But who’s to say she wouldn’t still have been searching while she was with me? I asked myself. Andrea was simply insatiable. I couldn’t have stopped her from feeling incomplete. That was just how she was.

I must have sat there for ten minutes still thinking about it. I couldn’t move. Andrea falling into high-end prostitution was worse to me than her failed marriage, miscarriage, and abortion. Neither child had made it to the world, but she was alive, and selling herself to whoever had the money. How was I supposed to take that? I don’t believe Mr. Vissel knew how much I still thought about her.

Damn, I mumbled to myself. Andrea’s revelation had taken a lot out of me. The information of her recent past was punishing me in every way.

“Hey, what’s going on? Why are you still sitting here?” Billy popped his head into the room and asked me.

I shook it off. “I was just thinking, man. There’s a lot to think about in this place.”

He laughed and said, “Tell me about it. But hey, more women are out there now, man. I think you wanna see this. If you think Tapioca and Cream are hot, wait till you see the Brazilians. Their bodies are just…” He couldn’t even get his words together. “Man!”

“How many of them are there?” I asked him.

“Five.”

I wasn’t really interested in entertaining, but I didn’t want to seem like a glum party pooper either.

“So, what exactly are we supposed to do with these women? I mean, are they models or what?”

Billy looked at me before he answered. “Well, they are models, but a lot of them are still in training, you know. But the way it works is this: if a photographer shoots a girl and takes her pictures to some of the designers who like her, then she gets upgraded immediately. So, it’s almost like a minor league baseball system for all of them.”

I said, “And how does this thing work monetarily?”

“Well, everybody pays a membership fee, or gets a frequent-visitor pass, and everything that leaves here has to be paid for. And we own all photography copyrights.”

I listened and picked up on it. “So, all of the models get paid from percentages of the membership fees?”

“Yeah, and then they get extra if they do anything else.”

“Like tips, huh?” I joked with a smile.

“A lot of people can only dream about the tips these girls get,” Billy told me.

“What about the guys, they’re in business here, too, right?”

He nodded as if it pained him. “Yeah, but realistically, us guys are never gonna have it like the girls. I mean, I do pretty well, but then when I compare it to what the girls are able to do…”

Enough said. Modeling and prostitution had always been more lucrative for women. Guys made their big money in corporate business, sports, and all other forms of entertainment. Then they go out and pay women to perform for them.