BREADWINNERS Most of the women seemed reluctant to discuss how they got into the business, so I was caught off guard when Donna opened up to me one night at Mustang #1. Donna was a young redhead with a shy smile and thick bangs cut blunt across her forehead, like a toddler’s first haircut; I had first noticed her showing her colleagues a book of sexual cartoons. She had put the book together herself, clipping cartoons from magazines like Playboy, to entertain her clients while they waited for her to return from booking money with the cashier. It cut down on the number of customers who snooped through her room and stole mementos like underwear and bras, she said. Donna saw me watching her and invited me over to look at her book. Her customers’ favorite, she said, was a cartoon that showed a prostitute being called to the rescue of a man found unconscious on a beach with an erect penis. She watched my face for a reaction. I smiled cautiously, unable to read her own attitude toward the cartoon and not wanting to offend.
