I don’t remember the first time I entered a brothel. All I remember was the churning in my stomach as each step toward the door took me closer to being inside. Over the years I made countless visits, the evenings blending together into one long night of miniskirts and eyeliner. I remember that each time I walked up the three brick steps to the gate, how the only light in the alleyway seemed to come from the soft yellow glow of the doorbell. How each time the moment between ringing the doorbell and the buzzing of the lock I always felt excitement, knowing I was about to step foot into one of the shadowy corners of the city most people don’t visit.

I never went inside for any reason other than to get my finder’s fee for bringing out-of-town conventioneers and uninitiated locals through the door, but I always went in because it was easy money and they wouldn’t give you the cash if you stayed in the cab. Late-night fares would sometimes ask me where they could get a rub-and-tug and when I told them I knew a better place I could take them, they always tipped heavy upon arrival.

And it was always entertaining to bring someone in. Upon entering I always sat on the small couch closest to the door, away from the girls, near the madam who sat watching a dozen screens worth of surveillance cameras. She was an older woman, somewhere between forty and sixty with long black hair, usually tied up in a bun and while I think she was Chinese, the fact that she referred to herself as Mama-san always made me wonder. She was very polite, and after I began to make regular appearances, she never failed to get up from her seat to bring me a cup of jasmine tea as soon as I sat down. It seemed like when I worked nights I saw her once a week, and after a while I just called her Mama and she just addressed me as “my friend.”

Each time I came in I sat on that same couch, sipped tea and watched the same scene unfold. The girls sitting in multicolored skirts and bikini tops and lingerie and heels would hop to attention, hands on their hips as we came through the door. The johns would stand in the middle of the room and drink them all in, some of them uncertain, others overly confident as they picked out a girl and she invariably led them through the door in the back. Sometimes the men would stand there drunk and overwhelmed, unable to make up their minds, and after a minute or two one of the girls would step forward, grab hold of his shirt and walk him towards the back before he could change his mind. When there was more than one man they always talked to each other about the girls as if they weren’t standing right in front of them, though I don’t know that all the girls could understand what they were saying. The men would remark on their hips, their breasts, their lips as if they were kicking tires at a used car lot. Occasionally one of the johns would pick two girls and they would giggle, grab an arm, throw it over their narrow shoulders and lead him towards the the back as me and Mama watched it all.

As soon as the men disappeared from view, the girls who weren’t picked would sit back down on the two long couches and get back to filing their nails, applying perfume, playing with their phones and digging through their knockoff designer purses while waiting for the door to inevitably buzz again. I remember sometimes as I sat and watched, a group of them would stare at me and speak to each other in Chinese or Korean or Thai before bursting into laughter, covering their mouths with their hands before quickly looking away. I always had to wait for the money, passing the time sitting and around drinking tea with Mama, watching the girls primp and preen. I never saw a girl working there that wasn’t Asian. Chinatown mobsters smuggled them over from China and other eastern countries by promising them jobs that didn’t involve blowing coked up hedge fund managers, turning them out the second they stepped off the boat. Which is why I didn’t have a problem taking their money. If it was a choice between my kickback going to Triads running chicks out of Asia or me, the choice was obvious. Most of the money I was making came covered in dirt anyways, so taking ten percent from a bunch of crooks didn’t cause me to think twice.

The money was always the same – forty dollars per guy, per visit. The business was all conducted in the back, each man laying out four hundred bucks once they had been escorted to a private room. While the men disrobed and showered, the girls would excuse themselves, drop the money to Mama, pay me and then disappear to the back. I remember lots of waiting while all this happened – sometimes five minutes, sometimes fifteen. I remember lots of small talk with Mama while waiting for the girls to come and give me my kickback. We talked of upcoming city events that were good for both our businesses while overweight men fucked the girls on the tiny black-and-white monitors in front of us. Neither of us ever acknowledged the images that danced silently across the screens, instead talking about the weather and baseball and our chances of making it to the playoffs this year.

Eventually, each girl that had been selected by my customers would reappear from the back of the house, walk over to me and without saying a word, slip the folded bills into my pants. Sometimes the girl would crouch down when she did this so that I wouldn’t notice her sneak up beside me until I felt a hand going into my pocket. Sometimes they leaned over me from behind, close enough that I could smell the cheap perfume they all seemed to wear, breasts brushing against my face as they slid their hands down my chest to pay me. I remember one girl brazenly squeezing my cock through my jeans, smiling at me as she walked away.

As soon as I had been paid, I never lingered. I always said thank you to Mama before heading for the door, knowing it was only a matter of time before I would be back with more men who would pay to fuck more girls who would hand me more money while I watched on the screens, drinking more tea to pass the time.