Free Tales of Times Square: Expanded Edition by Josh Alan Friedman Page B

even discharge into fifty-cent French-tickler condoms from the store’s vending machine. These will be discarded on the floor.
    Arnholt waits his turn, careful to avoid the jolt of eye contact. A crowd of gawkers stare aimlessly at the women on display in the “one-on-one” booths. An Eisenhower dollar buys a minute on the phone with one of these broads—but a full-length glass partition, dripping with ejaculate, keeps you at bay. Arnholt never springs for the telephone gimmick—what if the peep girl spots him later at a debutante ball?
    Roving quarter-cashiers double as barkers, trying to perpetuate some cosmic momentum of flowing cash. “C’mon, fellas, keep those quarters comin’, take a booth or clear the aisle, get your change here for live sexy girls, four for a quarter”. Every ten minutes, one of the four sexy girls is replaced. A hidden female emcee announces each new entry, guaranteeing they’ll love her.
    “Foxy Bertha joining the sexy girls now, big daddy, all for a quarter, love to love you, baby, come in your pants, yeah, right now!” A fat man, barely able to stuff his huge belly into the narrow booth, responds to the mating call. Unsatisfied customers linger in the aisle, checking at each interval until they find a girl worthy of their jizz. They’ve come in blue jeans, in cowboy hats, on crutches; there are even palsied spastics. But this being the workaday lunch hour, the business community prevails in suit and tie. After all, this is a commercialized form of voyeurism, a modern way to go girl-watching, you might say.
    Arnholt regrets missing the “Boy-Girl Duos”—Cuban refugees who fuck on a revolving platform (which switches off with “Lesbian Love Teams” on weekends). Current disco Top 40 shakes the walls; Arnholt knows of this only as peep show music. Two black guys are about to tear into each other with Afro picks, but the cashier spots something more distressing—some nitwit peering into the crack of an occupied stall for a free peek. This unfortunate is verbally assaulted the hell out. Arnholt doesn’t dare interfere. He’s humiliated to find himself here, straining not to draw attention, eyes downcast to the floor.
    A central booth opens and Arnholt makes his move. The soles of his Oxfords skid for a moment like ice skates and he notices a sopping Kleenex contemptuously wedged into a crevice. The management expects this, it’s part of the operation. The adjacent booth is being mopped by professional scum-scrubbers; mop-and-pail Leroys, urban descendants of dung-shoveling stable jockeys. They work their roll mops like dance partners, soaked in Fast & Easy ammonia, which they slide into unoccupied booths in sync with the disco backbeat. With the outward boogie-oogie-oogie sweep comes a trail of used Kleenex. Arnholt takes a freshened booth. He hangs his coat and briefcase on the hook and flips the lock. In the womblike confines of his own private stall, Arnholt stands like a horse in heat. A hefty supply of quarters jingles in his pocket and he knows he better keep ‘em comin’ or the management will slam on his door. This is a peak turnover hour and others are anxious for Arnholt’s booth. He has seen certain customers try to settle down and make the booth their permanent living quarters. But the management is fast to catch on and charge them 25¢ per minute rent (or $10,800 a month, according to Arnholt’s quick mathematical brain). He flips a quarter into the slot, which triggers an ascending metal curtain. The partition slowly rises to reveal a naked Times Square maiden writhing about on a rotating platform. Spread-eagled twats and hind ends float by the window, ecstatic aquarium fish with ghetto-girl faces. The booths form a semicircle around this naked parade and he can see the shadowy faces of other masturbators peeping out across from him. Fortunately, the blaring disco drowns out any cries of passion from neighboring booths.
    After a forty-second introductory peek