The last thing I will say before getting to Karly is that professional or not, you can always tell whether an escort is happy to see you. Not happy like happy, but happy like not having to pretend you don’t want to kill yourself. Dark, I know, but it’s true. You can see it in their eyes. And the Jersey coast, while it can definitely pop off, is still no city and certainly no Vegas, meaning the girls who work the area aren’t exactly servicing the finest citizens most of the time. Plenty of eyes tell plenty of stories, and pretending emanates through them like the smell of latex through the carpeted, used up room when you finally decide to check out. It’s palpable. And hey, it’s probably like that everywhere anyway, but I wasn’t everywhere, I was at the Surf City Hotel. And when Karly came to the room, I could tell she was happy to see me. Or at the very least, relieved not to have seen something else.
I had pre-gamed at the shorter of the two bars downstairs, the one with “Clam Bar” in huge letters glued to the front of it, and talked about the Chiefs with a fisherman named Henry who decided to take his wife to the island for the weekend. On my first beer, we exchanged pleasantries and agreed that Mahomes would definitely win a SuperBowl in the next three years, and probably sooner. On my fifth beer and a shot of well-whiskey, my arm was around the guy’s neck as I told him and his wife (Fiona?) how lucky they were to have each other, and to be here at this side-room clam bar with me while our dilapidated space-rock shifted aimlessly in the
great void, carrying a one-way ticket to nowhere. I told them that their love inspired me and that I hoped to bring my true love to the same hotel one day. Then I left to meet with my prostitute.
Nick Denardi 