I found the address Foster had provided without any trouble. A maid led me into a large parlor. It was lavishly decorated in the Spanish style. Girls in various stages of undress were spaced around the room in twos and threes like clusters of grapes. Their mood was desultory. I judged that it was a very slow night.
The maid turned to leave me. I grasped her arm and stopped her. “I’d like to see the madam,” I told her.
“Si.” She nodded. “Un momento.” She waved away the girl who had started to approach me and then indicated that I should sit down and wait.
A moment later she returned with a fluttery, fortyish, plump little woman whose blondeness looked like it had been sprayed on by a myopic hairdresser. Gray-black underlay the brassy sheen and the olive-complexion-turned-leathery of the face didn’t go with the try for Nordi-ness. “I am Mrs. Alvarez,” she introduced herself. She spoke English with just the trace of a Spanish accent.
“Steve Victor,” I replied. “Is this your place?”
“I am in charge here,” she replied a bit cautiously. “What is it that you wish?”
“I’m with O.R.G.Y.,” I told her.
“That will be very expensive.” Her eyes narrowed shrewdly.
“You misunderstand. O.R.G.Y. is a research foundation. We conduct investigations into the sexual traditions of various countries. Currently I’m conducting such inquiries in the Caribbean,” I added a bluff. “The local authorities,” I told her, “assured me that you could be most helpful and would gladly cooperate.”
It threw her. She was flustered, but obviously afraid to take the chance of offending me and whatever “local authorities” might have sanctioned my visit. “I will be happy to help you in any way I can, Mr. Victor. Of course, by its very nature, ours is a very confidential profession, but --”
“I respect all confidences,” I assured her. “Think of me as a doctor bound to secrecy. Also, I make no moral judgments. I am only interested in compiling data, not in infringing on the privacy of your clients, nor on anything specific in the intimate nature of your business. I want only to get the answers to some general questions. The main thing I’m concerned with at the moment is tracing the pattern of Cuban prostitution in the Twentieth Century. I have learned that since Castro many Cuban prostitutes have emigrated to the Dominican Republic. If you have any of these working here, then I would be particularly anxious to speak with them privately.”
“I will arrange it immediately.” She summoned the maid again and I was taken upstairs to a small room.
After a short wait, a girl entered the room and closed the door behind her. She was a girl in her twenties, small, very dark, quite slender. This slenderness was accentuated by sharp, jutting hips and extremely large, womanly breasts. These features were accentuated by the garment she wore.
It was a sort of negligee made of a transparent white gauzy material. It hung loosely from her shoulders to her knees. A small triangle at the juncture of her legs was made of more opaque stuff and concealed her there. Judging from the smallness of it, there was no doubt that this area of her flesh had been shaved. Two fingertip dots at her bosom were also made of thicker material and concealed the tops of her breasts. A thin white silken cord ran down from behind her neck and under her arms to support her breasts and keep them in place.
The nipples themselves were concealed, but the roseates flashed into view as she moved. They were very large and a dark pink color as contrasted with the brownness of her skin. Her movements were automatically erotic, and her mane of glossy black hair was tossed about like a fetish as she approached me.
“I am Dovita,” she announced. “You weesh to”-— there was a meaningful pause here—“speak to me?”
“Yes. Did the madam fill you in on what‘ it’s all about?”
“Si. She say you are some sort of sex investigator. She say you ask me questions and I answer.”
“That’s right.”
“You just want talk?” She looked disbelieving. “You no want make love with Dovita?”
“I’d love to,” I told her. “But I don’t have time right now.”
“Some can and do,” she shrugged. “Others, they no can so they talk-talk instead.”
“That’s not it,” I told her, sidetracked into being offended. “I told you, I don’t have time right now. I’m working. This is my work. And I never mix pleasure with business.”
“So! For you to be sorry, Mr. Victor. You don’ know what you missing. Dovita pretty damn good.”
“I’m sure you are. But do you mind if we get down to the reason I’m here?”
“Suit yourself. It’s okey-doke if I sit down?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
She sat down on the bed beside me. She really had no choice. Outside of a bureau and a sink, it was the only piece of furniture in the room. But she didn’t have to sit so close to me. Her slender thigh rubbed against my leg. I tried moving away, but she only shifted closer again. I didn’t move a second time. If I did, I was sure she would, and at that rate I’d end up sitting on the floor.
“Shoot,” she said.
“Right. Now, as I get it, Dovita, you’re originally from Havana. Is that right?”
“Si. I come here when Castro hit the fan.”
“That would be around the beginning of 1959?”
“In February, si.”
“And how old were you then, Dovita?”
“I am twenty-four now. So I was not quite eighteen then.” Her hand dropped all too casually on my knee and stayed there, palm-up.
I decided to ignore it. “How long had you been turning tricks then?”
“About one year-for money, that ees.”
“And before that?”
“I do it for fun. Is fun, no? I like very much from when I am fourteen. I still like. You no like?” The hand turned over now and the fingers stroked my leg.
“Uhh, yes.” I steadfastly kept to my line of questioning. “When you left Havana, did any other girls come to Santo Domingo with you?”
“Si. About a dozen.” Her fingers were tiptoeing higher.
“Did they all come to this place?”
“No. Only three of us come here.”
“I see. And were the other two as young as yourself?”
“One ees much younger.” That sounded to me like it might be Consuela. “The other,” Dovita continued, “is about same age.”
“How young was the other one, the first one you mentioned?”
“Thirteen, maybe fourteen. She is very good at her job, though.”
“Is she still here?” I asked.
“Why you want know?” Dovita looked at me suspiciously. “What that have to do with your survey?”
“I’m particularly interested in how children got involved in prostitution in Havana before Castro took over,” I explained.
“How you think? Is always some man looking for new stuff to market. He throw girl a little love-talk, take her to bed, and then before you know it he renting her out to other hombres and taking all the money she make for himself.”
“Is that what happened to this girl?”
“Sure.”
“Is she still around here? I’d like to talk to her.”
“She still here. But not tonight. What you want from her, anyway? She not so young any longer, you know. If you want girl-whore, she over-age. An’ she not so good as Dovita. Why you don’ concentrate on what’s here? Stop asking questions. You be glad you do.” She took one of my hands and pressed it against her breast. The tip was rigid and burning.