The waitress floats by with the ashtray, puts it down, and slips away, looking nervous. I sit down and light a cigarette with shaky hands. Connie leans close, touching my arm. “Jake. Jake, listen to me. Thank you for what you did. You have to hear that, Jake. I know it’s wrong, but I’ll always be grateful.”

“You’re welcome, but I didn’t do nothing.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks anyway.”

“I need to get out of town, Connie.”

Her rich brown eyes fill mine, spicy perfume clogging my nostrils, seducing my mind. “Jake, come up with me. I’ve got a place near here.”

“Connie, I need the money.”

She pulls me close. Her tongue snakes into my mouth and she drops her hand down, under the table, scratching my cock through wool trousers with her sharp fingernails. She begins to knead it and squeeze. “Come on,” she whispers. “We’ll talk later.”

Barely in the door to Connie’s place, and the door’s slammed and she’s on her knees. She gets my cock out, starts sucking on the shaft while she works my balls. I don’t know where the condom comes from, but she’s got it in her mouth and is rolling it down over my cock. Then she swallows my prick like it was nothing, taking the whole thing down her throat. Then she lets it slip out of her mouth and rubs it over her face as she pulls her dress down over her small tits. She slips up just enough to rub the head of my rubber-clad prick over her tits, over the pierced nipples, then pushes her tits together and wraps them around my cock as she works it up and down. Then I’m down her throat again, but she knows I’m coming close; she knows my body better than she knows her own, even after all these fucking years. She stands up slowly, locking my eyes in hers. She goes over to the window.

The neon lights outside flash on-off-on-off: LIQUORS, BEER, CIGARETTES. NAKED GIRLS. OBJETS D’ART. ALL NUDE FEMALE MODERN BURLESQUE. WRESTLING.

Consuela pulls her skimpy dress down to her waist, then shimmies out of it like a snake. Her slight round ass wriggles back out of her panties—the shimmer of her thighs as she spreads them slightly, leaning forward over the windowsill with her hand slipped over her crotch.

“No hands below the waist,” she tells me.

I know it. It’s Connie’s rule, ever since…