...
even offering to clean his place! How could a bachelor refuse an offer like
that? Finding out about her inheritance... well, that hadn't been quite as
accidental. He'd never thought he'd resort to steaming open mail, but it
proved worthwhile. Old Margaret was sitting on a Goddamned nest-egg, just
crying for somebody to share it with. Couple more months and he might be a
married man.
But these two girls. Whow! They were in hot water up to their pretty
virgin asses. Welfare fraud, he tutted to himself, pivoting to see the blonde
haired girl staring wild-eyed behind him.
"Come sit down, Chris," he motioned toward the sofa. "I've got something
here you had better know about." His brown paw waved an official looking
letter in the air, gesturing for her to sit next to her roommate.
The roommate's eyes locked for a terrified second and, feeling the burden
of the guilt, Sandy winced, wrinkling up her perky nose and, as if to beg
pardon, shook out a cigarette and handed it to her solemn-faced roommate whose
every blink of the eye was a righteously wielded accusation of
irresponsibility.
Roger, studying the nipples spiking out from the blonde girl's robe,
smiled appreciatively in a tight smirk. Yes, she would sell well, he thought
to himself, waiting for his audience to snap alert under his threatening gaze.
"To fill you in on the facts, Chris, this is a letter from the social service
department of San Francisco... I assume you know who they are since you've been
getting foodstamps for the past month."
Chris nodded her turbaned head.
"As landlord I was mailed this letter to ask a few questions about your
living situation. According to this xeroxed form, Sandra... that's you," he
blinked his chocolate eyes at the dark haired girl who cowered in the sofa, one
leg hugged up to her chest, her dimpled chin resting on her knee, "are supposed
to be married to a Christopher O'Brien and supporting two children." He flung
the letter to the side table and feigning a glare, thrust his hands in his
pockets and resumed his pacing.
Silence fell on the room, broken only by the dull crackle of a radio that
hummed out Bob Dylan's "Dear Landlord... put a price on my soul." Sandy
stifled an irresponsible giggle; it was almost funny in a desperate sort of
way, but Chris' elbow in her ribs put a somber look back on her pixie face.
"So... what do we do about it?" Sandy pouted, sighed and tutted. "Okay,"
she said in a monotone voice, "... so I lied. Now what are you going to do
about it? Have me locked up? Call my family? Good luck if you do."
Roger drew in a deep breath and rested his finger on his lower lip. "If
I wanted to get nasty about it, I could do just that. Welfare fraud is
becoming one of the most common crimes in this city, and the taxpayers are
goddamned sick of it... especially since all these young people are coming out
here to the West coast without jobs and sucking up all the welfare so the
people who really need it go hungry. Papers are full of cases."
Chris wriggled uncomfortably on the sofa, fearing the worst. One glance
at Roger and she knew he wasn't going to give them a break.
"Then there's the matter of your rent being overdue," his brown intense
eyes snapped wider like shutters on springs. "Two months now and you girls
haven't paid me a dime. Legally I could have you out of here in thirty days..."
Chris was the first to break. She rested her head in her hands and
sobbed three times before regaining her composure. Today had been an emotional
nightmare, saying nothing about financial. An apologetic feminine hand stroked
her arm as she squeezed out the last tear.
"Oh damn," sighed Roger, gleaming over his success. Shit! He had them
now. Get a woman in tears and she loses all rationale. Now was the time to
snap it to them; they'd be putty in his hands, their will broken, ready to be
molded to his wishes. "I didn't mean to make you cry, but this is a serious
matter. Christ, I can't count the number of young girls who've lived in this
building -- just out of school, away from home for the first time, thinking
they'll come out to old SF and teach the world tricks." He shook his head
negatively. "Life ain't that way, girls. It ain't that simple."
"But... but we've tried looking for work. Honest we have!" Chris' ivory
white forehead was wrinkled with a solemn plea for mercy. "We've spent all the
money we had on bus fare and god, I even sacrificed my last dollar for a pair
of stockings to go to a crummy interview -- and I didn't even want the Job!"
She looked pleadingly into Sandy's tear-blurred eyes. Sandy nodded in acquiescence.
"Really," she moaned in her flirtatiously childish manner, the expression
on her face one of a hungry orphan begging for a bowl of rice. "It's not that
we haven't tried or don't have any brains. God, we both graduated from college
and... and I speak Spanish and Chris speaks French." She shrugged her
shoulders and spread her hands entreatingly.
"Spanish? you say?" Ah, ha, mused Roger silently, stroking his full
mustache with glee. This was the opener. "French?"
The girls nodded simultaneously.
"Hmmm... I might be able to help you... that is, if you really want a
job." He continued pacing, one hand thrust into his polyester suit pants, the
other still working on his mustache, while his brown eyes clicked off the
dollar signs. The surreptitious landlord glanced over at the rentees to see
them sitting up straight, ready to take orders. "Naw. You girls went to
college huh? What were your majors?" His eyes sparkled as they probed every
inch of feminine flesh... two hundred a nights worth.
"I majored in art with a double major in French, and Sandy majored in
modern dance and speaks Spanish... she's part Spanish, you know," the spokesman assured.
"You girls ever worked in crowds of people? I mean have you ever been hostesses or tour guides?"
"No," answered Sandy, somewhat disconcertedly.
"But we can try!" Chris blurted.
"I... I don't know..." Roger made a turn at the mantle and rested his
elbow on the chipped paint and stroked his neck with that hand. "You'd have to
spend time around men... many of them foreigners." He smacked his lips and
shook his head. "Maybe you'd be better off trying the lunch counters down town..."
"No, wait a minute! Tell us more about this job," implored Chris,
sitting on the edge of the sofa now, ablaze with interest, desperate for a
break. The prospect of going back to Detroit was about as appealing as making
love to an elephant.
"Okay," Roger confronted them in his military stance, arms behind his
back, legs spread. "I have some friends who own a tour guide business
downtown... old buddies of mine from the army. They make contact with the bus
guide tours and instead of sending everybody out in buses they take them out
sometimes singly, sometime in pairs. What they need is somebody to chaperone
the guys, somebody who can speak Spanish or French... adds a little class, you know."
Sandy's eyes sparkled. It was a dream come true, but Chris looked
puzzled, her face still mirroring her concern over the money and the way her
landlord kept stealing peeks down the gaping front of her bathrobe. She yanked
it shut tight.
"So what do we have to do?"
"Simple. You go out to dinner with the guys... there will be wives along
sometimes," he admitted with a sly smirk. "You impress the guy by ordering in
another language... that's always worth a tip, especially from businessmen who
are out to impress some client... then you hop a cable car and take 'em to the
wharf maybe... out for a couple of drinks, tell 'em about the landmarks of the
city -- how Golden Gate Park used to be a sand pit, and everything east of
Market street is landfill... you know. Little bits like that. Mostly you just
play nice to 'em and they treat you well."
"I don't know," said Chris, biting on her lower lip nervously. "Sounds
kinda fishy to me... almost like... like, well, you know." She turned to read
the expression on her roommate's face. "What do you think, Sandy?"
Marvel-eyed, Sandy shot a beaming grin at the landlord. "I think it's
great! When do we start and how much money will we make? I'll have to get my
clothes together for this!"
Roger looked a little perplexed, but at the same time he was relieved.
He knew if he could persuade Chris, he'd have it sacked, but she was the
cautious one, he noted. "What about you, Chris. How do you feel about it? I
know it's not what you expected to do with a college diploma, but it's the best
I can offer. Besides, the foreign tourists in San Francisco have a lot of
class." He studied her unmoved expression. "Well, I know you'd rather sit in
an office for eight hours a day, but..."
"Let me think about it," broke in the blonde haired roommate. "I want to think this over."
Sandy wrinkled up her nose and tugged Chris' bathrobe sleeve, her eyes on
Roger as she whispered into Chris' ear: "Come on, it's no big thing. We'd at
least be able to eat and get out to see the city." Pulling her bathrobe tight
around her, and letting the bath towel unwind with a vigorous shake of her
head, Chris stalked off to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. It
seemed cheap somehow, going out with a man you'd never seen before. Why, it
was the closest thing to prostitution she'd ever imagined herself coming in
contact with. She closed her bedroom door behind her.
One room away, Chris could hear Sandy's throaty voice apologizing for her
roommate's abrupt response. "Don't pay any attention to her, she's just very
upset today," she heard Sandy explain.
Roger returned: "Okay, you girls think it over and come down to my
apartment tonight and tell me what you want to do. Remember, I still have two
months rent to collect and this letter from the foodstamp office is nothing to
scoff at. It's serious business... could cost you both a lot of money and time
behind bars if you're not careful. I'm just trying to help you out, is all.
I've got my responsibilities too."
Sandy caught his arm before he reached out to open the door. "Just one
thing," she said hesitantly. "Does this mean we have to go to bed with the
men?" Her eyes sparkled and the landlord read the message loud and clear.
Dropping his hand to the doorknob he rested it there and said, "If you
do, it'll earn you a bunch more, that's all I can tell you."
When he left, closing the door behind him, Sandy leaned up against the
hardwood door, her eyes smiling for her. No use giving away what you can
charge for, she resolved and headed for Chris' bedroom for a long, practical
talk with her best friend of four years.
