trato de novios
an autopsy of desireSpecial Features.
LINKS
For once she can breathe.
There is little to save a man when Hell beckons and the ground opens up beneath his feet. Only the streets, jail, and the morgue are strong enough to break his fall. A woman, however, can count on a detour to appear just before she hits bottom—something that keeps her from falling any further and sometimes even offers a way back when nobody and nothing else will.
SOLICITANDO CHICAS says the sign. There's one on this block and the next and the next. Pride is the first thing she'll swallow. Once the money starts rolling in there's no looking back. For once she can pay the light bill before they cut it off again. For once she can pay the protection money that keeps her baby-daddy alive in jail. For once she can buy her son a toy instead of putting it back and watching him start to cry. For once she can breathe. She makes her peace with it after a while. There's no use walking around angry all the time.
This is a work of fiction that never veers far from the facts. The subject is lurid and sensational. Its treatment is anything but. Detractors insist it's exploitative. Advocates retort that's it's candid, frank, bold, honest, open. Dangerous even. Any time someone holds up a mirror, there's a chance you're not going to like what it reflects. People, places, and things are presented the way those who live there actually see them. Don't take my word for it. Ask them yourself. Here's your chance. Y por una vez cállate el hocico. Listen to what they have to say.
¡Llévame al cuarto!
It's a side street and not the main thoroughfare. Several tipos mill about the curb.
She can't be more than twenty-two. Long black hair cascades to her waist. A tarnished amulet—the tree of life—hangs from a braided chain around her neck. The straps of her heels remain unfastened. Not worth the effort today.
She looks ill. Sweating. Shivering. Takes more than that to keep her away. The bouncer puts down his phone long enough to get her a chair to sit on and something to put around her shoulders.
"Llévame al cuarto. ¿Quieres coger?"
Her voice is hoarse. Her heart's not in it. In any event her plea to passers-by is drowned out by the horn of a taxi that accelerates before the light turns.
It's a world of inversion. Spite hides behind a smile. Disgust poses as mock pleasure. Her tone is affectionate, but the interaction couldn't be more anonymous. The more vulgar she becomes, the more the guys think she means it. Everything about the experience is bogus, insincere, contrived, but it always works. Guys lap it up, leave with a grin, and return as soon as they can afford to. They have their favorites and visa versa, but at the heart of it all lies the message that people—even at their most vulnerable—are replaceable, interchangeable, expendable, disposable. The surface is all there is. No moment matters more than any other. Get attached at your own risk.
What happens when the lights come up and she gets on the bus and goes home? What then? Who watches the kids or takes care of mom when it's time to go to work? What if she gets diarrhea or menstrual cramps so bad she can't get out of bed? What else is there to dream of or reach for? Standing in a doorway in lingerie. Manufacturing erections. Ingesting their contents. One slob down—ten to go. Fifteen if it's a good night. There's a human story somewhere in the background, in some colonia where the #68 or #223 bus finishes its run. There is someone she needs and loves and someone who needs and loves her. Does anybody know? Does anybody care? Would it change things if someone did?
("Get attached at your own risk," he said. The reporter soon discovers the consequences of not taking his own advice. Compassion is both an Achilles heel and a target on his back. The only way out is to stop caring about the things that matter most.)
The Pedestal.
FORWARD.
What follows will never be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster. There is no "hero's journey." There is no hero. Just a collection of characters who speak for themselves. To each other. And to you.
If I've done my job well, you will find a dark and brooding, intense, and painfully candid meditation on—not the dark side of the city or the temptations of the night but something all together more perverse—human nature. And if there's a brothel involved, it's the one we're all familiar with, the one outside the door, the one we wake up to everyday, the one some call "necessity" and others "opportunity." The one called the real world. Everything else pales by comparison.
Everyone brings to a work of art their own understanding—conceits they rush to assert and assumptions they rush to defend. Everything I've written is meant to challenge what you know and think you know. All of it. And each of you.
I.
In broad daylight. At dusk. At 3:00 AM. A quick glance. An outstretched arm. Their pleas are interrupted by the flash and the momentary deafness brought on by a gunshot at point blank range.
It wasn't always this easy.
They say there's a first time for everything, but how many of you have murdered another person? Seriously considered it. Planned it. Carried it out.
It's funny how you wake up one day and know right away. Today is the day. The sun. The breeze. The sound of the traffic. Everything is just right.
But that first time, that first time you were nervous. You shook. You blinked. Goddammit you were almost as scared as he was. Or she. It was a she the first time. That fat pig Juana who used to borrow money from the girls to cover what she lost at the casino then tell them they had to work harder so she could pay them back. She knew how to zero in on the vulnerable ones. The new ones. More desperate than the rest. Or the ones who just couldn't say no.
"She's not your friend," you told them.
"But she needs it to keep the business open," they replied.
That's what she told them. They believed her at first. They learned. They always learned. Juana charged them a fine if they missed a day. Three hundred pesos. Imagine having to pay a fine for missing out on screwing poor slobs on payday. They learned about that too.
Juana took the first one. Bits of skull and brain hit the wall behind the desk. Blood spattered over the ledger that kept track of which girl did what and when and a half eaten order of tacos from Tlaquepaque on Rayón. Just wasn't her day.
There's a buzz that goes along with all this. All you can see is what's right in front of you—sharp in the middle and hazy around the edges. Everything freezes just like with the Pentothal at the dentist's office. It wears off a few blocks away when you hear the sirens. But you're good. You pulled it off. You'll never blend in here, but who cares. Grab a cab. Get the fuck out. Like the kid who hanged himself from a tree the other morning, it won't even make the news.
Certain things are unthinkable until they aren't. What changes? You see something. Understand something. There's no going back. That's the problem with reality. It keeps bumping into what we want to believe is true. Sometimes it smashes it to bits.
Pepe was next. Then Carlos. Then Claudia across town. Then the media caught on, and things got crazy. But there was no stopping. Carlos Salazar. Diego Montemayor. Platón Sanchez. Reforma. (That was a triple--three in one block.)
¿Abierto?
Cerrado.
II.
You can get there by taking a bus. Or a cab. Or just walk. You know what it looks like. You know what you're looking for. Sketchy. Seedy. Marginal. Turns out the margins are centrally located. Ground zero even. This is the place where wants and needs collide—and collude, where folks get what they came for and come back for more, and the only thing real is the change in your pocket and a handful of bills carefully folded at the bottom of a purse.
The characters are composites. Their names don't matter for any name we choose belongs to somebody somewhere doing this very thing this very minute. The place is easy to find. Google may or may not be your friend, but she certainly is your enabler.
III.
I didn't pick the prettiest, or the youngest, or the thinnest, or the one with the highest heels, or the biggest breasts or the most skin showing. I picked the one who was smiling and had a sparkle in her eyes. The others looked miserable, too tired to even go through the motions. I'm not George Clooney, but I am thin, clean, polite, fit even, and far from a slob. I picked the one who made it seem like she actually wanted to be with me. I mentioned it to her, afterwards. She smiled and said she knew how to compete with the others, improve her chances. Maximize her strengths, I suppose. Overcome her deficiencies.
A door opens slightly on a busy corner. La puerta con el espejo. The noise of the traffic briefly subsides. A women's voice. "Pásele caballero. Pásele. Aquí están las chicas. Pásele."
A week later we're making out at Starbucks and every park bench we can find. The words flow freely. "I love you." Hand in hand, block after block. Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to embrace. A flood of something that hasn't seen the light of day in ages. For either of us, apparently. The taste of her kisses lingers long after she's gotten into a cab at midnight. Red taillights merge with traffic and vanish out of sight.
Smart, sassy, silly, serious, sexy, sensitive, speaks well, clever, erudite—yeah, she can discuss literature and art and architecture. Did I mention she was smart? Would have made one helluva wife—in another life—back when it would have mattered, when it would have changed things. A partner with whom to plan and build and make it all worthwhile at a time when dreams still beckoned and pages were yet to be written.
Life is funny like that, cruel even. You don't meet who you should meet when you should meet her. It's simple, really. No work-arounds. No shortcuts. No take-backs. No do-overs. Especially that. Ever.
The buses belch soot as they race down the street. The prostitute spits out a mouthful of semen. Or lets it dribble to the floor before she gets the mop from the hall.
Prostitute. Say it out loud. Use the right word, asshole. She's not a whore or a "puta". Those are insults you spit in a woman's face when you're feeling threatened by what she does and what it says about you. The word is prostitute. Sex-worker. It's a job description.
That's a starting point at least.
IV.
Some are 24/7, others 9 to 9. A multicolored LED sign. ABIERTO. OPEN. The downscale ones have the girls standing in the doorway, on the sidewalk even. The better ones leave the door slightly ajar. The girls sit on a sofa just visible to passers-by.
What is a guy really after when he buys sex? The physical satisfaction. Sure. He's going through the motions just like she is. He'll say that's all there is, but there's something he's not telling you—something he can barely tell himself.
He took the easy way out.
He wants to compete with the big boys, but he can't. He wants to believe that he's got what it takes, but he doesn't. Think it through. If he could—if he did—he wouldn't be there. He knows that too, and nothing he says or does makes that knowledge go away. He carries it with him every step down the hall, every thrust on the bed, and back out to the sidewalk as he rounds the corner and disappears out of sight. Maybe he gets it some place else too. Maybe he doesn't. He's smug. Thinks he's a player, even if it's just the minor leagues. Thinks he got away with something. And he did. Just not what he imagines.
What did you really buy, Sonny? What did she sell you? You got your twenty minutes of fame, of fantasy—she sold you that. Good for her. You buy strokes all day long—identity, validity—every time you pick up your phone or turn on a TV. She made you feel like you were somebody, somebody who mattered, somebody good—good enough at least. You rented her body, but you bought her performance. You bought something else too—her predicament, her powerlessness, her capitulation, her resignation, the choices and compromises she's made that place her in that room as a paid receptacle for your penis. Proud of yourself?
(Twenty minutes of fame? More like five. The girls have zero reason to indulge, and most guys aren't all that anyway.)
You bought her desperation and her willingness to feed your fantasy for a price. You paid her to convince you of something you can't convince yourself of. You paid her to lie to you.
Newsflash. Women who are into you aren't using their own saliva or a tube of lube.
Cut to the chase. You're buying sex because you can, because you want to, because you have to.
Because that's what works best given all YOUR limitations, inadequacies, insecurities.
You're buying sex because of your predicament—your powerlessness, your capitulation, your resignation, and all the choices and compromises you've made that make you a poor candidate for genuine attention and affection. Things which you won't do anything about because it's so much easier to buy it outright than to build a trusting relationship where intimacy thrives.
You're buying sex because fantasy is always better than reality, and your reality sucks. You're buying sex because you're desperate enough to believe in lies that make you feel good. You paid her to make it sound real, seem real for a few minutes even though you both know it's not and no amount of money will ever change that. Maybe you feel better. Maybe you don't. Oh, the sex was real enough—you stuck it somewhere that made you feel good. But not the why. Not what it meant. Not the take home message. Sure there was a mess on the floor, but everything else was manufactured, simulated, packaged, sold to you. You wouldn't have gotten a goddamn thing were it not for the money in your pocket that ended up in hers. She doesn't want you. She doesn't even like you. You didn't seduce—the contents of your wallet did. You were reduced to a number on a tally sheet just like everybody else who walked in that day. She did to you exactly what you did to her. A stain on a mattress. Maybe it goes deeper than that.
You'll never be a man to her, just a dollar sign. She'll never be a woman to you, just a prop for your ego, a boost for your vanity.
The guy who buys sex is buying a rejection free atmosphere where he has nothing to lose—nothing that he values at least. He gets what he pays for, and he'll be back for more come payday. Maybe sooner. His behavior is encouraged by the marginalization of women in Mexico that targets those who have little to offer beyond their bodies—poor women, working class women, indigenous women. The bottom line revolves around the fact that he has discretionary income and she doesn't. It's as simple as that.
Ask the girls, and they'll tell you. In their eyes the guys who go to brothels are the lowest of the low. Easy pickings. Ripe for manipulation. Only good for one thing. It never dawns on the guys how the assembly line nature of it cuts both way. Each guy boasts that his girl takes the others for all they've got, but with him "it's different." Each one thinks he's the exception and not the rule. The industry thrives on that.
V.
What's my excuse? This woman in this place? She doesn't care that I suck on a dance floor. She doesn't care that I don't follow professional sports. Those things don't even come up. None of that matters here. What matters is that I am flush with cash. First it was an hour. Then it was two. I would walk in three minutes behind her. I wanted to be her first. Soon I was buying the shift. We would leave right after she got there. I wanted to be her only. In spite of everything—or because of it—I put her on a pedestal. She seemed to like that. I wanted her to like that.
(This is the first in a series and serves to introduce the style, the tone, and the attitude this writer employs.)
Noir was never like this.
Neo-noir, neon-noir, sunshine noir—the list goes on.
Try gonzo noir.
You heard that right. Trato de Novios aims to be the epitome of a genre that might not exist but sounds too good to pass up.
Cynical. Chaotic. Bold. Bleak. Brutal. Bizarre when that's what it takes. Irreverent but never irrelevant. Extreme, of course. The antidote to the obscenity of everyday life. (When mainstream culture embraces the darkness, not going along with it becomes the mark of a good man.) Maybe it's time to be honest for once. Trato de Novios is brazen enough to point out the absurdities and naive enough to think it makes a difference. We can do better than this. Or not. What do you want to believe is true?
Here's something you can count on. As a writer, my voice stands out. And then some. Think we might click and accomplish something big? I'm always open to collaborating with the right person on the right project. Put me on your team, or let's build one of our own. Give me a shout.
Hasta pronto, Wallace. (March 2026.)
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