Chapter 10
“I can't do anything about this here. I need to get it back to the shop to fix it up.”
“How much will it cost?”
“Shouldn't be too bad, it's a pretty old car. I'd say two, maybe three hundred dollars.”
Three hundred dollars! The car was barely worth that!
I could feel my heart beginning to rumble in my chest, a feeling that had grown all too familiar. “But I can't afford that right now.”
“Not much else to say I'm afraid sweetheart, it's gonna take a couple of parts and a few man hours to get this tin can back on the road.”
“Oh, and that's thirty dollars for the call out as well,” he continued, jotting down a few notes onto a clipboard. “If I take it away now we can add that to your final bill if you like?”
Well at least that was something. Small f*cking mercies.
What else could I do. I needed that car, needed it to get around, needed it to get to work if ever I found a job. But three hundred bucks - there was no way I could afford to pay that right now.
“Is there any way I can pay you in instalments? Maybe work out some sort of payment plan?”
I could see the man's mind ticking away as he scratched at this bearded cheek. “We can do that but they'd be interest charged on the fee. It's best for you if you can pay up front or the charges can add up pretty quickly.” At least he was being honest.
I could feel the well of emotion bubbling inside me, threatening to explode out right in this guys face. He was just doing his job, but it was yet another kick in the gut, another slap in the face. My eyes were welling up, tears slowly building in their corners, ready to be unleashed down my face. My life had descended to this, to a point where I was running on fumes, my bank account bare.
I'd have no way of paying the bill, no way of paying my rent, no way of buying food. I'd been down to my last few cents before, but always with a paycheck promised at the end of the month, always with a glint of light at the end of the tunnel. Now that tunnel was dark, my world cast into blackness, and I could see no way out.
“Hey love, don't start crying now, it won't work on me. Look, do you want me to take the car or not?”
“Hold up.”
The voice came from behind me, echoing around the walls, cutting the silence. I turned and saw him walking over to me, his eyes set on the mechanic.
“What's the charge,” he asked as he approached.
The mechanic looked slightly bemused, glancing up and down at Kyle in his expensive suit and large overcoat. He must have smelled money, because his price seemed to suddenly inflate dramatically. “Erm, it's five hundred dollars all in all.”
Kyle smiled at him knowingly, as if he knew he was being swindled. He reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a brown leather wallet. “Five hundred,” he said, sliding five crisp bills from it and passing them to the mechanic. The man's greedy eyes ogled the cash as he took it, trying to contain his smile.
“Oh, and it's fifty for the call out as well.” Now he really was pushing it.
Kyle didn't flinch, reaching for another note, and handing him another maximum bill. “Get it done by tomorrow and you can keep that change.”
The man nodded. “No problem at all, I'll have it done by midday.”
I remained a bystander the entire time, my words deserting me as I was struck from the negotiation. Kyle didn't look at me, his eyes sticking to the mechanic like glue, watching as he clipped my car to his tow truck.
“Here's your receipt,” the mechanic said, scribbling onto a sheet of paper and then ripping it from his clipboard. He turned back to me and said “come by midday, it'll be ready then,” and handed me his card, before stepping intohis truck and hauling my car away.
I turned to Kyle as he watched the car depart. “I don't know what to say.”
“I think the customary response is thank you,” he said, his back still turned to me.
He swivelled on the spot, slowly bringing his eyes into contact with my own, his blue irises shining in the morning light. “I see you're having a tough time of it at the moment Alice?” he said, a sympathy in his words.
I nodded, my eyes watering slightly, my words falling short in my mouth, unable to trickle out. “Look,” he continued, “let me buy you a coffee, you look like you need one.”
“No, I can't,” I sobbed quietly, “I need to find a job.”
He said nothing, but I knew what he was thinking. Over the last couple of days the thought had crossed my mind a couple of times itself.
“Is all of this worth it?” he asked suddenly, his question ambiguous.
“What?”
“This. Struggling for money, scratching around to pay your bills, searching night and day for a minimum wage job. You're young, Alice, you should be enjoying your life, enjoying your time at college.”
It was like he could see into my world, like he was looking through a window into the crappy, run down house my life had become. I guess he'd seen enough of it to put the pieces together. A clapped out banger for a car, an empty prison cell of a dorm room, that constant look on my face that something was wrong. He was right - I wasn't enjoying the normal college experience, I wasn't having fun, I wasn't happy. Maybe, just maybe, it was time for a change.
He stared at me as my mind ran from thought to thought. I could see the look on my face in my minds eye - troubled, a deep frown etched across it, a sullen look in my eyes.
“Work for me Alice. Just one time, just to see what it's like. Do it, and we can call it quits on the car.”
My heart started beating wildly once more at the thought - the thought of stripping, of showing my body to strange men. I'd have to dance, too, be sexy. I didn't know how, I'd never known how. I wasn't Tess, I couldn't do something like that.
“I - I can't. I'll pay you back, I promise.”
He stepped forward and grabbed my arm, his chest so close to mine, his warm breath clouding over my forehead. He smelled so good, his fragrance filling my cold nostrils. “It'll be me Alice,” he said. “You'll dance for me, no one else.” His words had dropped to a whisper, his voice and scent and the warmth of his body intoxicating as he inched closer to me, pressed up against me.
I felt an urge run through me to grab his face and kiss him, feel his soft lips against my own. He leaned in closer, his eyes locked to mine, his lips so close as his words slipped from them. “One time, Alice. Just one time.”
He released my arm and slowly stepped back, his energy drawing me with him and sucking me forward a touch. “Tonight, Alice, come to this address tonight at 9 PM. Ask for me at the door.” I couldn't speak as he passed me the card. “No commitment, no pressure. If you don't want to come back, I'll never bother you again and we'll wipe the slate clean.”
He had begun walking backwards slowly as he spoke, taking him further from me, my body growing cold once more without him near. Then, he turned, walked faster towards the exit and disappearing out of sight.
I breathed deep. One night. What's the worst that could happen?