Love for Sale

[Steven Hunley]

Love for Sale

On my third Heineken at Reynaldo’s place. Getting uninhibited, feeling frisky.

Stale cigarette smoke, red leather padded booths, dim light, bad business lately, for the girls that sit like nervous students against the wall on a bench. They are students, students of the University of Hard Knocks, and take payment for wicked acts, extra if there are no intermissions.

Silvia sits apart from the rest. Assured, calm, collected.

While the others wait nervously to be chosen, Silvia isn’t made up of the same ingredients. Those girls are common sackcloth, while Silvia is silk. While they are pretenders, she is the rare earth, the unique element. But I don't know this. I know nothing, nothing, for I am Shultz ven it comes to women.

While the vast majority of customers simply walk in, pay Reynaldo, and point, not so with Silvia’s patrons. They are patrons of the arts. They stroll in with great deliberation, ask politely, crave introductions, and produce business cards with an executive's flourish. They have manners, refinement, are men of distinction, smell of old money.

One one end of the bench sits Lupe. She’s says she’s from the Iberian Peninsula. She has more obvious fire, they call her The Opal. But Silvia has more success. Magdalena, who sits next to Lupe, is better looking. She posed nude for magazine covers in Cartagena and once dated a cartel baron. Still, Silvia gets the business. Francesca, who sells dirty 3D pictures of herself in living color, can twist and contort herself with great skill. They call her The Talented Acrobat. Never the less, it is Silvia, and no other, who garners monumental reputation.

“Why is this, Reynaldo?,” I asked the barkeep. “Why does Silvia gets all the business? Certainly it isn’t her beauty. Many of the girls are younger, more vital, more chic. I must know, so tell me, what secret does Silvia possess?”

Reynaldo folded his towel, twisted his liquorish moustache, and grew thoughtful.

“For Silvia, each time is new, each time, she is a virgin. For her customers, it’s a rare experience, a precious commodity. She makes them feel it’s their wedding night, a white wedding, and nothing less."

©Steven Hunley2017

https://youtu.be/8htJVyavMvo Love for Sale

Yeah, I know, it's a cut and paste job. But you all know me. I have no shame, and the jazz was too good to pass up.

[AuntShecky]

A Cole Porter classic! My fave instrumental version is by the late great Buddy Rich and my fave vocal version is from Ella. But this contemporary rendition does much to brighten up a snowy day -- actually an apocalyptic blizzard here on the right coast, if you believe the Jeremiads! In any event, kudos to the vocalist who is not afraid to scat in these less-than-jazzy times.

This isn't the first time "Love for Sale" turned up on the NitLet. One of your old Auntie's old ditties employed the song when her adolescent character wrote a parody of it.

Speaking of writing, your atmospheric sketch is a good example of your tour de force. The only change I'd make is dump the clichés, "school of hard knocks," "cut from the same cloth," etc. Not that yours fooly's writing is 100% fresh all the time while "moving heaven and earth" in my opening paragraph-- but you know what we're all striving for.

Still your greatest fan,
Auntie

[Steven Hunley]

It's a great song, and my dear Auntie, as you can see, revisions are made. Maybe I'll even revise the revisions.