She’s the kind of woman most of us think we want – sparkling green eyes with a glint of blue; strawberry blonde hair flowing over her shoulders; tall and slender with smooth, easy curves and the kind of mouth you just want to plunge into.

Experienced too.  She’s actually thirty, but will tell you she’s twenty-three, even though she looks nineteen.  Of her five marriages, four have ended in divorce because of high expectations.  The fifth was, from all accounts, a suicide.  “A sad thing, him swinging there,” she always sighs when recalling how she found the body slowly turning at the end of a rope, dangling from a beam in the basement.  “It’s very sad because that rope was about the only thing he could ever get up in those days.”

Cocky and smart, that’s how she comes off. But she’s the first to tell you she hasn’t been wise.  None of her “exes” were rich or promising.  She’s the first to admit that when studying the contours of a man’s pants, it wasn’t the bulge of his wallet that caught her eye.

She now goes about her business differently.  There’s more preparation with the ads and internet postings, the cloned phones and beepers, not to mention the screening process she puts them through.  She makes sure they have cash and plenty of it.  She also makes sure they need to be discreet.

What she sells them is fantasy in an enticing proposition – the promise to dress and act a certain way with a description so stunning it bludgeons.  But out of context her words are meaningless, as vague as the blurred face of the nude model she cut from a magazine to represent her.  But when she knocks on the door, she knows he won’t be disappointed.

Its residences only, a three hour minimum, and she insists on certain vintages to set the mood. Identification is checked at the door, the cash is left between the two flutes and only she pours. There is never a lot of chit-chat: she knows all she needs to know about him from the background check and she’ll “coo” so much that he’ll be too dazzled to try to learn a thing about her.  Besides, she’ll lie.

Depending on the dosage, he may hit the floor before ever taking a step towards the bedroom.  Rohypnol works on men too – especially two or three tablets.  A loaded dose accelerates the effect.  After all, she likes to take her time.

 Her father was an entertainer too.  When she was a little girl, he would take her on the road. And when he wasn’t pimping her, she learned sleight of hand.  He may have been a third rate magician, but she could have been a star.

So he’ll be here now, each and every time – sometimes on his back, sometimes face down, and occasionally on his side.  As paralysis leads to coma, she’s finishing her sweep of the house for cash.  That’s when she spreads out the shower curtain and rolls him onto his back in the center.  Then she slowly pulls down his pants and shorts.  She likes the feel.  She may even fondle it for a few moments barehanded.  She thinks it cute and funny as it flops side to side and wonders what size it could have become.  Freckles, birthmarks, the pronouncement of veins – each one is designed differently.  That’s why they’re so special.  That’s why she collects them.

With her gloves and apron on, she kneels over it.  It always amuses her that she’s the one wearing rubber.  She pinches the tip of it with her left hand, holding it erect.  She takes her father’s old straight razor in her right hand – the same razor he used on the road to hold her down with when he was as lonely.

By Joseph J. Patchen