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Dropping Like Flies
All the madam’s drug OD’s and suicides
Just today, I was watching a movie on Turner Classic titled “Bed of Roses.” It’s about a couple of low-grade dames just sprung from jail looking to take a steamboat down the Mississippi to fleece some big-time suckers. And somehow, it reminded me of my days as photographer and webmaster for a leading New York madam.
The State of New York spent a bloody fortune building a case in which I was accused as one of the seven co-conspirators. I never understood why they bothered. Nobody was getting forced to do anything. All the practitioners were eager to turn a buck as sex workers.
Still, there was a dark side in the mix that I can’t deny. That dark side was death by drug overdose or suicide. I always found that odd. I mean — I was right in the middle of the sex business all day almost every day for near 20 years. I could have gone crazy on drugs and sex. I just didn’t. Why would they?
Not that I abstained on either front. Just that moderation was my policy. If all the work was done and every girl taken care of adwise? Then I might have some fun. But that was me.
I always wondered why so many of the girls were fucked in the head. Was it the profession? Or the rite of passage (some sort of abuse) that enabled the woman to sell her body that left her…
