The Corkroom

The Corkroom was not on the main drag, where one could go for drink and woman with little money. I was down an unlit side street. I'd discovered it one night when a girl I'd argued with left me stranded in a hotel room.

"Where's your wife?" she said.
"Excuse me?"

"Is it okay if I wait?"
"I guess," she said. "Do you want water? Or coffee?"

It surprised me how little it took to take something so virtuous as a woman's virginity.

For some reason I believed her.

She looked at me, stricken. "I don't know," she said finally.



She smiled. She didn't seem offended.

The way she said this made me feel dismissed. I wanted to correct her. I wnated to be able to change her mind, wanted her to be able to change my mind.


The Corkroom had red velvet walls and a dining room lit by artificial torches. A suit of armor marked the entrance to this culinary castle where, we were told, the customer was always king.

Like pawing through the t-shirt sales rack at a Walmart.

The window lit with neon signs that announced the existence of women.

The window lit with neon signs that procalimed the establishment stocked only the youngest women.

Like several of the other local cafeterias, the Corkroom often hired former convicts whose jobs were arranged through parole officers and work-release programs.

Untrendy

Smells of smoldering charcoal and grilling meat