Blond Lesbian

I felt a nudge on my shoulder. Gertrude woke me up from my slumber.

“We have arrived,” she said.

I tried to remember who was my contact to get the luggage through customs. One Sugar Daddy. Bald, with an earring in his left ear. I emptied myself into the aisle, braced for the wait to leave the plane and bid Gertrude farewell.

I left the plane and was immediately exhalted that I was in a foreign country. The air and atmosphere were different. I was in Europe and I could taste the continental flavor. I was ready for romance. But first Sugar Daddy.

I gathered my luggage at the terminal and looked for a bald customs agent with an earring. The Dutch cops were all around. There was no turning back. I perused the customs agents, and there at the end of the line was a bald man with an earring. I walked confidently to the end. Perfect. I was to tell him my name and he had instructions to take an envelope marked with his name on it containing two hundred dollars.

As I approached him, the cops were swarming. He looked me in the eye and I told him my name. He winked at me, opened the duffle and found the envelope on the top. He pushed my duffle through, I got my passport stamped, and there I was in Amsterdam. I had to go to the red light district to a hotel named Hotel Coq. I saw all the European men and women dressed in black and jeans as if it were a uniform. I even saw a couple of dykes. I felt at home.

A cab driver was parked by the curb, and I immediately got in. “Hotel Coq, please. Do you take American traveler’s checks?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

We drove through the city through bastions of bicycle riders, trams, and canals. The sun gleamed through the windows, and the city had a pink cast to it. The cars were all small, and driving fast. People were shopping on the streets and holding hands along the canal. I could not wait to get settled and go to a coffee house.

We pulled up to the sign hanging vertically along the side of the building with the broken neon lights saying, Hotel Coq barely visible. There were some hookers in front, and the windows were dirty.

“This is it,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said and wrote him out a traveler’s check.

I went inside, and the place was out of the 40s. A mahogany message center adorned the wall, with an art deco fixture on the ceiling. The phones were rotary, and there was a torn sofa in the waiting room. The carpeting was stained and there was an ashtray full of butts.