Page 5 of The Secret Dinner

I continued down the list. Dominatrix experienced in foot fetish, role reversal, silver shower, golden shower, fisting, tit torture, CBT, spanking, puppy play. Piglet would go nuts. I figured it best not to call. Cora the Poet. Age: Twenty-three. Height: Five feet eight. Weight: 130 pounds. Food: All. Books: Poetry. Music: Bob Dylan. In bed I’m: Pricey. I called her.

“Who is this?” she answered, like she was in the middle of something very important. She had a deep, domineering but pleasant voice, like a cabaret singer. There was traffic noise in the background.

“I saw your ad and I’d like to hire you.”

“Right now?”

“Next week. The nineteenth.”

It was like making a doctor’s appointment. Do you take Blue Cross?

“Look, it’s kind of a delicate situation,” I said. I was so tired of women hanging up on me that I even briefly considered leaving out Piglet’s weight.

“Where are you now?”

“Copacabana.”

“So am I. Can you meet me?” I insisted. “I’d rather speak in person.”

“You buying lunch?”

I looked at my watch. It was already past noon. I had to eat, change, and be at the bookstore by three.

“Okay,” I said.

We arranged to meet in thirty minutes at lifeguard station 2.

4

Cora was already waiting for me by the time I arrived. She looked just like her photos, only fully dressed, her big breasts hidden inside a tight tank, and not blindfolded. She was smoking a cigarette, sitting on a bench on the boardwalk facing the water, with her legs crossed and her back straight. It was windy out and there weren’t many people on the bike path.

I crossed the street and gently tapped her shoulder. She stood up (she was a good half a head taller than me). When we shook hands, her long, possibly fake red nails scratched me slightly. She wore makeup and colorful gym clothes: a neon red top and bright printed leggings. She was incredibly beautiful, with olive skin and curly dark brown hair almost to her waist. She had a square face and prominent chin, a button nose, and full lips that gripped her cigarette. Her smell was a mix of mint and Aussie conditioner.

“Are you hungry? I’m starving,” she said.

She stomped out her cigarette with her pink running shoe and took me by the arm like we were close. There was something in the way she walked, the way she tilted her head and devoured me with her eyes. We walked four blocks like that, without exchanging another word. I didn’t know where to begin, but she must have been used to customers who didn’t say much. We chose Galeto Sat’s, the rotisserie chicken place. Without looking at the menu, she ordered the whole grilled chicken, farofa with eggs, broccoli rice, and a Coke Zero. Then she grinned at me and said, “Dante … I like your name.”

“Thanks. I like yours, too.”

“I love my name. I took it from Cora Coralina, she’s from my hometown. You heard of her?”

“Yeah.”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, like an actress preparing to go onstage.

“Inside me lives an old cabocla, with an evil eye, crouched by the hearth, looking at the fire. She blesses the bewitching. She casts spells … Ogum. Orisha. Macumba, terreiro. Ogã, pai-de-santo…” she declaimed in a pronounced accent, waving her arms at me. “That’s one of her poems. Cora was a poet, I’m a prostitute. It’s pretty much the same thing. We seduce with few words.”

I smiled back at her and looked at the waiter as he brought us our drinks. Cora raised her glass.

“It’s not for you, is it?”

“I’m gay.”

“I could tell when you arrived. But I dunno … I’ve seen it all. Old dudes, old ladies, priests, ministers. One time a drag queen wanted to go to bed with me.”

“It’s not for me.”

“Shame, I thought you were cute.”