Most guys were drawn to my eyes. I guess my eyes told them every detail I kept locked away in my mind. A hollow goodbye with a touch of something curious, and I never allowed tears to well over my eyelashes. I just couldn’t let anything affect me that way anymore. My need to feel beyond the decay of my soul wasn’t warranted and neither were tears. Call me a callous bitch, a broken woman, hell, you could even call me a slut, but don’t ever call me a victim. I was exactly what my past had created. It happens, people get hurt and nobody stops their day or waits for you to catch up. Either you found your way or you got lost in the nightmares.
“Hurry up, Rose. Brie said she’ll drive,” Sybil said before she knocked on the bedroom door. She swung her purse across her shoulder, her florally forest perfume filled my room. That was another thing totally messed up about selling sex . . . you had to douse yourself in enough perfume to erase the smell of used latex mixed with semen.
I looked around the room; pictures of my great-grandmother hung on the walls and propped on the tortured old furniture that had a past equal to mine. On the full-size bed, wedged between the nightstand filled with beer bottles and the wall, the dark-brown comforter was bunched up with the used rubber. Fuck it; I’m not touching it, not for forty bucks. I snatched my purse off the gaudy floral chair. The same chair my grandma always had sat in when she’d spit her judgments on me as a child.
“So, this is your parents’ house?” Crystal asked as the four of us collected up our coats and headed out the door.
“Yeah, they’re on their annual trip to save the world,” I murmured.
“How long are they gone?” Sybil asked.
“They go every year for two weeks; they should be home any day now,” I droned.
Even though it had been three years since I’d spoken or seen my parents, they were predictable. Every year at this time they’d take a two-week trip to some exotic place and used the excuse that they were somehow doing their part to help the world. Always keeping up the perfect fa?ade.
I pulled open the huge front door and let everyone shuffle out before me . . . I looked around and was content that they’d know it was me who left the house the exact way they had left my soul . . . dirty, used and vacant.
GOING DOWNTOWN ALWAYS consisted of wrangling up a group of guys who wanted to have speed sex in the narrow alley between the Stop & Wash Laundromat and the Iron Hog Pub. It was the perfect place filled with lonely, horny men who would be willing to pay to have someone give their cocks a little attention. I called it speed sex because I didn’t have to work too hard to get them lining up while they’d willingly drop a couple or three Jacksons for me to fuck’em or suck’em off. It was quick money and since word had gotten around, there were more guys than Sybil and I could handle. Pick and choose was our best option . . . oh, and the other horny bastards, take a number motherfuckers.
Sybil suggested we bring Crystal and Brie in on our back alley gold mine venture and in the process collect a little finder’s fee. I was for anything that kept Sybil and I flush with a little extra cash. We were golden . . . or so I thought.
We had had it all set. Crystal and I would take a walk around the laundromat and see if there were any potential customers, while Sybil and Brie would meander through the Iron Hog, order a couple of drinks and show the drunk fucks what they could have if they’d come out into the back alley.
Sybil pulled open the back door of the Iron Hog and both she and Brie slipped past a loudmouthed drunk asshole who used the opportunity to cop a feel of Brie’s rack. He acted like he was trying to find the restroom and that’s when he noticed Crystal was tapping away on her iPhone. His heavy-lidded eyes narrowed, his vision scraped up her bare legs and across her firm tits.
“Hey you, what are you willing to do for a couple bucks?” The gawky stranger slurred at Crystal before he stumbled forward and grabbed his dick. He shook his head back and forth clearing his long, wiry blond hair away from his sunken wasted eyes.
I knew this wasn’t the type of prick she should proposition in the back alley. Even though Crystal was only two years younger than me, she was just barely legal to make her own decisions. I’d seen girls like her before; they’d spend their days convincing themselves that they’d sell their bodies just until they made enough money to pay for their grandmother’s operation, or back taxes, maybe even work their way through college with a little extra money to survive. Her story was the same as all the others. When she’d make enough, she’d stop. It was always about selling themselves only long enough to pay for what they needed. Right? Then before they’d realize it, the sharp claws of greed would sink their black pointy tips into their skin and never let go. It basically boiled down to the fact that they’d get too used to the lifestyle.
“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.