A Strip Club in Manhattan Proves That Vice Is Hard to Kill


By MOSI SECRET MAY 30, 2014


After night falls in the theater district, a burly bouncer takes his post in front of an unmarked red door, revealing nothing about the secret attraction that lurks behind him.

Men in the know approach him furtively, flashing private invitations on their smartphones that promise access to the club: a noir tableau with gilded mirrors; shabby red couches; and a couple dozen women waiting in various stages of undress, just bits of leopard print, fishnet and lace. The lighting is dim and the space so cramped that bodies press against bodies even when cash is not changing hands.

The clients sip cocktails from plastic cups, while the women slink around, striking up light conversations that float amid swells of laughter and bass-heavy music. The small talk inevitably builds toward one suggestive question: Do you want to go to the other room?

One night a week, a small but growing list of mostly professional men gather in this seedy space, steps from the lights of Broadway. Drinks flow. Inhibitions crumble. And if an agreement is made to retreat behind a private curtain, nearly anything goes.

The club, known informally as Bliss Bistro, is like an underground lap dance party. For those who pay enough money, the experience is more like that of a brothel — a rarity in the Internet age, where prostitutes and sex traffickers use sites like Backpage.com to conduct business.

Beginning in the Giuliani administration, strip clubs have been under attack in New York City, pushed to the city’s industrial edges by restrictive zoning. And Times Square’s transformation into a tourist-friendly zone has long been complete. More recently, opponents have used state liquor laws to shut down the clubs and their attendant illegal industries of drugs and prostitution.

But Bliss shows how an illicit strip club can still operate underground at the city’s heart, trading on the allure of mystery and exclusivity.

The New York Times was introduced to the club by its owner’s lawyer and was allowed to visit under the condition that Bliss’s location would not be revealed and that both its clients and those who worked there would not be identified by their full names. In conversations with patrons and workers during four visits to the club over the course of a month, the reporter identified himself as being from The Times.

The red door opens on Thursdays around 8 p.m., but the crowd is thin and the mood dreary until 9. The women who arrive early pace the floor looking forlorn, or lose themselves in their phones. Other women arrive, forming a steady parade into a bathroom, otherwise out of order, to change clothes. Then the patrons begin to arrive in packs, many already drunk. A man with a big smile tends bar in one corner, and the crowd buzzes around him.

In one darkened room, people mingle; in the second, the women disrobe. Men sit back on couches, often side by side like passengers on the subway, groping the topless women as they work. There is no stage at Bliss. There is no pole. Farther back, sets of heavy black curtains hang from the ceiling, forming the walls of the private areas.

Tony, a strapping 24-year-old from the South Bronx, runs the place. He has been in the business since he was 17, he said, when a friend from his neighborhood asked if he wanted to work security at an earlier incarnation of the club. He was already moving in underworld circles back then; Tony said he had sold wholesale quantities of heroin that he bought on the cheap. “I was lucky enough to be in the family where my uncles and family got stuff fresh off the dock,” he said.

Continue reading the main story

His boss, Chummy, a high-stakes poker player, liked him. He was honest, and when there was trouble Tony could round up some neighborhood muscle.

He recalled an episode when “a skinhead guy” was about to confront Chummy over an unpaid debt. “They was coming guns blazing,” Tony said. “I brung a little crew. Basically over time I proved I was willing to go the distance, earned the trust and worked my way up.”

At its peak, Chummy’s club was open four nights a week and making $30,000 a week, Chummy said, and Tony was taking home a small cut. Eventually, Tony took over the business. About three months ago, he opened up shop at the current location, which he found with the help of a friend who holds similar illegal parties for gay men.

He said that he tried to manage the club as if it were a completely legitimate enterprise, and that his biggest threats were robbers and undercover police officers.

“I go into it thinking that this is legal,” Tony said during an interview at a diner in the Bronx. Many of the details he shared that day, like his account of selling large quantities of heroin, could not be independently verified. Far from being reticent, he was eager to talk about what he saw as his accomplishments in running the club. And he seemed confident that he could stay a step ahead of the police.

“I’m not shaky, I’m not looking out the window,” he said. “I’m doing what I’m supposed to do — arranging the girls, checking in on staff — like it’s a real business.”

His business model is simple. Men pay a cover charge at the door, usually $40. Women have to pay a $60 tip to the house by the end of the night, but keep the proceeds from lap dances. If they agree to take a man to a private area, they keep two-thirds of what is essentially a rental fee for the space — $200 for every 20 minutes. The women keep 100 percent of whatever they charge for services rendered behind the curtains.

In the hours before the club opens, Tony is glued to one of his smartphones, making sure that everyone on his list of more than 3,000 men knows that the party is on and that enough women will come.

“It’s ridiculous stress,” he said. “Your heart’s pumping. Where the girls at? Where the guys at? Are we going to make enough to break even?”

On a good night, 50 to 100 men show up, and 30 to 40 women.

When it is crowded, the women approach men with a soft touch on the arm or by asking, “Have you been here before?” Others make coy glances from across the room. The men approach, too, sidling up to women whom they like or have met before.

Tony said he relied on word of mouth to recruit new women. Some are professional strippers. Others, including a small number of college students, have less experience. “A lot of girls are scared because they don’t want anybody to know about it,” he said. “I let them know it’s underground. We can be discreet. I let them know they won’t get in trouble. They don’t want anything to do with the police.”



Tony said he did not force women to do anything they did not want to do; he estimated that slightly less than half of them accepted money for sex. “I let them know all the time: What happens in the room is between you and the guy,” he said. “There’s nothing required, so don’t ever let the guy tell you that. Everything is cool.”

He prides himself on treating the women kindly. “I’m like the 1 percent, because in this business, all guys are messed up, mean, aggressive, yelling,” Tony said. “I’m calm. I let them know we’re working together.”

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On a recent night, Alexis, a stripper who usually danced at a club called Headquarters, took a moment to talk. She was 22, lighthearted, and wearing a bull ring through her nose. She said she liked Bliss better than other clubs because men know they have to pay. “They can’t stand around and watch,” she said.

Of Tony, she said: “He’s cool. He respects us. One day I didn’t have the house fee and he said, ‘O.K. that’s fine.’ ”

A petite woman from Queens, who called herself Hazel and said she stripped at the Hustler Club, was weary but flirtatious. During a break from working the floor, she said she liked Tony and the quick and easy money she could make at his place. She said she recently charged a man $400 for oral sex, adding that he was wearing a condom.

Others like the place less. “I was looking to dance,” said a young waitress, leaning against the bar, who identified herself as Kiara and said she had heard about Bliss on Craigslist. She was new to the club, fresh-faced and vivacious. She said that Tony was “never gross” but that some of the patrons were. “What I found was a lot of guys who wanted to have sex,” she said. “I want stripper poles. There are no stripper poles here.”

On a recent night, Tony advertised in his texts and emails that he was welcoming a special guest, a porn star. She arrived early, sporting immense, surgically enhanced breasts, and mingled by the bar for a while. A round, older man with black hair told her that she was beautiful. She told him the price for time in the private area, and they dipped behind the curtain together. Other men lined up waiting for a turn. Tony apologized to the few who missed out when she left early.

“This is the future,” said a 61-year-old man, gesturing effusively toward the scene around him. He added, “You need to titillate both ends, if you catch my drift.”

The man, who said he was a derivatives lawyer from Manhattan and declined to give his name, said he had talked with a woman who was a student of design and neuroscience. “Don’t put the economic imperative right in my face,” he said. “It’s all about the je ne sais quoi.”

On another night, one of the women, a Columbia University student who called herself Naiad after a water nymph from Greek mythology, floated around the room in an airy silk robe over matching undergarments. It was her second night at the club. She asked men, “What’s your story?” When they asked her the same in turn, she told them she was a mermaid from the waters of Riverside Park.

“I only grow limbs in the nighttime,” she said. “And I enjoy what being a woman below the torso offers, because I don’t take it for granted as much.”

A man asked her to go to a private room after a couple of dances.

“It was really weird having sex with someone I didn’t know and had zero attraction to,” Naiad said later. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, what’s going on?’ ” But the $250 she said she had earned helped with her unease; she has since returned.

“I want to eat good food and pursue life’s pleasures and have it come from my own work,” she said, adding that she did not want to ask her parents for money. As an international student, she cannot work legally off campus.

“It’s not a brothel where everyone is beaten up,” she said. “Everyone is there by their own free will.”

It is hard to know what kind of financial pressures or other issues might encourage the women to trade sex for money. And how much power women in sex work actually have has long been a subject of debate.

Some people find sex work empowering and some people find it very disempowering,” said Sienna Baskin, a director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, a provider of legal and social services. “It’s also important to recognize that people engage in the sex industry for a variety of reasons in the same way that people engage in all kinds of work for a variety of reasons. It might be the best option for them at that time.”

Rachel Lloyd, founder and director of Girls Educational & Mentoring Services, an organization that helps women and girls in the sex industry, worked in the sex trade herself. “What I do know,” she said, is “that very rarely are women with economic options, no history of trauma or abuse and real opportunities and choices getting into the commercial sex industry.”

“If you would have interviewed me at that point I would have said I was fine and this is my choice,” she said of her experience of sex work. “That was my reality.”

But her perspective changed when she left the life. “You kind of have to be like, ‘I’m O.K. with this,’ because if you stopped and thought about it, it would really mess with your head.”

By the early-morning hours, most men have stumbled home. The women dance together to the music, in front of the bar, on top of the bar. Tony counts his cash on a landing in the stairwell, jumping whenever the door opens. He pays the floor manager, another man who keeps time outside of the rooms and the man who accepts money at the door. He pays a few people hush money. He usually goes back to the South Bronx with a wallet stuffed with cash: $2,000 or $3,000.

“I want everybody to be happy,” he said. “I don’t want anybody storming out with a grudge, because then I’m worried about them picking up the phone. They can send a little blue and white car through. That puts us on the radar at the precinct.”

Last year, there were 1,869 arrests for prostitution in New York City; of those, 326 were in Manhattan. There were 145 arrests for promoting prostitution, which includes operating a house of prostitution, but only 18 in Manhattan.

Tony recalled one instance when a customer, upset that he could not get in without paying the entry fee, called the police and falsely reported a shooting at the club. “Mad cops pulled up,” he said. He had workers wedge a sledgehammer behind a door, then he hurriedly collected the computer and headed up to the roof.

Not long after they got up there, they could hear laughter on the street below. The police, finding no evidence of a shooting, had left without entering the club. “It wasn’t a raid,” Tony said.

When he thinks the police are on to him, Tony said, he will find a new location. He is currently considering space in the financial district.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/nyregi...ytimes&_r=0

NY, NY the city so great they named it twice....

to get in the VIP its 50 bucks plus a BJ later on

You can find places like that in every city, and even small towns.

Not all; but a lot of strippers do wind up being prostitutes on the side because they make more money from it.

I am not into women like that; but I have been to strip clubs with male friends who are, and the strippers made it quite clear to him when he was interested in them that he could have sex with them for a price.

This happened in Polk County Florida, which is in the middle of the state and nothing but a couple small towns and a lot of farm land.

POLK COUNTY, FL (WFLA) - Polk County Sheriff’s Office detectives conducted a four day prostitution investigation that resulted in the arrests of 80 suspects on a variety of charges, including soliciting for prostitution, soliciting another to commit a lewd act, deriving sup-port/proceeds from prostitution, and aiding/abetting prostitution. The investigation was conducted in an undercover location in Polk County from Thursday, December 12th to Sunday, December 15th, 2013.

Detectives answered and placed ads on Internet websites such as Backpage.com. Undercover detectives arrested 24 men who were soliciting ("Johns"), 33 prostitutes, 13 who were aiding and abetting prostitution or deriving proceeds from prostitution, and 10 others for a variety of drug and other charges.

66% of those arrested (53 out of 80) have previous criminal histories including charges such as attempted murder, aggravated stalking, kidnapping, robbery, child abuse, battery, theft, fraud, and drug crimes. Among them, they had been charged with 395 crimes, an average of 7 ½ crimes each.

"Prostitution is not a victimless crime. From the spread of disease and destruction of families to human trafficking, prosti-tution is bad for our community. We arrested a 16-year-old girl from Orlando on Saturday for prostitution. She was driven to our undercover location (along with a 26 year old female prostitute) by a 20-year-old man. The teen is clearly a victim of sex trafficking. We arrested the driver for deriving proceeds from prostitution and we are going to do everything we can to get her help and find out who is involved in trafficking this teenager," said Grady Judd, Polk Sheriff.

Among those arrested is Justin Bachand, 32, who is employed as a Florida Department of Corrections Probation Officer. Also under arrest is Mark Graffrath, 50, who has been arrested in two previous sting operations on prostitution.

"Not only is he a slow learner, but he was arrested on one occasion by the same exact undercover agent," said Judd.

Detectives learned that 22 of those arrested are receiving food stamps / SNAP benefits.

"We are giving them thousands of dollars a month to either violate the law, or we are paying for them indirectly to obtain the proceeds of a prostitute," said Judd.

Nine of the "johns" told deputies that they were married and one was engaged to be married. Five of the prostitutes told deputies they were married.

http://www.wfla.com/story/24232963/polk-prostitution-sting-results-in-80-arrests

Gross... I'd rather die than suc* on a piece of rubber or f*ck wit a person I don't even know or like... to be absolutely perfectly honest I'd rather deal drugs, be a fat loan shark, or shoot a john in the balls then laugh about it later.

And you say you're still single?

Pretty sure the numbers quoted by "Tony" are far from close.

You run a joint like that and the girls are getting taxed WAY more than stated.

And Tony's going home with FAR more than $2k in his pocket.

And more people are on the pay off list. Alot more.

Either Tony's numbers are fudged. Or Tony's fudged.

On the slideshow accompanying the article it says that Tony is from The South Bronx, and is only 24 years old. He looks to be African-American. There are 2 pictures of him in the slideshow, but his face is not shown clearly. One of the woman shown has cellulite all over her legs.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/nyregi...100000002907176

Sonny, I agree 100%, this guy is not too bright for giving an interview to the New York Times to begin with.

The numbers do seem off. In San Francisco there are quite a few legit strip clubs many operated by Deja-Vu - they also make $$$ from real estate as they own multiple properties in North Beach (Little Italy)under shell companies like BSC Management. I did marketing for many adult companies and have a friends who worked at clubs in various roles from managers to DJs, dancers to maintenance. There are a clubs where the girls will offer "extras" in private booths and these clubs are well known. The amount that the girl quotes for oral ($400) means that she charged the guy $600 or did she just make $200 after paying the backroom fee? It's not clear but either way that is expensive for that particular "extra". Maybe those are Manhattan prices but in SF $400 - $600 will get you "full service" at the most expensive club. It just seems to me that with the size of the crowd and amount of girls that the club income would be higher. The other thing about SF is that the cops leave the "extras" clubs alone but they do target the regular clubs and if there is any prostitution going on in one of those clubs they do make arrests and suspend liquor licenses etc...
You can find out more about the San Francisco club scene here...

http://forum.myredbook.com/forum/DCForumID11

A crew of brunette strippers targeting rich marks drugged the men, racked up huge jiggle joint bills on their credit cards and blackmailed them with “compromising” XXX photographs, officials said Wednesday.


The cunning quartet — who worked as dancers, hostesses and bartenders at several “gentlemen’s” clubs — trolled for marks in more sedate locations like hotel bars.

Accused ringleader Samantha Barbash, 40, or one of her minions slipped tranquilizing drugs in their drinks and then drove them to either Scores in Manhattan or RoadHouse NYC in Flushing, Queens, officials charged.


The men were ushered into private rooms and quickly stripped — of their credit cards.

Barbash and her girls then ran up tens of thousands of dollars in charges and forged the signatures, officials said.

The tabs included lap dances, pricey magnums of champagne, multiple rounds of Patron tequila, and “generous” tips, said one law enforcement source.

Club workers — apparently unaware the men were being scammed — gave the women a cut of the proceeds, which is standard practice for bringing in big spenders, officials said.

“In some cases, the victims had no memory of ever even being in the strip club,” finding out about their crazy night only when the credit card bill came due, said the source.

Those who complained were threatened that racy photographs — taken by the women later in the evening at hotel rooms — would be posted online, said DEA spokeswoman Erin McKenzie-Mulvey.


Agents found a stash of additional blackmail photos when the women were arrested Tuesday and Wednesday, said one law enforcement source.

They include graphic images of men posing with both men and women.

“There are other victims, judging from the photos we found,” said the source.


Samantha Barbash and three other dancers were charged with conspiracy, grand larceny, assault and forgery.

The ring was busted when one victim contacted the DEA, and the agency set up a sting operation.

“One of our agents posed as a wealthy man as part of the investigation,” said McKenzie-Mulvey. “Some of the defendants put synthetic cathinones, also known as Molly, into his drink as a way to make him unresponsive.”

Other drugs used in the tranquilizing cocktails included ketamine and cocaine.

Barbash, of Little Neck, was busted along with Roselyn Keo, of Nanuet, Karina Pascucci, of Metuchen, NJ and Marsi Rosen, of Bayside, Queens.

Also arrested was Carmine Vitolo, 43, of Pomona, NY — a manager at RoadHouse NYC who allegedly helped the women figure out how to run up bigger bills.

All off the suspected were freed on low bail after their arraignments and their lawyers denied the charges.

There are four known victims — a hedge fund manager, a Wall Street banker, a real estate agent and a heart surgeon — but the investigation is continuing and may unearth more marks.

“The defendants were banking on the victims being too afraid to contact the police,” said Bridget Brennan, the city’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor. “They made a miscalculation.”

http://nypost.com/2014/06/11/strippers-busted-in-plot-to-drug-blackmail-wealthy-clients/

Salad-for-sex deal made during prostitution sting, police say


By Amy Pavuk, Orlando Sentinel

11:06 a.m. EDT, June 12, 2014

Alonzo Liverman didn't have any cash when he approached an undercover officer posing as a prostitute in Daytona Beach on Monday morning, police said.

But he did have a salad from Applebee's.

According to an arrest report released Thursday, the officer, who was working a reverse prostitution sting in the area of Fremont and South Ridgewood avenues, told Liverman she was hungry and asked, "You got food?"

Liverman, 29, said he had a salad, the report said.

The undercover officer then offered sex in exchange for the salad. The report said Liverman replied, "You ready to go?"

Liverman was among 10 people arrested during the sting, conducted in an area known for street prostitution, police said.

Also arrested was 33-year-old Tim Pickett, who played basketball at Florida State University and overseas.

Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood said his agency is trying to improve the quality of life for residents who live along the U.S. 1 corridor.

Prostitution leads to drug deals, domestic violence, burglaries and other crimes in the area, he said.

Police are also continuing to investigate three unsolved murders of prostitutes who were picked up in the Ridgewood Avenue area.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/os-sex-for-salad-prostitution-sting-20140612,0,265730.story

Greedy bitches.

haha I wouldn't be surprised if they show that on an episode of that TV show COPS.

Was it a tossed salad?

Italian,

I was thinking the same thing, would make a great cops episode

SOUTH HACKENSACK — Township police arrested 14 people this week in an undercover operation targeting prostitution and drug dealing in a motel on Route 46 westbound, authorities said.

The operation began around 5 p.m. Tuesday and ended about 2 a.m. Wednesday, South Hackensack police Capt. Robert Kaiser said.

“The prostitution rolled into the narcotics,” Kaiser said.

Police have seen an influx of prostitution in Route 46 motels in the last six months, Kaiser said, but they don’t know why.

Seven township police officers were involved in the operation, Kaiser said, after hearing about prostitution and drug dealing in the motel. He declined to identify the motel.

Kaiser said the officers posed as clients and scheduled appointments with the prostitutes in the motel. The prostitutes’ rates ranged from $70 for a half-hour to $300 for an hour.

The officers asked the prostitutes about buying drugs, and the dealers came to the motel rooms to sell crack cocaine, he said.

Police seized about $2,500 and some drugs during the bust, he said.

Kaiser said police don’t know if the prostitutes are affiliated, and he declined to say what is next in the investigation.

Eric Gonzalez, 26, of Jersey City, was charged with aggravated assault of a police officer, resisting arrest, possession with intent to distribute controlled dangerous substances, possession of cocaine and possession of Xanax.

Timmy Rivera, 30, of Bayonne, was charged with promoting prostitution, possession of cocaine, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.

Jessica M. Paget, 24, of Jersey City, was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession of heroin, possession of marijuana and prostitution.

Heather Homan, 37, of Jamesburg, was charged with possession of heroin, possession of needles and prostitution.

Joshua Dixon, 22, of Paterson, was charged with prostitution and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Joji Sai, 31, of Leonia, and Liang Zhang, 31, of Elmhurst, N.Y., were charged with promoting prostitution.

Jin L Chen, 43, of Flushing, N.Y.; Yuping Sheng, 45, of Flushing, N.Y.; Brielle Inestroza, 22, of Newark; Ivette Amarante-Camacho, 24, of Bayside, N.Y.; and Fatima Ventura, 36, of College Point, N.Y., were charged with prostitution.

Peggy Jorgensen, 34, of Elizabeth, was charged with loitering with intent to distribute controlled dangerous substances, although the police said she did not actually possess a controlled dangerous substance.

Maria Jorge-Lopez, 32, of Lodi, was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.

Email: dazio@northjersey.com

- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/police-1...h.GKHY8wC7.dpuf

Five-O getting some happy endings

Law letting police in Hawaii have sex with prostitutes.


Today in stories that seem like they came out of Florida, as in we double-checked the dateline twice to be 100 percent sure this story really, truly came out of a state that is not Florida, we bring you news about police in Hawaii and prostitutes.

State law in Hawaii currently lets police have sex with prostitutes during investigations. Lawmakers had considered getting rid of the exemption, but after Honolulu police testified that they needed it for investigations, the bill was amended to keep the rule in place.

Police said during their testimony that officers weren’t abusing their authority or taking advantage of people, saying that there are strict internal controls in place, according to the Associated Press. (They did not say how often officers have ever actually had sex with a prostitute during an investigation.) But people opposed to the exemption still note the potential for abuse.

The subject is getting a lot of attention for obvious reasons. The New York Daily News, for example, went with the “Hawaii five-OH!” headline, which is definitely a funny joke people should keep making.

But it’s worth remembering that there are some recent examples of police officers being accused or convicted of sexually abusing prostitutes: A former officer in Philadelphia has been charged with raping two women identified as prostitutes; a former officer in Lowell, Mass., pleaded guilty last year to threatening prostitutes to force them to have sex; and a Houston police officer was sentenced to six years in prison for raping a prostitute in 2010.

Meanwhile, prostitution seems to account for an infinitesimal portion of the Honolulu Police Department’s arrests. Honolulu police made 284 prostitution arrests in 2012 (the last year for which statistics were available), just 0.7 of the 36,757 arrests made that year. It was the same percentage a year earlier, so it’s not like there’s evidence of some increasing epidemic.

Prostitution similarly accounts for a very small percentage of the arrests made that same year in cities with similar-sized populations. In Tampa, police made 336 arrests for prostitution out of 50,874 total arrests, or about 0.6 percent. In Pittsburgh, prostitution accounted for 298 arrests out of the overall 17,772 arrests, or 1.6 percent.


It’s not just cities of this size, either. Take Chicago, where the population is much, much larger and police make many more arrests. Prostitution still accounts for a small share: Just 2,404 of the 167,541 arrests made in 2010 (the most recent year with available numbers) were for prostitution, or 1.4 percent.

A report on prostitution written by Anaheim police Lt. Steve Marcin and published last year by the Federal Bureau of Investigation looked at a different way to approach prostitution. It noted that the response to street prostitution has generally involved police officers pretending to be customers before making arrests:


The standard procedure was for undercover officers to pose as customers, obtain a solicitation, and arrest the prostitute. They repeated the process often to incarcerate as many women as possible. These tactics resulted in misdemeanor filings and a temporary relocation of the activity. Prostitution soon returned.

Marcin wrote about a new approach taken by the Anaheim police that instead focused on rescuing women from pimps and helping them connect with victim advocacy groups so they can get shelter, counseling and job training. This approach “meant considering prostitutes as potential victims and identifying pimps as suspects,” rather than merely arresting prostitutes over and over again, he wrote.

The Anaheim Police Department reports that the new approach has resulted in more than 380 women being offered counseling, job placement and an avenue away from prostitution.

This post has been updated with the correct percentages, because I live to disappoint my high school math teacher, I guess.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-...th-prostitutes/

Talk about under cover work .

This whole story sounds exactly like the old urban myth. Pro drugs John back at the hotel room. John wakes up in the tub with his kidney surgically removed .