The Las Vegas Courtesan

Based on my tweet from tonight, I just had to make a blog post about it because it’s just too funny for 140 characters. I give the guy at least an A for effort in trying English. Here’s how the conversation went down as soon as I entered the room:
“Hi! How are you?”
“Yes how much are you charge”
“Oh Nice to meet you too!” and shook his hand. Nothing bugs me more than people who respond my greeting with a “how much” question. He looked at me like I was crazy for my response.
After asking where he was from in China, I wrote down on paper how it worked: $150 is a fee for me to dance and I work for tips.
“Oh no I think it’s fast food altogether”
“Fast food? Did you just say fast food?”
“Yes, fast food” he pronounced much clearer this time.
“What, fast food like McDonalds? I don’t deliver McDonalds I’m sorry”
“Yes fast food it’s mean make-a love from 14 million”
“Did you just say 14 million?”
“Yes 14 million, long time ago. If you can’t do fast food for $150 the I will be grace you with $5 and you leave”
“$5? You’ll have to do better than that”

He ends up giving me $20 for my troubles and a groping hug, but the crazy laugh I let out the whole way to my car was worth a lot more. Thanks for the good laugh on a slow night! I want to find out where he translated the word sex into fast food.

It’s seems like it’s more rare for me to be asked something new or to have a call go a different way than the many before. I always like the calls that surprise me and break up the monotony of this job (believe it or not it can get quite boring!) I went on a call in the afternoon at Planet Hollywood. The phone girl had a story before I went in. For the record I don’t like story–telling time before I go on calls because that means there is some excuse or convoluted situation that I have to work around instead of an easy “Here’s the info,” now go upstairs and make money.  The story was the guy in the room does not know I am coming and was booked by another friend as I surprise, but the guy who booked left money in the room for me. Left money in the room for me? Where? How does he know what to leave? I’m assuming he only left the company fee in the room and I’m going on a treasure hunt just to find it. Then this creates an awkward situation for me when I have to explain, “Yea that money your friend left doesn’t go to me, I strip for that, anything else you must pay for,” which sounds like a total bummer of a surprise. This whole mental conversation takes note before I ask the phone girl, “Left money for me? Where? Did the friend know how this works?” She says, “He said he’s been to Vegas before and I have no idea about the location of the money.” See, this is why I don’t like story time before calls.

I go upstairs and knock. Guy has a surprised look on his face, but is on the phone when I come in. He finishes his business conversation while handing me the folded piece of paper marked, “Give this to delivery guy.” Inside is the company fee, nothing more. See, this is what I feared! He finally gets off the phone and I said, “Surprise! I’m your delivery!” he was definitely shocked and yet happy (some surprises have sort of panicked and declined.) He said, “My brother said I had a delivery for my birthday, but I had no idea!” He goes to his computer bag and pulls out a card that says on the front, “Open this when delivery guy gets there.” I cross my fingers that some sort of tip is in there from brother-of-the-year. He asks, “Should I open this now? He said to when you got here.” Yes yes YES! He does, and thankfully a decent tip is in there. Brother scores some points for knowing really how this works and not $30 in an envelope. The now shaking birthday boy says, “Man, I need a drink. So I get to have fun with you now, naked?” Yes, and then some.

Here’s the real surprise to me, this whole time I thought the brother was staying in Vegas as well, but in a different room or different hotel. Come to find out he wasn’t even in the US. The brother had stopped by his house the night before and stuffed the card and message in his laptop bag, then informed him of it later. That was one talented planning job, and probably more than any other call before.

I see people with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences which includes people with and without disabilities. I’ve seen war veterans who have recovered from severe injuries, people who are physically handicapped, and a even smaller number of deaf or blind clients. People oftentimes ask, “Do any of your clients make an impact on you?” Aside from injured war vets, who always amaze me by what they’ve gone through, one person stands out in my mind. I remembered him the other day: a semi-regular client from a few years ago who has been completely blind since birth.

I saw him a number of times over the course of a year when he would want to come out and gamble (slot machines mostly). Nothing sexual ever happened, and I don’t even think I got naked for dances during these visits. I definitely remember him taking care of me, typically for 3-5 hours blocks over several days to accompany him around town. Normally when people pay just for company, I have to think of transportation; where am I going? how should I dress?, etc. For once I didn’t have to consider hopping in a cab and I actually drove him around in my own car. We usually went to dinner and then I took him shopping wherever he wanted to go. The rest of the time was spent in the room talking about his personal issues — living by himself at home and how he deals with things that we oftentimes take for granted in our everyday lives, like grocery shopping or simply getting around. He really just needed someone to talk to and I felt bad because you could really tell how alone he felt when he was home. Sometimes he got overly emotional during our conversations.

While out shopping or eating, I really started to notice how different life is when you can’t see anything, and particularly if you have never been able to see your whole life. Imagine not knowing what “color” is, what “brightness” is… or darkness. Things that we might use as adjectives to describe something to someone else are limited by only things you can hear or feel. He liked going shopping for nice timepieces because of the way the watches ticked and felt in his hands. I tried describing the faceplates or colors of the armbands or shininess, but this was all unimportant and useless information to him. Most people would be enamored by the way a watch looks, but he liked them for completely different reasons that I would have never noticed before. Even counting cash is impossible if you can’t see. You have to trust that the person who is giving you change is really giving you what is right. I know that in a lot of countries currency has different sized bills or braille to differentiate, but he had a system of folding bills in his wallet six different ways for the six different denominations (I never saw him with a $2 bill). He also liked staying only in hotels that had an elevator that said aloud “going up” and announced each floors. At dinner I often read the menu to him to help him order (and eventually knew what items to skip over that he didn’t like).

And then I had to think of creative ways to “show” him around town. What is something good to hear? Or feel to experience in Vegas? Once I took him to the Bellagio fountains to hear them exploding only to be disappointed that it was a windy day. The more explosive shows were replaced with soft, swaying water sounds. He still enjoyed it.

Though I don’t see him anymore and his numbers have all changed, I used to check in with him every so often to see how he was doing. I couldn’t imagine a world where I couldn’t see or hadn’t experienced color or light before. And what he showed me in his world definitely made me more aware of what I experience in mine.

So I’ve seen a bachelor dressed up in an Elvis costume too drunk to know his own name, and a bachelor that was so passed out he woke up swinging at his best friends, but I have never seen this amount of embarrassment or brotherly camaraderie as long as I have lived and worked in Vegas, and for some odd reason two of the three parties were British. All three of these parties by the way, occurred within two weekends:

The first party was at the Hard Rock, the guy who came downstairs to get me and four other girls (yes, 5 of us, and we all were not too pleased about the number of girls) , was a super nice guy from London and took us right upstairs and immediately gave us the crazy expensive company fee. In the next room were 12-14 loud, unruly Brits who apparently were all broke but wanted their friend to have the best time, just don’t embarrass him too much. Since we didn’t get tipped much at all upfront, we did a quick pile up dance on the bachelor and got him down to his boxers like we all normally do on bachelor parties. I noticed his silky boxer briefs had a photo of himself on it with the words, “I’m With Tim” underneath the photo. I laughed and said, “How cute did your friends make you those?” and he said, “Yes, actually…. HEY EVERYBODY DROP TROU AND SHOW THEM!” I turn around to see 12 guys at attention, all simultaneously unbuckling their pants and pulling their pants down. I felt like I was in a movie watching the synchronized pants-dropping, but sure enough all of the guys were wearing matching boxers with their buddy’s picture only 3 inches away from their own package. They must have practiced this moment together back home because they seemed to chime in   “Yea! Cause we’re with Tim!” I almost died laughing.

The second party, and I think the most funny, was also a group of British guys staying on the strip. I show up and due to some misunderstanding by the phone girl and best man, I am the only girl and there are 12 of them. I quickly explain to the best man 4-5 guys can stay but since they were in a bit of a hurry and on a tight budget, I couldn’t get another girl there in time. Since there were only a few guys chipping in they did what I said, paid the fee, and had enough of a tip for me to do a quick show for the bachelor. This is when the best man informs me of what the bachelor was wearing UNDER his pants: remote controlled, vibrating, black thong underwear. I giggled and wanted to see this for myself. Sure enough when I got him undressed in front of his friends, there was a vibrating thong that barely covered anything. The buzzing of the vibrator kept going off as his hysterically laughing friends kept mashing on the buttons of the remote from the couch. The bachelor nervously giggled and tried hiding what he could with his hands. I only kept this public humiliation up for a few minutes since he obviously wasn’t having fun trying to hold himself into the tiny thong. Luckily the best man tipped more so he could have more private time sans thong.

The last party was a tame group of guys staying in a suite. The best man/brother of the groom apparently was a rookie at planning bachelor parties and had gone online to order a bunch of party supplies, but ended up getting all of the items a bachelorETTE party would have. This usually entails of anything and everything with a penis on it. You’ll see these girls parading up and down the Strip with their penis straws and blinking penis necklaces. So I guess the brother went online and didn’t see vagina shaped supplies so he figured the penis shaped items would be okay instead. I almost died laughing when I saw these exact slippers on the floor. In the bathroom was toilet paper with sex positions on it and on the bar were penis shaped cocktail stirrers. The girl with me could not stop giggling which was contagious for me and I couldn’t stop. The best man didn’t get it until we explained what the penis items are REALLY for. He said, “Well, I couldn’t find much else!” I’m sure he’ll be better prepared the next time he helps throw a party.