Sail to the Sun

Many of the men who came to the inn to dine knew exactly what happened there, in the downstairs club, and, although they did not play in the same game that the miners who frequented the club did, they played nonetheless. Hoagie was strict about all of his waiters sticking with the dinner service during the inn’s dinner hours, but any male customer who asked for the special menu had choices he could make in waiters and services by ordering by letter and number from this menu—and, for a price, for a very hefty price—he would be ushered to one of the inn’s special rooms after the dinner hour was completed. There he would be attended to by the waiter of his choice and served the services of his choice for which he had prepaid.

That evening I learned I was being ordered off the special menu—and when Hoagie informed me of that, I started to scrutinize the dinner customers, playing the game of trying to figure out who it was. Several of the men present had been ogling me and were quite friendly. Some others treated me like I was part of the wallpaper—but I had learned from experience that this often was a diversionary tactic, especially when their dining companions were their wives or girlfriends. Sometimes they went out of their way to at least pretend they weren’t interested in me.

I surveyed the room. I was apprehensive, because Hoagie had smiled a cruel smile when he’d told me I had work to do between the dinner service and my dancing stints at the club. A chill went up my spine when I saw that three men who were dining together were all giving me the once over and putting their heads together and whispering. I had visions of them all taking me together. I did not have to imagine what that might entail, because it had happened to me before.

Several of the tables I serviced were of groups of women, and although some of those groups were quite friendly to me, I dismissed them as possibilities. As far as I knew, Hoagie kept a male-only establishment here and none of the other waiters had ever told me they serviced women. There were a couple of young couples—but even more middle-aged and elderly couples. Most of these were ones who, although pleasant to me, were engrossed with their dining companions and barely saw me. Even more of the men of the older couples barely saw their female companions either—they were totally absorbed in their meals.