Chapter 5

While Norma made a fresh pot of coffee, Jennlynn took the opportunity to use the bathroom as much to process a few things in her mind as it was to empty her bladder. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had freewheeling discussions of a similar nature before, because she had – but they mostly had been up at the Redlite Ranch. To hear the same things said over the kitchen table of a colleague’s home was a little different, if for no more reason than she had a glimpse of what Norma’s real life was like. For some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, there was more honesty here than there was “up north,” or at least it felt like it. If nothing else, Norma would make a good sounding board to talk her problems out on, and that was something she couldn’t really do with her colleagues at Lambdatron.

And who knew? Norma might have some good ideas, some new ones she hadn’t thought of before. It was even possible she might even have one that broke a paradigm or two. And, at worst, this was already proving to be a lot more sociable than she usually managed to get in Phoenix, so maybe that was good all by itself.

In a couple of minutes Jennlynn was back out at Norma’s kitchen table with a fresh mug of good coffee in her hand. “So,” she said. “You said you had a couple of ideas.”

“I had a couple of ideas, yes. How good they are, well, that’s something that has to be worked out. Look, Jennlynn, I’m just as concerned about girls who get sucked into the rathole of forced prostitution, drugs, and literal slavery as you are. Maybe more, because I’ve seen it happen, and I might as well be blunt about it. With the exception of the young friend you told Shirley and me about up north, it’s all kind of theoretical to you, isn’t it? I mean, you haven’t had much contact with the down and dirty side, have you?”

“I don’t disagree in the slightest,” Jennlynn said. “I mean, I guess I always had known about it but it really hadn’t had a lot of impact on me. The stories, uh, my young friend told me about were kind of a reality check to me. I mean, I’ve spent a long time in the business. I did pretty well at it, and it’s always been good to me, but I’ve always been pretty near the top of the heap in the business, too.”

“At least you realize it now,” Norma said softly. “That’s probably good, because your experience gave you a pretty idealistic view of the business without considering the dirty side. The hell of it is that there’s a lot more of the dirty side than there is the relatively clean way we’ve gone about it.”

“That’s it exactly.”

“Jennlynn, when we were talking up north I gave you a brief description of how I got into the business, hell, twenty-five years ago, and I got pretty far down into the dirty side of it. The only way I managed to not get sucked all the way into the rathole was that my pimp picked the wrong guy to slap me around in front of, and that was sheer damn luck on my part and arrogant stupidity on his part. At least I learned something from it, and when I got back into the business a few years later I knew some of the pitfalls and was pretty careful about it. I still managed to get stung, but it was in a different way and it didn’t hurt as bad as it might have.”

“And you still got back into it again.”

“Yes, but I was even more careful. Don’t get me wrong, Jennlynn. I like doing what I’ve done the way I’ve done it the past few years, and it’s hard to have to contemplate having to give it up. But I realize that I’ve been lucky in several different ways, too. In case you’re wondering, Charlie has been a big part of that luck. I probably would have gone back to being an escort rather than working up north if it hadn’t been for him, and while call girls have it better than being on the street, there’s still an element of risk we didn’t have up north.”

“That was always the appealing part of the way we did it up north to me. I mean, that and it being legal. I don’t know if I would have ever gotten into it if I hadn’t talked to a girl who had worked up at a place near Carson City.”

“From the stories you’ve told you were pretty desperate at the time, but at least you were still smart and careful about it. Let’s face it, when I started, I was neither and I paid the price. I think that most girls who get into the business, whether it’s voluntary or involuntary, don’t really know what they’re getting into.”

“Hell, I didn’t know what I was getting into when I started,” Jennlynn snorted. “The, uh, place I started . . .” she hesitated to use the name, noting Norma had never been specific about such things around her kitchen table, for whatever reason, “. . . well, it wasn’t exactly the nicest place in the world compared to the place I know you from. But it wasn’t a totally bad way to start out, either.”

“And you got lucky in that, since it gave you an idea of what direction you wanted to go,” Norma pointed out. “But this is taking off in a direction I didn’t want to go. What I was saying is that I saw the dirty side, much like your young friend. And the last few years I’ve seen more of it, at least since I started working on my doctorate.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“I gave you a hint of it when we were talking up north. Look, when I started work on my doctorate it had been a dozen years since I finished my master’s. I was out of the habit of studying and researching, so I decided I wanted to work on something I was familiar with, at least to give me a running start. I still haven’t settled on the precise topic of my dissertation, but it’s going to involve something to do with comparisons using case studies of girls in various parts of the business.”

“That sounds logical. Go with what you know.”

“It turns out there’s a lot more to it than I thought I knew when I started,” Norma shook her head. “And that’s even discounting the academic side. To back up to what we were talking about a minute or two ago, it’s only very rarely that a girl starting in the business has a realistic idea of what she’s getting into. The few instances of that are when a girl has been around the business for a while but not actively involved in it. We talked about Steffy thinking she wanted to turn herself out. She would be better prepared than most, at least for the place up north we both know, but I think even she’s aware that she doesn’t know what she would be getting into, which is probably why she’s reluctant to take the plunge.”

“Makes sense,” Jennlynn conceded, noting that the tone of the discussion had become much less casual than it had been earlier.

“It makes a lot of sense. Jennlynn, I know you have your doctorate in electrical engineering, which is a solid subject where two and two add up to four and there’s nothing very fuzzy. In psychology and all the other social sciences that relate to this topic, there’s very little but fuzzy thinking. Have you ever seen an announcement on the news about some research project revealing something that’s so stunningly obvious that you wonder why someone would do a study on it?”

“All the time. I remember reading about one years ago where the conclusion was that boys prefer girls with big boobs. We needed a study to tell us that?”

“Exactly. Not only did someone probably get a doctorate out of it, it was probably a well-funded research grant paid for by tax dollars, too. Psychology, social work, sociology, especially around the topic of prostitution, well, there’s more than enough of that kind of thinking. The problem with the whole thing is that hardly anyone in academia actually knows anything about prostitution, at least as it involves sex. Selling their souls for their research grants is a different kind of prostitution, and let’s not get into that.”

“You said ‘stunningly obvious,’ a minute or so ago,” Jennlynn laughed. “That qualifies. People in real sciences laugh at those kinds of things.”

“Don’t think that people in the social sciences don’t laugh at it, either,” Norma snickered. “But again I’m getting away from my point. What I’m saying is that the people writing the few papers there are on the subject, or funding research grants or advising the people doing the studies or the people doing the studies themselves, don’t know a damn thing about it from having been there. Or, if they do, they don’t admit it, and I’m almost ashamed to admit that I have to be included in that statement.”

“So you’re saying that the conclusions are skewed because of the preconceived notions of the people in the field. In engineering we have a term that describes that. It’s ‘garbage in, garbage out.’”

“It’s used in social sciences too, although sometimes the words aren’t said very loudly. The fact remains that I have heard some of the most asinine statements about prostitution presented as the absolute truth that are applicable in all cases. I know they’re asinine, because I’ve been there and done that when the people making the pronouncements have never been directly exposed to it. Which is to say that most of the papers and studies I’ve seen are strictly of the garbage out variety. The hell of it is that I’m going to have to develop a theory that at least gives lip service to some of that bullshit.”

“That has got to be frustrating,” Jennlynn replied. “There is at least some of that kind of thinking in sciences and engineering, and one of the things we often have to do where I work is to ignore it and talk about what’s really happening. We have an unofficial company motto, ‘Break the Paradigm.’ Most of our success comes from breaking paradigms that have long been believed, but aren’t true in the real world.”

“When I started on my doctorate I had hopes of breaking a few paradigms,” Norma said sadly. “But the academic politics and bullshit is too deep, so I’m trying to be a good little girl until I can put a Ph.D. behind my name on my papers. Maybe then I’ll be able to scatter a little truth around.”

“So come up with a simple-shit theorem,” Jennlynn said. “Something like ‘prostitutes have sex for money,’ even though we know they often don’t.”

“I wish it were that easy, but I have to be able to look myself in the mirror afterward,” Norma snorted. “Prostitutes usually have sex for money, but they often don’t, either. Being forced into it is one of the other reasons, sure, but there are plenty of others. Actually, we’re pretty close to one idea I had for a dissertation, but I’m not quite there yet. It would probably do what I want it to do and would be acceptable, but I have another idea I’d like to explore, and that one is why girls stop being prostitutes.”

“After some of the things we’ve talked about, I don’t think that surprises me very much.”

“The problem with that is why they start being prostitutes will have often have some bearing on why they stop, and academically speaking that’s a whole different ball of wax, but it’s still going to be a lie.”

“How’s that?”

“Because I’m not getting a fair cross-section of the field, especially among the girls who have fallen down the ratholes. With only a couple of exceptions, the girls from that end of the business that I have case studies on are the ones who have made it out, not the ones who are being forced to be there and still are. When you get down to it, those are the girls I’m really interested in, and not just academically.”

This whole discussion was not going anywhere near where Jennlynn had thought it might go. It was interesting, yes – but she couldn’t see where it had much connection with her own concerns. “Let me ask you this,” she said. “If all this is true, and I don’t doubt for a minute that it is, why are you bothering to work on your doctorate in the first place?”

“Because I want that Ph.D. behind my name so people will pay a little more attention to me when I try to inject some reality into things. I’m sure it’s the same way in engineering.”

“It is, and probably shouldn’t be,” Jennlynn agreed. “But I’m sure you have something in mind.”

“I do. I know I can’t solve the problem, but maybe I can help a few girls get out of the ratholes they’re stuck in. There are agencies and programs that work on the problem and the even more knotty problem of human trafficking, but my feeling is that the people involved mean well and have good intentions. They may have some understanding of some of the problems, but not the gut feeling that comes from having been there and done that. I think, hell, I hope that with my perspective I may be able to work on cases that are too knotty for them.”

“Nooowwww, it makes sense,” Jennlynn smiled as a great deal snapped into focus at once. “Have you figured out how you plan to do it?”

“Parts of it. It’s like I said the other day. I know for a girl who really wants out, I have to get her away from the environment, away from the pimps and the drugs, and give her emotional support to change her thinking. She has to shake the drugs. She has to learn that she doesn’t have to make a living on her back or on her knees, along with getting the job skills to make that new living. Then, if she can be set back down in an environment where she’s not going to be tempted to go back to her old life, it ought to be fairly successful. Not perfect, since everyone is different and will have different problems, but fairly successful. But frankly the devil is in the details, and I’m not ready to get started yet. Getting my doctorate is one of those things I need to get out of the way to have a chance at it working at all.”

“I suppose you’re going to need money to do all that.”

“Yes, and lots of it, but not right now. Jennlynn, I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking, and no, I don’t want your money, at least not right now. I hope to eventually have foundation grant support, and once again I need that Ph.D. behind my name to help get it. There may come a time when I’ll have to ask you for some, and when that time comes it’ll be tax deductible, but that’s still a ways in the future. I would like to have your help in some other things, and I can’t tell you what they are right now because I’m not sure I know yet. This is not something I can start next week, or maybe even next year, and when I do I want to have a pilot program with a few successes I can wave around along with my doctorate when I go looking for serious funding.”

“All right,” she replied. While this was still something of a pipe dream of Norma’s, it held potential to provide what Jennlynn wanted to accomplish. “Let me know what I can do to help.”

“Oh, if I’m sure you’re in it with me I’ll come up with more than enough to fill your spare time,” Norma smiled. “What I need right now is a compatriot, a sounding board, someone I can talk this stuff out with. Charlie knows all about this and he’s been a lot of support, but he’s not a woman and he’s never been in the business.”

“And I have, although not that part of the business.”

“True, and here’s the part you may not like. I’m hoping that having Learjet Jenn involved with the project will give it some stature and validity it wouldn’t have otherwise.”

That was an angle Jennlynn hadn’t considered. She was silent for a long moment as she considered the idea, and frankly she didn’t like it. “I’m trying to put Learjet Jenn behind me,” she said finally. “Ever since the hijacking, people thinking of me as Learjet Jenn has been a pure pain in the ass. The other day my boss and I agreed that I ought to take another step away from it. I just want to be Jennifer Hoffman, an engineer who’s interested in her job and her husband. I never really sought publicity as Learjet Jenn except for Fast World, and that was intended to explain who I am, not that it was very successful.”

“Oh, it was successful enough,” Norma pointed out. “In fact, it was pretty darn good. It just wound up sending a message you didn’t expect it to send. You engineers may not be familiar with the term, but in the social sciences we are always aware of the Law of Unintended Consequences. In your case, I’m pretty sure the unintended consequences were the ones in your own head.”

“Well, you may be right on that,” she conceded. “But like I said, I’m trying to put Learjet Jenn behind me. Not even Jennlynn Swift, but Learjet Jenn, the fastest woman in the state of Nevada.”

“Learjet Jenn may not be all bad, at least if you can use her fame for good purposes. In fact, with her fame and name recognition, she can probably accomplish a lot that Jennifer Hoffman could never dream of doing. Many more people will recognize the name and assume that she knows what she’s talking about since she’s done so well with it.”

“You’re probably right, but I really don’t want to be Learjet Jenn any longer. Among other things, I’ve hung up the spike heels and I’m trying to put that behind me.”

“I understand. But, Jennlynn, remember that you were never Learjet Jenn all the time, even before the hijacking came along. I remember you in those days, and while you were a little abashed about it, you were proud of it, too. It told the world that you were something special. Then Learjet Jenn became an honest-to-god hero, not because she was a prostitute, but because she was an exceptional pilot who happened to be a prostitute. Other than when you did Fast World, you haven’t been Learjet Jenn very much in the last year, have you?”

“Well, no, but I don’t see what you’re driving at.”

“I’m not saying you have to be Learjet Jenn all the time, or even a lot of the time. Once in a while Learjet Jenn could come out of the shadows where she lives out of sight of the public, but only when it would do the most good. Let me give you an example. Suppose there’s a girl who’s been rescued but who is having problems with adapting. Is it going to do her more good to have Jennifer Hoffman encourage her that she can make it, or would the legendary Learjet Jenn encouraging her do more good?”

“OK, I see your point on that, and yes, it might help if she’d ever actually heard of Learjet Jenn.”

“So you’d have to put on your Learjet Jenn hat for a couple of hours. Is that so bad?”

Jennlynn felt like she was being talked into something that she wasn’t sure she wanted to do. She could feel her resistance slipping, but maybe Norma had a point. “Well, maybe not,” she conceded. “After all, before the hijacking I sort of enjoyed being Learjet Jenn once in a while, but she wasn’t ever who I really am.”

“And she still doesn’t have to be,” Norma said, expanding on her sales pitch. “But you agree you could still be Learjet Jenn for a while if you really wanted to be and if there was a good reason, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“OK, let me throw a reason at you. You’re still in touch with that WNN reporter, aren’t you?”

“Brenda Hodunk? Sort of, although we haven’t talked for a while. I wouldn’t call her a friend since she used me for her own purposes too, but we got along just fine.”

“OK, here’s one of the ideas I had for you, but we had to establish that you could be Learjet Jenn for a while first. Suppose you were to call her up and ask her if she’d like to do another newsmagazine story on prostitution, the way it’s usually practiced, and not just the rather idealistic way it’s handled up north. I’m not sure exactly how it would be done, but maybe you could be sort of a co-moderator or something, and show the bad side as well as some of the good.”

Again Jennlynn had to stop and think about it for a moment. “Yeah, that might work,” she said distantly. “If nothing else, maybe it would offset some of the image from Fast World that I’m not very happy about.”

“It might keep some girl from giving it a try,” Norma pointed out.

“Yeah, it might. I don’t know enough about the dark side to be able to give a good presentation, though.”

“No, but I do. What’s more, I have a few contacts, and probably a few girls who would be willing to do an interview on camera. I think it could be made into a powerful presentation.”

“Norma,” Jennlynn smiled. “If you don’t get your doctorate and want to give up going up north, maybe you ought to take up selling used cars. You’d be awful good at it. I’m not saying I’m going to do the Learjet Jenn thing again, but I’m not going to say that I won’t either. I need to think about it. Besides, we can’t do anything right away since the last I knew, Brenda was out in the Persian Gulf waiting for the war to break out.”

“It’s not like it has to be done right away. In fact, it might be better if it waited for a while. If I knuckle down, I might have my doctorate in a year or a little more, and that would give me a more authoritative voice if you or Brenda were to interview me. But if we can get it done sooner, it probably would work out just as well.”

“It’s worth thinking about, and believe me, I’ll think about it. I’m not sure I want to go that public as Learjet Jenn again, but it might be worth the trouble. Other than that, though, if you want to try to rescue girls from the ratholes, I’ll help you where I can, even if I have to be Learjet Jenn for that.”

“Right at the moment, I can’t ask for more than that since I don’t know what to ask for in the first place, but I’ll appreciate all the help I can get when the time comes. I can think of a few other ways in which Learjet Jenn’s fame and name recognition might help get the message across, but they’re just ideas to kick around.”

“Since we’re sitting here and talking, we might as well talk about them.”

So they did. It turned out that Norma had a lot of ideas, some of which Jennlynn thought were pretty good, and others that she wasn’t quite as enthused about. She was also able to contribute a few of her own. At that point she knew that it was just talk, and it was a long way from becoming reality, but perhaps some good could be done even if the idea didn’t turn into a huge success.

After a while lunchtime rolled around, they continued talking while Norma made lunch, and they ate still exchanging ideas. By late afternoon Jennlynn knew she had to be getting back to Lambdatron for some work that needed to be done there, but she accepted an invitation to dinner with Norma, Charlie, and Jeff sometime in the near future.

Her head was still swimming when she finally had to say goodbye, get in the Monza, and drive away. But somehow Jennlynn knew that she’d found something very valuable that day: a friend in Phoenix who didn’t work for Lambdatron and knew what her life at the Redlite Ranch “up north” was really like. It was something she’d never had before.

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