My relationship with drugs has always been tinged with indifference. Not that they were lacking in the apartment! My three roommates often brought home from the Boudoir, or later on from the street, half-smoked joints or tiny cubes of hashish wrapped in aluminum foil they left lying around for days, and that I would eventually put in the garbage when it seemed that they’d forgotten them. They didn’t overdo it, the proof being that they sometimes didn’t remember if they had any, but Jean-le-Décollé often said that it relaxed him and helped him get the kind of sleep he needed after a rough night on the job. Today, I suspect that Jean indulges in things stronger than grass or hash because the Main is getting tougher before our very eyes, and a prostitute’s life is more and more perilous, but that’s another story …

Still, after a few inconclusive attempts – grass made me laugh too much and hash affected me like a sleeping pill – I’d decided to stay away and to stick to good old booze, ’cause of my family disasters, of which I was nearly as suspicious and had as little to do with as possible. Besides, I hate losing control over what I say or do and my three friends were undeniable proof that artificial paradises, while agreeable for those who visit them, make them totally ridiculous in the eyes of their fellow-humans, so I chose to pretend indifference and abstained. I was often accused of being square but I replied that I’d would rather be square in my own parlour and alive, than in my grave with a rosary wrapped around my wrists and wads of cotton batting in my cheeks.

When Nicole, Jean and Mae were so stoned that they rambled on about their unhappy childhoods or the piggishness of men and didn’t know what they were saying and you couldn’t make sense of it, I would retire to my room and try not to hear their pissing and moaning or their laughter, which was too forced to be genuine.

I had adored sharing the apartment with the drag queens from the Boudoir, maybe because I worked there, too, because in a sense they were my fellow workers, but ever since I’d practically become their maid – in fact since they’d gone back to the street – they were tougher and nastier, the life imposed on them made them harder to get along with, less fun to be with. The abject nature of their relations with the johns on the street after the near-opulence of the Boudoir – especially, the quality of its clientele – the dangers that had multiplied, the hours they’d spent in the cold in January or downpours in March made them more cynical. Now that they’d known both sides of their profession they understandably didn’t want to go back to the life they’d thought was behind them and that now was being imposed on them for a second time without their consent. I sensed that it might be a good idea to think about leaving before things between us became toxic and we reached the point of no return, because I hoped with all my heart that I would continue to love my three roommates.

But where would I go?

I didn’t want to dwell on that either, not right away at any rate. I would ride it out and try to be more understanding, more patient with my friends. I concentrated on their funny side, which got me every time, on their wit that was still so distinctive and compelling, I tried to see life from their point of view, I asked about the Duchess – I missed her so much – I avoided talking about Tooth Pick, their unofficial pimp, for fear of seeing them explode in curses, I talked about how many tricks they turned, about money, about meals skipped, I turned up the heat when I went to bed so that they’d come home at dawn to a cozy apartment, I overdid it and they finally realized it and maybe started to question the implications of my presence among them.