“Stephanie is a good name,” he said. “It makes a man think of pretty tissue paper.”
The company, called Value Enterprise Association, was run out of the ground floor of Lao Ting’s luxurious three-story family complex on the beach in Ventura. It was a family business and had an old-fashioned quality that put me at ease. I never understood the nature of the company’s services, but I liked Lao Ting. He was kind and generous, and I saw no reason to question him. The job was easy. I had to memorize some names, some figures, put on the suit, makeup, use hair spray, perfume, high heels, and so forth. Everybody at the office was very gracious and professional. There was no gossip, no fooling around, no disrespect. Instead of a watercooler, they had a large stainless-steel samovar of boiling-hot water set up in the foyer. The family drank green tea and Horlicks malted milk from large ceramic mugs. Lao Ting’s wife, Gigi, gave me my own mug to use, like I was part of the family. I spent a lot of time sitting on the deck, looking out at the sea. It felt good to be out during the day, and to be appreciated. Lao Ting assured me that he would never expect me to engage in unprofessional activities with clients or vendors, and I never did. Everything was handled very honorably.
? ? ?
The surrogate position paid six times what I’d been making answering phones for the Marriott. I quickly paid off my credit-card debt and moved into a converted loft in an industrial area of El Rio. I furnished it with rentals and little decorations from gift shops. I was relieved to sell my car, a huge white Cadillac that had been on the brink of engine failure. Lao Ting employed a service to drive me everywhere I needed to go for work, and when I went out to clubs and parties on the weekends, I called cabs. I could afford it. I mostly went to the underground clubs and after-parties downtown or out in the desert. It was a weird crowd—freaks edged out of the LA scene, kinks from the valley, middle-aged ravers, tech rats on acid, kids on E, old women, the usual hustlers. I got dressed up special on the weekends. I liked to wear a trench coat, an old hat like a detective’s, and large, tinted eyeglasses. Underneath my coat I wore a lacy red teddy. I’d snipped at the fabric around the crotch to accommodate my genitals, which were abnormally swollen due to a pituitary situation. Underneath the teddy, there were pennies taped over my nipples and a cutout photo of Charlie Chaplin’s face taped across my pubis. I felt good wearing all that. Even before I got the job as the surrogate, I felt like normal clothes were all just costumes.
I’d been ashamed to bring men back to the studio in Oxnard because it smelled like a deep fryer, and there was no place to sit but on the grubby carpeted floor or on my bed, which felt too intimate. When I took men home to my loft in El Rio, which I didn’t do often, they looked around at my stuff and asked me what I did for work.
“I’m the surrogate vice president of a business enterprise,” I’d say. I’d sit them down on the rented couch and give them a clear plastic bag to put over their heads if they so desired. When my swelling was particularly bad, I got a little uptight. “I do not want to make love,” I said to one man I remember. He was handsome and tan. He wore white clothes for dancing the capoeira, which is what drew me to him.
“‘Do not want,’” he repeated, chortling under the plastic, his eyes sparkling.
“I don’t do sex,” I explained. “I just want to strip.”
During the long cab ride from the club, he’d talked like this: “My work pays for everything—drinks, meals, travel, hotels. I go to Canada all the time. Coffee shops, theater tickets, everything. I get reimbursed,” he was saying. “Quote unquote,” he said over and over. His hands twitched and his eyes were hot-wired and roving, like there was lightning trapped inside of his eyeballs.
“Tell me something secret,” I said to him, unknotting the belt of my coat.
“I have pet bunnies,” he said. He sat up straight on the edge of the couch. “White with red eyes. I feed them meat. I feed them tuna.” Then again, “While I’m in Canada, quote unquote, a neighbor babysits them, my little babies,” and so forth.
Being watched was the only erotic pleasure I could really enjoy. After I removed my trench coat, I took off my shoes. Next, I undid the snaps of the teddy and let it fall to my feet. “I do not want to make love,” I reiterated, as I plucked the pennies from my nipples.
“‘Do not want’?” the man repeated. “Why do you talk that way?”
“For emphasis,” I said. I told him to peel the photograph of Charlie Chaplin off my pubis. He flicked at the Scotch tape with his long, brown fingers. He wasn’t in any rush. It was like he had enough excitement happening inside his eyeballs. Maybe, to him, the rest of life was just so-so.
“Who’s this guy?” he asked.
“Hitler,” I said.
He gasped, and I pulled the plastic bag from his head.
“Limos, dinners, dance clubs,” he was saying. He yanked at the photograph and my labia tumbled out against my thighs. “Ha-ha,” he said, poking. “You have more than meets the eye.”
? ? ?
Gigi was the operations manager. She helped me with my hair and makeup and prepped me for meetings with the businessmen. We got to know each other pretty well. One time, I told her about my troubles in romance. “I can’t engage with normal people,” I explained. “When I go to the grocery store, or out for dinner at a normal restaurant, I am frightened. I don’t understand how to act. Men pay me attention because of my looks. But I feel it is a mistake to look for love in these normal people. They’re too neurotic. They aren’t capable of love, only of comfort and equanimity.”
Gigi said, “Don’t worry about finding a husband. When the woman is the hunter, she can only see the weak men. All strong men disappear. So you don’t need to hunt, Stephanie Reilly. You can live on a higher level. Just float around and you will find someone. That is how I found Lao Ting. It was as if there were a spotlight on him and he walked on air about two feet off the ground. I saw him from a mile away, floating down Rego Boulevard. Funny to imagine now, but he was once a very handsome man.”
“That’s beautiful, Gigi,” I said.
“It’s a beautiful love story. I will tell you more about it another time.”
? ? ?