A Romantic Occupation

She knew what would make it possible. A half hour in a hotel room with Ken's friend, Carl.

When she woke up the next morning, the super served her with another eviction notice for non-payment of rent due.

* * *

"I've been filling out applications everywhere, but nobody's hiring. The economy is still in the toilet."

Suzie sipped her latté. She said that she was trying to cut back on her caffeine consumption but the venti made a joke of that resolution. At that size, even a latté would have as much coffee in it as a regular cup. "You're sure that you can't work something out with The Fisher House?"

"The manager won't talk to me. I mean, yeah, he talks to me. I call him every day. He tells me that he's trying. That maybe he'll have a shift tomorrow. That I'm a good waitress. That he doesn't want to lose me. Then he tells me to call back again tomorrow. He talks too much but he doesn't say what's important. He doesn't say how I can work again."

"You know how you can work again. Give up. Do that favor for Ken's friend and he'll do you the favor of letting you work again."

"I can't do that."

"Sure you can. His friend can't be that gross."

"It's not that. It's that I'd have to kiss Ken's ass."

"That's nothing. All you have to do is call him and say that you'd like his friend to phone you. Ask his friend to take you out for a drink and let it flow naturally from there."

"I'd be giving in. I'd have no self respect."

"You'll have less self respect if you have to beg for quarters on the street and sleep under an overpass."

"There's always welfare."

"I hear that getting welfare isn't so easy these days."

"They're destroying our social safety nets as quickly as they can," a male voice said.

Helen was not surprised to see Bert Lawrence when she turned around. He was making it a habit to come to Starbucks on Sunday mornings at the same time that she and Suzie had their standing date.

"Have a seat," Suzie said. She was beginning to warm up to Helen's knight in shabby armor.

"You don't need welfare," Lawrence said. "You need a good job. Good jobs, good banks, and good government. That's what the whole country needs. But we're not going to get it until we force them to give it to us. We have to make the filthy rich fall into line. Until we do that, this economy is going to keep killing us."

Helen frowned. "That's what I don't get."

"What?"

"You blame the rich for all the problems with the economy but they're Americans, too. A bad economy hurts them as much as it hurts us. If they could fix it, they would."

Lawrence stared at her for a minute. Finally he spoke. "You're right. You don't get it. Here's the question that you have to ask yourself. If you had a choice about who you'd rather be, would you choose to be one of the richest people in America in the seventies or one of the richest people in a third world country?"

"Why the seventies? I wasn't even born then."

"We can get into that in a minute. First, what is your answer? Rich in the old America or rich in a third world country?"

"America?"

"Bzzzt," he said, buzzing himself to a new low of obnoxiousness. "Wrong answer. The right answer is that you want to be rich in a third world country. Life for the rich in America in the seventies was great. No question. But life for the rich in the third world is limitless. They can have whatever they want; do whatever they want without question. Those countries are filled with people who are so desperately poor that they'll do almost anything in return for almost nothing. The police do what they're told. The courts are owned by the rich. The wealthy can literally get away with murder as long as they don't kill each other. In the seventies, a wealthy person in America could get away with a lot but he couldn't go that far."

"Why do you keep saying the seventies?" Helen asked.

"Because there were more differences between American and the typical third world country back then. America looks too much like a third world country today. The rich have been getting much richer and everyone else has been getting much poorer. Fewer of us who are born poor can work our way up into a higher class. More tax money is being spent on police and the military. More people are imprisoned. Social services are being eliminated. Health care is reserved for the upper class. I could go on and on about all the ways that the wealthy have changed America to their advantage and to the disadvantage of the rest--"

"God, no! Please don't," Suzie said. "Let us enjoy our coffee in peace."

Lawrence frowned. "The point that I'm trying to make is that the economy is not going to get better because the wealthiest people in the country don't want to make it better. They aren't getting poorer. They're getting richer. We're being made poor because they want us to be poor. The less money you and I have, the less power we have. The only way that the economy is going to get fixed is if we the people fix it ourselves."

"Enough, already," Suzie said. "Enough. If I wanted a lecture, I'd have taken a course."

Helen said nothing. She had stopped listening when he first started ranting because she had more important things to think about than the economy. She had to figure out how to get work and pay her rent.

This time, without Ken Kingford's help.

* * *

Mr. Starr surprised her. When Helen called, he said that he still didn't have a shift for her at The Fisher House but he said that something else had come up.

"What?"

"The company that owns us has other clubs and restaurants as well. One of their other clubs needs a waitress to serve drinks tomorrow. It's a six-hour shift and the tips are good. Better than here, to be honest. Waitresses there earn as much in six hours as our girls do during two eight-hour shifts."

Helen was desperate. Her rent was due. She was about to be thrown out of her apartment and she had nowhere to go. If she could make as much money in one day as she usually did in two, then she couldn't refuse.

"Okay. I'll take it," she said.

"Okay. Go to the Lady's Slipper at eleven tomorrow morning and ask for Dan Kosnov."

"Wait. The Lady's Slipper?"

"Right. It's over at Second and Highland."

"I know where it is. I know what it is. I'm not a stripper."

"No. I know that. This isn't a dancing job. You'd have to audition for that. This is strictly waitressing. Just like here. You wear clothes. You take drink orders. You deliver the drinks to the tables and you take the customers' money. That's all. There's no funny business with the wait staff. There're bouncers who make sure of that. I wouldn't have suggested it if it wasn't on the up and up. If you don't want to do it, that's okay. I can find another girl."

"Wait. Wait. Okay." She paused then said, "Okay. I'll be there. Eleven o'clock tomorrow. Dan Cos-something."

"Kosnov. Dan Kosnov. I'll tell him. He'll be expecting you."

"Okay." Before he could hang up on her, she said, "Mr. Starr?"

"Yes?"

"I still want to work at The Fisher House."

"I know. I'm still trying to fit you in. Call tomorrow after your shift at the Lady's Slipper and we'll see what we can do about getting you back in at The Fisher House."

Back in at The Fisher House? She didn't realize that she had left.

* * *

"You're Helen?" Dan Kosnov scrutinized her from face to flats, pausing to linger at her chest and belly for an uncomfortable amount of time.

She felt like he was a human body scanner who was looking through her clothes to examine her most intimate parts. "Yes," she said.

"I guess I can use you as a waitress. You'll never dance here, though. I can tell you that right now. You know how to tend bar? Mix drinks?"

"I can learn."

"Not at the Lady's Slipper, you can't. You can carry drinks. Period. Try not to spill them on the customers."

"I'm not clumsy," she said.

"I didn't think you were," he said. "I meant don't deliberately spill drinks on the customers."

"I wouldn't do that."

"You don't think so? Wait until some guy makes a comment about your looks when you've got a drink in your hand."

She flushed. "There's nothing wrong with my looks."

"You want me to make a list?" He shook his head. "Men come to the Lady's Slipper to appreciate the finest female faces and bodies in the city. Young women at the peak of perfection. You're not ugly per se, but you're ordinary, and in the Lady's Slipper, ordinary is the new ugly." He stared at her chest again. "You're lucky that our waitresses don't serve topless or I'd throw you out of here on your ass and let the chips fall as they may."

"There's nothing wrong with my top." Helen considered her breasts to be her best feature.

"Thirty-six cee. Big enough, but quality counts as much as quantity around here. Your left is noticeably larger than the right. You have visible stretch marks on both. They sag enough to let the nipples point somewhat south of the horizon. About standard for a woman of your age and weight. A long way short of what our customers deserve."

Helen looked at him in fury. "You're guessing," she said. "I'm wearing a bra. You can't tell how much they sag."

"I've seen more breasts than a mammography technician," he said. "I know what I know, and I know tits, whether they're inside bras or out. Yours are nothing special."

"My boyfriends think they're special."

"Your boyfriends know that they'd never get laid again if they told you what they really thought about your tits. Now stop wasting my time. Find Lilly Ann and tell her that she's got to get you set up for the four to ten shift tonight.

"Four to ten?"

"Lilly Ann. Don't let my door hit in the ass on your way out."

Dan's door didn't hit her on the ass because Helen left it open. If he wanted it closed, he could damn well close it himself.

Lilly Ann was pushing forty, both in age and in chest size. Helen might not know as much about breasts as Dan but she knew plastic when it was sticking in her face.

Silicone doesn't sag but that doesn't mean that it ages well, either.

"Dan's something, isn't he?" Lilly Ann said when Helen introduced herself.

"Something else."

Lilly Ann laughed. She had a great laugh. "Yeah. Something else entirely." She touched Helen on the arm. "I've only got a minute. Follow me and listen hard."

She walked to a table and began bussing glasses and bottles, talking while she worked.

"Waitresses wear colored leotards. Think flowers. Roses, daffodils, crocuses. Pretty flowers. No black. Nothing dingy. White if you must, but not often. Everyone wears dark green tights. Stems, right? Black leather pumps with stiletto heels. As high as you can stand for a six hour shift. If you don't normally wear heels, don't get too ambitious at first. Start with an inch and a half, or even an inch, and work your way up.

"No bra or panties. Dan'll send you home if he sees a panty line and he's got an eagle eye. You won't get away with even a thong."

Helen looked at Lilly Ann's pale orange leotard. She wasn't wearing a bra because every detail of her nipples and breasts was clearly defined under the tightly stretched material.

"That's right," she said, noting Helen's gaze. "You need a leotard made from light-weight material. Not the kind with the built-in shelf bra or underwiring. If the customer can't tell what your tits and ass look like, Dan'll send you home. You can get what you need at the dance store over on Nineteenth Avenue. It's called Miracle Rhythms. Tell them that you're waitressing here, and they'll make sure that you buy the right stuff. They stock special for us. Got that? Miracle Rhythms."

"On Nineteenth. I got it."

"Good. Arrive fifteen minutes early. Waitresses have a couple of tables in the dancers' change room in the back. Give yourself time to do your makeup right. If it's sloppy, Dan'll send you home for that, too.

"On the floor, if a customer touches you or makes an inappropriate comment, give a bouncer the nod. The customer will get chucked out right away. The bouncers don't give warnings or second chances."

"What's an inappropriate comment?"

"You don't know?"

"I mean, how bad does it have to be for me to call a bouncer?"

"Guys come here to have a good time. They get drunk. You have to give them the benefit of the doubt. We can't throw all the customers out. If a guy says you look beautiful, you say thanks. If he says that he wants to marry you, you laugh at the joke. If he tells you to crawl under the table and give him a blowjob for twenty bucks, you call the bouncer. If a guy pats your hand, it's up to you to decide if you want to call the bouncer or if you'd rather tell him to keep his hands off and give him a second chance. But if he grabs your tit, you call the bouncer for sure. They don't pay us enough to let the clientele play grab-ass with us. Even with tips."

"How do the tips work?"

"You keep your own tips, except that you give ten percent to the bartenders and another ten to the bouncers. Don't stiff them. They'll know if you do. The bartender will get you fired, which is bad enough, but the bouncers will do worse than that. We had a girl who tried stiffing the bouncers. One of the creeps who got thrown out of here got her home address. You can figure out how that happened. The creep was in her house, waiting for her to come home after her next late shift. The poor girl had a very long, very bad night. She never came back here again."

"What did the police say?"

"Police? What police? It's not like the creep killed her. When he left in the morning, she called Don and Don called someone. They patched her up and gave her a bus ticket to some little town on the other side of the country and that was the last anyone saw of her."

Helen's eyes grew wide. "Is this place owned by organized crime?"

Lilly Ann laughed. "This place is owned by a multinational corporation. That's way more organized than crime ever gets. But corporations don't have to break laws. It they're unhappy with the law, they just tell the government to make up new ones that they like better." She grimaced.

Helen was surprised. Lilly Ann didn't look like the kind of woman who knew anything about the government and big corporations.

"The bottom line is that you always, always give the bouncers and the bartender the full ten percent of your tips," Lilly Ann said.

Helen nodded solemnly.

"I assume that you know how to serve customers already," Lilly Ann said. "You can let a customer run a tab if you want, but most of us won't do it because you'll get stuck with a hefty check if the guy bolts on you."

She wiped down the table and picked up the tray of empties. "As you can see, we bus our own tables. Don't let a table stay dirty because it makes the whole place look bad. Any questions?"

"Why a six to midnight shift when you're open until three?"

"Oh, that. We have overlapping shifts. There's a double wait staff from nine until midnight."

Helen followed her into the back.

"Anything else?" Lilly Ann asked.

"What about food?"

"You don't do anything about food. If someone wants to eat, call a food runner. If you're being paid for drinks as you serve them, then food's not your problem. If you let someone run a tab, you have to let the food runner know so that she can add her bill to it. But then, if the customer dashes, you will be stuck for the food, too, because it's your tab. Like I said, most of us never let a guy run a tab." She began stacking glasses onto a dishwasher pallet. "You good to go?"

"Yes."

"Then go get your uniform. I'll see you at four. Make sure you look right or Dan won't let you on the floor."

* * *

Mr. Starr had said that waitresses at the Lady's Slipper wore clothes. Technically, he was right, but this costume was nothing like The Fisher House uniform.

Helen's new yellow leotard gave her no support at all. Her breasts hung in their natural position, heaving and bouncing every time she moved.

The scoop top was cut low enough that she would have presented generous cleavage if her breasts had been supported and pressed together. But, when they hung lose and separate, anyone looking would see halfway to her naval every time she bent over.

The material was opaque but fine enough that every bump on her areoles showed. Her nipples were sharply defined, especially the way they were sticking out. Helen had no idea why they were so determinedly erect. It wasn't from cold; the club was warm enough to ensure that nude, sweaty women wouldn't feel a chill.

The back of the leotard wasn't there. She was naked almost all the way down to the base of her spine.

The legs were cut high to show the sides of the fleshy cheeks of her buttocks but, thankfully, were not cut away so far as to form a thong.

The tights flattened her pubic hair enough that she could not see the outline of her thatch. As well, the fabric was stretched across her labia to obscure them. Had she not been wearing the tights, the contours of those intimate lips would have been revealed by the light, stretchy fabric of the leotard in as much detail as her nipples and naval.

Helen carried an average body mass and looked good enough in normal clothes, but this leotard made her look lumpy. Her hips bulged, her tummy sagged, and her ass flopped.

She would have to lose fifteen pounds and spend hours toning herself in the gym for months before she would look presentable.

She hated Don for being right when he said that she was not beautiful enough to serve drinks in this club.

"Stop admiring yourself in the mirror and get out on the floor," Don said. "Your shift starts now."

Helen whirled to look at him, at first confused by his silent appearance. It was as though her thoughts had conjured him forth like some demon summoned from Hell. As soon as she accepted his presence, she was shocked that a man would dare enter the lady's dressing room. Then she chided herself for that thought. Most of the women who dressed in this room undressed on a stage in front of a hundred strangers several times every night. Why would they care about one more man seeing them half naked?

She minced across the floor in her high heels. After trying on the leotard in the dance store, she had decided to buy the highest heels that she thought she could manage: three inches. She hoped that they might draw attention away from her errantly flopping boobs. She was less shy about her legs.

She didn't know how she was going to stay on her feet for six hours.

Maybe the men out there would see her suffering and compensate her with better tips. She had to raise enough to pay her rent in the next couple of days. No matter what it took, she had to do it.

When she stepped out onto the floor, she felt like every man in the house was looking at her. Of course they weren't. Most of them were looking at the dancer on the stage. That woman, about Helen's age, was naked but for a miniscule thong. More impressive than that, she was hanging upside down with her legs wrapped around a brass pole, waving her impressive breasts and long blond hair in time to the music.

Helen felt more inadequate than ever. She could feel her self esteem slide down another notch.

"Stop gawking and start waiting," Lilly Ann said. "You've got tables one through twelve. That's all the tables from the front door to the end of the stage on the left side. You're relieving Jacquie. I'll introduce you."

Because nobody was running a tab, the formalities of the hand-off were simple. A few minutes later, Helen was on her own. Eighty percent of the orders were for beer, and most of the rest divided equally between wine, some basic cocktails, and straight shots. The bar had the same taps as The Fisher House, probably because both had the same owner so the suppliers gave both establishments the same favorable quotes.