The hotel is located near the Lambert-Saint Louis airport, just off an exit ramp, tucked between Interstate 70 and an industrial park. There is a Waffle House at the corner and a few cars in the parking lot.

Two men in sweaters watch me go upstairs as they finish a drug deal under the porch roof. Children are running in the alleys.

Another man is sitting on a camping chair with a bottle of spirit in his hand, near the brown-water swimming pool.

“Get in, honey.”

The woman stands at the door. She puts her hair behind her ear. I oblige and get into the room.

The place smells like smoke and sweat. The carpet is reddish and seems like it hasn’t been cleaned for a while.

“I know this is a shithole.”

Dogs bark in the next room. I see a Rottweiler pulling on his owner’s leash by the window. The woman closes the curtains.

“Do the cops come here often?” I ask.

“Once or twice a week. Mostly for drug busts. Sometimes a kid gets hurt. Sometimes tourists call them because they’re afraid.”

“How many people are living there?”

“I’m not sure. A dozen girls. A couple of families. Druggies. Maybe thirty of them. Maybe more, I don’t know them all.”

“How do you do for food?”

“I use the microwave. The fridge is small but I don’t eat that much, so it’s enough for me. I buy frozen meals at the budget supermarket.”

“Are you paying a monthly rate?”

“I am. The hotel owners are giving me a rebate as long as I don’t make a mess.”

“Have you been staying there for long?”

“Where is my pack of smokes? I had it when you came in. Shit, I had it in my pocket, where did I — never mind.”

“Isn’t it under the comforter?”

She lifts the blanket and smiles as she sees the pack of Winstons. I can hear shouting and fighting below us.

“You got a good eye, honey.”

She offers me a cigarette that I take. Her lighter is an old Zippo with the picture of a heart on it.

“I don’t mean to be rude or nothing, but do you got my money?”

I give her two hundred dollars that she immediately puts in her purse without counting.

“Are you sure you don’t want to relax a little?” she asks.

“I’m fine. I just want to talk.”

“Whatever. I’m not taking offense, though.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s your money.”

“Is it how it works? A guy calls you and you meet there?”

“It depends. I hang out near the airport so I always find businessmen in the bars around. They’re good customers. Quick, painless and easy. I don’t ask no questions, I let them do what they want. It’s more boring than you could think. They just bring me to the hotel, they pay, we fuck, they tip and they go back to catch their flight. Thirty or forty minutes tops. We almost don’t speak and there’s no hassle.”

Smoke and sweat.

“I also work around restaurants. Red Lobster and Olive Garden, although I don’t go to the Olive Garden as frequently as I used to because the new managers want families to feel safe. But I can often find some good old divorced guy ready for action over there. Those are more, well, they’re more emotional. They talk about their ex-wives, what they’ve lost, the alimony they have to pay. It’s always the same story. The same weeping. After a while I just don’t listen anymore. I can get why their wives went away, with all this whining.”

“Do you use the internet?”

“I sure do. I have different ads on Craigslist. Different cell phones too so that people think they’re replying to different girls. I also use Facebook a lot. And I recently got on Twitter because it’s easier to post pictures online and more low-key for guys who don’t want to get caught talking to hookers. I had a blog until last year but it used a lot of time.”

“What did you post on your blog?”

“The usual stuff. Pictures, dirty fiction, videos.”

“Did it help business?”

“At the beginning only. I got hundreds of comments, gave my info and got new customers. Then it slowed down. I thought of doing amateur porn but I haven’t had such a good experience last time I did that, so I just dropped it altogether.”

“You did movies?”

“It paid well.”

“How was it?”

She grinds out her cigarette in the ashtray. There are loud voices and music outside the door.

“How do you think it was? Tedious, that’s how. I get sore fast if I’m not prepared. I had trouble walking straight afterwards. The best actors, they make sure the girl’s okay, but I didn’t work with the best actors. Guys I worked with, they pounded my pussy like they wanted me dead. Many takes to have a single scene right. No breaks until the guy comes, and when he does and the scene is not complete, I had to wait for him to get hard again. All this while people were watching and jerking off to let off some steam. It was exhausting. And it was just regular stuff, nothing extreme like they do today. Nowadays it seems they can never get enough. Always want more.”

“People get bored easily.”

“Of course they do. The internet killed sex.”

“It brings everything right under your eyes.”

“That’s true. You don’t have to wait, you don’t have to make any effort. You don’t even have to want it. It’s just there. The craziest shit.”

“But it paid well.”

“I knew a girl, probably your age, she did tricks with her ass. She also played usual scenes like threesomes and double penetrations, but what really got her known in the job is when she put a huge dildo in her ass, then took it out and — I don’t know how to say, but her whole asshole got inside out. She got to push it out, her rectum, you see. And that movie was seen what — hundred thousand times?”

“Because it’s not routine sex.”

“Because people are fucked up. Anyway, she played in a few porn productions and in the end, she had to wear diapers because her ass was so stretched out that she couldn’t hold her shit. Film makers, they don’t care about that. They give you instructions and if you’re hurt, they pay you an extra but that’s it. Poor girl had to have surgery to fix her ass.”

Sweat and smoke.

“I didn’t do that. I still don’t. Some clients have strange fetishes but they don’t want that kind of stuff. At worst they’re looking for a whipping so I have to set boundaries. I don’t get hit that much. Well I don’t have that much customers either, but still.”

“How many per day?”

“Two or three. Saint Louis ain’t no big city. I’m lucky to have the airport, you know. But that’s enough, I tell you!”

She lights up another cigarette. There is a gray mist between us and my eyes are itching.

“You would think you can’t get enough of it. But in the end, it’s just like a machine. You stroke the dick, it gets hard. You stroke it more and cum comes out. Or you put it inside and you pump until it shoots. It’s just that. Nothing complicated. After a while it gets as mundane as filling up you car, except with sex you have to clean everything up afterwards. The thing with cum is that it stains fast, so you have to make sure your sheets are cleaned up quick or you get those nasty yellow spots.”

“Isn’t it depressive? Not enjoying sex anymore?”

“I enjoy it. Sometimes I get horny like anyone else. That makes the client tip even more because it feels like the real thing. But most of the time it’s just something I do. Like shaving. Or cooking.”

Her dyed blonde hair keep falling over her eyes.

“Even the words. Penis. Vagina. They’re just words but people seem to avoid them as much as they can. They’re just words, though. Medical words. Doctors use them. Semen. Foreskin. They’re clinical terms. And yet everyone gets — look at you, sweetheart, even you, you’re getting uncomfortable about it, hearing the words. Clitoris. Labia.”

“Society teaches us to keep sex private.”

“I’m all for that. But those are just words. And fucking is just two people putting things into each other. It’s mechanical. The girl gets wet or lubes herself up, the guy gets his dick sucked or stroked, he puts it inside the girl’s pussy and there you go. Nothing gets simpler than that. That’s why I say it’s boring. Five minutes of moaning and groaning and it’s done. Like animals.”

“Like animals.”

“Perverted animals.”

“Perverted animals.”

“Ejaculation. Nipples.”

“Just words.”

“People will get all upset about it, then they will go back watching porn on their computers as soon as they can. Ordering crazy accessories, high-end dildos and realistic-looking fleshlights. They’re craving for something new. Something exciting. I’m not exciting. I’m an old-school whore, my days are numbered. Soon, nobody’s going to want to fuck with me.”

“What will you do, then?”

“I’ll find something. Maybe a man to take care of me. Could be you, honey, who knows?”

“Who knows.”

She leaves the bed and draws the curtains open. She must have been very pretty. The room is filled with ash and perfume and feels like a warm, safe place.