I was visiting Amsterdam a short time back. A girl's weekend, two friends and I. After a lovely dinner, they wisely decided to call it a night. I, however, ventured out to the city's infamous Red Light Districtβ¦alone. The canals were electric, alive and glowing from the reflection of the bright neon marquess advertising live sex shows and private dances.
The narrow cobblestone streets were lit by red lights casting a glow above the small shop windows. That was where the girls were and my real purpose that night. Some of the girls were more overt, obvious. You know, the ones you'd imagine dressed in black lingerie, heavily contoured cheeks and spiked, shiny boots. A couple had a Britney Spears Oops, I Did It Again feel, with super short pleated kilts and blouses tied high just below their heaving breasts. A few looked more academic, the sexy librarian vibe with messy up-dos and reading glasses teetering on the edge of their noses.
There was even one woman who had to be in her sixties, looking so very, very tired and worn. She stood out from the rest. I'm not sure why I was so intrigued by them or why it was so important for me to hire one for the sole purpose of talking to her and hearing her story. I wasn't sure if I had the nerve. Not the talking bitβ that I knew I could do, but to knock on their window in the first place.
But as fate would have it, standing in her doorway, one girl started talking to me first. Outside her window stood one messy older-looking man. She looked back at me and said, "sure, why not? I gave her 70 and made myself comfortable as the two of us lay on a vinyl covered mattress that countless had laid on before. There was no where else to sit. As if she had used that line a thousand times, becoming everything and nothing to everyone who entered that room.
She was just shy of her 18th birthday when her boyfriend, 22, "put her in the window. Quickly I started making more money than I had ever seen. She was one of seven sisters, split between two marriages. Her mother, 61, knew what she was doing or what she did back then.
