or: The only time I almost paid for sex.

We started Wednesday with rounds of Bloody Marys to cure the hangover, and exploring the strip, as we had forgotten everything we saw the night before. At about 9pm, with several rounds of drinks behind us and our nickel slot strategy still paying out just enough, we decide to head over to the Hard Rock because we’ve heard that’s where the chicks our age are. We’re drunk, we’re young, and we’re in Vegas: LET’S GO FIND SHRUTS!

As I’ve said before, I am horrible at picking up on women, even when drunk, and Bryan wasn’t fairing too well himself. As is already evident, Bryan had a girlfriend, but what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas…as long as I kept my fucking mouth shut. Which, evidenced by the fact that you’re reading this, I didn’t. The Hard Rock was a bust. Our meager gambling plan wasn’t working, girls avoided us like herpes, and just two days in I was starting to lose faith in Las Vegas. Feeling dejected after our mojo failed, we wanted to go back to our hotel to regroup. What followed was the scariest cab ride I have ever been on.

Imagine the thought of being on a roller coaster and the wheels lifting off the tracks at the exact wrong moment and you will have a slight inclination of the cab ride we took. The only smart way to get around the strip is in a limo, if you can afford it. The second smartest way is to wander from casino to casino via the connected walk ways and the complimentary monorails. The third option, which is the only option if you can’t afford a limo, are too far away from the strip to walk, or are suicidal, is the taxi cab.

The cab driver was foreign (obviously), barely spoke English (obviously) and, (yet again obviously), was hopped on some sort of truck stop, bathtub brew, methamphetamine. This was shaping up to be fantastic! We tell him we want the MGM Grande, and we want to get there as quick as possible. Mistake one was getting in the cab, mistake two was telling this nut-job to hurry. He chirped the tires leaving the Hard Rock, almost got into an accident leaving the parking lot, and drove 60mph through the back streets all the while screaming at us in half-english, half-durka, as Bryan and I bounced around in the back seat because we were half-drunk and didn’t feel the need to put on our seatbelts.

Safely back in our room we mixed up some cocktails and tried to sort out what we’re going to do with the rest of our evening. Drinks? We’re down to about $160 between us so we’re drinking in the room. Shrots? Could be a waste of money, the shrot gods weren’t with us at the moment. Shruts? We tried it and both of us struck out. Well fuck. There we were, still scared from the cab ride, clinging to the fact that his dad was going to deposit our money the next day, and dejected because we had the hook-up skills of a phone sex operator with a horrible speech impediment. We had pretty much exhausted all of our options in Vegas for the night. Except one. An option that is only available in Nevada. An option perfect for guys who don’t want to risk money on shrots, or drinks on shruts. If you’ve managed to make the logic jump from the title of this article…yes there was one avenue, or two dependent on how much you paid, that we hadn’t explored:

PROSTITUTION

Yes, we were two good looking young men, barely into our twenties, a time of one’s life where guilt free vagina practically flings itself at you like it’s on fire and you’re the only one with a hose, in a city where everyone practically demands casual sex from complete strangers, and we had decided that best course of action was to take all of the risk out of the hook-up and pay for pussy. It’s shameful, I know, but I figured you should try everything once. Bryan was in and began furiously searching the phonebook for the elusive, North American, pea-brained, shallow-moraled whore. Things were about to look up.

Not having a whole lot of cash we decided to look for places where it would be easier to hook up than at a bar, yup we were that desperate. We decided that our best option would be a swingers club. A place where people with low self esteem (that fit us at the moment) meet up with other people with low self esteem, in the hopes of high-fiving genitalia, and that was right up our alley. One problem, There’s a lot of those types of places in Las Vegas. Because we were either stupid, or intoxicated (in retrospect I vote for both) we decide to leave it up to chance and let whomever we get in a cab with decide the best avenue for our libidinous adventures. Where the shrot gods had failed us, we put all of our trust in the gods of shruts, said a silent prayer, and went on our shameful, yet determined, way.

We left the hotel, and walked to the first cab. We settled in for what might be another horrifying cab-ride, or the third most interesting night of my life*. As we plopped our defeated carcasses in the seats a sage old voice piped up from the front seat, “First time in Vegas for you boys?” The voice was in English, and friendly. And to think I thought sacrificing that homeless man was going to go waste.

“Yes it is,” I stammered, “we’re here for my friend’s 21st birthday.”

“My name’s Larry, but people call me Yellow Cab Larry. What’s your names?”

“Travis and Bryan.”

“Well where would boys like to go?”

“Actually, Yellow Cab Larry, we’re looking for the type of entertainment that only Vegas can offer.”

“Well there’s some really nice clubs along the strip here…” This is where Bryan spoke up and pointed at the elephant in the room.

“We’re looking for swingers clubs dude.”

“I know exactly where to take you.”

Ladies and gentlemen meet Yellow Cab Larry, patron saint of guys like us, the desperate kind.

Larry weaved his way off of the strip and headed for, what is now a monument in my mind, Industrial Blvd. Industrial is pretty much the Mecca of strip clubs and hedonism. If it’s low class, naked, and will do anything for money or a tootsie roll, it can be found on Industrial. Larry pulled into a dilapidated strip mall (no pun intended) and stopped in front of a ramshackle building, whose windows were blacked out, and the red neon sign above the door simply read: SINFUL. The only thing that could have made this place more conspicuous would have been a sign next to it that read, “Get your cock sucked and your parking validated.” As we were getting ready to exit the cab, Larry stopped us to impart his ageless wisdom.

“Look fellas, here’s the deal. You pay $45 dollars to get into this place,” I only had fifty dollars left to my name and it all was sitting in my wallet, “and you get unlimited access for twenty-four hours. They don’t sell liquor inside, but you can buy booze and put it in a locker. You’ll get a hostess once you get inside,” look up the definition whore and a synonym for that is hostess, “if you hook up with her there’s some bills that’ll change hands. If there’s a crowd in there you’re free to mingle about and see what you can find. But I gotta warn ya, tourism’s been pretty dead since what happened to the Twin Towers, so don’t go counting on a big crowda people. You boys have fun.” With that, Yellow Cab Larry handed us his card and rolled off into the night; probably off to dispense more knowledge, or just to tell other customers about the two desperate and pathetic guys he just dropped off at the seediest brothel this side of a Mississippi trailer park blow job. Thanks Larry, you’re the best.

As we entered SINFUL it looked just like a tattoo parlour or a porn theater: Red walls, a ticket taker, and black leather couches. The difference maker was; seated upon those black couches were, to quote the vernacular, WHORES. There was one for each of us and the one that I got was hot. Not hot in the: I wanna take her home to mom way. Not hot in the: I bet that we could spend an evening watching quality tv shows way. Hot in the: HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I BET THAT SHE USED TO DO PORN kind of way. Bryan, in all fairness, got the ugly one. She sauntered her way over, skintight clothes being all…skintight and introduced herself. Her name was forgettable, but what wasn’t forgettable was that she had great boobs. That, and she was a whore. Yellow Cab Larry, you really were the best.

As the hooker took my hand and lead me through the velvet curtain (yes they had an actual velvet curtain separating the waiting room from the business part of the building) I thought to myself, if the hostess is this hot, there’s bound to be some decent looking people inside. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Keep in mind that this was about six months or so after September 11th and tourism was suffering all over the United States. Apparently the pay-for-poon industry was also suffering, because we were two of six patrons in that place. All delusions of meeting skanky chicks, that we didn’t have to pay for, went out the window. If we were getting any, we were definitely paying for it, and I just blew my last forty five dollars getting in the door.

Bryan and I made small talk with the whores, wondering exactly how we tell these girls who were showing ample amount of tit that we had no money for their services. We talked about the weather, 9-11, the porn that was playing on the big screen on the other side of the room. I asked the girls what the weirdest thing they had seen while working there was. To which I was told a story about a four hundred pound women up on the stripper stage, in a leather thong, doing open mic. poetry as someone spanked her. I vomited in the back of my mouth and quickly pushed the mental image aside.

Bryan’s prostitute noticed my eyebrow ring and decided that she needed to bring me up to speed on the detriment of piercings. She said something to the effect of, “You need to take that out, because eventually your skin will push it out and it will leave a nasty scar.” I tried to figure out how many student loan payments she had to make for her tenure at UNLV by blowing undergrads and tourists. Thanks hooker, I will definitely consider taking this stupid thing out. You seem to be at a substantially better place in your life than am and I appreciate your candor and concern for my physical appearance. But didn’t you just show my friend the silver hoop in your clit?

Then it was time broach the subject, to “get down to brass tax” as the case would be. The lovely young lady tells me that it would $50 for blow job. The blow job would take place right where I’m sitting, and in front of my friend and the bar tender. Or we could rent a private room, for an hour, and anything goes. Anything goes you say? Yes, anything goes. The price that she quoted me must have been the Holy shit I’m making no money since the bottom fell out of the tourism industry price because it was only $150. That’s right for $150 I could take this professional sex-machine back into a private room for an hour and “anything goes”. I silently cursed Bryan’s father, his ancestors, and Banking Center for not having my money yet, and then Bryan and I made a little more small talk and excused ourselves. Dejected again, this time for our lack of money, we headed back for our hotel.

Now while this may sound like a downer ending to an otherwise interesting story, the conversation that resulted from this made it worthwhile. Yes, you read that right, two guys head out to pay for sex and the best thing they get out of the entire night is the conversation on the way back to the hotel…with each other. Sometimes I hate my life too. On our way back to the hotel, spirits low, Bryan and I started talking about exactly what we had done that night. And what we would have done if his god-foresaken father had deposited our money. The conversation got further and further into the realm of disgusting by the time our cabby let us out.

In the situation where you pick up a girl at a bar, or you’re trying to impress a girl with your sexual prowess, you’ll pull out all the stops. You’ll try anything and everything to convince her that your wang is the end-all be-all of everything wang, and that she should worship your wang as the god-like entity that it is. But let’s face it, you’re not going to impress a prostitute. There is nothing that you can do, aside from lavishing gifts on her ala Pretty Woman, that she hasn’t seen, done, had on her face, or been asked to do. The phrase “donkey-anything” only brings up thoughts of her time in Tijuana when she was in the prostitute minor leagues and had to work her way up. Basically, you won’t be satisfying to her. And she’s a pro. She’ll do things to you that will make you blow your load faster than ever before. Your head will spin, your toes will curl, you’ll pass out, she’ll take the money and credit cards out your wallet, and you’ll wake up sticky, broke and confused. So what do you do?

Figuring that you paid for an entire hour with a professional ugly bumper (that’s a euphemism for cock-holster) you should get your money’s worth. Figuring that you aren’t going to impress her, or she’s going to make your time in the saddle as short as possible because she’s paying a baby-sitter over time, I bet out of that hour, you’ll have a good fifty minutes of time paid for, to kill. The quandary becomes: What do you do with that time?

Being a “rockstar” at that time, I began mentally inventorying every story revolving around things that groupies will do to get back stage to meet a star. Realizing that I would probably never be a legitimate rockstar I decided that with my money paid I would reenact the funniest “groupies gone wild” stories I’ve ever heard. I decided that if, given the opportunity, I would re-enact one of my favorite stories from Marilyn Manson’ biography “The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell”. Before going into the club I would’ve purchased a large jar of mayonnaise, a log of sliced bologna, and a sling shot. Once I was done with my business I would take my remaining time drinking whiskey through a silly straw and dipping the bologna slices in mayonnaise and then flinging them at the hooker’s ass. Yes it’s crude and a bit misogynistic, but think about the hilarity that would ensue when you told her what you wanted to do.

WHORE: Was that good for you baby?

ME: Yeah, but not as good as what’s about to happen.

WHORE: Ooooh, what’s that baby?

ME: *pulls out bologna and slingshot and gives the prostitute the People’s Eyebrow* SHAZAAM!!!!!!!

WHORE: It’s time for me to find jesus.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Come Friday morning both Byan and I were severly ready to leave Vegas, sober up, and put behind us the shameful events of our trip. We decided that instead of catching our 4pm flight we'd head to the airport and try to catch an earlier, and apparently MUCH MORE COMPLICATED, flight. We got the McCaren about seven and a half minutes after the noon flight stopped boarding. No matter how much we begged and pleaded there was no way in hell that we were going to be able to get on the earlier flight. To make matters worse they wouldn't allow us to check our baggage until two hours before our flight. So there we stood, dumb-founded, suffering a four day hangover and toting our luggage around like extremely oversized colostomy bags. We killed time by wandering laps around the airport and and hoping that we'd be able to get through security and have dinner before we lost all of our composure and were arrested for being terrorists.

I think the next time I go back I will attempt to top my first visit. Though, admittedly, the next time I return will be for my bachelor party and I’ll be dressed up like a superhero and riding around on a lark, drunker than a southern Baptist preacher at a high school dance and pretending I’m retarded. Mazel Tov.

*(The most interesting night of my life was when I, and a couple of friends were, assaulted and car jacked by three escaped folsom prison inmates. The second most interesting night of my life was when I accidentally stabbed my old room mate. If you don’t believe me, here is her myspace profile, send her a message and ask her if I really stabbed her in the leg with a civil war sword)

As far as we here at FTTW know, Travis has never had bologna up his ass. Liverwurst, maybe. But never bologna.

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