Parting Glances: Peg Me Once, Peg Me Twice

In 1953, a madam by the name of Polly Adler wrote a tell-all best seller about her 30 years in the brothel business, "A House is Not a Home." It created a sensation.
(I was too young to apply for a real estate license, but I do recall my parents talking hush hush about Polly while I tried to listen for Good Housekeeping details, glass to the bedroom wall.)
I was 13 when I got an inkling that something was more than "a miss" on my own inner city block. An older, macho guy about 25 asked me if I knew where the "party girls" — said with a wink and an elbow nudge — hung out. "You know, kid. The whore house."
I hadn't a clue why he hit on me. Maybe he was nearsighted and thought I looked butch or sexually precocious beyond my prepubescent years. I learned later that the bordello was around-the-corner. The Hickory House Restaurant. Short ribs — long rubs!
At 14, I delivered groceries for Samhat's Market, a Muslim brothers-owned store, where I also learned a smattering of Arabic: Kaif halak? (How are you?) I also found myself, one scary evening, ducking behind counters during a bang-bang armed robbery. But that's another story.
One hot summer Samhat delivery I met my first "sex worker." Miss Blonde Bombshell answered her door in a see-through nightie. I dutifully surrendered my bread, milk, cheese. And, not knowing what else to do, I bowed. Instead of a tip, I got a cleavage peek. (I would have preferred the tip.)
I'm sure her intentions were meritorious. To help me earn my Boy Scout Badge for exploring unknown, impregnable terrain. To be truthful, I wasn't much interested in her kind of Tenderfoot instruction. My boyhood motto: To light a fire, rub two sticks together. Long enough. Hard enough.
Probably the most famous 20th century brothel was Salon Kitty. Established by the German Gestapo in the fashionable west end of Berlin at the onset of World War II. It was a high-class operation catering to horny Axis diplomats (German, Italian, Japanese), war heroes, politicians.
Kitty's workers were glamorous madchen, motivated not by sex for fun and/or profit but by a sense of patriotic duty to the Vaterland. Heil Hitler! Deutschland uber alles! (Germany over all. Or, more accurately: Germany on top of everyone! Donald Trump take note.)
Kitty Salon was electronically bugged. The girls were trained to tease, titillate, twist classified information from clients. Fascist Italy's Prime Minister, Count Ciano, was a frequent guest. He was rated an "indolent lay" by staff. Meglio che scram!
Few earthshaking diplomatic secrets were ferreted out at Kitty Salon, but everyone had a helluva good time, at least until the Soviet Rooskies came and raped and ravaged the city up one end and down the other.
As far as the spy brothel business goes, we Americans did the Germans one better. We set up a male brothel, operated patriotically. Cost efficiently. Wiretapped. Run by the FBI. (Somebody's gotta do it, Mary, er, J. Edgar Hoover!)
The brothel (or "peg house" as it was called) was located near — no big goose step! — Gay Street in Greenwich Village. Reports the late, prolific writer Isaac Asimov, who dug up this steamy tidbit for his "Facts & Figures" collection: "the decor was nautical." (But nice!)
"The house was staffed with multilingual agents for the purpose of extracting shipping — and receiving! — information from sailors. The FBI later claimed it was a very successful operation." (Especially for those sailors on the multilingual pegging end of the business.) Ship, ship ahoy! Turn over, and out!