“Come on, whatcha willing to give up under that little sexy black leather skirt? Can the first sample of this pussy be free?” he said towering over her; his body swallowed up her tiny frame.
“Get the fuck off me,” Crystal screamed, struggling to push him away.
The disgusting odor of piss mixed with rotting garbage wafted across the narrow breezeway as a gust of wind reminded me just how wretched life could be. These fucked-up moments didn’t exist for the Cinderella life most women lived on the other side of these stucco buildings. Streets where making a living wasn’t lived out in a shitty alley.
“Come on, what bitch wouldn’t want this inside her,” he growled as he pulled down his pants and grabbed himself.
You gonna take care of my sickness, isn’t that right, little Rosalie.
Words bubbled in the back of my throat, bile crawled up from my stomach as I opened up my mouth to scream for him to stop.
I am drowning.
I wanted to stop him from hurting her, protect her like I should’ve been, but the back door of the laundromat slammed shut and I recoiled back into the shadows. A voice, louder, deeper and more commanding, rang across the cracked stucco before it rolled across the weathered wooden doors.
“Hey buddy, you heard the woman, she said no.” His deep voice startled me. He stood tall, burly, dwarfing all of us, his shoulders wide, dark eyes narrowed, legs ready to launch his body if he had to pull the guy off Crystal.
“Fuck you. Find your own bitch to go balls deep.” The drunken asshole slipped his hands up Crystal’s skirt.
I saw the fear in her eyes dissolve to defeat. Her shoulders rounded slightly, just enough to tell me she lost the internal battle of convincing herself that she didn’t deserve what was about to happen. It was a moment when those of us who fuck for money are forced to pretend to be someone else. It was just another shitty part of selling your body. Men will take, when given the opportunity. Tonight was no different.
“I said, let her go!” Laundry Man barked.
“You have no idea what business I’m conducting with this whore, so if you know what’s best for you . . . you’d get the fuck up outta’-here.” The belligerent asshole pulled up on Crystal’s skirt, giving him full access to her. He smiled, and then tangled his grimy hand into her platinum-blond hair before he tugged her head back exposing her neck. Her heart thundered under her thin skin, the muscles in her jaw tightened as she whimpered, tears clung to her eyelashes.
“She isn’t doing business with you anymore.” The huge virile Laundry Man slipped his arm around the front of drunken asshole’s neck and pulled him off Crystal. Gasping for air, Crystal’s attacker’s feet left the concrete; he kicked, stretching for ground. His hands released Crystal as he struggled to grab at the thick, muscular arm choking him out. His haggard face grew red, eyes bugged so large I saw the blood vessels as they began to explode and color the whites of his saucer eyes scarlet. Every gasp and soundless whisper gave way to a shade of blue that seeped around his mouth before his eyes rolled up into the back of his head. It wasn’t more than a couple of minutes before Crystal’s attacker was unconscious and crumpled in a pile of drunken leftover shit.
Standing in the shadows, I watched as Crystal righted her skirt and dragged the back of her hand across her cheeks. The faint glow from the single bulb which dangled above the back door of the pub lit the area around her. I was frozen, back against the grimy stucco wall. I didn’t run to her, I thought about it but decided to lurk in the background between guilt and relief. I had no idea who this man was or his motive for saving Crystal. Risking my livelihood to save her from getting pinched or thrown in jail was something I wasn’t willing to do. She’d be out by the next morning anyway, ready to sell her body again to whoever was willing to pay.
Cops and the DA thought getting picked up would scare us straight. A night in jail didn’t stop us, the money was too good and the hustle was too enticing.
“You okay?” he asked before he reached out to her. His giant hands hovered just below her shoulders making her look so tiny.
“Yeah, I think so,” Crystal whimpered. Her mascara blackened the delicate skin below her aquamarine eyes.
“You sure, Miss . . . ?” he said as he lowered his head and met her gaze.
“Crystal . . . Just Crystal.”
“Just Crystal?”
“Yep.”
“Well, Just Crystal, this isn’t a place you should be hanging out, all alone. You sure you’re okay?” he asked again. Wisps of his dark-brown hair curved amiss across his forehead and around his ears.
Crystal shifted her weight from one leg to the other. With the flick of her hand between them, she answered his question.
“Well, Mister . . . ?” she said as she waited for his answer.
“Shane. Only Shane,” he teased.
“Well, Only Shane, I’m not totally alone. My friends went into the pub. Wrangling up a couple of beers for me and—” She stopped as her eyes caught mine. I shook my head and warned her to keep me out of her conversation with this guy.
“And?” he questioned.
“Just me.”
“Well, Just Crystal, I can’t believe they left you back here all alone. It’s getting pretty late, why don’t I take you inside so you can find your friends?” He pulled Crystal out of the dark, dingy alley and into the pub. With a quick glance back, he made sure the guy he left in a heap wasn’t moving. The pub door slammed shut just before Crystal’s attacker began to roll around on the ground moaning.
I pushed off the bristly stucco and it snagged my wooly sweater; the pin pricks from pressing my body tight against the wall began to fade. I took a couple of steps out of the shadows that kept me secret. I eyed the drunken asshat on the ground as he struggled to figure out what just happened. Confused, his back was to me; his shoulders slumped, he dragged his thick black boots across the filthy ground before he struggled to his feet.
“What the hell? I’m gonna find that motherfucker and kill him and that little bitch whore too.” His voice was harsh and growly. His pants hung loose around his waist; he pulled them up as he looked around. The whites of his eyes were painted wicked scarlet red. He looked like the Devil from my childhood, himself.
I’m not a religious person. I don’t believe that there’s anything here, nothing that will save me from my own fucked up life. I was forgotten by a faith that turned its back on me and walked away simply because I didn’t pray hard enough. I was just a kid, hiding in the darkest corner of my closet, praying that God would answer my pleas and take away the rotting ache that ate away at my stomach and broke my heart. Praying until I ran out of tears, begging God to take away the shitty memories that filled my mind night after night just so I could fall asleep. Nine, ten, eleven years old, 365 days a year I prayed to God to take away my pain. I prayed for the strength to tell someone what happened to me. Begged God to protect me so no other monster would force his heaviness against me and steal another little broken piece of me away. The God everyone talks about, the same God who answers the meek and gives to the pure. Well, God, never listened to me. I guess he was busy helping someone who wasn’t damaged, or maybe I just didn’t pray hard enough.
“What the fuck are you lookin at?” drunken asshole clipped.
I froze.
Bile rose from my stomach and lapped at the back of my throat.
Shit, I didn’t want him to see me. It was too late . . . play the game, Rose.
“Well, I hope I’m looking at my next fuck. Sixty-five bucks and I’ll let you bury balls deep. Seventy-five, I’ll include a blow job.” I crawled my fingers to the bottom edge of my red skirt and pulled it up just enough before I caught my bottom lip between my teeth and methodically cocked my hip to one side.
“Are you with that skank who lured me out here just so her boyfriend could kick my ass?” he bellowed as his hands flailed out across the alley pointing to the laundromat and pub.
“I don’t know what you are talking abo
ut,” I answered through a snarky grin.
“Fuck that shit. I’m done with back alley whores, nasty pieces of shit, every one of you,” he spat before he turned away and limped his way down the alley.
Who in the hell was that bastard calling nasty?
Piss-soaked pants, bloodshot crimson eyes with his hair matted from fighting Shane before being choked unconscious. Let me call-‘um-like-I see-‘um, the fuck was a rat; he was a cheap rat bastard who was ready to rape a girl, simply because he felt he had the right to. It didn’t matter if she sold her pussy for money; he wanted to violate her because he could.
The door of the pub scraped open and the roar of many more drunken barflies floated and pounded across the night air violating the moment I planned on using to take a deep breath. Shane hustled back out, alone, his head down, he watched where he was going until he looked over to where he had left Crystal’s attacker and froze. Our eyes met and a chill stole my opportunity to exhale.
“Evening ma’am. You heading into the pub? Good idea to get on in, can’t be too careful out here alone.”
My voice was lodged down in my throat, the only thing I could do was nod.
He nodded in return and passed me without looking down at my body. He met my eyes long enough to tell me that he wasn’t going to hurt me, just enough time to tell me he wasn’t interested in what I was selling. He took a couple ginormous steps back to the other side of the alley and entered the laundromat.
My heart clung to the back of my throat, along with my pride. I wanted to tell him that I knew who he was. That I met him in the shadows of the alley about fifteen minutes ago when he saved Crystal. He just didn’t get the opportunity to formally meet me. It was strange that I knew his name. In fact, I knew enough about him to feel safe and comfortable around him and yet all he knew about me was that I was a woman alone in the back alley. I watched as the laundromat door swung closed behind him. He was gone and I was an object left in the dark dingy alley between the Stop and Wash Laundromat and the Iron Hog Pub.
I NEVER WOKE up before noon. Maybe every once in a while when I had to go see a doctor or pay my electricity bill before they’d shut it off, but most of the time my life didn’t start until a quarter to one. My internal clock was all fucked up, had been that way since I was a kid. Nights had gone from something to fear to something profitably required.
I had left home at the tender age of sixteen. I decided sleeping on my friends’ couches or the cold vacant sidewalks under shabby chunks of cardboard for heat had to be better than dealing with the drunken rage of my parents. My mom was unrelenting when she’d drink and unfortunately for me, she was drunk more times than she was sober. A couple of sips from a half-empty whiskey bottle and within minutes she’d have the courage to mercilessly beat the sin out of me. When I was done being the brunt of my mother’s burdens, I decided I had to leave, I had to get out.
I didn’t start selling my body until I was seventeen. I had just been kicked out of my friend Jean’s house. I guess helping myself to her parents’ little stash of pot wasn’t acceptable. Hell, I just had wanted to get high and pretend I was someone else; that my life had meant something more than another mouth to feed. All hell had broken loose; Jean had tried to take the blame, but I couldn’t let her do that for me. I grabbed my backpack, everything I owned, and I left. It had been the first night I had sold myself for some fast food and twenty bucks.
I watch this older blond-haired guy park up behind the Chick-N-Flips. He gets out of one of those older Mustangs, a red one with heavy doors and a canvas black top. He seems nervous, but familiarly comfortable as he approaches me.
“You waiting for someone?” he asks, his blue eyes twinkle matching his smile.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am and they should be here any minute,” I answer as I balance on the balls of my feet on the edge of the curb.
I watch him as he sizes me up; he can tell I’m high and takes the opportunity to get me to talk.
“OK, you just look a little hungry.”
Our eyes meet for a moment before I answer him.
“Yeah, I’m hungry. Didn’t eat much today.” I feel a chill build at the base of my spine.
“Well, why don’t I get you something to eat?”
And even though I’m starving and pangs of hunger twist in my gut, I give him the answer I think will curb his attention.
“No, I’m cool, I had a banana earlier, and my friend should be here any minute.”
“Nobody can survive on just a banana. How about I buy you something to eat?”
You so perfect, little sunshine. We gonna take care of my sickness now . . .
“Thanks mister, but I can’t pay you back.”
He slips his finger under my chin and pulls my face up so I’m looking into his ravenous eyes.
“Don’t worry about it, we can work something out. People barter in all different kinds of ways. Use what you have to get what you need.” His words linger in my head longer than any other useless conversation I have had today. Suddenly, it’s as if I know what I need to do. Maybe if I wasn’t so hungry I could have walked away. If I had some sort of credibility to work at a job, but I’m seventeen with no home, no work experience, and nowhere else to go. I know what he’s implying, I’m hungry and at this point I have no other choice.
I follow him into the men’s restroom of the Chick-N-Flips. We go into a stall and he drops his pants and I give my first blowjob. When we are done, he buys me a chicken sandwich, curly fries and a strawberry milkshake. Before he leaves he hands me twenty bucks, starts his car and off he goes. The twist in my stomach never goes away, but I’m fed and have some money in my pocket.
He was my first trick, my first paying customer. And three years later still one of my most reliable. But now instead of in a cramped stall in the Chick-N-Flips’ restroom, we meet up behind the courthouse on Main Street and I fuck him for sixty bucks in the passenger seat of that same old Mustang.
Every ho out there has done what she had to do to make it. No matter my past, present or future, I did what I needed to in order to make the work tolerable. Be it that I tossed back three shots of tequila before I had to work, or smoked a little weed in order to mellow the twist in my stomach, I did what I did to make it through the night. Tricks weren’t my biggest headache, sure I’d get dates who’d get a little rough or out of hand, but my major problem seemed to be the other prostitutes who tried to fuck with my six squares of sidewalk I called my corner. That was right; I claimed eighteen feet of high-trafficked prime real estate. I’m not gonna go into the graphic details about how I inherited my pavement. Let me just say it was gifted to me after one of our own hooked herself a sugar daddy. She wasn’t ever gonna have to sway her ass on a corner or worry about some John getting too rough with her or even how she was going to feed her two kids by two different fucks when the rubber broke. She pounded her way to the cat house. That’s what she wanted, some girls get lured into brothels or picked up by pimps and taken up to be escorts. I’d been approached, threatened, even taken, but I’d always find a way to make it back to my six squares of real estate before some other ho tried to claim it. See, Sybil and I were known as renegades or out-of-pockets, hos without a pimp. I wasn’t ever willing to give my money to some fucking asshole who never really protected me anyway. Let those girls who wanted that life take it. Selling my body wasn’t something I wanted to do forever.
Get enough money to get the fuck out.
I glanced at the clock. Damn, it was two thirty and I had no motivation to get out of bed, maybe because last night was nothing more than a total fucking loss. That drunk-ass guy, then the Shane thing with Crystal; all of it really cut into my profits. I was going to have to work twice as hard tonight, maybe even head out earlier than usual, in hopes that a handful of well-to-do horny dates needed a late afternoon dip or blow.
My mind twisted off in thinking about Shane, the Laundry Man. How polite he had acted last night with Crystal, jumping to her rescue. V
isions rumbled through my mind, as I wondered if he’d only treated her that way because she was in trouble. Would he have been so ready to help her if she was just doing her job? There weren’t many men out there like him, they just never existed in our line of work. If men like Shane existed, we would’ve done everything in our power that kept dates like that coming back. But, there wasn’t enough hours in the day where we wasted time hoping for something that would never happen to us. Back to reality, Rose.
I pulled my phone off my nightstand and looked to see if any of my regulars needed something special today. Nope, just a couple random texts about my data usage and a couple of missed calls from Brie. I listened to the messages she left, mostly just updates on how Crystal was doing after last night.
Those of us that have been in the business long enough that we have the same ol’ saying ingrained into our minds, would it be fair of me to call Brie back and recite the same fucking words? “It’s just the nature of the business. Sometimes you will be taken advantage of. Just be grateful he didn’t drag you off and kill you.” Yeah, seemed harsh, almost uncaring, but the more she realized she wasn’t in Nevada, the better off she’d be. We didn’t have the luxury of TV’s bullshit depiction of The Bunny Ranch, or the Cat House. I gave up that twisted dream of some fat bald fuck who kept me safe. It just didn’t happen to girls left on the streets to make their way through the world.
I just needed to shower again, get something to eat before I headed out to make up for the lost money last night. I glanced across the postage-stamp-sized studio apartment I share with Sybil and noticed her bed hadn’t been slept in. Still made, a wrinkle-free, pulled tight made bed, to where you could bounce a quarter off the blanket, she never came home. Actually, she wasn’t in the pub either, when I texted her last night she said she was gonna pull an all-nighter for two hundred and fifty bucks. But no matter, she should’ve been home by now. I shuffled over and noticed a little pink note resting on her pillow.
Broken Girl Page 2
