Selling Out

by Amber Lin

  “You’re wondering if I’m going to hurt you. Probably.” He ran his thumb over my lips, his fingernail catching on the tender skin. “Can’t dirty you up now, though. Tomorrow you have a party.”

  My gaze met his. I hated parties. All the girls did. Decent money, but not enough to compensate for too many men getting drunk and nasty. An escort was never more than an object to get off in, but a hooker at a party was a piñata.

  But I would do it because I had no choice. I would do it because I needed more money to afford this fancy apartment with all the security that clearly did not work. And most of all, I would do it because I could do nothing else. I’d known it all along, from when I was young, too damned young, and this afternoon underscored that.

  “A party,” I repeated dully.

  “Good girl.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I’ll send you the details.”

  Then they were gone, and I crumpled to the floor. Belated, terror swept over me, drenching me and then leaving me chilled in its absence.

  Stupid, thinking I could work at a bookstore as a clerk. Stupid that I’d want to. I would make more money in fifteen minutes at this party than Dawn would make all day. And she, confined to her feet. I would earn mine on my back, on my hands and knees, any which way they pleased.

  Hooking had been the only thing I could do, once upon a time. Seemed it still was.

  In the interim since I’d quit, I had counted down the days until I wouldn’t stink of dirty money. Until I would be worthy of him. But yearning wasn’t enough to buy a new life. Pity was worth nothing, and self-pity even less. I, however, was worth a whole awful lot. My daddy had taught me early and taught me often. I may have been born a whore, but I’d always been high priced.

  My fancy, high-rise condo was suddenly unbearable, the pictures of Allie and Bailey tainted, the extravagant knickknacks lining the mantel muddied. This had never been a home, but now it wasn’t even safe. My skin crawled, and with nothing on me but my keys and a crumpled gray suit, I left my apartment and hit the stairs.

  * * * *

  Parties were dangerous, but they were nothing compared to streetwalking. I didn’t look like a working girl tonight, just a poor sap whose car had broken down in the wrong part of town. Because even though I paid a ridiculous sum to live in my condo off the books, the streets were a different stratosphere.

  Glossy buildings jutted from the concrete like shards of glass, untouchable from the smog-drenched alleyways. Bums gathered behind Dumpsters, burning pinches of weed in a bonfire to keep warm. Urgent sounds of cars squealing, slamming, speeding ricocheted off the concrete walls.

  I saw a girl hovering against a building. Her clothes were tight and revealing, ordinary. As a whore, she looked downright virtuous, but I recognized that stillness.

  Her too-young body and timid posture would attract only the worst kind of client—if she even found anyone. The sallow light of the streetlamps only lit cracks in the sidewalk tonight. If she was counting on a john to buy her dinner, her stomach would probably go empty.

  Cautious, I approached her. No sudden movements. She froze when she noticed me but didn’t meet my eyes. Smart girl.

  I stopped a few feet away and leaned back against the wall, looking out. “Hey.”

  “Am I in your spot?” Her voice trembled.

  Was she too scared to notice how I was dressed? Or maybe just too damned perceptive. “I don’t work the street.”

  “Oh.”

  I cast her a sideways glance. She stared at the ground, clutching the dirty concrete wall behind her.

  “You don’t want to be out here,” I said.

  “No?” she said on an exhale.

  “The men here—they’re rough. You know what I mean?”

  Her mouth tightened. She could only be all of fifteen or so, but she knew what I meant.

  She licked her lips. “Wh-where should I go?”

  “I know a place.” She wouldn’t like it, not at first, but it was where she needed to go. “I can show you.”

  She examined me, trying to see beneath the surface, but I could have told her it was a futile occupation. There wasn’t anything there.

  “Maybe we’ll pick up a burger on the way,” I said.

  A low-pitched grumble emanated from her stomach. She clasped her arms around her waist.

  “I’m not going with you.”

  A hint of scorn entered her voice. Where she’d gotten that lick of spirit from, I didn’t know—not when she looked about to keel over from hunger and fear.

  “Sweetheart, do you think I’m going to hurt you worse than a guy you find out here?”

  She shook her head, more in denial at what I was suggesting. Better she hear it from me than suffer it at their hands. “They won’t just fuck you, honey. They’ll make it hurt. In your cunt, in your mouth. You ever take it in the ass?”

  Her eyes widened. Her upper body canted forward, bent over at her arms. I might have worried she would throw up if I thought she’d had anything to eat today.

  If I told her I wasn’t going to do anything to her, she wouldn’t believe me. Hell, I wouldn’t have. “Some of them don’t even care about the fuck. They just want someone to wail on. Beat you up, leave you for dead. Whatever I’m going to do to you, it’s gotta be better than that, right?”

  “P-p-please,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

  She looked so pitiful, so desperate for comfort as she stood there hugging herself. I wouldn’t touch her, but I could take her to someone who could. They would take care of her, and I would be absolved once again.

  “Come on,” I said, then turned and walked back toward my place.

  The pitter-patter of her feet on the pavement followed me.

  I’d parked in a secure garage, and I waved at the guard as we passed. When we reached my car, I opened the door and gestured inside. She stared at the passenger seat like it was a torture chamber.

  I sighed. “What’s your name?”

  “Laura,” came out on a whoosh.

  Breathing was good. I didn’t want her passing out on me. The last thing I needed was to deliver a limp body.

  “All right, Laura. I see you’re stressing, but there’s no need to worry. I’m not going to hurt you. We’re going to grab a bite to eat, you and me, okay? Maybe get some rest. No one’s going to hurt you.” Ah, empty promises. I’d do my best to make sure they came true, but she was still a broken girl in an indifferent world. That rarely worked out well.

  I steeled myself and touched her back, her arm, to steer her into the car. She didn’t resist, at least, and sat in the passenger’s seat.

  “You’re okay, Laura. My name’s Shelly, and you’re going to be okay, got it?”

  Without waiting for an answer, I shut the door and hurried around to the other side. I drove her to a drive-through and ordered enough to feed a football team before driving to the brick building on Wicklow Street.

  I stopped the car and looked over at her. Laura stared blankly at the unmarked building, though I didn’t know if she was still in her stupor or just confused about where we were. This place could never have a sign, though. It was removed from the maps. It didn’t exist.

  With some coaxing and a bit more nudging, she got out of the car. I fished an envelope from the glove box, thick and unmarked on the outside. There weren’t many of these envelopes left. But if I was really going to work a party, they would soon be replenished.

  The glass of the door was bulletproof and tinted dark against peeping eyes. I pressed the cracked button tucked into a brick. A few minutes later, Marguerite opened the door.

  Her hair was such a pale, glossy blonde it was almost white, curled into a neat coif. Dressed in a slimming black suit, she looked more like a high-powered executive than the hands-on manager for a small shelter. She had run this place since its inception at, oh, the beginning of time. This place or one like it had always existed, always been needed, and always would be so long as men took what they wanted and women let
them.

  She ushered us both inside. “What happened?”

  Any number of things could have happened to this girl. Drugs or violence or rape, that sort of thing. Likely some of them had already happened, but not tonight. “Nothing. I think I got her before she… Well, she’s just been like this since she got in the car.” I shrugged. “Shock, maybe.”

  “Wait for me,” Marguerite ordered as she pressed the intercom.

  I nodded and leaned against the wall, relieved to release my charge. These little field trips were a glass of cold water in a parched expanse of desert, but there was a cost. There was always a cost, and in this case, it was the removal of my blinders—but only temporarily. The ones that said this was all my choice, it was all okay. Because if the life was something for her to escape from, then what the hell was I still doing in it? Oh God, why couldn’t I get out?

  But we weren’t the same, Laura and I. I didn’t have that lost look in my eyes. No confusion, no pain. When blue-gray eyes stared back at me from the mirror, I saw nothing there at all.

  Whoever ran the desk buzzed the door open, and Marguerite ushered them both inside. There was another inside-locked door between the administrative areas and the dormitories, every level another chance to stall a rampaging ex-husband or ex-pimp before they could do harm.

  I wondered if Henri could make it inside the inner sanctum. Probably. My boss had oodles of money, much of which I’d made for him, and he hired military dropouts like they were going out of style. Good thing this place only housed girls from fifty-dollar pimps—small-timers lucky to find their own tiny dicks, much less track down a missing girl and break their way in here.

  This place wasn’t a haven for me. I had always known that, but it seemed to matter more now, when I needed one, when my own safe place had been violated. Maybe it had been foolish to send my resources here. I could have flown to Tahiti, never to have been heard from again. Never would have seen Allie again either, or her daughter. Never seen him again. No, it hadn’t been an option. Still wasn’t.

  The girl would probably go through medical first, get checked out. Lucky for me, I wouldn’t be around for that. Wouldn’t find out the dirty little details, and that was the only reason I continued to do this.

  Make it right. It had become a mantra, a compulsion. I was too far gone, but I could bring them to safety. The contained little community was a refuge, but not for me. The dingy walls and speckled floor tiles of the entryway were already closing in on me. I didn’t suffer poverty gladly. There were only so many compensations for being a prostitute. One, really—money, and I intended to use it to the fullest. Initially, I had given Allie financial support. Now I resorted to luxury fabrics and label clothing, and when they didn’t fill the void, I came here.

  Marguerite came back into the foyer. “Thank you.”

  Her businesslike demeanor was the only reason I could handle her gratitude. “At your service, of course.”

  “She said she’s thirteen.”

  Unexpectedly, my stomach lurched. She wasn’t the youngest I’d seen on the streets, but suddenly she seemed like a baby. I was getting too old for this. How long had it been since I was her age? At least a decade—more. Back then, I’d lived in a fancy house with a princess bed and frilly clothes. I’d earned them.

  “So,” I managed to say. “Everyone’s gotta start somewhere.”

  “Shelly.”

  Her voice was too soft, too kind. Too damned understanding when she didn’t know a single thing.

  “You look tired. Have you been sleeping okay?”

  I went to sleep just fine, to my regret. The nightmares were like quicksand—the more I struggled, the faster they pulled me under. “I’m fine.”

  “We have therapists here. They can—”

  “What can they do?” I scoffed. What could they do except make things worse?

  “PTSD is not uncommon in women who—”

  “Enough.” I took a deep breath, looked away.

  Was it true? Did I have PTSD? Maybe. Probably. What did it matter?

  When I was in the tenth grade, I tried to seduce my World History teacher into a higher test score. He’d looked at me with shock, which had morphed into that damned understanding I’d learned to despise. Then came the therapists.

  At the end, the teacher had been fired, courtesy of good old dad, and my home life got a hell of a lot tougher in retaliation for making trouble. I’d figured out then I was better off alone, and nothing had changed. Nothing ever changed.

  “You’re breaking the rules,” I told Marguerite.

  She made a little sound of resignation. “Okay, we won’t talk about it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t know why you pretend you don’t care.”

  So much for not talking. “You should know by now that no one cares about whores.”

  “Then why do you do it?” she challenged.

  I flashed her my wicked smile. “Getting rid of the competition.”

  “Okay, Shelly.” She blew out her breath. “You’re right. I broke the rules.”

  I handed her the envelope. Marguerite accepted it with a grim face. Ah, something Ms. Faust and I had in common: taking money from someone we didn’t like. I wondered if it ever got easier for her. Every month I brought a wayward girl to this place. Each time, Marguerite pried another secret from my lips. I wasn’t worried. It would take far too many months, years even, to get them all, and I would never last that long.

  “How’s your cop?” Marguerite asked, as if we were two girlfriends shooting the shit.

  My heart beat faster, but I donned a mask of polite curiosity. I had mentioned Luke once, offered his services in getting a restraining order for one of the boyfriend pimps. Marguerite had refused, housing the girl until she could move her to another city through her network of shelters. The operation was costly and dangerous but still preferable to dealing with cops. Another thing we shared.

  “Haven’t spoken to him in a while.” Unfortunately, the truth. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering what he thought about you getting out.”

  She was fishing. No way she could know I had quit or had tried to.

  “It’s not really his business,” I said blandly. Not really your business.

  She shrugged. “Seemed like you really liked him.”

  Except he didn’t want a prostitute for a girlfriend; he’d basically said as much. More than that, he didn’t deserve one. I had quit, fled, had wanted to never go back to hooking, but clearly that wasn’t in the cards. My lip curled. “Come on, sweetheart. Do you really think someone like him can have a real relationship with someone like me?”

  It was a joke, but I held my breath.

  “No,” she said finally. “But you deserve to have some fun, even if it’s only for a little while.”

  Yeah. That was what I thought. Maybe it was for the best anyway, that I would go back to the one thing I could do so well. I never could have afforded to fund this place on what I made as a cashier or any other normal job. I swept out the door with a “Bye, honey” and a swing of my hips. Girl’s got a reputation to rebuild.

  I drove home on fumes and climbed directly into a scalding-hot shower. I scrubbed away the rejection from earlier, the fear and the stench of the streets. After using up half the bottle, I poured the rest of the soap out and watched as the peach-colored gel swirled down the drain. I couldn’t have used it again anyway, not after using it today. Maybe it was strange, but the rituals kept me sane, and what did they hurt? Who did they hurt? I lay down on the cold, hard floor of the tub and curled into a ball on my side, letting the water rain down on me.

  Distantly, I heard the phone ringing, but I couldn’t have moved. Not until the water turned cold and I began to shake. I pulled myself up and turned off the shower. After throwing on a large shirt to sleep in, I grabbed the answering machine and climbed into my plush bed with six-hundred-thread-count sheets. I curled my body around the little black box and presse
d Play.

  “Hey, it’s me.” He sounded tired. “I guess you’re busy.”

  There was a pause, which I scribbled in with well-deserved recriminations. I might not have been with a client today, but I would be tomorrow. This was my life. I could apologize for it, but I couldn’t change it any more than a ship could change the tides.

  “I worked a double shift today,” he said on the recording. “One of the other guys, his wife went into labor, so I took over for him. Wasn’t too bad, though. Just tiring. For her, I mean. It took her ten hours to push him out, so what the hell do I have to complain about? Nine pounds, a boy. I didn’t see him yet, came straight home.” There was silence. “Straight home and called you. Funny.”

  The answering machine broke the awkwardness with a click.

  There were no more messages. I pressed the button again.

  “Hey, it’s me. I guess you’re busy. I worked a double shift today. One of the other guys, his wife went into labor…”

  Chapter Two

  The party turned out to be a corporate affair in the penthouse of a swanky modern hotel. A bunch of high-profile CEOs getting high and horny amid miles of glass surfaces—what a brilliant idea.

  The guys at the front desk checked me out, but discreetly. With furtive glances instead of leers, as befitted an escort of my price range. For all they knew, I was a spoiled girlfriend, not a prostitute. But then, what was the difference?

  Outside the suite, I sank my stilettos into the carpet. The dull beat shook from behind the door, already matching the throb in my head. I had the sudden urge to call him as I brushed my fingers against the little black clutch.

  What could I say? I know I promised I wouldn’t do it anymore, but I’m about to go bang assholes for money. I tried to join the regular world, but they didn’t want me. I’m sorry. Don’t hate me. Help me.

  The door swung open, revealing a man with a shiny forehead and a bulbous belly hanging from between his open dress shirt. “I call dibs,” he shouted, spittle flying in my face.

  Fabulous.

  “Sure, lover.” I tried to squeeze by him, but he caught me in the doorway. His hands were everywhere, his foul liquor-breath suffocated me, and the doorjamb cut into my back. “No need to rush, handsome. We’ve got all night.”