French Kiss

Chapter 18

Auberge du Parc Hotel

Monday evening

Paulo Montes, a Brazilian drug dealer, is usually followed everywhere by two bodyguards. Tonight, however, he sends them away and waits alone for the arrival of his hired girl.

The fat middle-aged man has dressed appropriately for the occasion-a sweat-soaked sleeveless undershirt. Thick curly black hair grows like an unmown lawn over both Paulo’s chest and back. The hairs crawl up and down his shoulders and neck. He wears long white silk shorts-longer than boxers, almost long enough to touch his fleshy pink knees. Montes has greased himself up with a nauseating combination of almond oil and lavender cologne. He has used this same overwhelming oil-and-cologne concoction to slick back the greasy hair above his fat round face.

Paulo answers the door himself. “You’re much prettier than that dark-haired bitch they sent up an hour ago,” he says.

He is speaking to Laura Delarico-tall, slim, blond. With her fine youthful features, Laura is easily Paulo’s fantasy come to life-a combination of Texas cheerleader and Italian fashion model. Fresh and clean, lithe and athletic. Just what Paulo is longing for.

He begins quickly, clumsily unbuttoning Laura’s white oxford-cloth shirt. “The first one they sent was the kind I could find for ten dollars in an alley in São Paulo. Dark hair, dark skin. Screwing her would be like screwing myself.”

Paulo Montes laughs uproariously at his little joke. Laura smiles. She’s been taught to smile at a client’s jokes.

Paulo pulls her onto the bed. His fingers are fat, and he has become bored with trying to unbutton Laura’s shirt. So he pulls it up and over her head. He tugs at Laura’s panties, ripping them.

Soon she is naked. Soon Paulo the Pig is naked. Every inch of Laura’s flesh is disgusted by him. She feels he might crush her with his weight, but she’s skilled at positioning her shoulders and hips in such a way as to minimize all discomfort. She tries to ignore the garlicky alcohol smell as he roughly kisses her face and lips, as he squirms slowly downward to kiss her breasts. He suddenly slaps her face. For some sick reason this makes him laugh. Paulo Montes then pulls hard at her hair.

“Stop it,” Laura says. “You’re hurting me.”

“Like I give a shit,” Paulo says. Now he grabs her genitals. His filthy fingernails travel harshly around her vagina. She feels scratching, bleeding. With his other hand he pulls hard at another handful of hair. “I’m paying good money for this!” he yells. “I’m in charge.”

He pushes himself back up, again closer to her face. His saliva is dripping onto Laura’s cheeks and lips. The kisses begin to feel more like bites. She is certain the skin on her right cheek has been punctured by his teeth. Then more hair pulling. Her vagina is full of pain.

This time Laura screams. “Stop. Slow down!” She pushes at his fat neck.

Then suddenly Paulo makes a huge noise-a kind of explosive grunt. His breathing immediately slows down.

Laura realizes that she doesn’t need to protest any longer. It’s over. He’s finished. He never even entered her. Paulo the Pig begins panting like a tired old horse. He is resting, she thinks. He remains on top of her for a few minutes.

Finally Paulo rolls off and rests at her side.

For a moment, Laura becomes a kind of waitress in a sexual diner. “Can I get you anything else, sir?”

But Paulo Montes merely keeps his heavy breathing pumping. “That was good, very good. Go into the next room. Take what you want. Within reason, of course.” He laughs again. What a comedian!

Like all the girls who work for the Russian gang, Laura knows Paulo Montes is one of the most significant importers of what are called travel packages: drugs that are smuggled along strange geographic routes-say, from Ankara to Kiev to Seoul to New York to São Paulo-in order to confuse and evade the narcs.

“No, thank you,” Laura says, slipping into her torn underwear, her jeans, and her shirt. She plucks a few of his many sweaty curly hairs from her stomach.

“Don’t be ungrateful, bitch,” Paulo says. This time he’s not sounding funny. He doesn’t laugh. “Scag, maybe. I got it in the plastic containers. Or some good China white.”

“I just need to use the bathroom,” Laura says.

Paulo snaps at her quickly. “Use the maid’s bathroom at the end of the hall. You can’t use this one. I have personal items in there.”

Laura simply says, “Okay.” She’s tired and frightened and disgusted.

“Now go in the next room and treat yourself. Even something simple. Take a little C. Have a party later with your friends.”

To appease him she says, “Do you have some weed? I’ll take some weed.”

He laughs again, the loudest of all his laughing jags.

“Weed? You’re joking. Like Paulo would ever deal low-class shit like that.”

She watches Paulo on the bed, naked, laughing.

As Laura leaves the room all she can think of is that line from the Christmas poem: “…a little round belly / That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.”