I was in San Jose for business and pleasure the better part of December. I stayed at the Del Rey for a week just because I never had, and then I stayed at some cheaper places that I can’t recommend so I won’t mention. I stayed on the established circuit, and since the places I hung out are frequently and accurately reviewed I don’t go into any basic details of how they’re set up. I also didn’t see any reason to use any girls’ names, although I love all their names.

This was my second trip to San Jose, and to see how far I’ve come you can read about my worst night from last year in the archive. That incident really stayed with me, and I was glad to find that I handled myself in such a way that I had no repeats of it. At the same time, I became much more aware of the forces that had led to last year’s fiasco and that continued to cast at least shadows over this year’s encounters. My growing awareness helped me get around the mongering obstacles particular to my tastes and limits, but it certainly didn’t make them go away. One of those limits was that (being there a month) I had to stick to a budget. This wouldn’t be a problem if I were just looking for a place to put it, but I wanted a little bit of the freer kinds of attention the girls give to the guys who are (or who the girls fantasize might be) freer spenders.

Especially at the Del Rey you just smell different if you don’t have the means to pay for meals and gifts, even if you’re not gonna do it. Also, I’m becoming convinced that this is more of a you-get-what-you-pay-for situation than I’ve wanted to believe. It’s somewhat true that your mileage may vary, but it’s also true that there is a pretty defined set of conventions for how much sex you get for how much money. One of these days as my life comes together the budget thing won’t be a problem for me. I would love to spend money on some of these girls. Until then, there is a lot for me to enjoy and put together even on the cheap.


I was doing some stuff on this trip other than mongering, so the full diary covers a lot more ground than the excerpts below. That’s why they cut into an experience without much of an introduction. I hope the way they are written doesn’t make them too choppy to follow. Sometimes while I was writing my thoughts got flying and when that happened I just let em go—don’t read this if you don’t like beard stroking deep thoughts. I want to acknowledge a debt this writing has to MrBill. In case you haven’t seen his classic post under the thread "Would you lick balls, suck dick, spread your legs..." in the Tijuana section under "Advice/Questions/Commentary" it’s worth a read. His example of insightful humor—as well as the work of so many on this board who report and reflect on their experience with candor and intelligence—helped me imagine my way into more dimensions of what happened to me than I could have managed on my own.


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Day 1

Then I showered and unpacked and put my clothes on the shelf and my toiletries in the bathroom and my sexeries on the bottom shelf of the bed stand and my Spanish books on the dresser bench and went downstairs to look at the girls. I sat at the bar, and R approached me immediately—and soon we had a bargain. Not having slept in 36 hours I was just going to look at the girls, but I turned out to be looking for a girl—the two are almost the same here and that’s the place’s magic.

R was only so accommodating. She got naked lickety-split depriving me of the pleasure of desnudar-ing her, and after a pretty lame massage wanted me to "de veulta" so she could get me going and gone. I was a little firmer about this than last year, and spent some time exploring her nubility while she told me to "concentrate." Finally I got my watch out and showed it to her and we made a bargain. I got to spend fifteen minutes carressing and fondling, then I’d come and she could leave even though it would be just over an hour and we’d agreed on two. She kept her end of the bargain and then got me up and slipped on a condom, but when I tried to enter her tightness I lost my erection. So I told her to go ahead and finish me off by hand, which she did. I’d taken 25mg of V, so I was a little disappointed by not carrying my erection to term. V has never failed me before.

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Day 2

…Then it was time for girling. I went to Lucy’s intending just to look there and then visit Idem’s. I walked in, though, and there was last year’s favorita T! "T!" I said, and surprise itself spoke. Though I had formed the Spanish sentence to ask if she still worked there, I hadn’t really expected to see her. She’s had two hundred men and a baby and a spider tattoo since I saw her one year ago, so she didn’t remember me or pretend to. But she was touched that I remembered her. I asked her about the child who was in the womb last year. He is four months old, and we had a very sweet reunion.

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Day 3

[I performed less than my best at a business meeting, and I’m explaining to myself why.] Also, early in the afternoon I went down to the bar and let another R [a woman with the same name as the first night’s] talk me into tryst. We might imagine it left me a little unstrung. This R is twenty-five with a four year-old at home and a good head on her shoulders. She had been told by one of the friends of the other R about my preference for an hour of bed chat Spanish before massage and sex, and she told me it wasn’t done that way. My line was that if I just wanted one hour of sex I’d get it for half the price at CM or Idem, and she saw the reasonableness of that. But I sort of got the picture—or accepted the picture I’d already gotten—of the stylized hour quickie that the mystery of seduction customarily resolves itself into for the fifty dollar customer at the Del Rey.

R saw my laptop and asked if I had porn on it, and I apologized and said I didn’t. I was caught a little off guard and said, "Do you like pornography"—and she did this amazing thing of putting her top lip over her bottom and shaking her head yes and no at the same time. I told her that though I didn’t have porn I had a vibrator, so we worked with it. I can’t remember if I started her pussy massage with it or whether she did herself, but we traded off and she did get nice and excited and it was easy to slip into her. Maybe for this reason I again came pretty quickly. What’s with that? It was neat though because it was a little more like sex, and a little less like using a person-less body. I might call it my first civil sex.

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Day 5

….Then home to go see mi amiga T. She brought her pregnancy album including sonograms and a picture of herself maximally pregnant and baby pictures. She said the father was a gringo. She claimed the rubber burst and she wasn’t taking oral contraception then but she is now. The reason, she said, was because having one child is not a problem. I asked her if her mother or if relatives were helping her care for the child, and hit a soar spot. "Mi madre, ‘babee, babee, coo-coo-coo’"—she imitates her mother tickling the baby, then makes baseball umpire’s safe sign to say that was all the support she got from her mother. But she said it was OK because she was only going to have one child. Two or more we’re a problem, but taking care of one would be easy. Right after saying that, though, I think she had second thoughts without even realizing she was having second thoughts because she began to tell in a detailed way a long story about how she was all alone and had to do everything for the baby all by herself. And everything is a lot. Of course it was a pitch for a bit of help, but I also had the sense that she was explaining something to herself the way you do when you have to explain something to yourself more than once.

Because the back rooms were full, we had to go to one upstairs. I didn’t even know there were upstairs rooms. But there are and they’re seldom used therefore musty and the rain was coming down on the tin roof and we had terrific sex. I know this girl. I know her reserve, her stubborness, her gentleness, her practical and foolish sides. I know her like you know the kitchen of somebody who is just like you.

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Day 6

This can happen? This can fukking happen? This can be the world you live in? After the long day at …I had planned to go to a new sex venue, but I stopped downstairs [at the Blue Marlin] because Saturday brings out the stunners. Sure as shootin, as soon as I got to the bar I saw a big-titted, bubble-butted little girl and was stunned. A table opened up, so I walked over to her and asked her to come and talk. Her name is C. She is a Columbiana, and, she said, a professional masseuse. She is 28 and has a four year-old son, and would be a top girl in any strip club. After just a few minutes of chatting I asked her how much, and she asked for a hundred. I know price bargaining is the rule, but I had planned to treat myself once and this was clearly the moment. She said for one hour, but I did insist on two—and insisted that two meant two. "Una hora de masseje y una hora de sexo." And, I said, I would pay afterwards. When we got to the room and fooled around a little bit, she asked for her money up front. Having decided I wasn’t going to make myself vulnerable to that, I stood my ground. I reminded her what we had agreed to downstairs, and she said she hadn’t understood. I let her whine and plead and finally told her she could leave and I wouldn’t even be mad that I had spent the ten-dollar guest fee. She asked me how she could trust me, and I told her she could ask either of the R’s. This seemed to satisfy her, so the games began.

I can’t quite remember what led up to this, but I asked her if she wanted a massage. She said she did, probably thinking that that would be a painless way to get through some part of the session. She said had some shame, and wanted the lights off. There was still enough light coming through the window to see her body, so off the lights went. Her marvelous curves and my own joy in my life and the possibilities of my life inspired my hands to remember everything they’ve ever learned about massage. I felt like a god or like God put me on earth to give C a slow, varied, deep, exact, sensual massage. I figured she herself probably did know a little about the art, so I wanted to set the bar high. She relaxed, and began to enjoy the massage. This inspired me more. I probably worked on her for forty to fifty minutes, and then she did the same to me and she was very good. So then we had good karma.

I asked her if she wanted to try the vibrator, and she said she did but she said it for my sake. She put it in the wrong way, and when I turned it around and started to let it tingle the edges of her folds I could tell it made her nervous so I put it away. She was more patient than active in the festivities that followed, but perfectly willing and we were tender and her body was a dream. When we finished she went into the bathroom and I went into my safe to get out a hundred dollar bill and put it next to her purse. I had her write down the types of massage she studied because I hadn’t understood what she told me. Translated: "Anti-stress, relaxation, reduction, sports, drainage of the lymph nodes." I showed her a shoulder stretch a chiropractor had once showed me because as a big-titted girl on high heels she collects a lot of stress there. I told her if she called me Monday and I was in we could go to a bookstore and I’d buy her a book on yoga. She seemed excited and I hope it happens.

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Day 8

…When I got home I visited my friend T. She came to me as to a date and offered me her cheek for a kiss and greeted me familiarly. I guess the familiar greeting was the kind of sign they used to call favors, but it caught me off guard and I didn’t accept it with near the grace I would have liked. I mumbled a reply rather than gave a response. This was particularly disappointing because the other girls were watching and I think she lost a tiny notch of caste to have such a clumsy papisito.

I asked her who took care of her child when she worked, and she said it was a nice woman who charged her forty dollars for every fifteen days. She may have asked me to come to her house to play the part of Santa Klaus on Christmas day, but I didn’t quite follow what she was asking and only put this guess together after the fact. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a request for a direct gift, but an invitation of some kind. The more I think about it, the more I wish I understood what she said. Our session was good, but she was a bit chilly afterwards because she definitely asked me something I not only didn’t provide an answer for but didn’t acknowledge being asked.

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Day 9 (last day at the Del Rey)

....By mid-afternoon business was out of the way and pleasure could begin. I got out my map and walked by Krysis Health Spa. It is on a side of town I hadn’t been, and I enjoyed the walk and planned to go back late in the afternoon. But when I got back L [an associate] had called and I called him back and made an appointment to meet him at 6:00 for a drink. This gave me only a couple of hours to go back to Krysis, so off I went. But even though I’d just been there, I couldn’t find it. I must have walked past it cause I’m sure I was on the right street. So back I came and L called and was going to have to come a bit later so I just lay on the bed feeling like my timing was off. [There’s some worries rehearsed.]

….So anyway, after a quick drink with him I was back to looking for a girl. Now there are dozens of them around and I talked to several but I had a case of the pickies because it was my last night. But also, I had a case of the wobblies. Maybe it was because I’d lost a bet on the football game the night before that I never should have made, maybe it was the sadness of leaving the Del Rey and all it can be said to represent, maybe it was the uncertainty of my future or the ultimate fact of my death, but not being able to find Krysis was a portent of not being able to find a girl I wanted which was like not being able to find a needle in a pin cushion. It also seemed that some of the younger girls were unwilling to make eye contact. It was weird. I certainly hadn’t been aware of that happening before. Was I imagining it? I found it unsettling. I didn’t feel right. Finally I settled on a decent Columbiana because it was late and because I am a man. We bargained for an hour for fifty and I said what I always say about paying after. When we got to the room she wanted her money up front, I said no we’d agreed on after, she said she’d leave, I pointed to the door, she left.

I have small accounts who aren’t really doing me any great favor by giving me their business, and if they give me grief on a bad day I’ll send them and their consumer sovereignty bullshit packing. So I understand where this girl is coming from. So I’m not mad, just alone.

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Day 11

I finished watching the early game with…and then took a cab to a brothel called IDEM. I’ve been there three times. It’s a bar where I just had drinks with amigos twice, and last year a so-so encounter. So I never really picked up on the charm of the place. Enough guys who post at Club Hombre like it, though, that I thought it deserved another chance.

So I walk in and immediately see the girl I want. I get my diet coke, and ask her to come talk to me. She’s 21 and she smells great. She’s also beautiful except for bad teeth which somehow makes her more beautiful. She’s a Nica, and she’s going home tomorrow to be with her mom and two year-old son for Christmas. We talk effortlessly, and she asks me if I understand the invitation and when I tell her the price and indicate I know Roberto I can see her relax a notch and our rapport gets even better. She tells me I should come at night because the place would have chicas galore. I tell her that I like to come early when it’s more tranquil even if there are only a few girls because I can only have one anyway. She seems to get a kick out of this. She asks me how old I am and I ask her how old she thinks I am and she guesses exactly right. I tell her that she knows the types and grades of men, and again she laughs not dully. We talk entirely in Spanish and I don’t even speak Spanish so how it all happened is beyond me, but it happened. I guess I don’t speak Spanish now better than I used to not speak Spanish.

We showered together and once in the room she seemed to enjoy being sexy and I was appreceative and things went great. We massaged each other, and played around a little more, and then she headed me a bit and slipped a condom on. I had brought one of my beloved microthins. She hadn’t remembered that I’d given it to her, though, and used a regular old durex. But I didn’t know this. So I didn’t have full sensation and flagged when we went from cowgirl to backdoor, but she was so gorgeous I wasn’t really worried about getting it back up. I did and took my time finishing on top. Afterwards I rolled off and we just lay there with me saying true things about how amazed and enchanted I was by her, and her being glad about it the way the girls are when things could have gone a lot worse. It was only after I got up and saw the microthin still on the table that I realized I’d come in an industrial durex and this pleased me. It was also the first time on one of the ventures out of the room that I hadn’t taken a 25mg hit of insurance V, so I was not only happy with what got done but with how it got done. So I now count myself as a fan of the rooms and fine attention to be found at Club IDEM.

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Day 12

….After breakfast I went shopping for a gift for my favorita. I bought a little outfit for her baby, and a watch. I wanted to buy her a fancy one with tiny links that cost eighty dollars, but I settled on kind of a cheapo that still cost a tad over twenty. I haven’t participated much in the sexual economy where dudes buy ridiculous luxury goods for chicks and chicks squeal at them and the dude feels good cause he made the chick squeal, so I’ve never or almost never experienced the she’ll-really-like-this feeling that runs a great part of the world. This is due partly to my integrity and partly to my obtuseness, and I felt something best lost was lost and something rightly gained was gained by my little adventure in this at once perfectly common but for all that quite peculiar form of male egotism.

She was very mellow today and a little tired because yesterday was her son’s baptism, and her mother had too much to drink and kept her up. That was the report. But she was also relaxed, and we found our rhythm pretty easily. It was after the good session that I remembered the gifts, but she had on a watch about the same as the one I was going to give her so I didn’t. She liked the conjunto though, and I think it really did speak to her in just the right way. I don’t give gifts back home because I like to speak my own words, and gifts have a way of speaking for you. But in this new emotional economy I’m going to have to find ways to get things said that I can’t say, and today was a good start. The ropa infanta was practical yet thoughtful and spoke to her everyday reality rather than to her dolled-up consecrated femininity.

So I count today as a victory in the search for effective new manners, but something happened that reminded me how the quest can lead to the betrayal of the beloved. While chatting T happened to mention that her one vice is smoking. She smokes four cigarettes a day, two in the afternoon and two at night. It’s an exact enough detail that it’s probably not a lie, and knowing it about her pleased me the way knowing the beloved’s out-of-sight life does. So I thought of buying her some good cigarettes. I had a little debate with myself. On the one hand, she’s stuck in the hard life she’s trying valiantly to lead, and if I could do something to add a degree of pleasure to the few serene moments she’s able to make for herself each day then why not. On the other hand, the reason why not is that smoking will hurt her health and shorten her life. As I ran the debate over in my mind I found myself as at a meeting where the gods had assembled for the inaugural discussion of capitalism. Their decision will be our world, but my decision was to not get T any cigarettes. I hope I’m not being a moralist prick, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with that stupid watch that’s now in my bag.

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Day 15


I went to Sauna Arte this afternoon just because I hadn’t been there this trip. None of the girls really caught my eye, but one of them had kind of a pick-me-pick-me manner that I hadn’t seen before. Of course you always get inviting looks, but this seemed something else again. Since she had promising breasts I picked her, and my premonition proved to be right. How can I put this? More than any other girl I’d been with on this trip she wanted to please. In fact she’s the first girl who has wanted to please, as distinct from just wanting me to be pleased. What that means is that she wasn’t very sure of herself, and needed to be told what to do. Once told she not only did it, but she did it the way you do when you’re new on the job and you not only do what the boss says but you do it with more of your being than it would take to just get it done. Some guys might really get off on having such a girl to play with. I guess I did too, eventually, but I also felt tenderly for her thinking that there was something about her that made her extra vulnerable to this work. She got excited differently than the other girls too. My foreplay attentions got her all sparkly eyed, and as I took my liberties the inside of her cunt got that kind of rough skin feel that you’ll occasionally get on a responsive intimate. Her massage was too fast and diligent, but even so I drifted off and kind of put together the thoughts I’m writing now. I nailed her good, and then we went for our wind-down time in a steam room that smelled of cloves.

While buck naked and in action we were burst in on twice. The first time was by the manageress who needed to return the change she didn’t have when I paid, and the second was by a guy who had apparently showered and was coming back to his chica. When the guy saw he was in the wrong room he stood there a few seconds letting his eyes absorb the scene and then he said to me in English, "Hey, we having fun yet." The manageress stayed to chat for a minute also while the girl was on top. I got such a kick out of her easiness that I extended the conversation to see how long she would stay, tossing off a few slow thrusts every half-minute or so to keep erect. She was undiscomfitted by this, though holding my eight thousand colones in change was apparently freaking her out. We might have chatted about the business and the weather for perhaps three minutes. The girl was like a good and patient child waiting for one adult to finish talking to another.

Both interruptions struck me as wonderful and ridiculous. On a post-sex, post-sauna long walk afterwards I found myself laughing about them and it seemed that the echoes of that laughter kept gracing my soul like falling water falling in love with the hewn stone of the park fountains I passed and passed by.

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Day 16

Last night, Christmas night, I was out for a walk and was surprised on passing a parlor called the Sauna Paris to find that it was opened. I had ducked in once to check the price, and was puzzled to find a two thousand colone fee to get into the steam room. And then? My mind was dazzled by possibilities I couldn’t imagine. I vaguely saw myself negotiating in some kind of a health club setting for sexual favors with the women who, maybe, were let in for free to work for tips. It didn’t really make sense, but it was a tico brothel and I figured I’d go with the flow and find out.

So I go in, pay my two thousand colones, and am given a wrap, towel, thongs, and the key to a locker. Through the pay window I see a bunch of guys wrapped in towels having tea with each other, and I think, "How civilized!" I sit on the bench and start to untie my shoes, and suddenly where I am hits me like a ton of bricks. I’m in San Francisco in 1972. This is a gay bath house! I go back to the window and ask if there are any women in there, and the answer is no. An English speaking customer is sent out to me to explain what I had inferred. I tell him I’m glad gay men now have there own bath house (and I am), pero no es de me gusta. And I want my money back. He says the clerk can’t give it back to me because he signed me in and the owner will yell at him if the money doesn’t match the roster. I say that I’ll send all my gay friends here if they treat me fairly and give me my money back. He says he knows that it would be good business, but the money-taker is afraid of the owner. Then the owner shows up and kisses my interpreter on the cheek, and he explains to him my mistake. So the owner tells the doorman to give me my money back. I continue on my walk no poorer, and possessed of new information. For anyone interested, Sauna Paris is a block away from Park Morazan on Avienda 7 behind the Aurora Holiday Inn across the street from a three story blue and gray building.

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Day 20

On this my last day in the magic kingdom I had promised T a goodbye visit at night, but I also decided to try the posh Krysis during the afternoon. This time I found it easily, and got there about 3:00 PM. There were only two girls there, but one of them was a 20 year-old with a perfect body named J. For all the oohing and awwing I’ve done about the girls, J would have to be measured on another scale. She was only the second girl I’ve been with on the trip who hasn’t had kids, and she was the youngest and she could be a playmate. But, she just hated her job. How she was with me was how I might be if I had a job exciting horses, putting a baggie over there swollen penises, and then filling them up by letting the horse use my armpit to generate enough friction to come. J was as concerned with what I thought about her as I would be about the horses’ opinions of my armpit. So even though she was beautiful beyond description, it wasn’t a terrific session—far from it. But neither was it a disaster. I managed to enjoy myself by drawing it out despite her efforts to get it over with and I treated her decently despite her evident disgust, and as always in these episodes, I felt like I gained something. Maybe it’s that I’ve had a playmate. No one can how hold that over me. It’s even nice to know that I wouldn’t particularly want her again. Although, if I had money, I can imagine visiting her a few times just to see what she would be like once she got used to my mane, tail, and easy way of going.


The night time with T was very sweet. She took her time about everything and our session ran so long she got yelled at for it. I teased her about not remembering me when I’d come in the first time and she said that finally she had remembered my voice and I told her that I didn’t believe her, but really I did. I told her she was special and singular and she said, "Equalimente." I promised her that I was going to learn a lot of Spanish so that when I came back we could talk a lot. She told me that she would learn more English but she didn’t have the plata for the school. I was going to give her my address and ask her to write, but in the end it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. I said that maybe she wouldn’t be there next year when I came, but she seemed to think she would be. When it was near time to go she asked for a tip, and she must have seen a flash of hurt on my face because she apologized and said she had had bad luck at work that day. I was her only massage. I think it was because there was a parade a couple of blocks over and the streets blocked access. I wondered what a good luck day would be for her, but I didn’t inquire. Walking home I could smell the country fair smell of horse manure. For asking for money I gave her less than I was going to give her. Maybe I should be ashamed of that, but I’m not. A couple of weeks ago I boasted about how well I know this girl, but of course I don’t know her at all or at best my knowledge isn’t worth the name. I’ll probably never know why I respond so powerfully to her, or why I found her so easy to be with, or why my pattern was to come back to her after each adventure with another girl. She has a nice body and a nicer face that are both somehow my type, but I was moved by her heart. I told her that. I can’t explain it even in English but there’s something about her that makes me proud to know her. Maybe I fucked her because I could and loved her because I could fuck her, and maybe my love is more like a love for a pet or of a pet than I like to think. Maybe it’s the power of money to create monsters by decreating distinctions between human and animal ways of affection. Maybe freedom is a bitch. Maybe in the counter-world when I have to let horses have their way with me I’ll understand more than I do now. Maybe now I have to go on, as best I can.

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Nice report. I'm interested though in the cheaper places you stayed at. If I ever decide to venture outside Presidente and Del Rey, I'll know where to avoid.

d'Artagnan,

The one place I stayed was Hotel Diana. It was $30.00 a night including taxes and breakfast (toast and coffee). It's got five rooms and traffic noise and is just a couple of blocks from the Del Rey. I'm not sure they're hobbiest unfriendly, but they seem to want to come across as a B&B and they pass out tourist information and such. Nice folks though.

The other place was a kind of hostel like place that I think was on Calle Dos. I'm not even sure it had a name. I stayed there for three days for about eight dollars a night after somebody I met on a bus mentioned it and took me there when I said I was interested. (I took my first bus rides on this trip.) Flimsy walls and little rooms, though being there over Christmas it was a good deal becasue it wasn't crowded.

Bookie,
Sorry I missed this when it was originally posted.

It certainly deserves more attention than it received. A real thoughtful piece, I hope others will pick up on the thread update and take the time to read it through.

Your slightly melancholy musings about "T" have struck a very familiar chord, one that sometimes makes me wonder just what the hell we're doing.

This one somehow slid right past me too. Damn, Bookie, that was good.

I've never been to CR, and probably won't go there anytime soon, but parts of it really, REALLY hit home.

I've gotta agree with the twins (Bill & Far). Nice report. "Hey, we having fun yet?" "Yeah, but what the hell are we doing?"

Yours sincerely,
Farfromreading

The above signature could be:
a) my new handle
b) the results of a recombinant DNA experiment gone awry
c) the educational level of some mongers
d) all of the above