I pulled at the refrigerator handle. I haven’t had much of an appetite lately, and I wasn’t too hungry, but it was a quarter to twelve and if I didn’t at least put something in my stomach, I was going to pay for it later. Cramping hunger pangs on the job suck, bad. I snagged a hardboiled egg that Sybil made a couple days ago. She’d been on this weird health kick with starting her mornings where she ate some type of protein and no carbohydrates. Usually, eggs just grossed me out, but when I needed the protein and I didn’t feel like cooking, it did the trick. Besides, Sybil had been gone since yesterday morning; she mentioned that she had a lengthy fuck coming into town.
I took my hardboiled egg and snatched a slice of sourdough bread before I sat down on the couch and wrestled with the idea of just showing up at the Stop and Wash. It wouldn’t be too hard to act like nothing happened between us. I was really good at acting. I learned early on, a prostitute couldn’t sell her body without the ability to turn on the dramatics. There was something to be said about hooking up every couple of weeks with the same trick and making it seem new. It was my job to make them think what they did to me was the most mind-blowing sex I’d ever experienced and, well, I was pretty damn good at my job.
I had to be stronger than any simple desire to feel worthy of something beyond numb. I knew what was going to happen when I’d truly let him in; things were gonna get complicated, fast. Shuffling my feelings around in my mind for Shane was as fucked up as being beaten simply because I was born. Nothing in this world had convinced me that if I slid that thin blade of emotion against my flesh I’d feel whole again. No love, no desire would ever be worthy of that searing pain.
I pulled my legs up under my ass and curled up on the couch. Tears I hadn’t let go of since I sold my heart to the loveless fuck who took my soul and crushed it, fell fast and swirled from my chin before they soaked into the front of my camisole. I cried. My eyes burned with the sting of every time I thought about all the mindless, sick fucks who stole pieces of my life and never returned them. My controlled aching whimpers turned into uncontrollable belly deep howls as my entire life busted from the vault in my heart.
I didn’t stop crying, not even when my voice was gone and my throat begged me to feel the burn of tequila. And even though I lived through the horrors of alcoholism with my parents, it didn’t keep me from knocking back the entire bottle of that golden poison. I welcomed the warm burn against the back of my throat as the scorching pressure pushed at my lungs and the tequila blazed down into my stomach in waves of gut rotting satisfaction, finally I felt something before I had become ragingly numb.
When I woke up I was lost . . . lost to what time it was or even where the fuck I was. My phone was blowing up with messages from a couple of my regulars, ones who I had arranged dates with for Thursday night. I unfolded from the ball of mess I created, letting the empty Tequila bottle hit with an echoed clunk against the old worn wooden floor. My head was spinning still and the room was dark except for the faint glow of my phone and the digital clock from across the room.
I took a moment to gain my bearings before I looked at the time. I dreaded the glance I gave my clock. 3:30 Friday morning . . . I had drunk myself into an unconscious clusterfuck of missed jobs, a night’s take of close to five hundred bucks. It was so fucked up, I might as well have given all my clients to some other ho who had been willing to work through her demons and collect a fee along the way.
The couch wasn’t comfortable, not a place where I should have lost my shit. Sitting up, my feet plopped to the floor, while my head felt like it was being chopped up in a blender. Steel blades mangled the space between my ears and the pressure drained down behind my eyes. I was paying the price this morning. I snatched my phone and cleared the texts from the guys I stood up last night. If those horny fucks needed to get off, they probably found some other ho who’d give them just enough. Still I hoped to see a text from Shane, but no luck. Probably better that way, I needed to get my head clear.